Atheists have faith???

Question

It seems to me that Atheists have just as much faith as Christians, and other such religions that believe in God. They can't prove that God does not exist, and no one can prove he/she does. They have faith that God does not exist...The only "religion" that seems to be based on logic is Agnosticism. They believe there is nothing to either prove or disprove the existence of a God. So unless you're Agnostic you have the burden of prove, and have faith. right??? And why do Atheists take offense to this?

Answer 1

Faith means believing something for the sake of belief. Atheists are more like strong sceptics, they refuse to believe something if there is no reason to do so.
I refuse to believe in a god because the concept of a god seems utterly absurd to me and contrary to all experience. I even can prove to you that god does not exist if you give me a full and exhaustive definition of what god actually IS. But in most cases, a god is just a vague idea, and you cannot disprove a vague idea.
Of course I will take offense if you call my atheism a faith. Faiths are based on irrational impulses like wishful thinking or hallucination. Atheism is based on reason.

Georgeena:
I agree with you that faith is a matter of emotion and proof is a matter of reason. But I do not agree with you that agnosticism can therefore be the only reasonable position.
Let us say there is a medicine man who is convinced that his rain dance will eventually bring rain. Since he cannot scientifically prove it, this is obviously a matter of faith.
Now there is a meteorologist who says that the efforts of the medicine man are in vain. He has scientific theories about weather, humidity and all. But of course it is rather difficult for him to positively disprove the connection between the rain dance and the weather. The medicine man can always say "last time it worked".
Now, would you seriously say that the position of the meteorologist is a position of faith, or of reason?

Answer 2

I more or less agree with you. With all the respect, i disagree with Mr. Natural although i get his point (and by the way that is exactly why he and noone else can prove that there is no god- because god is suppose to be a vague idea, thats the nature of divine, its not a glass of water or a pen.) Faith is not necessarily based on irrational impulses. Faith and confidence are emotional terms - they are neither rational or irrational; like Erich Fromm sais, we all have the faith that we will stand up in the morning and go to work, that we will have something to eat, the mother has faith that her baby will grow etc. To enter a close relationship, especially a love relatonship one has to have a minimum faith in his lover and himself. A person that has absolut no faith in himself has serious personality problems and is very disfunctional. Faith is not knowledge and is not non-knowledge. If someone believes that something isnt there or will not happen without 100% knowing if it is or if it will, he still has (negative) faith. There might be a million millions of possibilities that i will wake up tomorrow and only 1 in a million that there is a god; it doenst matter. I dont KNOW any of it. Faith is an emotional status. So if someones consideres the existence of anything divine as an extremely small possibility, he is approaching the issue mostly rationally -correctly or not is not in question here - and he is an agnostic. But if someone sais that there is no god, no way, over and out, then he is approaching this issue emotionally - he BELIEVES there is no god.
PS. I have had the greatest conversation with a friend, who gave me Hot Carls argument- he said, how do we know that there are no pink flying elephants?? Maybe they just hide too well. Well i dont know there arent any, as i dont know if there is an angel over my shoulder or a ghost in my attic. Still i cannot exclude any of it, as i cannot denie the possibility that there is an invisible dragon in his garden. i believe i wont have a stroke in the next 10 minutes but i dont know that either. Believing and knowing or proving are so different things! Some might say that consequently faith is a need. I need to believe that i will be here the next day and the next day and so on in order to make any effort to have a satisfying life. No objektions about that. Faith is a need. And like a person needs to believe there is a god, another for several reasons needs to believe there is nothing divine in the universe. The thing is, nor the first or the second KNOWS that. Therefore anything but agnosticism - wich is nothing but a rational statement of not knowing, and does not exclude a deeper unexpressed and questioned faith, positive or negative- is a faith of some kind.

