Is Religion a Scam?

[TruthSeeker60]

TruthSeeker60;7670977:

How would one know if there is a “non-material” or “spiritual” reality if it does not manifest in some detectable way in this reality?

By both imagination and intuition.

Similarly to another post I responded to (see post 439), I don’t think that this is a good way to determine what does exist and what doesn’t.

As Pascal observed, there are mathematical principles that we cannot prove. We can only detect them by intuition/imagination.

Mathematics doesn’t exist in reality because mathematics is a construct, not a thing in reality.

 

[lampstand]

It strikes me as interesting, that many (possibly not all, but many) atheists come to their stances after struggling with the “problem of evil.” I know, I was one for a few years. Either that, or they don’t like what they read in certain religious texts. How strong is one’s argument if it’s based on a bad reaction to something else?

 

[grannymh]

I guess this is where I differ with you because I see this as a bad way to determine whether or not something actually exists. Anything that could be thought of could be considered to exist with this criteria.

This is ignoring, for the moment, that I don’t know what an immaterial or “spiritual” thing would be.

I may have ESP because I was just thinking I should amend post 437 a tad and here you are. I realized that I was talking a lot about creative thinking, imagining etc., without the caveat that actual reasoning processes would need to be used to determine if what is imagined could actually exist. This is the same technique used in science research.

It is my understanding that a hypothesis (a tentative explanation for an observation which can be used as a base for exploration) is determined and then evidence is looked for. I included my definition preference for hypothesis because that word is used every which way. Do you have any different ideas about “hypothesis”?

I appreciate your honest comment about not knowing what an immaterial or spiritual thing would be. You must pardon me, but I have always had a sense of the non-material even in my twenties when I wrote home to Mother that I had a tooth pulled, put it under my pillow, and nothing happened. I received a letter with a dime enclosed and a message from my Mother saying that she didn’t want me to lose my belief in the tooth fairy. Even with my own kids, we had “little people” who would do good things around the house but were never seen.

The point is that in human nature, there is something which senses something that is beyond material explanation. So there are plenty of Irish stories about leprechauns. Did my Mother, my kids, and myself really believe in leprechauns and little people like elves and fairies? Of course not. But our immaterial sense of humor made the day brighter.

Humor is expressed in stories, attitudes toward life, relief from sorrow, traditions, and so on. Humor is part of our personality. No matter how we poke our anatomy, we can’t find the exact location of humor. Brain research is very popular. Brain activity probably can be detected when we want to say or do something funny. I say probably because there is current research on brain mapping which has to do with movement of one’s extremities. Yet, in order for the brain to respond or initiate, there is some kind of stimulus.

In my humble opinion, human humor in the broad sense is an example of the immaterial which has been in existence since the beginning. To be continued.

Blessings,
granny

:irish3:

 

[tonyrey]

Actually, each time I’ve given responses that were too thorough. Just about every time, you came back with the same stuff.

False - as I demonstrate below.

If there is not sufficient evidence presented for a belief…

You haven’t specified what you regard as “sufficient evidence”. What are the criteria?

… should a person:
A believe it
or
B not believe it?
If you think there’s an option C, please explain why options A and B are bad answers.

With regard to the existence of God is it impossible to know for certain - and unreasonable to state dogmatically - that there is insufficient evidence. Option C with such important issues is to suspend judgment rather than categorically affirm or deny.

WOW! So you think that those who don’t believe the claim that I have an invisible, intangible unicorn in my house have the burden of proof just as much as I do when I make that claim!

I have already answered that question and you have ignored my reply:

One individual’s claim as opposed to that of billions of people for two thousand years!

Here are my other replies that you have ignored:

If a person, or a group of persons, makes a claim, they have the burden of proof regardless of how popular the claim is.

                             If a claim is denied the person who denies it also has a burden of proof regardless of how popular the claim is. Otherwise you could go through life without making any positive assertions whatsoever! There has to be a reason for the denial, doesn't there?

