Another problem with NDTs words in this video, he tells us that 50% of scientists believe in god/are religious, and this is somehow proof there is no contradiction, or that science does not lead to non-belief. But this is a laughable failure of statistical analysis by NDT. I think the 50% number seems quite high, like he has been using a really bad sift on who qualifies as scientist (is it anyone with a science degree on any level?) But fine, lets make it 50% of scientists in the US. The takeaway from that is that the number of religous is MUCH LOWER than in the general population.
T
he general population is like 85% religious. That means that if 100 people go get a science degree, 85 will be religious, and 35 of them will lose their faith on the way to becoming a scientist. That means that if you study science, and you are religious, theres a 40%
chance youll lose your faith along the way. (This doesnt take into account that many of the 15% non-religious are probably already scientists, so the general population number is probably even higher.)

If you make it all the way to the National Academy of Sciences, a whooping 78 out of the 85 will have lost their faith. Thats about as damning for the no-contradiction/conflict-hypothesis as you can get.

Its like arguing that most drunk drivers never actually crash, therefore alcohol-intake does not influence your driving skills.

I've followed long rabbit warrens before on this, so let's start with definitions:
I am arguing from the definition of the following:
Atheist as the belief that there is NOT a God or Gods.
Agnostic as the belief that one does not, or can not know if there are or are not God(s).

From those definitions, non-theist religions would be completely compatible for an Atheist to be party to. If we already are in disagreement then hurray, we likely agree and it's just semantics.

From the above definitions though, my problem arises with claims that any particular belief or non-belief is far more 'special' than the others and it alone provides great benefit X to society. Those kind of bold proclamations have historically always led to fanatical behaviors and tragedy.

I don't recognize Atheism as being linked one way or another to forcing ones beliefs onto others. Plenty of theist religions claim strong prohibitions against forcing their beliefs on others. Atheism though, as you say, is merely a non-belief in God(s) and so said people can equally support or oppose forcing said belief on others. What might that look like? Well, North Korea perhaps if one must request the most extreme of examples. From strict definitions, I'm pretty sure it is accurate to describe the <ahem>Great<ahem> Leader(s) as atheists who have whole heartedly embraced forcing their own beliefs on their people at threat of death or worse. One can rest assured no North Korean is able to publicly be found out with the belief that some being exists that is greater than the Great Leader without grave repercussions.

I don't think he was so much wishing for terrible things as he was wishing for a disparity between non-belief (receiving tons of money) and belief (eating FEMA food rations). Nothing wrong with raising money for an idea that has the added benefit of helping a family out.

You believe in God, I do not believe in God. You can not accurately describe "non-belief" as being the same as "belief".

It's like the difference between the verdict guilty and not guilty. The verdict "not guilty" does not mean the jury believes the person is innocent. It just means there is not enough evidence to believe the person is guilty.


The rest of what you pasted is irrelevant to your statement "there is a God" because even if you could disprove evolution (which you can't), but lets say you did disprove it...that does nothing to prove that God exists.

This is where you have it wrong....it is belief (christian) and non-belief (atheist) not just two different versions of "belief" and a battle over which belief is right.

Most former believers would tell you that these discussions are not "pointless" because it is discussions and debates like this that forced many of us to look at our own religion in a more critical and logical way.

@Boise_Lib

I am sorry if my reply came off as offensive, that was not my intention. I am a stickler about using words correctly, and because debates about belief so often rely on twisting the meaning of words (e.g. "evolution = everything came from nothing"; "omnipotent = yes, but..." etc...), you can understand why it's especially important to know and use words correctly in this domain.

One thing needs to be made absolutely clear, despite it having been repeated ad nauseum: "I don't believe in god(s)" is not the same as "I believe there is/are no god(s)".

This is how Dawkin's describes himself as a "de facto" atheist:
"I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there".

(I would add that the gods most religions describe can be proven to be incoherent, illogically constructed and thus demonstratively impossible, not to mention terribly immoral.)

Let me put the question directly to you: are you agnostic about witches/witchcraft, Boise? This may sound condescending and mocking at first, but think about it: what evidence do you have for the (non-)existence of witches/witchcraft? Compare that evidence to the evidence you have for the (non-)existence of god(s), and you'll see why I say you're an atheist. Of course, it could be that you're agnostic about all forms of the supernatural, another thing entirely. [edit2: changed analogy to a belief that used to be a social norm]

edit: "cowardly" versus "strong/proud" is the wrong opposition to make here, and I am sorry that that is how my argument ended up sounding like. I should have formulated it differently: because it is the social norm (in most countries) to have a religious belief of some sort (or shut up about one's non-belief), most of us have internalised the idea that being atheist is "abnormal" in terms of social norms. Compare it with homosexuality: some gays are more "militant" than others, while many struggle to conform, even criticising those openly and militantly gay. Moreover, many will try to live a heterosexual life (because it's "normal"), or continue questioning/feeling guilty about their sexual orientation. I do not look down on nor mock such people, but do encourage them to confront social norms, as that is the only way they will change. The same goes for being atheist, and comments like @soulmonarch's about so-called "zealot-atheists" are saddening and serve only to solidify the notion that fighting against religious belief and in favour of rational/critical thinking is as bad as what the fundagelicals do, which is downright absurd.

