nornerator

Atheists as far as I know are skeptics. Being an atheist in the USA is not something one does flippantly, very few are born into atheism. Unlike most religious people, an atheist at some point makes a conscious choice that they do not believe in religion.

Imagine, if you will, a prototypical balance, a plank of wood balanced on a wedge. Yet this is not an ordinary balance, this is a conceptual balance of evidence. This conceptual evidence balance is what rational people use in order to judge the accuracy of idea's and theories. Much of the time it is difficult to determine immediately which side of the balance is heavier, that is, which idea or theory has more evidence to it, however after research and a good amount of skepticism it becomes clear which side is heavier.

It must be noted that this sort of decision making is based on the assumption that it is rational to believe idea's with the most evidence for them, essentially the assumption is, it is rational to believe idea's that describe reality most accurately rather than ideas that describe reality less accurately.

People who use this sort of system to judge rationality are given the labels, rational, rationalist, or skeptics. Being a skeptic is synonymous with rationalist.

Now, getting back on subject, I have heard it said that atheists are just as close minded as theists. This is a gigantic lie.

Atheists, as mentioned above are mainly composed of skeptics, or rationalists who weigh evidence in order to make a decision about belief. These peoples beliefs are not set in stone, and change according to evidence. The fact of the matter is, there is overwhelming amounts of evidence that contradict the idea of a god in any sort of religious sense what-so-ever, and absolutely 0 evidence in favor of there being a god.

However every atheist I know would convert to any particular religion if there were more evidence of it being correct than of it not being correct.

There are exactly 0 theists that would do the same, simply because, any theist, if they used a rational system to evaluate evidence would come to the same conclusion as anybody who has ever looked objectively upon religion, and would realize it was all a scam.

The only reason a person would say an atheist is close minded is simply out of frustration that a skeptic cannot be swayed by stories like "I was personally touched by god" or any of that anecdotal evidence. These sorts of things are called spiritual experiences, and everybody, regardless of religion (or lack there of) have them. Atheists who do not believe in soul or "free will" have these sorts of profound experiences too.

Trocisp

Being a skeptic is not synonymous with rationalist. Rationalist applies reason and rationale to things, where a skeptic questions them. Do they normally go hand in hand? Yes. Not always.

And, saying that any group of people, weather they believe in God or not can be described in a monolithic way as "They are not all closed minded (atheists)," is blatantly inaccurate. There are quite a few Atheists who've made up their mind a long, long time ago and will refuse to change it.

I'm Agnostic in the sense that I'm not a believer in ET-UFO's. That's the best way I can describe it.

nornerator

First, I will take back my statement that skeptic and rationalist are synonymous if you can provide 1 example were these two do not coincide.

However, do you honestly believe that if god proved himself and offered eternal life and happiness that an atheist would remain atheist purely out of stubbornness? That is lunacy.

Trocisp

There are plenty of people who are skeptical of the story about 9.11 when there is no rational basis to do so.

No, however that doesn't mean they're not closed minded.

nornerator

Umm, there is a very good rational basis for being skeptical of the 9/11 story. In addition to all the specifics of 9/11, the fact that other attacks, such as pearl harbor, or the Lusitania were allowed to happen by the US government (this is public knowledge) should make any rational person skeptical of the possibility that this is a similar circumstance.

In addition, it would absolutely mean a person is not close minded if their opinions are malleable enough to be changed by evidence, if that is not the definition of open-mindedness, what is?

Although the point is moot because tenderlungs has already proved that I was wrong, some atheists can clearly be close minded.

Trocisp

Pearl Harbor was not allowed to happen, if you're going to make wild claims like that, at least back them up.

There is absolutely no rational basis for that.

If you'd like to continue the discussion about that, start a new thread in the Politics forum, I don't particularly feel like getting infracted for being off topic. I'll warn you ahead of time though, statements like "public knowledge" will not go unchallenged, because it's not public knowledge, it's insane conspiracy theories.
Closed mindedness is (to me) is not being open to new ideas, or even willing to entertain them without accepting them.

Tenderlungs

Well I consider myself an atheist, and believe if there is any sort of God it doesn't want to be worshipped. For all we know, we could be ants in an ant farm.

I really don't think I'd convert to Christianity if it were true, because I believe in living how I want to live, and not by rules set in stone.

__________________


Legalize cultivation.

nornerator

Really? don't get me wrong, I'm an atheist too, but even if you knew 100% that Christianity or any other religion was true, you still wouldn't believe it?

Buzzby

If they were skeptics, they wouldn't hold an irrational, unprovable belief that God doesn't exist. A skeptic would say, "There's no proof one way or the other."

Attempting to measure something based on faith and belief using the tools of reason is like attempting to measure how many gallons of water are in a bucket with a thermometer. Wrong tool for the job.

Faith and belief are not rational. Few would contend that they are. You might condemn them for that reason, but you can't judge them on that scale.

You can't prove God doesn't exist. You can't prove that He does exist. To insist that He doesn't exist is both irrational and close-minded.

There is zero evidence in either direction. Show me one piece of evidence that shows that God doesn't exist. I'd love to see how you can prove a negative.

I would say that atheists have limited themselves to a very narrow way of looking at the possibilities of the universe in which we live. Rationality is only one, very limited, perspective. They're just like the Drug Warriors who won't be swayed by stories like, "Marijuana took away the pain from my MS" or any of that anecdotal evidence. If 95% of the people in the world believe in something, it's just possible that they're right.

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nornerator

Atheists know that it cannot be proved that god does not exist. Never once did I say it could be proved. However, we cannot prove fairies do not exist, nor can we disprove that the universe is actually inside of john maddens stomach, this does not mean that these statements are just as valid as their counterparts.

It is also untrue that it is impossible to prove a positive. If god existed and god wanted to prove itself to the universe, it could very easily do this by holding a demonstration whereby he/she/it proved its existence.

However it is entirely possible to prove that religious gods do not exist which is what I did say. Religions are filled with contradictions, the christian religion is no exception. For instance, how can an all knowing, all powerful being create something unintentionally? Let me be more clear;

If god has the power to create anything he wants, and the ability to know the infinite repercussions of his actions how then does "sin" exist unless god purposefully and knowingly crafted it?

In addition the christian god is supposed to be 100% good, so why then would a being of 100% love knowingly and purposefully create misery, pain, and suffering?

Some might say, these are created out of free will.

However, how can free will exist if god purposefully creates everything and knows each and every action his creation is going to make? this is the illusion of free will.

Finally, why would god supposedly create the ability of "choice" or "free will" if he wanted you to base your beliefs on faith alone, if he wants you to base your ideas on the world off of faith, and not evidence? If he wants you to base your belief on faith, and will torture you for all eternity if you base your belief on evidence, then why give the illusion of choice?
Why is it everything else in the world needs to be based on evidence?

This is evidence that a religious christian god does not exist, it does NOT disprove the concept of god in general.

It is easy to disprove religion. It may sound like I have claimed to disprove a negative, but this is not true. For instance, 5=5 and 5=3, both cannot be right, one must be wrong. 5=3 is disproved easily because in reality having 5 apples is different than having 3 apples.

Although I liked your analogy of using a thermometer to measure number of gallons of water, I disagree that reason and rationality have limited uses.

Name a single concept besides religion that has practical use in the world that is not based on evidence, I would be genuinely interested in your answer.


Anyways, I hope my posts do not come off in a negative way, and I hope they are not perceived as offensive, I realize I am very blunt in my writing, but I genuinely enjoy this debate, and I value everyones responses.