                  A person most definitely does not have to prove an alternative in order to not believe what is being proposed

.

Not in every case but he does when it concerns an interpretation of reality, the origin of a worldwide religion and the source of moral values accepted by every civilised person…

The burden of proof is on you and anyone else who thinks you were abducted by extra-terrestrials to prove it.

One individual’s claim as opposed to that of billions of people for two thousand years!

Finding a lack of evidence where one would expect the evidence to be if the evidence did exist, is evidence of the lack of evidence.

Expectations are not restricted to one point of view!

What’s more intellectually honest: Admitting that you’re not sure about something, or believing something without sufficient evidence?

Not to believe and not to act is a form of commitment. Your notion of belief (and non-belief) is unrealistic. You live as if you are an atheist…

FYI, the term “a-theist” refers to anyone who does not believe in a god, not necessarily those who claim a god doesn’t exist.

Keeping your mouth closed doesn’t alter the facts! Belief or non-belief is not just a matter of the intellect but also a matter of commitment - as Sartre demonstrated.

I can see you don’t understand the difference between claiming a negative and not accepting a positive.

What practical difference does it make whether you claim Christianity is false or not true?

If one does not accept any claim, and thus has not formulated a view, all the justification he needs for not formulating a view is not being presented, by those who do accept a claim (and thus have the BOP), with sufficient evidence
.

If you are reasonable it is impossible to reject a claim without having any idea of why it is not true. At the very least you need to explain why it is not true - which implies that you already have some criteria by which to assess whether it is true or false.

“Their beauty, wisdom, coherence, [and] originality” have little to do with whether or not those teachings originated with Jesus. Various historical facts may, but I’m suspecting that those are lacking.

Your suspicion is unfounded given the wealth of both Christian and non-Christian sources and archeological evidence supporting the accounts in the Gospels. You also have to deny the beauty, wisdom, coherence and originality of Christ’s teaching (and justify your view) or provide an alternative explanation of their origin. What you cannot do - if your position is to be intellectually respectable - is to grunt “No evidence!”

 

[TruthSeeker60]

Part 1/2

You haven’t specified what you regard as “sufficient evidence”.

I already said that “By ‘sufficient evidence’, I mean evidence that is of sufficient quality to show that the claim being made is probably true.” What evidence is sufficient varies from claim to claim. I’m not going to provide you with an exact formula to determine if some pieces of evidence constitute sufficient evidence for a particular claim, since that would take too long, but when presented with particular things, I can tell you whether I think it’s evidence at all, whether that evidence is sufficient to justify belief in the claim, and why. I have already given you a list of things that I would consider sufficient evidence to justify belief in a god.

TruthSeeker60;7667748:

Since you evaded answering it, I’ll ask you again. If there is not

sufficient evidence presented for a belief, should a person:
A believe it
or
B not believe it?

If you think there’s an option C, please explain why options A and B are bad answers.

With regard to the existence of God is it impossible to know for certain - and unreasonable to state dogmatically - that there is insufficient evidence. Option C with such important issues is to suspend judgment rather than categorically affirm or deny.

If you suspend judgment, you don’t believe. Thus, the option “C” that you present is really a subset of option “B”. Once you realize this simple thing, you would see that the onus is on those who do believe to present evidence to justify their belief.

I have already answered that question and you have ignored my reply:

One individual’s claim as opposed to that of billions of people for two thousand years!

First, I’ve addressed silly posts like this too many times.

Second, this doesn’t actually answer my mention of how ridiculous your position is.

Third, you’re not justified in saying “one person”. The majority of the world, like me, does not think that the supernatural claims of Christianity are true. Even if you pull something like “we all worship the same god” at least hundreds of millions of people in the world (including people of some religions like Buddhism) and growing are atheists. That doesn’t actually matter because…

Fourth, the number of people who believe in something does not reverse the burden of proof.

