[Truth Teller]

(01-07-2015 03:03 PM)Plato Wrote:  

Also - everyone on this forum is an Atheist.

If you were absolutely sure that God told you to kill your parents (or children) - would you?

If you answer 'No' - then you are an Atheist.

If you answered 'Yes' - you are mentally ill.

This is called a false dichotomy.

Divine Command Theory is a serious problem for theistic personalism. It isn't for classical theism.

[Mage]

(01-07-2015 03:03 PM)Plato Wrote:  

People either have a desire to rape or don't. Then they find a religion (or a form of atheism) that conforms to their desires.

For most people - when their desires change - they also change their beliefs.

Very few people actually change their desires to stay faithful to their beliefs and those are the true walkers of the spiritual path and fallowers to ideals. But Satanists don't do that by definition, therefore Satanism is not a serious system of beliefs. It's just a stupid rejection for those who have given up on trying to live a conscious life.

[VolandoVengoVolandoVoy]

(01-07-2015 02:38 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

That's generally the New Atheist position. Religious is for childish, deluded people, etc., etc., etc. Another common trope is that "When you understand why you reject all other gods, you'll understand why I reject yours."

Of course, the average New Atheist has about as much knowledge of philosophy or religion as I do of superconductivity. Most of the objections proposed are painfully ignorant. Indeed, most of Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris is just ranting against religion, with little attempt to actually engage the classical theistic arguments. Dawkins' attempt to counter Aquinas' Five Ways is horridly inept.

Engaging the "classic theistic arguments" is a fool's errand and completely unnecessary. It's on the same level as arguing what color dress the tooth fairy is most likely to wear, or what variety of cheese the moon is most likely made of.

Living in an imaginary fairy tale world predicated on mental masturbation rather than observable facts and real world engagement is 100% contrary to the manosphere as I understand it, and is the essence of being blue pill.

[richler]

i believe that the things religion talks about (strange contact with inexplicable entities, the presence of a non-local or even non-mortal aspect of consciousness, the existence of what has come to be called a spiritual realm) are as real as the table i am posting from.

i am not, however, religious. this phenomenon is mistranslated by the human machine, perhaps innately.

i am full of wonderings though.

[Truth Teller]

(01-07-2015 03:16 PM)VolandoVengoVolandoVoy Wrote:  

(01-07-2015 02:38 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

That's generally the New Atheist position. Religious is for childish, deluded people, etc., etc., etc. Another common trope is that "When you understand why you reject all other gods, you'll understand why I reject yours."

Of course, the average New Atheist has about as much knowledge of philosophy or religion as I do of superconductivity. Most of the objections proposed are painfully ignorant. Indeed, most of Dawkins/Hitchens/Harris is just ranting against religion, with little attempt to actually engage the classical theistic arguments. Dawkins' attempt to counter Aquinas' Five Ways is horridly inept.

Engaging the "classic theistic arguments" is a fool's errand and completely unnecessary. It's on the same level as arguing what color dress the tooth fairy is most likely to wear, or what variety of cheese the moon is most likely made of.

Living in an imaginary fairy tale world predicated on mental masturbation rather than observable facts and real world engagement is 100% contrary to the manosphere as I understand it, and is the essence of being blue pill.

If you want to criticize belief in God and make a case that God doesn't exist, you have to show why the arguments fail. If you fail to do so, you fail to make an intellectual case.

It seems as though you're uninterested in making an intellectual case, and would rather rant about religious belief as irrational, and call religious believers deluded and childish. This makes you look like an idiot, but feel free.

[Mage]

(01-07-2015 03:10 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(01-07-2015 02:03 PM)enderilluminatus Wrote:  

(01-07-2015 02:01 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  

Satanism is 95% trolling and 5% seriously dangerous evil psychopaths.

Agreed, that's why I gave it up after a week for Discordianism, which is the closest any religion has come to Truth.

OK, damn, you win, I've never heard of it, what's "Discordianism"?

Discordianism seems to be 100% trolling.

[Plato]

Lot of interesting responses.

Strangely - even though I am an atheist - I plan to make a deep study of theology one day.

To me it is like a more esoteric form of metaphysics. I may not agree with the conclusions they come to - but it would still be fun watching very smart people try to tackle incredibly difficult theological questions.

Alas - I haven't gotten round to it yet.

I should add that any of you who believe in God are taking quite a gamble.

