Religion

[Alliteration]

Yes, it was a long sentence......and umm.......*blushing*.......huh? *blushing bright red*

lol...I don't think anyone understood that :P

Some people think that our tendency to believe is evidence that God exists, basically.

[Handcuffed]

I think you're still missing the point, as you've just merely restated your position once again. Yes, we're arguing semantics. My argument is that "agnostic atheist/gnostic atheist" is unnecessarily long-winded, and makes discussions less clear. Basically what I'm saying is this: the stance that you refer to as "agnostic atheist" should be referred to as simply "agnostic", and the stance that you refer to as "gnostic atheist" should be referred to simply as "atheist". It's Orwell's third rule of good writing: If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

If your own stance is what you refer to as agnostic atheist, are you for some reason opposed to simply referring to yourself as agnostic? If so, why? If my ideas are adopted, no one is going to mistakenly think that you might be some sort of theist.

I am opposed to this because it doesn't correspond to usual usage. In my personal experience, people assume agnostic to mean "I do not know and am neutral about the issue", while atheist means "I do not believe". If I were to call myself an agnostic, people would assume the former, and this does not reflect my views. Furthermore, I'd bet that most, if not all, people who answered the poll as "atheist" would admit to also being agnostic if they used the "real" definition.

You also said, "although how this would work is beyond me". I hear this a lot...and every time, I've found that it's an indicator that the speaker has not read very much modern atheist philosophy - perhaps you should pick up some works by J.L. Schellenberg, Graham Oppy, Gregory Dawes, J.H. Sobel, or William Rowe.

No, it means that I do not believe in the arguments, or think they hold validity, in the same way that I don't believe in compatibilism in the problem of free will.

[shell]

Yes, it was a long sentence......and umm.......*blushing*.......huh? *blushing bright red*

lol...I don't think anyone understood that :P

Some people think that our tendency to believe is evidence that God exists, basically.

Well, why didn't you just say that to begin with? *giggling*

Some people, I assume does not include you? *smile*

[Alliteration]

No, it means that I do not believe in the arguments, or think they hold validity, in the same way that I don't believe in compatibilism in the problem of free will.

I have a flight to catch, so real quick post....

Which arguments from the authors I mentioned above have you examined, and why don't you think they're valid?

[CheerfullyInsane]

Some have argued that the mere existence of such a need to know (and the observation that belief in God seems to crop up time and time again) is evidence of God; because positing God's influence as an explanation meets more of the criteria for a good explanation (simplicity, explanatory power, explanatory scope, makes predictions, and is falsifiable) than the next most likely idea - that it's a misfiring of certain parts of our brain related to curiosity and the need for companionship.

EDIT: Holy crap, that is a long sentence :P

And these people are of course wrong.
First of all, if there is some sort of omniscient, omnipotent being, surely he can come up with better ways to correct our behaviour, than vague hints through our subconscious.
An 8-foot neon sign saying "Behave, or I will smote thee!" seems a bit more to the point.

Second, the question of "why are we here?" is the wrong question.
First you have to answer this question: "Why should there be a reason for our existence?"
I know the knee-jerk reaction of most people will be "But there must be a reason!", but I've never met anyone who has been able to adequately explain to me why that is.

Humankind seems to have this built-in need for causality, and if there isn't one readily available, they'll invent the damn thing. Doesn't matter if the reason they invent for us being here is utterly ludicrous, just as long as there is a reason.

And just in case there's still any doubt, I'm an atheist.
Member of The Evil Atheist Conspiracy, and worshipper of the Invisible Pink Unicorn.

Cheerfully

[Alliteration]

Some people, I assume does not include you? *smile*

I'm actually not sure about this. On the one hand, some people have made some pretty convincing cases. On the other hand, there's the question of what God's motivation would be in doing so - if (for example), Islam turns out to be true, and Allah has planted a tendency to believe in us...well, it's caused quite a few people to "follow the wrong path", so to speak. The problem I have with it is that there's only a general tendency to believe in some sort of deity, nothing specific about God's identity or character is involved.

[Alliteration]

First of all, if there is some sort of omniscient, omnipotent being, surely he can come up with better ways to correct our behaviour, than vague hints through our subconscious.
An 8-foot neon sign saying "Behave, or I will smote thee!" seems a bit more to the point.

There's a lot of assumptions here - what if God isn't interested in correcting our behavior, or smiting us? And what if God values belief which is gained as a result of some sort of intellectual or emotional journey, as opposed to belief for the sake of belief?

Second, the question of "why are we here?" is the wrong question.
First you have to answer this question: "Why should there be a reason for our existence?"
I know the knee-jerk reaction of most people will be "But there must be a reason!", but I've never met anyone who has been able to adequately explain to me why that is.

It depends on what you mean by "reason"...is there a purpose? Maybe, maybe not. Is there a cause? Yes, of course. I think most people approaching this subject are looking for a cause, as opposed to a purpose.

Humankind seems to have this built-in need for causality, and if there isn't one readily available, they'll invent the damn thing. Doesn't matter if the reason they invent for us being here is utterly ludicrous, just as long as there is a reason.

Are you implying that theism is an ad hoc explanation?
Are you implying that there are some events with no causal link to any other events?

[CheerfullyInsane]

There's a lot of assumptions here - what if God isn't interested in correcting our behavior, or smiting us? And what if God values belief which is gained as a result of some sort of intellectual or emotional journey, as opposed to belief for the sake of belief?

