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Zond wrote:
I think I'm reaching a point where if I don't have something spiritual in my life I feel a crushing pointlessness to everything I do.

What are your specific beliefs as regards the supernatural?
What does "spiritual" mean to you?

I have no idea yet.

The question I have isn't what religion people are, but rather do you believe in human beings having a soul of any sort? It's not something that can be currently proven by science as there's no tangible way to measure or detect it, yet the concept of a soul or greater consciousness is the one thing that's universal within all religions. We can't even explain why we developed the ability for abstract thought and self awareness, it's not something needed for evolutionary survival yet humans have it in abundance and it's one of the things that set us apart as a species over other animals.

Just because we cannot see something with our naked eye does not mean it does not exist, often science cannot explain things because we haven't asked the right questions or done the correct experiments yet. Electricity has been present since the dawn of the universe but science didn't get around to proving it until very recently (in terms of human history) it's something that is largely invisible in our daily lives and even for all of our advances with it there are aspects that are still being studied and explored. Thing like radiation are invisible to us and we can only discern them through the trace effects is has on something or through the use of special tools.

Lots of people are quick to dismiss notions of the supernatural because they can't produce it on demand, but it is entirely possible that it is a force just like any other that we simply haven't addressed it with the correct research to quantify it and we currently lack tools that would allow us to "prove" existence. While they claim to be open minded most atheist I've met are anything but, most of them can't offer any suggestions on how you could even begin to scientifically analyze the presence of any sort of a soul, or awareness that most human beings ascribe to having.

People that attempt to research potential ways to explore the soul or energies beyond our human body are usually mocked as pursuing fringe science as it fails to offer tangible proof, but people are quick to forget that the path to scientific advance has more failed experiments then successful ones. Science is a process of repeating and failing at something until favorable results are achieved in a repeatable process. Just because something can't be proven at the moment due to lacking the proper tools does not mean it's impossible that one day it won't become a proven science.

It's a bit of an double standard to say one can prove/disprove anything when no there's no generally no established research into the subject (at least from a scientific approach).

People who research such things often are frauds. We have a reasonable grasp of a lot of things - enough to at least be able to get an idea of the shape the gaps in our knowledge have. As far as im aware nothing points to there being a "soul shaped" gap. But you certainly cant rule out future discoveries. I would just not holdy breath expecting one of them to be the discovery of the soul.

 stanman wrote:
Electricity has been present since the dawn of the universe but science didn't get around to proving it until very recently (in terms of human history)

Um... is lightning not proof enough of the existence of electricity?

Really, you have a really sketchy grasp of how science works. Science starts out by making observations about physical, natural phenomena and hypothesising about the possible mechanics/processes that might be involved in creating that phenomena. At that point, experiments are drawn up attempting to disprove those hypotheses. The more experiments a particular hypothesis undergoes without being disproven, the closer it gets to becoming established as 'probably true' (very high praise in skeptic circles!).

Now, with regards to research into souls/spirits, what physical or natural phenomena have been observed to instigate the research? If there isn't any, then what is it you're trying to explain? And if you're not trying to explain something specific, how do you know what processes you're testing for? How would you set up a reliable experiment if you don't have a clue what you're testing?

 stanman wrote:
It's a bit of an double standard to say one can prove/disprove anything when no there's no generally no established research into the subject (at least from a scientific approach).

Science doesn't need to 'disprove' souls, because until souls are offered as a credible theory for the explanation of an observed phenomenon, they don't exist within science. There's no double standard at all. And as I've hopefully made it clear, there is no established research into the subject, because what is there to research?

I am a Prodestant, but prefer to think that Jesus was another prophet and believe in free and full hearted religion where you just follow the Two Commandments of Love your God and Love your Neighbour and your good to go. Its a good way to live and its served me well.

 stanman wrote:
The question I have isn't what religion people are, but rather do you believe in human beings having a soul of any sort? It's not something that can be currently proven by science as there's no tangible way to measure or detect it

No. We cannot “prove” it by science (science does not prove stuff; science provide models that reliably describe how stuff happen) because it is not defined in scientific terms. To compare it to your later argument, nobody went on a quest to “prove” electricity. People just noticed some phenomenon, and tried to get a model that would accurately describe them. Electricity is basically the name we gave the model after it was built.

 stanman wrote:
We can't even explain why we developed the ability for abstract thought and self awareness, it's not something needed for evolutionary survival yet humans have it in abundance and it's one of the things that set us apart as a species over other animals.

