Do atheists believe logic is stronger than faith ?

Question

Do you think that your sometimes interesting, sometimes boring, sometimes hilarious, sometimes insulting , sometimes thought-provoking posts based on the illogicalities of belief, will ever actually convince someone to lose their faith ?

Yes BSH77 , I wouldn't have thought atheists gave a rip at all, and fervently believed that , till one day I logged on to YA, and had my eyes opened.

Aurora1952, I think you better look up the meaning of proselytise. That is exactly what a lot of YA atheists do, whether directly of by inference.

Yes acid zebra. So am I !

Maureen P, I had/have no intention of being insulting. And I LOVE answers that don't agree with mine. What would be the point of posting otherwise ?

U98, I don't think even the Babel fish could translate between some atheists and some people with religion. I miss my favourite atheist. I wonder if it was he that invented the flying spaghetti monster. Sorry, not invented, epiphanied !

Dear Uzo, my dear sweet Uzo, one should follow ones own advice before dispensing it so freely to others. The biggest mistake a clear thinker can have is by having formed a view before having all of the facts. I do not know if some higher power exists. I cannot prove that one does. It has not been proven, to my satisfaction, that it is a theoretical impossibility. To me, the jury is still out on this one. And who knows, in a universe of so many galaxies, so many planets, so many possibilities for life to exist, one day we may even discover a creature, for want of a better description, know as the flying spaghetti monster.

Quote: science....irrefutable, observable evidence. lol. Till the next generation of scientists refute it.

Answer 1

This is what I've been trying to say since I came here.

And I'm an atheist.

Forgive us, we're a little new to this "ministering" thing.

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Edit:for askers edits:

Ok, now you've taken this in another direction. It is completely and logically IMPOSSIBLE to disprove the existance of a higher power. Hence the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Celestial Teapot, etc. Everyone knows this is impossible, except seemingly theists who hide behind the lack of conclusive proof of the non-existance of God like you have just done.

That it cannot be disproven, is not evidence or even a reason to believe in a higher power. It is an illustration of the fallacy that is belief in the higher power (FSM, Invisible Pink Unicorn).

God -- in any flavour -- is Von Neumann's Catastrophe to the Nth degree due to the infinite regression that is theistic thought. God is always at the outer edges of human understanding, science that calls into question its existance is explained away as "Well, that's just HOW god does it, it's part of his plan." God is the mathematicians X.

One must critically look at the probabilities involved! With the sheer number of gods we've had, what makes the majority of them so easily dismissed in favour of a single one? How is proof of one, not equally proof of any of them? Considering the complexity any higher power MUST have, in absense of a creator's creator, the odds of such a being existing are astronomical. The odds are much better for the naturalistic explanations we have and will continue to develop. We must also compare the odds of the existance of a creator to the odds that humans made up the stories themselves. The latter is far, far, more likely.

Is it possible there is some higher power out there somewhere? Yes. Is it probable? No, it is quite improbable.
Is it worth basing any of our time and thought on such a higher power? Considering the extreme improbability, we have no need for such a hypothesis.

Answer 2

No, I have a great deal of experience in discussing logic and faith with religious people (mostly christians).

Logic will not convince them. But subjective faith will not convince someone who is not of that faith. See, real faith is about believing in something that cannot be proven. Logic is about a sound argument and science is based on logic and irrefutable, observable evidence.

Belief isn't really a choice though. You come to a conclusion...that conclusion is your belief, and it's hard for anyone to admit they are wrong, so they will often ignore or illogically rationalize away evidence that contradicts their belief. if something contradicts a belief...you take it into account and come to a new conclusion making it a new belief. but some beliefs are held so stubbornly that contradictory evidence is ignored or illogically rationalized away..."the evidence is wrong...my faith is correct"

As an agnostic, I thought athiests were just as religious as anyone else. There's no proof god doesn't exist. Then I realized that logically, the burden of proof is on those trying to show god exists. Imagine I told you that a magical unicorn lives at the center of the earth. Of course, you'd have NO reason to believe what I said until there was some logical proof or evidence to back it up.

So it's not that one is "stronger" than the other. It's just that one is about proof and the other is about the unprovable.

logic only works to convince someone who is objective. logically, you can't use logic to convince someone who is illogical. as a corallary, you cannot use subjective reasoning (ie: the bible says X, therefore X must be true...period!) to convince someone who is logical.

