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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[TD1]

Meh. Similarly I would say whether or not there is a God doesn't change anything, but I'd still place myself in the atheist group. (The popular definition of it, the lack of any belief)

[Sheb]

Well, as an atheist, I don't like calling it a belief because it imply a level of uncertainty about it, and I've usually heard it use by religious people implying that atheism is no more rational than religious belief. Sure, technically pretty much everything except mathematical proofs are actually belief, but that's not the cay we use believe in every day speech. I'd say I know that there are no sex zombies currently doing smut in my kitchen, not that I believe so, even though I've not gone to check.

So yeah, form a definition point of view it's a belief, but I don't like that word's implication.

As for my schooling, I've learned what I know about theology mostly through self-reading, although I did learn a fair bit about religion itself from being in catholic school for all my education.

[Arx]

I've usually heard it use by religious people implying that atheism is no more rational than religious belief.

Implying atheism is more rational than religious belief.

Don't mind me. It's probably better to carry on with the discussion that it's actually possible to resolve peacefully.

[Helgoland]

A friend of mine calls the corresponding belief system 'scientism'. Rather fitting I think, especially for the euphoric types.

We could also call them chaotolatric, but that would lead to many misunderstandings. Similarly materialism would be a fitting description as well, but only for a certain meaning of 'materialism'.

[wierd]

The issue I have with hard atheists (as a hard agnostic) is that you fundamentally cannot "know" that a deity exists or not. 

Not any more than you can "know" that the many worlds hypothesis is either true or false. There simply is not a valid empirical test to derive that knowledge.

At best, the hard atheist makes an inference that he/she believes to be very sound based on indirect information, but that leads ultimately to the "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" logical fallacy.  It is quite possible for a deity to exist outside of our testable universe, and simply not give a flying fuck about anything we pitiful humans do in our universe sandbox, and thus it does not interact with our universe at all. Please dont go spouting off about orbiting teapots-- That's loaded, intended to point out that conjecture can lead to absurd conclusions. I prefer allegory here, so more like, we are ants on a sandy hill discussing the existence of fish in the sea. The aicthio ants say that the sea isnt real, so there is no evidence of fish existing, so as a consequence, the fish are also not real. The icthio-agnostic ants say they have no knowledge of either the sea or of said hypothetical fish, and the icthio-theist ants say, with intense force of will, that the sea is not only real, but that the great fish will devour them all.

The ants are hundreds of kilometers from any ocean, lake, or stream. They will never encounter the sea. They will never encounter a fish. The absence of evidence for a sea does not mean that a sea does not exist.

The real takeaway here is not weather or not some hypothetical agency exists, but if the actual question itself is even worth trying to answer.  For the ants, they will never encounter the sea, they will never encounter the fish, so even though in this example the existence of the fish is taken as a granted, the ants do not profit in any way by wastefully trying to understand the fish. They are better off just ignoring the question all together. The a-icthiast ants BELIEVE that this is what they are doing, but that is not actually true. They "ignore" the question by rigidly taking a side on the question. The most correct solution is to admit that they dont know a damn thing about hypothetical fish, hypothetical seas they may live in, and assert that since the chances of ever encountering either of those are slim to none, weather or not those hypothetical concepts are real or not are moot. There is no use for the conjecture; it will only ever be conjecture, because the ants dont live next to the sea, and cannot test for the presence of fish.

We humans are ants. we live on a tiny ball of mud, on a distant part of one spiral arm of a pretty unremarkable spiral galaxy, which is one of uncountable billions of other unremarkable galaxies that look just like ours. We will likely never find an "edge" to our universe. We have determined that "god" is like the hypothetical fish to the ants-- We have explored our ant hill, and know that a being of unlimited energy could never manifest in our universe (because they would immediately collapse into the biggest black hole ever. Literally an infinite event horizon.) So, we can conclude that we will likely never encounter god, and as such, any conjecture about the existence of god is just as pointless as the conjectures about fish that the ants are making.  The question is not worth trying to answer, and certainly not worth the egoist hubris of asserting an answer without sufficient data. Dont be afraid to say "I dont know, and I dont care."

Unless the atheists out there have some radical tech for disproving the many worlds hypothesis, and systematically eliminating all possible modalities of existence other than our own, they make the mistake that the aicthian ants make-- "There is no such thing as a fish."  As humans who eat fish all the time, we know with certainty that fish are indeed real. The ants dont know that, and cannot know that.  Rather than accept that they really dont actually KNOW the fish arent real, they blandly assert this conjecture, because it fits their beliefs. (yes, beliefs.)

We are the ants. we do not know and cannot know about a hypothetical god. The existence or non-existence of a god is apparently moot to us. There is no reason to ask the question.

It is not worth the energy needed to answer. we dont really profit from such an answer.

[TD1]

Ultimately you can't know anything. But when something is as probable as Santa, I tend to say that I know it to be false.

