All Comments (78)

qaiVAK U cool ))

qaiVAK U cool ))

qaiVAK U cool ))

I am personally appalled by the degree of rage that is generated by Rabbi Steinsaltz, or for that matter many of us who profess to have "faith". After all rage is the underlying self serving self righteous cause of more damage than we can count. But I digress for the point which is not addressed and is essential to the believer/agnostic/aetheistic debate is this:
An aetheist cannot exist, for an aetheist is by definition someone who professes to "know" the truth. At least an agnostic does not take this untenable and rigid position.

Since we are limited human beings, with much of our information coming to us through our senses, and we have the ability to cerebrate and think for ourselves, we are forced to admit that we, like all life on earth are limited. We do not "understand" a radio wave, it exists. And so many other phemomona. A dog can hear a sound that we cannot hear. We are "limited" and unless we admit that we "do not know" we are forever trapped in an angry and hostile world where hope does not exist.

Rabbi Steinsaltz has been a great influence for me, in the arena of Jewish philosophy.

I am sorry so mnay angry diatribes are posted on this site.

My greatest insight the last few years is the damage done by hatred anger and the need to always be right and to have ones own ego at the center of the universe instead of understanding the unity of life, instead of compassion.

Count the damage done in the name of the need to be right. The number is too great to understand or calculate

Thank you AdinSteinsaltz for the beams of light you have shed again and again.

Bill C's original post on this thread has stirred quite a bit of mud slinging (sorry Bill to use you to make an example, no personal implications meant). I would like to contend that his post is a prime example of the problems we face. Looking at that one post we can all agree that it is rude and obnoxious. Instead of posing an arguement using reason and logic he resorted to rude and obnoxious language. Instead of the poster (I do not want to use the name because this is not an attack on the person, just an example) being labeled as a rude and obnoxious person preceeding posts have drawn the conclusion that atheists are rude and obnoxious.

This arguement can be made for religious as well as non religious behavior. I am only using this one post as an example. Is it the persons essence as a human being and not the belief system that is at the root cause of negative behavior. I have heard many posters try to use Stalin, Hitler, Crusades, ect... as examples of how one belief is worse than the others. What they all fail to realize is the leap they are making from the essence of the person who used those beliefs and the beliefs themselves.

As many people have pointed out believers and non believers alike cherry pick what they want to use and not use. It is the essence of who they are that determine what it is that they cherry pick. Those things that support their essence are accepted and those that don't rejected (on occasion new ideas are allowed). All people do this whether they are religous or not. It is the essence of who they are that determines if they use the belief system positively or negatively, not the actual belief system.

Of Course the essence of a person is constantly evolving by the ever changing stimulus that a person comes in contact with in their life. We need to stop blaming the belief systems and start holding the actual people accountable for their behavior no matter what belief system they refernce for the explanation of their actions. It is the removing of those people that abuse a belief system in the name of bad behavior that we need to find a solution for, not what belief system is correct (that should only matter to the individual).

(The post that was referenced was just an example of negativite language or actions that was attributed to atheisism instead of to the poster. I am not trying to infer anything bad about the poster.)

I agree that it's pretty irrelevant to the main debate, but someone cited him as the atheistic counterpart to the violent aspects of religion in history.

What is the point of the "Hitler was antheist" debate. Are we going to determine whether or not a god exists based on who has the higher body count; atheists or the religious? It is utterly irrelevant.

Likewise, if someone says "I'm an atheist," there are certain assumptions that can be made (many of which have been listed).

I'll re-list some anyway:

Most atheists believe:

-Science trumps religion
-Empiricism, reason, etc, are the best way to understand the world

Most atheists don't believe:

-That God exists (as a certainty or a probability, the latter I would call an agnostic, though)
-That religious writings offer much or any insight into the nature of reality, particularly compared with empiricism, reason, etc.

Etc.

Yeah, I've read a lot of extremely religious quotes attributed to Hitler. But since I didn't hear them myself, I can't know that he actually said them. ;)

"The most obvious (and previously pointed out) is the vitriol and certainty expressed by some evangelical athiests mirrors the behavior of the most dogmatic fundamentalists."

That was exactly my point earlier.

And as far as atheism being a religion, it's not, but it does have a lot of similar elements (John's list hits it on the head, imo, though I don't agree with it 100%). And in my experience, there is a common ground from which atheists make their arguments. Agnostics share some of that ground.

My point earlier about the "Church of Christianity" was a person of any Christian sect can say, "I'm a Christian," and there are certain assumptions that can be made relatively safely without any further information (belief in Jesus, some degree of reverence for the Bible, etc). Likewise, if someone says "I'm an atheist," there are certain assumptions that can be made (many of which have been listed). Even if you lump in people who "don't believe in god," this still holds true, though I still think that person would be an agnostic, not a true atheist.

