Atheism is necessarily ignorance (no hate)

iul and stox, and on the same token we don't know enough to exclude the existence of God.

Considering all the complexities of the universe...Especially when it's fine tuned to the trillion, trillion, trillion, trillionth decimal point to allow life to exist.

However, we know enough to know that Santa Claus is in fact real because he brought me that cool lego castle last year.
We also know that the Easter Bunny is real, who else puts all those eggs outside for me to find?
And we also know banjo playing elves are definitely real. I found a guitar string in my ham sandwhich yesterday.

 

You got it right on the money!!!

 

of course we can't exclude the possiblity of the existence of a god. But why believe in its existence if there isn't any proof to support the claim that it exists?

 

Why, you get separated from your family again?

Why have faith in faith? Hmmmm

 

Exactly. We can't exclude the possibility that elves, pixies, mermaids or goblins don't exist, People aren't "agnostic" towards them though, They flat out disbelieve in them. If you aren't "agnostic" towards pixies why does god, Something which has an equal amount of evidence supporting it, Deserve any special treatment when deciding if you believe in it or not?

 

Because life is a gift, I just want to know who to thank.

 

Thank your parents.

 

No. Thank your government. For if it was not for governments, you might have more money.

 

First off, the topic is way to broad to cover what the OP wants it to cover. Atheism today is a broad range of beliefs that usually are not even understood by most of the people that claim they are atheists. The original term meant people that did not believe in God (not people that did not believe in gods). It was a term leveled at critics and non-believers of the Christian faith. That would make Muslims, Jews, and people of any other religion athiests. If we are talking in more modern terms then there is a broad range of athiesm, many of which are contradictory. To lump them all together is in itself ignorance.

So first we have to determine what the term the OP meant is, and if it is even relevant. Second, as was stated earlier, one must determine what the term God/god means in this context. I'm sure there are plenty of athiests (in today's terminology) that may believe it is possible that an alien race planted the seeds of life on our planet. An alien race is not equatable to a supernatural being or a deity by definition. May parents gave me life, but I do not view them as gods.

So, in determining what a diety is (usually regarded as a supernatural being with power which receives worship) one must also take into account what each of the factors that makes that deity a deity. For example, from the human perspective 2000 years ago, if I showed up in my ultralight plane with a machine gun and penicillin I would appear to be a diety. Would I be worthy of that title though? In my mind I would not, I am not really a supernatural being. I just appear to be because my understanding of nature is much more advanced.

Okay, now let's assume all of those ideas are defined. Then let's define ignorance. Ignorance is being uneducated or lacking information on a given subject. A true atheist is not inherently ignorant. It may not be a scientific view to make an assumption without all the facts, but that is not the same as ignorance. If I take all the available evidence (which may be incomplete) and make an assessment then it is an informed choice. This is entirely the opposite of ignorance.

In thinking of the subject in the terms of societal evolution (not evolution of species), then to say that agnosticism is the only true and logical path is to say we should never have moved passed the hunter gatherer stage of existence. Name one topic that we as a species have all the facts about. Absolutely none. Yet we move forward every day. In order to act on something somebody must make some sort of decision. Atheism is a decision based on the available evidence. No more or less ignorant than being religious or agnostict.

Now, are there a lot of ignorant people that claim to be atheists? Of course there are. But that is just simple logic. All people are ignorant of religions, spirituality, and supernatural occurences on some level (there is just too much data both recorded and unrecorded for any one person to know it all), so in order for there to be any people in a group there must be ignorant people in the group.

Now off topic:

As far as the existence of life proving God (or gods) exist, that is just hogwash. The complexity of our universe and the need of a specific set of constants needed for life to exist as we know it is a false argument. First, it assumes that life as we know it is the only way that life can exist, for which we have no evidence. Second it assumes that this was the only shot that was ever taken at creating a universe.

If time has no meaning outside the universe, then it is very possible that an infinite number of universes have been created (and may even exist now). If there are an infinite number of universes then the idea that the constants we have in our universe are too specific to be chance is moot (in an infinite number of universes at least one will have our characteristics). There is evidence that supports a multi-verse view.

The other big argument that something cannot come from nothing is also a false arguement. First, it assumes that the universe came from nothing. That is merely speculation from the limited amount of data we have yet collected from the small part of our universe that we can actually see. There are many forms of the big bang theory. One of them involves the universe being in a constant state of expansion/contraction. In this hypothesis, matter was always there it just collapses and explodes to form a new universe every so often. Granted, this hypothesis does not have support in modern science because it appears there is not enough matter to force a collapse, but it has hardly been disproven.

Another problem with this argument is the assumption itself. Something cannot come from nothing. First you have to prove that there was nothing first. Perhaps before the big bang the 'space' that is now taken up by our universe was filled with zero-point energy. Matter is nothing but a state of energy. It has been proven that particles do form in a zero-point vacuum. As we would see it, something from nothing.

 

This is great. Wonderful post. Thank you!

 

wow. excellent

 

Isn't it great to see naive believers out there, where, or they believe the earth is flat, or a dude made adam & Eve, or even when a coin disappears from the hand of David Copperfield? I think that 's great. And we need to tolerate all this, for the good of humanity. Of course, we far away to accomplish this, especially since humans have invented religions and killed themselves for those, because it is written in religeous books that they need to killed the infidels or whoever. I guess it is a blessed sign from God, to reduce the numbers of the population....Woaw...from heaven to hell in 7 lines...

 

That's a nice philosophical merry-go-round you got there.

 

Not as nice as the philosophical merry-go-round that tries to solve the problem of cause and effect by invoking an agent that is it's self an exception to the rule that required him.

ie, Everything has a cause, god is the cause, But god didn't have a cause, 'cos hes magic.

 

Jeez stox just accept the fact that god has always existed and the earth couldn't have! It all makes sense, you just don't get it cause you don't want to believe in it

 

That's possible... and it's very surreal to think about.

 

Agnosticism is more advanced than Atheism.
I think a large part of the problem is what people percieve "god" to be.
Atheists like christians tend to vew god as a santa clause like figure sitting in the clouds judging humanity, which is the view most religions propogate. Atheists reject dogmatic preconceptions so in a simplified moment of thought they reject the entire posibility of a higher power along with the religious dogma.
ironicly its the black and white good and evil, right and wrong attitude that religious preconceptions force upon societies mentality that forces them to do that.

I dont even use the term god as there is to much prejudice associated with that term.
I call it the divine, or Bob for short.
And we see Bob not as it is, but as we ourselves think it should be, as it is simply an infinate sea of intrinsically instictivly intelligent energy that forms everything in the multiverse.
(and somewhere in Bobs multiverse there is a flying spagetti monster)

 

Zzzz @ whiny religious cry babies leaving me red rep. It's a forum. Instead of calling me illogical via red rep, how about you explain why I'm illogical? Oh wait, that's the logical approach, wouldn't expect you to take it. Fact is, if you're arguing your stances via red rep, you lack the mental capacity to actually debate your lame ideas in a public forum.

 

Now that would be assuming I want people to think this way just because I say so

 

Oh wait, I forgot to answer that one as well. It exists across all posible permuations of space and time, past, present and future simultaneously as a form of energy called light, some of it slows down to create matter but it is still connected to the higher level via the concepts of superstring theory.
Light=Energy=Intelligence.