The Atheists' Creed

[jdaly]

I don't know if they necessarily assign equal probabilities to "gods" or "no god". Indeed, if we consider the number of possible gods in the pantheons, we rapidly get into countable-but-infinite space, over which we can't draw probabilities (assuming there are no fractions of gods). Whereas I think in our model, the atheist would assign high probability tending towards 1 to "no god" and the religious would assign high probability tending towards 1 to "X god(s)".

I think "belief" is an appropriate word for atheists because I imagine a reasonable one would believe in God or gods if there was clear evidence for it. From a Bayesian perspective, no evidence either way about God should make us all agnostics due to zero denominator in Bayes' formula. "Fence-sitting" in other words. So deviations from that are statements of belief.

Bertrand Russell, when asked what if he would say if, when he died, he was indeed confronted by some god or other asking why russell hadn't believed in him/her/it, to which he replied 'not enough evidence,god, not enough evidence.'
Those who believe in gods should have no problem in accepting 'fractions of gods.'

Forgot to say that the old fraud 'faith' negates all the Bayesian thinking or perspectives, as having 'faith' means one can believe in anything from gods to ghosts without needing either logic or evidence.

[QuizMaster]

Surely it would be agnostics who don't believe, full stop. Atheists have a belief that there is no God, as well as the corollaries of that belief.

No I don't agree.
Atheists don't believe.
Agnostics sort of don't believe, but they're leaving the door open anyway, JUST IN CASE.

[Hewson]

Bertrand Russell, when asked what if he would say if, when he died, he was indeed confronted by some god or other asking why russell hadn't believed in he/she/it, to which he replied 'not enough evidence,god, not enough evidence.'
Those who believe in gods should have no problem in accepting 'fractions of gods.'

The fundamental tenet of religion is faith. If faith required evidence it would no longer be faith.

[H.R. Haldeman]

Finding it very hard to pin down any atheist on their beliefs, so here's a summary:

Really? What atheists have you asked and in what way were they un-pindownable? I find it slightly odd that atheists would have such trouble conveying their beliefs, which are pretty simple.

Nothing exists but natural phenomena.
Thought is a property or function of matter.
Death irreversibly and totally terminates individual organic units.
There are no forces, phenomena, or entities which exist outside of or apart from physical nature.
There are no forces, phenomena, or entities which transcend nature.
There are no forces, phenomena, or entities which are supernatural.
Nor can there be.

Firstly, I notice that a lot of this list is couched in negatives. While I don't necessarily disagree that this is a useful means of description (in a sense atheism is defined by non-belief) it does give the entire thing a dreary, nilhilistic, joyless edge that my atheism doesn't really recognise.

But the thing I most dislike about this list is the insinuation that I have to believe in some hateful stone-age holy book in order to believe that there can be something transcendent in things. The birth of a child for example - certainly to me that is nothing but a natural process, but that doesn't mean I can't see something magical in it. Do I need to believe in the little baby Jesus to explain that magic? No. Magic doesn't belong to Jesus.

This is a recurrent theme among atheist bashers - that the atheists' world is a cold and heartless place absent of wonder or light. But this is nothing but the propaganda of the believer who cannot conceive any wonder without thier God being involved in it. Hitchens has a good line on this. He cites the burning bush of the Bible as the trick God pulled to show his omnipotence and power. How small and unimpressive, runs the argument, is that bush when placed beside the wonders of the universe, the glories of human art, the genius of human science and discovery. The atheists' universe is far more wonderous than the dreary, stagnant, closed little universe of burning bushes and hocus-pocus.

[garlandgreen]

The fundamental tenet of religion is faith. If faith required evidence it would no longer be faith.

Yes it would be something useful rather than a tawdry and obvious cop out dressed up as a virtue

[Factorem]

Firstly, I notice that a lot of this list to couched in negatives. While I don't necessarily disagree that this is a useful means of description (in a sense atheism is defined by non-belief) it does give the entire thing a dreary, nilhilistic, joyless edge that my atheism doesn't really recognise.

