Is Atheism Unscientific?

Oil, I have called you out for trolling already. You cannot possibly be allowed make a trash-talking statement like that in the middle of an otherwise serious discussion without supporting it. This is a place of science and you just posted an extraordinary assertion. According to the Rule of Laplace, you are hereby directed to immediately present the extraordinary evidence that supports that assertion. If you do not do so, you are proscribed from ever pursuing this line of reasoning again. This is the scientific method in action, something with which you may or may not be acquainted.

I let you get away with it the first time because it was a week day and I was busy. You won't be so lucky on the weekend. If you don't clean up your act, I WILL ban you for violating the rule against trolling.

 

There are many things that can't be observed directly with our senses. In those cases it's acceptable to use other means, instruments being the obvious example. Another obvious example is the "observation" of things that happened in the past. If it was the recent past, we evaluate written (or now electronically recorded) accounts for honesty, objectivity, competence, etc. For the more distant past we have to settle for the evidence left by the event or condition. Then we have to look for consistency and other telltales.

Each of these takes us one remove further from the actual event or condition. Therefore theories based on other than first-hand observation can easily run into a problem with the "true beyond a reasonable doubt" bullet in the definition that elevates a hypothesis to the stature of a scientific theory.

As a perfect, topical example, this is the reason that evolution is a proper theory, whereas abiogenesis is merely a hypothesis. There are (literally) tons of evidence for evolution; finding it in DNA, which we've only known about for a very short time, is a strong corroboration. The hypothesis of abiogenesis is based almost entirely on reasoning, rather than evidence.

 

All right, so you have followed the rules and provided reasoned support your assertion. Nonetheless I hope you can do better than Aristotle. The ancient Greeks were great mathematicians and logicians, but they were pretty weak on science.

True modern science and the scientific method were only developed in the aptly named "Age of Reason." Aristotle, reasonable as he was for his relatively benighted times, predated them by two millennia and therefore could not be expected to argue according to the more evolved rules we have today.

First Cause (a literal and more correct translation of Latin primum movum than the obvious but off-the-mark "prime mover") is, in a modern society in which atheism is respectable, circular reasoning and therefore fallacious reasoning. As I have pointed out in response to your posts a number of times, postulating the existence of a creator only makes the universe somewhat larger, and begs the original question with the addendum, "by the way, where did the creator come from?"

You have consistently failed to answer that question. Posting a statement multiple times without responding to questions about it is, indeed, trolling.

And that is the specific "illogical" part of your particular brand of theism that I am focused on. Argument from primum movum is itself fallacious reasoning.

As I have said before, it is perfectly okay to answer a question with, "I don't know." Scientists say it all the time. As Lt. Cmdr. Data of the Enterprise wisely once said, that statement is the basis of all science. And as my wife quipped, men invent religions so they never have to say it.

As the Moderator of the Linguistics subforum, it obviously falls to me to chastise people for improper use of words. You cannot call atheism “religious.” Every definition of “religion”--except as a metaphor, in which case its use is often insulting—includes belief in the supernatural and the ability of the supernatural to affect our world. The one thing all atheists have in common is the rejection of that belief.

Aristotle's arguments were persuasive for their day, and proper science had not yet been codified. Today his arguments on this subject are neither properly scientific nor especially persuasive.

Your logic is circular and your science is two thousand years out of date. You are not being discriminated against. You are being asked to follow the rules of a science website, which include respecting the scientific method at all times except in jest. However, I think you're trying so you don't qualify as a troller. (I hesitate to call people trolls because of the connotations of the word, although we always seem to have one or two among our members.

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I have responded to your argument with logic. You have followed the rules and provided support for it, but your support is weak and you can’t expect to get any further with it.

I have not encountered that. When I do I’ll have to judge the entire argument. I characterize religion, rather than theism, as unscientific or antiscientific, rather than illogical. Because all religions reject the fundamental premise of science: the natural universe as a closed system. All arguments for the truth of religion, based only on the hearsay of past disciples of the religion and poorly documented accounts of supposedly supernatural phenomena, qualify as trolling when posted on a website with the word “Science” in its name.

The Rule of Laplace says that extraordinary assertions must be accompanied by extraordinary evidence before we are required to treat them with respect. We are not required to treat them with disrespect, but we are permitted to. A forum dedicated to science is certainly one place where that disrespect is categorically authorized for unsupported assertions denying the validity of science.

Theism, the mere belief in the existence of a class of supernatural beings, is not necessarily illogical or unscientific. Presumably a person can believe in them without believing that they have the power to capriciously perturb the functioning of the natural universe. Things that are unobservable and do not leave traces of their activity lying around are obviously rather difficult to find. But so few people hypothesize gods of this type that it would be little more than a linguistic exercise to devise a terminology for their belief system, which is not religion.