Death Threats Over Atheist Billboards

[Steve James]

"The opposite of faith is not doubt: It is certainty."

Does that mean people of faith are uncertain?
Are you sure?

[Doc Stier]

"The opposite of faith is not doubt: It is certainty."

Does that mean people of faith are uncertain?
Are you sure?

I don't personally agree with the quoted statement, but was simply validating its content and origin as posted by Dmitri.

In case you missed it, I resonate better with this one:

[Steve James]

Yo Doc,
I wasn't disputin', just looking for clarification. I do think that "trust" or "confidence" is more precise than "belief." However, I think the opposite of faith is the absence of faith; but not mistrust or disbelief. Plenty of believers lack faith, though everyone with faith believes. For a (many) Christians, faith is their confidence in the belief that there is eternal life and the way to it.

[bailewen]

Is it scientific to state that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?

I'd say, say, it is. That's why I am sort of an agnostic when it gets right down to it. I am well aware that I can not prove much about it but I don't really care about that because your beliefs are irrelevant to my faith. My faith is personal.

Also, with scientists like Einstein, what they refer to is something which bares very little resemblance to the supreme being mentioned in any of the worlds major religions. As such, I don't think they really fit into the conversation.

Why not?

I don't see any point in debating or discussing a more dumbed down idea of God than the one that I believe in. Why should we exclude the most intelligent concepts of God, the very ones that are most relevant.

Creator and ruler of the universe: omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. Some"thing" that you worship and pray to.
I think that's a pretty standard conceptualization.

To my mind, what is standard is irrelevant. Each person of religious faith is entitled to have whatever level of subtlety or complexity in their concept of God that their own intellect requires. There is no more point in debating the possibility of the existence of the typical conception of God than there is of debating evolution as it exists in the minds of the typical Joe.

My personal faith can not be reduced to a plastic icon or a pat summary in one or two sentences.

[Muad'dib]

Creator and ruler of the universe: omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. Some"thing" that you worship and pray to.
I think that's a pretty standard conceptualization.

Not in any way shape or form. Until modern times the "standard" you are holding up was the exception not the rule. Polytheism is far more common than monotheism, and should the religions of the book disappear tomorrow, it would be polytheism all over again, if slightly varied.

(Kern, god of the atom; Vader, lord of Evil, etc.)

[Doc Stier]

Polytheism is far more common than monotheism, and should the religions of the book disappear tomorrow, it would be polytheism all over again, if slightly varied.

Maybe so, but probably not. These is a far different world that mankind lives in now, with a far different mindset on the whole. During the ages of antiquity, when polytheism was more common, humans lived in far greater dependence upon nature to survive. Seasonal weather patterns, annual rainfall, prevailing winds, and natural disasters all impacted the potential success of the harvest and the success of the hunt, as well as nearly every other important survival agenda in daily life. Humans were literally at the mercy of the natural elements.

In the common absence of any ability to adequately understand or regulate such factors at that time, the perception of different gods being present in every natural phenomenon, directing and controlling them from the mysteriously invisible realm of the gods probably seemed very logical and believable. However, with less dependence on nature to survive nowadays, and increasingly more education among most people, I seriously doubt that most individuals in today's world would return to polytheistic beliefs, even in the absence of monotheistic religions.

[cdobe]

It's funny, that I can agree with you about that. It's a mystery though, why you were picking me. I don't think I'm guilty of confusing terms.

Didn't mean to pick on you specifically. I was responding to a general trend rather than any specific poster. What caught my eye in your post was the following statement:

And to me "I don't believe in gods" clearly connotates that the person doesn't believe in the existence. What else could it mean?

I could have more simply said that a connotation is not a denotation and left it at that. As I said later, not believing does not equal believing the opposite. I thought David Boxen's links were pretty good:
http://www.skepdic.com/atheism.html

Atheism is traditionally defined as disbelief in the existence of God. As such, atheism involves active rejection of belief in the existence of God...

If you do not really believe in God but admit that you don't really know for sure, then you are an agnostic, not an atheist. The difference may be subtle but I think it is extremely significant...especially if you are actually religious. As a Jew, there is no crime in being agnostic. According to Jewish faith (Christian probably differ on this point), faith is not required. Just be a good person and that's enough. Actually denying the existence of God...now that is another story altogether and could be considered a terrible sin.

Again, you completly ignore the fact, that I didn't aim for a definition. I merely phrased a short statement, that was meant to capture the basic position of an atheist.
David's link isn't good at all from my POV. It contains ridiculous requirements for rejecting believe, like this one:

Before one can disbelieve in something, that something must be intelligible and it must be understood. Since belief in new gods may appear in the future and it is impossible to know what will be meant by reference to those gods, it makes no sense to say one disbelieves in all gods.

or this one

How can one disbelieve in the "ineffable ground of all being"?

The fact that we don't know something and the falsifiability of all knowledge, doesn't mean that we have to assume a supernatural source, as this sentence not so subtly suggests. It's a rhetoric trick, nothing more.

It's also a sophistic trick to make atheism a form of belief by stating that you can not know for sure that there is/are no god(s) and hence require belief for the decision to reject a supernatural being.