You see - whilst there may have being a creator to the universe (what we call 'God'). How can we be sure that such a God is a 'good' being or a 'bad' being.

Creating the universe - and being evil are not mutually exclusive. If I did come face to face with God - I have no reason to expect him to be good or caring.

He may just as well be indifferent to human suffering - or indeed, something far far worse. That is a gamble that anybody who wishes for their to be a God is taking.

I would rather play it safe and hope there is nothing but mathematics at the core of the universe.

[iknowexactly]

(01-07-2015 03:24 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

It seems as though you're uninterested in making an intellectual case, and would rather rant about religious belief as irrational, and call religious believers deluded and childish. This makes you look like an idiot, but feel free.

There's zero objective evidence for it. Just show me a resurrection, anything like that. Not someone writing about it, a real observable thing.

Or rather, if there is a god, there's huge evidence he's an incredibly sadistic asshole, which is more pessimistic than atheism.

"Get the fuck out of here man, there ain't no God. If there was a God, there'd be no cancer wards, there'd be no Vietnam"
--Miles Davis (During the Vietnam war era.)

However, and this is important, if you like believing in god , if it makes you happy, you should do it, because it's more important for you to be happy than for me to be right about what for me is a moot philosophical debate.

[Truth Teller]

^You express an idea similar to that of gnosticism.

While I reject the idea of God as some sort of "being," I understand where you're coming from. God is Pure Act and Being Itself. We can know through reason that God would (logically) have to be good, all knowing, all powerful, and all the attributes we normally give God.

[Truth Teller]

(01-07-2015 03:35 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(01-07-2015 03:24 PM)Truth Teller Wrote:  

It seems as though you're uninterested in making an intellectual case, and would rather rant about religious belief as irrational, and call religious believers deluded and childish. This makes you look like an idiot, but feel free.

There's zero objective evidence for it. Just show me a resurrection, anything like that. Not someone writing about it, a real observable thing.

Or rather, if there is a god, there's huge evidence he's an incredibly sadistic asshole, which is more pessimistic than atheism.

However, and this is important, if you like believing in god , if it makes you happy, you should do it, because it's more important for you to be happy than for me to be right about what for me is a moot philosophical debate.

Well, you could argue that the existence of absolute moral obligations is evidence of God. The fact that anything exists at all is evidence in its own right.

If you want to get really technical, you can talk about the laws of nature and the fact that the universe is rationally ordered by elegant laws, when it's completely possible that it isn't. The "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics," as Eugene Wigner put it, is a form of evidence as well.

I think that there's fairly good evidence for some sort of organizing entity behind things. Now whether or not you can identify that with God is another question.

[makaveli]

In my world view religion cannot exist in a body that has digested the red pill.

Being religious is a contradiction to having a red pill belief system. If I'm wrong then I have misunderstood the concept of the red pill.


religion is not concerned with truth and evidence.

[Slim Shady]

Holy shit this thread again. I'm always shocked at how such supposedly smart people can continue believing in one of the greatest cancers of society and history.

Show me the money. Show me the proof. It is not my burden first to disprove you. It is your burden first to prove it.

I can continue on about how living a life without believing in god is better, or atleast better for someone who enjoys risk. I think it is part of the belief system of the forum - risk taking. Risk taking leads to a life of more possibility. It opens doors. A belief in religion prohibits that and thus I reject it despite the small chance that it may exist [just like anything really could exist].

Take responsibility for your own life. That's what we all talk about. Your mistakes are entirely your own, and your victories are your own as well. Using a god is a crutch. It is for the mentally weak.

[TheWastelander]

(01-07-2015 04:51 PM)Slim Shady Wrote:  

Holy shit this thread again. I'm always shocked at how such supposedly smart people can continue believing in one of the greatest cancers of society and history.

Show me the money. Show me the proof. It is not my burden first to disprove you. It is your burden first to prove it.

I can continue on about how living a life without believing in god is better, or atleast better for someone who enjoys risk. I think it is part of the belief system of the forum - risk taking. Risk taking leads to a life of more possibility. It opens doors. A belief in religion prohibits that and thus I reject it despite the small chance that it may exist [just like anything really could exist].

Take responsibility for your own life. That's what we all talk about. Your mistakes are entirely your own, and your victories are your own as well. Using a god is a crutch. It is for the mentally weak.

