When I see stuff like this, I'm glad I identify myself as Atheist :P

[Sqrl]

PhoenixKing said:

Sqrl said:

PhoenixKing said:

That ignores the fact that some religions, like Hinduism, Shintoism, etc, believe in Gods that are entirely different from the one believed in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.

Specifically what about what I wrote ignores those religions?  Please quote the exact excerpt.  I said quite clearly that those theistic religions share the common thread of belief in a higher power and that some of them have considerable overlap.  The statement is blatantly true and does not ignore or conflict with any of the religions you listed in any way.

So, you're oversimplifying as well. There are MANY religious faiths out there that have no distinct similarities or the same higher power existing in the world. We should look at them as religious believers view them: As different entities entirely.

How, exactly, have I oversimplified the issue? That's actually the opposite of what I've done honestly.  You seem to think I'm saying you should ignore the differences between religions when I'm not, I'm saying you can't focus on them exclusively. I'm saying you have to consider the fundamental disasgreement theists and atheist have, which is not mutually exclusive with considering the differences in theistic beliefs. 

And when did I say their similarities overrided the personal differences? I didn't say that. I just said there is a measure of hypocrisy on the theistic side. They don't always have vastly differing reasons for why a theistic belief is off. Most of it still stems from the idea "it just isn't true" or can, hypocritically enough, stem from the belief that it is lunacy (such as with Scientology, Mormonism, or Voodoo). 

When you say theist are atheist, even "in a sense", you're saying the similarities between a given brand of theism and atheism are greater than that brand of theism and other brands of theism.  Your entire point is that theists are somehow atheistic about other brands of theism, which means you believe that because they believe their brand of theism is right they disagree just as much with other brands of theism as atheists do.  This is obviously falacious on the most critical point of all, a belief in a higher power.  That one point of agreement alone brings them into more agreement with theist than atheist because it is the central question at the heart of the issue. 

The problem with theistic religions invalidating each other is that NONE of them can give proof for why their beliefs should be followed anymore than the other. After all, it's about faith. Faith is the belief without evidence. The burden of proof lies with the theists making the claim.

So, how can there be VALID certainty that any one of them is more true than the other? All religious believers have certainty that their faith is the correct one and therefore superior to all others.

Ok, first: Certainty in atheism requires a leap of faith just the same as theism does.  You cannot factually disprove the existence of a higher power and thus while you can make a very reasonable argument against there being a higher power, at the end of the day you still have to have faith to bridge the gap left by your lack of absolute proof.

Second: Burden of proof lies with the person trying to convince someone else of their position.  If a theist wants to convince another theist or even an atheist to follow their brand of theism then they have burden of proof, and the individual being recruited has the right to determine what is and is not sufficient proof for them.  Similarly, an atheist trying to convince a theist to become an atheist has the burden of proof, and the individual being recrutied to atheism has the right to determine what is and is not sufficient proof for them.  Such is the nature of convincing others to believe as you do.

Now, while one religion being right would invalidate atheism as well, it shows that they didn't really lose out as much as the theists who were wrong, who most likely will face the same punishments as atheists for believing in a false God/Gods/or manner of believing in God(s) their entire lives. Thus atheists lose out less.

Uhm..ok I don't even know where to start on this.  You want to try and argue that if a form of theism is correct that atheist "didn't lose out as much" as theists?  Doesn't that depend on which form of theism turns out to be correct?  For all we know the form of theism that turns out to be valid could be open to anyone who has faith in a higher power...or it could be ridigly dogmatic and require you adhere to strict rules of it's specific doctrines...we just don't know.  Trying to speculate on who is closer is asanine unless we know or assume which for of theism is correct before we analyze it.

See the green.

This is rather convoluted when answering... but.. eh, whatever floats your boat.

1st Green.) Yeah, and what does that have to do with Thiests having some commonalities with athiesm? I never said thiests agree more with athiests, I said there is a common idea towards other beliefs, particularly those that are foreign to them.

Greek mythology is a perfect example. Some people still believe in it in certain countries but many view it as just folklore now.

2nd Green.) Yes, and that had nothing to do with them also having certain similarities. The higher power's that certain religions believe in being different from other higher powers is also something one shouldn't ignore. To do so would change the underlying facts based upon an argument.

Replies to the above have proven circular, I think it's best drop that portion for now.

3rd Green.) No, you're just obviously offended and took my statements too personally.

First, I'm agnostic, so your assumption that I'm offended by claims about theists is substantively unfounded.  Second, at no point did I make the issue personal towards you or even myself in any way. I made a substantive point about what you said and in doing so clearly stated how I interpreted what you've said thus far to reach that conclusion.  Instead of replying with a substantive rebuttal of your own you dismiss the comment by claiming I've taken it personal...and yet you make no real attempt to address those points.

In any case I think your assertion that I have taken it personal may be indicative of a bit of projection, but I digress....

4th Green.) Wow, this part is just ignorant. The BURDEN OF PROOF lies on the thiests side who claim God exists. You obviously have no understanding what Burden of Proof actually is. Thiests have the burden of proof because they claim God exists, athiests do not because their claim is based on the idea that no proof has been found. For thiests to be right they would require EVIDENCE not faith.