Here are my other replies that you have ignored:

I think you’re lying because I don’t see any point made in this post that I didn’t address already. But lest you further accuse me of ignoring you, which I probably should do (because if I don’t you’ll feel entitled to an answer for every terrible point you make and feel that every terrible point that I don’t respond to for the fifth time is somehow validated by the fact that I stopped responding to it), I’ll address them.

                             If a claim is denied the person who denies it also has a burden of proof regardless of how popular the claim is. Otherwise you could go through life without making any positive assertions whatsoever! There has to be a reason for the denial, doesn't there?

Comments like this make me think that you don’t even understand what the burden of proof is. If Bob tells John that X happened, the onus is on Bob to show evidence for his claim. If there is no known evidence for Bob’s claim, or the evidence is not sufficient to justify believing in the claim, John is justified in not believing it. That’s what it mean to say that those who make the claim, rather than those who don’t believe (which is what I mean by deny), have the burden of proof.

John’s lack of belief is justified by the fact that there is no known evidence for Bob’s claim, or the evidence is not sufficient to justify believing in the claim. That’s the case even if two billion people believe Bob’s claim.

Now if John not only does not believe Bob’s claim, but also makes the claim that Bob was wrong, he would then have a burden of proof along with Bob.

A person most definitely does not

have to prove an alternative in order to not believe what is being proposed.

Not in every case but he does when it concerns an interpretation of reality, the origin of a worldwide religion and the source of moral values accepted by every civilised person…

So would you say that if Bob makes a claim about “an interpretation of reality, the origin of a worldwide religion [or] the source of moral values accepted by every civilised person,” that John has to believe Bob’s claim until he comes up with an alternative. If so, that is a form of an argument from ignorance, which is fallacious.

One individual’s claim as opposed to that of billions of people for two thousand years!

I responded to this above in this post.

TruthSeeker60;7658205:

Finding an lack of evidence where one would expect the evidence to be if the evidence did exist, is evidence of the lack of evidence.

Expectations are not restricted to one point of view!

You obviously didn’t get my point, so I’ll make it more concrete so that you might comprehend it.

If Bob claims that there are marbles in John’s pocket, and John searches his pocket and finds no marbles, that’s evidence that there are no marbles in John’s pockets. Because there would be marbles in John’s pocket if Bob’s claim were true, not finding any marbles there when he searched was not just absence of evidence, but also evidence of absence. Do you disagree?

Continued…

 

[TruthSeeker60]

Part 2/2

What’s more intellectually honest: Admitting that you’re not sure about something, or believing something without sufficient evidence?

Not to believe and not to act is a form of commitment. Your notion of belief (and non-belief) is unrealistic. You live as if you are an atheist…

First, you evaded answering the question.

Second, a person who is humble enough to admit that he currently doesn’t know or isn’t sure about something doesn’t necessarily have any sort of “commitment” to never knowing.

Third, an “atheist” is someone who doesn’t believe there is a god. This includes some people who claim to know there’s no god, and others who aren’t sure whether or not there’s a god.

TruthSeeker60;7658205:

FYI, the term “a-theist” refers to anyone who does not believe in a god, not necessarily those who claim a god doesn’t exist.

Keeping your mouth closed doesn’t alter the facts!

Who said that closing your mouth does change any facts? Certainly not me! I lack belief in a god because I haven’t seen any solid, verified facts that serve as evidence for a god.

Belief or non-belief is not just a matter of the intellect but also a matter of commitment - as Sartre demonstrated.

Just because someone believes or not believes in something doesn’t mean they’re “committed” to it. People may hold many tentative beliefs. If you disagree, please at least tell me exactly what you mean by “commitment”.

TruthSeeker60;7658205:

I can see you don’t understand the difference between claiming a negative and not accepting a positive.

What practical difference does it make whether you claim Christianity is false or not true?

