Hi Watson75,
I think this is at the core of what I see as your misconception;
In a world of "something" it hardly seems reasonable to assert that 'it came from "nothing"' as some sort of self evident truth.
I would consider myself a fairly "hard" atheist, yet I would not claim that we "came from nothing". I don't know exactly where the universe comes from, or if the question is even a meaningful one. I am satisfied that the Big Bang model provides a good description of the universe, right back to the first fractions of a second, but before that, the physicists can't really tell us much, so I certainly wouldn't like to say. As a matter of fact, I find the idea of the universe coming from nothing almost as absurd as you do, but that doesn't mean that it's not true.
Therefore, to suggest that "something" came from "something" can be construed as a more reasonable stance.
It is certainly more appealing from a common-sense perspective, but if science has taught us anything, it's that our common-sense is often wrong.
On the other hand, if "something came from something", then why should the something it came from necessarily be God?
As suggested in my post, I propose that atheism should vanish into either the belief set of agnostics, or deists. I mean, both just make more sense.
They may make more sense to you, but this is far from self-evident as far as I can see.
I have heard similar arguments before and I have to say that I think you are trying to paint atheists into a corner here, by forcing us to adopt an extremely silly extremist position. You seem to want all atheists to take up a position that can be summarised as "I have certain knowledge that God does not exist.". In real life, very few atheists think this way (a lot of theists seem to though). A more common position, my position in fact, is that I am almost entirely certain that gods do not exist, due to the total lack of evidence for their existence. In the absence of such evidence, there is no reason to believe in God, so I don't. Of course, I could be wrong...
To my mind, agnosticism has too much of an air of even handedness and equivocation to usefully describe my opinions. There is a sense in which agnosticism suggests a 50/50 even split between belief and disbelief, as though I could go either way. Whilst I acknowledge that the possibility exists that I am wrong, my judgement is to come down on the side of disbelief.
You say that agnosticism is logical, but what exactly are you saying we should be agnostic about? Are you agnostic abut Ganesha? Or Apollo? Or Baal? Is there an equal chance of reality/unreality for the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
I would suggest that, rather than being agnostic about such entities, most people simply don't believe in them. I just go one god further than you do...
Deism puzzles me I must admit. I don't see what people get out of it. A distant god of that kind
could exist, but a universe with such a god would be pretty much indistinguishable from one where he didn't exist. It seems to be nothing more than a violation of parsimony and a last-ditch emotional attachment.
I feel to go as far as being an atheist, requires some sort of inner "knowiness," or "truthiness" as Colbert might put it.
I don't pretend to know anything in such an absolute sense, but what's wrong with having an opinion?
Otherwise, it's the product of rebellion, and arrogance, as outlined in my post.
What am I rebelling against exactly? Religion has never really played a significant enough part in my life for me to feel like I had anything to rebel against. As for arrogance, is it really arrogant to simply disagree with people?
Mutate and Survive
"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade
™ Version 4.2
