Atheists don't need faith

[EdithSimcox]

Atheists don't need faith

Lots of interesting things here including:

• nearly half of us are non-religious but less than a fifth are atheist...
• atheists need "simply more than can be proved by logic and science"

Any thoughts? A view I've often seen expressed on MN is that logic and science are the end of the subject.

That looks like a list of assertions, Apricot, not evidence.

To be fair, Spinnaker, Theydont may well be a former theist.

But even if that's not the case, I have lost count of the number of former theists who feel liberated when removing the steel helmet of faith. The world suddenly makes sense and the need for mind gymnastics to try and explain mythical nonsense disappears.

That is a list of facts.

And I refuse to get into childish semantics about when a fact is a fact, and how we can be 100% sure if anything etc.

To be fair, Apricot, former theist or not, no one else can comment on how liberating my own experience of theism is. Liberation is too subjective an experience to be able to say atheism is more liberating than theism, definitively.

"But you've not said how or why, Bertrand."
Yes I have. Several times. Try my post of 12.06.

Yes, that's true enough.

Spinnaker, They has said a number of times that she used to have religious faith but doesn't any more. So did I. Which provides pretty decent grounds for being able to compare the two.

I'll repeat the answer you seem to have missed again. There is no need for faith within atheism because there is no absence left by religion, no god-shaped hole. Atheism is itself a descriptor for what is not - so why would you need faith in an absence? Atheism is openness to what the evidence presents us with in the vast majority of cases. Atheism is being ok with not having all the answers. Atheism is something a lot of atheists don't even think about most of the time, because it's about an absence of something some people expect us to have, which is the only reason there's a word for it.

Why, or how, could faith be needed there?

But there are holes in that Bertrand.

You generalise far too much concerning an atheist's thought process. What about the atheist who is also a practicing witch? (I mentioned upthread) Atheist since she does not believe in G(g)od(s). Where does the scientific evidence inform the value in performing her craft?

The conclusion I am getting from this discussion, is the only definitive aspect of life atheists, require evidence for in their decision making, is the question of whether to believe in G(g)od(s) or not.

"How would you know, They what is more liberating in comparison to theism, since you are not theist?"

Honestly Spinnaker, I really feel like you are not the posts because if you had you'd know that I used to be a theist. A passionate one. And I know why people believe: because they want to.

And poor ole Bertrand. She wrote that lovely post about sunrises and you didn't engage with any of it.

Selectively deciding which bits to pay attention to, throwing in a few long words and twisty sentences. Classic sign of a religious person on the hoof.

What about the atheist who is also a practicing witch? (I mentioned upthread) Atheist since she does not believe in G(g)od(s). Where does the scientific evidence inform the value in performing her craft?

I don't know, but I reckon you'd have to ask her how she reconciles the two.

You're really keen to say 'not all Christians' at the least suggestion that Christianity may impinge on the lives of non-Christians, and stress that you're not all the same. Why are you holding atheists to a higher standard when we share precisely zero beliefs to make us atheists?

Atheism: not a religion, not a club.

I'm not holding you to a higher standard at all Jassy, just exploring and discussing what has been said.

The conclusion I am getting from this discussion, is the only definitive aspect of life atheists, require evidence for in their decision making, is the question of whether to believe in G(g)od(s) or not

On what do you base that?

Not needing all the answers isn't the same as not seeking evidence to make decisions.

Where we diverge is the difference between 'I don't know, and that's ok, we might find out some day' and 'I don't know, therefore God'.

I'm not holding you to a higher standard at all Jassy, just exploring and discussing what has been said.

Then why the inconsistency in approach? Why expect Bertrand to know anything about the motivations of someone else who described themselves as atheist?

It's hard to keep up, They, when engaged in conversation with several posters at once. 'Classic sign' though? Seriously, you'll be interpreting runes next!

Eh?

The only aspect of life that atheists require evidence for is whether we believe in God?

Quite the opposite. I require evidence for most things. So do you. Bearing in mind that "evidence" isn't just stuff boiled up in a test tube or pages of collated data.

Jassy just establishing whether any thought process is typical of a non homogeneous group.

It's hard to keep up, They, when engaged in conversation with several posters at once. 'Classic sign' though? Seriously, you'll be interpreting runes next!

We never got to the bottom of why you thought I was bitter, did we?

Jassy just establishing whether any thought process is typical of a non homogeneous group

Then why not ask that, rather than 'Bertrand! Explain how this stranger thinks!'

I said it was an subjective perception, ie I was going on my soft interpretation of you postsJassy. Upthread somewhere.

But actually, that statement does make it seem like you really want to see atheists as a group with something in common. Do you think that's fair?

By the way...most atheists are atheists because they are skeptics. That is why it is rare to find one who also believes in ghosts, witchcraft or other woo crap. That's not the same thing as having an atheist charter or something that we all have to sign up to.

I'm quite interested to know how you arrived at bitterness and which of my posts led you in that direction, but fine if you don't want to explain.

If she's an atheist witch I expect she doesn't believe in a God but she does believe in Magic. Religion and magic are not the same. One subjugates the self to a higher being. The other believes that humans had the power to channel the supernatural, thus according them more control. Which is why the church came down so hard on it, because it challenged the church's control and access to the divine.

Another reason to dislike manmade religions. They don't hävd a great track record of tolerance.