Where does the concept that atheists have the intellectual highground in comparison to religious people come from...

From a period that is euphorically named the "Age of Enlightenment".

>evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators
The Bible is evidence, along with Christ's tomb, fragments of the True Cross, etc.

The approach you are suggesting is a practical one for sure. I dont really understand how you make definitive statements about the nature of the universe and in this case the existence or non-existence of a deity this way however.

In what way exactly? I never claimed that organized religion was in the right. I stated the problems that I think atheism and religion share.

>The Bible is evidence
Its anecdotal evidence, but then so is "absence of evidence" but as I said, that anecdotal evidence is not just at odds with athiesm, its at odds with other theists. Theists (generally) have to prove more than athiests. I'd still argue athiest don't have to prove anything but again, some people still feel you can't prove a negative conclusively.
Its not perfect but I tried.
Its kinda sad thats just about the best argument that "muh logical athiest" brethren can do but its slightly better the koolaid I had to drink to convince myself when I was a Catholic struggling with my faith.

In the way that I presented a reason for a theory as to why the zeitgeist considers the religious stupid. You have yet to address it, instead preferring to rant about how atheists are just stupid people following the herd.

Fair enough. My whole thing is that I just hate how atheists look down upon religious people without having any more answers themselves but still represent their maybe lucky guess as the truth. There are certain things man cant know and I think we should ackknowledge them as such. I also think that some people if not all humans need some kind of possibility of mysticism in their world view to try to answer these unanswerable question and that atheism and scientism becoming popular is actively hindering this and thus hurting people on a mental level indirectly.

Well my argument was that atheism hardly has a better logic in its arguments. Maybe Im the dumb one but I fail to understand how I didnt engage your argument.

My argument
>People all over the world usually encounter at least some religious people
>Said religious people use incredibly specious logic to defend their particular religions. I personally have most experience with Christianity, but you can pick apart just about any religion with fine enough detail.
>This leads to the conclusion that the religious tend to fall into two categories: The ignorant, who haven't really studied their own religious traditions, and the stupid, who have, and still believe in them anyway despite the manifest shit that's in every example I've ever seen.
>Thus, it is easy to look down upon the religious.

And again, post has nothing to do with this, it just barrels off accusing the atheists of being ignorant and needing to definitively prove that a deity does not exist.

You don't need "better logic", the negative does not need to be positively demonstrated the way the positive does. Fermat's last theorem wasn't proved until the early 21st century, that doesn't mean that the notion that you could find numbers such that a^n +b^n equaled a c^n of a number greater than two where a,b, and c are all integers was a supportable position.

Look, I see where you are coming from now. This was however never the argument I wanted to start. Like I said, I dont defend religion, I would agree with you actually. I just wanted to show that atheism essentially has the same shortcomings it criticizes religion for and the intellectual highground many atheists want to claim for themselves is thus undeserved.
Also couldnt you reverse the logic of your example of the theorem and thuis claim that god in whatever form exists and just has to be discovered or reveal itself? Claiming that god doesnt exist because he hasnt proven to exist is a pragmatic and purely empirical approach I personally dont agree with as I dont see a rational argument why a deity should/ should not exist.

Athiests (at least ones that talk about athiesm) are a reactionary bunch. A lot of the logical high ground bullshit is derived from anti-athiest sentiments and stereotypes as well as people rebelling against their parents or simply trying to be contrarian to feed their ego (not necesarily consciously either, I'd say most people, if not everyone does this on some level, just not with athiesm all the time).
Another problem is theism has been tied to the rejection of scientific evidence and consensus and athiests (and others) are aware of this and mistakenly equate athiesm with science and logic and theism with rejection of those, which isn't true.
I don't feel that I have to entertain the possibility that God exists simply because I can't prove he doesn't, however militant athiests shouldn't be afforded this luxury because they actually attempt to contend theistic beliefs against their own thus they actually have to formalize their argument and confront agnostic arguments.

Some good insights, thanks for your input. Thought about most of it before but couldnt really put it into words.

I've sort of already mentioned this but I'll add it again. When the argument "you can't prove god doesn't exist" comes up it opens the argument up to an opinion. You can say "God may or may not exist" or you can decide between which of those is more likely, "I think that a mystical being or beings is more likely" or "I think that the existence of mystical beings is far fetched" both of which are opinions that can include objective observations which makes them rhetorically as sound as agnosticism.

>retard logic

You must have compiled every work on apologetics, theology, exegesis and history and cross-analysed it yourself to reach such a condensed opinion. You sound like a man who takes nothing by prescription, not even from other atheists!

Atheists aren't making any assertions they can't back up without scientific facts.

There is no proof of a God. The only thing you have is "faith" which is the willful suspension of reason & logic.

Wake up.

Probably because the first few waves of atheists "coming out" in our society came from fields requiring a high level of education (math, philosophy, the hard sciences). It took quite a long time for any significant portion of the general public to shed theism, and it happened in steps and degrees.