[wierd]

Ultimately you can't know anything. But when something is as probable as Santa, I tend to say that I know it to be false.

and THAT, is a BELIEF. 

[TD1]

Everything is a belief. The particular one known as religion is at the bottom of the likelihoods.

[Arx]

I've had literally this exact same argument with Sheb before. Yes, including the Santa part. Except that Sheb forgot to capitalise it (). This is, so far, almost an exact replay except with wierd replacing GavJ. It didn't really go anywhere last time, and I doubt it'll go anywhere this time, so I'll summarise:

Arx and wierd: We're right and you're wrong because these reasons!
Th4DwArfY1: I'm right and you're wrong because these reasons!

And neither side will ever believe the other side's reasons are better. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm right because Dwarfy seems to have forgotten that Santa is less likely than God, but that wouldn't hold up in a court of law (or a note to a teacher).

[Rolan7]

Ultimately you can't know anything. But when something is as probable as Santa, I tend to say that I know it to be false.

That, and you can say something doesn't exist if its definition contains logical contradictions.  To keep it simple and abstract, if the Bible said "God loves everybody" and "God doesn't love everybody", and there wasn't any sort of translation or context issue, one could point at that and say: "God doesn't exist as described by these passages.  It's literally impossible."

But yes Weird, we "believe" that gravity will continue working   We aren't 100% sure.

[wierd]

Correct! we KNOW very little about gravity. That's why we are running tests at the LHC.

Unlike a question about a supernatural agency, we interact with gravity daily. We stand to profit immeasurably through a better understanding of it.

It is therefor worth the expense to try to find out.

That is not true of supernatural agencies, which by definition, are supernatural, and thus outside the scope of what natural science can investigate.

[bahihs]

This is a straight question, please don't take it in a sarcastic sense.

Now, my premise might be wrong, but assuming an Atheist does not believe in an afterlife or even more basic, some sort of cosmic balance (a la Hinduism or Buddhism, among others), how do they reconcile (or even rationalize) the vast difference in standards of living between people in the world (especially in the western world, whose standard of living is vastly superior to rest)?

In part, most religions try to alleviate the inevitable cognitive dissonance that arises from such disparity, either by encouraging charity (in Islam, for example, Charity (Zakat) is one of the 5 pillars) or even more fundamentally promoting "ego-death" so that the self is obliterated and with it, any disparity from perception of "I" and "You". Most religions often operate by a progression, starting from charity but having the ultimate goal as ego-death (one-with-god, enlightened, moksha, etc.). Most religions also have an idea of justice or at least balance, an afterlife where everyone is judged, or a cyclical existence, where the current situation arose from the consequences of past actions.

This works both ways of course, the lucky few who live in luxury (and by luxury, I mean compared to those who live in severe poverty in other countries) are freed from guilt (though not responsibility, as the charity part is pretty universal) and the unlucky get to at least look forward to an afterlife (or a different life) if they behave according to the rules of their religion.

But atheists don't have this, so how do they manage the dissonance? Or do they not just think about it?

This is not to say there aren't charitable atheists (obviously there are) or uncharitable theists (unfortunately), but in the latter case it would be considered a sin and some sort of guilt associated with it, whereas in uncharitable atheists, my question is whether a similar guilt is felt, and if so how is it resolved?

[TempAcc]

And thats why euphoric atheist are both hilarious and contradictory, not unlike fundamentalist religious people. There is no 100% correct and infalible way to verify anything. Using the senses to present a supposedly infalible claim is also a logical falacy, since our senses only present information according to how our brain interprets it, and not as it actualy is.

Hell, to this day, we haven't even found conclusive answers as to how several parts of our body work, we just have ideas of how it may work based on observation and testing, but there are still many unanswered questions that our current science has yet to explain.

EDIT: I can, however, affirm that forum ninjas exist :v

[TD1]

Religion gives moral guidelines. Atheists form their own and feel guilty if they transgress.

Besides this, most theists do the same with the occassional "I did this because the bible says..." added in to back their action.

[bahihs]

Correct! we KNOW very little about gravity. That's why we are running tests at the LHC.

Unlike a question about a supernatural agency, we interact with gravity daily. We stand to profit immeasurably through a better understanding of it.

It is therefor worth the expense to try to find out.

That is not true of supernatural agencies, which by definition, are supernatural, and thus outside the scope of what natural science can investigate.

Is this to suggest that efforts should only be made toward those things in which "we stand to profit immeasurably" or is "worth the expense"? If so I agree with you on the last statement (outside the scope of natural science) but not the former.

Not only because it is impossible to determine whether a particular discovery will be profitable (in the sense of useful) in the future, but also because it seems to denounce doing activities for their own sake (art for instance). Although I get the feeling that's not what you meant and you were only speaking about gravity vs God ( and not everything)