Let them come to us.

[muhammad_isa]

Sure I can.
I would ask for the evidence that justifies this belief and I will get a whole bunch of stuff, none of which would be actual reliable evidence.

That makes the belief unfounded..

You state your opinion as if it is fact.
It isn't .. it's purely your opinion.

 

[Brian2]

Here is mine: I don't know what the world is in that sense of in the end metaphysics.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here.
But yes I am involved in the sort of debate you describe to an extent at least.

 

[Brian2]

1. those are two different claims

2. neither is an answer to what the evidence is that supports it

They are both positions of faith and either of them could be correct according to the evidence.

Which is not reasonable.
Reasonable is when evidence bridges that gap.
In fact, faith doesn't bridge that gap at all. Invoking faith is not going to magically transform the unknown in the known. At best, it turns the unknown into the "believed". And that belief will very likely be incorrect. Because faith is not a reliable pathway to truth.

Nevertheless faith is what Christians profess, not certain knowledge.

And if you do that, right out the gates you make a monumental argument from ignorance.

It's not really an argument, it is just a personal belief.
Is it any worse than making an argument from incredulity?

Which is the default place. And a reasonable place to be, when the claims presented have no supportive verifiable evidence.

In science it is a reasonable place to be. In religious belief verifiable evidence is something that might come subjectively to a believer, but even that is not going to be repeatable forever because God is not a thing that we can study like we do the physical world. Wanting verifiable evidence for a God seems to be just a way of saying that you aren't going to ever have religious faith and that you probably don't want it.

I challenge you to name something that I consider evidence against a biblical claim where I have to invoke "faith" to consider it as such.

I won't be holding my breath.

You may consider the archaeological opinion that the Exodus and Conquest did not happen as evidence against the Bible being true. It requires faith in the archaeologists and historians who say that however and in logic I suppose it is a fallacy from popularity or a fallacy from authority even.

Faith is never reliable. Not just when it comes to "science".
When the goal is to find out what is actually true, to distinguish fact from fantasy... faith is not a reliable way to do that. Ever.

I don't think it can be said that faith is always going to be wrong.

It has nothing to do with "playing it safe" and everything with not being gullible and / or rational reasoning.

Well we are both rational and reason rationally............ I think.
I would say that we both need to be gullible or trusting to an extent to believe what people say.
But reason can sometimes start from point X instead of Y and end at point D instead of K. It does not take much in the way of one error or wrong assumption but the divergence from someone else is big.
Once we start diverging we start believing and trusting what other people say who have gone down the same path.
There are a lot of people in the world and a lot of little divergences and so a lot of end positions that we end up in with our views of the world.
Some are right, some are wrong, and I would say that we are both in the same boat with this and there is no difference between atheists and theists in this regard. It is not something that theists only do.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here.
But yes I am involved in the sort of debate you describe to an extent at least.

Some claims about the world assume a point of view from a non-human in effect.

 

[Sheldon]

Rarely an atheist will change and more than likely it wont happen here. alot of atheists here like to bicker back and forth with religious people.

Outrageous, atheists offering opposing views and arguments, and in a debate forum at that, the very idea.

 

[Sheldon]

They are both positions of faith

Only if you mean the bible in its entirety. That it contains errant nonsense is not remotely a matter of faith, global flood myth is an obvious example of something that has been falsified by objective scientific evidence, as is Exodus, as is the creation myth of course, at least not without resorting to allegory that ignores the actual text.