True, there are rampant assumptions. Then again, a divine being/higher power is a bit of an assumption in the first place, so it's not as if I'm straying from the path, as it were.
To answer the second question, if god (divine being/higher power gets too much to type every time) isn't interested in guiding us, the whole point becomes moot.
If god simply is, without rules or consequences, there's no reason to examine the hows and whys.
That would be like worrying what the lawn thinks of you.

It depends on what you mean by "reason"...is there a purpose? Maybe, maybe not. Is there a cause? Yes, of course. I think most people approaching this subject are looking for a cause, as opposed to a purpose.

It has to be purpose that people are looking for.
If all they're looking for is what caused them to be here, I can answer that right now:
It's called parents.

Are you implying that theism is an ad hoc explanation?
Are you implying that there are some events with no causal link to any other events?

Absolutely. Theism has always been used to explain what otherwise would lack explanation. Natural phenomenons tends to be pretty high on the list.
I'm sure that by now we can all agree that thunder isn't created by Thor riding his chariot across the sky, right?
Which also explains why theism, generally speaking, has a harder time of it when science advances.
One of the sad things about dogmatic beliefs is that they have to try and encompass every new discovery within their very restrictive world-view.
Now, even in 'advanced' civilizations there's a murky spiritual movement, but the beliefs serve the same purpose.
It is simply the needs that have changed.
Instead of explaining disasters, volcanoes and so on, the spiritual nowadays fill other voids, such as giving meaning to ones existence for instance, or simply someone to blame when things go awry.
Doesn't mean it's any more real than Thor in his chariot, it's just harder to disprove.

As for causality, are there events without a cause?
Hard to say, since I haven't experienced all possible events.
But it also depends on how you define it, for example:
About 10 years ago I got assaulted on the street. No reason other than me being in the wrong place at the wrong time, when two drunken imbeciles decided to tap-dance on my head.
Now, presumably you *could* follow a causal path through their evening of boozing, back to their upbringing, back to their parents upbringing, and so on and so forth.
You might even get to a central node that would decide why they did what they did.
This doesn't bring me any reason for the attack though, and as such it is, to me, an event without a cause.

Cheerfully

[Alliteration]

True, there are rampant assumptions. Then again, a divine being/higher power is a bit of an assumption in the first place, so it's not as if I'm straying from the path, as it were.

1) This is a tu quoque fallacy.
2) In this case, God would be the conclusion, not an assumption.

To answer the second question, if god (divine being/higher power gets too much to type every time) isn't interested in guiding us, the whole point becomes moot.
If god simply is, without rules or consequences, there's no reason to examine the hows and whys.
That would be like worrying what the lawn thinks of you.

No; it would merely reduce the question to a purely academic one. Intellectual curiosity.

It has to be purpose that people are looking for.
If all they're looking for is what caused them to be here, I can answer that right now:
It's called parents.

Again no...these people are looking for a first/ultimate cause of everything, not what caused them specifically to exist.

Absolutely. Theism has always been used to explain what otherwise would lack explanation. Natural phenomenons tends to be pretty high on the list.
I'm sure that by now we can all agree that thunder isn't created by Thor riding his chariot across the sky, right?
Which also explains why theism, generally speaking, has a harder time of it when science advances.
One of the sad things about dogmatic beliefs is that they have to try and encompass every new discovery within their very restrictive world-view.
Now, even in 'advanced' civilizations there's a murky spiritual movement, but the beliefs serve the same purpose.
It is simply the needs that have changed.
Instead of explaining disasters, volcanoes and so on, the spiritual nowadays fill other voids, such as giving meaning to ones existence for instance, or simply someone to blame when things go awry.
Doesn't mean it's any more real than Thor in his chariot, it's just harder to disprove.

This doesn't apply when a theist is making an "inference to the best explanation" argument (also known as an abductive argument). Robin Collins has an argument in the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology along these lines. In fact, he even explains why it's not ad hoc.

[CheerfullyInsane]

1) This is a tu quoque fallacy.
2) In this case, God would be the conclusion, not an assumption.

1) True.
2) No, a conclusion can't be based on an abductive argument. An abductive argument isn't an argument, but a guess.
In the case of god, the fact that I don't know what causes the human need for spirituality, does not mean that making up such a reason using an abductive argument, means that it's the correct one.
The basis for an abductive argument (as I understand it) is that of all the possible reasons X could occur, Y is the most economical explanation, thus Y is true.
No offense, but the only thing that proves is the lack of imagination/knowledge to think of further reasons.
Again, taking the thunder-god story, when you have no knowledge of electricity, weather-systems, dew-points and whatever else conspires to make thunder, you take what you can to explain it.
In this case a divine being trundling across the heavens.
Probably the best they could think of at that point in time, but it's no less true.

It has to be purpose that people are looking for.
If all they're looking for is what caused them to be here, I can answer that right now:
It's called parents.

Again no...these people are looking for a first/ultimate cause of everything, not what caused them specifically to exist.

Do you really think that people are looking for a cause, without also looking for purpose?
If they're 'merely' looking for a cause, surely they're looking in the wrong place.
A quest for the original something would IMO be a job for a physicist, not a theologian or philosopher.
Besides which, none of the above are likely to ever succeed. Given the complexities of a living world, trying to narrow it down to where it all started gives a whole new meaning to the term quixotic.

This doesn't apply when a theist is making an "inference to the best explanation" argument (also known as an abductive argument). Robin Collins has an argument in the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology along these lines. In fact, he even explains why it's not ad hoc.

And why doesn't it apply?
Assume for the moment that I'm not about to go out and read Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology.
Surely using an abductive leap to show that god is the most likely reason today, is no different than when people made an abductive leap to show the thunder-god as the most likely reason then.

Cheerfully