[quote name='Aardvajk' timestamp='1311242727' post='4838370']
But I am a programmer, not a theologian so I accept my use of terms may well be incorrect. I'm quite happy to accept A Brain in a Vat's point.

So, if not an atheist, what is the term for someone who positively holds the belief that there is no God? I must have dozed off during RE at school.

If you believe there is no god then you are an atheist. If you don't believe either way you are an agnostic.
[/quote]

If you believe god exists, you're a theist.
If you don't, you're an atheist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist
If you believe there is no god, you're an antitheist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitheist
An antitheist is of course also an atheist.

[quote name='phantom' timestamp='1311251039' post='4838405']
The invention of a being in order to explain away something is pretty damned irrational. If I kept misplacing my keys, always finding them in a location I'm certain I never placed them in and decided that clearly a 'key fairy' was moving them around would you consider this rational?

That technically is rational. It's probably wrong, and upon further investigation would probably turn out to no longer be rational or correct, but with only the evidence that your keys go missing, that they turn up in the same spot, and that you believe you never put them there, it's totally rational to believe that some entity X has put them there and calling that entity a key fairy is as arbitrary to reason as saying it was your wife or roommate.
[/quote]

What he said.

Really, it's getting tiring with the fairies analogy. If I find "F=ma" or "E=mc2" scribbled in my wall I will very well assume someone wrote it there(not a magical fairy, just someone that can write), but if I find it "written" in nature itself somehow it's irrational to believe that someone is responsible for it being there?

If you believe god exists, you're a theist.
If you don't, you're an atheist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist
If you believe there is no god, you're an antitheist. http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Antitheist
An antitheist is of course also an atheist.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheist

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/agnostic
[quote name='agnostic']a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as god, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/antitheist
[quote name='antitheist']An`ti*the"ist\, n. A disbeliever in the existence of God.[/quote]

[quote name='phantom' timestamp='1311251039' post='4838405']
The invention of a being in order to explain away something is pretty damned irrational. If I kept misplacing my keys, always finding them in a location I'm certain I never placed them in and decided that clearly a 'key fairy' was moving them around would you consider this rational?

That technically is rational. It's probably wrong, and upon further investigation would probably turn out to no longer be rational or correct, but with only the evidence that your keys go missing, that they turn up in the same spot, and that you believe you never put them there, it's totally rational to believe that some entity X has put them there and calling that entity a key fairy is as arbitrary to reason as saying it was your wife or roommate.
[/quote]

Maybe I wasn't clear; I didn't mean to imply that someone (wife/room mate) was the key fairy, what I meant was to believe that a small creature, maybe 6 inches in size with wings and a wand was flying in and moving the keys each time.

The rational explaination is that it is slipping my mind or indeed, if I lived with someone else, they were moving them because I was putting them in the wrong place. The correct answer depends on context (if I don't live with someone then they can't be moving it) but does not involve inventing an entity to 'answer' the question. In fact this would be considered dangerous as chances are a constant level of forgetfullness points to an underlaying condition which, if untreated, could result in worse problems down the line.

So it is by 'explaining' things by inventing a creator.

Really, it's getting tiring with the fairies analogy. If I find "F=ma" or "E=mc2" scribbled in my wall I will very well assume someone wrote it there(not a magical fairy, just someone that can write), but if I find it "written" in nature itself somehow it's irrational to believe that someone is responsible for it being there?

Because you still have the problem of who created the creator? And if the creator can 'self exist' then so could the universe via something as simple as quantum fluctuations.


The fact the universe exists in it's current form allowing us to discover the equations listed (which are simplifications and don't tell the full story) is not proof that a creator did anything, it just shows that given a set of conditions this setup can arise.

[quote name='way2lazy2care' timestamp='1311252072' post='4838411']
That technically is rational. It's probably wrong, and upon further investigation would probably turn out to no longer be rational or correct, but with only the evidence that your keys go missing, that they turn up in the same spot, and that you believe you never put them there, it's totally rational to believe that some entity X has put them there and calling that entity a key fairy is as arbitrary to reason as saying it was your wife or roommate.

Maybe I wasn't clear; I didn't mean to imply that someone (wife/room mate) was the key fairy, what I meant was to believe that a small creature, maybe 6 inches in size with wings and a wand was flying in and moving the keys each time.[/quote]
that's not what I meant. Using your set of knowns and just your set of knowns it is just as likely that your wife/roommate moved them, that it's slipping your mind, or that a 6 inch tall fairy is moving them around. There is nothing that goes against reason, using just your set of knowns in that situation that makes believing there is a key fairy living somewhere in close proximity to your house that is moving your keys. Rationality has nothing to do with probability; it has to do with reason. Unlikely != irrational.

Rationality has nothing to do with probability; it has to do with reason. Unlikely != irrational.

I see, so you are saying that is is reasonable to believe in 6 inch tall flying fairies then in real life?

There is. The physical world exists and has order. Therefore someone made it. YMMV.

By this reasoning, lightning exists and will even hit things. Therefore someone threw it.

Also, the holocaust happened because of religious issues? Well, if you count National Socialism as a religion I suppose, but still...

I'd even argue that things like the Crusades are just business as usual and happened for the usual reasons - political and economical, and religion just gave to soldiers something to shout when in battle, but we'll get way off topic...

No one is saying only religion causes things like the Holocaust. Those of us who think religion is corrosive are against any form of ignorance. It's ignorance in general, not religion specifically, that's the problem.

that's not what I meant. Using your set of knowns and just your set of knowns it is just as likely that your wife/roommate moved them, that it's slipping your mind, or that a 6 inch tall fairy is moving them around. There is nothing that goes against reason, using just your set of knowns in that situation that makes believing there is a key fairy living somewhere in close proximity to your house that is moving your keys. Rationality has nothing to do with probability; it has to do with reason. Unlikely != irrational.

I agree that unlikely != irrational. Assuming something that's unlikely is, however, irrational to the degree that it's unlikely.

For example, is it not irrational for me to assume that tomorrow the sun will fail to rise? If I was flipping out thinking we'd all freeze, with no evidence to support it, wouldn't you slap me and say "Snap out of it!"? If I convinced millions of people that tomorrow we'd freeze, and we took over the government and started passing laws that supposed tomorrow the sun won't rise, wouldn't you be pretty upset about that? Wouldn't you fight against that irrationality? Or would you simply shrug your shoulders and say "Well, they're entitled to their belief, however irrational it may be."?

If you see "F=ma" written on a tree in nature, yes it's natural to assume someone wrote it there. Why? Because typically it's humans that write things. The simplest explanation is that some human carved it in a tree. This is called inductive reasoning. It doesn't allow us to prove that a human carved "F=ma" in the tree, but it allows us to assume so without evidence to the contrary.

If you see "F=ma" in nature, it's NOT natural to assume that some supernatural being scribbled that law down in some extra-dimensional space-book. Why? Because we don't have the experience that "Usually physical laws are created by a supernatural being" by which to make the inductive conclusion that "Probably this physical law was created by a supernatural being."

If you see a watch, you assume it was created by someone because usually mechanical things like watches are created by a human being. It's not the case, however, that we have observed that usually physical laws are created by supernatural beings, and so probably this one is too.

Neither inductive reasoning nor deductive reasoning gives any reason to believe in a god, especially not in some particular god. I'd suggest you stop trying to use logic to back up your beliefs. If you insist on believing, then I suggest you do what many do and accept that you are choosing to believe something illogically.