Maybe I'm too cynical (I think that's the word), but I thought most of them were atheists and just pretending to be religious in order to get votes....

I honestly can't see why an atheist would even want to get involved in politics.

I think Murphy nailed it. It has been my personal experience that people of faith generally distrust people without it, and people need to feel like they can trust their leaders.

You can still live as a Christian without actually being one.

The point I was getting at is that in order to become nominated for a major party you need to have pulled all the right strings, greased all the right palms, made all of the right promises and very much need to proclaim your love of god... In the mucky world of US politics there are two groups that have to be onside for any serious candidate - Business leaders and the Christian right.

The day Ann supports the Dems is the day Hell freezes over.

    

And about Business leaders and the Christian right (both of which are generally for the republicans, by your logic there shouldn't ever be any democratic nominees). McCain hardly has dominate support among either groups. Romney has most successfully courted big business and the Christian right is mostly for Huckabee.  

Just throwing something in here to consider. Especially for those of you who do not live here and only read/hear what your own media tells you...

I hate the fact that other countries portray any conservative as a right wing religeous nut. I know a lot of small business owners who are not religeous at all and are VERY socially liberal, but vote republican for financial reasons.

Is anyone aware that our corporate taxes are the second highest in the world?????? Even socialist countries like Sweden has learned that it only hurts everyone to heavily tax those who create jobs. It has nothing to do with religion.

Business is more straightforward, A democratic president cannot afford to have an anti-business stance in this day and age.

Maybe they will push through more regulations, health and safety, higher taxes etc.. But would never stray far from the centre ground on business and many decisions will be more theatrical than have any real meaning in the boardroom.

I disagree. I think some democratic polices would have huge impacts on boardroom meeting. For example, the push for universal health care with price caps and forced coverage. I think that is going to have more then just a theatrical (do you mean theoretical) effect on the bottom lines of pharmaceutical and insurance companies.  

Hey,



I think there is some truth to what you're saying. I think it's probably necessary to make some promises and consolidate support but I also think that you are kind of exaggerating it.

For example, John McCain is probably going to be the republican nominee. While, I'm sure he has cut some deals I don't think its fair to say that he has "pulled all the right strings and greased all the right palms".

He's repeatedly shoved his thumb into the eye of the republican party establishment. In fact most of the Republican establishment and elites absolutely despise him and would much rather have another candidate. I believe Ann Coulter has recently said that if McCain gets the nomination that she will be campaigning for Clinton.      

And about Business leaders and the Christian right (both of which are generally for the republicans, by your logic there shouldn't ever be any democratic nominees). McCain hardly has dominate support among either groups. Romney has most successfully courted big business and the Christian right is mostly for Huckabee.  

On the democratic side I think it's kind of similar. While it's kind of changing now, in the beginning the Democratic establishment didn't want Obama, Hillary was their girl and I'm sure she's greased a lot more hands and pulled a lot more strings ( she's at least had a lot more time to do it) yet there is still a really good chance that he'll get the nomination.
  
sheepwalker

I remember we discussed this exact issue a while back.

I still contend that religion is inseparable from the office of President (it shouldn't be but it is).

IMO, religion in the US plays a huge part in campaigning and not just in gestures and rhetoric but in justification of policy. Moreso than anywhere else in the (first) world.

As for the question, no (openly) atheist or agnostic president will ever be elected in my life-time. I'm fairly sure about that. Look at the math: right wing christians procreate faster, more and earlier than atheists or seculars.

Why I Am Hostile Toward Religion By Richard Dawkins

Despite my dislike of gladiatorial contests, I seem somehow to have acquired a reputation for pugnacity toward religion. Colleagues who agree that there is no God, who agree that we do not need religion to be moral, and agree that we can explain the roots of religion and of morality in non-religious terms, nevertheless come back at me in gentle puzzlement. Why are you so hostile? What is actually wrong with religion? Does it really do so much harm that we should actively fight against it? Why not live and let live, as one does with Taurus and Scorpio, crystal energy and ley lines? Isn't it all just harmless nonsense?

