Do you think evolution is a religion? why or why not?

[No gods]

Originally posted by What is a Darwin?
I think most people will agree that creationism is religion enforced by scientific theory. I also think thatevolutionism is scientific theory held up mainly by religion. what do you think?

So, is Christianity or Creationism your religion? Do you worship creationism the way you claim evolutionists worship evolution? Is your belief in creationism a false idol you worship?

 

[notto]

Originally posted by Rising Tree
And notto, that number is dying. The evidence for creation which has been supressed for decades is at last coming to light.

Science is resolved in the lab, not in the voting booth.

There has been no change in the acceptance of evolutionary theory by those that study it, use it to make predictions that fight disease and solve other problems, and have the knowledge to evaluate the evidence.

Please show me one peer reviewed, scientific paper that shows suppressed evidence. Please show me one published biologist who has changed his mind on evolution. Please show me any new facts or predictions that have come out of Creation "research". What new evidence does this theory offer. What is the theory.

What is the independent line of evidence that will throw out over 100 years of research that has lead 99.9% of scientists to accept evolution as a fact and the theory of evolution as its explanation?

Please, poking holes in evolutionary theory will not make creationism any more true.

It was falsified long ago based on geology and before the main line of evidence that supports evolutionary theory (DNA) was even discovered.

 

[Rae]

There are no churches of Evolution.

There is no dogma of Evolution.

There is no afterlife theory in Evolution.

There is no theory about God or no-God in Evolution.

There are no holidays dedicated to Evolution.

There are no people who, when asked their religion, reply, "I'm an Evolutionist."

There are no sacred sites that Evolutionists make pilgrimages to.

Of course it isn't a religion. It's a scientific theory, like gravity and thermodynamics.

 

[Morat]

Morat, I understand that this is where you start, but that "I lack belief in God" is not stable. As soon as you start to think about the situation, you do make faith statements.

Now, what about the "natural" processes we discover by science? Is God necessary for these processes to happen? If you say "no", then you are making a statement of faith, because there is nothing in science that will tell us so. If you say "I don't know" then you are no longer an atheist but an agnostic. If you say "yes", then you are a theist.

While atheism can start out as a negative statement, it can't stay that way once you begin thinking about the implications of how the "natural" world works.

None of that says atheism is wrong. But I'm not sure that someone who doesn't do enough critical thinking about their position to say what you just said is any better than a creationist's lack of critical thinking about statements by Hovind.

First off, according to this logic, it is utterly impossibleto not have a faith based worldview.

If that's the case, then what word to you use to differentiate people whose worldview is based on unsupported faith statements (Unevidenced Entity X exists, Unevideneced event Y happened, Unevidenced belief Z is true), from those who merely hope their senses don't lie and go from there, based solely on evidence?

If you want to claim it's "faith" when I simple don't clutter my worldview with things I don't have reasons to suspect exist, then rejecting unicorns is a faith statement. And if rejecting the existance of unicorn is a faith statement, then your belief in God is an utterly weak and trite thing.

This isn't logical positivism (and yes, I know why it failed. There's a great lecture using Monty Python that really sums up the last hundred years of philosophical thought). It's purely pragmatism, Occam's Razor, and a dash of the sort of thing that made science so workable: If I don't have a reason to believe something exists, I tend to assume it doesn't...and the more unlike what I do know it is, the more likely I am to assume it doesn't.

However, I don't claim it doesn't exist. I don't claim it can't exist. I merely don't assume it does.

And this isn't logical positivism. It's bloody pragmitism. Because if I didn't dismiss unevidenced concepts and entities, there is no end to the things I have to accept in my worldview. Not just your God, but every God ever.

You, Lucapsa, have made a faith statement. You believe God exists, despite having any sort of clear objective evidence. Moreover, you therefore dismiss all other Gods, despite the fact that you can't show they don't exist, based on another faith statement: That your God is the only God.

I don't make a faith statement. I don't have a reason to suspect God exists. So I assume he doesn't, and go through my life. But I don't claim I'm right. I don't claim you're wrong. I make no claims to anything other than "God doesn't exist" seems to be the simplest, most supported answer in my experience, to the whole "God" question.

I've got no faith, and no certainty. But, on the other hand, I don't have to worry that my leap of faith has kept me from the truth. Because I can, and do, reasses that assumption in light of new evidence.

