I am a scientist - not an atheist.

I am willing to believe in a God if enough evidence is supplied
to support that theory.
I am afraid old books full of myths are not sufficent.
Why did Moses have to come down from a mountain with a clay tablet
containing some scribblings?
Why didn't he turn up with a tablet made of tungsten with a
pure isotope not found in nature which was engraved by a laser beam?
- something to prove that a supernatural event had occured?
How about 100 tablets of tungsten which could be sent out & placed
in churches all around the world so that if one was lost
there would  be many to replace it?
A God could easily provide such a tungsten tablet - or set of 100.

My point - there is no incontrovertible evidence for religion.


Atheism is starting to look too much like a religion for me.
It's safer to call one self a scientist.  

Deborahmac09 wrote on Oct 13^th, 2010 at 8:40pm:


Ahh o.k.
I've gotta believe something without any evidence.
What if I'm a true scientist & require evidence?

Carl Sagan said -
Quote:


I tend to side with his point of view.

Jas.
Quote:


Well you won't get it out of the Bible.
Have a read starting at Deut 13:13.

Bobby. wrote on Oct 13^th, 2010 at 8:47pm:


No bobby that is not what I was saying.
Some of us have the evidence that there is something, if we are honest, we just do not know what that something is.
The real question should be, what exactly is god? Not does he exist.

The only real point of Atheism is as a protest against theistic religion.

An atheist is effectively a person who doesn't believe in anything that could be construed as a god, so it includes possible definitions of gods that have not been considered, and some very mundane definitions of gods such as wooden carvings, psycho-social constructs etc.

It's a belief that starts of with a conclusion - that no gods exist, and then logically we have to consider all definitions of gods in order for that position to be tenable.

A theist on the other hand usually has a very specific belief in a god or gods. For example, a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim or a Hindu.

The position that an atheist takes is effectively dependent on theists.

I don't believe that we can provide a coherent definition of every type of god that is sufficient to define the term 'atheist', although it is arguably possible to define a god from the position of any specific belief system.

I can understand the term non-Jew or non-Muslim, non-Christian etc, because there we're dealing with specifically defined entities.

The main reasons why  I wouldn't consider myself as an atheist  are 1. the fact that I have no interest in protesting against theist religion,  and 2. the fact that I don't believe we can find a cognitively meaningful definition of god(s) that fits every possible belief in god.

To give an example, an atheist is a little bit like a person who had a bite of a piece galungal in some Tom Yum Goong and made the decision that he didn't like any Thai food on that basis, even though he had never tasted any other Thai foods.  

Is it a religion? First define religion in a way that covers at least all major religions, and we can go from there.

Some Christians, Buddhists and Muslims claim that their 'belief systems' are not religions, so clearly the term 'religion' is pretty difficult to agree on in itself.

I have no doubt that some 'atheists' would consider themselves religious for one reason or another, but not all.

The topic is "Is Atheism a religious belief" - Well it's a position on religion, so I guess it's a personal belief with respect to theistic religions. It is therefore a religious belief.

Bobby. wrote on Oct 14^th, 2010 at 1:27pm:


Well if that's the definition that you use for god, then you can certainly be an atheist with respect to that particular god, and so can all Christians and probably every follower of every theist religion in the world.

.....because none of them actually believe that.

Amadd wrote on Oct 14^th, 2010 at 4:33pm:


God looks like Father Xmas in Michael Angelo's painting.

Quote:


I think the point was that some people may have this impression of God being in the form of a magical wise old man peeking through the clouds, not anybody here I'd assume.

And if God can't be adequately described in human standards, then what other standard would you suggest?.. Equine standards maybe? Should we seek the word of Mr. Ed?

God(s) have supposedly picked out an individuals (men invariably) and said "Psst..I have a secret for you, can you jot this stuff down and spread it to the masses for me? ..believe me, you'll get plenty of takers".

It wouldn't be too outlandish to expect a God who is all powerful to speak to us all from time to time. After all, God can supposedly hear everybody speaking at once.i