You are exactly right! These scientists recognized the burden of proof was on them, and took it upon themselves to discredit these beliefs. They didn't just say, "hey, you're wrong. Prove the earth is flat."

no it wasn't exactly like that was it?Also they were talking about something that can be proved. People had theories and tested them, its not like the scientists got up and went i know il disprove conventional beliefs.

To be honest i agree that there probably is a higher being, but it diffinetly isnt the abramhamic religions god, and if you do think it is the burden is on you to prove it.

It was like that. They didn't even try to discredit widespread beliefs by naming them false until they had information and evidence. In the same way, it's unwise to just disregard what has been accepted by people of every society in all of history without sufficient evidence.

And that is another topic. If you like we can begin to discuss why I personally believe that the God of the Old and New Testaments is THE creator God, and that there is no other. The burden may be on me to provide evidence and reasons for why I believe Him to be the true and only God, but the burden is on the atheists to provide evidence for why millions of people throughout history have been incorrect. Make sense? We're talking about two different things.

The argument for order and design, I believe is a great starting point for why believing in God of the Bible is true.

Plato started this argument in seed, but it came to popularized by Williams Paley in the late 18th century with his watchmaked analogy.

You're walking across a field and stub your toe on a stone. If we were to wonder how the stone came to be there, it would not be hard to imagine that the stone had always been there. But if we came to stub our toe on a watch lying in the field, it would be difficult to believe it was "just there." The watch is intricate and every part is necessary for a specific purpose. It would be absurd to deny that the watch had an intelligent designer, a wacthmaker. Paley argued that the world shows evidence of purpose, and therefore, an intelligent designer.

A variation of this looks at the human race. Does it make sense to believe that thinking, feeling, imaginative, aesthetic creatures such as humans come from a mechanism such as blind chance? Can impersonal forces give rise to personal beings? A designer who is personal (thinking, feeling, moral etc) is the only adequate explanation for the existence of humanity.

So, thus far, if you believe this argument to be satisfactory, you believe in a personal, moral, intelligent and even loving God. Why create everything if not for His purpose and pleasure?

And He'd want to communicate with His creation. What better way than through written word? It stands the test of time and is transferable.

So, without leaping very far at all, to believe that God exists, is personal, loving, intelligent, and has made himself known through written word among other things is a reasonable conclusion.

The reasons continue to prophecy, experience, reliability in the Bible versus other scriptures, and others.

At the very least, my goal is to get you to see that belief in the God of Abraham is not quite so far the "leap of faith" that our culture would have you believe. Do I strike you as the ignorant, crutch-needing, weak-minded fool that society would have you believe Christians are?

By using Intelligent Design as your argument? This theory was even shown to be hugely faulty in a court of law. Read up on the Dover case for and against Intelligent Design, and you'll find all numbers of reasons just why there isn't a designer. Start here in case you don't know what case I'm talking about (it was mildly famous several years ago): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District

I'm pretty sure the court of law ruled that reaching ID was unconstitutional, it had nothing to do with the validity of the theory. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure on this.

shouldnt you just read it and find out

An aside:
What is it that makes humans self-aware? How about chimps, dolphins, and elephants? Up until recently it was conventional wisdom that only humans were self-aware and had feelings... this older view has been utterly disproven... there is no bright line between humans and other animals any more than there is a line between you and me... Other than degree of complexity what separates us from any other life form? ...Or indeed, from any other form of matter and energy? Religious folk quite reasonably take this as evidence that there is something supernaturally (since it can't be discerned in the natural world) special about us that separates us from non-living matter... a soul. Commonly it is thought by religious folk that only humans have a soul... why? I have another proposition... we know that we are alive and have consciousness... we have over the centuries assumed that other animals were not conscious... indeed many times cultures have assumed that other races and peoples were not fully human and conscious... they were wrong. Why not turn this whole assumption on its head? Why not consider that the spark that we are conscious of in ourselves is in everything. We have no evidence to the contrary... and it only logically follows. I'm not saying that a rock is conscious of itself or that an amoeba is conscious of itself in the same way that a mouse or a human is conscious... but consider, the matter is the same and the energy is the same... that spark that makes consciousness possible (if not activated) must be assumed to be present in all things made of the same stuff that we are. [insert quote here from Star Wars about how the Force binds the universe together]

Here's an interesting article about "altruistic" behavior in amoebas:
"Even the Simplest Creatures Favor Family"
http://www.livescience.com/animals/060823_amoebae.html
Read that article and tell me that amoebas are not in some sense aware. I dare you.

bartdogg, I already responded to the Watch and Watchmaker's argument earlier. Essentially, the watch is unnatural. You wouldn't think twice about the rock because you see rocks everywhere and you know that they can be naturally formed by impersonal forces. Humans are quite natural and we have very adequate theories as to how impersonal forces can create us. Unlike rocks, life reproduces and maintains internal order by extracting energy from it's environment. We can see that any chemical system that reproduces and maintains internal order will naturally perpetuate itself as long as there is enough energy. It's simply the tendency for those things that are better at existing to exist.

