Is athiesm a belief? What is "God?"

[Reasonable]

raptors11 said:

whatever said:

raptors11 said:

whatever said:

raptors11 said:

whatever said:

If there is this all powerful being, where did he come from?

Lamest question in history. I can ask the same thing just reverse it, where did everything needed for the big bang come from?

Nice non-answer.  As is expected for those that believe blindly.

The big bang, as with any scientific theory, is constantly trying to be proven and disproven.  Striving to find answers is the exact opposite of any religion, since they already claim to have all the answers.

So my belief is blind but yours isn't? You're believing in theories and hypotheses about things that supposedly happened billions of years ago.

That's it exactly.  If something proves to be a more accurate description of the beginning of the universe, then it would be accepted by the Scientific community.  Just because it happened billions of year ago, doesn't mean there isn't information about it that can be discovered and analyzed.  The big bang is Science's best theory based on current evidence.  If more evidence is discovered and refutes the big bang, then the big bang would be thrown out (as have many other scientific theories throughout history).

Your belief, on the other hand, has never required proof of any kind, just "faith".  Archaeologists have been disproving the "historical" parts of the bible for years (for instance, the Exodus clearly never happened).  Yet I'm guessing you refuse to accept this evidence.  If so, then, yes, your belief is blind.

Well that's kind of the problem I have with atheism. Its just theories and whenever new evidence is discovered all the theories change. 10 years from now they will probably look back on 2010 and say how stupid we were for believing those things.

The difference with religion is we have already fully developed our beliefs and stick with it. You guys change your beliefs every couple years.

Why can't people understand theories and what will and won't change?

Look, it's simple.  2 2=4 isn't going to change even if you wait a million years.  The value of PI isn't going to change.

You're making the mistake of thinking all theories are equal and all are equally likely to change.

We thought the world was flat because at the time there was no way to understand anything else.  Now we've been in space, measured the Earth accurately, etc.  That's not going to change.  Scientists aren't going to say in 1000 years the world is flat again.

Science is not belief.  Period.  You're flat out wrong and I'm sorry you struggle with it but I'm afraid you are.

But let me try and help.

Imagine an archery target.  The centre rings are the theories were now know are facts.  They're not going to change.  The evidence is in, it all adds up and the theories relating to it will never change.  Now, the middle set of rings is where we're almost sure but not quite.  Let's say we know the theory is basically right but it may be tweaked a bit to get to 100%.  This is where Evolution sits.  We know it's right.  The evidence really is huge.  But, we don't understand every aspect of evolution.  For example we know how it works but maybe not exactly all the factors involved.  So that theory will continue to be tweaked until the middle rings are locked down as fact.  But evolution as a principle isn't going to change.  I assure you it won't because all the core theories are rock solid.

Now, the outer rings, well, that's where we're not sure yet.  But scientific theory isn't guessing.  Over time the evidence will allow us to be certain.  That ring will become like the former middle rings, and eventually will be locked in.  This area is the frontier of our current knowledge.

Again, you need to stop seeing scientific theories as some constantly changing mass of plastecine.  That's just wrong.  Many, many theories will never change because we know they are exact.  But we don't know everything, and that's where the changes take place.

 

OFF TOPIC: I have to say, reading some other replies in this thread, I understand why people like Richard Dawkins get so exasperated with people's lack of understanding.