I'm willing to bet most of the biggest risk-takers in the history of humanity were religious or at least believed in god(s), as did the leaders of most great empires.

It is both arrogant and ignorant to assume that because one is religious they're pussies living their lives in fear.

Name some great atheist leaders.

[Slim Shady]

^ And they are thus hypocrites. People believe in god when it is convenient, or say they believe in god and do the opposite. All hypocrites.

List of hypocrites also includes "atheists" who pray or wish for things when they are bad.

I would take an absolute priest/nun over these risk taking emperors in a sense. Take a side and go all the way with it. I want to be Dorian Grey. He only fell after he got remorseful. Own your bloody life.

There is a small chance god is real. I don't know which god. Say it's you christians, and I'm going to hell. Well I'm taking my chance. I have made a firm decision. If you want to live your life thinking it's too big a risk to take, well then live an absolute pious life. I would respect you greatly.

It's equally difficult to fully commit to being Mahatma Gandhi or a complete hedonist.

Atheism has "become a thing" quite recently once science has advanced far enough. We will get great ones I'm sure. I am willing to bet a lot of these great leaders of the past only used their godly beliefs to appease the people.

[Rutting Elephant]

(01-07-2015 05:13 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  

Name some great atheist leaders.

"It would be horrible if it were true... It's a life of praising, groveling... but at least you can fucking die and leave North Korea."

[scorpion]

Atheism and agnosticism are largely modern conceits, the products of easy living combined with endless distraction, moral dissolution, technological advancement and the destruction of tradition in general. The idea that not believing in God makes one more intelligent or enlightened is something only a deluded modern could believe, it's the unmistakable mark of someone who has spent far too much time on the internet and not enough time in old books. And I say this as a man who used to be an atheist.

The reality of atheism is that it has no legs to stand on. At the end of the day, atheism (or even more laughably, Satanism) is basically just a belief that boils down to, "Fuck you, Dad! I'll do what I want!". The issue atheists face is not that there is no logical reason to believe in God, but rather the fact that they don't want to believe in God. It's an issue of rebellion, not logic. You can see this attitude clearly on display here, with one poster saying flat out that even if he had proof God existed, he wouldn't worship him. This is what is supposed to pass for enlightened logic? This is not the attitude of a scholar, it's the attitude of a bratty teenager.

Atheism is a belief that is not only intellectually incoherent, but that is practically a failure as well. To the first point, atheism cannot offer any logical explanation for the origin of the universe besides, "It just exploded and randomly ended up this way." I really encourage the reader to step back for a second and think about how absolutely ridiculous that is, given the astounding complexity of nature. Further, such a theory has no way of explaining how time, space or causality came to exist. The material universe, even if it did explode into being against all odds, exists within time and space. However, time and space by definition cannot have existed prior to to the universe. This makes the argument that the universe was inevitable "given enough time" completely illogical, since without the existence of time, obviously time cannot pass and nothing can happen.

Atheism is also incapable of offering any sort of coherent universal system of morality. The idea that morality "evolved" is itself an admission of this failure. For example, if morality evolved as an adaptive trait to help populations survive, can atheism provide a rationale for why one population group should not commit genocide against another? If morality is simply a survival adaptation in the ruthless game of evolution, then populations should logically adapt their morality to maximize their own survival while discouraging the survival of rival groups. This applies on the micro scale as well. If morality is described in Darwinian terms, there is no reason why I should not steal, kill, rape and engage in all sorts of antisocial behavior, so long as I believe I can get away with it. As long as I confine my crimes to target victims outside of my immediate in-group, I am behaving rationally under an atheist morality. The atheist will cry out, "B-b-but that would make you a bad person!", to which I say, "Sorry Mr. Atheist, but in the absence of God there is no such thing as 'bad', I'm simply an evolutionary power player." Essentially, the atheist can offer no coherent moral argument for why one evolved population group should not commit organized genocide against every other, since they can offer only evolutionary arguments, which are based entirely on survival and offspring maximization.

