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Why did you pick atheism?

Questerr said:
A century ago, would it have been correct to conclude that atoms do not exist?

I don’t believe the claims made by people who say wood fairies exist, but that is not the same as claiming I have knowledge that they don’t. They *could* exist, but I will not believe in them until evidence is presented.
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Well okay then, you are admitting that “god” is equivalent to wood fairies in terms of the potential for existence. Well okay then! If you wish to continue hemming and hawing about “god” and wood fairies, then have at it. In the meantime, I am atheist with respect to both. End of story.
 
watsup said:
Well okay then, you are admitting that “god” is equivalent to wood fairies in terms of the potential for existence. Well okay then! If you wish to continue hemming and hawing about “god” and wood fairies, then have at it. In the meantime, I am atheist with respect to both. End of story.
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I’m an atheist with respect to both too: I do not believe either exists and will not until present with objective verifiable evidence for their existence.

But I’m also not making the positive claim that I have knowledge that they definitively do not exist.

Would it have been correct a couple centuries ago to conclude atoms didn’t exist?
 
Questerr said:
A century ago, would it have been correct to conclude that atoms do not exist?

I don’t believe the claims made by people who say wood fairies exist, but that is not the same as claiming I have knowledge that they don’t. They *could* exist, but I will not believe in them until evidence is presented.
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Was the concept of atoms created as a belief in an entity known as an atom? Just because we can make something up it does not follow that what we make up could possibly exist.
 
Questerr said:
Because “atheist” and “agnostic” deal with two entirely different categories and are not mutually exclusive.

But not believing in any gods is not the same as claiming no gods exist.
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I agree. Completely.
 
devildavid said:
Was the concept of atoms created as a belief in an entity known as an atom? Just because we can make something up it does not follow that what we make up could possibly exist.
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Yes. The initial conception of atoms in Ancient Greece was a quasi-religious belief with no supporting evidence.
 
Questerr said:
Yes. The initial conception of atoms in Ancient Greece was a quasi-religious belief with no supporting evidence.
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No, it was not religious or even quasi religious. It was an idea about what reality was made up of.
 
Questerr said:
I’m an atheist with respect to both too: I do not believe either exists and will not until present with objective verifiable evidence for their existence.

But I’m also not making the positive claim that I have knowledge that they definitively do not exist.

Would it have been correct a couple centuries ago to conclude atoms didn’t exist?
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This “positive claim”. It is just so much postmodernist malarkey, much akin to the claim that “we can’t know for sure” about anything, which is a claim that some people make. If you think it’s worth your time, go for it. I find it just so much dead-end nonsense. Post #252 is all that I need.
 
devildavid said:
No, it was not religious or even quasi religious. It was an idea about what reality was made up of.
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It was quasi-religious. The Ancient Greek philosophers that proposed atomism were working within the cosmology of their religion.

But that’s not the point: would it have been correct two centuries ago to conclude atoms didn’t exist?
 
watsup said:
This “positive claim”. It is just so much postmodernist malarkey, much akin to the claim that “we can’t know for sure” about anything, which is a claim that some people make. If you think it’s worth your time, go for it. I find it just so much dead-end nonsense. Post #252 is all that I need.
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We absolutely can know for sure about things for which we have evidence. We don’t have evidence of the entire universe and we can’t make a claim that no gods exist.
 
Most agnostics like myself love science and have no use for Religion.

We ponder our existence and look to science for answers, answers that most likely will never come. limitations.

Reminds me of the "Pale Blue Dot" and our smallness as in a speck of a speck.

Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 3.7 billion miles as it was leaving our solar system.

In the photograph, Earth's apparent size is one tenth of a pixel; the planet appears as a tiny dot against the vastness of space, among bands of sunlight reflected by the camera.

Pale_Blue_Dot.webp
 
Questerr said:
The logician conclusion is that one shouldn’t believe the claims. Taking the opposing position requires opposing evidence.

Can you show total information of the entire universe to demonstrate gods do not exist?
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Replace god with some sort of a creator and you have a valid point.

Science has literally no idea of what preceded the Big Bang, was there a first cause and if there was, what was it.
 
gboisjo said:
I'm agnostic as well. a position of humility, something not often found with true believers or atheist.

What preceded the Big Bang, was there a first cause and if so what was or is it.
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There was no first cause.
The big bang is a result of of all matter coming back together and then re-releasing. S0 everything has always existed and always will. It's like breathing. Expansion, collapse.
Its all rather obvious. This is why I flipped out when Hawking announced that information was lost on the event horizon.
Thank God for Susskind or people would still belive that crap.
 
Questerr said:
We absolutely can know for sure about things for which we have evidence. We don’t have evidence of the entire universe and we can’t make a claim that no gods exist.
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A TRUE atheist depends on evidence, logic, and reality. A TRUE atheist is neither a philosopher nor a theologian. How could they possibly be a theologian when they don’t acknowledge that there is even a “god”. And philosophy, at its base, makes the claim that “anything is possible”, which is basically a dead-end nonsense claim. No evidence, no wood fairies. No evidence, no “god”. Period, end of story.
 
gboisjo said:
Replace god with some sort of a creator and you have a valid point.

Science has literally no idea of what preceded the Big Bang, was there a first cause and if there was, what was it.
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Sure, but “god” vs “creator” is just semantics.

“Preceded the Big Bang” is a nonsense statement given that all the evidence we have says that time started with the Big Bang.
 
Questerr said:
Because you are ignorant. Do some basic searches about “atomism”.
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it was not a religion or quasi religion or a belief. it was an idea about what the physical world was made of. Atoms were not considered supernatural.
 
watsup said:
A TRUE atheist depends on evidence, logic, and reality. A TRUE atheist is neither a philosopher nor a theologian. How could they possibly be a theologian when they don’t acknowledge that there is even a “god”. And philosophy, at its base, makes the claim that “anything is possible”, which is basically a dead-end nonsense claim. No evidence, no wood fairies. No evidence, no “god”. Period, end of story.
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And I thought theists were the only ones who invoked the no true Scotsman fallacy.

Well done.
 
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