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Is Atheism a form of Faith?
I've wondered when reading posts if for some atheists their stance is a faith

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Is Atheism a form of Faith?

Wosret
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 11/03/09 - 12:09 PM:	#461
dclements wrote: All religions require belief in one form of another, but if that is so what is the point of claiming 'all believed myths are religion'? You can just as easily have said all beliefs in 'x' are religions, with 'x' being anything. Whether one believes in myths really doesn't change anything. Well, I was just being a smart ass. It was a joke, not an argument. All believed myths are superstitions, and only some superstitions are religious, and religion need not necessarily involve superstition. It just so happens that the most ubiquitous, and commonly believed superstitions are religious. This is what makes my comment true enough to mount a playful jab off of.
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Cheshire
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Posted 11/03/09 - 12:18 PM:	#462
sheps wrote: I didn't suggest that anyone here on this thread said that. Just an opinion I'd picked up from elsewhere. You guys take things too personally sometimes! An opinion you picked up from elsewhere?
Or not.

Sashianova
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1 of 2 people found this post helpful Posted 11/03/09 - 12:39 PM:	#463
Theists insist god exists so the onus of proving that claim is on theists. Atheists insist god does not exist so the onus of proving that claim is on atheists. Agnosticism is the rejection of both claims. The theist relies on the assertion that "god's plan is too complex to be fully understood" and avoids logic as an obstacle to the conclusion that the regional mythology in question is flawless. Conversely the atheist is convinced that logic and all the gathered evidence has removed the possibility of god entirely, or at least to the extent that one can go ahead and conclude that there is no god. Both are hasty conclusions concocted without definitive evidence. I'm not sure if faith is the means by which both make their hasty conclusion.

rigelrover
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1 of 2 people found this post helpful Posted 11/03/09 - 12:54 PM:	#464
That is only if the claim is a conclusive assertion. I don't think that faith consists of conclusive assertions. With such a mode of asserting oneself there is no need for faith. Faith includes a measure of hopefulness. I like Raymund Smullyan's definition: "Belief not based on evidence for something hoped for and believed to be good."
I am more interested in questions than answers; dialog than dictation. If we can reasonably believe that there is not just a breach, but a fundamentally unclosable gap between the individual mind and the ultimate nature of the reality; the primordial thing in itself, then 'true' mystery does exist.

sheps
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Posted 11/03/09 - 01:27 PM:	#465
Cheshire wrote: An opinion you picked up from elsewhere? Just some people I know who are atheists; many of them view things from a very postmodernistic perspective. I really wasn't applying this to anyone here. Sorry if I gave this impression.
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Sashianova
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Posted 11/03/09 - 02:24 PM:	#466
rigelrover wrote: That is only if the claim is a conclusive assertion. I don't think that faith consists of conclusive assertions. With such a mode of asserting oneself there is no need for faith. Faith includes a measure of hopefulness. I like Raymund Smullyan's definition: "Belief not based on evidence for something hoped for and believed to be good." If theism and atheism are not conclusive assertions, I'm not sure how to define either one. Do atheists hope there isn't a god? Atheism doesn't seem that emotional or concerned with a desired outcome. I too like that optimistic definition of faith.

rigelrover
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Posted 11/03/09 - 02:37 PM:	#467
I suppose that by this definition one might say that an atheist lacks faith in her assertion. But there is also the consideration that the atheist may feel a psychological need filled in denying anything that is beyond the scope of empiricism, etc. Many atheists also promote their assertions by ascribing to the notion that there will be good that comes of them (e.g. the end of ideology as a basis for governance, etc.). This, yet, seems similar to theistic assertions. It, in part, is enough for me to say that atheism (at this point in time), if sincere, is a belief asserted through faith. Edited by rigelrover on 11/03/09 - 02:46 PM
I am more interested in questions than answers; dialog than dictation. If we can reasonably believe that there is not just a breach, but a fundamentally unclosable gap between the individual mind and the ultimate nature of the reality; the primordial thing in itself, then 'true' mystery does exist.

