Thread: Do Atheists seem hypocritical to you?

Bear with me here. I consider myself agnostic. I also think that some people who call themselves atheists are really also agnostic. Agnostic means that I don't necessarily believe in God, but also think we don't know enough about the universe to necessarily disprove what some people define as their God.

Personally I think there are two sides: Science (what we know) and Religion (what we don't know). Think of this as a piano where science makes up the keys on the left and religion makes up the keys on the right. They meet somewhere in the center. As we discover and prove something in science, that key becomes part of the "science side". Hopefully this analogy is making sense the way I'm typing it up. But the key that is now a science key may agree or dispute the way the key was defined as a religious key.

Do I think going to church or temple makes you a good person? No.
Do I think there is a God? I don't know. And I know nobody knows.

The people who preach atheism I feel are just as blind as the overly religious people. Even though science disputes most religious prophecies, until we actually prove the origin of the universe and if there's anything outside of it, we really don't know any answers. What if there was a "God" that created the Big Bang. We don't know.

Not to offend anyone but in my opinion it's pretty much clear that the Earth is older than 5,000 years, Moses did not part the seas, and the entire earth didn't flood with two of every animal on board an arc. But just because science is disproving most of these stories, I feel like atheists jump too fast on the conclusion that none of it is correct.

Also I am not saying that if there was a God, the people who wrote the Bible knew. I'm just saying their hypothesis and theory that there is a God happened to be right.

But it's kinda funny that I see atheists who post on forums and on TV like to joke about the people who believe in God without proof. However I think they disbelieve in God without proof and that makes them hypocritical.

Thoughts?

EDIT: One more thing I'd like to add. I think it's silly when atheists claim they aren't religious. Personally I define a person's religion as what their opinion is with what science hasn't already proven (piano analogy). Everyone has a religion because everyone has an opinion about the unknown, even if it[s not an organized religion.

I'm not a religious person, But I believe their could be a god. So I'm kinda with you on this one.

I used to be Catholic growing up, then I turned Atheist, now I'm neither.
On a sliding scale, 1 being Catholic and 10 being Atheist...I'd say I'm a 9.

“If we need an atheist for a debate, I go to the philosophy department. The physics department isn’t much use.”
- Robert Griffiths, physicist and winner of the Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics

For me I think science cannot study anything, if anything is NOT there (not exist/ not available). So..to me, science actually investigate God’s creatures, their systems, how they work, or their nature, their origin. Scientists “investigate” things/ creatures that God made available. But science as we know has NEVER made any of them. Not a single creature or creation PER SE, and OUT OF NOTHING. And perhaps will NEVER make any. For example, I have never seen in my lifetime science has ever created a flower for us (and our kids) to admire. I’m talking about a flower, not plastic flower. Or a piece of grain (for our stomach), or a volume of oxygen (for our lungs). Or, a completely new fruit, never seen before fruit (like apple, orange for instance, but not apple, orange) for its mineral or vitamin needed by our body. Yes, we could clone them to produce a new variety/species, but that was not ACTUALLY a “creation” per se, because you took someone’s (God’s) things/materials (seeds or its gene). Right ?
I think God has no problem with us investigating or make research on everything He made. In fact, from Islamic point of view, God ‘encourage’
us to “see” of His creations – planets, stars, earth, including creepy living creatures on earth and in the ocean..AND THINK..ponder..their benefits, their roles in ecosystems, their co-existence, with purposed, all designed
“perfectly” for according to systems, symbiotic etc. If they all happened ‘by chance’ it , I don’t think they serve any purpose, any function, at all. Do you, on the other hand thought that sample of tests done in labs shown that anything created by chance does serve any purpose or function ? Make sure they REALLY appeared “by chance”, “by itself” ! Maybe.. they served certain functions I don’t know..am not sure.

