Morning!
No, you're right. I think I'm thinking of Leafsnail. The endless one quote reply posting ballooning into irrelevant nitpicking about words is bringing back memories of some sort anyway. I can't put my finger on the individual, but there's one here that I really dislike but it's been so long it might as well be the lot of atheists here.
It's really painfully ironic that you accuse atheists of indiscriminately attacking all theists, while constantly generalizing over all atheists ('all internet atheists are rude passive aggressive teenagers'), and even over the very individuals you're having a discussion with.
Plus, you yourself exhibit many of the characteristics you accuse atheists of, e.g. being aggressive.
Finally, you accuse atheists of being argumentative, but apparently you can't help arguing about the rationality or irrationality of religion either:
Do it. Address it. You know you want to.
You are familiar with the negative proof fallacy? Probably this half of it:
there is no proof X is false
therefore X is true
Did you know it has a sister half? And they're, gasp, teaching the following blasphemous logical fallacy in school?
X has not been observed
Therefore X does not exist
So? So you're saying, only because there's no clear evidence for god, it doesn't mean he doesn't exist? Well yes, that's true, and I guess most atheists wouldn't say "god cannot exist in any form whatsoever". I certainly don't.
But the problem is that it is impossible to prove that god does not exist in some form. The statement "there's an omnipotent god and he's just making it look like everything happens without him" is impossible to falsify.
What is possible, however, is to argue against specific concrete realizations of gods, such as the Christian god, whose existence (as Christian god) kind of relies on the bible making sense. Moreover, it is possible to argue that, given the lack of evidence, and given the existence of various conflicting accounts about god as given by the various religions, the most reasonable stance would be to be agnostic towards any specific realization of god.
Which leaves you with "I don't believe in the Christian god, and otherwise think that if there's a god, he's not relevant to my life", which is exactly what I hear many atheists say, including several people in this forum.
Coming back to what you said, no, lack of evidence does not mean something does not exist, but it surely seems irrational to base your life on something arbitrary that has no evidence whatsoever. After all, what if there's this space amoeba hiding somewhere in the universe that will haunt you in the afterlife unless you sacrifice a virgin everyday? Can you prove that it doesn't exist? Because if not, you better start sacrificing those virgins.
Having said that, I think many of the more modest theists nowadays actually would agree that their belief in god is irrational. It's after all based on faith. And I actually agree with you in so far that people should be more tolerant of people's personal beliefs. However, like I said before, that only goes so far as that. When it's about religion influencing other people's life however, about politics, law, education, or religion interfering with science, then I am strongly of the opinion that is has to be argued against.
Not basing a decision on religion does not automatically make it right or moral, but at least it removes an irrational aspect from the decision process.
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Topic: On the Topic of Atheism (Read 19080 times)