Is the lack of faith of Atheists due to theists' failure to support their claims?

[FunctionalAtheist]

When you use the phrase: "valid, reasoned and supported arguments", I think you might need to consider that the evidences being considered as such are very different between the theist and atheist camps. For the most part, atheist have limited themselves to a large extent to exclusively empirical evidence. The interesting thing is that most atheists haven't sought out this empirical scientific evidence themselves. Rather, and ironically enough, they take it on faith that the scientists have got it right.

Theist, on the other hand (and at least speaking for myself) accept that the scriptural record concerning the core message of the atonement along with the reports of honest men who claim to have been witness to manifestations of God, to be valid, reasonable and supported by the coherence and agreement of the various reports. Atheist have a tendency to get hung up on details which have little or nothing to do with the core message of scripture and reject the whole thing on that basis... throwing the baby out with the bath water as it were. There are many things which I cannot explain in scripture, but I feel I can hold those issues in suspense until such time as God sees fit to make things more clear. The important thing is the core message... The atonement of Jesus Christ. Also, I do not neglect empirical evidence. I attempt as best I may, try to find correlation between science and scripture. For myself, I think I have found avenues of thought... reasoning, to explain what might otherwise be considered disparities.

"Theists...accept..." THAT IS NOT EVIDENCE (for your argument)! It is not valid reasoning. It is not support for your argument. It is nothing other than evidence that you do not understand the difference between evidence and blind acceptance of a proposition!

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Hmm, good question. I suppose some people would say yes, while others would say theist is limited to humans.

But you would say...?

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Yeah... I don't get the whole polytheist thing--perhaps I missed part of the conversation. But I stand by my statement to outhouse.

@Curious George was making the point that a mother is akin to God to a baby, which I kinda agree with, but he said it as if the mother IS God to a baby, due to her immortal and infallible status in the babies mind, which I disagree with.
I'm grossly paraphrasing, but if a baby doesn't understand mortality, and a baby doesn't understand fallability, then all creatures in that babies life would initially be Gods, according to that line of logic, which would see the baby as a polytheist.

For me, I can get my head around 'akin to Gods' but a baby has no understanding of God, nor any form of theism.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

The uncertainty principal is fundamental and unrelated to the quality or accuracy of tools or measurements

It quite literally IS the accuracy (or constraints upon the accuracy) of measurements. It is unrelated to tools. It is absolutely not unrelated to measurements. If it were, then there would be no question whether reality at the quantum level is ontologically "vague", as this would be a certainty guaranteed by the uncertainty principle. However, the uncertainty principle fundamentally and absolutely gives us an inverse ratio of measurement precision between certain (related) observables (most famously, position and velocity). Bohmian mechanics, for example, is by no means a universally accepted physics but remains a possibility and consists of deterministic motion of point-like particles, which we cannot even in theory determine to exist according to the uncertainty principle, but which are compatible with theory and experiments.

 

[Willamena]

@Curious George was making the point that a mother is akin to God to a baby, which I kinda agree with, but he said it as if the mother IS God to a baby, due to her immortal and infallible status in the babies mind, which I disagree with.
I'm grossly paraphrasing, but if a baby doesn't understand mortality, and a baby doesn't understand fallability, then all creatures in that babies life would initially be Gods, according to that line of logic, which would see the baby as a polytheist.

For me, I can get my head around 'akin to Gods' but a baby has no understanding of God, nor any form of theism.

Monotheism, no? In that case, the baby, with no concept of individuality, might have no reason to distinguish between any creature and mother.

I'm not sure what an image of polytheism would look like.

 

[JoStories]

Monotheism, no? In that case, the baby, with no concept of individuality, might have no reason to distinguish between any creature and mother.

I'm not sure what an image of polytheism would look like.

