Ah, the in tray is full once more. Let's take a look at this shall we?

Hello everyone I’m new here. I’m Roman Catholic.

I'll spare you the barbs you're doubtless expecting as a result of this admission.

I look forward to sharing discussions with you.

Be advised, the standards of discourse here are perhaps best categorised as ruthless.

There were only two options for subjects to post to.

I suspect this particular venus is spartan with respect to options by design. Possibly as a means of dissuading all but the most persistent and motivated among the usual suspects seen in other forums.

I just wanted to say hello

Past experience has taught many here, that small talk is usually the last item on the agenda of certain visitors. Which is why there is little provision for it.

but I don’t want to post a thread that doesn’t follow the subject. So I’ll start with the following.

Do continue ...

I assert that my Christian faith, while dependant on believing some things that I can not absolutely know, is as rational as holding the position that God does not exist.

First, it is refreshing to see a supernaturalist admit that he's presenting an assertion. So many of the supernaturalist ilk announce their presence here, by trying to tell us that the mythological assertions they treat as fact are fact, and that we are purportedly "deficient" in some manner, because we do not share their particular brand of mythology fandom. You may or may not appreciate the manner in which this becomes tiresome after an abundance of repetitions thereof.

Second, I'm going to drop some surprises in your lap. More on this later. But before that, since you have admitted that you are presenting an assertion here, you should therefore be aware of the proper discoursive treatment of assertions, namely, that they possess the status "truth value unknown", until subject to an appropriate test aimed at remedying that epistemological deficit is performed. You may find yourself surprised at how many of your fellow supernaturalists are either unaware of the basic principles of proper discourse, or knowingly flout them because they regard their outpourings as exempt therefrom. Pedlars of presuppositionalist apologetics are among the most egregious members of the second category.

Third, there are certain elementary concepts that are endemic here, to which you will need an introduction. Central among these is the treatment of various so-called "holy books" as being nothing more than mythologies, in the same vein as the dead mythologies of past civilisations that no longer have adherents. This treatment arises because of the numerous shared characteristics observable in all the relevant writings - [1] the presentation of extraordinary assertions as if said assertions constituted fact, with clear intent on the part of the authors that those assertions be treated as factual, [2] the presentation of one or more assertions centred upon the purported existence of various magical entities, [3] the presentation of assertions to the effect that said magic entities provided the authors with their source material, by means known or unknown, and [4] the presentation of assertions to the effect that the magic entities cited in [2], purportedly seek to regulate human behaviour.

However, there's a problem here. That problem centres upon the fact, that many mythologies also contain assertions about the constitution and behaviour of the observable physical universe and its contents, assertions that are, by definition, manifestly subject to scientific test, and which are invariably falsified the moment said test is performed. In short, if a mythology contains manifest errors with respect to testable assertions, then it would be foolish indeed to regard that mythology as being in any way reliable with respect to its untested or untestable assertions. This is, of course, far more of a problem for literalists and inerrantists than for anyone adopting a more nuanced view, but even a more nuanced view of a given mythology does not eliminate the problem, and gives rise immediately to the question of how one determines in a rigorous manner, how to distinguish between parts of a mythology to be treated as fact, and parts to be treated as 'allegory' or whatever. But, even an attempt to try and escape from the more embarrassing errors in this vein by recourse to "allegory", does not rescue that mythology from having those errors as part of its corpus. This essential concept will form a part of the surprise package I'll be delivering later, so diligent attention will be of value here as you continue reading.

This leads in turn to another observable issue, namely the fact that as a direct corollary of core assertions being untested or untestable, either through accident or design, supernatualism is beset with anti-consilience on a colossal scale. Supernaturalists on a global scale, cannot agree among themselves which of the numerous mythologies to choose from is purportedly the "right" mythology, not least because the inherent epistemological deficit endemic to assertions I cited above, renders it impossible to devise anything resembling a reliable test, let alone a full-blown methodology. Worse still, adherents of a particular mythology are notorious for being unable to agree among themselves what that mythology is purportedly telling us. Again, that epistemological deficit endemic to assertions can be traced as a root cause of this, but this tends to be exacerbated enormously, by dint of mythologies being couched either in obscurantist language (again, sometimes by accident, though more frequently by design), or having been subject to translation, re-translation, abridging, editing, and a whole host of other text processing over historical time, to the point where whatever meaning the original author might have wished to present, has been buried under many strata of subsequent human activity, some of that activity being far removed from honest scholarly endeavour.

Given the abundant observable correlates in this regard, between so-called "holy books" and mythologies no longer associated with living adherents, it should not be surprising at all to find those writings treated in the same manner by those of us who have observed and studied those correlates.

