An atheist who is not so keen on God

I take it you’re not talking about the nonexistence of god[s], because if I recall correctly you make a point out of defining atheism not as the positive assertion that there is/are no god[s], but rather as lack of belief. In other words, nonexistence of belief as opposed to belief in nonexistence. What things do atheists believe in without evidence?

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"Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially nonrandom."
--Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

Good point. Well, except for that last oneno one really believes that. In retrospect, that was a stupid question. What I meant was what do rational atheists believe in without evidence, but then again that wasn’t what Rrhain originally said at all. I take it the answer is nothing, unless I’m missing something.

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"Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially nonrandom."
--Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

Rrhain responds:

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But that doesn't mean this time is going to be like the last time. Past experience is not indicative of future gain and all that.

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Whoa. Let’s slow down for a second. This is precisely why science is tentative in naturethis time you run an experiment, the results may not be like last time. But the probability that if you release an apple from your hand on earth it will fall to the ground, is very high. I would argue that past experience is indicative of the future. Past experience shows that if you release an apple from your hand, it will fall to the ground. You can expect this to happen in any future trials. This doesn’t mean you have belief in gravitation.And in the case of a crisis, you’d have to assess the situation in its entirety, and from the evidence you collect, I’m sure you can come to a conclusion through logical deduction. You may reach the incorrect conclusion, perhaps due to a dearth of evidence, but the process is still rational. You gather evidence before arriving at a logically derived conclusion. This doesn’t mean that there is no evidence involved and that thus it constitutes belief.

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The belief that there is "somebody out there for me." "Love conquers all." All sorts of philosophical positions are out there that atheists believe in.

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Aha. Indeed.

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"Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially nonrandom."
--Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker

True, true: I'm equivocating. Whoops.

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"Chance is a minor ingredient in the Darwinian recipe, but the most important ingredient is cumulative selection which is quintessentially nonrandom."
--Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker