[ExI] Putting God to Rest

[ben]

Putting God to Rest

Anna Taylor wrote:

 > I don't know how to compare
 >an equation to a belief? It's comparing "I believe
 >that God doesn't exist because there is no known
 >proof" compared to "I believe in something that I
 >don't need proof for."

Not quite.

The comparison is between "I don't believe that god exists because there 
is no known proof" and "I believe in something that there is no proof for".

I hope you can see that there is a difference between believing that 
something does not exist and not believing that something does exist. 
It's quite a big difference, and i think that not appreciating this 
difference is what leads some people to claim that atheism is a 
faith-based position, when in fact it isn't. Atheism is 'not believing 
in god/s', rather than 'believing in not god/s'.

Many (if not all) religious people hold irrational beliefs about 
self-contradictory things. Things which cannot logically be true. Hence 
the comparison to 2+2=5. To be religious you must think that there is 
such a thing as 'the supernatural', which, to many of us (but not all) 
is an oxymoron. 'Spiritual' experiences are a different thing. They are 
subjective states of mind. The fact that many people mistakenly link 
them to the 'supernatural' is what leads to confusion about 
Atheists/Brights/Agnostics/etc. having spiritual experiences.

Another thing that can muddy the waters is the fact that there are many 
things we don't know. I think it's important to bear in mind that just 
because something can't be currently explained, that doesn't mean it 
belongs to the realm of the supernatural. If you are a rationalist, you 
see a mystery as something with a logical explanation that we don't yet 
understand, rather than something mystical and unexplainable.

ben zaiboc