Not accepting a claim is not the same as making the claim that it’s not true or making the claim that it’s false. If anything, it entails the position that the claim that’s not being believed has not been sufficiently validated by evidence to warrant belief.

TruthSeeker60;7658205:

If one does not accept any claim, and thus has not formulated a view, all the justification he needs for not formulating a view is not being presented, by those who do accept a claim (and thus have the BOP), with sufficient evidence.

If you are reasonable it is impossible to reject a claim without having any idea of why it is not true. At the very least you need to explain why it is not true - which implies that you already have some criteria by which to assess whether it is true or false.

All the justification that’s needed to not accept a claim is lack of evidence for a claim! If the person not only doesn’t accept the claim, but also makes the claim that the claim was false, he would then have to give some reason to believe it is false.

“Their beauty, wisdom, coherence, [and]
originality” have little to do with whether or not those teachings originated with Jesus. Various historical facts may, but I’m suspecting that those are lacking.

Your suspicion is unfounded given the wealth of both Christian and non-Christian sources and archeological evidence supporting the accounts in the Gospels.

I obviously disagree that there’s evidence that justifies belief in the magical parts of the gospels, but we can discuss that elsewhere, such as in the section on Scripture.

You also have to deny the beauty, wisdom, coherence and originality of Christ’s teaching (and justify your view) or provide an alternative explanation of their origin.

Again, the beauty, wisdom, coherence and originality of a teaching of a god-made-man in a gospel is not evidence for the magical parts of a gospel in which that god-made-man appears.

Going from “this gospel contains a story of a man whose teaching were beautiful, wise, coherent and original” to “the magical parts of this gospel that include this man are true” is a non-sequitur because having teaching of those qualities is not evidence that the person who taught those things did magical things.

What you cannot do - if your position is to be intellectually respectable - is to grunt “No evidence!”

Answer the following question with a yes or no:

Should claims be accepted without evidence?

If not, why can’t I say that I haven’t been presented with sufficient evidence?

Also, Tonyrey, I want to focus on the question I tried to narrow our discussion down to. The question was:

If there is not sufficient evidence known for a belief, should a person:

A: believe it
or
B not believe it?

You attempted to give a third option by saying that a person should suspend judgment, but a person who suspends judgment doesn’t believe the claim. Do you agree or disagree that a person who suspends judgment doesn’t believe?

 

[honestquestions]

When is it ever rational to not believe in things that are supported by substantial evidence?

Truthseeker60 has been very rational in this forum, and I think and hope his points came across.

Oops, I think I misread the quote

 

[honestquestions]

After an objective review, we all know it’s safe to say truthseeker60 has sound arguments that trumped every other post in this topic.

 

[copperblade]

And the right answer is…

“Well, my religion isn’t a scam.”

 

[honestquestions]

And the right answer is…

“Well, my religion isn’t a scam.”

lol, true. There are around ten large religions in the world and everyone thinks that they are the correct one’s and everyone else is wrong.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

honestquestions
*
lol, true. There are around ten large religions in the world and everyone thinks that they are the correct one’s and everyone else is wrong. *

What is your point … that none of them can be the true religion?

If there were ten major theories about the origin of the universe, would you assume that none of them could be true, or would you examine each theory to see which one stands up the best to your scrutiny and idea of a satisfactory explanation?

 

[Pieman333272]

lol, true. There are around ten large religions in the world and everyone thinks that they are the correct one’s and everyone else is wrong.

Being “true” or false is different from being a scam or not. A religion (as well as a political or academic viewpoint) can be false but not a scam and in theory, true but still a scam due to human corruption. Also, most people would judge whether or not a religion is a scam on better terms than “my religion (or lack of thereof) is right and all the others are wrong”. I have no problem saying Hinduism isn’t a scam, but still find it wrong.

After an objective review, we all know it’s safe to say truthseeker60 has sound arguments that trumped every other post in this topic.