Now, what about the "natural" processes we discover by science? Is God necessary for these processes to happen? If you say "no", then you are making a statement of faith, because there is nothing in science that will tell us so. If you say "I don't know" then you are no longer an atheist but an agnostic. If you say "yes", then you are a theist.

To address this in specific. It's not that simple, and I don't know why you insist it is. Does it make you more comfortable or something to believe atheists are clutching to our "faiths" as hard as you?

I can say quite certain that God is not necessary for natural processes to occur, because these processes are, by definition, processes that don't need God. Lightning, decay, birth, death, nebulae, stars....all are described as natural occurances, along natural processes, without God. Fully described.

Nowhere is God required to make them happen. Even a theist should admit that God isn't necessary for lightning!

Is your question "Do the existance of these natural processes require God?" Or " Can God be affecting/guiding these natural processes"?

The answer is "Could be" and "May be". Not because I'm agnostic, but because God (or at least the usual Western version) can do bloody anything he wants, including make it look like he's not there. Not by agnosticism, but your theology mandates such fence-sitting.

What do I think the answers are? We'll, if you reprhase them as questions of "Did God create these natural processes" and "Is God affecting them now", the answer is "I have no reason to suspect God exists. So no and no".

Yet neither of these are faith statements. I don't claim God can't exist. I don't claim God doesn't exist. I merely claim I have no reason to believe, so I don't.

You might call that agnosticism. You'd be wrong, but you might call it that. It's weak atheism. Agnostics believe that evidence for or against God can never be aquired. Weak atheists simply don't believe, because they have no reason to. Strong atheists claim God does not and cannot exist.

Your definitions are pretty poor, even if they're fairly common. Because I fit between your definition of "atheist" and "Agnostic". Indeed, I've had people with your definitions assign me to both (you, yourself, are trying to force me into one or the other). That sort of gap in meaning, especially given that my views are quite common among atheists, is why atheism is split into strong and weak.

(My definition of agnostic is the one used by OCRT, if you want some verification. They're excellent when it comes to information on such matters. Great site. )

Embedded in that, of course, is the faith that none of the evidences presented by theists constitute "a reason". Look at the end of the Gospel of John. The author states that the account is supposed to be sufficient to have you believe that Yeshu ben Joseph is the son of Yahweh. Now, your faith is that this really isn't sufficient to do that.

*laugh*. Do you even hear yourself? "I have faith that this isn't enough". That's poppycock. I read the thing. It wasn't enough. That's not faith, that's simple subjective experience.

I read the Gospel of John. I researched it. It was, in no way, anymore convincing than any other holy book. Yet I have "faith" it's not enough?

Do I have faith that I just ate dinner? I can't remember that far back or something?

Unless you claim my standards of evidence themselves are articles of faith, you're SOL. You can't claim that whether or not Item A lived up to my standards of evidence is "Faith". Either it did, or did not. There's no "faith" required.

Unless by "Faith" you mean something utterly different. In which case, perhaps a definition of "faith" would be useful at this point.

I also pointed out that evolution is used by atheists to support their faith that deity does not exist.

No. Evolution is frequently used by atheists to answer the question of the diversity of life.

Many atheists think it's a jim-dandy explanation of how we got here. But "supporting our faith that deity does not exist"? Pish-posh, Lucaspa! Some might. That's their own particular problem. I don't, and most I know don't.

My general problem is your insistance that us "atheists" all think and act the same. Goodness, what next, we all look alike?

Without evolution by natural selection, atheists have no answer to the Argument from Design.

Sure we do. It's a horribly bad argument. It was bad when Paley brought it up in the first place.

We don't have an explanation for the diversity of life, true. But so what?

Do you deny that this is true? So, before evolution it was obvious that atheism was a faith. Evolution really hasn't changed that. The only thing that has changed is that evolution gives enough intellectual fulfillment to atheism that people like you can now deceive yourselves that atheism is a faith.

Wrong, wrong, wrong! Why are you so ideologically committed to this, Lucaspa, to the point of distorting my beliefs to do so? You assume all these things about my beliefs, and then try to force them on me when I point out your error.

I absolutely deny it's true. If evolution were falsified tommorow, I'd still be an atheist. If, on my deathbed, no new theory of life's diversity had replaced it, I'd still be an atheist.

My atheism has utterly nothing to do with evolution.

I view evolution the same way I view the ideal gas law. "Well, that explains a lot."

Sure, without evolution, I'd never know why life was the way it was. But without gas laws, I'd never know why temperature and pressure work the way they do with gasses.

