I lack belief in any god(s), defaulting to atheism, which is more justified and reason-based than blind-faith, irrational theism. I side with PZ Meyers in his recent debate with Jerry Coyne--it is impossible that atheism could ever be falsified by evidence which would motivate a change in belief to theism.
Believe?
Although Greta Christina prefers the word "conclusion" [http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2010/11/is-atheism-a-belief.html] to the word "belief," I think Maryann Spikes (see comments in "conclusion" link) makes a good case for sticking to the word "belief," and I admittedly believe provisionally that God does not exist, and that atheism is a more justified and reason-based belief than theism. I side with Jerry Coyne in his recent debate with PZ Meyers--I believe atheism is (and ought to be) falsifiable.
ReplyDeleteFaith doesn’t have to be a religious word. It is a good word. We use it when we talk about having faith in mankind, being faithful to eachother, being "faithful to the text" et cetera. Though sometimes it means trust and loyalty to another individual/group/etc., it can also mean loyalty to the truth, to reality. Theists believe and have faith lacking certainty just like everyone else—the difference is their belief, their faith, is blind. To use Maryann Spikes' example in Greta's blog (though she would not agree theists' faith is necessarily blind), faith is when we held on to the new belief that there is no God, despite the fear and panic that rose up in us during our deconversion (because of what we had been taught about hell, and because of how we feared our believing friends and family would react to our deconversion). … "That sort of faith (as opposed to blind faith) is based on evidence (or, lack of evidence where evidence should not be lacking). It is strengthened by evidence, and weakened by counter-evidence. It is 'subjective certainty' short of absolute certainty. The further away from absolute certainty, the more lesser degrees of faith (lesser degrees of subjective certainty) will be involved--and that is true of every belief (which is not to say every belief is equally justified!), not just ones involving god(s)."
ReplyDelete"the difference is their belief, their faith, is blind."
ReplyDeletePlease check this out: http://www.examiner.com/apologetics-in-modesto/list-of-articles-on-evidence-for-god
--Maryann
Reader: How do you think regina and I should respond?
ReplyDelete