I might retort that such hostility as I or other atheists occasionally voice toward religion is limited to words. I am not going to bomb anybody, behead them, stone them, burn them at the stake, crucify them, or fly planes into their skyscrapers, just because of a theological disagreement. But my interlocutor usually doesn’t leave it at that. He may go on to say something like this: "Doesn’t your hostility mark you out as a fundamentalist atheist, just as fundamentalist in your own way as the wing nuts of the Bible Belt in theirs?" I need to dispose of this accusation of fundamentalism, for it is distressingly common.

Holy Books vs. Evidence

Fundamentalists know they are right because they have read the truth in a holy book and they know, in advance, that nothing will budge them from their belief. The truth of the holy book is an axiom, not the end product of a process of reasoning. The book is true, and if the evidence seems to contradict it, it is the evidence that must be thrown out, not the book. By contrast, what I, as a scientist, believe (for example, evolution) I believe not because of reading a holy book but because I have studied the evidence. It really is a very different matter. Books about evolution are believed not because they are holy. They are believed because they present overwhelming quantities of mutually buttressed evidence. In principle, any reader can go and check that evidence. When a science book is wrong, somebody eventually discovers the mistake and it is corrected in subsequent books. That conspicuously doesn’t happen with holy books.

Philosophers, especially amateurs with a little philosophical learning, and even more especially those infected with "cultural relativism," may raise a tiresome red herring at this point a scientists belief in evidence is itself a matter of fundamentalist faith. I have dealt with this elsewhere, and will only briefly repeat myself here. All of us believe in evidence in our own lives, whatever we may profess with our amateur philosophical hats on.

*******

I am no more fundamentalist when I say evolution is true than when I say it is true that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere. We believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it. No real fundamentalist would ever say anything like that.

It is all too easy to confuse fundamentalism with passion. I may well appear passionate when I defend evolution against a fundamentalist creationist, but this is not because of a rival fundamentalism of my own. It is because the evidence for evolution is overwhelmingly strong and I am passionately distressed that my opponent can't see it--or, more usually, refuses to look at it because it contradicts his holy book. My passion is increased when I think about how much the poor fundamentalists, and those whom they influence, are missing. The truths of evolution, along with many other scientific truths, are so engrossingly fascinating and beautiful; how truly tragic to die having missed out on all that! Of course that makes me passionate. How could it not? But my belief in evolution is not fundamentalism, and it is not faith, because I know what it would take to change my mind, and I would gladly do so if the necessary evidence were forthcoming.


It does happen. I have previously told the story of a respected elder statesman of the Zoology Department at Oxford when I was an undergraduate. For years he had passionately believed, and taught, that the Golgi Apparatus (a microscopic feature of the interior of cells) was not real: an artifact, an illusion. Every Monday afternoon it was the custom for the whole department to listen to a research talk by a visiting lecturer. One Monday, the visitor was an American cell biologist who presented completely convincing evidence that the Golgi Apparatus was real. At the end of the lecture, the old man strode to the front of the hall, shook the American by the hand and said--with passion--"My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years." We clapped our hands red. No fundamentalist would ever say that. In practice, not all scientists would. But all scientists pay lip service to it as an ideal--unlike, say, politicians who would probably condemn it as flip-flopping. The memory of the incident I have described still brings a lump to my throat.

Fundamentalist Religion Saps the Intellect

As a scientist, I am hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. It teaches us not to change our minds, and not to want to know exciting things that are available to be known. It subverts science and saps the intellect. The saddest example I know is that of the American geologist Kurt Wise, who now directs the Centre for Origins Research at Bryan College, Dayton, Tennessee. It is no accident that Bryan College is named after William Jennings Bryan, prosecutor of the science teacher John Scopes in the Dayton "Monkey Trial" of 1923. Wise could have fulfilled his boyhood ambition to become a professor of geology at a real university, a university whose motto might have been "Think critically" rather than the oxymoronic one displayed on the Bryan website: "Think critically and biblically." Indeed, he obtained a real degree in geology at the University of Chicago, followed by two higher degrees in geology and palaeontology at Harvard (no less) where he studied under Stephen Jay Gould (no less). He was a highly qualified and genuinely promising young scientist, well on his way to achieving his dream of teaching science and doing research at a proper university.