Uh, so?

Hitler was a theist, even in his final days, though midway through the war he turned on Christianity proper as it stood in the way of his power and came to saw himself as God's chosen element of history, while many of his fellows dabbled with all sorts of pagan ideas. But in his early career, he draped his appeals quite lavishly in the language of Christianity, and that's how he and his anti-Jewish tirades appealed to everyday folks.

Again, read On the Jews and their Lies if you don't believe me. Virtually the blueprint of the Holocaust, and Luther was a major Nazi hero.

I'm not saying that Christianity or theism in general has anything to apologize for. But painting Hitler as an atheist is just plain silly. It's a nitpick, but one worth noting.

nope. Hitler read Nietzsche in prison.

John, I'm afraid you still don't understand. Some people might think you are an idiot, but there is nothing about atheism in particular that would demand such a conclusion. There is nothing in particular about atheism at all. If you want to call atheism a religion, then the bizarre linguistic gymnastics could get you just about anywhere.

Mao and Stalin may have been atheists, but they are like other atheists only in the sense that all non-professional baseball players are like each other: i.e. not at all, other than not playing baseball proffesionally. They all have their own particular ideologies and ideas particular to themselves that are not necessarily shared.

Oh, and by the way: Hitler was a theist, not an atheist of any sort. In fact, the entire program of the Holocaust was basically a fairly faithful playing out of Martin Luther's famous writing "On the Jews and their Lies"

Long Background: I believe in God, and come from a Christian tradition. However, I also believe that human descriptions of God inevitably make God too small and are too simplistic. They are simply metaphors describing individual's experiences, developed in the context of the culture and knowledge of the day. My approach to life seems not too different from Amy's who says she wants to "to acknowledge our human needs at a much deeper level". I differ from Amy in that I choose to tap into the tools, thought, and knowledged developed over the centuries of human experience of religious study and mystical experience to nuture my own human needs. My primary religious guidance comes from the teachings of Jesus with his emphasis on love, compassion, inclusiveness, and reaching out to the most vulnerable in society. Of course, these teachings must be viewed with careful consideration, as the texts have been worked over by imperfect humans, with their own personal biases and cultural/historical filters.

In these discussions on the "On Faith" website, I am seeing some metaphorical ironies. The most obvious (and previously pointed out) is the vitriol and certainty expressed by some evangelical athiests mirrors the behavior of the most dogmatic fundamentalists.

A second irony I've observed in this particular discussion is the chaffing of some of the athiest community to the concept of athiests coming from a theological common ground with similar beliefs and understanding. The irony I see in this is that I chaffe in a similar fashion when my own theistic beliefs are lumped with those with whom I vehmently disagree by many of the non-thiests. These people sometimes respond as if the writings of Crossan, Borg, Schachter-Shalomi, Schori, Tully, and Steinsaltz (to name a few authors that have written pieces that resonate with me) are equivalent to the writings of dogmatic (science denying, 10-Commandment posting, praying-in-the-schools, Merry-Christmas-not-Happy-Holidays) fundamentalists. This sharp rhetoric in responses often come without considering what was actually written by the author or focusing on a single metaphor or phrase without considering the context.

I promise I won't assume Bill C, Amy, Ba'al, Burton Wolfe, and Eric are all philosophically equivalent.

My hope is that theists in my theological neighborhood are not immediately lumped with the Cal, Pat, and Jerry's of the world.

(OK. I've just realized that for a vocal minority, just believing in God may put me in the same "irrational" theological neighborhood as CP&J. Heck, they might even throw in a Bin Laden, pedophile priests, and Cardinal Cisneros--of Spanish Inquisition fame. I guess we will just have to disagree. You'll have more fun if you flame someone who flames back).

Ooh, PLUNGE, please tell me how brushing one's teeth at night could lead people to think everyone else in the world is a non-scientific idiot. Tell me, also, how brushing my pearly whites before bed would lead me to murder millions like Mao, Joseph and Adolph.

I am a dentist, so I am really interested in hearing your answer!

Sorry John, but no. Most of your points are stretches, stretches to the point where you could call nearly anything a religion, including the brushing of teeth at night.

Evolution is not a belief, it's a scientific conclusion based on evidence (of which, btw eyewitness report is just one kind, and not even the most conclusive kind). It isn't based on the authority of Darwin, and Darwin is not a god and while Origin is a important historical work, it isn't a Bible of any sort. In any case, atheism doesn't even necessarily require that anyone understand know or care about evolution and quite a lot of non-believers don't particular care. Worse, the majority of people who think evolution is good science aren't even non-believers to begin with: they are theists!

I have to agree with the Rabbi regarding a common belief system among most atheists. As I list these, you will some obvious parallels to organized religions throughout the world.

