So, on that note, lets make sure we all know what Atheism means. It does not unilaterally mean that those who are Atheists necessarily believe that god does not exist. The oxford dictionary definition for Atheism is very direct, the belief that God does not exist. However, that is a rather simplistic definition for a very complicated position and in fact, there are two distinct positions that Atheists can hold.

Many believe that Atheism is the absence of belief in the existence of gods. Simply put, they choose not to believe in what religions say. But, they are not going the next step and saying that God/gods do not exist. They simply, and very scientifically state, we do not accept your assertion. There is no proof. There is no evidence. Therefore we do not accept your statement that God exists. They do not then make the next step and say “we also say emphatically that god does NOT exist”.

The second position is of course the stronger of the two. They go ahead and state that god in any form doesn’t exist. Those are two separate and very distinct positions. One of them is a belief. One of them is good healthy scientific reasoning.

To say that you do not belief in the assertions of a religious order is a very valid position to hold. I myself do not believe in any of the statements of the Church of Scientology. Not one. Nor do I believe any tenants of the ancient Norse, Roman, Greek or Egyptian religions. Though the last four are very cool, I simply don’t believe in them. Does that make me an atheist? Partially, yes. But the definition for Atheism is very broad. It leaves no room for uncertainty. It doesn’t say ‘absense of belief for one god’ but rather all gods.

But those that hold to the oxford definition, to them I say you are simply wrong. Or rather, you have a belief system. Like it or not, you believe that God does not exist.  It is virtually impossible to ever say something does not exist from a scientific viewpoint. Just not possible. So, if you hold the ‘belief’ that god does not exist then you have a belief system and not a scientific view. I believe one is called “weak atheist” and the other “strong atheist”. To me, one is called scientific and one hypocritical.

Does it really make sense to have a belief system wherein you are stating that another belief system is wrong? I find it to be hypocritical.

Now, I’m sure all the Atheists who read this will be up and arms. And if I have mis-spoken or presented something in error, by all means state it. The point of this posting is simply to attempt to better define the Atheist view. And to try to show some light on a very difficult topic. The term atheism really has lots of meanings when you talk to different people. Add in agnosticism, a term coined by a Professor Huxley in 1876, to largely mean those that believe there is no proof either way for the existence of a deity, and you’ve got a real mess on your hands.

I try to make things simple. To boil down all the arguments to the most simplist of levels. Either you believe God does exist, believe he doesn’t exist, refute the assertion of one or the other while making no statement yourself, or simply throw your hands up in despair I don’t know please leave me alone about it.

The point here is, dont’ assume you know what someone believes just because they say they are an Atheist. They may be stating they are based on one of two possible definitions or some other definition that may exist. Question them, find out what they really believe, and then have your discussion.

I recently read an article on ABC about why people believe in impossible things. One of those things was why people believe aliens are coming to the earth. That made me think for a moment. How exactly does this author know that that is an impossible thing? One of them was that people believe in the impossible fact that aliens have come to the planet earth. He is assuming two key points. First, that life does not exist anywhere else in the universe and two, that we can never go faster than the speed of life. The first question, some argue, has already been answered by some martian rocks showing what looks like bacteria, though this is not an accepted fact. The second point is clearly wrong. Scientists today think that with enough energy you can go faster than the speed of light, or rather, you can bend space to make it appear you are going faster when you really aren’t. There are several main stream scientists that are even today stating we should begin taking all these claims of aliens and UFO sightings more seriously and that the possibility is not zero.

So why did some scientist, Lewis Wolpert, say that it was impossible? He’s not even an astrophysicists, merely a biologist, what does he know about travelling faster than the speed of light? Nothing. Why does he think that? He’s, in my opinion, a skeptic.

Just who are skeptic’s anyway? How about the chief skeptics of the bunch, Atheists? Are they taking a scientific view of things? No. Not in my opinion. What I hate more than anything are those people that use science as an excuse to disprove something. Lets say someone comes up with a theory, they test their theory but the test fails, does this mean their theory is invaild and wrong? No, it means they couldn’t prove it. Not proving something does not mean that you have proven that theory as false, it means you have not proven it as true. Failing one does not prove the other. And yet, this is what most people use as proof that God does not exist, that aliens are completely impossible and that every thing that has never been proven must not exist.

This is absolutly not a scientific approach. Atheists believe in something. They believe God does not exist. That is a belief. It is not a scientific proof. I defy any scientist on the planet to prove through testing and verifiable theory that God does not exist, they can’t. And yet so many believe that to be true.  I defy any biologist to prove that aliens have never visited earth. They can’t. There is no way to prove, through a testable and verifiable means, that an intelligent alien life form ever visited the earth.

Being skeptical is actually fine and healthy, as long as you do not let it grow to a belief. If someone presents a theory, we should be skeptical if that theory is true. We shoud test it, prove it, again and again. Even though thousands of UFO sighting have been disproven as hoaxes that is not proof that UFO’s do not exist. It is proof that thousands of people are a-holes and like to waste peoples time.

As I said before, I believe in science. Pure science. The honest quest for knowledge through verifiable means. However, not everything in this universe, at this time, can be verified to be true or not true. There are some things that are simply beyond the boundry of science. We can never prove absolutly that intelligent life does not exist somewhere else in the universe. The only way we could is to send space ships to every single planet, moon, asteroid and solar system out there. That’s not going to happen. Science is very very good at proving something to be true. It really isn’t so good at proving something not to be true. God is one such subject that really science just can’t touch. 95% of the worlds population believe in a higher power in one form or another. So, either we’re all delusional or there is something out there. Regardless, no one can ever proof that it is not true.

So, to all those skeptic’s in the world, chill out. The onus is on all those saying that God does exist to prove it. However, as soon as you claim he does not exist, the onus is now on you to prove that he does not exist. Ok, what about the spaghetti monster argument. If 100 people claim to have seen a giant spaghetti monster, does that mean it can never be disproven? Of course it can. How? As soon as someone says they made it up, it’s disproven.

Oh boy, now I’ve done it. What about those people that made up God 5,000 years ago? Same thing isn’t it? Well, techincally, I would agree with you. If that were the only fact, a primitive technological society needing some explanation to the existance of life, came up with dieties, Gods, then I would agree. But, the simple fact that 95% of people believe, that many people claim to have a connection on some level, can’t simply be ignored. And yes, I know that that can be argued to be some facet of human psychology. And there are counter arguments to that counter argument. But, this isn’t meant to be a prove or disprove God post. It’s an anti-skeptic post. And it’s a long one.

The point of all this is simple. Not proving something to be true does not prove it to be untrue. It just proves it’s not true. Science has no comment on anything it can not prove. It’s defacto comment is really just “no comment”. Claiming whatever it is does not exist is simply wrong to do without a scientific study.

Read the article about people believing impossible things here: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=5817998
Read a scientists view on alien life existing here: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1343196.htm
Read about faster than light travel here: http://www.usd.edu/phys/courses/phys300/gallery2/dave/dave.htm and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light