Then tragedy struck. It came, not from outside but from within his own mind, a mind fatally subverted and weakened by a fundamentalist religious upbringing that required him to believe that the Earth--the subject of his Chicago and Harvard geological education--was less than ten thousand years old. He was too intelligent not to recognize the head-on collision between his religion and his science, and the conflict in his mind made him increasingly uneasy. One day, he could hear the strain no more, and he clinched the matter with a pair of scissors. He took a bible and went right through it, literally cutting out every verse that would have to go if the scientific world-view were true. At the end of this ruthlessly honest labor-intensive exercise, there was so little left of his bible that try as I might, and even with the benefit of intact margins throughout the pages of Scripture, I found it impossible pick up the Bible without it being rent in two. I had to make a decision between evolution and Scripture. Either the Scripture was true and evolution was wrong or evolution was true and I must toss out the Bible . . . It was there that night that I accepted the Word of God and rejected all that would ever counter it, including evolution. With that, in great sorrow, I tossed into the fire all my dreams and hopes in science.

I find that terribly sad; but whereas the Golgi Apparatus moved me to tears of admiration and exultation, the Kurt Wise story is just plain pathetic--pathetic and contemptible. The wound, to his career and his life’s happiness, was self-inflicted, so unnecessary, so easy to escape. All he had to do was toss out the bible. Or interpret it symbolically, or allegorically, as the theologians do. Instead, he did the fundamentalist thing and tossed out evidence and reason, along with all his dreams and hopes.
Perhaps uniquely among fundamentalists, Kurt Wise is honest--devastatingly, painfully, shockingly honest. Give him the Templeton Prize; he might be the first really sincere recipient. Wise brings to the surface what is secretly going on underneath, in the minds of fundamentalists generally, when they encounter scientific evidence that contradicts their beliefs.

The Doublethink of Religious Faith

Poor Kurt Wise reminds me more of Winston Smith in 1984  struggling desperately to believe that two plus two equals five if Big Brother says it does. Winston, however, was being tortured. Wise's doublethink comes not from the imperative of physical torture but from the imperative--apparently just as undeniable to some people--of religious faith: arguably a form of mental torture. I am hostile to religion because of what it did to Kurt Wise. And if it did that to a Harvard-educated geologist, just think what it can do to others less gifted and less well armed.

Fundamentalist religion is hell-bent on ruining the scientific education of countless thousands of innocent, well-meaning, eager young minds. Non-fundamentalist, "sensible" religion may not be doing that. But it is making the world safe for fundamentalism by teaching children, from their earliest years, that unquestioning faith is a virtue.

What do you mean by separated? I don't think it's possible to have a religious person serve as president and completely cut that part of themselves off. Nor do I think they should. Religion is their source of morality and I think morality should inform their leadership. Just like I think an atheist who's source of morality is some sort of humanist tradition should be informed by that.

I agree that it plays a bigger part here then anywhere else in the first world. The part I kind of object to is the justification of policy part. Any serious politician that is making a decision informed by his religion usually also has secular arguments to go with it. If they didn't it usually isn't going to work in the current political landscape. (There are a lot of people that are pretty into a strict understanding of separation of church and state.)

Yeah the breeding part is true. But if that's the case, how do you explain away that we are less religious now then we were 50 years ago. Has there been a mass migration of atheists and secularist to the US?

The part I don't think you're considering is that some of our institutions really persuade people towards secularism and atheism. I also think in recent years that atheists have become more militant and I sure that will gain them some more converts.

sheepwalker      

In the context of this discussion I mean that a the white house goes hand in hand with a person of faith.

What about Gay marriage?

But is that so? What about the evangelical revival in the 80's? the moral majority and such? I'm not sure the US is less religious now than 50 years ago.  At least it's a different kind of religious. So we should define our terms, what do you mean by "less religious"? I'd argue religion plays a bigger part in forging the American foreign policy now then in the 50's.

Religion in some states have been taken out of the schools, so definitely some states enforce a less religious agenda, but other react to that and go the other way.

