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No, 93% of all scientists are NOT Atheists

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geo

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Re: No, 93% of all scientists are NOT Atheists

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ant wrote:
geo wrote:You should list some deities, and I'd be happy to tell you if I believe in them or not.

This is a common new atheism fallacy - multiple representations of a thing exclude the existence of the thing itself.
It's typical shoddy new atheism logic spread by uncredentialed backwards philosophers that impress their imbecilic "logic" on naive sheeple
Well, no, my statement is actually agnostic. I can't say if I believe in God unless it is defined. It is impossible for anyone to profess belief or non belief in something without definitions. It is you who are hiding behind vague and imprecise semantics.

We usually assume that we're talking about the God of the Bible though, and I can say honestly I am an atheist with respect to this deity.
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Re: No, 93% of all scientists are NOT Atheists

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I favor the word "godless" now. It's just a simple statement that doesn't drag in what anyone may assume about an an apparently global term like atheism.
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Re: No, 93% of all scientists are NOT Atheists

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ant wrote:Agnosticism is the honest and rational choice for new atheism and its equivocations.
Anything else is gross dishonesty and petty rhetoric.
Richard Dawkins: "On a scale of seven, where one means I know he exists, and seven I know he doesn't, I call myself a six. That doesn't mean I'm absolutely confident, that I absolutely know, because I don't."

This is the position of the so-called "new atheists." We've been over this many times before. You've been waiting to argue with someone at level 7, but so far that's only your phantom opponent that you keep arguing with.

So is that the cowardly position, as you've stated before, or is it now the honest and rational one?
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Re: No, 93% of all scientists are NOT Atheists

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huh, interesting I thought the number would be higher.
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By 2030, say projections, a third of Americans will have no religious preference

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Somebody should probably point out that the Pew polls discussed in the link in the original post are from 2009: http://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scie ... nd-belief/

There appear to be issues with the way and how pollsters ask questions in polls and tend to give such low count for non-believers but, that may soon be changing ...

February 3, 2017

Global Plus: The nonreligious in the world today

Depending on how they are counted, the nonreligious today may be considered the world’s third largest ‘religion,’ trailing only Christianity and Islam.

http://www.theiarj.org/blog/2017/02/03/ ... rld-today/


By 2030, say projections, a third of Americans will have no religious preference
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/ob ... -religion/
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Re: No, 93% of all scientists are NOT Atheists

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ant wrote:https://sixdayscience.com/2016/07/04/le ... e-atheist/


So if as a new atheist you've at one time or another used this idiotic mythical claim, please stop.

And please stop equivocating when someone asks you the direct question - ARE YOU AN ATHEIST?
That fallacious rhetorical tactic is getting really old.
Yes...I AM a proud, card-carrying atheist, and I HAVE used that so-called tactic before.
I also, even AFTER reading your proffered linked article...stand by it. Well, at least a slightly-tweaked, altered version of it.

Here is my current claim: As far as a personal, biblical, caring, loving, prayer-hearing God...then yeah, a good 90% of men and women who are professional scientists in the STEM fields DO NOT believe in him.

Here's what you don't know and what your article conveniently omitted: the sort of "god" that MOST hard-science guys MIGHT give a bit of credence or possibility to is NOT that aforementioned type of deity. Hardly. Rather, they think there might be a sort of impersonal, NON-loving, Universal Intelligence. Call it, maybe, an infinite mind. A Dynamic of Order. This WAS the sort of "god" that guys like Einstein referred to when he said "God does not play dice with the Universe."

Rest assured Einsteins was NOT speaking, nor did he remotely believe in a Yahweh-type god.

Hope this helps.
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Re: No, 93% of all scientists are NOT Atheists

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LOL.....silence from the godists to my last post, eh?

I wonder why?

Oh...that's right...............

....it's due to the fact that my claim made in it is absolutely true.

What a great deal of theists who trot out their old "its not true that 90% of scientists are atheist" do not know is that the "god" that the odd scientist might remark about is ALWAYS (90% or more of the time) a DEIST and not a THEIST got. The man of science is speaking of something far far more along the lines of a "Universal Intelligence" or "Impersonal Order of Things" than he is a personal, theist, caring, bible god.

I do a LOT of science reading. And also reading of books from both sides of the "god" question. Things like Dawkins' "God Delusion" as well as "The Dawkins Delusion." And the ONLY professional scientist of the 20th or 21st century I have EVER read who believed in a personal, bible sort of god was Francis Collins' "The Language of Life." (lookie there, theists! I just gave you a freebie to use for your fodder next time. LOL).

Admittedly, Dr. Collins is a brilliant scientist, and was indeed a co-founder of the Human Genome Project, where he and Crick unraveled the entire DNA genome over almost a decade.

BUT...it appears that Dr. Collins was RAISED a Christian...then left the faith when he got involved in science--as do so many--and then, when he admittedly was looking for something larger than material science to believe in, in order to fill his depression and a personal emotional void--re-embraced his childhood faith. Yeah..the one he grew out of years before.

This is a very old and predictable dynamic, and it reminds me of criminals who "find god" when they get locked away. Or when a formerly wealthy person loses everything and finds god. LOL.... There IS a reason here: god and the attendant belief system like an afterlife and answered prayers serve as excellent emotional placebos for the downtrodden.
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Re: No, 93% of all scientists are NOT Atheists

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We should get a new book discussion going where we can debate this stuff again. Our best non-fiction discussions have been about this subject. I am about to create a thread in the non-fiction forum where we can start picking our next book for discussion.
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Re: No, 93% of all scientists are NOT Atheists

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There is silence from the godists because few are hovering around to respond. You'll find almost solid agreement here.

One "historical" note to add is that the OP you quoted would never say what god he was upholding against the atheists. Nothing he ever said showed that he believed in God, as you've defined the figure, yet that didn't stop him from raging against atheists for attacking any concept that could possibly be deified, such as universal mind. It wasn't true, of course, that atheists in general targeted belief in any non-material, transcendent influence. It's probably true that most don't themselves believe in such a thing, simply for the vague fuzziness of it, but as for others saying they do go for God-the-infinite-mind, no harm, no foul. Hitchens made that distinction very clear in God Is Not Great.

As far as a declaration of atheism, that is a political act that some, such as I, do avoid. That this avoidance might be cowardly in a sense, I concede. But also, not going there with people gets you out of the misunderstanding about just what you're saying you don't believe in. I think that really it's possible to be a-theist only towards a true, strong theism. If objection against deity goes farther than that, maybe it's better to call oneself a staunch materialist.
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Re: No, 93% of all scientists are NOT Atheists

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33% scientists believe in (a) God.
18% don't believe in (a) God, but do believe in a universal spirit of some sort.
41% don't believe in either, which is a claim of neutrality, not atheism (i.e. God DOES NOT exist).
7% refused to answer the question.

On edit: Oh crap, my apologies to Mr. Ant. I meant to reply to your statements about the above data, but somehow posted my info in your post! I deleted that, but can't reconstruct your info.
:sorry:

No worries, man..

Anyone want to see the data just google Pew Research. It's a poll from 2009. Couldn't find anything more recent but doubt much has changed since.
Last edited by ant on Thu Dec 21, 2017 1:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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