Quote Originally Posted by MMI View Post
So ... this thread is a religiously-themed free-for-all, is it? May I join in?
Please do! You know I always look forward to having discussions with you.

Thorne and I have often disagreed about the truth of atheism, even though we both claim to be atheists. I maintain I simply believe there is no god: Thorne appears to me to insist that the fact that there is no god is the only possible truth.
No, that's not what I claim. My stand is that, since there is no evidence for gods, there is no reason to think that they exist, therefore I do not believe in any gods. (I suppose, if you really want to stretch it, you could say that I believe that I'm right in this, but the only claim I can truthfully make is that there is no evidence for gods.)

atheists say, If you claim that God exists, you must prove it; but you can't.
Rather than saying "you can't", I would say, "you haven't." Once again, we cannot make the definitive statement "you can't" because we don't know for certain whether someday someone just might!

There may be no proof, but the existence of the universe and of life is evidence that God exists/does not exist
I don't believe this is accurate, either. The existence of the universe, or of life, is not evidence for either argument. IF you could prove a god exists you would then still have to prove that he created the universe and was not, himself, a creation of it!

To my mind, it is just as much a matter of faith that there is no God as it is that there is one (or more), and neither body of opinion can be said to be truer than the other.
I don't see how you can place both positions at the same level. Claiming that there something exists, without evidence, is vastly different than claiming that something probably doesn't exist because there is no evidence for it. You are claiming that believing in Leprechauns is just as valid and rational as NOT believing in Leprechauns.

Maybe science will one day be able to demonstrate that everything happened by itself, without any external cause.
They've come pretty close to that already. Not quite there, certainly, but they can certainly explain the existence of just about everything in the universe from the first tiny fraction of a second after the big bang on up to the present. Granted, we don't know what happened in that first tiny fraction of a second, or what happened before that, and we may never know. But saying, "We can't know, therefore God!" is silly.

Maybe God will one day reveal himself.
If He does, He'll have a lot to answer for!

Until then, a spontaneous creation of the universe by itself out of nothing seems as preposterous an idea as supernatural creation, if not more so.
Personally, I find the spontaneous creation far more rational than the supernatural creation. For then you have to explain the existence of the supernatural agent. Where did God come from? How was HE created?

Unless, as a current line of enquiry seems to suggest, we are all just an illusion: http://www.gizmag.com/fermilab-holom...acetime/16829/ (I hasten to add, I do not understand what that article describes, or if it is even half credible. I am simply headline-grabbing to illustrate my point).
Yeah, I don't understand it either. I didn't see anything in the article which explains how we could all be an illusion.

If God exists and is benevolent, he would not interfere in the world, whatever befalls it, except to rescue it entirely.
I don't see benevolence in this stance. I see indifference.

If God exists and influences events in the world, he cannot be other than evil because no benevolent entity would allow so many bad things to happen to the innocent, yet shower so much wealth and privilege on the undeserving.
This I can go along with. In fact, this claim is a very good argument against the existence of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, Yahweh.

If God is perfect, and He created us, He would never "test" us, because that would be pointless
Agreed. He would already know the outcome of any test.

If we have free will, only an evil God would punish us for exercising it
... even if we committed mass genocide. If He is perfect and punishes us, he purposely created the fault for which we are being punished.
Also true, as far as it goes. Of course, you would still have to prove that God does indeed punish, or reward, anyone.

atheism is not a certain fact, and for an atheist to decry religion is as bad as the religions denouncing unbelief. Zealotry among the faithless is as bad as the zealots of religion.
I agree, atheism is not a certain fact. It's simply a statement of position. As an atheist, I do not believe that gods exist! What I denounce about religion is not the fact that they believe, but the fact that they seem to want to FORCE everyone else to believe, just as they do. They want to brainwash MY children and grandchildren, not just their own. They want to STOP the science which disproves so much of their beliefs, claiming that the only necessary answer is God.

I don't claim to know everything, either. I don't want to destroy faith. I think a little faith can be good for people. But religion is not about faith. It's about control. Let religious people keep their faith, and their religion, in their churches and out of the real world and I'll be quite content.