Even his points on the Christ Myth Hypothesis? Maybe in his debates with Tony and Granny but I really think I took down his arguments there.

 

[grannymh]

TruthSeeker60

Just to make sure I am on the same page as you…
There is an objective method of reasoning for dealing with claims about the material/physical reality which surrounds us.
From post 397 by TruthSeeker 60.
“Ultimately, when considering claims about reality, the best way to determine whether or not claims are true is by evaluating the evidence. We cannot make claims about reality without any evidence, and beliefs about reality are only justified to the degree that there is sufficient evidence to justify such belief.”

This makes sense to me.

My claim is that there is a second reality of the non-material or spiritual. And there is a second objective method of reasoning for dealing with it.
Last sentence of post 425 byTruthSeeker60.
I’m open to the possibility of a “non-material” or “spiritual” reality if, and only if, it manifests in some detectable way in this reality. So I’d like to hear what this second method is.
Last sentence of post 442 by grannymh.
In my humble opinion, human humor in the broad sense is an example of the immaterial which has been in existence since the beginning. To be continued.

When we make a claim about the material/physical realm, we use eyes, nose, mouth, ears and fingers to gather evidence. When it comes to humor, we can see a funny TV show, smell something strange, tell jokes, listen to jokes but we can’t actually touch humor per se. Thus, we have to use the greatest tool of all which is our rational mind.

Our rational mind provides the second method of discovering objective truth which is not material. The tools of our mind include but are not limited to observation, self reflection, logical evaluation, and analytical thought. These work outside the limitations of the natural material/ physical realm. For example, we can explore humor without anyone else present. We can chuckle with the TV turned off. We can draw from our memory examples of something laughable, incongruous, enjoyable, or absurd. We can use our mind to enjoy these memories or to rate them on a scale of one to ten. We can dismiss something funny because it caused an accident. It is our mind that deals with humor per se. Thus, we can say that while humor requires physical things to be effective, it can also be known in a non-material form often described as a quality. “The quality of mercy is not strain’d” Shakespeare.

The above is meant to demonstrate that we often take the immaterial realm for granted–without giving it a second thought that it is different from what we consider material evidence. In other words, the immaterial or spiritual realm needs the mind’s rational methods in order for it to be studied.

The above does not really address belief or God. Rather, it demonstrates our immaterial sense of humor. Once we realize that our human nature includes rational tools which can explore issues beyond physical evidence, we can be open to the possible possibility of an expanded immaterial or spiritual realm.

Blessings,
granny

“The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?”
from the poem “Christmas” by George Herbert

 

[nguirado]

I like to use a variation of Pascal’s Wager when I reach an impasse with my atheist brothers and sisters:

If I’m right and Catholicism is true, then it doesn’t matter what we say: the truth will win regardless of our individual debating skills. If you’re right and there’s no God, then it still doesn’t matter: nothing matters. It’s not like I’m going to regret it after I’m dead.

That’s why religious discussions only matter between believers: because getting it wrong has consequences.

 

[The_Absurdist]

Is Religion a Scam?

Probably not in a lot of cases (although I distrust all of the televangelists). I think that although, as you’ve suggested in your description, people know that their hopes are probably false, that they are divided against themselves on that front. Hope for great things make religion not only attractive, but very real in how it’s experienced, whether it has veracity or not. ‘Scam’ implies a more unequivocal acceptance or promotion of that which is blatently false. I contend that, while religion is blatently false to some, it’s experience of being real keeps it from being a scam, as such.

 

[nguirado]

To bring it around, in order for something to be a scam, it seems that the one “selling” has to be intentionally misleading somebody for their own profit. For example, the Duke and Dauphin in Huck Finn are scam artists because they don’t believe in what they’re doing- they know that they’re taking advantage of people.

