Gender: Male Location: Welfare Kingdom of California
That's another way of putting it.
It's not that I'm having trouble acceptin weak atheism. I'm sure that if one of those weak atheist would explain his/her ideas I would understand it more. However, I still can't see how the ideology of Atheism can be split into two camps.
A weak atheist may assert there is no evidence justifying a belief in any deity, but he/she does not necessarily deny the possibility of any deity's existence.
Is that correct? so my next question would be....Do they really leave room for doubt?
"It certainly can be. If you'd expect evidence, and there isn't any, it's evidence of absense.
For example: I'm living in a graduate dorm, with walls so thin you can practically hear it when one of your neighbors turns on his computer.
"I believe that the other people in my pod throw extremely loud parties every Friday night."
"I have never heard my neighbors make noise on Friday night."
That last statement is a statement of absense of evidence. And, since I'd expect to encounter certain evidence if my hypothesis was true (specifically, I'd expect to hear a lot of noise on Friday nights), it is also evidence of absense."
Your example makes no sense to me. But if you come into my house and see no evidence of a dog: no dog in the house or in the yard, no food or water bowls, no leashed or bones or toys, it is inded evidence that I do not currently have a dog.
I suppose you could say that if there is no evidence that God exists, it is not evidence that God never existed; that's the closest parallel I can draw with your example.
__________________ "Men curse the Communist Party, but eventually it may release them. If hell were endless, then God would be worse than our Secret Police."--Pastor Valentin
Last edited by Gregory on Oct 3rd, 2006 at 10:29 PM
I'll see if I can explain it from my own viewpoint.
I would say that I am a weak atheist - a good part of why I am atheist (beyond the fact that I greatly dislike organized religion and the hypocricy of it) is that there is simply no evidence at all that a higher being could exist, and I find the idea of believing in something based on blind faith and with nothing to back it up quite ridiculous.
Now, could something exist? Possibly. But would I believe it? No, because I haven't seen any evidence to show it.
I don't see why weak atheism should be so confusing. It's simply saying based on the evidence available or lack thereof, there is no reason for one to believe in a god. As opposed to the active belief that a god or gods cannot exist.
From my viewpoint: a weak atheist says that there is no evidence of God; therefore, it is reasonable to say, "God does not exist." This upsets a lot of people, who seem to feel that we shouldn't make statements like that if we can't back it up with positive evidence ("God cannot exist because..."), but it's not unreasonable, IMO (of course, I'm a weak atheist, so I might be biased).
Do you believe in elves? No. Can you prove that elves don't exist? Well, no; how couldI ? But a magical being would violate the known laws of physics and there's absolutely no evidence for them, so it's perfectly reasonable to believe they don't exist.
Do you believe in God? Same answer.
__________________ "Men curse the Communist Party, but eventually it may release them. If hell were endless, then God would be worse than our Secret Police."--Pastor Valentin
Gender: Male Location: Drifting off around the bend
This expectation is based on preexistent knowledge. Since we do not know if God would "make the noise" we expect, absence is only absence due to our lack of knowledge.
Most people on these boards would likely think I'm an atheist. However, I'm not. I simply adhere to the idea that I haven't got a clue and neither does anyone else.
__________________ "If I were you"
"If you were me, you'd know the safest place to hide...is in sanity!
If we're talking about Christianity, I disagree. Let's use the Bible as our "preexistant knowledge." In probably every single one of the narrative books of the Bible (excluding the letters, in other words), God makes his presence known in unmistakable, miraculous ways. And yet, in reality, he never makes himself known at all, never mind raising the dead or raining fire down on cities.
In other words:
If Christianity is correct, we expect God to act like God acts in the Bible.
In the Bible, God constantly makes himself known.
In reality, God never makes himself known (at least not obviously).
Therefore, the absense of evidence of God is evidence that Christianity is not correct (not absolute evidence, of course, because there's no reason God couldn't interfere directly with the world for thousands of years, and then get up one day and say, "Well, that's enough of that." But still evidence.)
It's true that absense of evidence is only evidence if you'd expect positive evidence. So, for example, the absense of evidence of divine intervention in the world is not evidence against Deism, since Deism doesn't posit divine intervention.
__________________ "Men curse the Communist Party, but eventually it may release them. If hell were endless, then God would be worse than our Secret Police."--Pastor Valentin
Gender: Male Location: Welfare Kingdom of California
That's a more clear and direct explanation.
On your commen about organized religion....well, there are people within a religion that also begin to dislike the hypocracy and decide to reject that particular religion and leave it. But only to start their own new religion with their own ideas.
I'm one of those persons. Would you say a "strong atheist" doesn't have a clue?