[Burninator]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

My response to this would be the same as llama's.

There is no proof of the correctness of religious belief, nor is there proof of the correctness of atheistic belief. There is a subtle difference between not believing in something vs. believing not something. Also, I would not go so far as to say that atheism is a natural, rational default. Given that proof cannot be given either way, but there have been countless individual accounts of religious experience some might argue that the more rational default position (if one were forced to take a position) would be to accept some form of religious belief. Personally, seeing as we're not forced to take a position, I would say an admittance that you can't know either way and so refusing to either believe or refute (agnosticism) is a reasonable choice.

I'll have to disagree. Simply becuase individual accounts of religious experience or anything similar is not evidence. By your argument the rational position would be to believe in unicorns, Bigfoot, ghosts, ouija boards, mermaids, fairies etc. Because of all of those have countless personal experience. When speaking to a skeptic like photon and myself, anecdotal accounts are not evidence. Starting point maybe, but not evidence, not even close.

Anyways, atheism is faith based because it is a belief in a positive statement (there is no god) which cannot be supported by evidence.

I didn't say that religion was about critically challenging things. He did say that religion is about not challenging things critically. My point was that religion is not about avoiding challenging things critically, that a person may be religious and still challenge things critically without being in conflict with their faith and spiritual belief.

Actually, atheism is the belief that there is no god.

EDIT: I don't mean to be rude or condescending on this. I just wanted to clarify, so that semantics aren't a problem in the debate.

But like I said in my previous post. Faith is a Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. Since you can't prove a negative, I don't see how atheism is a belief (beyond semantics, which we are probably arguing anyway). I am intested in your opinion on this.