Yeah, that might be a possible exception. There's enough opposition outside of the evangelical community that no one really presses them on it. That said, the religious right does have secular arguments against it. Some of the things I've heard are:

1. It will open loop holes that non-homosexuals same sex couples will exploit for tax reasons(I and a close same sex friend of mine have agreed to marry one another if it or civil unions ever get passed. At least until we earn more. That and we're very, very close )

2. Same Sex marriages don't deserve the same amount of benefits and validation as heterosexual marriages because they don't contribute as much to society(because they don't produce children/ children raised by them don't have both a male and female parent to model, the reasoning being that with both to model the children will be enriched I guess)

3. It's not discriminatory because homosexual can marry any man(if they are a woman) or any woman(if they are a man) and that the society reserves the right to prohibit just any two people from marrying. (i.e. Dads can't marry daughters)  

I'm sure there are more, but the point is that usually arguing against something just because it says not to in the bible usually isn't going to fly.

I just wanted to point out your "the religious have more kids so society is also going to be very religious" thing didn't quite flush out.

So, to make that point I'll drop the 50 years ago thing. Let's go back 200 years when I don't think you can argue that we were less religious. By your logic, if back then, lets just say that (conservatively) 90% of people were religious, then now around 90%  of Americans should be religious because all their kids should be religious(math is super glossed over but you see what I mean right?).

I don't want to argue whether or not we have grown more or less religious in the past 20 years.

There is some of that ,yes, but I think you have to admit that there are many more schools and Universities that have the "less religion" agenda then the small private schools that have the more religion.

I'm not even religious and I've noticed some blatant hostility towards religion coming out of my professors, and in some cases, in that environment where it's close to being seen as a unenlightened if you don't reject religion, I think its understandable how people come out of it less religious. ... That and the emphasis on evidence and clear thought.

Well, I must fly. Tom Brady and Petty beckon me.

sheepwalker  

But how is that different from heterosexual couples marrying for tax reasons or to fool INS? Seems like a very make-shift argument to me, that's covering over the real reason.

Again, foolish argument.

That's like saying segragation isn't discriminatory because black people can marry any black man/woman and society reserves the right to prohibit just any two people from marrying.

Like I said, I think these are arguments designed to appeal to non-religious traditionalists, but it looks very clear to me that the arguments themselves aren't founded in rationality.

But the emphasis on empirical theory is an operational moral and doesn't inherently negate religion, it just negates flimsy evidence that some creationists teach. If God came down and showed himself to us, empirical theory would accept evidence of God.

Empirical theory should be taught exactly because it is operational as opposed to absolute. Those theories who already know the answer and set out to figure out how are inferior in a scholastic debate.

   When it came to overall voting intentions, this resulted in an ultra-landslide to the Democrats giving them 75 per cent of the primary vote to the Republicans' 14 per cent. Democrat support was stronger among women, and peaked among voters 55-64 years of age. It was weakest with the youngest and oldest voters.

Democrat Total
Barack Obama 54%
Hillary Clinton 33%
John Edwards 7%
Unsure 6%
Grand Total 100%

Republican Total
John McCain 48%
Mike Huckabee 6%
Mitt Romney 6%
Ron Paul 6%
Rudolph Giuliani 11%
Unsure 24%
Grand Total 100%

There is a great deal of misunderstanding about Atheism. Atheism doesn't mean there can't be any deities, it only means that there isn't enough evidence to support the hypothesis.

Most of America's founders were almost certainly either Atheists or Deists. I am personally an Atheist. I was raised in a very devout Christian family and I can tell you from experience that it's a long hard road to go from Christian believer to someone who demands evidence to substantiate a view. It was very painful for me to face the overwhelming probability that no deities exist.

For many years after I began to arrive at the conclusion that there simply isn't enough evidence to support the existence of any deity, Zeus or otherwise, I still kept my Atheism hidden for fear of retribution. When my views were first published in a local paper in Kentucky where I'm originally from, I came home to a full answering machine. Within a couple of days, I was receiving cards and letters.

Some of course were to call me the devil or satanic or whatever. Some were more polite and offered prayers (which have been demonstrated scientifically to be ineffective by the way). But most were from people who questioned their faith. They told me of how they wanted to question religion more but were afraid.

It's tough to be an Atheist. No doubt about it. Statistics do show Atheists are the least trusted segment of society. Much of that is due to cultural influence and demonizing propaganda from religious organizations. (For example, there is still a persistent lie that there are no Atheists in foxholes despite that I personally know several.)

Nonetheless, more and more people are building the courage to stand up and speak their minds despite cultural pressure and an almost constant stream of misrepresentation of facts and science from religious organizations.

