“If you see atheism as a belief”
While SCOTUS said that FOR THE PURPOSE OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, atheism is a religion, it has no litany, no saints, no prophents, no centralized religious authority, no dogmas.
I don’t believe any accounts of gods, the same way i read comic books and don’t believe people can fly, read minds, teleport, or gain a new power every time the writers write themselves into a corner.
"then there is a similarity as there is no proof of atheism as you cannot prove a negative, that there is no God.”
We prove negatives all the time. Such as ’there’s no ketchup in the house.’ You turn it into a positive and test it. “If we had ketchup, it would be in the fridge or the pantry. I’ve looked in the fridge and the pantry, and did not find ketchup. Thus i prove ’there’s no ketchup in the house.’
People are all the damned time telling me how to find god. He’s not there. If they know what they’re talking about, there’s no god.
"Atheism is a belief,”
Meh.
“an erroneous one in my estimation.”
Who cares what you believe?
“I think that atheism is not motivated by reason but by a desire to escape morality.”
So, check this out. YOU think that I accept that there is a god, and he watches and judges my every action, including my intentions, which he can access. So, in your estimation I PLAN to FOOL and OMNISCIENT BEING by pretending i don’t know HE’S real. This would, in your imagining of my worldview, probably be on my list of sins in big bold letters. “ON JULY 13TH, 1979, KEITH DECIDED TO FOOL GOD BY LYING TO HIMSELF ABOUT ATHEISM.”
“One of the problems with materialistic atheism is that it is narrow-minded and dogmatic in closing itself from knowledge that does not conform to materialism and naturalism.”
You say that by sticking with science and avoiding woo, i’m limiting myself. Woo had the floor for many thousands of years.
Science got us medicine, cars, indoor toilets. Moon landings. Nuclear power. Cancer treatments. The Interwebs.
Materialism and naturalism works. They produce. You would need to give me a reason to accept woo OVER materialism and naturalism. What do you got?
"We are more open-minded."
No, you are not. You only accept the science you HAVE to. Far too many of you reject science if you think it is not IAW the Holy Books, and what YOU think it means.
And you still travel by plane, car, train, other products of science. No one prays and is magically transported to their destination.
“We accept there is knowledge derived from scientific testing and reasoning. We are entirely willing to accept material and natural causes but we admit the possibility of other ways of knowing.”
‘Admit’ is a poor choice. More of a desperate need. The Bible says that the sky is solid, Earth is flat, and rain comes from trapdoors in the sky, when God opens them. Science says that’s all bullshit. So, whoever sourced that information for the bible is bullshit. WHY would i accept information from the source of this bullshit?
“As atheism operates within naturalism and entirely depends on it it cannot admit the possibility of other ways of knowing.”
No. No, not at all. I’m not atheist because of science. I’m really not. When i believed, i was quite happy to know that men and woman had different number of ribs, just like Genesis said.
Finding out that this is not true did not turn me atheist.
Asking questions at church, and the answers i got, were why i left that religion, and searched for God in other religions. All of which had the same replies. I shouldn’t ask, don’t test god, you’re going to Hell, shut up, it’s a mystery.