| Sqrl said: Thinking more about this thread I wanted to add a bit to my thoughts from before: Interestingly, and at the risk of offending (although I don't intend it in a harsh way to either side) I think agnostics are the only people who are being completely intellectually honest. What I mean is that you are either basing your beliefs on logic or simply on faith. If you base it on faith then nothing intellectual (in the academic and logical sense, not the intelligence sense) enters into it..its just faith and is imo the only valid reason to make up ones mind either way. On the other hand those who claim to believe or disbelieve in religion based on logic are imo being intellectually dishonest because it is quite obvious that matter cannot be proven. Trying to say that you come by your beliefs by way of anything but faith is the sign that the person is either lying to other people or themselves (usually this option), else they should make their logically based proof known to the world (we'd love to hear it). Logic and reason that fails to result in a proof can get you started in any direction you want to go, it's actually arriving at a conclusion by logic and reason that allows you to place that logic and reason in support of your belief and claim it as a logical or reasonable belief...anything less is using your faith in your own logic and reason up to that point to bridge the gap to a conclusion. But logic and reason are only useful in their pure form. To repeat this again. In order for a belief to be logical it must result from an unambiguously deterministic set of logical steps. In order for a belief to be reasonable, it must result from an unambiguously deterministic set of reasoned assertions. Note that because these are logical steps and reasoned assertions the issue of perception being valid is assumed, but this is of no consequence since those who this is addressed to must necessarily accept that premise as part of their having made the assertion that I object to. If your belief is truly logical or truly reasonable then you can say that logic and/or reason supports it. So whether you are an atheist or a theist your view still comes from faith and not logic or reason because no such logic or reason exists to support either position. This goes to my last post quite strongly, and that is that atheists have claimed all of the visible world and its lack of divine presence as their proof...but what claim do they have to that other than societies labeling of energy and forces that we still can't explain the origins of? Origin is what the theistic and atheistic belief is centered around and until you reach proof on this with logic and reason you're intellectually dishonest to claim logic and reason as being in support of your beliefs on origin. Short of that it is your incomplete logic and your incomplete reasoning that are actually in support of your position for whatever they are worth, and nothing more. Let me illustrate... Imagine if you're knocked out and when you come to you can't see anything. 1) Are blind or are the lights just out? How do you know? There are two voices in the room with you and they both report that they are experiencing the same thing that you are but they each believe oppositely. One of them tells you that the source of the problem is a lack of light in the room and the other believes you are all blind. 2) Based on their commentary are blind or are the lights just out? How do you know? You might think it was odd that they should blind all of you, and there are certainly numerous motives that you could project onto your captors to decipher what they would, could, might, or might not do. But you're already making the assumption that their minds work in a similar fashion to your own even though you would never kidnap someone. 3) Based on past experience are you blind or are the lights just out? How do you know? Now, lets say that someone finds what feels like an old flashlight in the room. And they move the switch back and forth from position to position in an attempt to make it turn on, but still you can't see anything. Now the person who says you're all blind is saying "see!" and the person who says its just a lack of light says "the batteries are probably just dead!". 4) Based on this new information are you blind or are the lights just out? How do you know? It's perfectly legitimate to say you believe one way or another...in matters where a course of action is required it is a survival mechanism to make a choice, even if the choice could be wrong. But it's another thing entirely to insist that despite lacking any evidence that your position is true based on logic and reason. It's not..it's just a faith. |
Obviously I can't speak for every atheist, but my views amount to this:
Based on what I've seen, experienced, and reasoned in this world, I have found no good reason to believe in any deity. And, if I don't have a good reason to believe in something, I won't.
If you think that such a position means that I secretly have faith, I can only respectfully disagree. Perhaps I see "faith" differently.