Statistics also show the average American has never read the Bible. Essentially, the average American places absolute faith in a book written thousands of years ago, hundreds of years after events described, by unknown authors, translated innumerable times, sometimes by known fraudsters, and that they've never even read!

Can an Atheist ever be president? I think Atheists already have been. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, all had less than flattering words to say about Christianity. There is a good chance they simply couldn't come right out with it in the climate of their time. In the future, it's almost certain that Atheists will be more forthright with their views.


Breanne

Hi, Breanne

Sounds like a tough thing you did, especially with your background and all, so good on you for questioning things. However, I was curious about your definition of atheism? Most lexical definitions I know, like Merriam-webster, cambridge, Oxford and the likes, offer this definition:

: one who believes that there is no deity

Or at least implicitly one who has weighed the evidence and believes there is no deity. The notion of God's existence being unprovable sounds like agnosticism to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism

"Agnostics claim either that it is not possible to have absolute or certain knowledge of the existence of God or gods; or, alternatively, that while individual certainty may be possible, they personally have no knowledge."

But the American founding fathers were not atheists, to my knowledge. Jefferson was a skeptical deist, or as it has been conined in recent years a "de-mystified" Christian.

For instance check out his "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" published in 1803.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

"The Jefferson Bible, or The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth as it is formally titled, was an attempt by Thomas Jefferson to glean the teachings of Jesus from the Christian Gospels. Jefferson wished to extract the doctrine of Jesus by removing sections of the New Testament containing supernatural aspects as well as perceived misinterpretations he believed had been added by the Four Evangelists.[1] In essence, Thomas Jefferson did not believe in Jesus' divinity, the Trinity, the resurrection, miracles, or any other supernatural aspect described in the Bible.[2]"

Hi Death Monkey,

Please let me clarify; I’m an Atheist because, based on evidence, there isn’t any to support the existence of any deity. I do not know that the existence of a deity is not provable, only that it hasn’t even been evidenced.

I do not agree with the agnostic view that a conclusion cannot be drawn due to lack of evidence. I believe the lack of evidence speaks volumes. In thousands of years of human existence, much of it devoted to corroborating god’s existence, not a shred of evidence corroborates the hypothesis that our species was created by some humanoid deity. Quite the opposite.

Most facts of our world are in fact overwhelming probability. There is an overwhelming probability that if someone jumps off the Empire State Building, he or she will fall to the earth. It can’t be known with absolute certainty but it is so overwhelming of a probability that for all practical purposes, it’s a fact. Very little outside of strictly confined circumstances can be known with absolute certainty unless everything there is to know is known.

As a species, the only logical way to proceed is by the evidence. The existence of any deity is painfully devoid of evidence and the overwhelming probability is that there are no deities.

Should evidence arise to change that fact, I would be more than willing to correct my view accordingly. Being willing to reevaluate one’s views in light of new evidence isn’t the same thing as remaining “indefinitely indifferent,” which is how I perceive the agnostic view.

About America’s founders; a Deist is about as close to an Atheist as one could publicly pronounce oneself to be at the time - with the sole exception of a “skeptical deist,” which is a term I’d never heard of. Looking back, our nation’s founders made some bold statements that demonstrated a disdain for religion. If people were to cherry pick my statements throughout my life, they could just as easily make a case that I was a devout Christian. The truth would have been that I was raised Christian, had it ingrained into my psyche from childhood, and deduced, quite on my own, that it was all a lot of nonsense, and abandoned it for reason.

America’s founders would never have been able to forge our nation had they publicly proclaimed themselves Atheists. As Deists, they had a chance. One thing is certain, America was not founded on Christianity as so many Christians claim. Throughout our nation’s most sacred documents, the word God is found peppered generically. But the words Jesus, bible and Christianity are blaringly absent. Once again, absence speaks volumes.

Lack of evidence can't disprove the existence of something. We have currently absolutely no evidence of the existence of three-headed unicorns, but that doesn't mean that they can't exist somewhere in the universe. It just means we don't have evidence of that.