1. THERE IS A CREATION STORY. (It is called Evolution.)

2. THIS CREATION STORY CANNOT BE VERIFIED. (No one was around back then, so we can never be sure any creation story is completely true.)

3. THIS CREATION STORY REQUIRES FAITH. (There is no evidence to prove evolution ever happened. That system is a series of suppositions, one built on another. Just as faith is required to believe a Creator exists, faith is required to believe that everything came to exist without an Intelligent Being, by pure random chance.)

4. THIS BELIEF SYSTEM HAS A LEADER OR FOUNDER. (His name was Charles Darwin.)

5. THERE IS A TEXT THAT GUIDES THE FAITHFUL. (Darwin’s foundational text is Origin of the Species.)

6. THERE ARE CONTEMPORARY TEACHERS AND LEADERS WHO ATTEMPT TO ADD INSIGHT AND GUIDE THE FAITHFUL. (These include Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and the late Steven J. Gould, who all wrote tomes that are often regarded among atheists on the same level as Darwin’s original work.)

7. SUBSCRIBERS FEEL THEIR TRUTH IS THE ONLY TRUTH, AND ALL OTHERS ARE WRONG. (Most atheists are intolerant of other views of creation. They speak in absolute terms about the certainty of their belief system, to the exclusion of all other belief systems.)

8. THERE IS A CONCERTED EFFORT TO SHARE THIS BELIEF SYSTEM. (It is not enough to adhere to this system. Adherents feel the need to share this belief system with others, in an effort to enlighten those around them.)

9. SOME FOLLOWERS FORCE THEIR VIEWS ON THE PUBLIC, THROUGH APPEALS TO THE GOVERNMENT. (This includes attempts to remove all displays of other religions in our schools, government buildings and currency, as well as the successful act of legally banning the teaching any competing theory of creation in our public schools.)

10. SOME ADHERENTS ARE MOVED TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM. (Hitler was inspired by Nietzsche and Darwin. He was attempting to accelerate 'Survival of the Fittest'. Stalin and Mao Tse Tung followed suit, creating evil atheistic tyrannies. This can happen when any or all of the above nine concepts are present.)

I submit this for your consideration.

Rabbi,
I agree that yours is one of the best panelists' responses although I don't see any common atheist ideology or church.

BGone wrote:
If there is no church of Atheism then start one. Religion is big tax free business operated from tax exempt facilities. The Vatican will harvest over a trillion dollars from the USA over the 20 year period starting 10 years back. Of course the government will have to recognize your new "faith."

It makes no sense to have a church based on atheism, but there is an atheist church based on reality: http://www.churchofreality.org and it is recognized by the government of the USA.

"The same goes for any hypothetical method by which evidence of a supreme being could be detected."

Evidence of a supreme being or the lack thereof.

"That's a gross mischaracterization of what I said, which was, "I demand evidence for claims about the world. The authoritarian and dogmatic structure of churches offers nothing to me." How you get "You believe nothing" from that mystifies me."

Sorry, I guess I applied this part of your post too broadly:

"Mr. Steinsaltz, your "Church of Atheists" is a thinly-veiled attempt to equate atheism with religionism. They are not equivalent. *Atheism is a lack of belief*. I demand evidence for claims about the world. The authoritarian and dogmatic structure of churches offers nothing to me."

I realize now you probably just meant a lack of belief in religion or God, but my "so you believe nothing?" didn't come out of nowhere.

Greg, I think of atheism more strictly, which perhaps I need to reconsider. I just always thought an atheist left no room for the possibility that evidence might someday pop up to prove the existence of some supreme being. So I guess I consider so-called "weak atheists" to not be atheists, while acknowledging the numbers of them who disagree with me. I'd probably just call them empiricists or rationalists.

As for my comments that the existence or nonexistence of a supreme being is unknowable, I mean that in the sense that Kuhn posits that a heliocentric solar system and universe was unknowable to Ptolemy given the tools he had at the time. Likewise, Copernicus couldn't have predicted the evidence that Galileo and Kepler would be able to gather and, by extension, the changes in astronomy that it would bring about. The same goes for any hypothetical method by which evidence of a supreme being could be detected.

And when I think about this stuff and what lies beyond the sum of what we've come to know, I enjoy the cognitive tension of confronting the unknowable and considering what may be there.

Anonymous,

"Also, I understand the difference between "believing there's no god" and "not believing god exists (because there's no evidence)." IMO the latter, which leaves room for the possibility that one will be shown to exist, is not a strictly atheist viewpoint.