exel+two
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0 of 4 people found this post helpful Posted 11/03/09 - 05:39 PM:	#468
I think it is quite clear that atheism requires faith: a belief in a lack of God. I would tend to agree on the general fact that atheists tend to lean heavily on science. As a result, they tend to share the arrogance that pervades much of science nowadays. But there, I'm getting off topic. In any case, atheism requires faith, at the very least.

dclements
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0 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 11/04/09 - 04:36 AM:	#469
Wosret wrote: Well, I was just being a smart ass. It was a joke, not an argument. All believed myths are superstitions, and only some superstitions are religious, and religion need not necessarily involve superstition. It just so happens that the most ubiquitous, and commonly believed superstitions are religious. This is what makes my comment true enough to mount a playful jab off of. That is only true if you are talking about religion as defined by Western culture where religion equals belief in God. But in eastern culture and some other cultures that are not as influenced by Abrahamic religions as much, the concept of 'religion' isn't any different from the concept of 'culture' or 'philosophy'. Often what is considered a religion is not a religion in the typical sense at all but merely a way that people live. An example of this is Shintoism which wasn't a religion until Buddhism and other 'religions' came to Japan. Before that it was merely customs that were followed. If religion only means one's culture or beliefs then it is pretty much a given that ones most commonly followed with have mythes of one sort or another. It is only funny when you are talking about religions as defined our Western concept of what a religion is. If talking in the eastern sense then they person saying it would appear to be ignorant of beliefs other than their own.
No, you don't get it, thats why I'm telling you. You think you get it, which isn't the same as actually getting it. Get it?-Kakashi Hatake Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometimes by action dignified-Friar Lawrence The state of mind that questions is much more important than the question itself.Any question may be asked by a slavish mind, and the answer it receives will still be be within the limitations of its own slavery...Freedom of desire for an answer is essential for the understanding of a problem-Krishnamurti

atightropewalker
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Posted 11/04/09 - 04:44 AM:	#470
rigelrover wrote: I like Raymund Smullyan's definition: "Belief not based on evidence for something hoped for and believed to be good." I suspect a great deal of atheists consider it better for people not to be 'misled' by a God - therefore lack of a God is good. This I suspect is part of the reason why theists have yet again had to try and justify their position. I also know of theists who don't want God or believe he is good for them yet still believe in existence. I think in both cases belief in God, or lack thereof, people shold justify that position. But we now seemed to have arrived at the point where we (the people on this forum) seem to fall into a lack of belief of God and that the theists have to do the greater searching for an answer. I know in many cases atheists have been satisfied with logic alone, ignoring its flaws, whereas I suspect any theist (on this thread at least) has been subjected to the task of justifying their belief in God, having to look beyond the paradoxes of logic and finding out what they truly believe, itaking account of all the logical arguments posited. I also suspect there are a few theists who flatly believe and ignore/pretend not to hear any argument against God and those have presumably not taken part. The thing that appears to me is that atheists don't seem to do the 'soul-searching' anymore and thats probably correct. If something is going to affect your life it is probably better to fall on the negative as a default position. It is probably better to act as if something is not affecting your life than flatly believing that it is affecting your life and potentially losing decisions for yourself and doing the wrong thing. So I can believe atheism to be the lack of belief in a God - in which case no it does not necessarily entail faith. To be a theist as I see it goes beyond a faith (as defined above) in the complete power of logic. Being aware that logic (not least because logic is largely developed from truths and so inductive problems apply) is fallible and, whilst using it as far as possible, arrive at what they believe from their experiences. If your willing to give your choice to logic then you are an athiest (or a severely misled theist), I think being a theist entails more application. I also am aware that there will be atheists who have done this 'soul-searching' and will arrive at the conclusion of no God but, as with the theist, this truth is only true to themselves.
"An honest religious thinker is like a tightrope walker. He almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it." - Ludwig Wittgenstein 'It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand...' - Søren Kierkegaard

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