I don't think it's not completely accurate to say that the overwhelming probability suggests that there are no deities. First define you terms, how you define a deity? Many people would argue that the existence of matter, the fact that something MUST have created the universe, and nothing can come from nothing points to design. That something must've started it all, something that "thought out" the rules of chemistry, particles, laws of dynamics and so forth. It's highly improbable that something arises out of nothing. However the flipside of that argument is of course that if there is a creator, then who created him?

I still think it's slightly inaccurate to apply to label "atheist" as a shorthand for being skeptical of the data to support God's existence. What do you base your definition on?

Right, but there is a distinction between cherrypicking and then looking at actual published works throughout their lives. These are not idle musings, these are readily prepared political, philosophical and moral treaties designed to enlight the debate at the time. I don't think it's unfair take them at face-value, unless there are jarring inconsistencies (as in your case). What are some of the bold statements you feel refelect a disdain for Christianity, or a distinctively atheist philosophy?

One cannot disprove the existence of something that does not exist. That’s why when someone claims the existence of something for which there is no evidence, it’s the responsibility of the claimant to provide evidence. In other words, it’s not my responsibility to disprove god; it’s the responsibility of believers to provide evidence that a deity exists, as well as evidence that it’s their particular deity as opposed to something else.

If a deity can have just always existed, then so can matter and energy. If a deity can “come from nothing,” then so could matter and energy. If all things must have been created, then the deity must have been created. In any case, there is a more viable and evidentiary explanation for the origin of the universe that is devoid of god than that some deity created everything like a child playing make-believe.

And all this, mind you, is only addressing the improbable existence of a deity. This isn’t speaking at all as to WHICH deity it might be of the hundreds of gods that have been worshipped throughout history. If something willfully and deliberately instigated the formation of our universe, there is nothing to say it wasn’t aliens or something else as yet even conceived of.

First Creationists have to provide tangible testable evidence that any deity exists at all before we can begin discussing the nature of that entity. On top of that, there are in every religion questionable facts in their doctrines to demonstrate that they are overwhelmingly probably the product of human invention.

I’m not skeptical of the data to support god’s existence. There isn’t any...

I could probably write a book of quotes but I’ll list just a few:

[...]

These are just a few of many. There’s no point in going on. What’s clear here is that these men at this time believed in some sort of guiding principal - however abstract - but rejected religion quite utterly and believed strongly that religion had no place in the formation of our nation or government.

There’s no sense in debating their personal views on god specifically as it’s quite apparent they concentrated all their firepower on undermining Christianity, which one even referred to as a heresy. Any comments on their personal views is really just speculation...

That's semantics. Clearly evidence has been put forth, you just don't accept it as evidence of God. Incidentally neither do I, but it's still there.

However it begs the question whether or not a diety cannot be just an ordered flux of bits of information that make up the universe,…

Then what created matter and energy?

Well, it goes without saying that something must've created matter and energy (unless it always existed). And whatever created matter and eneergy must've been created by something too. And so on.

Most scientists agree there are patterns, laws and order in nature. Chemicals react and atoms behave in certain ways. Why? The fact that there are laws of physics and nature, suggests, some would say, that they were thought out. Or they could just be completely random as you say. Either way it's speculation so far.

Your argument seems to be that if Christians are allowed to belive in wish-wash then so are you. But does that make it any less nonsensical?

Shouldn't you as an skeptical atheist, by deiniftion, subject yourself to more scientific standards than those you accuse of fairytale logic? It seems sort of reactionary, like saying "if they believe the world was created in 6 days, then I believe puppies can fly!" ?

But that's circular logic. Aliens would be part of the same universe they created. Doesn't solve anything. And how come you can conceive of Aliens creating the universe but not God when the evidence supports neither?

Here's where I think we disconnect. I'm not talking about whether or not God actually exists. I'm talking about whether or not it would be possible that God could exist. I find it very hard to talk about providing proof within our perception of the world, to counter the possibility of the existence of an entitiy that would subsequently exist outside of it.

Mind you there are plenty of things whose existence cannot be proven. "Hope" for instance. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist..

You come off as quite uninterested in actually examining the evidence. You assert the 'obvious' legitimacy of your position with fragmented quotes, but the fact of the matter is that it IS up to debate. If you wanna talk about empircal study then you can't just look at one side and assert it's pointless to look at the other. That kind of arrogance is as senseless as creationists arguing that the founding father OBVIOUSLY were die-hard Christians.