>>Actually, this is a key confusion. The mass of atheists don't "believe there's no god" but rather are teapot athests who do "not god exists (because there's no evidence)". The door is open for atheists to accept a theory of the existence of a god, but it is reduced to non-importance due to the lack of evidence. My own take on the definitions are:

Atheist: Thinks it's very likely that a particular supernatural claim doesn't exist due to lack of evidence or contrary evidence and therefore sees the likelyhood of the claim's existence as one in infinity. (while acknowledging the number of people who have a hunch / faith / desire for it to be true)

Agnostic: Thinks that it's not knowable whether a particular supernatural claim is true. There's neither evidence for nor against.

Seems to me that the agnostic is less likely to utilize likelyhoods in his/her thought process.

Theists seem to be atheists about all other gods than there own..

Agnostics seem to be atheists about all other gods than the ones that sound plausible or for those that it won't cause social friction to reject.

Rabbi,

I agree with your title:

NEITHER THE PROBLEM OR THE ARGUMENTS ARE NEW.

Its understood. They've been with us for ages and ages.

But I am confused about your comments concerning atheism in America.

"Until recently, it was not very common in the U.S." "the growth of religious fundamentalism created a counter-reaction in the U.S"

In the 1960s, Madalyn Murray O'Hair won her case to ban prayer in school. At that time America certainly had a Bible Belt, but it was primarily interested in saving souls not getting out the vote. It was as though O'Hair had poked a sleeping giant in the eye. She founded "American Atheists" and became the "most hated woman in America" This coupled with the sting of Roe vs Wade in 1973 began the breaking down of denominational walls and in many cases even interfaith coalition. IMHO American atheists actions created and contributed to the growth and success of the religious right. Not visa versa as you suggest.

Thanks for listening and best wishes.

Ba'al: "Rabbi, you are a wise man"
Dizzy: "the best panelist response"
NGORDON: "Truly well thought out, gentle, kind, and generous."

Egads! Are we reading the same post?

First Paragraph: Introductory History of the, well, quite frankly "obvious".

Second Paragraph: Hypothesis that "nothing has changed" in these many years (eons perhaps). Alas, while so true of religious dogma ond "faith" - but not of science; the cumulative understandings of mankind or the exponential growth in the knowledge of so many around us (of which I might add, all religions combined have, in the last 450 years at least, been clearly a hindrance versus a help [think Galileo]).

Third Paragraphs: Poses a question: "Can believers / nonbelievers even talk?" Like Duhhh, every day, all day, and at all "levels" of conversation, thank you very much. I'm glad to see the good Rabbi leaves his ivory tower enough to know this. Hey, people talk! Like, who knew! I am puzzled though by the following:

1) "Any deep conversation is not very helpful" - Well, aren't you just maybe the pariah of hope for mankind. This type of blythe "the heathens will never understand" is just so very typical of virtually all persons of true "faith" (and I do mean to cast that term as the ignorance and sheer blindness of "true faith").

2) And speaking of "faith" (def as "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.") - here, you claim that mere dialog between believers and atheists as a "clash between two faiths". Oh my Gawd! Either you have no concept of what an atheist is, or you are puposefully spinning this post for your nefarious purposes (bwaaahhaaahaaa!). I suspect that you are indeed just ignorant. Saying someone is an atheist, in no way, purports to make a statement about their "faith", but rather their "lack of faith" in whatever your particualr theism, deism, pantheism, or whatever your unsupported, untestable, and admittedly "blind" faith happens to be.

As you are a "faithful believer", the onus of any evidence of such rests on your shoulders, not mine (by way of analogy, I am quite certain that you would want tangible proof if I claimed that Abraham has materialized and is sitting beside me (which reminds me, he keeps looking at my young son and the island kitchen chopping block - I fear that I may have to keep my eye upon him, hmmmm).

3) and uhhmmm - atheists belong to a church! I take back what I had earlier said about the possibility of your setting foot outside the ivory towers of your mind. I suspect that you may indeed know much less about reality than people give you credit for (especially the vaulted praise of some of the comment sheeples noted above).

Forth Paragraph: Platitudes and apres Rodney King adage: "can't we all just getting along". Weak. Buy somebody a lottery ticket instead - I suspect that you can spread more "hope" that way.

Lastly, I so very fail to see anything whatsoever that the author has brought to light. Am I too dim to sip in the good Rabbi's brilliance? Or was this post, upon reflection, truly banal?

Hmmm, might be worth a re-read. From my point of view, one of the things I most admire about being a skeptic (to me, analogous with agnosticism and atheism) is that I do not "have" to believe in anything without the some balance of evidence. Amen to that.

By the way, the guy in the picture looks suspiciously like Santa Claus.

Maybe the war on Christmas has been lost.

hehehe

I hate to quote Donald Rumsfeld -- so much potential and intelligence wasted in a perverse brain wrapped up in an even more perverse personality, but someone sent me a list of quotable statements by Rumsfeld. The three below, taken from that collection, seem poignantly pertinent in the context of this discussion.