The burden of proof lies with those who are making an assertion. Most atheists wouldn't say they know for sure that God exists, but because of a lack of evidence they don't see why they should even consider the possibility that a God exists anymore they consider the possibility that an invisible green dragon lives in skeptic's basement. We do not assert that God does not exist. We just do not assert and argue against the assertion that God does exist because the consequences of such an assertion are far reaching and we'd better have some evidence for it.

Would you believe in the invisible green dragon if everyone else did as well? And every Sunday we gave meat to skeptic so he could feed the great dragon. And skeptic claimed that it was decreed by his dragon that nobody shall eat bacon from this point on or they will suffer a fiery death, and that all bacon should be relinquished to skeptic to feed the dragon. And then skeptic told us the green dragon decrees that we give him money and that we bomb abortion clinics.

The fact that many people believe something does not make it true. Truth is independent. If critical thought and philosophy represent anything it is the power to throw off the shackles of custom and claim your own truth and not simply the truth of your parents.

I've read the Old Testament (what a dry read), much of the New, and have taken a small interest in the metaphysics of Kaballah. I assure you that there are very adequate scientific theories for the phenomenon of life, humanity, and the the universe around us. You have to treat your religion as just another philosophy, just another idea in the marketplace of ideas and you have to see if it stands up on it's merit or only upon it's demands for your loyalty through faith. From the knowledge and evidence I've been presented I've concluded that the scientific method is the best method we currently have of understanding the phenomenal reality in which we exist, sense, and live.

Scientific knowledge allows us to predict the outcome to the vast majority of practical problems to an outstandingly minuscule margin of error. This gives us advanced medicine, computers, airplanes, all of the things that make our life easier. I don't believe the studies you posted earlier on the effects of prayer, but I'll see your 11% and raise you several more orders of magnitudes of % on the recovery of patients who use scientifically engineered medicine as opposed to those who don't. When missionaries travelled abroad most of their conversions were as a result of awing the natives with their relatively advanced technology and not through the philosophical merits of Christianity. Faith contradicts the scientific method, and I place them both on equal footing in the marketplace of ideas. The scientific method comes way out in front.

There's one thing that is consistently against atheist (lack of) beliefs. Why would all of those prophets pull all of that stuff out of their arses? They had no reason to make all that stuff up.

power

Dude. Prophets were rock stars in their day. =D

Just a few thoughts.

crisp, by definition to be an A-theist is to assert in no God. Now, you may not be a true A-theist, but by definition that's what one is. It is a belief in a non-existence and the assertion is obvious. If I call myself an atheists I believe that a God does not exist. If I believe that a God may exist then I am simply agnostic, or just don't care.

And I don't believe there is a dichotomy between the "scientific method" you discuss and faith. Scientifically I can prove that the chair I am about to sit on will hold me, but I still actually have to get myself to the point where I will sit on it. I've been trying to argue that the faith of Christianity is not the leap many would believe it to be, but for me at least, a rational conclusion to historical events and logical arguments.

Truth is independent, I agree. And for the record, my parents do not believe ;)

The scientific method is fine, but it comes woefully short in presenting any type of meaning or purpose to life. The reality is, for A-theists meaning is void. Man exists by chance and luck, so let's eat drink and be merry!

finally someone who makes some sense...

The definition of an A-theist is to be without religion. A- meaning without, theist, religion. Nothing more than that. As Chrispminis stated, in the marketplace of ideas you have religions, scientific method etc. An atheist is simply someone who does not view the religious ideas as most credible.

The meaning of life is to be happy. Don't need God, a Pantheon or Gaia to be happy.

and chrismpminis, thats a bold statement, "that your totally unbiased" and that through your unbiased view you see the scientific method is way better...

and how is the big bang theory adequate, could you give me the percentage chance of that happening? of the bacteria then wanting to grow, and growing, of the atmosphere to be just right to support life!

Theism is a belief in a god, let's just get this straight. A is without, yes, theism is belief in a god. Religion is an entirely different thing altogether.

An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in any type of deity.

Look this up anywhere. Just google atheism.

Why would David Koresh, Jim Jones, Rael, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Sun Myung Moon, and numerous others (Joseph Smith anyone?) pull stuff out of their arses? as trim answers... power. I would add arrogance and insanity. Each of these jokers were/are absolute rock stars within their respective cults... and as we see with Mormonism, some cults adapt over time dropping some of their kookier ideas and become more widely respected religions. Christianity had an inherent advantage from the beginning - it was an improvement on most competing ideas at the time... this allowed it to flourish. It is only more recently with the advent of science that some of its core beliefs have been seriously questioned... this has lead some to adapt the religion (apology to Galileo, Second Vatican Council, less literal interpretations of biblical stories) to be able to integrate what we now know as true.

bartdogg, its impossible to argue with them, they question everything, and don't ever actually let your prove a point, cuz they question the most basic things, common sense things...i'll be surprised if you ever convince them wat the definition of an atheist is... but here it is off dictionary.com

atheist - a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

To have an absence of belief in something is different than to believe that something is absent. Both of these have sometimes been called atheism.

It gets tricky again when talking agnosticism. ...since it deals with knowledge rather than belief. Many religious and many non-religious folk both acknowledge that they do not know whether God exists.