By the way, nice Fruedian slip. I'm pretty sure you meant "can now deceive yourself that atheism isn't a faith".

But still neither "God did it" nor "God didn't do it" are scientific statements.

The second is almost true. "God, if he or she exists, didn't have to do this, it would have worked without him" is certainly true.

So where is your scientific evidence that "God didn't do it"?

Why do I need any? Why do I want any? I have no reason nor evidence to believe God is anything more than a weird thing some people believe.

Why would I collect evidence that he didn't do something, when I don't even have evidence that he exists, much less can do or wants to do anything?

Without that, you either have to have faith that "God didn't do it" or say "I don't know if God did it or not" (agnosticism) or believe that "God did it". Your position that "God didn't do it" is faith.

Sorry, it's still not true. I don't believe God exists, because I don't have a reason to. I might be wrong, of course. I certainly check that assumption often enough.

But "God did it" or "God didn't do it" is a question I don't even ask, because I don't assume God exists. Do you understand this?

Unless I believe God exists, questions of what God did and didn't do are meaningless, and I don't ever consider them.

And I don't believe in God. Not because of materialism, or evolution, or logical positivism, or on some faith, but simply because I have no reason whatsoever to think of your God as anything other than just another mythical figure.

I treat all deities equally. I take them on a case by case figure, and certainly don't think that a God couldn't exist. But I treat your God the same way I treat Vishnu, Allah, Zeus, and the inivisible pink unicorn.

Sorry. You can try to pin faith on me all you want. But I don't have any on this question. I've got some when it comes to people, if that helps. And I can certainly recognize the difference.

All I've got when it comes to my atheism, Lucapsa, is a single-statement of truth: I don't have any reason to think God(s) exist. And a single judgement call: I don't go around believing things without a reason.

And since I don't claim that I'm right, I can't be making a faith statement.

And just to add one more log to the blaze: If it wasn't for theists, I wouldn't be an atheist. I'd just be me. Because if I had never met an atheist, never heard of God, I'd still have the exact same worldview. (Well, minus the bit that says "Fundamentalists should be treated with caution, because they tend to be antsy".).

 

[WinAce]

Originally posted by Rae
There are no churches of Evolution.

*Gasp* I'm already half an hour late for my Darwin worship sessions!

 

[lucaspa]

Originally posted by Morat First off, according to this logic, it is utterly impossibleto not have a faith based worldview.

So?  Even expanded agnosticism with the statement that it is impossible to know ultimate truth is a faith based statement.  After all, how can we know what will be discovered in the future?  So worldviews are faith based? So what?  If that is the way it is, then that is the way it is.

Now, let's skip down the post to the critical statement:

I make no claims to anything other than "God doesn't exist" seems to be the simplest, most supported answer in my experience, to the whole "God" question.

Ah, there is the faith statement: "God doesn't exist"  How do you know?  What is your objective evidence for that?

However, now you are getting down to the real reason: in my experience  All knowledge is personal experience.  Theists either have personal experience they think is from deity or they trust the personal experiences of others that say they have experience of deity.

What is your and my personal experience?  No experience of deity.  Therefore you are doing what everyone does: place your experience above anyone else's personal experience.  You accept that your experience is accurate. 

Now, are their alternative hypotheses to explain our experience of no experience of deity?  Yes.  Maybe we don't have the "deity detecting module" in our brains.  Maybe deity simply doesn't want to communicate with us.  Maybe deity has communicated and we simply don't recognize it for what it is.  At least 3 alternative hypotheses to explain our experience other than deity doesn't exist.

So when you state "God does not exist" you are making a statement of faith that this hypothesis is the correct one.

Once again, Morat, we are back to atheism is a faith.

Now, let me address specific points of your post:

If that's the case, then what word to you use to differentiate people whose worldview is based on unsupported faith statements (Unevidenced Entity X exists, Unevideneced event Y happened, Unevidenced belief Z is true), from those who merely hope their senses don't lie and go from there, based solely on evidence?

Agnostics. They simply say "I don't know".  Atheists aren't them. As I said, to be an atheist you make unsupported faith statements.  Now, if you really are an agnostic, then change your label. However, you have the suspension of judgement necessary for agnosticism.

If you want to claim it's "faith" when I simple don't clutter my worldview with things I don't have reasons to suspect exist, then rejecting unicorns is a faith statement.

