Because we're fairly sure everything written on it really happened. Right? And it's totally a fair, balanced document free of any ethnocentric bias, right?
What a lovely double standard you have there.

I find it highly disturbing how religious people can reduce a person's entire world view to their religion. Just because atheists don't believe in fairies, they must clearly believe in nothing, of course. All atheists hold the same beliefs as all others because it's just another religion, sure!

1. The document is 3,000 years old. Nothing revisionist about it. It was written before the concept of history as we have it today even existed. Trying to place the text within the modern concepts of history, is a wonderful example of my point. I also like how you stick the label ethnocentric in there. Thats like saying the Constitution of the United States is filled with American bias.

2. I'm not the one who called it the New Atheist movement and decided to get myself behind it. Theists believe in G-d, not fairies. unless now its called the Afaire movement? Perhaps if it was called the New Materialist movment there wouldn't be confusions about nothingness.

I hate to break it to you, but a religion -is- an entire world view. Its not a reduction, its a definition. Lets not forget that the new atheist movment calls for an abolishment of all beliefs.

sociology and psychology is supposed to be a study of what people actually do, not a study of what people -should- do. Calling one model more evil than another is completely missing the point.

Just to remind you, the majority of atheists regard gods and fairies as identical concepts, as they are both fictional constructs that serve as a personification of the unexplainable.

Thats interesting.

Do they also consider dragons and fairies to be the same thing?

Basically, what you are saying here, is that the majority of atheists don't know what god is. (Which is perfectly understandable, because most people who say they don't believe in evolution don't know what evolution is either)

You see, I had always thought that people who equate fairies and gods did so to be mocking and dismissive. I'm really not quite sure how you could confuse the two concepts.

I would expect atheists to know more about the gods which they reject. As my rabbinic teacher in highschool would tell us, "I don't believe in the god you don't beleive in either."

I'm not saying that they don't know what the concept of a god is, but instead that they classify gods, spirits, fairies, and similar things as part of a group whose members can be easily exchanged, as they all serve the same purpose.

As for dragons, it depends on the person. As I have a background in reading fantasy and playing games in fantasy settings, I consider the concept of a dragon to be entirely different than the concept of a fairy. However, on some level, I do realize that dragons and fairies are both subsets of a group of fantastical creatures and cease drawing distinctions between the two when I do not need a distinct representation of a fantastical creature.

Well that just lovely and ignorant of them, then isn't it?

Am I supposed to be supporting them in their quest to sound ignorant?

A model that believes human life is inherently expendable is "more evil" than a model which believes it has value and should be preserved.

Well, as originally written it does have a sort of white male bias. The fact that those prejudices were socially acceptable then does not change the fact that they are wrong now, and were wrong then. I'm not a cultural relativist. The fact that the concept of modern history and factual accuracy didn't exist then doesn't change the fact that their way of registering history basically amounts to what we now call historical revisionism.
We call ourselves atheists because it's the quick and easy label to make the point of what we (don't) believe in. Most of us also don't believe in fairies, gnomes or trolls either - and of course they're ontologically equivalent to gods. Why do you believe in a god but not in fairies, anyway? Evidence for both is equivalent. I didn't call it the "new atheist movement" either. There is no new atheist movement; just old atheists (Dawkins and Hitchens aren't exactly young guys, you know) who see this as a good moment to make the point that you don't need religion to be moral, or happy, or find meaning in one's life; that religion is not a positive thing; and that atheists shouldn't sit at the metaphorical back of the bus for their beliefs (Or lack thereof). You're right, atheist is a silly label; we call ourselves that because God is just the biggest damn fairy around. If modern society was dominated by Norse religious beliefs, we'd be athorists instead!

Materialism is a distinct belief system, however. Most atheists are materialists, and some are also humanists; others prefer the term "Naturalist worldview". But the fact is that the only belief that is almost universally considered inappropriate, even dangerous nowadays is atheism - the simple idea that there is no God. The point is indeed to make "atheist" stop being a dirty word.

