A decision to not believe in something isn't done so in faith. You can't have faith that a deity doesn't exist. Faith means you believe something without question. An Atheist openly questions the lack of proof.

Perhaps you dictionary says so, mine says:

atheism |ˈāθēˌizəm|
noun
the theory or belief that God does not exist.

That part about belief seems to me to include the possibility that faith could be involved. Where the theory part may involve the question of lack of proof.

I would reject that possibility. The Atheist view is the rejection of the notion of the existence of a deity based upon the lack of evidence.

I don't believe in the Easter Bunny or Unicorns either. It would not be correct to say that I have faith that they don't exist, even though I can't prove neither exists.

But you have to have faith, either in yourself or in your intellect, that you made the correct decision. This is the point I was trying to make. It is still a judgement made on the faith that you have made the correct choice. This is a question, like many others in life, where the decision, either way, is made on "The balance of probabilities" rather than the hard evidence required by a criminal court. The reason for this is that the hard evidence in either direction is just not available.

This assumes I'm worried about moralistic rationalizations such as making a "right" or "correct" decision. The definitions associated with the terms "right" and "correct" are human inventions to place meaning in an otherwise amoral universe. The conclusion that an Atheist comes to is purely one made based off logic, observation and reasoning skills using the empirical evidence available.

Your argument still holds that I don't believe in the Easter Bunny due to faith in that I cannot prove the Easter Bunny truly doesn't exist. Again, your interpretation and assertion of faith in this discussion is incorrect.

Also, if you make a judgement based only on evidence (or lack of) from one side of an argument without considering evidence (or lack of) from the other side. Have you really made an accurate, unbiased decision ?

If you refuse to make a decision because you're afraid to make a call, have you really made an accurate, unbiased decision not to decide? Even not choosing a side is still making a choice and there's a level of bias that goes with that. The bias here is the fear of making the wrong decision.

IMO, the only true opinion on this matter is Agnosticism, as the answer is "unknown or unknowable".

Agnosticism is a temporary state. No one can remain truly on the fence. Dig deep enough and you'll find their bias either for or against eventually. You just have to work your way past their uncertainty.

One may wish to quibble about using the words "belief" or "faith" in place of "assumptions." Nonetheless, math, and therefore science, have assumptions at their cores. If you disagree with this, you do not have a deep enough understanding of science and mathematics.

Godel's Incompleteness Theorem: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=36463&nowrap=true#502402. Not everything can be proved.

I don't think anyone here is arguing that all conclusions made are based upon some sort of assumption. I'm sure that much is a given. The issue currently is that the basis for conclusion must be motivated by some sort of faith in one's correctness. This is a notion most non-believers reject as nonsensical. See my response above for details.

What if the surgeon himself prayed before surgery? Would you look down on him?

To be honest I'd be deeply concerned. It's not reassuring to think that the surgeon isn't confident in himself to be able to perform the operation without relying on outside mystical help.

I'd probably want to ask for a different surgeon at that pont.

There were a couple of studies done on prayer in 2006 on heart patients. They showed that patients who knew they were being prayed over were more likely to have complications, slower recovery times and higher death rates.

So it looks like prayer does work, and I would kindly request that no one prays over me if I'm sick.

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Reality Internet Personality

One may wish to quibble about using the words "belief" or "faith" in place of "assumptions." Nonetheless, math, and therefore science, have assumptions at their cores. If you disagree with this, you do not have a deep enough understanding of science and mathematics.

Godel's Incompleteness Theorem: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=36463&nowrap=true#502402. Not everything can be proved.

I don't think anyone here is arguing that all conclusions made are based upon some sort of assumption. I'm sure that much is a given. The issue currently is that the basis for conclusion must be motivated by some sort of faith in one's correctness. This is a notion most non-believers reject as nonsensical. See my response above for details.

Rather than a quick read and a quick response, I challenge you to read the posts I linked to, and much of the thread(s) around them.
I'm sure as heck not going to take the time to re-write them here, edit them for my possibly improved understandings, and to address the more specific posts within this new thread.
And I included in the very beginning of the post you are responding to the glimmers of scientific responses to Robert's opening question in this thread.

There were a couple of studies done on prayer in 2006 on heart patients. They showed that patients who knew they were being prayed over were more likely to have complications, slower recovery times and higher death rates.

So it looks like prayer does work, and I would kindly request that no one prays over me if I'm sick.

That study rings a bell, but it is not the only one. I remember reading contradictory findings around the same time, 200-2007 or so.
So, Es, have a link to that article? And what else have we learned since 2006?

One may wish to quibble about using the words "belief" or "faith" in place of "assumptions." Nonetheless, math, and therefore science, have assumptions at their cores. If you disagree with this, you do not have a deep enough understanding of science and mathematics.