Yrt-Zach, I'm not sure where I said I was unbiased... What I did say was that if evidence of a supreme being were presented to me that I could not refute and that was reconcilable with what I know from science then I would not be afraid to acknowledge the existence of God. I may not respect him, but I certainly will not deny his existence. And yes the chances of life occurring are ridiculously low, but you have to look at the ridiculous bigness of our universe. The chances of winning the lottery are low, but not if you have 16 million tickets. It would be like a puddle claiming that oh, look how this hole conforms to my shape. It must have been created for me. In reality, if the hole didn't exist the puddle wouldn't. If things weren't the way they were, we wouldn't be around to speculate. It is no indication of a divine creator.

bartdogg, you seem to be first under the assumption that there must be meaning or purpose to life, and second under the assumption that Atheists lack meaning. It is not luck or chance that brought me here, but an incredible amount of force and time that determined my existence. My existence is contingent and without natural purpose, but it is by no means meaningless. I would rather not trick myself into believing I have some natural purpose or meaning to my life without evidence. I don't take much comfort in feeling that I owe my existence to anyone or that my free will is simply a test to see whether I'll actually bend it to the will of supreme beings. I take comfort in my ridiculously good fortune of having the opportunity to exist in this lottery to trump all lotteries, I take comfort in leading a moral life which I hope is as free of the tyranny of custom as possible, and I take comfort in the small things, such as good food, good sleep, good times, and good friends.

I believe that happiness doesn't come from some upper realm but from within, and has a very understandable biological base. Anyone who has met me would describe me as consistently happy, and it's true that it has been a long time since I've felt sadness or anger. I do have a spirituality in a sense, but in contrast to religious peoples I don't allow this spirituality to govern my value judgements. I believe that issues such as abortion should be approached pragmatically based on the pro's and con's and through reason and not through the invocation of an uncertain deity.

We are thrust into existence, we are not born with purpose. We create our own purpose, whether through religion or through some other means. You can tell me that the reality is that for atheists is that I am void of meaning but you would be denying the empirical fact that as an atheist I very much have meaning in my life. I'm afraid I'm evidence to the contrary of your thesis.

bartdogg:
"The scientific method is fine, but it comes woefully short in presenting any type of meaning or purpose to life. The reality is, for A-theists meaning is void. Man exists by chance and luck, so let's eat drink and be merry!"
---
Who said that it is up to the scientific method to come up with a meaning or purpose to life?? Might as well expect that computer systems analysis provide your meaning... or sports wagering... or architectural design theory... or the Smith Driving System... Scientific method is a method for understanding how the world works. It is not a method for finding meaning in the world.

And how dare you (or anyone else) say that atheists are without meaning. Just because our meaning wasn't prescribed and outlined in cookbook format in my local church doesn't mean that my life is without meaning. Now granted, since atheists are not a monolithic group, there will be a large variety of views from atheists about what it all means... but to say that we are without meaning simply because we find little to no personal use for your concept of god is silly and insulting.

Yrt-Zach:
"bartdogg, its impossible to argue with them, they question everything, and don't ever actually let your prove a point, cuz they question the most basic things, common sense things...i'll be surprised if you ever convince them wat the definition of an atheist is... but here it is off dictionary.com

atheist - a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings."
---
What "common sense" things do atheists (monolithic group that we are) question? (And why exactly is questioning a bad thing? Perhaps you mean deny rather than question...) Besides, what is common sense to be you would probably deny every day of the week. Does that mean that you are impossible to argue with? Perhaps. But my point is that it is a relative thing.

Your quoted definition of atheist lines up perfectly with mine. An atheist either denies the existence of God (a "hard atheist") or simply does not believe in one (but does not claim definitively that there is not one) (a "soft atheist").

I'll but the hard and soft atheists claim, and remove myself from that conversation.

By meaning, I simply meant ultimate purpose. To be an atheists you must believe that we exist as a results of crazy luck spaced over vast amounts of time. No morality can be afforded, because no overseer or ultimare decision-maker is present. If I am an atheist my worldview affords me no more meaning or purpose than a rock. That is not a slam in any way, it is a logical conclusion of the worldview. Crisp seems to get this a bit, but I'd disagree with the statement "I take comfort in leading a moral life..." because morality does not exist if we are products of chance and time. There is no right or wrong or good or bad, it is only as it is. Therefore, who is to say that tyranny is a bad thing?

Dexter by meaning I simply meant purpose. If no deity exists, our lives are void of any more meaning than this computer screen. Your upset about a "lack of meaning" because it's a depressing thought, but one mandatory for a true atheist. We are then no different than rocks or trees or birds or monkeys, all created by chance over time, all random, no order, and no ultimate purpose.

I meant "I'll buy"

And yes, crisp, atheists, and you, serve a purpose in MY worldview. But you can't turn the table around that way. You are not in MY worldview you are in yours.

If we are all products of chance over time, then what meaning do we have?

And I am under the assumption that life has meaning. If you're willing to throw that assumption out the window than you are nearer to true atheism than most who claim to be so.