Indeed it does. But to narrow down faith and generalize religious people as being narrow minded I think is a very big irrationalization.
Of course, I do realize you are speaking from your experience here on these forums from religious people. So I can understand your viewpoint.
Look, I know that there are probably thousands of ways of being religious (if not more), but in these discussions, unless specified otherwise, I am talking about the majorities of groups. I'll just have to deal with the exceptions as they come up.
Excuse my impertinence, I tend to get carried away.
What I meant by that is...what makes you any more right. Just because someone finds comfort in a faith, doesn't give you a reason to go an tear it away from them.
But that's not the reason I'm doing it, if that is in fact what I am doing. The "deconversion" statistics aren't looking good, but then I never expected them to.
The reason I am opposing and arguing against a religious view of reality is that there is no evidence that any of that is correct or even real.
I'm not diametrically opposed to people being comfortable. That would be rather absurd. Rather I am opposed to people making stuff up and then presenting it to others as if it was true, a claim that is sorely lacking in evidential backing.
I was implying that the said argument could be used against you as well.
Ah. But it can't.
Because my view of reality is based on objective empirical evidence whereas their's is, in fact, not.
Atheism= The disbelieve or denial that there is no Gods.
The label you take upon yourself insinuates that you pre-deny Gods. If this is not the case then do not call yourself an "atheist".
From the Oxford Online Dictionary:
"A person who does not believe in the existence of God or gods."
From Wikipedia:
"Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist."
definition of atheist from Oxford Dictionaries Online
Atheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I do not make the positive claim that there are no gods.
I merely point out that there is no reason to think there is.
Define what reality is, then I can give you objective evidence of something greater than you.
Reality, as I consider it, is everything that we can perceive and objectively, empirically and scientifically show to be so.
Granted, this is a view of reality that changes over time as we discover more and more about the universe, but I do not see that as a weakness. Rather it is one of its greatest strengths.
And I have no idea what I mean by "decent atheists", your the one who said it.
Ah. Sorry, my bad. I'd forgotten that I'd used that phrase. :sorry1:
What I meant by that was that it is folly to make the positive claim that there are no gods because then the onus of evidence is upon whoever made that claim. Rather, it is better to contest the theist claim that there are gods, in which the onus of evidence is upon them.
This follows from the logical conundrum of proving the non-existence of anything, which is impossible.
As are you.
But it does, simply because Life is subjected to ignorance.
Not sure of the point you are trying to make here.
Could you elaborate somewhat please?
Then I fail to see how anything else is.
Depending on the branch of science we're dealing with there are many types of evidence, measurements and so on that count as data.
Personal anecdotes on the other hand is considered highly biased, unreliable, seldom reproducible and thus are not considered to be of much worth.
Are you making the claim that the supernatural exists? :sarcastic