Catholicism would be a scam if the pope and all of the clergy knew that they were making stuff up to get people to buy them cool miters. It seems that the Apostles believed in what they were doing. What kind of dummy would fool people so that they can be celibate and poor? Do today’s leaders in various parts of the world tempt martyrdom for what they know to be untrue?

So, it’s a very non-lucrative and dangerous scam for most Church leaders in most parts of the world.

 

[copperblade]

To bring it around, in order for something to be a scam, it seems that the one “selling” has to be intentionally misleading somebody for their own profit. For example, the Duke and Dauphin in Huck Finn are scam artists because they don’t believe in what they’re doing- they know that they’re taking advantage of people.

Catholicism would be a scam if the pope and all of the clergy knew that they were making stuff up to get people to buy them cool miters. It seems that the Apostles believed in what they were doing. What kind of dummy would fool people so that they can be celibate and poor? Do today’s leaders in various parts of the world tempt martyrdom for what they know to be untrue?

So, it’s a very non-lucrative and dangerous scam for most Church leaders in most parts of the world.

Yeah, I was taking the term “scam” to mean something about monetary exchange too. But it doesn’t really seem to be a reasonable question then… why does the definition of religion require it to be a scam? The definition of religion doesn’t even require the exchange of money.

 

[tonyrey]

I already said that “By ‘sufficient evidence’, I mean evidence that is of sufficient quality to show that the claim being made is probably true.” What evidence is sufficient varies from claim to claim. I’m not going to provide you with an exact formula to determine if some pieces of evidence constitute sufficient evidence for a particular claim, since that would take too long, but when presented with particular things, I can tell you whether I think it’s evidence at all, whether that evidence is sufficient to justify belief in the claim, and why. I have already given you a list of things that I would consider sufficient evidence to justify belief in a god.

Do you restrict evidence to scientific evidence? If not what other evidence would you accept for a claim? Do you consider there is sufficient evidence to justify belief in a godless universe?

If you suspend judgment, you don’t believe. Thus, the option “C” that you present is really a subset of option “B”. Once you realize this simple thing, you would see that the onus is on those who do believe to present evidence to justify their belief.

It is simplistic and dogmatic to say “you** don’t **believe” as if it were the end of the maatter. An agnostic doesn’t believe but is prepared to consider evidence whereas an atheist doesn’t believe and is not prepared to consider evidence.

Third, you’re not justified in saying “one person”. The majority of the world, like me, does not think that the supernatural claims of Christianity are true. Even if you pull something like “we all worship the same god” at least hundreds of millions of people in the world (including people of some religions like Buddhism) and growing are atheists. That doesn’t actually matter because…

Fourth, the number of people who believe in something does not reverse the burden of proof.

So a scientific consensus counts for nothing? Why do you believe in the principle of democracy - or don’t you?

If a claim is denied the person who denies it also has a burden of proof regardless of how popular the claim is. Otherwise you could go through life without making any positive assertions whatsoever! There has to be a reason for the denial, doesn’t there?

Comments like this make me think that you don’t even understand what the burden of proof is. If Bob tells John that X happened, the onus is on Bob to show evidence for his claim. If there is no known evidence for Bob’s claim, or the evidence is not sufficient to justify believing in the claim, John is justified in not believing it. That’s what it mean to say that those who make the claim, rather than those who don’t believe (which is what I mean by deny), have the burden of proof.

John’s lack of belief is justified by the fact that there is no known evidence for Bob’s claim, or the evidence is not sufficient to justify believing in the claim. That’s the case even if two billion people believe Bob’s claim.
Now if John not only does not believe Bob’s claim, but also makes the claim that Bob was wrong, he would then have a burden of proof along with Bob.

Your example is vitiated by its particularity and vagueness. It is not a claim by **one **person for a start. Nor is it a claim comparable to the vast majority of claims because it concerns the nature of reality which affects our whole attitude to life and the way we regard ourselves and others. That is why your petty analogies are completely beside the point. They also ignore the historical and universal aspects of the claim.