No, religion is not an entire world view for most people. You yourself argued against that, if I recall correctly. A person's world view is the combination of his personal, political and philosophical convictions. Two identical Christians, with the same beliefs about the nature of the Trinity and the interpretation of the bible, can have a very different world-view when it comes to their political beliefs.

People who reduce their entire world-view to the cloistered ideas handed down to them by priests are sad, sheltered creatures with only a tenuous connection to reality.

I fail to see how classifying various imaginary constructs as such counts as being ignorant. Atheists know, at least in general terms, the differences between the concepts of gods and fairies. However, they can easily ignore these distinctions because it is astoundingly easy to treat each member of this set of imaginary beings as the same for nearly all intents and purposes.

EDIT: Yes, I know, arguing on this topic with these people is completely pointless, but I need something to distract me from work.

Gods, fairies and dragons are interchangeable in the sense that they:

1 - Don't exist.

2 - Have, at some time, been purported to exist in a real, physical sense, interfering with the tangible world.

3 - Have, at some time, been used to explain phenomena in the absence of objectively verifiable knowledge or models for such phenomena.

On the other hand I just use "fairies" as a dismissive umbrella term for all sorts of supernatural beings (Much like "fairy" has been used as an umbrella term to denote all sorts of unrelated myths, from Celtic to Slavic to Greek mythologies.)

Definition of Christianity:
Belief that an alien jewish zombi who is his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his body and tell him telepathically you accept him as your master, so he can remove the evil from your soul which exists there thanks to a woman, created from the rib, who got conviced to eat from the magic tree by a talking snake.

Tiny bit of perspective and religion turns into absurd.

For a reference, I think I should consider myself an agnostic.
I cannot claim there is no creator of the universe as I don't possess any knowledge about it. Big Bang is just a theory (even though quite solid one).
I do believe however that religions are simply made up, and I'm unable to understand how anyone can say they 'just believe' it with a straight face when they don't make any sense.

Also, here.

If you one truly knew the differnces between them, then a person could not ask "Why do you believe in a god and not fairies?"

It is just proof of ignorance to lump them all together.

The Big bang, it turns out, is a theory developed by a priest.

There are quite a few people out there who want to deny the Big Bang theory, because it sounds to them too much like religion and not enough like science.

The Big bang theory is also used to defute Hume and other philosphers objections to the Onotological necessity of G-d. The whole idea that certain scientifici theories proove or disprove any particular major religion is really quite fallacious.

*edit: As for you interesting take on Christianity, you should read George Carlin's take on Baseball and Football. Anything can be made to sound rediculous if you want to. It is the general concept of a Strawman argument.

Or hyperbole. I'm fully aware of the difference between gods and fairies. I can still run circles around most Catholics with knowledge of their own doctrines. Skills don't magically disappear when you change ideals. This isn't Lusternia. However, "God" is a politically correct term for mystic supernatural entity, whereas "fairy" really isn't. Drawing attention to the similarity helps draw attention to the absurdity of the whole thing.

The similarities are meaningless, and forced.

It would be like me saying to somebody from Germany, that they are a Frenchman. Afterall, they are both European countries involved in Internatonsl standarizations, and Not America which makes them meaningless countries. (this is a fake meaning to prove a point, but somebody out there might think this)

" Drawing attention to the similarity helps draw attention to the absurdity of the whole thing." - This can also be known as a strawman or rhetoric or propganda, take your pick. Whatever it is, it is not intelegent discussion.

For to mention a few basic differences between G-d and fairies.

1. Fairies are not omniscient.
2. Fairies are created beings.
3. Fairies have bodies and physical attributes.
4. Fairies have unique individual names.
5. Fairies have outside rules which govern their behaviour. etc. etc.

Also, there is a "New ATheism Movement" and I am sorry that you wish to remain in ignorance and deny it.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&saf...theism+movement

The phrase is perfectly valid, given:

1) The evidence for God = The evidence for fairies = Ø
2) The only justification for belief is knowledge evidence.

Please demonstrate the invalidity of either claim.

Edit: Oops. Edited to say what I meant. - Verithrax

Also edited to add:

Daganev, just because something returns results on Google, doesn't mean it exists (Unless it's porn.). "New Atheism Movement" is just a label, not some sort of organised movement. We're not some sort of evil conspiracy.