Finally, atheism fails on a practical level. As a personal belief system, it's woefully lacking, ultimately giving way to nihilism and self-destruction. We see this starkly in the modern West, which has been devastated by the decline in Christianity over the past several decades. The atheist, bereft of any higher belief, is left with nothing to guide him but his own selfish pursuit of pleasure. He is not able to find any sort of meaning to the world, so he seeks to create his own. Invariably this involves self-aggrandizement of some type, either through pleasure seeking, or the delusional conceit that his life's work will carry on his legacy into the future. But ultimately, the atheist must confront the fact that according to his beliefs the world has no meaning, nor does his life, and that nothing he ever does will matter one lick. Suicide then becomes the only rational choice, cowardice the only thing standing in the way. An atheist who cannot admit these facts is simply an atheist who hasn't thought them through to their logical conclusion.

This last point is, I believe, the root cause of so much modern atheism. People are simply too distracted in the modern West. It's so easy to entertain ourselves, and life in general is so painless due to our advanced technology that the idea of God seems a pointless anachronism. The atheists of today are so blind in their arrogance that they look back on past generations, which were almost wholly religious, and call them fools and idiots. The picture is, of course, as ridiculous as some snotty 14 year old thinking her 85 year old great-grandfather is an idiot because he doesn't know how to use Twitter. At the end of the day, atheism is simply a product of arrogance. The atheist believes himself too intelligent, too enlightened to seriously consider the idea of God. Worse, some then say that even if he did exist, they still wouldn't acknowledge him. There is simply no getting past such willful arrogance. I can only hope that such people grow out of their rebellious temperaments as I did, and will consider the question of the existence of God with a completely open mind. The conclusions you reach might surprise you.

[Truth Teller]

Science cannot adjudicate on whether or not God exists.

Even if we find a theory of quantum gravity, it still doesn't explain why the theory exists. Science cannot explain why anything exists in the first place.

As Stephen Hawking put it at the end of a Brief History of Time: "Having a mathematical model to describe the universe doesn't explain why a universe exists for the model to describe."

I will also have to disagree with my friend Scorpion. There are some atheists who come to disbelief based on rational grounds. Off the top of my head, I think J.L. Mackie's discussion of the problem of evil is a rational atheistic position. There are good philosophical arguments for atheism. Reasonable people can be persuaded by them. I think that they fail for other reasons, but they're not bad arguments.

[enderilluminatus]

(01-07-2015 03:10 PM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

OK, damn, you win, I've never heard of it, what's "Discordianism"?

Discordianism is centered on the idea that both order and disorder are illusions imposed on the universe by the human nervous system, and that neither of these illusions of apparent order and disorder is any more accurate or objectively true than the other.

QED

[Rutting Elephant]

"Atheism is a belief..."

Wrong.

[Slim Shady]

(01-07-2015 05:31 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

Atheism is a belief that is not only intellectually incoherent, but that is practically a failure as well. To the first point, atheism cannot offer any logical explanation for the origin of the universe besides, "It just exploded and randomly ended up this way." I really encourage the reader to step back for a second and think about how absolutely ridiculous that is, given the astounding complexity of nature. Further, such a theory has no way of explaining how time, space or causality came to exist. The material universe, even if it did explode into being against all odds, exists within time and space. However, time and space by definition cannot have existed prior to to the universe. This makes the argument that the universe was inevitable "given enough time" completely illogical, since without the existence of time, obviously time cannot pass and nothing can happen.

I won't debate primordial cosmology with you anymore. We tried that before and went in circles. I will say one thing, if time and space didn't exist before the universe, you already have a complicated enough problem to deal with. Adding god to it is just a complication for which you still run into the same problem. No start or end. Where does he exist? In my heart and soul?

(01-07-2015 05:31 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

Atheism is also incapable of offering any sort of coherent universal system of morality. The idea that morality "evolved" is itself an admission of this failure. For example, if morality evolved as an adaptive trait to help populations survive, can atheism provide a rationale for why one population group should not commit genocide against another? If morality is simply a survival adaptation in the ruthless game of evolution, then populations should logically adapt their morality to maximize their own survival while discouraging the survival of rival groups. This applies on the micro scale as well. If morality is described in Darwinian terms, there is no reason why I should not steal, kill, rape and engage in all sorts of antisocial behavior, so long as I believe I can get away with it. As long as I confine my crimes to target victims outside of my immediate in-group, I am behaving rationally under an atheist morality. The atheist will cry out, "B-b-but that would make you a bad person!", to which I say, "Sorry Mr. Atheist, but in the absence of God there is no such thing as 'bad', I'm simply an evolutionary power player." Essentially, the atheist can offer no coherent moral argument for why one evolved population group should not commit organized genocide against every other, since they can offer only evolutionary arguments, which are based entirely on survival and offspring maximization.

