tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post7697798313244973646..comments2024-03-28T00:48:19.961-07:00Comments on Metacrock's Blog: The atheist turn of mindJoseph Hinman (Metacrock)http://www.blogger.com/profile/06957529748541493998noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-66695970969523188722008-01-30T17:10:00.000-08:002008-01-30T17:10:00.000-08:00Dear friend,Here is why Gerald Schroeder is a Cran...Dear friend,<BR/>Here is why Gerald Schroeder is a Crank and Antony Flew is false:<BR/><BR/>http://philophil.blogspot.com/2008/01/antony-flew-richard-dawkins-and-gerald.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11516215.post-46234331695762109012007-11-05T05:00:00.000-08:002007-11-05T05:00:00.000-08:00If i may, you seem to be confusing atheism with so...If i may, you seem to be confusing atheism with some kind of alternate religion or world view. It is not.<BR/><BR/>Atheism is simply this, "the lack of belief in a god".<BR/><BR/>Thats it, nothing more. Now, many atheists have other beliefs, i certainly do, and some of these go very well with atheism, such as respect for the scientific method. But these beliefs are not atheism. They are seperate.<BR/><BR/>When you say we are not entitled to claim babies as atheists, you are clearly wrong. Babies do not have a belief in god, they are therefore atheists. This is also true of some buddhists (some forms of buddhism do have gods, although since i have not studied buddhism much i cannot comment as to their significance, if any in the religion).<BR/><BR/>Anyway, to your other points.<BR/>"(1) the mentality to dobut as long as possible"<BR/>Speaking as an atheist, i use Occams razor. This means that i doubt an explanation while a simpler explanation exists. Therefore i do not believe in UFO's until i have eliminated other aircraft, weather balloons, swamp gas, mental instability on the part of the observers, etc. It doesn't mean that i don't believe in the possibility of UFO's, just that there is usually a better explanation. Where there isn't a better explanation its a UFO, but only in its true meaning. It doesn't make it a flying saucer full of little green men.<BR/><BR/>"(2) Unless something is totally proven it cannot be given any kind of presumption no matter how rationally warranted or how strongly evidenced."<BR/>Occams razor again, for a miracle to be a miracle, it must be more unlikely than any other possible explanation.<BR/><BR/>As for your no evidence circle, i've never even seen something like this. the first and second point make no sense, the third point does interest me though.<BR/><BR/>"since there can be no evidence than anything presented as evidence must be wrong"<BR/>This is false, but similar to what many atheist hold as true. Evidence for a miracle or sign of god must be more miraclous than other explanations. Evidence offered for miracles is usually very lacking. Many theists seem to think revelation is good evidence, depsite their inability to show it to anyone else. <BR/><BR/>Now, you argue why evidence needs to be extraordinary when 90% of the world are believers. This is an arguement from popularity and you must know that this is a bad basis to argue from. 90% of the worlds population do not believe in the same thing. I'm sure the buddhists and shinto-ists will agree with me when i say that christianity is flat out wrong, and i'm sure the christians will agree with me when i say the Shinto-ists and pagans are wrong, and so on. Now its you claiming people to your cause that are unjustified.<BR/><BR/>If you want to argue from popularity then clearly Jesus in his own time was completely wrong (having only a very small group of followers) AND he had miracles to back him up.Gribble The Munchkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11482120195827390711noreply@blogger.com