No, it's not.  And atheists claim that they are "critical thinkers"! Instead, they continue to spout dogma like this without thinking.  Morat, if I say "there is a couch in my living room" and you search my living room and don't find a couch, then can you claim that the couch doesn't exist?  Now, the original claims for unicorns were horse-like animals with horns on their forehead living in Europe. Well, after over 1,000 years of people wandering around Europe, they have visited every part of it and there are no unicorns.  Like the couch and living room, the entire search space has been covered.  So we can say that unicorns don't exist.

your belief in God is an utterly weak and trite thing.

Tsk, tsk.  Now when did I say I believed in deity?  Another dogma of atheists: anyone arguing against atheism must be a theist.  Why?  Don't the statements of atheism have to stand on their own? Can't they be tested separately from any other belief?

We are talking about atheism here, not theism. 

This isn't logical positivism ... It's purely pragmatism, Occam's Razor, and a dash of the sort of thing that made science so workable: If I don't have a reason to believe something exists, I tend to assume it doesn't...and the more unlike what I do know it is, the more likely I am to assume it doesn't.

Really? Then what about tachyons?  Never observed, can't be observed, causes all kinds of problems for physics if they do exist, but allowed by theory.  Do you assume they don't exist. BTW, "assume" isn't knowledge, it's belief.  So thank you for just making my point.

I never said atheists don't have reasons for their faith, just that atheism is a faith.

Although you misuse the Razor in this fashion. The Razor isn't a guide to truth and has been discarded in the biological sciences because it is completely unreliable.

I merely don't assume it does.

This contradicts what you said above: I tend to assume it doesn't...and the more unlike what I do know it is, the more likely I am to assume it doesn't.  You can't even stay consistent within two paragraphs.

there is no end to the things I have to accept in my worldview. Not just your God, but every God ever.

False dichotomy.  You now are claiming that you only have two choices: assume an entity exists or assume it does not.  Those aren't your only choices.  You can not assume anything and simply suspend judgement until more data is available.

However, you have touched on something you should consider: theists do reject versions of deity.  Of the thousands of versions of deity known over the millenia, theists have decided that most of them are false.  Have you ever asked yourself how they did that?  Have you ever researched what criteria they used to reach those decisions?

You, Lucapsa, have made a faith statement. You believe God exists, despite having any sort of clear objective evidence.

Where did I make such a faith statement?  Again, you are trying to turn the discussion away from atheism to theism.  I'm not going to do that.  (most) Theists admit that they have a faith. That's not the issue. The issue is whether atheism is also a faith. That was my original claim and the one you disputed. So far, you haven't addressed any of my arguments or shown that atheism isn't a faith. 

 

[Neo]

Evolution is not a religion. Religion is a "belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe".

 

[Neo]

Originally posted by lucaspa
Ah, there is the faith statement: "God doesn't exist"

That is not a statement based on faith, it's based on logic.

Faith is "belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence".

 

[lucaspa]

Originally posted by Morat I can say quite certain that God is not necessary for natural processes to occur, because these processes are, by definition, processes that don't need God. Lightning, decay, birth, death, nebulae, stars....all are described as natural occurances, along natural processes, without God. Fully described.

Sorry, but not fully described. How do you know that God isn't necessary for any of these to happen? Have you ever seen them happen where you know God is absent?  This is the statement of faith of atheism: that natural = without deity.  You don't know that.  That's part of the limitation of how we do experiments and what methodological materialism is all about. Experiments have "controls", and there's no way to set up an control for deity.  We can not point to a test tube or a lightning bolt and say "God isn't in that one."  Until you do, your statement is completely unscientific.  Not only that, it is very harmful for science because you are coopting science for your faith. 

Nowhere is God required to make them happen. Even a theist should admit that God isn't necessary for lightning!

What a theist admits is that there are no other material processes required for lightning.  Creationism isn't about supernatural; it's about requiring an additional material process by God.

Not by agnosticism, but your theology mandates such fence-sitting.

Sorry, Morat, but it's science that demands the "fence-sitting".  Show me the experiment where you know God is absent from the processes, and I'm all ears. Until then, your statement:

We'll, if you reprhase them as questions of "Did God create these natural processes" and "Is God affecting them now", the answer is "I have no reason to suspect God exists. So no and no".

also shows how atheism is a faith. Not only that, but it is circular reasoning as well. 

You might call that agnosticism. You'd be wrong, but you might call it that. It's weak atheism.

I don't call it agnosticism. I simply call it atheism  "Weak" atheism is a self-deception by atheists since you have already admitted you have to go to strong atheism to get rid of God in nature.