For me, the image of polytheism is one that depicts God with many faces. God can be Ganesh or Surya or any of the other Hindu God/desses. I like to think of God as being a being with many faces, and all are aspects of that entity. Kind of like a pyramid in a manner of speaking. Think of Maslow's theory of self actualization. Its sort of the same thing, IMO.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Religion often gives God a bad name.

Religion gives God any name it has.

Every god-claim out there is either from a religion or is someone's personal riff on the god-claim from a religion.

 

[Curious George]

@Curious George was making the point that a mother is akin to God to a baby, which I kinda agree with, but he said it as if the mother IS God to a baby, due to her immortal and infallible status in the babies mind, which I disagree with.
I'm grossly paraphrasing, but if a baby doesn't understand mortality, and a baby doesn't understand fallability, then all creatures in that babies life would initially be Gods, according to that line of logic, which would see the baby as a polytheist.

For me, I can get my head around 'akin to Gods' but a baby has no understanding of God, nor any form of theism.

You make good points, perhaps defining things as just "not something" is logically problematic.

 

[Katzpur]

I disagree! My youngest memories are free of belief or disbelief. It was only when I was told I must believe that the question ever entered my mind. The only propensity was whether I thought my grandmother, the only person that every truly loved me, was a lier, or if I wished to burn in hell for all eternity!

Well then, I'd say you were born with a propensity to disbelieve. Nobody is born either believing in God or disbelieving in God. But when the concept of God is first introduced, it either makes perfect sense or not. If it doesn't make sense and resonate as logical to a person, he may be pressured into believing, often with threats of hellfire for disbelief, but sooner or later, he'll say, "This is nuts. I don't believe a word of it." As Dale Carnegie once said, "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."

Nobody had to convince me that there's a God. Nothing could convince you that there is a God. I don't know how you explain the difference. I know a lot of atheists will say, "Well, that's easy. I'm smart enough to see through the BS and you were never able to break free of the indoctrination." I'd say we're just wired differently.

 

[Dhyana]

It quite literally IS the accuracy (or constraints upon the accuracy) of measurements. It is unrelated to tools. It is absolutely not unrelated to measurements. If it were, then there would be no question whether reality at the quantum level is ontologically "vague", as this would be a certainty guaranteed by the uncertainty principle. However, the uncertainty principle fundamentally and absolutely gives us an inverse ratio of measurement precision between certain (related) observables (most famously, position and velocity). Bohmian mechanics, for example, is by no means a universally accepted physics but remains a possibility and consists of deterministic motion of point-like particles, which we cannot even in theory determine to exist according to the uncertainty principle, but which are compatible with theory and experiments.

This is the way I learned and conceive of it

The uncertainty relations have to do with the measurement of these four properties; in particular, they have to do with the precision with which these properties can be measured. Up until the advent of quantum mechanics, everyone thought that the precision of any measurement was limited only by the accuracy of the instruments the experimenter used. Heisenberg showed that no matter how accurate the instruments used, quantum mechanics limits the precision when two properties are measured at the same time. These are not just any two properties but two that are represented by variables that have a special relationship in the equations. The technical term is "canonically conjugate" variables. For the moving electron, the canonically conjugate variables are in two pairs: momentum and position are one pair, and energy and time are another. Roughly speaking, the relation between momentum and position is like the relation between energy and time.

https://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p08a.htm

Fundamentally & ontologically immeasurable

 

[Etritonakin]

Religion gives God any name it has.

Every god-claim out there is either from a religion or is someone's personal riff on the god-claim from a religion.

That's actually an assumption.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

That's actually an assumption.

It's a conclusion.

 

[Dhyana]

Fundamentally & ontologically immeasurable

Then there's this:

...the precise meaning one can coherently attach to Heisenberg's relations depends rather heavily on the interpretation one favors for quantum mechanics as a whole. And because no agreement has been reached on this latter issue, one cannot expect agreement on the meaning of the uncertainty relations either.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-uncertainty/#HeiArg

 

[Shad]

Being ignorant is not too bad, because they have the chance to learn and recognize their mistake.