Godel's Incompleteness Theorem: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=36463&nowrap=true#502402. Not everything can be proved.

I don't think anyone here is arguing that all conclusions made are based upon some sort of assumption. I'm sure that much is a given. The issue currently is that the basis for conclusion must be motivated by some sort of faith in one's correctness. This is a notion most non-believers reject as nonsensical. See my response above for details.

Rather than a quick read and a quick response, I challenge you to read the posts I linked to, and much of the thread(s) around them.

Sorry, my ADD started kicking in before I even started reading Steve's post. I certainly cannot read the entire thread surrounding the post you linked to.

Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, concept or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof.

Confidence and trust are human concepts or emotions. The universe doesn't care about these things, and does not conform to our human understanding of these concepts.

There can only be one outcome of causality through cause and effect. Either a deity exists or it does not exist.

The human understanding toward this extent is quite simple. You either faithfully believe, without proof, that a deity exists. Or you believe through the absence of evidence there's no reason to come to such a conclusion.

The fact that nothing can be proven (and likewise disproven) doesn't mean that all belief stems from a faith in a decision. It simply means that until we have a better understanding of the universe around us, we make the decision to believe in only what we can objectively see and define. As our understanding seems to grow, we are quickly finding that the faithful decision to believe in a deity is misplaced and is not required to explain the world around us.

If we all accept that we cannot truly know something, we must also accept that in order to build a foundation around our perceptive reality, we need to formulate conclusions based upon that which we can see, understand, define through logic, reasoning and critical thinking. The lack of proof of the existence in a deity defies all of these things, and is hence the standpoint of an Atheist.

It would seem that only a God can have true knowledge seeing as he's
all knowing, but that would make it a tautological argument, a spinning of
words.

Does God have to be all knowing? Are there things that God can't know? Or must you take it on faith that God is all knowing? The same goes for God's powers. Could they be finite? Consider a large, potentially infinite, number of universes. Each has a God. Each only has knowledge and power over his universe. To those inside a universe it appears as if their God is all knowing and all powerful, but he is not.

Consider if God is all powerful, he makes the universe absolutely random, so that it is impossible to predict. Now even God can't know what is coming next, so he can't be all knowing.

Consider if God is all knowing can't have the power to forget. God can't be all powerful.

Read up on causality. Explain the apparent random nature of radioactive decay if there is a cause for each decay? You of course are made up of atoms, some of which are the result of radioactive decay. You are noting more than a probability function. It is looking more and more as if Einstein was wrong when he said God doesn't play dice with the universe, it is looking more like dice is the only game in town.

You need causality to get from "I think" to "I am." However it looks like in this universe there is no cause for every action. That blows huge holes in most everything traditional about God. It also means God isn't required to make the universe.

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There were a couple of studies done on prayer in 2006 on heart patients. They showed that patients who knew they were being prayed over were more likely to have complications, slower recovery times and higher death rates.

So it looks like prayer does work, and I would kindly request that no one prays over me if I'm sick.

That study rings a bell, but it is not the only one. I remember reading contradictory findings around the same time, 200-2007 or so.
So, Es, have a link to that article? And what else have we learned since 2006?

Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients: a multicenter randomized trial of uncertainty and certainty of receiving intercessory prayer.

Here's one of them.

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Reality Internet Personality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_on_intercessory_prayer.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins wrote, "It seems more probable that those patients who knew they were being prayed for suffered additional stress in consequence: 'performance anxiety', as the experimenters put it. Dr Charles Bethea, one of the researchers, said, 'It may have made them uncertain, wondering am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?'" Study co-author Jeffery Dusek stated that: "Each study builds on others, and STEP advanced the design beyond what had been previously done. The findings, however, could well be due to the study limitations."[22] Team leader Benson stated that STEP was not the last word on the effects of intercessory prayer and that questions raised by the study will require additional answers.[23]

LOL@Dawkins and "performance anxiety"!
Dusek's explanation makes sense abn can be seen as being like an anti-placebo.
I thought there was a study which compared those who knew they were receiving prayer against those that received prayer but did not know it (and were not even told there was a possibility they would). If so, I believe the latter group fared better than the first. But maybe there was no such study, or I am remembering details incorrectly.
At a cursory glance, it seems easy to develop a follow up study to "STEP" (aka "GPE=The Great Payer Experiment.") I have already stated two possible groups. What about others?
1) Told they'd receive no prayer, and in fact do not receive it.
2) Told they'd receive no prayer, but actually do receive intercessory prayer.
3) & 4) The groups in "STEP."
And so on.
To quote Bobby, I think we'll find it's more complicated. :)

Sorry, my ADD started kicking in before I even started reading Steve's post. I certainly cannot read the entire thread surrounding the post you linked to.

