Quote:
Originally Posted by isengard
can a religious person please explain to me how they can believe in something that has no evidence? i'm not attacking you, i consider myself agnostic and i consider atheism JUST as ignorant as religion. i just can't wrap my mind around how you could so blatantly confirm or disapprove something such as a higher power. i feel like as humans we have absolutely no way of knowing the truth, so i'm curious, what is the basis behind your faith/lack of faith and why do you believe in it?
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I am considered a weak-atheist. I think, perhaps, you're misunderstanding what an atheist is. An atheist simply says, "There is no good argument, or empirical evidence for the existence of currently defined deities."
In other words, I do not believe in Zeus because there is no solid empirical evidence for Zeus, nor is there a satisfying philosophical argument for his existence. Thousands of years ago you might have told me, "Lightning exists. Zeus causes lighting. Therefore, Zeus exists." Logically, that makes sense, but clearly we know that Zeus does not cause lightning. So, I do not believe in Zeus.
I take the same view with any deity I am aware of. This does not mean that I dogmatically state that I know there are no deities. No, I simply say that I do not find evidence, or a solid argument to believe in currently defined deities. So, maybe in future there will be a given definition of god that I agree with. Maybe there will be evidence for that god. At that point I may be persuaded to accept the existence of a deity. But, until I agree with a definition of god, and see evidence for that definition, I will not believe.
In other words, to be an atheist, you base things on evidence. Not faith. We don't believe in unbelief. We just don't see any evidence for a deity. This doesn't mean that we KNOW there are no deities. There very well may be. But, where's the evidence? There's as much evidence for a deity as there is for my imaginary friend I had named Joe when I was 3.
I don't choose to believe in my unbelief. I choose to accept ideas and theories which have physical evidence and falsifiable arguments in order to establish a knowledge of truth.