Agnostics believe that evidence for or against God can never be aquired.

Originally, as Huxley defined agnostic, agnostics simply don't know whether deity exists or not.  Over the last century some agnostics have decided that such knowledge can never be found.  Now, that "never" is a statement of faith, since we can't read the future.  But the major definition of agnostic is still someone who doesn't know whether deity exists or not.  Perhaps some day the relevant data will be available.

Because I fit between your definition of "atheist" and "Agnostic". Indeed, I've had people with your definitions assign me to both (you, yourself, are trying to force me into one or the other).

Your original statement "I don't believe because I have no reason to believe" fits between. Your statements since then have put you into strong atheism.  Which is, of course, what I predicted when I said that your original position wasn't stable. That it degenerated into either agnosticism or strong atheism.  Thank you for demonstrating that so well.

That's not faith, that's simple subjective experience.

And you said that theism had to have objective experience, remember?  If subjective experience is good for you, why isn't it good enough for theists?  Double standard, here.

I read the Gospel of John. I researched it. It was, in no way, anymore convincing than any other holy book. Yet I have "faith" it's not enough?

Yep.  The author of that gospel thought that the evidence should be convincing.  You disagree.  So what we have is that theists present evidence. You reject it.  Now, tell me how that is basically any different from what happens in the evolution vs creationism debate.  Creationists claim transitional fossils don't exist (there is no evidence for macroevolution). We present series of transitional fossils.  They reject them.  Sound familiar?  It's exactly what you do.  So if the creationists have "faith", then why are you any different?

No. Evolution is frequently used by atheists to answer the question of the diversity of life.

Many atheists think it's a jim-dandy explanation of how we got here. But "supporting our faith that deity does not exist"? ... Sure we do. It's a horribly bad argument. It was bad when Paley brought it up in the first place.

We don't have an explanation for the diversity of life, true. But so what? 
 

Morat, without evolution, atheists have no answer to the Argument from Design. In Natural Theology David Hume examined all the arguments for the existence of deity.  He was able to knock holes in all of them except the Argument from Design.  Hume had to cave to the AfD. He saved face by calling it "Mind" instead of "God", but he had to surrender all the same.  Hume wrote, of course, before Origin  was published.  Darwin gave a method -- Darwinian selection -- to get design.  No longer did organisms have to be manufactured by a deity and placed on the planet to have the designs they have.  They can be designed by Darwinian selection.  Look at the ID movement.  It is one long argument that Darwinian selection is not sufficient to get design.  CSI, IC, etc. are all arguments trying to show the insufficiency of Darwinian selection.  Do that and the AfD is back as logical "proof" of the existence of deity.


I absolutely deny it's true. If evolution were falsified tommorow, I'd still be an atheist. If, on my deathbed, no new theory of life's diversity had replaced it, I'd still be an atheist.

I understand that.  I didn't say you wouldn't be an atheist. I said that you would not be able to deceive yourself that your atheism wasn't a faith.

My atheism has utterly nothing to do with evolution.

The claim is that evolution allows you to be an "intellectually fulfilled atheist" and allows your self-deception that your atheism is not a faith. 

I view evolution the same way I view the ideal gas law. "Well, that explains a lot."

Sure, without evolution, I'd never know why life was the way it was. But without gas laws, I'd never know why temperature and pressure work the way they do with gasses.

By the way, nice Fruedian slip. I'm pretty sure you meant "can now deceive yourself that atheism isn't a faith".


The second is almost true. "God, if he or she exists, didn't have to do this, it would have worked without him" is certainly true.

But "God did it" or "God didn't do it" is a question I don't even ask, because I don't assume God exists. Do you understand this?

I understand you are ducking the question, then. And engaging in circular reasoning. But of course you consider the issue, because you say "I can say quite certain that God is not necessary for natural processes to occur, because these processes are, by definition, processes that don't <I>need</I> God."

So, you are saying that "God didn't do it".&nbsp; You have considered the question and come up with an incorrect answer. But you considered the question. Don't try to tell us you didn't.&nbsp;


I have no reason whatsoever to think of your God as anything other than just another mythical figure.

Again, you are saying that you have no reason that you will accept as valid to think deity exists.&nbsp; That is not the same as saying "no reason whatsoever".&nbsp; You are taking your personal experience and extrapolating it to a universal condition.&nbsp; You must see that this isn't fact.&nbsp; It's faith, but it's not fact.