As an educator, I will not accept that excuse. Allowances may need to be made, but I will not withdraw my challenge to read much of that thread, or for you to read Steve's post.
Since Steve, at a cursory glance, seems to be saying he is atheist, why would you not read a post that you could use to support your case?
Furthermore, your own posts are not short. You have responded to some long posts.
So, I'm not buying it.

Last thought for the night: where's your evidence that "if one has been 'agnostic' for 2 years, (s)he is either an atheist or a believer to scared too make a decision"? (Rough paraphrase, but I think it fits.)
On what do you base this, or who else did you pick up this idea from? What is that person's evidence?
Otherwise, I will have to assume you have made an assumption, one that many of us here, at various points on the continuum, simply do not accept.

Last thought for the night: where's your evidence that "if one has been 'agnostic' for 2 years, (s)he is either an atheist or a believer to scared too make a decision"? (Rough paraphrase, but I think it fits.)
On what do you base this, or who else did you pick up this idea from? What is that person's evidence?
Otherwise, I will have to assume you have made an assumption, one that many of us here, at various points on the continuum, simply do not accept.

I hold it to be a truth that's self-evident. The entire agnostic belief circles around the fact that they wish to abstain from making a decisive stance on the existence of a deity.

Here's one of the few people I've heard their opinions on the topic of Atheism vs. Agnosticism:

(Warning, adult language in the video)

http://www.crackle.com/c/Penn_Says/Agnostic_vs_Atheist/2317311

Last thought for the night: where's your evidence that "if one has been 'agnostic' for 2 years, (s)he is either an atheist or a believer to scared too make a decision"? (Rough paraphrase, but I think it fits.)
On what do you base this, or who else did you pick up this idea from? What is that person's evidence?
Otherwise, I will have to assume you have made an assumption, one that many of us here, at various points on the continuum, simply do not accept.

I hold it to be a truth that's self-evident. The entire agnostic belief circles around the fact that they wish to abstain from making a decisive stance on the existence of a deity.

So, essentially, you're saying it's lazy and cowardly. (With no evidence, then. A very big assumption.)
How does that cognitive dissonance fit with not responding to other issues raised and lack of reading references to which have been pointed?

So, essentially, you're saying it's lazy and cowardly. (With no evidence, then. A very big assumption.)

No. I'm saying that, like Penn says, it's a binary theological question. You either believe there's a deity or you don't believe there's a deity. It's a belief, and you can't "not" have a belief.

So, essentially, you're saying it's lazy and cowardly. (With no evidence, then. A very big assumption.)

No. I'm saying that, like Penn says, it's a binary theological question. You either believe there's a deity or you don't believe there's a deity. It's a belief, and you can't "not" have a belief.

And again, I direct you to read the thread i posted links to, where one of your fellow atheists said, repeatedly, he "believed nothing."

And most people reject false dichotomies, btw.

So, essentially, you're saying it's lazy and cowardly. (With no evidence, then. A very big assumption.)

No. I'm saying that, like Penn says, it's a binary theological question. You either believe there's a deity or you don't believe there's a deity. It's a belief, and you can't "not" have a belief.

And again, I direct you to read the thread i posted links to, where one of your fellow atheists said, repeatedly, he "believed nothing."

And most people reject false dichotomies, btw.

And more than likely he meant that he believed in nothing.

In this case, there is no false dichotomy. It truely is an either/or situation.

Prayer, Good Thoughts and Wishing someone well never hurt ANYONE.
The Person receiving them often feels better just Knowing that someone Cares.
That's ALL I have to say on this "Subject".

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I Desire Peace and Justice, Jim Scott (Mod-Ret.)

What no-ne has mentioned so far is the phenomenen where people are quite strongly atheist or agnostic for all of their lives, and then at the final knockings, they suddenly go all religious just to hedge their bets. Seen it many times.

Because they figure falsely proclaiming religion isn't going to hurt.

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What no-ne has mentioned so far is the phenomenen where people are quite strongly atheist or agnostic for all of their lives, and then at the final knockings, they suddenly go all religious just to hedge their bets. Seen it many times.

It's not unusual for someone who has enjoyed living life to wish to cling to the hope of continuing the journey afterward. Hope is certainly a strong constant for most humans, but I wouldn't conclude that because one has hope at death that somehow it is proof of spirituality.

I've heard the reverse happening as well; someone who believed in spirituality all their lives suddenly realizes at death that there is nothing beyond life. [Edit] I don't think any of us should "read" too much into what one feels near death. We all know that the brain reacts wildly when put into tramatic conditions or faced with one's imminent personal expiration.

I'd gladly like to be the first you know to be a non-believer even on my deathbed.