The philosophy of atheism?

Question

I knew a philosophy professor who explained atheism this way,
he said the trouble with atheists is that they believe they have proof for something that cannot be proven, while Christians admit that faith governs their belief. If an atheist did say it was faith, he would instantly become an agnostic (as he would be admitting that he doesn’t know for sure). Therefore, logically, it seems atheism can’t really exist?

Thanks for all your responses, I guess there are more atheists than I thought! I am a Christian, but I admire the usual quick wit and reasoned arguments of most atheists. I just wish that they could KNOW the love of Christ that I know.

LJAY you are right, I should not have started with "the problem..." I might have garnered less emotional outbursts if I started with "Atheists believe..."

Answer 1

Cobert: "Atheism: the religion devoted to the worship of one's own smug sense of superiority."

You can only use logic to PROVE something not DISPROVE something. Should Christians try to prove God? They have. To themselves. Atheists won't take it as proof though, because its not a personal experience. Nothing short of a life-changing miracle could do that, and that would even be put under the microscope. Atheists don't want to believe in God and waste their time on trying to "reason" with people that there is no God. To each their own but Atheists need to shut up and worry about being productive in their own lives. Your talk is wasting oxygen you could be using to evolve.

Answer 2

There are a couple subtle issues here. First, being atheist only matters if you are theist. There is no name for being an awitchcraft believer, an atoothfairy believer and so forth. It isn't an issue of proof, it is an issue of the absence of evidence to the contrary. It is a stance of openess to reality not a judgement or a decision. In a sense, faith is a judgment to reject reality knowing fully there not only is no evidence but it goes against the evidence.

Faith is a strange problem because it is a choice. Atheism is an observation, like the sky is blue. Atheism is not a belief, it is an observation similar to seeing something black. When you see something is black, that is because no photons are hitting your retina. You see nothing. Atheists find no even weakly compelling external evidnece away from a person's faith of the existence of a God. Faith is a choice to believe in an imaginary friend, despite the lack of data.

Answer 3

If I had been there I would have told his professor to stay away from such fallacies. To say atheist have proof for something that cannot be proven is completely false. There is no proof. That logic is identical to saying Christians believe they have proof for something that cannot be proven. Therefore christians don't exist.

That doesn't follow logically.

If an atheist says it is faith--he is agnostic?? How does he make that connection? It doesn't follow logically. After all, Buddhist are atheist. Would pagans have to not exist or would his logic be that since they have faith in "more than one God" they have "more faith" and therefore more of them exist? Or do Buddhists not exist since they believe but cannot prove reincarnation?

Faith has nothing to do with if someone exists or not. An atheist can believe something does not exist b/c he has no proof that it does. He does not have to PROVE it does not exist. That is a large difference that your professor seems to have overlooked.

An atheist personally does not believe it exists. That is all. There is no proof there. No evidence. But then again, there is no need for Christians to prove God exists and no need for atheists to prove he doesn't. But Christians don't have to have proof to say they know with 100% certainty that he does exist. And atheists should get that same standard--they don't have to have proof to know with 100% certainty either.

Your professor is merely trying to use poor logic in an attempt to confuse you. If your school actually offers a course in "logic" (the mathmatical equations of P and Q) then you should take the book to this professor. And don't take any more classes with this guy. I'd hate to get to the class where he proves horses don't exist, b/c they are really zebras who didn't develop stripes. This guy sounds like a quack--and an illiterate one at that.

Answer 4

Well, there is much truth there. Always people claiming to be atheists on here refer to: the Christian God, your God, your Bible, but then that God doesn't exist, Quite funny really, because they constantly try to prove something isn't there, that they say isn't there to begin with.

A true atheist would not care one way or the other about proving or disproving God.

But most atheists believe that Jesus lived and died as told in the Bible. I do not think that anyone can deny that. For all the talk about the Bible most people, even, Christians, miss the main point of the Bible, which is that it is a history book. And a very good history book.

Answer 5

The odd part about this is that there is a *good* set of reasons to believe in god. It turns out that this is *not* the god of Islam, or Christianity, or Judaism, or Baha'i, for example.

What is so odd about this is that atheists, Christians, Jews, etc. studiously avoid any engagement over this very issue.

Is it rational to be an atheist? I don't think so. Is it rational to be agnostic? This depends entirely on how high the bar gets set for "good reasons." This is an interesting and important discussion. It may not be irrational to be an agnostic.

Is it rational to espouse Christianity? In so far as that implies belief in god, then "No." Beyond that one is faced with essentially contestable concepts.

HTH

Charles

Answer 6

Are you saying that logically, everyone must believe in the actual existance of deities? Now, you know that's not true. Common sense dictates this logic is false.

The fallacy in the logic is atheists don't believe they have proof for something that can't be proven. They just don't believe in deities. Myself, I'm a Taoist, and I believe in something much better than deities, so your whole argument goes to pot when applied to me.

If you mean to say that everyone must be agnostic at best, the best argument for that is simply that no one really knows the truth of the matter, in which case you must also introduce doubt on the part of believers. We are all agnostic by that definition or none of us are.

Answer 7

Atheists don't need proof. They know that the existence of a god cannot be proven, thus they do not believe in the existence of a god. Agnostics, on the other hand, aren't sure what to believe or are uncomfortable with the thought of ruling out the possibility that a god might exist, and it's that uncertainty that puts them in that classification.

Answer 8

I believe your professor is wrong.

Atheism doesn't require proof. Atheism assumes there is no good because there isn't proof of one. We have no proof that there ISN'T a god because the default position is non-existence. It's up to the believers to provide proof, which they cannot do because their beliefs are all based on faith.

Therefore, belief cannot exist because they have no proof of their own god other than a book that cannot be proven as proof of anything other than someone wrote something once upon a time ago.

Answer 9

Using your logic, we could refer to a supernatural unicorn in the sky that watches over you. You can choose to have faith in it, or choose not to believe in it. This is what Atheists do. Atheist is such a bad term, we dont have proof against anything, we just know what we DO have proof for, and tend to believe in that.

If Athesim can't exist, neither can Christianity. Think about that one for a while...

Answer 10

That type of circular reasoning is why religion exists in the first place.

Someone has to tell the idiot sheeple what to think or they'd just play in traffic and nothing would get done.

Besides, we do have proof. The Bible clearly states that Heaven is a CITY just above the clouds, presumably hovering over the middle east.

We have satellites, commercial aircraft, weather balloons, and the ISS and no sign of any cities on the clouds.

Your 'professor' is referring to the existence of an imaginary extra-biblical god which is a product of his own imagination. The Biblical god either did, or did not do, the things claimed of him and they are very specific things that CAN be disproven.

Answer 11

rofl. Why do people keep trying to claim that Atheism doesn't exist? I can assure you, it most definately does. Your philosophy professor was probably stuck in his own religious way of thinking.

The difference between religious people and Atheists is that Atheists admit "I don't know but I'll find out" while religious think they already know everything because some ancient book told them so.