Why? Well then, let me ask you, can you prove that a 200 foot long invisible pink polka dotted ghost elephant does not exist high-up in the stratosphere?

Obviously, you can't. Does this mean that you're wrong and that the burden of proof now lies on you because you can't prove it? No, of course not. I'm the one making the claim that this elephant exists, it would be absurd to ask you to prove something that I claimed.

Thiests have the same problem, they cannot prove God's existence and try and argue that atheists can't disprove it, not realizing that the burden only lies on the thiests because they're the ones making a claim.

It is somewhat odd that you claim I am taking this personal and then in your next paragraph you are making personal accusations about my knowledge level.  Is not the point of this discussion to compare opinions and learn from the discussion itself?  Would it then not make more sense for someone who wishes the conversation not to be personal to let your substantive points do the talking rather than directly insulting my competence?  If you're correct that I don't know what I'm talking about then surely it will be evident in the act of having the discussion, no? And yet you felt it necessary to make the claim explicitly. I think that speaks for itself.

As for the issue itself:

First all claims bear a burden of proof.  Thus you are absolutely correct to say that anyone who claims with certainty that god exists bears the burden of proof. However, anyone who claims god does not exist also has a burden of proof because, like it or not, they are making a claim of certainty. As Marcello Truzzi is often credited with saying, 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof' (it was Sagan who later made it famous), and any claim about an extraordinary subject is an extraordinary claim.  Quite simply ANY and ALL claims, particularly those of an absolute nature, require proof. 

Where I believe you are getting hung up on this is that you seem to think the default position a person should take when they hear an extrodinary claim is to disbelieve the claim.  This is close to correct, but off in one fundamentally important detail.  The default position for such a claim should be skepticism, which differs from disbelief in that it reserves a judgement of certainty. Where it concerns outlandish claims like the example you gave above I would say the default position should be not to conern yourself with it, not to waste any time or energy thinking about it until additional evidence comes along.  But when you cross away from that skeptical position into flatly stating "it absolutely does not exist", well then you are also making a claim.  To believe otherwise is what is known as an argument from ignorance, and I will explain that in the next two paragraphs.

Imagine you have an unimagineably complex math puzzle game.  The possible moves at any point in the game exceed the number of atoms in the universe, and nobody has ever solved it in the past 300 years since it was thought of.  If I were to claim it cannot be solved other mathematicians would demand I submit a proof.  Lacking that proof my claim is not taken as truth, the position of the mathematics community will remain uncertainty as to whether that puzzle can be solved.

The difference between the puzzle example and the question of a higher power is that with a puzzle there are at least some avenues with which to approach creating a proof.  Despite that difference it does not change the fact that on matters of insufficient proof to draw a conclusion you cannot simply say "well I don't see any evidence that it is true, thus it is false".  This is known as an argument from ignorance fallacy

Now, since athiests, by definition, claim, in absolute terms, to dismiss the notion of a higher power of any form, they are making an absolute claim and along with that absolute claim they must bear a burden of proof as well.  I believe it is correct to argue that they do not bear as extraordinary a burden of proof as theists do, but they do in fact bear an extraordinary burden of proof still because they are making an absolute claim about an extraordinary subject.

So until athiests can unequivocally disprove the existence of god they will, despite how much it might offend their sensabilities, hold their belief based on a measure of faith.  I would argue that it is the least amount of faith required of any absolute position as it is faith born out of an inability to prove a negative (to be clear it is possible to prove some negative propositions when sufficient information is available, but this is a case with insufficient information by definition).  Nevertheless it is, undeniably, a position of faith. 

 

 Another thing, which God would it be? As I have shown before with the religions I specified completely different God's as the ones who exist. So which God would be the real one?

Which god it is, is not at all relevant to the point I'm making.  I'm not making a claim that god exists or doesn't exist.

5th Green.) Yes, thus the problem. Which faith is the real faith? Ah, yes. Nobody really knows. So how do you know you're following the legit faith? How do you know that what you're believing in is not the devil's faith and that God will punish you in the afterlife for not strictly obeying its faith?

There is no possible way to determine which religion is right or wrong, or false or true. If one were real than a majority of the others would be completely false anyway.

There is, as of yet, no way to discern this. And just as there is, as of yet, no way to discern which view of a higher power is correct there is, as of yet, no way to discern that no higher power exists.

Atheists believe God doesn't exist. They DON'T have faith, they just believe this because there is no evidence of God's existence.

By definition any absolute claim that lacks absolute proof is a belief held by faith. This is a natural consequence of the fact that all beliefs are supported by either proof or faith. Any absolute belief that lacks absolute proof can only be supported by faith.  In the case of atheists it is a faith that their interpretation of the facts is the correct one. 

Theists are faithful to God's existence. They never use proof to claim they're right because they have comfort in faith's ignorance and certainty.

I actually think theists should not bother trying to prove their faith, it undermines the concept of faith.  I think the appeal of religion for most people is in the excercise of having faith itself.  So on that point I don't really disagree that they take comfort in the certainty of their faith.  For many that is a large portion of the appeal.

I believe that this whole issue is moot because you never know until you're dead anyway.

This may well be true, but the point of the discussion goes to the heart of metaphysics in general, not just religion. I suppose it's worth as a discussion depends largely on what you seek to get out of it.