On 2/25/2015 1:08 PM, LizR wrote:
On 25 February 2015 at 15:00, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com
<mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 , LizR <lizj...@gmail.com <mailto:lizj...@gmail.com>>
wrote:
> skeptical atheism appears to be based on faith.
I see, so belief in God is based on faith and so is doubts about the
existence of
God, but for a word to be meaningful there must be contrast, so your need
to point
out something, anything, that is NOT based on faith. And if you can't do
that then
"faith" is nothing but a noise made by the mouth.
You might have done me the courtesy of giving the entire quote, so the context was
clear. But I suppose you couldn't do that because it would have meant the point you're
trying to make would have been revealed as a straw man.
Here is that troublesome quote in full.
Or, to put it more epistemically, skeptical atheism appears to be based on
faith.
*It is based on the faith that our present ideologies will be preserved by
final
science.* Current physicalism may turn out to be as delusory as Abrahamic
theology.
-- Eric Steinhart, "Skeptical and Spiritual Atheisms"
A genuine sceptic (and a genuine scientist) is agnostic about what the final science may
turn out to be, if we ever get there. (Brent tries to be, for example, as do I). What Mr
Steinhart is saying is that "skeptical atheists" as he calls them are making a
metaphysical assumption about the nature of reality - which is, precisely, an act of faith.
Is it an /assumption/ that the god of theism doesn't exist? Seems to me the preponderance
of the evidence is on that side. I see beliefs having degrees; which, as Hume said,
should be in proportion to the evidence. Faith means a belief held independent of
evidence, e.g. with no evidence or even in the presence of a preponderance of contrary
evidence.
Brent
"I stop believing in Santa Klaus and Jesus the same day in my early childhood. I was
astonished that my cousins stop to believe in Santa Klaus but kept their belief in Jesus."
--- Bruno Marchal
"Atheist n. A person to be pitied in that he is unable to believe things for which
there is no evidence, and who has thus deprived himself of a convenient means of feeling
superior to others."
--- Chaz Bufe
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."
--- Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richard's Almanac, 1758)
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