You're right to start. I will say that there in fact IS no universal moral code. Morality is subjective and dynamic. I try to be Machiavellian. It helps me advance. It helps me have sex with women. Out of wedlock by the way. I'm happy with that. A lot of men are afraid to enter the pleasures I see. It's their loss.

Can society go into complete chaos if everyone acts in a completely "Darwinian" sense. No not really. Animals have no god. They seem to survive fine. At some point people realize that they must behave symbiotically to live in greater comfort. But everything is weighted. It all depends on how much you weigh pleasure, comfort, thrill, freedom, etc. If you want more comfort over freedom, you will follow a stricter moral code. You can have infinite different systems that come out of this. A religious code was made for society to run better, or atleast better for some people. For some it does not have the ideal values for these parameters. If you scare them with god, they will be more likely to follow the set values. It is once they open their mind and see that they are free to take risks that is when it gets interesting. People who have not figured out that there are loopholes are jealous and will want to punish these people. Have you read "The Scarlet Letter"?

In summary, society COULD go into chaos, but it won't because in the end most people are too afraid to take their freedoms. They will keep their heads down while the enlightened take their pleasures.

(01-07-2015 05:31 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

Finally, atheism fails on a practical level. As a personal belief system, it's woefully lacking, ultimately giving way to nihilism and self-destruction. We see this starkly in the modern West, which has been devastated by the decline in Christianity over the past several decades. The atheist, bereft of any higher belief, is left with nothing to guide him but his own selfish pursuit of pleasure. He is not able to find any sort of meaning to the world, so he seeks to create his own. Invariably this involves self-aggrandizement of some type, either through pleasure seeking, or the delusional conceit that his life's work will carry on his legacy into the future. But ultimately, the atheist must confront the fact that according to his beliefs the world has no meaning, nor does his life, and that nothing he ever does will matter one lick. Suicide then becomes the only rational choice, cowardice the only thing standing in the way. An atheist who cannot admit these facts is simply an atheist who hasn't thought them through to their logical conclusion.

You might be surprised, but I too have a strict code, but it is my own. It goes back to things I weigh over others. I weigh loyalty and true friendship. Not because someone told me but because it is good to have a few close friends, and in the end it is advantageous. Everything is selfish in the end. No act is selfless.

You are very smart to link hedonism with nihilism, not everyone makes that connection. It is correct. You are wrong however that this hedonistic-nihilistic world view leads to suicide. In fact, it SAVED me from suicide 2 years ago. If I die, there is nothing. Even holding my cock and jacking myself off is better than that. Hey there is a bottle of whiskey! And I have a party to go to in 3 days where I could get drunk and sleep with that cute girl. Life is full of possibilities. Death is so very final.

There is no meaning to life? I won't debate this issue right now. But even if there is not, you live for the next moment. For the next pleasure. I don't want to die. I want to live on the edge where I might, but hopefully survive so that I can do it again.

(01-07-2015 05:31 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

This last point is, I believe, the root cause of so much modern atheism. People are simply too distracted in the modern West. It's so easy to entertain ourselves, and life in general is so painless due to our advanced technology that the idea of God seems a pointless anachronism. The atheists of today are so blind in their arrogance that they look back on past generations, which were almost wholly religious, and call them fools and idiots. The picture is, of course, as ridiculous as some snotty 14 year old thinking her 85 year old great-grandfather is an idiot because he doesn't know how to use Twitter. At the end of the day, atheism is simply a product of arrogance. The atheist believes himself too intelligent, too enlightened to seriously consider the idea of God. Worse, some then say that even if he did exist, they still wouldn't acknowledge him. There is simply no getting past such willful arrogance. I can only hope that such people grow out of their rebellious temperaments as I did, and will consider the question of the existence of God with a completely open mind. The conclusions you reach might surprise you.

I did not say that even if god existed I wouldn't acknowledge him. I said he might exist. If you showed me proof, I would get on my knees to god and thank him for all things. Currently the chance is too small for me to not live the way I do. Again, it's all about how much you weigh things. If you weight the chance that god is real and so is whatever hell and afterlife you believe in, then live a FULLY godly life. If you are a christian, follow the bible completely. Don't half ass anything please, because if you're just doing it till the point that it is convenient, you should come over to my "dark side" where it's a lot more fun and we're both going to hell anyways.