The pop-science icons are more a consequence of popularization, particularly in the age of mass/social media and the Internet. There's not much difference, on a popular level, between the people who get excited for science marches and Bill Nye variety shows, and people who go to religious revivals and watch hipster pastors preach what passes for Christianity in converted sports stadiums and theaters on TV.

The more rigorous, intellectual varieties of both phenomena will never really make it to the masses. It requires attention, patience, and a work ethic that the general public does not possess.

I come from a religious tradition that emphasized rigorous argument and analysis, high-level discourse, philosophy and logic, as well as rigorous defense and strict conformity to religious standards. Made it pretty easy to become an atheist. Most people decide their beliefs more on the basis of momentum and emotion than analytical rigor.

>Where does the concept that atheists have the intellectual highground in comparison to religious people come from?

It comes from empirical evidence and statistics, OP

Skepticism has a strong philosophical foundation. One should not believe in things without good reason. However, a lot of our beliefs are shaped based upon what people say or have written.
You believe in the existence of the disciples because of what was recorded, but why not believe what they claimed to have witnessed? Likewise, why not trust the mystics who claim to have witnessed higher awareness and who ask you to make the same discovery?

>Nothing suggests that some kind of deity does not exist
Except reality.

>look up the increasingly desperate and retarded claims about how the Old and New Testaments don't *really* contradict even though everyone can see that they do
Burden of proof is on you to prove that they do pal.

>Nothing suggests that some kind of deity does not exist

Wrong, evil does.

>b-but muh free will

Read Rowe's evidential argument from evil, you fagnostic cuckold

>ad hominem is considered legitimate arguments by atheists now

>it's a "retard doesn't know what ad hominem is" episode

Too cliche for my taste

Because they do? Or are you seriously gonna defend being superstitious in 2017?

Science works. Spiritualism does not.

You do realise logic and reason depend on language right? Enjoy playing your little language game with abstractions and assumptions you have to agree on to reach consensus (that's all logic and axioms are, assumptions agreed upon without proof).

to what effect and in which domain?

can you provide an accurate definition of reality?

In the domain of efficacy. I thought that much was obvious.

As long as you believe in determinism then it's incoherent to be atheistic. If you think the world is chaotic then why believe in science ?

efficacy in which domain?

Could you define what you mean by "evil"? Isnt evil what a society sees as threatening for itself and its members? The psychopath didnt choose to be a psychopath and only follows his natural desires like every other person, be it eating bread or raping and murdering people. "Evil" does not exist, only conflicting interests exist.

>moral relativism

Brainlet detected

In producing knowledge
In improving human life

Because atheism is part of modernity, while true religiosity isn't. Thus atheists are playing at home while religious people who engage with them in their own field are the "guest team" so to speak.

I am not making judgement values about modernity here, it's just that as it encompasses every aspect of thought, any religious person who engages with them is putting himself in a disadvantageous territory where his dialectic "weapons" have not much power.

"Religious" people who themselves engage in such pointless rationalistic quarrels are not doing a favor to their religions, I believe. I don't think it's surprising that it's in protestant USA that the debate is most fiery. In catholic Europe priests seem at least smart enough to not waste their time like that.

>the existence of evil proves there is no deity of any sort

>Read Rowe's evidential argument from evil, you fagnostic cuckold

Read Wykstra's CORNEA Critique, mongoloid.

>skeptical theism

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

t. Illiterate

I agree. Fuck atheists! Praise Allah!

Try this then
>base belief in a deity, not particularly attached to any religion
>this deity can only be proven to exist through evidence
>we cannot prove any of this deity's abilities
>we cannot prove the extent of the deity's power
>so lets call it an entity rather
>but we can prove that since we are here, there must be something preceding/creating the mechanisms that created the mechanisms etc etc that created us
>have now proved presence of something indeterminate, yet even that disproves the idea of complete absence through lack of evidence

Existence itself indicates there is something preceding us. Not anything in particular, but something. But many atheists will deny that even. If they dont deny that, they are not atheists.

>presence of evil proves there is no god

If there was no evil nobody would ever seek nor appreciate the idea of a higher being. Look at the United Welfare States as an example. You have an entire class of people who owe their life to what might as well be "divine intervention" in the sense of the government giving them the means to live for absolutely no effort.

And theyre always the first people to rail against the government the SECOND something doesnt go their way. Why would a creator who seemingly has all knowledge impose that kind of existential idiocy on all of fucking humanity?

Tldr; suffering is necessary for knowledge because imperfect people are imperfectly ungrateful.

>Existence itself indicates there is something preceding us

If you accept that the Big Bang was the creation of all the dimensions we live in, then prior to it there was no 'time' at all. Therefore there was nothing preceding it

Somewhere in this world, someone felt clever making this horrid post

As far as the notion of time in this context goes i agree, but how could the Big Bang happen without some kind of cause? As far as our physical notion of the universe goes its the furthest back we can go, but is literally all of existence defined by a spacetime anomaly occuring entirely at random in a void? Whos to say the bang/crunch cycle isnt just playing on repeat? And if it is then what mechanism set that in motion?