This conversation is turning out be too long and may spiral out of control soon. Sorry. It happens for me some times. Just ask Sheepwalker.

I’m sorry but it doesn’t go without saying that something must have created matter and energy. For all we know, it always existed.

We don’t know where matter and energy came from.

But when people claim a supernatural being imposes itself into the physical world by claiming to see, hear, or feel it - or that it created the physical universe, then that deity has crossed the line of the supernatural and entered the realm of science - where it has placed itself into the position of being examined and scrutinized.

If a deity indeed has manifested in the physical realm, then it should have left evidence.

Sometimes it causes people to think they see things that aren’t there.

Too often theists will try to place atheism and theism on the same plane by arguing a particular equivalency: theists cannot prove that god does exist and atheists cannot prove that god does not exist. Frequently this comes after the theist's attempts at proof have failed and a new tactic is required.

Just frequently, this is used as a basis for arguing that there is no objective means for determining which is preferable because neither has a logical or empirical advantage over the other. Thus, the only reason for going with one or the other is something like faith and then, presumably, the theist will argue that their faith is somehow better than the atheist's faith.

Unfortunately, the above claim is more often false than true. It relies upon the erroneous assumption that all propositions are created equal and, because some cannot be conclusively disproven, then therefore none can be conclusively disproven. So, it is argued, the proposition "God exists" cannot be disproven.

But not all propositions are created equal. It is indeed true that some cannot really be disproven - for example, the claim "a black swan exists" cannot be disproven. To do so would require examining every spot in the universe to make sure that such a swan did not exist, and that simply isn't possible.

Other propositions, however, can be disproven - and quite conclusively. There are two ways to do this. The first is to see if the proposition leads to a logical contradiction; if this is so, then the proposition must be false. Examples of this would be "a married bachelor exists" or "a square circle exists." Both of these proposition entail logical contradictions - pointing this out is essentially the same as disproving them.

Similarly, if someone claims the existence of a god, the existence of which entails logical contradictions, then that god can be disproven in the exact same way. Many atheological arguments are based upon exactly that - for example they argue that an omnipotent and omniscient god cannot exist because those qualities lead to logical contradictions.

Another means of disproving propositions is a bit more complicated - it involves careful observation and testing. Consider the following two propositions:

1. Our solar system has a tenth planet.
2. Our solar system has a tenth planet with a mass of X and an orbit of Y.

Both proposition can be proven, but there is a difference when it comes to disproving them. The first could be disproven in theory if someone were to examine all of the space between the sun and the outer limits of our solar system and they found no new planets - but such a process is beyond our technology. So, for all practical purposes, it is currently not disprovable.

The second proposition, however, is disprovable with current technology. Knowing the important and specific information of mass and orbit, we can devise specific tests to look and see if such an object exists. If the tests repeatedly fail, then we can reasonably conclude that the object does not exist and that the proposition has been disproven. Note that this would not mean that no tenth planet exists. Instead, it simply means that this particular tenth planet, with this mass and this orbit, does not exist.

Similarly, when a god is defined adequately, it can be possible to construct empirical or logical tests to see if it can exist. We can look, for example, at the expected effects which such a god might have on nature or humanity. If we fail to find those effects, then that god with that set of characteristics does not exist. Some other god with some other set of characteristics may exist, but this one has been disproven.

An example of this would be the common Argument from Evil - an atheological argument which proposes to prove that an omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent god cannot exist at the same time as a world like ours which has so much evil in it. If successful, such an argument would not disprove the existence of some other god; it would instead merely disprove the existence of any gods with a particular set of characteristics.

Thus, it is possible to prove that a god does not exist - but obviously this depends upon getting an adequate description of just what this god is and what characteristics it has. We need that in order to determine either if there is a logical contradiction or if any testable implications hold true. What happens when we don't get an adequate description?

Well, obviously atheists cannot prove that it does not exist and theists cannot prove that it does exist. However, in such a case believers have abandoned too much in the attempt to find a god which is immune to disproof. Without a substantive explanation of just what this god is, how can there be a substantive claim that this god is? In order to reasonably claim that this god matters, the believer will have to provide substantive information regarding its nature and characteristics; otherwise, there is no particular reason for anyone else to care.