I think it is good if we care to check scriptures too. Check Bible, check Quran. ..

and even check books , I think this scientific part is very loose to argue , there are tons of books discussing those issues .. the right question does any one have interest in reading or investigating ?

my study as physician shows me how great this body was created , every mechanism , every small embryological development, small micro organisms and how all this work together with harmony made me to conclude that it's just a decision they may make to investigate well and search thoroughly.

I consider myself an atheist in that I don't believe in a religion and I also believe that other religious beliefs are incorrect. I was raised Christian but as the more I questioned things and learnt more I realised that those Christian beliefs were wrong.

I agree that we don't know enough about the universe to disprove a "god" but there is no evidence supporting what others believe in as a god. Why should we believe in something where there is no evidence to support it? If that is the case we may as well believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, in reverse vampires that live in outer space or any number of ridiculous beliefs. If anything like a "god" does exist, at the moment anyway, it would be so beyond our comprehension that belief or thinking about it would be of no value anyway.

I don't believe that religion is what we don't know. What we know and what we don't know is all in the realm of science. Religion is a system of beliefs involving a god or gods. Perhaps religion may attempt to explain some things we don't know yet but it does so without evidence and so you may as well believe anything. The problem is that religion also attempts to explain things we do know and ignores evidence to the contrary e.g. evolution.

Scientific research is actually attempting to explain religious belief. Religious behaviours are a result of evolutionary processes. I'm partial to some of the spandrel theories of religion. A spandrel is like the storage space underneath a flight of stairs. Someone built the stairs and as an unintentional byproduct you have this storage space. Basically we evolved certain adaptive modules in our brain. One such module is concerned with agency. The notion that things that happen are the result of some sort of intelligent agent (be it a tiger or another human being). This module was useful because it allows us to make connections between things that have happened and the things that cause them. Without it everything is just due to chance. Religious belief is likely the result of an overactive agency module. Things like storms or locusts couldn't be explained as being caused by some being and so humans gained this notion that there was somehow this "god" who was responsible. If you could appease the god and gain its favour then you it might help you. Religious behaviours are those things that are done to appease the god. Religious belief is like an evolutionary spandrel.

There are other theories and it gets more complicated. I won't go into too much detail. Check out this wiki page Evolutionary psychology of religion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Atheism for me is not about disbelief in god without proof. It's believing in things where this is proof. If you believe in things without proof you may as well believe any number of ridiculous things.

Originally Posted by portable

For me I think science cannot study anything, if anything is NOT there (not exist/ not available). So..to me, science actually investigate God’s creatures, their systems, how they work, or their nature, their origin. Scientists “investigate” things/ creatures that God made available. But science as we know has NEVER made any of them. Not a single creature or creation PER SE, and OUT OF NOTHING. And perhaps will NEVER make any. For example, I have never seen in my lifetime science has ever created a flower for us (and our kids) to admire. I’m talking about a flower, not plastic flower. Or a piece of grain (for our stomach), or a volume of oxygen (for our lungs). Or, a completely new fruit, never seen before fruit (like apple, orange for instance, but not apple, orange) for its mineral or vitamin needed by our body. Yes, we could clone them to produce a new variety/species, but that was not ACTUALLY a “creation” per se, because you took someone’s (God’s) things/materials (seeds or its gene). Right ?

This claim is self contradicting, yes, science may not 'created' anything, but did you actually see god create all of them? This is not a true/false situation, the fact that science did not 'create' creatures does not make the statement "god created everything" to be true!
Moreover, science may not created anything (man, i feel really uncomfortable using the world create, it reminds me creationism), but science and engineering together have changed our lives. Scientists and engineers invented microchips which is the core component of PC, which is essential for you to post this very thread and do pretty much everything nowadays, they discovered the property of simulated emission which gave us CDs, DVDs and blurays, they discovered superparamagnetic effect which gave us HDDs, and this list goes on forever.