>complains about it
>doesnt refute it

U got me m8 u win

Without the time dimension there isn't a cause effect. No one knows how it happened, but saying that because it happened there must have been something before it is wrong.
Afaik the big crunch theory has been rejected, but I'm not a hundred perfect on that

How do we deal with the christshit problem?

>Implying religion and reason are incompatible
>Implying science matters in this subject

Holy fuck user, that picture.

>Implying religion and reason are incompatible
They are compatible as philips screw and screwdriver for slotted screws.

>Implying science matters in this subject
He just said it works, and it does indeed works.

You've no stance whatsoever in any discussion if you dismiss the necessity of logic in formulating truth claims. And your confidence in that epistemology is laughable.

Of course it works, but what does it matter? If we're talking about the existence of god it's completely irrelevant, since theology is beyond it's area of knowledge.
Also, it's a bit naive to think that reason and religion can't be related, specially after centuries of work and study towards the very rationalization of faith.

This post made me legitimately happy to be alive. And I'm not even gay. What satire.

>Also, it's a bit naive to think that reason and religion can't be related, specially after centuries of work and study towards the very rationalization of faith.

It's a bit naive to expect otherwise. Religion often contradicts scientific knowledge, then they either need to bend their theories or become a laughing stock. Everything that's left for religion lies in the area of human morals, which haven't been placed under such heavy rationalization as physical phenomena.

Agnosticism > atheism >>> religion
Intellectual high ground is relative.

>he worships "logic"
All the logic in the world is useless if you proceed from a false assumption

and seeing as how its impossible for humans to actually "know" anything, all logic is based on guesses. Granted, they may be educated guesses, but they are guesses nonetheless.

nice doubles

>Religion often contradicts scientific knowledge

While nowadays that could be seen as accurate, truth is that religious authorities usually worked to merge reason with faith, and there are plenty of examples in history.

Logic is based on our inability to conceive of states of affairs being other than specified by logical rules. We can't conceive of A not equaling A. We have to think a certain way.

God is found, not proven. Trying to "prove" God through syllogisms and fancy argumentation is already admitting the primacy of reason.

The worship of reason is the death of the soul. The most science can ever do is give descriptions of behavior and cannot penetrate to the realm of first causes and essences.

Fundies can't talk intelligently about their own faith, teenage atheists are slaves to "objective" truth.

...

To pull a few examples out of thin air, Matthew makes much of the 14-14-14 generations separating Adam to David, David to the Babylonian Exile, and the Babylonian exile to Jesus. Chronicles states that there were 18 generations between David and Babylon.

We have the firm promises of God to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 4 that no matter how much they sin, God will never abandon them, and should they repent, and hearken to the ways of their forefathers, they'll be accepted back. This is at odds with Supercessionism.

You have the Pauline claims that the Old Covenant is impossible to follow, contradicted by Deuteronomy 30:11.

You have the claims from Paul that with Jesus, the need for animal sacrifice (especially sin-sacrifice) is abolished, yet Ezekiel 45:22 mentions how the Messiah will inaugurate a new temple, among other things, by bringing a sin offering.

>take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence.

That, my son, is a contradiction.

>someone hears noises
>says that it must be a ghost
>X is a scientist or at least not retarded
>X proves that this noises came from the wind and or from rats or else.

Only positive proof is good proof.
Of course that means we have to prove that everything the bible postulates is caused not by a god but by something real, or at least be so sceptical not to believe anything without proof, The problem with religious people is that they aren´t sceptical about such matters.

Another acolyte of the cult of objectivity. It's OK bro, you're allowed to feel joy and shit, it won't hurt the void's feelings.

Yeah, I mean, fuck truth!
feels>reals

So any claim made by a subject is automatically invalid because he might have been influenced by subjective biases that constitute him as a subject in the first place? Why am I listening to you again? Go back to your void worship.

yeah it is pretty ridiculous considering there are so many scientists who were either deeply religious or work as priests of some kind such as Copernicus who might have been ordained a priest or Georges Lemaître who was also a priest and the inventor of the big bang theory. The "reasoning" that such atheists see themselves as having a higher state of reason is due to the constant idea that main stream media likes to propogate that because they don't believe in some big man in the sky or other aspects of religion that must have arisen from old superstitions. Another reason due to this belief is the large amount of recent scientists who attempt to view theology through a scientific lens which is wholly unhelpful when discussing the matters of god. Because god, at least in the Christian sense, isn't a physical being but being itself it is impossible to prove scientifically the existence of a god. Because of this impossibility scientists seem to spread the idea that because they can't prove through the means that they are accustomed that a god must not exist. If you really want a more definitive answer here is a great video by a bishop from southern California that explains what I've paraphrased here: youtube.com/watch?v=3ZkHv8iTJPo

Because religion is for superstitious and gullible idiots, normal people are by definition more intellectual than religious people.

Agnosticism is best-tier, deism can be second best if it promises to do the dishes.

Facts are ideas which have been tested in the real world and found to be provisionally true and are consistent with other known provisional facts.

Religious ideas about how the world works are opinions and are not necessarily true