1. "Needless to say, the President is correct. Whatever it was he said."

Just like those who say the "book" whichever one they happen to believe in is correct, whatever it was that it said.

2. "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know."

For those who believe, God is a known known.

For atheists, the non-existence of God is a known unknown.

The truth may be that for all, the entire subject is an unknown unknown.

3. "There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something does exist does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist." -on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction

It seems to me that the same applies to the question of God.

If I may add my own Rumsfeldian logic, it seems that we have an unproven proven, competing against an unproven unproven.

No one can win. Just like the non-war war in Iraq.

Eric,

I disagree with your definitions of atheists and agnostics. In my experience, most atheists (sometimes called weak atheists) lack a belief in gods, almost always due to a lack of evidence in those gods. Agnosticism is a completely separate category which claims that gods or their existence are ultimately unknownable. Atheism is an empirical claim, agnosticism is a claim about a limit of knowledge.

Also, in response to this:

"You believe nothing? So anything that hasn't been shown empirically just simply doesn't exist? I'm sure glad Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein, etc, didn't take such a view. Also, do you not believe that the dogmatic principles of religions are wrong?"

That's a gross mischaracterization of what I said, which was, "I demand evidence for claims about the world. The authoritarian and dogmatic structure of churches offers nothing to me." How you get "You believe nothing" from that mystifies me.

I'm not sure what's confusing about what I said, but you clearly didn't get it. I demand evidence for claims about the world, whether made by Galileo or a druidic shaman. Are you seriously claiming that evidence wasn't important to Galileo or Einstein? Do you think we would celebrate their achievements if the facts had disagreed with their hypotheses?

You seem to be equating a demand for evidence with a disapproval of hypothesizing and conjecture. Hypothesizing is as crucial to science as gathering evidence.

""The point, or rather the question I'm asking is, so what if it's not 100% provable?"

The point about things being unprovable was being made in context of a discussion about Truth and science's non-role in determining what it is."

Yes, I understand the context of the discussion and agree that science can't (and doesn't really want to) say what The Truth is. But that wasn't the question I was posing.

"This always annoys me. Theists play this game all the time. They ask me if I believe in god. I say that I don't. THEY call me an atheist based on that. So, okay, however, you want it: I'm an atheist. But then they dishonestly turn around and insist that atheist means ONLY those atheists who positively assert a claim of knowledge about the non-existence of god (a pretty goofy straw man if I've ever heard one)."

FWIW, plunge, I'm not a theist. That's just what I've always considered atheist to mean. I haven't changed that position once in this entire discussion. If you disagree, that's fine.

"I just object to using "belief" in place of thinking. UFOs, ghosts, god, whatever.

IMO, strict atheism believes that God(s) does(do) not exist, period. That's dogma. That's my only real point about that.

"The point, or rather the question I'm asking is, so what if it's not 100% provable?"

The point about things being unprovable was being made in context of a discussion about Truth and science's non-role in determining what it is.

"Again, I don't think you understand as much about atheisms or non-belief as you claim to."

Where did I claim to know anything? At worst, I'm using an over-strict definition of the word "atheist." In my view, an atheist makes no room for the possible existence of God(s).

"As for agnosticism, I'm an atheist agnostic. The two terms are not mutually exclusive, and in fact, every single last agnostic is either a theist or an atheist, no matter what they say. Either they believe in God or they don't. Agnosticism is not a middle ground on that question, but rather a position on _knowledge_: a quite different axis of measurement."

I disagree. The only thing I firmly believe about God or the lack there of is that I can't know one way or the other. I don't want to know. I enjoy looking down the barrel of knowledge and wondering what I'm unable to see.

And as far as empiricism and reason, I think of them as flashlights in an enormous dark room. You can catch glimpses of things and deduce their context, but you can't ever use them to see the whole room at once.

"An atheist believes there is no god. That is the literal meaning of the word atheist. If you don't agree with the statement that there is no god, then you are not an atheist."

This always annoys me. Theists play this game all the time. They ask me if I believe in god. I say that I don't. THEY call me an atheist based on that. So, okay, however, you want it: I'm an atheist. But then they dishonestly turn around and insist that atheist means ONLY those atheists who positively assert a claim of knowledge about the non-existence of god (a pretty goofy straw man if I've ever heard one). That's the fallacy of equivocation, plain and simple, changing definitions midstream. You can't play that game.

The root "a" means "without" and the part "theism" means god beliefs, so atheism = "without god beliefs" not "people who believe they know there is no god." That's just how we're caricatured by theists. Some atheists may believe that, but that's a SUBSET of atheists, just like some theists believe John Smith was a prophet, but not all.