>> ^razzyl:

>> ^bcglorf:
I'm afraid to add this also where I find some Hitchen's arguments to be the weakest. The Christian belief that believers will be sent to heaven and those who don't will go to hell is not some threat against non-belief. It is simply a different belief, and atheists shouldn't find it any more threatening than the shadows in their closet.

If only Christianity was so fluffy and benign. Not sure if the The American Christian Lobbyists Association got that memo. Or the AFA. Or Dominionists. Or Moral Majority Inc. Or The Social Contract - National Religious Lobbying group. Or the hundreds of other Christian based groups that have and will pump millions of dollars into lobbying and political campaigns until every citizen in the US and other countries bends to their beliefs.
Or maybe I'm just being a little cynical...


By that standard nobody is benign. People with a common interest lobbying the government to support their common interest. Shocking.

Christians are among those opposing any so-called christian groups wanting to limit religious freedoms or impose religious beliefs on the people though. Freedom of religion has it origins from christians themselves. Eventually minority protestants, catholics and other smaller sects got tired of being killed off by the other side and agreed that separation of church and state amounted to an appropriate and mutually beneficial 'truce'.

Making out as though all christians are X because some people calling themselves christians are X is a fundamental and very basic logical fallacy.

>> ^bcglorf:

I'm afraid to add this also where I find some Hitchen's arguments to be the weakest. The Christian belief that believers will be sent to heaven and those who don't will go to hell is not some threat against non-belief. It is simply a different belief, and atheists shouldn't find it any more threatening than the shadows in their closet.


If only Christianity was so fluffy and benign. Not sure if the The American Christian Lobbyists Association got that memo. Or the AFA. Or Dominionists. Or Moral Majority Inc. Or The Social Contract - National Religious Lobbying group. Or the hundreds of other Christian based groups that have and will pump millions of dollars into lobbying and political campaigns until every citizen in the US and other countries bends to their beliefs.

Or maybe I'm just being a little cynical...

I'm afraid to add this also where I find some Hitchen's arguments to be the weakest. The Christian belief that believers will be sent to heaven and those who don't will go to hell is not some threat against non-belief. It is simply a different belief, and atheists shouldn't find it any more threatening than the shadows in their closet.

I don't understand the need to choose, as long as religion stays out of science class and the law of the land.

The problem with your equation is time.

Everyday, the folks who take comfort from their religion -- take comfort from their religion. They only need science to help them walk again in extreme situations.

I'll say again what I have said elsewhere, which wasn't responded to at the time....

We evolved with the "need" for religion. It is a selected-for trait.

It is unscientific to think that you can argue a human being out of a trait that has co-evolved over thousands of years.

Keep it rational, folks. Separation of church & state, so that non-theists aren't impinged upon by theists.

Keep up the good work of advertising the existence and rationality of a non-belief in God. There are non-theists, poor children and adults, who feel isolated in deeply religious communities who think that they are alone. Be the It Gets Better Project for atheists in the closet.

Drop the black and white thinking and imposing your point of view on others. It is just as invasive and rude as any evangelical who wants to force their beliefs on you.

Rational. Be rational. It's the rational thing to do.


>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

Do elaborate.
Science helps people walk again. Religion doesn't.
Therefore, science is preferable to religion mainly because good results are better than no results.
To put it another way, tangible solutions > intangible moral support
>> ^SDGundamX:
It's only that simple for simpletons.

I had ZooBooks when I was kid, my gateway drug into science and non-belief

There were more "teach evolution" responses than I was expecting to be honest, but what killed me on the majority of them was the whole "kids need to make their own choices" and things of that nature when it came to evolution. As if kids actually have a choice about evolution. Or gravity. Or germs. It's a grab bag folks, believe what you want! I wish all these "I don't believe in evolution!" people would also exorcise their ability to choose their beliefs by jumping off a ladder to show their non-belief in gravity.

Actually, he is just pointing out that the affirmative position that God doesn't or/and can't exist takes as much of a leap as saying he does exist. In spite of evidence, a positive or negative position isn't rational. Which is why I have always said that the agnostic atheist position (of which I am, so totally no bias) is the most logical. I haven't been presented with a certain case either way, so I am resolved in saying I don't know, and I don't know that I can or can't know. Don't confuse the last part of his statement that non-belief = non-existence. Claims of non-existence are indeed faith biased (if they have no evidence), but a non-belief is a different animal.


I would like to point out, though, his second rung is completely flawed. There is no compelling reason to believe those odds about life being 1 in a trillion. You would need to know several things, like what is the density of life in our universe, under what conditions could that life exist under...but most importantly, and the knife in its face, why life couldn't exist under different circumstances. To answer that last question you would have to know every condition life could happen under...and we don't even know how ours happened really. So that figure is complete horeshit, bad science, bad philosophy, bad reasoning.