Answer 3

emotion, even mind's eye artwork in a thoroughly scientifically and logicall way that's thoroughly intergrated interior of our lives, coinsiding with our environment, climate, difficulty and so on and definitely vice versa, our environment, climate, difficulty and so on coinsiding wit our thoughts and mind's eye, this stuff are not to any extent further seperate in this way so - those can not do a lot else yet run in accordance with the physics of governing forces can they ? at the same time those governing forces, that governin rigidity is what a theist would call god.... it doesnt remember if people call it god or technology, it would not remember in the adventure that they are conscious of it or no longer via the undeniable fact that principality is a actuality. i actual am neither a theist or an atheist, and curiously, it also feels like i'm both..... it form of feels to me like i believe interior an same difficulty that various people attempt to chat of... yet nothingness is intangible to the human concepts, and nothingness is the purely position it might want to of all come from.... and that is an entire mirracle., and if it did not come from nowhere, then that ought to characterize each and every of the elements were basically the following, and they got here at the same time and created this and the following we are an eternity later nevertheless speaking about his amaizing manifestation this is the universe. eye-catching isn't it ? thoroughly eye-catching, to me as someone with emotion, and logically i also get excitement from it as a eye-catching mechanism.

Answer 4

Do atheists believe logic is stronger than faith ? Yes. I believe logic is stronger than faith... Logic is built on a series of provable facts, faith is built of a feeling...

Do I think it will change views of another? Probably not..

My own addition.

Am I posting with the intent of changing the views of another... No, what each person wants to believe is their business. A shared dialog on beliefs and views can be interesting and educational without an agenda of conversion (so to speak)...

Answer 5

Eventually, maybe one or two people will see the light and abandon their ridiculous belief in the supernatural.

Do you think that religious persons' insistence that there is an invisible realm of gods, devils, angels, and other fantastic imaginary creatures, will actually convince someone to abandon all logic and reason which proves otherwise?

Answer 6

logic leads to faith. A christian will never ever ever ( or 99%) be likely to convince a person of a different faith or absence of faith with pure logic and vice versa. It is the prejudice of choice that causes people to always have a one directional view. Do you really think your open minded when you accept all religion? then your assuming that no one religion is right which is again a prejudice choice. Prejudice plays a large role in faith or belief( acceptance) of. We obviously don't really know what happened millions and billions of years ago whether we were created by God in 7 ( however you want it ) days or a bunch of bubbles of organic matter in primordial soup. We don't know. We don't have a time machine. This is where faith comes into play. Or for others you either believe the evidence or mistrust and deny it.

Answer 7

That was a lame attempt at subtleness. You could've sounded sincere in your question rather than making it so blatantly obvious your question was meant as an insult. If you don't like answers that don't agree with you then you should be posting questions in a forum geared towards people who think like you. Try accepting that people are different then you are. It's not fair to generalize a group of people under one label. We are all different. Shame on you.

Answer 8

And the answer is 42, I wonder how many will miss that my babel fish eared little hitch-hiker buddy!

The answer is no, of course not. That is why both illogical arguments and humour must be added to the mix.

Answer 9

no. at least not the fundamentalists that bother us so much. because fundamentalist logic takes fundamentalist beliefs as postulate. they can't prove it, they just accept it as true, and it is true over all other sources. their logic starts with those beliefs... which may lead to them believing that T-rex ate coconuts.* on the other hand, atheist logic starts with science. science often clashes with fundamentalist beliefs, so at least where there is clash, the fundamentalists will accept their beliefs over any logic that starts with anything else. so the answer is no, nothing anyone can say (especially here) will sway them from believing what they have firmly decided to believe.

Answer 10

Yes, it happens. Though you are correct, more often than not it doesn't.

Though I don't usually make posts with this motive, when I do it is not out of insult, or in a condescending way. You see, having studied psychology in college, and having grown up in the Bible Belt, I know how psychologically damning it is to indoctrinate young children into religion.

No, it is not their choice when this happens. They are brainwashed from youth and it becomes highly psychological, and in many of these environments adults do never step back and take the time to think for themselves.