Furthermore, most scientists/engineers support the idea that "science and religions can coexist", however, it's the 'religions' don't support it. Giordano Bruno was burned to death and Galileo Galilei was put under house arrest, both happened under church rule. Unfortunately, this list goes on as well, a lot of great scientists died tragically under church rule, for example, Nicolaus Copernicus, Hypatia, Michael Servetus, etc etc etc :(
Why did this happen, because the great scientists discovered natural properties and phenomenons that contradicts the funding of some religions and disproofs them, and, churches are generally slow to accept science findings. It took them hundreds of years just to admit that Earth is not the central of the universe.

Last but not least, it is true that science is still very limited at this stage, there are a lot of phenomenons and properties that science cannot provide an explanation yet, however, the scientists are trying. They explore all possible hypothesis and conduct experiments, just to find the right answer. In my opinion, the fundamental difference between science and religions is, when you encounter something you cannot explain, scientists will try everything to find out the reason, even if it takes decades to find it (for example, the property gravity), and religion will just say "it is a sign, feel it in your heart"

Again, i support the idea that science coexists with religions, however, religions should not interfere with science, teaching creation instead of evolution at school is just wrong!

"science and religions can coexist"

and who said I don't agree with that, I believe in that and I see no confliction because of the simple fact that when I believe in God , and I believe that god creates our minds to discover and invent such "inventions" you've enumerated ... they just turn things to other useful things , but why don't you asked about extra complexed body or our galaxy , why can't we -with science- make the sunset from the west not the east ... or even make a living butterfly from nothing .?

and for the seeing part there are tons of words to say about , as for simplicity we believe that electricity moves along wire ... and none has seen the electrons moving in the wire .. but everyone in the world when seeing the lamp lights they have a belief about the existence of electricity...
anyway I found this blog has many interesting discussions about many points in this thread which I believe you guys argued before here

Originally Posted by portable

and who said I don't agree with that, I believe in that and I see no confliction because of the simple fact that when I believe in God , and I believe that god creates our minds to discover and invent such "inventions" you've enumerated ... they just turn things to other useful things , but why don't you asked about extra complexed body or our galaxy , why can't we -with science- make the sunset from the west not the east ... or even make a living butterfly from nothing .?

and for the seeing part there are tons of words to say about , as for simplicity we believe that electricity moves along wire ... and none has seen the electrons moving in the wire .. but everyone in the world when seeing the lamp lights they have a belief about the existence of electricity...
anyway I found this blog has many interesting discussions about many points in this thread which I believe you guys argued before here

don't read everything as a sign. People worked so hard to discover electrons and invented light bulb. Do not discredit the inventors by saying "god puts the invention in their head".
Science is about study and discover nature. All science findings are based on experiments that can be repeated on demand or historical evidence.
Can you find any evidence that can support even one of your claims?
By the way, just to make things clears, let me give you one example,
"If you find a cable that is about 2000 years old, it shows that 2000 years ago people can transfer energy/signal over wires, however, if you dig out nothing (no cable), it does not mean that they use WIFI or induction pad!"
You got what I mean? Yes, science did not create anything, it is about studying nature, but, science did not create anything does not imply god created everything, unless you have concrete evidence, what you are saying is nothing more than imagination.

Having said all that, I have to say, you don't really understand what science is, have a read here.

Right, I am an Atheist, I do not believe in anything you cannot prove is there, this is how science works, it's statistics, we could start with earth, there is plenty of proof it exists so I believe it does.

There is ALWAYS the argument that you cant prove something doesn't exist a bit like the monster under my bed I say it exists, now prove it doesn't, by the way its invisible and cannot be touched. If you can't prove something exists then it most likely does not. God.

thanks for the wiki link, I know what science is ...and I know that Francis Bacon, the famous philosopher, has rightly said that a little knowledge of science makes man an atheist, but an in-depth study of science makes him a believer in God.... and please take a look at the above link it has all scientific quotes you need ,,,, also have a look at the questions and answers in the comments as I see the same questions and answers are being discussed over and over..
any way If you like search youtube for Theist Vs Atheist Debate you will see another discussion about that .
when I have enough time I might have another discussion with you :)