Agnostics see atheism as "a theism"—as much a faith-based creed as the most orthodox of the religious variety.

Faith-based atheism? Yes, alas. Atheists display a credulous and childlike faith, worship a certainty as yet unsupported by evidence—the certainty that they can or will be able to explain how and why the universe came into existence. (And some of them can behave as intolerantly to heretics who deviate from their unproven orthodoxy as the most unbending religious Inquisitor.)

http://www.slate.com/id/2258484/pagenum/all/


SO if you really want to shed faith, be an agnostic. Atheism is just adolescent dummy-spit about daddy not being around when you wnat him.

Read on:


Faced with the fundamental question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" atheists have faith that science will tell us eventually. Most seem never to consider that it may well be a philosophic, logical impossibility for something to create itself from nothing. But the question presents a fundamental mystery that has bedeviled (so to speak) philosophers and theologians from Aristotle to Aquinas. Recently scientists have tried to answer it with theories of "multiverses" and "vacuums filled with quantum potentialities," none of which strikes me as persuasive. (For a review of the centrality, and insolubility so far, of the something-from-nothing question, I recommend this podcast interview with Jim Holt, who is writing a book on the subject.)
...
Faced with the fundamental question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" atheists have faith that science will tell us eventually. Most seem never to consider that it may well be a philosophic, logical impossibility for something to create itself from nothing. But the question presents a fundamental mystery that has bedeviled (so to speak) philosophers and theologians from Aristotle to Aquinas. Recently scientists have tried to answer it with theories of "multiverses" and "vacuums filled with quantum potentialities," none of which strikes me as persuasive. (For a review of the centrality, and insolubility so far, of the something-from-nothing question, I recommend this podcast interview with Jim Holt, who is writing a book on the subject.)

"While I agree that some atheists have this child-like faith"

Why do you do this? I have yet to see any evidence that atheists do any such thing.

I perceive that non-atheists get a kick out of putting "atheist" in the same sentence as "belief" or "faith".

It is word games, not genuine description.

Please delete wrote on Aug 3^rd, 2010 at 8:26am:

I agree. It's a ham-fisted attempt by god botherers to validate their theism by attempting to neutralise, not so much atheistic, but anti-theistic, argument through nothing more than a linguistic trick.

So our achilles heel is that we don't know the answer to that huge question?

That doesn't bother me. If man survives long enough, our descendents may come up with an answer. And if they do, it will undoubtedly be better informed than something dreamed up a few thousand years ago, when we didn't know that there was a universe out there.

And I will NOT attempt to reverse the question - again, what other people choose to believe is not going to keep me awake at night.

That is an entertaining thought Wesley, but unfortunately it is pure science fiction stuff.
It makes for some cool movies, but the simple fact is that each generation does stand upon the shoulders of the one that came before it.

The idea of their being some great lost knowledge is just testament to our ability to imagine things that have never been, but would be cool if they did, like god.

Please delete wrote on Aug 4^th, 2010 at 10:31am:


Nobody knows the answer to that.
No, your achilles heel is that you construct your belief system without being able to even engage with the foundations of your beliefs. The feet of your elephant go all the way down...


In short you believe/pretend that you don't belive. But you do.