Also, your constant whining about how we're willfully ignorant is really, really irritating.

I have the feeling that your arguing semantics here. Yes faeries are not the same as god. The point being made though that there is no evidence of either and people have used both as explanations for the otherwise unexplainable. That is the connection. Screw the other stuff, it has no real effect to either argument.

As for me I'm an atheist. I really don't believe in any higher power or most religions for two reasons.

1. I feel that almost every religion asks you to believe in some higher power. I personally can't do that. I feel much better in putting my faith, belief, will, whatever you want to call it, into myself. As for the beliefs in most religions, I feel they usually are good idea's that end up getting twisted to take advantage of other people or as an excuse for certain actions.

2. I feel that the idea of a god or gods is used to explain things that are at the moment unexplainable. I feel that everything has some action or cause for reasons out side of an omnipotent creature willed it.

I am not arguing semantics here, but apparnetly others are.

the phrase is perfectly valid, given:

1) The evidence for God = The evidence for fairies = Ø
2) The only justification for belief is evidence.

Both statements are false.

1. You may not be convinced by the evidence, as you are fully welcome not to be, but The First Cause argument (as properly understood, and apparently it is hard for may people to understand it, based on my google search) and the Watchmaker argument, are both evidence. You can, if you like disagree with it, but to say that no evidence exists is wrong.

2. Evidence is not the only justification for belief. This is basic psychology 101. Humans are irrational, and beleive many irrational things based on prior and subjective experiences. Futher, what one person defines as evidence, another person may define as hearsay.

As for the idea that G-d is used to explain things that are unexplainable, I completely dissagree with that statement. Obviously in the middle ages this was true, and some people may think that today, however in the community I live in, G-d is often ivoked in situations where the "explanation" is obvious. When you have a complex belief in G-d, or as some people call it, "The Infinite", or if you have beleif in an intellegent/self aware universe, or if you beleive in dimensions other than the ones we can sense with our senses, you do not have a "god of the gaps", instead what you have is a relationship with the world, where with the almost infinite possible things that could of have happened, what -did- happen is understood, and can be used to learn from.

This is completely different from fairies or dragons, as those creatures are believed to be defined creations, with specific names/locations which do infact, become "creatures of the gaps" which are used to explain what is otherwise unkown.

The whole concept of the biblical G-d, is that you can know His ways, by observation, learn How He does things, and emulate them so that you can do what is best for yourself as well as the world around you. In other words, as has been said by many scientiists and theologians alike, an understanding of science and the world, brings one closer to understanding G-d. That is, instead of saying "now that I know magnatism, now G-d is no longer involved in magnets" you say "now that I know magnetism, now I see how G-d is involved in magnets."

I'm not trying to convince anybody in a belief in G-d. I had tried to avoid writing a post like this.

All I am trying to demonstrate, is that beleif in G-d is not the same as belief in fairies, and that often what people say about other people who believe in G-d, is inccorrect. (such as the "god of the gaps" theory)

Granted, your average run of the mill person, is not really concerned about the details of G-d, and so they have the same view of G-d as they did when they were a child. But it is also true, that most people don't really care about evolution, and so they have the same concept of Evolution as they did when they were a child. (Or authority in general)


If being an Atheist means that you don't beleive in the G-d of the gaps, then sure, thats a good thing not to believe in, and could be the same thing as fairies. However, G-d is not the G-d of the gaps, and so equating the two, just illustrates ignorance.

Let's take 1.

First of all, it is fallacious to say that because the set that fills the prerequisites for P and Q is the same, that P and Q are therefore identical. The same body parts are required to drive a car and fly a plane, but driving a car is not the same thing as flying a plane. So, even if your assertion was correct that there is neither evidence for God nor fairies, that does not equate to a belief in God and a belief in fairies being the same epistemic commitment.

Secondly, there is evidence for God, but it is not evidence that you, personally, find compelling. Many religions have holy texts that record the historical activity of God. Multitudes of people both past and present claim that God has interacted with them in some way, up to and including empirical manifestations. People might point to various things in the world around us or even the world around us itself as evidence for a belief in God. People might appeal to theistic proofs for rationalistic evidence.

