You're certainly not intruding, but it's customary to identify yourself, even if with a pseudonym.
You're right that atheists see the evidence to be against the existence of god(s). Atheists and agnostics would both agree, however, that a claim does not have to be accepted just because you can't disprove it. The burden of proof is never on disproof. Acting like something does not exist is the default, or else we'd have to believe in a billion invisible things that merely aren't disproven. Occam's Razor goes into that.
Whether to capitalize atheism is entirely a matter of personal preference. I know of no reason to do so, or not to do so.
People all generally go to whichever makes the most empirical sense to them. However, once you're in a religion it teaches you to set that rationality aside; having arrived at the Perfect Source of Truth who's going to spoon-feed them all the Big Answers, most religious followers believe by faith in the proclamations of that source from then on. If I ever hear anyone exploiting reason only far enough to discredit reason so that I have to do whatever nonsense they (or their chosen holy book) say from now on, that's proof enough not to trust them.
Contrast this with science, which is a collection of very close approximations, built on a process of errors, doubting, and correction, which you and I are expected to challenge and study the evidence for ourselves. We're just not allowed to cheat, which is what faith would be if we bring it into the scientific magisteria.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-10-10 02:00 pm (UTC)You're right that atheists see the evidence to be against the existence of god(s). Atheists and agnostics would both agree, however, that a claim does not have to be accepted just because you can't disprove it. The burden of proof is never on disproof. Acting like something does not exist is the default, or else we'd have to believe in a billion invisible things that merely aren't disproven. Occam's Razor goes into that.
Whether to capitalize atheism is entirely a matter of personal preference. I know of no reason to do so, or not to do so.
People all generally go to whichever makes the most empirical sense to them. However, once you're in a religion it teaches you to set that rationality aside; having arrived at the Perfect Source of Truth who's going to spoon-feed them all the Big Answers, most religious followers believe by faith in the proclamations of that source from then on. If I ever hear anyone exploiting reason only far enough to discredit reason so that I have to do whatever nonsense they (or their chosen holy book) say from now on, that's proof enough not to trust them.
Contrast this with science, which is a collection of very close approximations, built on a process of errors, doubting, and correction, which you and I are expected to challenge and study the evidence for ourselves. We're just not allowed to cheat, which is what faith would be if we bring it into the scientific magisteria.