As a corollary of all the above, do not be surprised to find material you present here being treated in this vein.

And now, it's time to move on to the "surprise package" I promised, which I present here as applicable to me, but which is probably applicable to a good number of others here, even if there is disagreement on some of the personally applicable fine detail I present below.

One of the most basic errors that supernatualists make, is to assume, either through ignorance or wilful ideological malice, that being an atheist means not merely rejecting the assertion that a god type entity actually exists as a real, concrete entity, but that it means asserting the contrary. The reason that this is an error, centres upon two pillars: one, the manner in which supernatualists, particularly in environments historically affected by past ruthless enforcement of conformity to doctrine, regard their mythology and its assertions as some sort of natural cultural default, instead of the product of powerfully motivated manipulation of that cultural arena, and two, the tendency of supernaturalists to skew discourse to fit their own reference frame, regardless of whether or not the actual observable data agrees with being force-fitted into that reference frame.

That error is, I assure you most emphatically, an error. Because, if one performs the requisite observation without the distorting supernaturalist contact lenses in place, the one readily observable feature, that is genuinely common to all atheists, is suspicion of unsupported supernaturalist assertions. That is IT, and as a corollary, I present that as the proper, rigorous definition of atheism, courtesy of the fact that said definition is grounded in that one common observable. Of course, one does not have to be an actual student of formal logic, to understand that one can be suspicious simultaneously of assertion X and its negation, but this elementary principle tends to be forgotten by supernaturalists confronted with suspicion of their cherished assertions.

In short, those of us who take the business of discourse within the atheist realm seriously, regard the question "does there exist a god type entity" as unanswered, and some regard the question as unanswerable even in principle (the pure agnostics fall into this category). I take the position that the question is unanswered, may be answerable in the future provided relevant developments take place, but most assuredly not answered by mythological assertion. Indeed, by now, you should be in a position to realise why I regard mythological assertion, and indeed the whole medium of mythology itself, as incompetent to provide an answer to this, or for that matter, to any substantive question about our surroundings. Quite simply, I don't assert that there is no god, but that any god out there isn't one of the fatuous candidates presented for the role in pre-scientific mythologies.

One of the reasons I have for taking this position, is simple: Abrahamic mythologies in particular are replete with elementary errors about the observable universe, its contents and its long term history, and underestimated the size and the age of the observable universe by a frankly woeful nine orders of magnitude. Carl Sagan presciently pointed to this when he uttered his remark about religions failing to latch on to the immense true scale of the universe as something to marvel at, instead preferring their gods to be little gods. If mythology underestimated the size of the universe by this gigantic amount, then it doesn't take much of a leap from this, to conclude that a similar underestimation of any actual god out there is also a feature of these mythologies, which present their little gods as, in effect, cosmic versions of Donald Trump: über-narcissists with a propensity for toddler tantrums, and sociopathic disregard for the suffering and misery arising from executive decisions formulated in the middle of a Twitter rant.

My view, and several here may or may not agree with this, is that [1] finding genuine evidence for a god type entity, will be such a monumental undertaking, that success therein will guarantee the participants therein a Nobel Prize; [2] The moment this occurs, it will be headline news around the world; and [3] when that moment occurs, the data obtained will falsify all of our mytholgies at a stroke, and as a corollary, the people with the greatest amount of egg on their faces will be those supernaturalists who were so certain, that the little gods of their mythologies would be the ones stepping out from behind the curtain. Indeed, I am on public record here and elsewhere, as hypothesising that the data, once reliably in our hands, will point to an entity so radically different from all previous human experience, that the people best placed to understand the data will be particle physicists, because they handle counter-intuitive results on a routine basis in their research. I am also willing to bet that you never expected to see an atheist present views of this sort to you.

Thank you again for having me.

Enjoy the above. Which should come as a welcome break from some of the barbs you'll almost certainly be facing.

Hello catholicray

As a newcomer myself I must warn you to be prepared to be appalled by the reaction of some people here, to be surprised by some who are open minded and to be appreciated by others, to say the least. Do not try to teach to those who do not want to expand on the possibilities but zone in on those who challenge you in a respectful way is the advice I can give you for now.

Others will make it look like all atheists are on the same page but they are not. They can be as divided as any other group.

Some people will ask you for proof. Proof does not exist, only evidence. Science itself can only offer evidence at best and whether some people here are ready to admit it or not Science also is an opinion, a belief as well, simply because there is no proof.

I look forward to what you will bring here. As someone who has read your book countless times, I am well versed in the passages and I will offer you some interesting challenges