Why can't atheists define what atheism is anyway? Who asked you guys, who've spent millenia slandering and smearing us, to get dibs on defining what we are?

But hey, in the end, I don't really care. If you want to insist "atheist" means what you want it to mean, go ahead. Just don't use that as another excuse to lie about me. I'm a non-believer, a non-theist. It's not that complicated.

From Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science):

"Scientists never claim absolute knowledge of nature or the behavior of the subject of the field of study. Certain scientific "facts" are linguistic (such as the fact that humans are mammals), but these are true only by definition, and they reflect only truths relative to agreed convention. These deductive classificational facts may be absolute, but they only say something about human language and expression, but not about the external world. This part of science is like mathematics.

Another part of science is inductive, and attempts to say something about the external world which is not true by definition, but can be shown to be true in specific instances by experiment or observation. Unlike a mathematical proof, a scientific theory which makes statements about nature in an inductive way, is always open to falsification, if new evidence is presented. "

...

IMO, the idea of the unprovable nature of anything is one of the foundations of and science and is hugely responsible for its successes.

Eric,

I think religion has a lot of value, directly for a lot of people, and indirectly as a social force. I'm just not religious myself. I think sports have a lot of value for a lot of people too, but I'm not very interested in them.

I don't have a "belief" in no god. I just don't believe IN god. There is no justified reason to I've ever come across.

I would say the following applies to broadly to atheists/"nonbelievers"

As for "Belief in empiricism and reason as the way to learn truths"

I would say that the vast vast majority of people on planet not only would say they agreed with that, but even they didn't, still act and live life as if they did.

", and maybe even Truth."

I don't claim to know what "Truth" is, and claiming that empiricism has anything to do with this claim is laughable, since empiricism is pretty much founded on the REJECTION of the idea of some final capital T truth.

Again, I don't think you understand as much about atheisms or non-belief as you claim to.

As for agnosticism, I'm an atheist agnostic. The two terms are not mutually exclusive, and in fact, every single last agnostic is either a theist or an atheist, no matter what they say. Either they believe in God or they don't. Agnosticism is not a middle ground on that question, but rather a position on _knowledge_: a quite different axis of measurement.

"Science can't show it, but that doesn't meant it isn't happening."

Which is one of the grand differences: science will allow for that relationship between newtonian and quantum to be modified as we learn more (which may include concluding that a basketball CAN'T experience duality, who knows). The Rabbi's 2000 year old book can never be questioned.

But that wasn't the point I was making, and I think we're coming at things from a similar angle. I'm not an atheist either. I just object to using "belief" in place of thinking. UFOs, ghosts, god, whatever.

The point, or rather the question I'm asking is, so what if it's not 100% provable?

"As for: "one of science's central tenets is that nothing is provable." This is neither a "central" tenet, nor is it accurate. Science defines boundaries within which something has an extremely high likelihood of being true. If you remove those boundaries, then yes, everything is possible, i.e. 99 out of 100 is 99%, but 99 out of infinity is nearly (but not equal to) zero %."

An extremely high likelihood of being true is NOT the same as provable. Science has as its central tenet that nothing is provable, thus it is able to adapt to knew findings that disprove what was once held to be true.

"An example of this the difference between Newtonian physics and quantum physics. A basketball will bounce according to Newtonian laws. When you expand the boundaries of analysis to include the really, really small scale, say for a quark, Newtonian physics doesn't apply. But that doesn't mean that the Newtonian laws suddenly don't apply to the basketball too."

Wave-particle duality behaviors have been exhibited in molecules. We haven't been able to devise an experiment that proves it happens to something the size of, say, a basketball, but that doesn't mean that a basketball can't exist in wave form. In fact, in theory, it can. This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Science can't show it, but that doesn't meant it isn't happening. My thought is that we can't see it in something the size of a basketball because its waveform is too similar in frequency to ours (kinda like how a car traveling at the same speed you are can appear to be still).

Also, I understand the difference between "believing there's no god" and "not believing god exists (because there's no evidence)." IMO the latter, which leaves room for the possibility that one will be shown to exist, is not a strictly atheist viewpoint.

"As to the Rabbi's statement: there is no point in discussing things if you can't convince someone to change."

I totally disagree. Life isn't about winning, it's about living. Just like a C note and an E note have a complement one another, so, too, can an atheist and a theist. As for me, I'm neither. It's all just extremely fascinating to me.

Rabbi -

Like my new Buddy Ba’al and a few other people here, I was fine with your essay until you got to the “Church of the Atheists” bit.

Please, Rabbi, don’t persist with this, even as jest or metaphor. If you want to promote understanding, as it seems you do, please make it clear that you are aware that atheism is not a religion.