There is a very large difference between saying proposition P has evidence that I don't find convincing and proposition P has no evidence whatsoever.

The only evidence we have, for example, that Socrates ever existed is his presence in Plato's philosophical, dialogical writings. Socrates' existence is not attested to in historical documents or other writings. Our source of information about Socrates comes directly though Plato.

Now, are you going to argue that a belief in Socrates is equivalent to a belief in fairies? If not, I would encourage you to examine the integrity of your equation. There is far more evidence for God's existence than Socrates', or any number of historical figures whose existence is a routine part of our assumptions. The difference is not the amount of evidence available; the difference is your disposition toward that evidence, and even, I would argue, what "counts" as evidence in your book.

Turning to your introduction of fairies into the discussion, one might argue there is evidence for the existence of fairies, although once we eliminate the writings that are either self-confessedly fictional or self-confessedly adhere to a fictional genre, the amount of evidence drops considerably. In fact, I'd say were reduced to a relative handful of people (historically speaking) who claim to have seen and/or interacted with fairies or some artifact of their actions. But, eyewitness accounts are evidence. Whether you find the evidence credible or compelling is another question altogether, and even with that qualifier, I think that any rational person would say the body of potential evidence for God's existence is somewhat larger than the body of potential evidence for fairies.

So, while it is a provocative slogan, I think we can see that equating a belief in God to a belief in fairies because both beliefs lack any evidence is both logically fallacious and actually inconsistent with the facts at hand.

Let's move on to 2.

I'm tempted to applaud you because this looks like an actual argument of some kind - something that has been noticeably absent from the vast majority of this thread, which is largely constituted from a volatile fuel mixture of personal feelings and ignorance about philosophy, theology, history, and logic disguised under a veneer of volume and superior tones of voice.

Nevertheless, I'm grateful you offered an actual, useful proposition to chew on, and in fact, I think you're getting to the true heart of the matter - how do we decide what is and is not true?

Unfortunately, you used a term with a very broad linguistic field when you said, "evidence," because this begs the question of what -counts- as evidence. Do eyewitness accounts count as evidence? Does an authoritative view count as evidence? Does a mathematical equation that has no empirical equivalent count as evidence? Does a historical artifact count as evidence? Does your own personal experience count as evidence? Does an article in a medical or scientific journal count as evidence?

I think you'll find that virtually everything we presuppose as truth depends on a good many, if not all, of those kinds of evidence. So, I'm tempted to agree with your statement that the only justification for belief is evidence, but somehow, I think you're meaning a particular -kind- of evidence to the exclusion of any other kind, and I'd be interested to hear what sort of evidence overrules all others that will not cause serious problems in the scientific method, legal systems, and the pursuit of historical knowledge.

I do agree that BB theory does not disprove god. No scientific theory can do that. That is the tricky part about god. Being defined as omnipotent on all counts, to disprove his existance we would have to become omnipotent ourselves (as in, possess the ultimate knowledge about literally everything). That brings a funny thought - we would be gods ourselves by then and trying to do that wouldn't make sense anymore.

I cannot agree that scientific theories do not disprove religions. People used to believe that everything written in the bible was true (I'm going to use christianity as an example). It is science that forced them to reorganize the whole belief system and take most things metaphorically.



When historians continue their effort to uncover the past, they usually have to deal with one version of truth. They find evidence of someone's existance, or of a particular event, so they can assume it happened. Would further evidence not confirm, but deny their previous discoveries, they will admit they can't be sure what actually happened, and share the possible versions of how it was, presenting the proof. Most importantly, they do admit they only assume with a certain probability. If that probability is very high, as in much evidence confirms that, we take it as truth, but every thinking person is aware we will never be 100% sure we know what happened in the past.

If we look at religions, they require you to believe in one version of the truth. They claim to have evidence (though as you point out, it's a matter of definition), but hey - all religions do have artifacts, holy texts, etc. Evidence. But what when they are mutually exclusive? It's the old argument again - which religion is true. All, none, or 'mine'?