Big Bang?

[jbor at bigpond.com]

I respect your faith -- your belief that there are no gods. And 
basically that's all I've been saying all along, that people's beliefs 
should be respected.

Your argument that atheism is the One True Belief because "God" is an 
existential claim which cannot be disproven was purely a semantic one. 
One can as easily label "God" a hypothesis or point out that the Big 
Bang theory is unfalsifiable. As such, it is exactly the same sort of 
logical proposition as Divine Creation.

Your argument that "atheism is the absence of theism" is also purely 
semantic, and of course it can legitimately be turned around.

There seems to be a general conviction that theism is a more 
"primitive" belief system than atheism. Well, yes it is, if it's an 
atheism which responds to the advent of religious faith in human 
civilisations. And if it's that sort of atheism we're talking about 
then it most certainly is a belief which has been constructed in 
opposition to another, pre-existing system(s) of belief.

The only way you might logically contend that atheism is not a belief 
or faith is if you are asserting that your particular cult of atheism 
is a reversion to the earlier, prehistoric atheism. 
Historically-speaking, atheism is a more primitive or primal human 
state of mind or being than is theism. The latter superseded the former 
-- put the spokes into the wheel, you could say.

best

On 01/10/2005, at 7:42 PM, Cyrus wrote:

> Maybe it's semantics to you. I understand that. But atheists take this 
> very seriously, because it is one of the ways theists keep 
> mirepresenting their position. Atheists make no claim. It is theists 
> who make the claim that a god exists. Therefore,  the burden of proof 
> lies on the theists' side. Since there can be no proof, they employ 
> faith.
>
> And do you really believe the simple inversion of what the other 
> person says constitutes an argument?
>
> Cyrus
>
> jbor at bigpond.com wrote:
>
>>> Come on, man, you're employing rhetorics here. This is almost 
>>> sophistry. I know you're better than that.
>>
>>
>> The irony is, that, or something very like it, was exactly what 
>> occurred to me when I first read what you'd written. ("Mere 
>> semantics.") But I decided to show rather than tell.
>>
>> best
>>
>>> On 30/09/2005, at 9:43 AM, Cyrus wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Actually, Physics (or anyone, for that matter) cannot conclude that 
>>>> there is no God, because it is impossible to disprove an 
>>>> existential claim.
>>>>
>>>> Therefore, atheism is not the "belief" or "faith" that there is no 
>>>> God. Atheism is the absense of theism, i.e. the absense of a belief 
>>>> in a god. Usually, atheists who outright claim that there is no god 
>>>> do so with the sole purpose of irritating Christians.
>>>
>>
>>
>