A person most definitely does not have to prove an alternative in order to not believe what is being proposed.

Not in every case but he does when it concerns an interpretation of reality, the origin of a worldwide religion and the source of moral values accepted by every civilised person…
So would you say that if Bob makes a claim about “an interpretation of reality, the origin of a worldwide religion [or] the source of moral values accepted by every civilised person,” that John has to believe Bob’s claim until he comes up with an alternative. If so, that is a form of an argument from ignorance, which is fallacious.

You are still restricting your analogy to two individuals and thereby falsifying the perspective of the claim.

If Bob claims that there are marbles in John’s pocket, and John searches his pocket and finds no marbles, that’s evidence that there are no marbles in John’s pockets. Because there would be marbles in John’s pocket if Bob’s claim were true, not finding any marbles there when he searched was not just absence of evidence, but also evidence of absence. Do you disagree?

I’m not in the slightest interested in examples which have no bearing whatsoever on the issue at stake. The nature of reality may be of little significance in your scheme of things but that only demonstrates your false sense of proportion. It reveals an inner conviction that religion is false and valueless - if not, like Dawkins, pernicious. Anyone who compares the existence of God to marbles in a man’s pocket has obviously lost his marbles!

 

[tonyrey]

It reveals an inner conviction that religion is false and valueless - if not, like Dawkins, pernicious.

I didn’t intend “pernicious” to apply to Dawkins but in fact it does! (In addition to his doctrine that religion is false, valueless and pernicious.

 

[TruthSeeker60]

Part 1/3

I’ve been away for a while. After seeing your response, Tonyrey, I wanted to respond, lest you think your points are sound.

Do you restrict evidence to scientific evidence?

No.

Evidence is anything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion.

I determine whether or not an assertion is true by evidence-based inquiry. Science is a subset of this.

If not what other evidence would you accept for a claim?

There are many kinds of evidence. Different claims will call for different types of evidence. For example, one would recourse to historical evidence to determine whether or not George Washington was the first president of the USA. Historical evidence is not scientific.

The kind of evidence I would accept for a claim depends on the claim.

Do you consider there is sufficient evidence to justify belief in a godless universe?

Why do you ask a silly question like this? I believe the universe exists because there is evidence that it exists(unless you want to be a solipsist). I do not believe in a god due to lack of evidence for a god. This brings me back to a question I posed earlier:

If there is no evidence for a claim, should a person believe it or not?

If you suspend judgment, you don’t believe.

Thus, the option “C” that you present is really a subset of option “B”. Once you realize this simple thing, you would see that the onus is on those who do believe to present evidence to justify their belief.

It is simplistic and dogmatic to say “you** don’t **believe” as if it were the end of the maatter. An agnostic doesn’t believe but is prepared to consider evidence whereas an atheist doesn’t believe and is not prepared to consider evidence.

That’s totally wrong. I’ll explain…

First, I’m always open to new evidence. Thus, I do not say “I don’t believe” as if it were an absolute end of the matter, rather I say “I don’t believe” in a god due to present lacking of evidence for a god just like you would say “I don’t believe” in fairies due to present lack of belief in fairies.

Second, “atheist” and “agnostic” aren’t mutually exclusive terms. The terms “theist” and “atheist” refer to presence or lack of belief, whereas the terms “gnostic” and “agnostic” refer to knowledge. One can be an agnostic theist or atheist, or a gnostic theist or atheist. You don’t need to have a high enough degree of certainty that you say you know in order to believe. I’m an “atheist” because I don’t believe in a god due to lack of evidence, and I’m agnostic about the existence of a god in the same sense that I’m agnostic about the existence of fairies. Strictly speaking, I can’t disprove the existence of fairies or all gods, yet there is so little evidence for both.

Do you believe that fairies exist? Do you know that fairies don’t exist? Your answer to these questions are likely to be similar to my position about the existence of a god.

Continued…