But the thing I most dislike about this list is the insinuation that I have to believe in some hateful stone-age holy book in order to believe that there can be something transcendent in things. The birth of a child for example - certainly to me that is nothing but a natural process, but that doesn't mean I can't see something magical in it. Do I need to believe in the little baby Jesus to explain that magic? No. Magic doesn't belong to Jesus.

Wow. An atheist who believes in magic.

This is a recurrent theme among atheist bashers - that the atheists' world is a cold and heartless place absent of wonder or light. But this is nothing but the propaganda of the believer who cannot conceive any wonder without thier God being involved in it. Hitchens has a good line on this. He cites the burning bush of the Bible as the trick God pulled to show his omnipotence and power. How small and unimpressive, runs the argument, is that bush when placed beside the wonders of the universe, the glories of human art, the genius of human science and discovery. The atheists' universe is far more wonderous than the dreary, stagnant, closed little universe of burning bushes and hocus-pocus.

You're pretty good at countering the propaganda with plenty of propaganda of your own.

[Question R24U]

I am not God, but I am one of over six billion gods. i believe that we can all create heaven and hell in our minds, for that is the only place they can exist. By our acts and omissions, we may force others and ourselves to perceive we and they are there - in time such reflections will pass and change and change back again. But in truth we remain on this earth in bodily form until the day we must change through the real beginning of decay to nothingness and be no more, save for in the minds of the living.

[Hewson]

This is a recurrent theme among atheist bashers - that the atheists' world is a cold and heartless place absent of wonder or light. But this is nothing but the propaganda of the believer who cannot conceive any wonder without thier God being involved in it. Hitchens has a good line on this. He cites the burning bush of the Bible as the trick God pulled to show his omnipotence and power. How small and unimpressive, runs the argument, is that bush when placed beside the wonders of the universe, the glories of human art, the genius of human science and discovery. The atheists' universe is far more wonderous than the dreary, stagnant, closed little universe of burning bushes and hocus-pocus.

Some, perhaps, I wouldn't concur with such a view. I agree that there is more wonder and enlightment and mystery in the world than we will uncover in a thousand lifetimes. That the natural laws of physics and the pragmatism of Nature are in themselves almost miraculous. That the little grain of sand we inhabit, floating in the inky blackness of forever, is of little consequence in cosmic terms, but of infinite consequnce to us, existing here.

But there's a place beyond existence, beyond seeing and feeling and the awareness of where and who we are in the scheme of things. Beyond the limits of our intellect and our imagination. It's what we sense when we listen to a particularly beautiful piece of music or look into the eternity of space through a telescope and try to grasp the concept of 'infinity'.

We're made to wonder, to explore and question and contradict and push the boundaries of our knowledge until we feel we have the answers to the questions we ask. The Earth is four billion years old, the Universe we know, sixteen billion. When the age of the Earth is compacted to a 24 hour clock, man arrived at a few seconds to midnight. We're new here. With all we know there's an awful lot more that we don't know. We're only beginning to discover who we are and are still in the pangs of childbirth, intellectually, and certainly in terms of attaining a level of civilisation.

To ignore the spiritual dimension to our existence is to close our eyes to a facet of human nature that is as real as the body we walk through life in. As real as the thoughts that make us individual in a sea of individuals.

[lapsedmethodist]

I don't know whether or not you all have seen this, but on the subject of atheism he's much more interesting than either Dawkins or Hitchens.

Atheism Jonathan Miller A Brief History Of Disbelief The - Google Videos - YouTube MySpace Video - Noolmusic.com

[Seos]

It's not a belief to not believe in something, it is the default position. Agnostics are people who are slightly on the hedge, atheists simply do not believe.

Is an aleprechaunists someone who 'believes there are no leprechauns' or someone who doesn't believe in leprechauns?

I disagree. Is not believing in chairs the default position? Or the colour blue? Or the moon landings?

What if I don't believe my senses? Or to put it another way, what if I believe my senses can't be trusted? If that is the default position then we are stuck not believing in anything outside of ourselves and even our bodies because we cannot trust the evidence because we don't believe our sense.