e_blazer, I was going to stay out of this type of discussion for a couple weeks, but your post was so well written and honest I decided to chime in. First, my opinions are different than many atheists in that I don't have any issue with God of the Gaps, meaning belief in god that doesn't contradict known facts. So belief in God is fine as long as the belief has room for scientific discovery of the natural world, like age of the universe. I don't believe in god of the gaps, but it have no issue with others believing this. Second, I believe you misstated what the majority of atheists believe. You said "The atheist simply states that there is no proof for a god and therefore he or she must not exist. ". Most atheists would agree with the first part 'there is no proof of god', but your conclusion is not correct. We do not conclude 'he or she must not exist'. The conclusion is close, not not quite that. It's more along the lines of ' there is no proof, therefor I do not believe'. We don't know god doesn't exist, just that without some evidence there is not a reason to form the belief. By the way, you and I both share total awe of our world, from the beauty of a sunset to the astonishing complexity of life. We just differ over the cause. That's all, I enjoyed your post.
Several smartass quips come to mind, Denny, but I'll just say that you have much more faith in the power of randomness than do I.
What exactly does he think he said to dispute that? Cause I sure don't see anything.. All he did was explain what his faith is. Which happens to be believing in a higher power with no evidence. What a breakthrough!
Oh please explain your empirical evidence that the current science is accurate. I will be patiently waiting...
Of the beginning of the universe? What is singularity? Maybe proof of life ability to happen by chance?
Atheist make up about 2.3% of the population. Most of the rest consider themselves members of some religion. Now the interesting thing is the vast majority of the atheist are feeling type people who more ofter than not also consider their selves Progressives. Where as the T type people that do not consider them selves of religion also do not consider them selves atheist. Most of the Thinking type people can not go there because it is too illogical. They usually call themselves Agnostic or Pantheist. Albert Einstein, an INTP and Kurt Gödel also an INTP are perhaps the foremost examples. Kurt Gödel even wrote a paper on the lack of logic in being an atheist and improbability of evolution bringing forth life without a creator.
making a "more likely" probability assessment based on empirical evidence is science, not faith. straw man. regardless of whatever semantics you (or papaG or mags) feel you need to insist on, NOBODY SAYS THIS. two assumptions here. 1. the universe necessarily requires causal factors to explain its existence. nobody knows if this is true or not. 2. humans will "never" be able to understand the nature of the universe. nobody knows if this is true or not either. we don't know what the limits of our intellect or ability to test this subject will be in the future. straw man. atheists don't believe random chance is sufficient to explain anything. they think it's possible (or probable) that self-organizational principals such as evolution exist just as the natural state of things and intelligence is not required to explain complexity. goddidit and random chance is a false dichotomy used as an excuse for belief by theists. there are other possibilities. that's cool, but obviously what gives anyone peace and comfort doesn't necessarily have to correspond to objective reality.
