Do atheists have any evidence to support their beliefs?

[Eudaimonist]

That goes to the prove you even exist argument, how do you know your not a figment of someone's imagination ? First you must prove your existence. Your "evidence" is falsifiable. Until we know that YOU exist or that anything exists then nothing truly exists. You could be a giant spaghetti monster in the sky.

I personally am not such an extreme philosophical skeptic. Indeed, I'm only a scientific skeptic, which is something quite different. I am perfectly willing to accept that you exist as a real human being.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[cfyahoo08]

I personally am not such an extreme philosophical skeptic. Indeed, I'm only a scientific skeptic, which is something quite different. I am perfectly willing to accept that you exist as a real human being.







eudaimonia,

Mark

I am scientific skeptic also , though I'd just throw that out there for fun, most of it can be a very wonderful blessing to mankind and has produced some very wonderful things, is pretty good overall depending on the use AND application, not so good when it is influenced too much by those paying for the research or when objectivity is thrown out the window or bias creeps in. Check out the one of the latest new / OLD ideas in science i.e. C.S. Science is cool stuff.

 

[Holoman]

SHow me a 5 then.

They don't need to exist as abstract objects.

Did you not read that? I'm not a platonist

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Yes. The lack of evidence for gods. Also, the need for believers to ask questions like this rather than just present some.

Lack of evidence depends on your presuppositions and interpretations of reality. You probably mean lack of scientific evidence, but for example a Christian, Jew or Muslim may pray and regard a resulting feeling as the effect of the Holy Spirit, or of Gods presence, or some form of gnosis. That acts as evidence within a paradigm. You may not like this, and claim it doesn't prove anything, but nobody here has access to the absolute truth.

Truth therefore is relative, if we have any at all. And so, because its relative, you cant logically claim science absolutely disproves this or that faith eg the claim in hand, that feelings indicate religious truths unto believers. That's why I am a pluralist, each has their own claim to truth in matters of faith...

Until God comes along. Any takers?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

They would not be addressed by it. (But maybe I didn´t understand your question...?)

I mean behaviourally a Muslim goes to a mosque, a Jew to a synagogue etc. but a strong and a weak atheist? Well, they probably have similar behaviour even thought they have different epistemic attitudes (or, if you change from one to the other).

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Good on you for believing this, but the reality is that it is true because we see it happening.

"Reality"? Well it cant be that common-sensical, known by all, and known to be known by all. So what is reality?

For instance even if aboriginies were wrong in thinking dreamtime was more real that the waking world, but they didn't know it to be obvious. And science if far from common-sensical also, in that its not obvious to all.


Meaning, the atheistic-scientific version reality cant be so well known, and patently obvious, as you imagine it to be.

Atheists with an over active imagination. Now, there is a claim???

So, if I know you youll now switch focus and appeal to the uses of science. But what about the uses of faith?

If scientific uses prove something about science, what about faiths uses? Eg keeping people out of harms way, for instance.

 

[Holoman]

Truth therefore is relative, if we have any at all. ?

Is that true? Just for you or everyone?
You get my point, relative truth is self defeating.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I never said that science was the only rational thing.

People were rational the instant that the first caveman said, "Ug was hit on head with club. Ug say Thag do it, but thag on mammoth hunt with me when Ug get hit. Thag not do it! Ug lie!"

But you previously said:

"No, I am saying that I have not found any method of investigation of our universe other than science which uses rational means."

Here:

https://www.christianforums.com/thr...t-their-beliefs.7550699/page-43#post-72972705

 

[quatona]

I mean behaviourally a Muslim goes to a mosque, a Jew to a synagogue etc. but a strong and a weak atheist? Well, they probably have similar behaviour even thought they have different epistemic attitudes (or, if you change from one to the other).

(Yesterday night I attended a two and a half hours service and sermon at a charismatic church. Well, I thoroughly regret it, though.)
But what does any of this have to do with "justifying beliefs" (the topic of this thread)?

