By that standard, it takes as much faith to believe that this universe had no sentient creator as it does to believe it was created by space bees or whatever.
It doesn’t take faith to not believe in a creator. There is a huge difference between “I don’t believe in a sentient creator” and “I believe there was no sentient creator,” and I don’t know of a lot of atheists who are firmly in the second category. The lack of evidence (or need for it) would make for a better case for not existing, though, and with that in mind, saying “I don’t think there was a sentient creator” doesn’t require anywhere near the faith that saying “I believe there was a sentient creator” does. Being able to say “if there was this, there should have been evidence of it here” and finding no evidence is, itself, helpful to an argument of something not existing that would require evidence to prove it exists.
Religious get into this weird binary thinking, where it’s belief in their particular thing or an equal disbelief of that thing, when it’s really that that particular thing, lacking any evidence, is equally as likely as any other improbable and unprovable thing. Belief in God or disbelief in God, where it’s really not believing in God, vampires, reptile people controlling the government, magic, fairies, or anything else without evidence, and all of those, lacking evidence are equal until evidence is produced. And that’s not disbelief, it is the lack of belief.
It requires no faith to not believe in a sentient creator of the universe.
By that standard, it takes as much faith to believe that this universe had no sentient creator as it does to believe it was created by space bees or whatever.
Yup, that’s my point. It takes faith to believe a creator does not exist.
It doesn’t take faith to not believe in a creator.
That’s a good point. I hadn’t considered agnosticism in this conversation. Refusing to accept something as true without evidence does not take faith. However, I maintain that it takes faith to assert that there is no god/creator since we do not have actual evidence of this.
By that standard, it takes as much faith to believe that this universe had no sentient creator as it does to believe it was created by space bees or whatever.
It doesn’t take faith to not believe in a creator. There is a huge difference between “I don’t believe in a sentient creator” and “I believe there was no sentient creator,” and I don’t know of a lot of atheists who are firmly in the second category. The lack of evidence (or need for it) would make for a better case for not existing, though, and with that in mind, saying “I don’t think there was a sentient creator” doesn’t require anywhere near the faith that saying “I believe there was a sentient creator” does. Being able to say “if there was this, there should have been evidence of it here” and finding no evidence is, itself, helpful to an argument of something not existing that would require evidence to prove it exists.
Religious get into this weird binary thinking, where it’s belief in their particular thing or an equal disbelief of that thing, when it’s really that that particular thing, lacking any evidence, is equally as likely as any other improbable and unprovable thing. Belief in God or disbelief in God, where it’s really not believing in God, vampires, reptile people controlling the government, magic, fairies, or anything else without evidence, and all of those, lacking evidence are equal until evidence is produced. And that’s not disbelief, it is the lack of belief.
It requires no faith to not believe in a sentient creator of the universe.
Yup, that’s my point. It takes faith to believe a creator does not exist.
That’s a good point. I hadn’t considered agnosticism in this conversation. Refusing to accept something as true without evidence does not take faith. However, I maintain that it takes faith to assert that there is no god/creator since we do not have actual evidence of this.