It should also be noted that arguing about how atheists "cannot prove that God does not exist" often relies upon a misunderstanding about atheism itself. It seems to be generally predicated upon the assumption that the atheist claims "God does not exist" and so should be expected to prove that. It should be pointed out to the theist in such cases that atheists merely fail to accept that their claim that "God exists" and, hence, the initial burden of proof lies with the believer.

If the believer is unable to provide good reason to accept the existence of this god, it is unreasonable to expect the atheist to try and construct a proof that it does not exist - or even care very much about the claim in the first place. Such an expectation is only reasonable when the atheist in question has specifically claimed that this or that god does not or cannot exist.

If you mean this as in it didn’t willfully create the universe by design, then no it cannot be a deity by the above definition.



There’s no evidence it was created by anything.



I’m sorry but it doesn’t go without saying that something must have created matter and energy. For all we know, it always existed. We don’t know where matter and energy came from. What we know is that the properties of matter and energy brought about the chain of events that eventually led to the existence of our species.

I never said anything about randomness. But the origin of our universe isn’t all speculation. We know that matter and energy brought about our universe. Just because we don’t know how long it existed prior to that doesn’t mean we don’t know anything about it at all.

The properties of chemicals don’t suggest they were thought out at all. Neither do patterns suggest design. Just because people have a natural tendency to seek patterns doesn’t mean patterns are evidence of design. Sometimes it causes people to think they see things that aren’t there.

Not at all and this is a complete misrepresentation of my view. I base my views on evidence - the same scientific process that’s responsible for all human advancement in the whole of history. The religious view is based on blind faith, which opens the door to every human delusion to be given the same credence as scientific fact.

Again, this is misrepresentative. And no, I shouldn’t subject myself to more scientific standards. We should all subject our views to scientific methodology.

I can conceive of just about anything. Only notions that are supported by evidence should be pursued; otherwise people are squandering the advancement of our species.

If believers in deities had faith that their deity only existed in some supernatural realm, I wouldn’t care what fantasy world they lived in. But when people claim a supernatural being imposes itself into the physical world by claiming to see, hear, or feel it - or that it created the physical universe, then that deity has crossed the line of the supernatural and entered the realm of science - where it has placed itself into the position of being examined and scrutinized. If a deity indeed has manifested in the physical realm, then it should have left evidence. There is none.

First off, I don’t require proof; only evidence. Secondly, although hope cannot be held in the hand, it’s a very real and examinable phenomenon. Much of our knowledge of the cosmos isn’t based on first hand experience - or proof for that matter. It’s based on evidence - the same thing all our scientific knowledge is based on.

Hey,



It's true; he likes to argue, this one; he's like a mystical long argument/writing monkey (strung out on crazy meth that makes him write long counter arguments) that is payed in long vowels to produce posts that if recited would last a great duration, while rocking out to November Rain.

That's a ridiculous amount of research(for a forum debate) on the religious views of the founding fathers btw. Did you take a class on faith in the founding of America or something? To prime yourself for a conversion to America(not just a country, a state of mind), I hope. Anyway, impressive.

sheepwalker    

Chris, that’s a very good article. Thank you so much for posting it.


Breanne

What tangible and testable evidence is there that hope exists?

Could someone who wasn't Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or not apart of any other belief ever be put into office.

Another means of disproving propositions is a bit more complicated - it involves careful observation and testing. Consider the following two propositions:

1. Our solar system has a tenth planet.
2. Our solar system has a tenth planet with a mass of X and an orbit of Y.

Both proposition can be proven, but there is a difference when it comes to disproving them. The first could be disproven in theory if someone were to examine all of the space between the sun and the outer limits of our solar system and they found no new planets - but such a process is beyond our technology. So, for all practical purposes, it is currently not disprovable.

The second proposition, however, is disprovable with current technology. Knowing the important and specific information of mass and orbit, we can devise specific tests to look and see if such an object exists. If the tests repeatedly fail, then we can reasonably conclude that the object does not exist and that the proposition has been disproven. Note that this would not mean that no tenth planet exists. Instead, it simply means that this particular tenth planet, with this mass and this orbit, does not exist.

I hope you guys wrap this up soon....and I can prove it.

Hi, Brea -- nice to know you are still floating around out there.