Now, it is unfair to link me to the millions of "fashionable atheists" around the west today. It's sad that so many feminists are atheists. They are in a different way. They do not believe in facts and due process. We have made the connection before that the same people that were puritans in the past are the feminists of today.

I was extremely religious growing up. Then I fell out of it as I read and experienced more things. Especially as a student of Physics. Then certain life events brought me back to religion for a short time after which I finally rejected it. It is probably important to see for oneself, and not all are intelligent enough to go through the transformation.

And by the way, Christianity and Islam are pretty low on my list of religions that will be "right" even if a god exists. Last time you acted incredulous when I mentioned "bad parts of the bible". Ignoring some of the truly bad bits, lets talk about practical ones. Have you had sex out of wedlock? In the end this is a game forum about getting laid with cute girls. If you are not having sex with girls, you are probably on the wrong forum.

Also, do you believe in a virgin birth?

Here's my summation of Christianity:

One woman's lie about an affair that got SERIOUSLY out of hand.

[scorpion]

(01-07-2015 06:05 PM)Rutting Elephant Wrote:  

"Atheism is a belief..."

Wrong.

No?

A lot of people in this thread seem to believe very strongly that there is no God, which is a question beyond the purview of science, as Truth Teller has repeatedly pointed out. This therefore makes atheism an act of faith. A belief. Atheism is the belief that there is no God, no creator, no higher power. If I give you the choice between chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream and you decline them all, you aren't "not making a choice". The act of not choosing is itself a choice. Thus, the act of not believing in God is itself a belief.

[makaveli]

(01-07-2015 05:13 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  

Name some great atheist leaders.

Napoleon - Probably the greatest general and strategist who ever lived..

Stalin - He won world war 2, beat Hitler in Berlin and took (along with lenin) and maintained power over an incredibly large area, the soviet union.

Mao Tse-Tung - One of the greatest turn arounds in war ever, ruled a vast empire- a leader and strategy genius..

[Aros]

(01-07-2015 06:14 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

(01-07-2015 06:05 PM)Rutting Elephant Wrote:  

"Atheism is a belief..."

Wrong.

No?

A lot of people in this thread seem to believe very strongly that there is no God, which is a question beyond the purview of science, as Truth Teller has repeatedly pointed out. This therefore makes atheism an act of faith. A belief. Atheism is the belief that there is no God, no creator, no higher power. If I give you the choice between chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream and you decline them all, you aren't "not making a choice". The act of not choosing is itself a choice. Thus, the act of not believing in God is itself a belief.

I disagree, atheism is not a belief, the same way not collecting stamps is also not a hobby.

If you are an atheist, you do not worship a god. God can exist all he wants, but he can't make an atheist worship him, because that would make the person a theist.

[Rutting Elephant]

(01-07-2015 06:14 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

(01-07-2015 06:05 PM)Rutting Elephant Wrote:  

"Atheism is a belief..."

Wrong.

No?

A lot of people in this thread seem to believe very strongly that there is no God, which is a question beyond the purview of science, as Truth Teller has repeatedly pointed out. This therefore makes atheism an act of faith. A belief. Atheism is the belief that there is no God, no creator, no higher power. If I give you the choice between chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream and you decline them all, you aren't "not making a choice". The act of not choosing is itself a choice. Thus, the act of not believing in God is itself a belief.

Not believing in Bigfoot is a belief.
Not believing in the Tooth Fairy is a belief.
Not believing in Santa Claus is a belief.
Even better:
Not believing in Allah is a belief.
Not believing in Shiva is a belief.

You perform infinite "acts of faith" at every moment in your world.
In my world, I believe in things based on facts and evidence.

[Rutting Elephant]

(01-07-2015 06:14 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

(01-07-2015 06:05 PM)Rutting Elephant Wrote:  

"Bigfoot-disbelief is a belief..."

Wrong.

No?

A lot of people in this thread seem to believe very strongly that there is no Bigfoot, which is a question beyond the purview of science, as Scrub has repeatedly pointed out. This therefore makes Bigfoot-disbelief an act of faith. A belief. Bigfoot-disbelief is the belief that there is no Bigfoot. If I give you the choice between chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream and you decline them all, you aren't "not making a choice". The act of not choosing is itself a choice. Thus, the act of not believing in Bigfoot is itself a belief.