Islamaphobia?

Buffy, do you think then, if I've understood you correctly, that at some point in the future humans may drop science and scientific methods altogether as a means of understanding the universe? No one will use any kind of scientific enquiry or experiments or anything at all like that, and whatever replaces it will be better at explaining the universe without being scientific at all?

If I'm asked what religion I am, in person or on a form, I tick the "none" box. I am not a believer in any religion, organised or personal, or any kind of spiritual belief system that doesn't involve a god. From that piece of information, you can't make any further conclusions about what else I may believe to be true.

"So I am still interested in what atheism is, if it isn't a belief system."

Presumably you reject the definition of "a lack of belief in a god or gods"?

That seems to be the mood of the thread- I really don't understand why.

And no, an atheist does not automatically believe in The Big Bang and so on. I would imagine most do. But it is not a requirement.

vestalvirgin Mormons are christian. I know. I am one. Pray tell what horrible things do the men do to me? Genuinely curious now....

I also think you're being very rude and prejudiced, NP.

I don't even see the point. It is a bit weird.

Bertrand my atheist mother was obsessed with us all proving ourselves 'better' than religious people because of the insistence of some that atheists couldn't be moral. She went to Catholic school in Ireland!

"Bertrand: but if there is no such thing as 'science' that could be abstracted from the human beings that do it, then scientific enquirer always does have a value, doesn't it?"

The scientific method can certainly be abstracted from the human beings that do it- that's rather the point.

Scientific enquiry - autocorrect at work again!

My experience of scientists is that they generally have no interest in the history of their own discipline. Last year's editions of the journals in their field constitutes as much of the past as they are generally interested in. That's not a sin - but it's not quite having a great regard for the past.

I do find it very interesting how difficult it is for people to accept a simple definition of atheism. I wonder if it ties in with the people who say that you can't have a moral code without a belief system.

Bertrand: but if there is no such thing as 'science' that could be abstracted from the human beings that do it, then scientific enquirer always does have a value, doesn't it?

Hermione: sorry you don't want to engage, and I'm sorry too if I have written in a way that has made you want to disengage. I do think having different starting points is one of the things that makes debate possible, though.

Buffy, not when the first is followed by "No other way of knowing the world has so little regard for the past" because the opposite is true. Scientists have great regard for those that went before them, hypothesising, proving, disproving and improving. They certainly don't look at the current truth and say that's it, we know everything now because the process is ongoing and scientists are always looking to learn more.

That's the whole point of it.

Wouldn't also be right to say that if science is a system that is used to understand the world, Through research, propositions and theories were by we should be able to come to a conclusion. In this case would not be wrong for atheist to hijack science unless other religious groups don't have any form of science in their teaching.

What would happen if religious groups changed their dogma based on proven science or way of thinking. Would they become atheist?

This debate is getting too nebulous for me.

Say you have an infection and I give you a choice of treatment - a faith healer with unlimited prayers, good energy, laying on of hands etc or a course of antibiotics. Which would you choose?

Most people would go for the antibiotics. Why - because they work. We can administer them and see the patients recover - evidence of cause and effect. We understand the mechanism by which they work. It doesn't depend on what "theory of knowledge" you subscribe to and It's not a belief system, it's observable fact.

I'm not a philosophy or theology major and I'm not familiar with the content and style of much of this discussion, but the observable, repeatable nature of science and research is what make me think it is not a belief system - you can demonstrate it, you can test it, people who don't "believe" in it can carry out the same test and get the same result.

I think that atheism is part of a range of different cultures and religions.

So, we could talk about the rationalist community as having a belief system, and one of the beliefs would be atheism.

We could say the same for certain kinds of Buddhism - that atheism is a belief within it.

We could say the same for certain kinds of romanticism - that atheism is a belief within it.

But when people leap on the simple statement that someone has no belief in God, and start leaping on that to mean they have a particular perspective on evolutionary biology, that reveals something about them, not the atheist.

It is like a need to put people into boxes, and people claiming to simply have no belief annoys people so they try and assume there must be some kind of belief attached.

I think that it is similar to the trans argument and the refusal to believe someone just has no internal gender identity.

"Theydon'tknow - yes, exactly - to scientists all the ideas of the past are wrong because they've been corrected."

Well, those ideas that have shown to be wrong have been corrected. Rather a different thing

"And don't forget that scientists don't come out unscathed if we are looking at the use of ideas to kill people. Eugenics, anyone?"

Scientists are humans. They can use their discoveries for good or ill. Scientific discovery does not in itself have a value system.

niminy I see little point discussing further with you as our starting points are too different.

Am loving this thread. I don't have much to say apart from this.

Are there atheists who don't actually know much about science, or do you have to have a good understanding to be one?

Or, as a person who has grown up in a place with no region and no belief in gods, totem, or any other things out there and by sheer chance of that happening would that automatically make you atheist. As in by default.

If a person has belief in nature and it powers would you still be an atheist? For example if you are a believer in Gaia , which category would you fall into?

And surely you have to have multiples in some way. Surely if it's all 'belief' then Christians are Thor atheists and Shiva atheists and Goddess atheists.

I simply don't think it's logical to call absence of belief a belief system.

Theydon'tknow - yes, exactly - to scientists all the ideas of the past are wrong because they've been corrected.

And don't forget that scientists don't come out unscathed if we are looking at the use of ideas to kill people. Eugenics, anyone?