Atheism is on Par With Religious Belief

If you were to ask me, if I believed in god. Since I am a professional scientist, I would want to give you two answers. In my capacity as a professional scientist I would have to--I would be required to--be agnostic on the subject since I couldn't cite with scientific certainty say that there is a god and I couldn't with scientific certainty say that there isn't.

But if I were allowed to respond as just a regular non-scientist and if you allowed me to take the very same indulgences that all other non-scientists are allowed to take and that is I'm allowed to reject the training I've recieved as a scientist that taught me--that drilled into my head--not to accept anything as fact that can't be scientifically proven, but instead I'm now allowed to do what many many others do and profess--I'm allowed now to profess to know something and to profess to strongly believe it in the complete absence of facts...then I'm gonna have to say that my very strong faith, my very very strong belief is that there is not god. But on this level, on this level now, my belief is perfectly equivalent to religious belief. We're both doing the same thing.

So when a scientist says "The charge on an electron is 1.602X10^-19 coulombs." That is not an expression of belief or faith. That is an established fact. It's based on many many Galileo-type experiments, following the format that was established by Galileo 400 years ago. It is not at all equivalent to religious belief. But when a scientist says there is no god, and he's acting in the capacity of a scientist, he's not giving you a scientific conclusion on the subject, he is at that moment expressing a personal belief and opinion.

...The battle isn't really religion versus science per se. These two things are not so much incompatible as they are just not equivalent and not intersecting. I think the tension lies in the type of thinking, and the approach that is peculiar to both. One encourages uncritical acceptance of ideas and the other seriously discourages it.

Notes:

Atheism is as unscientific as theism. Scientists are concerned with reality, when they take a position on theology, they are not acting within the bounds of science.

Folksonomies: science atheism non-overlapping magisteria

Taxonomies:
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/science (0.329945)

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Concepts:
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Religion (0.777314): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
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Theory (0.533956): dbpedia | freebase
Scientific method (0.512893): dbpedia | freebase
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God (0.496687): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc

 Science in Hollywood
Proceedings of Meetings and Symposia>Speech:  Porco, Carolyn (2009), Science in Hollywood, Atheist Alliance International, AAI 2009, Retrieved on 2011-06-04
  • Source Material [www.youtube.com]
  • Folksonomies: science communication atheism


    Schemas

    04 JUN 2011

     The Scientist Takes No Position on God

    Atheism is not a scientific position, just as belief in a God is not. Scientists find spiritual fulfillment in natural laws. It's interesting to note that the scientist taking no position on god bares a remarkable resemblance to not believing in god.
    Folksonomies: science religion god
    Folksonomies: science religion god
     19