 

[Kylie]

Did you not read that? I'm not a platonist

If they don't exist as abstract constructs, then do they exist in reality?

 

[Kylie]

Lack of evidence depends on your presuppositions and interpretations of reality. You probably mean lack of scientific evidence, but for example a Christian, Jew or Muslim may pray and regard a resulting feeling as the effect of the Holy Spirit, or of Gods presence, or some form of gnosis. That acts as evidence within a paradigm. You may not like this, and claim it doesn't prove anything, but nobody here has access to the absolute truth.

Truth therefore is relative, if we have any at all. And so, because its relative, you cant logically claim science absolutely disproves this or that faith eg the claim in hand, that feelings indicate religious truths unto believers. That's why I am a pluralist, each has their own claim to truth in matters of faith...

Until God comes along. Any takers?

Feeling something that is attributed to being the holy spirit or some other deity and then claiming that this is evidence isn't really very good evidence, is it?

Do you think that people who feel the presence of Ganesh after they pray counts as evidence that Ganesh is real?

 

[Kylie]

But you previously said:

"No, I am saying that I have not found any method of investigation of our universe other than science which uses rational means."

Here:

https://www.christianforums.com/thr...t-their-beliefs.7550699/page-43#post-72972705

There are things other than investigation of the universe which can use rationality...

Mathematics, for example.

You could also argue that philosophy is rational (though I don't know how far I would argue that point).

 

[Holoman]

If they don't exist as abstract constructs, then do they exist in reality?

As I said, I'm not a platonist. Numbers are abstract objects, they do not exist yet give us knowledge of the real world.

 

[KCfromNC]

It's been many years since my Maths study but there are different types of geometry. Parallelism is an axiom of Euclidean geometry which means it's an assumption, not a conclusion. When dropped, that leads to the other weird types of geometry.

So is the normal geometry a fact, or the weird types? Or both contradictory types at once?

 

[KCfromNC]

Lack of evidence depends on your presuppositions and interpretations of reality. You probably mean lack of scientific evidence, but for example a Christian, Jew or Muslim may pray and regard a resulting feeling as the effect of the Holy Spirit, or of Gods presence, or some form of gnosis.

Maybe, but even you don't accept those since you're not simultaneously a Christian, Jew and Muslim.

Can you present any evidence you actually believe in?

Truth therefore is relative, if we have any at all. And so, because its relative, you cant logically claim science absolutely disproves this or that faith eg the claim in hand, that feelings indicate religious truths unto believers. That's why I am a pluralist, each has their own claim to truth in matters of faith...

Until God comes along. Any takers?

Yeah, these are the kinds of excuses that I was talking about that serve as part of the evidence that there's no good reason to believe in gods.

 

[KCfromNC]

Meaning, the atheistic-scientific version reality cant be so well known, and patently obvious, as you imagine it to be.

Never said it was obvious, just that evolution was an observed fact.

So, if I know you youll now switch focus and appeal to the uses of science. But what about the uses of faith?

If scientific uses prove something about science, what about faiths uses? Eg keeping people out of harms way, for instance.

I don't know, what about it?

 

[Kylie]

As I said, I'm not a platonist. Numbers are abstract objects, they do not exist yet give us knowledge of the real world.

So you expect that science, a tool that tells us about the real world, things that exist, is going to tell us about numbers?

 

[Holoman]

So is the normal geometry a fact, or the weird types? Or both contradictory types at once?

? They are all facts based on axioms.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Are you saying we can't know facts because they are based on unprovable axioms? Because that dispenses with all scientific knowledge.

 

[Holoman]

So you expect that science, a tool that tells us about the real world, things that exist, is going to tell us about numbers?

No. You asked what facts are there outside the scientific method and I gave you a whole field of knowledge.

 

[Abraxos]

Do atheists have any evidence to support their beliefs?

None.