Yes this is true. However it is hard for a lot of people to challenge their bias. This goes for anyone not necessarily theists.

I think people are stupid, if they can't learn, no matter how many times they have been explained to them, or corrected them on the proper scientific definitions. Stupidity is being stubbornly ignorant.

Many people are what I would call functional. Public schools create people that are functional enough to perform the common mundane tasks common is most career paths. This allows people that do not want further education to function within any labour job in the market. It also sets the foundation for those that want a higher education. However higher education introduces independent thinking rather than rote learning from public schools.

I find most creationists and quite few theists are downright stupid in the matter of science, because we have to repeatedly teach them, explain to them or correct them every single time they have posted on these science vs religion threads.

This is a problem of education and authority. People that are taught that their religion and it's representatives have a higher authority than people in scientific fields aka arguments from false authority. Indoctrination is hard to break especially when it can shatter trust developed between the person, their parents, their religion and religious figures.

How many times can you explain to each one of them about "scientific theory" before we have to conclude that they are just stupid because of their religions have indoctrinated them at being stupid?

I conclude that they can not challenge their bias and indoctrination not that they are stupid. That they are ignorant rather than stupid. For all I know they could be an expert electrician, something I know nothing about. The major difference is that some people are open to new ideas that run counter to their existing ideas and those that are not.

I am about to reply to Dhyana about what is a scientific theory is, and explain the differences between empirical science and theoretical science (again), but I have no great expectation that he will recognize his mistake or that he will learn something new today.

At times it is best to leave the dead horse rather than beat it some more.

 

[Shad]

View attachment 10336

As if YOU, obviously NOT a physicist, understand quantum physics, and not just your idiosyncratic personal selective interpretation thereof ?

It was not my personal selective interpretation as I merely explained what both already have said for themselves. I cited two sources which I explained to you. On the other hand you quote-mined sources yet did not read the full source such as your failure with your Hawking quote.

AFAIC, you are nothing but another pompous self important know-it-all that trolls internet fora with fraudulent omniscience. There's at least one in every forum on the net, ruining many a topic for everyone else.

Yawn. Maybe read what I cited and your own links next time. All I did was read the sources fully rather than quote-mine like you have. That is not omniscience, that is critical thinking and basic reading comprehension.

 

[Shad]

Yes, but infallible, immortal, indescribable, incomprehensible entity who controls seemingly everything qualifies as a God yes?

This would disqualify a parent as a God. Children can comprehend their parents, this is proven throughout childhood when a child learns how to ask "Why" and begins to question their parents.

 

[Curious George]

This would disqualify a parent as a God. Children can comprehend their parents, this is proven throughout childhood when a child learns how to ask "Why" and begins to question their parents.

Yes, but fully comprehend? Moreover, we are talking about baby's.

 

[Shad]

Well, excuse me. Did Peterson not state this in a book entitled "the Philosophy of Niels Bohr" and attribute it to Bohr, even if it was not an exact quote? Even if it is not an exact quote does that make it any less true?

Did Bohr not also say this?:

Nope, it was from Aage supposedly quoting Bohr but you will not find a single pieces of his work saying this. For a quoteion o be valid it must be quoted directly from a source material. There is no material of Bohr with this statement. Hence it is heresay from Aage. Here is an example.

Dhyaran said "I love chocolate ice cream" I have no source to back this up. We both know you never told me this. At best it is heresay, at worst it is a lie.

 

[Shad]

Yes, but fully comprehend? Moreover, we are talking about baby's.

How do you know a baby sees their parents as a God. Did they tell you this? You are speculating, nothing more.

 

[Curious George]

How do you know a baby sees their parents as a God. Did they tell you this? You are speculating, nothing more.

No I am using deductive reasoning. The same that is applied to baby's as atheist. If I am wrong then the logic is wrong. I figured you would be able to follow.