There is a second reason it is bad reasoning and that is assumes that life is something intended. There is this great economic theory which I have been using in other places now from called "Spontaneous order". It is exactly what is sounds like. That via a system of random rules and interactions, order seems to derive. So you have this tangle of rule sets in the universe, but it was a mathematical certainty that over time, solar systems would most likely form, that there would be rocks, suns, and planets. It is flawed reason to think life is any different than rocks. Rocks are just as "special" as life, and just as meaningless as the vast emptiness of space. He is begging the question that life is any different from any other of the orders and forces that innately exist in this world. This is a logical fallacy that exist in all intellectual design arguments. Begging the question fallacies are hard to spot when you have an moral position to the topic. The reason is, begging the question fallacies validate. Meaning that if the premises is true, the conclusion is as well...but assuming the premises is true is faith and not logic.

I have realized that in my own intellectual constructions, I haven't used completely sound logical arguments either. As homework, I have self assigned myself the homework of studding and rooting out all the fallacies that exist in my philosophy as it stands. I found a useful tool for this as well, others would be appreciated. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/taxonomy.html

Upvoted this video because it is mostly good with some silly bits that I don't agree with either...but that is far better than par for course on many things of this nature...namely many of the Hitchen's videos on here...his philosophy is so flawed, and damn mean.

>> ^asynchronice:

Could be wrong here, but it seems the seem is to try and flip the burden of proof arguement from:
"There is no good evidence for the existence of god, therefore it is rational to believe there is no god."
to
"There is no good argument for fully disproving the existence of God, therefore there must be a God."
I see what he did there.

Penn is 100% right in all of his language here. It is a very confusing subject, so don't hate on the people that get it wrong, but all his definitions/understandings are correct. For the interested, I am going to spell them all out there explicitly.

Belief: Any cognitive content held as true.
           Everything is a belief.

Atheism: An absence of belief in Deities.
               Atheism can be explicit or implicit.

Theism: The belief in Deities.

Agnosticism: A belief that the belief in, or non-belief in Deities and metaphysical beliefs is unknown/unknowable. In other words, it questions weather is it possible to turn any belief into knowledge.
                     There is both strong and weak form of agnosticism.

Knowledge: This refers to belief. Knowledge is true belief; or to say it backwards, knowledge is belief in something that is true.

Truth: Your fat. No wait, that's not it. It is conformity with fact or the ultimate reality (Your fat, AND lazy).

Implicit Atheism: Is lack of belief in Deities without actively rejecting the idea of Deities. The example would be someone whom has never been exposed to the idea of a Deity. Children could be counted in the ranks (before they are exposed to the idea) as well as people isolated from these ideas, like tribal people, or people incapable of forming that idea.

Explicit Atheism: Rejection of the idea of a Deity. Most atheists you would meet are explicit atheists.

Strong Agnosticism: A belief that the existence or nonexistence of a deity (or deities), and the nature of ultimate reality (truth) is unknowable.
                              
  This is the ultimate skeptical position.

Weak Agnosticism: The belief that the existence or nonexistence of a Deities (or Deities) is currently unknown but is not necessarily unknowable.
                              
 This is opinion; The highest level of skepticism you can have while also being completely rationally consistent (I am a weak agnostic atheist, so totally no bias at all).

Many of these are mix and matchable. You can be an agnostic atheist. You can Be an agnostic theist. You can be a weak agnostic atheist, which are the most sexy and have large reproductive organs. Everything is a belief here, so try not to abuse that word theists. Off to go be verbose somewhere else! And correct me anywhere I made a mistake and I will fix it, it all gets so confusing and I might of mistyped.

>> ^Bidouleroux:

One thing for certain is, that you have a belief that you lack belief in gods. You can't escape having beliefs, everyone has and needs beliefs to survive day to day. Lack of belief in X is the same as not believing in X. Trying to circumvent the argument that atheism is a belief by saying you have no belief is ridiculous. Atheism is not the same as theism precisely because it is a non-belief. The "lack of belief" presented here is a form of noncommittal and could be construed to mean that while you have no belief concerning things generally labelled "gods", you might have beliefs concerning other supernatural entities having certain, but not all characteristics of "gods". Atheism on the other hand clearly rejects anything associated with anything ending in "-theism". It explicitly does not say anything about supernatural entities that are not theistic (for example, ghosts).
Anyway, it is impossible to simply lack belief in something (or, conversely, to simply believe in something). You can lack belief in something's existence, but then it's the same thing as saying you believe it doesn't exist. You can also be of the opinion that it doesn't matter if you believe something exists or not, but then you're only hiding under logic's skirt (i.e. you still believe one way or the other but you won't tell). If that's the argument the video wants to make then it's dumber and more juvenile than a theist.
Of course, you could take the path of saying that "belief" is a useless psychological concept that should be reduced to neurological patterns, but then you're not going to convince anyone except neuroscientists. And we'd still don't know whether you believe theistic entities exist or not. There may be multiple forms of atheism and theism, but you're still going to have to choose where your own belief stands sooner or later because they're fundamentally incompatible sets of worldviews (it's like the axiom of choice: use it or not, or use a stronger or weaker version of it but you can't be in the middle between using it and not using it).


I quite enjoy hiding under the skirt of logic -- she doesn't wear panties.