The faith of atheists

45degreeN · Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 10:43 am Post subject: The faith of atheists

While Christianity emphasizes faith in God, and in the scriptures, Atheism has a separate and much more negative faith also.

The faith of atheism is their posit that life the universe and everything is meaningless, no point except what we make of it. For me, a much harder thing to accept than Christ's message. Of course they can never disprove God, proving a negative requires all knowledge, not just all available knowledge.

Their own leap of faith, so to speak, is from the available knowledge (what they know) into the totality of all knowledge, what they obviously don't know. With human knowledge expanding exponentially though, the edges of all available knowledge must be expanding at that rate. It seems they have an a priori test for knowledge that precludes much of what Christians accept. So they have refused to accept some of the available knowledge because it fails that a priori test.

All people operate on faith. Simple gravity which cannot be proven even with the Quantum formulas is something we all agree exists but we cant see it, feel it, or touch it. Yet the rules of gravity are such that they are reliable and work every time regardless of our belief in them.

God rules are similar for those who understand them. Unfortunately many people just don't understand them, even while claiming that they do.

Is it possible that the atheists have more faith than Christians?

FFT · Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 11:54 am Post subject:

Plotinus · Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 12:27 pm Post subject:

FFT wrote:

P1234567890 · Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:15 pm Post subject: Re: The faith of atheists

45degreeN · Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:58 pm Post subject:

Are we isolating the skeptics from the atheists today. The way I was taught an atheist knows there is no God. Whereas a skeptic just likes to question everything, subtle but distinct difference. Typically the skeptic falls into the "agnostics" bin where they just aren't sure. And for those skeptics who know there is no God and yet still ask a lot of questions they fall into both bins as skeptical atheists or atheistic skeptics. At least the skeptics ask questions that lead to more questions, the simple and pure atheists dont even do that much.

No it is the atheists that have more faith than the Christians by far. Of course if you're a skeptic that doesn't apply to you does it. Skeptics of course have no faith at all and literally have nothing to cling to but their own puny wills.

graphicsguy · Alley Cat Joined: 09 Jul 2007 Posts: 198

P1234567890 · Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:49 pm Post subject:

FFT · Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:13 pm Post subject:

Plotinus · Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:39 pm Post subject:

Hi FFT. Thanks for your thoughts. My responses follow.

FFT · Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 12:37 am Post subject:

P1234567890 · Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 5:53 am Post subject:

Plotinus · Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 6:25 am Post subject:

FFT said:

45degreeN · Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 6:39 am Post subject:

One distinguishing factor though is something called scientism, I don't know how many people here have read about this phenomenon. Among many others Huston Smith wrote about it. He equates scientism with religion in the sense that their basic assumptions are unprovable and for the mostly unconscious and therefore uncontrolled. Not every scientist is part of scientism, whereas every one who follows scientism is usually a scientist.

He writes in his book "Why Religion Matters" [quote]Scientism adds to science two corollaries: first that the scientific method is , if not the only reliable method of getting at the truth, then at least the most reliable method; secondly, that the things science deals with-material entities- are the most fundamental things that exist". [quote/] He goes on to write that these two corollaries are philosophical assumptions unsupported by facts.

Because science focuses upon and deals entirely with the physical universe one can hardly blame them for feeling this way, but ignoring the metaphysical world they have cut themselves off from it all and ignore any evidence that comes from that field therefore it is their weakness. Unfortunately that doesn't prevent them from making their totally unsupported statements concerning the metaphysical realms.

Scientists normally refrain from making suggestions in fields they are not well trained in yet they feel free to make statement regarding an ancient and well documented field of metaphysics. Why is this? Because they hold no respect at all for metaphysics.

There is no requirement that scientists become part of scientism, in fact there are many Christian scientist and no I don't mean merely "creation science".

Huston Smith suggested reading Bryan Appleyard's book called " Understanding the present: Science and the Soul of Modern Man Where scientism is explained thoroughly as distinct from science itself.

Plotinus · Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 6:56 am Post subject:

Thanks for the reference 45. It sounds as if scientism is a type of "soft" positivism. Any major differences?

45degreeN · Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 9:05 am Post subject:

Not certain what you mean by a "soft positivism" I rather think of it as "hard" positivism.