Thank you

"An atheist believes there is no god. That is the literal meaning of the word atheist. If you don't agree with the statement that there is no god, then you are not an atheist."

Your first sentence and your third do not say the same thing. The problem is using the word "believe." I'd say a real atheist never professes to BELIEVE there is no god.

Such a statement from an atheist would be as meaningless as a believer saying "I BELIEVE there is a god." The response to both those statements is "that's nice, but so what?" Your belief or non-belief has no impact on the existence of god. Either he exists or he doesn't. (It may have an impact on you, but that's another point.)

As for: "one of science's central tenets is that nothing is provable." This is neither a "central" tenet, nor is it accurate. Science defines boundaries within which something has an extremely high likelihood of being true. If you remove those boundaries, then yes, everything is possible, i.e. 99 out of 100 is 99%, but 99 out of infinity is nearly (but not equal to) zero %.

An example of this the difference between Newtonian physics and quantum physics. A basketball will bounce according to Newtonian laws. When you expand the boundaries of analysis to include the really, really small scale, say for a quark, Newtonian physics doesn't apply. But that doesn't mean that the Newtonian laws suddenly don't apply to the basketball too.

Incidentally, none of the above requires your belief or non-belief.

Anyway, it would be wrong to say with 100% certainty that God does not exist because you can say the universe is infinite. It's the same logic used to say we can't prove life doesn't exist on other planets. However, the chance of there being a god is exceedingly small. And the chance that any of our "belief systems" accurately define god are infinitely smaller than that.

As to the Rabbi's statement: there is no point in discussing things if you can't convince someone to change. He points out that today's atheists are not saying anything new, as if people adhering to writings in 2000 year old books can claim to be saying anything new. Maybe we can't change things today. But in a few hundred years, who knows? After all, that's how long it too monotheists to displace polytheists.

I am an assclown

Oh, also, what about Confucianism? That is considered a religion, but it lacks any specific belief in anything, other than a system of ethics, morals, etc. Atheism is similar in that regard. I see no reason why it can't be considered a system of belief like any other religion.

Oh, if you say you don't believe in God, but leave open the possibility that you will if evidence pops up (i.e. you don't believe in God or Gods, as opposed to firmly believing there is no god), you're an agnostic, not an atheist, imo.

"Bill C., I don't think you need to apologize for the vitriol in your first post. It is difficult to live in a society surrounded by people who believe, without a doubt, that you will be brutally tortured forever for your lack of belief in their godling."

Try being someone who actually believes that nothing is absolutely true! Even atheists get pissed at me. Atheism is deconstructionism that balks.

Bill C, science obviously sheds light on certain observable phenomena and their "laws" that allow us to do certain things that weren't previously possible (heart transplant, flight, etc). What I am saying, and where Kuhn comes in, is that what science observes is not Truth. For example: Copernicus was right, we are not the center of the universe. He was ultimately shown to be wrong, however, when Galileo and Kepler showed that the Sun was not the center, either. And thus it goes. We're always a step or more behind the unknowable. You call it unrealistically philosophical, I call it honest. It's for this reason that I find atheism as unattractive as any organized religion: we can't know that there is no God. Just because we can't devise a way to empirically test for said existence doesn't change that.

"Oh and by the way the belief that Jesus actually existed is pretty far from being infallibly true. Much more that's not a religious claim, simply a historical one."

So it's far from infallibly true (i.e. probably untrue? Or just kinda possible?), but yet it is a historical claim, not a religious one? I'm confused.

"The view of these things offered by religion is so devoid of any sense that it deserves to be dismissed. Unfortunately I am a believer in democracy so as long as that exists the religionists will have their say by socially they should be dismissed once and for all."

So "thou shalt not murder" is devoid of sense? Nothing of value comes from religion? I bet more of your sense of right and wrong is rooted religion than you'd care to realize. Furthermore, you sound like a bigot.

"Mr. Steinsaltz, your "Church of Atheists" is a thinly-veiled attempt to equate atheism with religionism. They are not equivalent. Atheism is a lack of belief. I demand evidence for claims about the world. The authoritarian and dogmatic structure of churches offers nothing to me."

You believe nothing? So anything that hasn't been shown empirically just simply doesn't exist? I'm sure glad Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein, etc, didn't take such a view. Also, do you not believe that the dogmatic principles of religions are wrong?

LOL @ Bee Kay. My thoughts exactly.

Amusing how picky people are to focus on "Church of Atheists"--is that better, putting quote marks to indicate a generic take on what the rabbi possibly was trying to say? But there are groups I believe that non-believers (that's an interesting construct?) have --humanist and atheist organization (right--they aren't called Church--oops, make that "church.") Satisfied, ye members of the Church of the Nitpickers of the world of the world?