I treat all deities equally. I take them on a case by case figure, and certainly don't think that a God couldn't exist. But I treat your God the same way I treat Vishnu, Allah, Zeus, and the inivisible pink unicorn.

LOL! If you did you would realize that IPU is falsified.&nbsp; After all, it it's invisible, it can't be pink. &nbsp; So you don't treat all versions of deity the same, do you?

And just to add one more log to the blaze: If it wasn't for theists, I wouldn't be an atheist. I'd just be me. Because if I had never met an atheist, never heard of God, I'd still have the exact same worldview.

Sure you'd be an atheist.&nbsp; You simply wouldn't have that name for it.&nbsp; After all, you said I'd still have the exact same worldview. Since it is the worldview that is atheism, you'd still be an atheist.&nbsp; You'd just lack the imagination to hypothesize the existence of a deity. Although when you contemplated the questions "why does the universe exist at all?" and "why does it have this order rather than some other order?" you should have hypothesized that an entity/deity created the universe that way.&nbsp; And at that point you would have "rejected" the hypothesis because "I have no reason to think that a deity did created the universe." And your rejection would be a matter of faith, not a conclusion of science or data.

&nbsp;

 

[lucaspa]

Originally posted by Neo
That is not a statement based on faith, it's based on logic.

Faith is "belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence".

So provide me with the peer-reviewed scientific paper with the "material evidence" that deity does not exist.&nbsp; Logical proof doesn't count because, in science, logic always takes a back seat to data.&nbsp; So please post the paper.

Thank you, Neo, for providing more evidence that atheism is a faith, since "God doesn't exist" does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.

 

[Neo]

There is logical proof. It's logically impossible for a being to be both omniscient, and omnipotent at the same time because an omniscient being would be a slave to its own knowledge, it would have no freewill. It's also logically impossible for a being to be both omnipresent and omnibenevolent, because evil exists. If God were omnibenevolent and omnipresent, there would be no room for evil.

 

[Humanista]

Morat, very excellent post. I wish I could express my worldview as well as you do. Thanks for taking the time to lay it out in a way that SURELY any theist can understand. (Note guys, you don't have to agree with it!)

 

[Humanista]

Oops! I stand corrected about the ability of any theist to understand it. LOL!

 

[lithium.]

Originally posted by Humanista
Morat, very excellent post. I wish I could express my worldview as well as you do. Thanks for taking the time to lay it out in a way that SURELY any theist can understand. (Note guys, you don't have to agree with it!)

I agree that is a nice post. I am not good at expressing what I mean some times. I wish I could like TheBear, amie, Morat, and everyone else.

 

[seebs]

Neo, it's very tiresome that you keep using the same exact long-debunked argument. Yes, we all know you accept the post hoc fallacy whenever it allows you to make your point, but we've *all heard it before*.

BTW, Morat, it may interest you to know that I consider the standards of evidence themselves to be matters of faith, and also the belief that logic is a reliable way to proceed from true premises to true conclusions. I accepted these things on faith when I realized that I had no other tools. And yes, it's circular for me to use logic in the process of deciding to use logic, but that's *why* it's an article of faith - because I can't even get my brain to form a concept of an alternative. Since I haven't compared logic with any meaningful alternatives, I have to admit it's pure faith for now.

 

[Neo]

The reliability of logic is axiomatic.

 

[seebs]

Yes, the reliability of logic is axiomatic. Axioms are the things we take on faith, because we don't think it makes sense to try to prove them. One of my axioms is God's existance. You're not required to use this axiom, if you don't want to; I merely find that I get a much richer set of theorems when I use this formal system.

 

[Neo]

Originally posted by seebs
Yes, the reliability of logic is axiomatic. Axioms are the things we take on faith, because we don't think it makes sense to try to prove them.

Axioms are self-evident, they prove themselves, it has nothing to do with faith.

One of my axioms is God's existance.

The existence of God is not axiomatic, if it were, then everyone would be a theist.

 

[seebs]

Huh. So, Euclidean geometry doesn't exist, because the parallel postulate isn't really an axiom at all, because it's not self-evident?

May I suggest you consider the possibility that the word "axiom" might have several meanings, all closely related?

I'm using "a premise accepted without proof", which is the entire point; it's what you do for stuff you can't prove or disprove, so you build a system using it.

 

[Rae]

Aw, darn it, I guess I was wrong. Some people do worship Darwin. So are you a Darwinist on all religious polls, Win? Personally, I'm an evil non-Christian hellbound "atheist."