MR.Natural: The difference between your example of a metereologist and the god issue is that the first is only a matter of causality. The metereologist can consequently prove -in theory and in labor- how the weather phenomena are connected. But if only once the rain dance doesnt work there is no causality there and the rain dance is obviously inconsequent. But the existence of god (well any "divine" force) is not a matter of causality and it is neither cancelled by the explanations of science about the universe. The existence of a "god" doesnt mean there was no big bang, no evolution etc. Those things can coexist just fine for many people, except ofcourse dogmatic believers of most religions. Furthermore we used the word rational differently, that was my linguistical mistake. In greek there are two similar words- logical, wich means reasonable and orthological wich means rational, and i was comfused. Rational is what we use in scientific thinking, we only except what we can prove, it doesnt go the other way around. So yes, the divine is indeed irrational - but not unreasonable. I dont think any person, even the strictest rationalists, has faith only in rational things in its everyday life, as i pointed out above. We tend to have faith through other sources too, like simple reason and experience. Human experience has tought that it is absurd to absolutely denie anything we cannot prove wrong for sure. 1000 years ago, who would have considered someone sane, had he presented a theory about atomic structure, electrons and energy? The supposition of Goldbach is not proven, but that doesnt mean its wrong. So, who knows, maybe there are pink flying elephants after all. I dont know about the supernatural,- hyperphysical, the things beyond physics, i doubt it exist myself but there is certainly the metaphysical- the things next to physics, the part of life that physics cannot explain YET.

Answer 3

No we don't. We do not have faith that god does not exist. It is not a matter of faith. Faith is the absence of proof. Some concepts I can not prove or disprove something that does not exist. it's an oxymoron. Things in the realm of fantasy can not be proved that is why they are fantasy and by definition it is a waste of time to bother with proofs. Agnostics take the easy way out by not taking a stand. It is more of a political move than a religious position. If there is one thing that we have "faith" in is the human mind and its boundless and awesome curiosity for the universe the whys the whens the hows. To make my point. If god appeared to humanity in an uncontestable manner I would de facto accept the reality and reject my previous position. This is also the very basis of science. But you can bet anythig you want that I would have a hell of a lot of questions to ask him you You have no idea how many questions.

Answer 4

Firstly - atheism is not a religious faith. It is an understanding of the universe which believers in God can not understand. People have no concept of the size of our galaxy never mind the size of the universe that holds billions of them. Religions were born of the primitive mind that needed explanation. Atheists don't need that kind of explanation. We are the fruit of the scientists who were persecuted by religious beliefs. There has never been so much persecution as there has been by the Christian church against non-believers yet science has taken hold. Even Christians and Muslims have taken hold of the science they considered blasphemous and both now consider blowing up the world. Is this really what your God wants?

Religious people always claim that God is love and then they go off to war. I don't see atheists creating war.

I get a bit peeved that so many people think that their religion is better than the other. For God's sake people wake up. Christians believe theirs is the god of love - well portrayed in the Old Testament. Islam is also portrayed to be a religion of love. Get a grip people - you're killing each other.

Answer 5

I understand what you are trying to say but you're wrong. It's not possible to prove that something does not exist. In logical thinking the burden of proof falls on the party making the positive claim, i.e. theists saying there is a god. If not, logic doesn't work. Can you disprove the invisible dragon in my gargage?

Answer 6

I bet no one ever proved to you that Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy don't exist, you just developed in logical awareness enough to realise that the concept was not feasable ... that is how I feel about God. I believe so strongly that he doesn't exist that I don't need to waste my time proving that he doesn't.

Answer 7

Satanism is based on logic. I have resaerched this and have found that their faith is quite facsinating. If you have an open mind, read Anton LaVey's "The Satanic Bible"

I know I probabily have not answered the question, however you seem like a person who is switched on and is interested in different perspectives.

Please let it be known that I am not trying to preach Satanism, just trying to raise awareness that Satanists are not animal sacrificing beasts, just people like you and me.

Answer 8

Faith is believing in something that may not be tangeable. Atheists have a believe that God does not exist. faith is not a holy word but an explanation of the cause of events. therefore it depends on where does your faith leads you to. as christians believe that loving one another is good atheist may believe loving one another is bad. At the end who is right and who is wrong

Answer 9

no, the ABSENCE of something does not carry the burden of proof.

You're once again asking atheists to prove invisible pink ponies don't exist. You believe in them, YOU prove it.

Answer 10

Yup tis why I am agnostic. But there is at least some proof of evolution as opposed to NONE for creationism.