Bill C., I don't think you need to apologize for the vitriol in your first post. It is difficult to live in a society surrounded by people who believe, without a doubt, that you will be brutally tortured forever for your lack of belief in their godling. Nothing you or any other atheist has said in these forums comes close to that attitude. Also, many of the people in this forum find the rhetoric here disturbing because they simply aren't used to strongly-worded, deeply-considered debates. Most people are more accustomed to chanting their kumbayas, and forthright, honest discussions make them uncomfortable.

I said this in another thread, but atheism needs all types of voices. Voices like Amy's, who was exactly right that the world needs compassion from all quarters, and voices like yours, who remind us that we also need the truth, even if we sound mean when speaking it.

Mr. Steinsaltz, your "Church of Atheists" is a thinly-veiled attempt to equate atheism with religionism. They are not equivalent. Atheism is a lack of belief. I demand evidence for claims about the world. The authoritarian and dogmatic structure of churches offers nothing to me.

Oh and by the way the belief that Jesus actually existed is pretty far from being infallibly true. Much more that's not a religious claim, simply a historical one.

Thats ok Eric.

I lived in New York City for many years, you learn how to filter such comments accordingly.

Which brings up an interesting point.

I once met a Rabbi who said : when the middle east becomes like New York City, then we will have peace in the world. For in New York City all sides mix together as one and side by side.

Its a strange place in that respect and it works. It made me think about the truth of that statement

Peace and Acceptance in your way
http://www.personaltao.com/

I figured it was you.... don't fret.

Yes I have indeed read the Structure of Scientific Revolutions and it is not germaine to the discussion.

If you are going to tell me that the assertion that the Earth revolves around the Sun is only a testable theory, because logically-according to Thomas Kuhn- it is, well then you are just being far more philosophical than I am.

I am attempting to discuss religion, science, and belief in way which relate to human life. What should we use to inform our daily lives, conduct, ethics, and government policy. The view of these things offered by religion is so devoid of any sense that it deserves to be dismissed. Unfortunately I am a believer in democracy so as long as that exists the religionists will have their say by socially they should be dismissed once and for all.

And yes I am an atheist if I dont agree with the statement that there is no god. I don't believe in any god. And "a"-"theism" is simply being against theism which, by saying that there is no evidence for god(s) and as such I don't believe in one, I am.

Let us be happy that everyone agrees be they ever so disagreeable in their agreements.

Happy new year. I would say peace but I simply hate to be wrong, again.

Whoa, I don't know why my response has your name, sorry about that.

(The one that starts: "Every statement of fact is evaluated independently and is not informed by unshakable faith in your above listed tenets."

That sounds like a scientist/empiricist)

Oh, and logic is an example of a non-empirical system that "make[s] sensible statements or arguments."

2 + 2 = 4

"Every statement of fact is evaluated independently and is not informed by unshakable faith in your above listed tenets."

That sounds like a scientist/empiricist

An atheist believes there is no god. That is the literal meaning of the word atheist. If you don't agree with the statement that there is no god, then you are not an atheist.

"Name one belief of Christianity which has ever been supported by the smallest shred of empirical evidence."

The belief that Christ existed. Not proven infallibly (but what is? One of science's central tenets is that nothing is provable). But don't get me wrong: I'm not arguing for religion or the existence of a God or Gods, nor the need to believe in one or many.

"I don't believe in science and empiricism. I can see that they are the only fields of human endeavor which have made arguments that have any decent probability of being true."

Wrong, they only make arguments based on what's observable, and therefore have a decent probability of being *testable*. Empiricism and science are not in the game of "truth."

Have you ever read "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"? I recommend it highly.

I would say the following applies to broadly to atheists/"nonbelievers"

Belief that organized religion has little or no value

Belief that there is no god

Belief in empiricism and reason as the way to learn truths, and maybe even Truth.

None of these are the beliefs of atheists. Atheists have no beliefs except those which can be shown. Every statement of fact is evaluated independently and is not informed by unshakable faith in your above listed tenets.

Organized religion: Can you offer me one example af a religion that has ever proved the truth of any claim it makes about the world. Name one belief of Christianity which has ever been supported by the smallest shred of empirical evidence. Never mind offering proof for their claims I would like to see them even try to make a sensible argument for them.

Belief that there is no god(s) is very distinct from not believe in a god(s). Any assclown philosophy professor can tell you why.

As for empiricism: show me any other way to actually make sensible statements or arguments based on non-empirical evidence. I don't believe in science and empiricism. I can see that they are the only fields of human endeavor which have made arguments that have any decent probability of being true.

If you want me to be more accurate, Bill, let's talk about the Episcopal Church, which just split because its constituent churches can't agree on certain issues. Still, Episcopal Church will still be understood, whether your church follows the word of the Nigerian Bishop, or the Anglican one.