From: yohan@festus.ksu.ksu.edu (Jonathan W Newton)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Do Atheists Have Their Own "Faith"?
Date: 9 Apr 1992 20:36:58 -0500
Organization: Kansas State University
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: festus.ksu.ksu.edu


In my humble opinion, yes they do.  Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure someone
will), but atheist means:  "to conclude that God(s) does not exist", while
agnostic means:  "to draw no conclusion about the existence of God(s)."  I'm
sorry if I'm being redundant, but I just want to make sure this is clear. 
Anyway, it seems to me that atheists are just as assuming as theists, since they
are "having faith" that there isn't a God, for which, in my opinion, there can be
no proof.  It seems, that a common arguement that theists and atheists use
against one another, deals with the origin of the universe.  These are the
possiblities, that I can think of off hand (can anyone else think of some more?):

1)  God has always existed.  (Popular among most Christians I've talked to.)	
2)  God was created by another God, who was created by another, and this pattern
regresses infinitely.
3)  There was nothing, then God popped into existence.

All these cases involving God, are then followed by him creating the universe, of
course.

4)  The universe has always existed.
5)  The universe came from a previous universe, which came from another, and this 
pattern regresses infinitely.
6)  There was nothing, and then the universe popped into existence.

None of these explanations strikes me as logical; they don't "feel" right.  How
can something always exist?  In all my experiences, I have never encountered any
physical thing that had supposedly existed forever.  Now, I can partly visualize
2 and 5.  My experience has been that something comes from something else.  BUT,
when we continue to examine a thing's "geneaology", we can never find it's true
origin.  Why?  Because, by are own experiences, if we found this "things" origin,
we would have to ask what was cause of this thing's "origin".  3 and 6 are
something that most people have the biggest problem with.  Something coming from
nothing violates everything we have ever experienced and everything most people
have ever been taught.

What's my point?  Simply that 1-6 are possibilities, in which God, or a lack
thereof, is a possibility.  Can anyone truly prove or disprove God?  If you can,	
write me so I can put this personal issue to rest.  The reason I used the origins
of existence as an example, is because they are usually used by both theists and
atheists as arguments against one anothers positions.

In the chapter on relativity by Halliday and Resnick (Our text for Engineering
Physics), they begin by warning the reader not to rely entirely on their gut
feelings.  Since we (man) do not interact at the speed of light and cannot be
naturally aware of all the effects at such high speeds, the conclusions of
relativity will seem impossible and strange.  If we did, the ideas about to be
presented to you would seem as logical as chapter 1 kinematics.  The intro was
something to that effect.  Anyway, a possibility that would make the explanations
1-6 viable, is that the physical laws at the Begining were much different than
those we are familiar with.  Maybe it was possible for something to come from
nothing at that time.

Well, now I want to know, how can anyone draw a logical conclusion about the
existence of God(s)?  It seems that a yes or know answer requires some an
inexcusable degree of FAITH (time for a drink; that word leaves a bad taste in my
mouth).

As an aside, by FAITH, I mean blind faith.  Faith which is based on feeling or an
insufficient amount of data.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should
all be unfeeling automatons, and I'm not saying that there isn't a time for
faith.  Any scientist worth his calculator (very cheesy cliche, but I couldn't
think of a better one), will be the first to tell you that nothing is 100%
certain.  BUT, after rigorous experimentation and theorization, we can call
something fact, aka something we can "have faith" that it is true.

If you were to ask me what my OPINION about God and religion were, I'd say that
all religion is just a part of about every culture of early man, fabricated by
man.  Religion is just like Santa Claus, except no one ever tells you God(s)
doesn't exist, and God(s) never has to deliver presents so the hoax is never
unvieled.  As far as God goes, I doubt that God exists.  A universe that involves
God, seems to be more complicated than one without.  I admit this is a VERY POOR
reason, but it is all I have to go on.

That's it, enjoy.

Waiting for answers,

Jon Newton - Sophomore in Biochemistry - Agnostic

P.S.  If some of this has been written before, it doesn't suprise me.  If you're
mad that I'm bringing up something that was discussed 4 months ago, well BITE ME.
My alt.atheism doesn't go back that far. 
  



 
Newsgroups: alt.atheism