What makes you think other animals lack self-awareness? Even for abstract thought, it is not that obvious.

 stanman wrote:
Lots of people are quick to dismiss notions of the supernatural because they can't produce it on demand, but it is entirely possible that it is a force just like any other that we simply haven't addressed it with the correct research to quantify it and we currently lack tools that would allow us to "prove" existence.

So, what do you advise doing? Just idle assumptions based on no evidence? If there are no observations that needs to be explained by a model, why build a model?

 stanman wrote:
People that attempt to research potential ways to explore the soul or energies beyond our human body are usually mocked as pursuing fringe science as it fails to offer tangible proof

Well, if their methods are flawed, they will be mocked. Of course. And if they start from a preconception that they try to “prove” rather than starting from facts gathered by experiments and observations and try to build a model around those, their methods are flawed.

Well, I pretty much repeated what Riquende said, I just wrote that before reading his answer.

 stanman wrote:
We can't even explain why we developed the ability for abstract thought and self awareness, it's not something needed for evolutionary survival yet humans have it in abundance and it's one of the things that set us apart as a species over other animals.

Since others have addressed your other comments thoroughly, I'd like to comment on this one.

Evolution isn't just about survival, it's also about surviving more successfully than your competitors.
That being the case, anything that gives your tribe an edge, be it greater intelligence that allows better hunt planning, or greater empathy that allows tribal loyalty (the basis of ethics & morality), these traits will survive in tribes that survive, and die out in tribes that lacked them (just so long as the traits are advantageous to the survival of the tribe).

Therefore, there definitely is an evolutionary inculcation towards a sophisticated intelligence, in those animals that fit into environmental niches that reward intelligence & cooperation over brute strength.

Lots of people are quick to dismiss notions of the supernatural because they can't produce it on demand

I dismiss claims to the supernatural as unlikely because never, not once in all recorded human history, has a single supernatural event been verified.

While they claim to be open minded most atheist I've met are anything but, most of them can't offer any suggestions on how you could even begin to scientifically analyze the presence of any sort of a soul, or awareness that most human beings ascribe to having.

There is also a good evolutionary reason why we humans should be credible to claims to the supernatural, incidentally.
Credible tribe members survive more than tribe members who think for themselves and then go out on their own experimenting and get eaten by a lion.
Evolution has actually rewarded those who believe in their mystics without questioning, making their tribes unified in thought and cohesive in action.
Little wonder it's so easy to teach a child to believe in basically any myth you feel like indoctrinating them with, even myths you yourself know to be false.

Just because something can't be proven at the moment due to lacking the proper tools does not mean it's impossible that one day it won't become a proven science.

It's a bit of an double standard to say one can prove/disprove anything when no there's no generally no established research into the subject (at least from a scientific approach).

What evidence do you have to offer that there's anything there to study?

 SilverMK2 wrote:
People who research such things often are frauds. We have a reasonable grasp of a lot of things - enough to at least be able to get an idea of the shape the gaps in our knowledge have. As far as im aware nothing points to there being a "soul shaped" gap. But you certainly cant rule out future discoveries. I would just not holdy breath expecting one of them to be the discovery of the soul.

Actually, there is a big gap in psychology who point toward the existance of a "soul". I remember speaking with an specialist in the area who said me "if the problem was purely chemical, we would solve it 90% of the times, but most of the time, the chemical problem is just the perceivable problem. There is something in the equation we quite dont know alredy".

I tend to disbelief the creator myth, just because nature show us that things starts simple, and became complex with selection.

And yeah, modern science is blind about a lot of things, including a lot of ancient wisdom that we simple ignore in our papers (specially when science developed an "ugly face for it")

For one example i would say this: the soul is for science as the evolution is for religions. Booth are plausible, and have good evidences of existance, but are to stabilished in the heads of "non sayers" as something contrary to their beliefs... (The word "taboo" come to my mind).

 The Dwarf Wolf wrote:
Actually, there is a big gap in psychology who point toward the existance of a "soul". I remember speaking with an specialist in the area who said me "if the problem was purely chemical, we would solve it 90% of the times, but most of the time, the chemical problem is just the perceivable problem. There is something in the equation we quite dont know alredy".

I'm not a psychologist but I am a scientist; there is nothing that I am aware of that points to the existance of an everlasting soul, nor anything beyond an interaction of biology, chemistry and physics that generates "the mind". Given one can significantly alter personality, memory, behaviour, etc, through physical or chemical means, it would seem to suggest that "we" are just expressions of some combination of physical things.

And yeah, modern science is blind about a lot of things, including a lot of ancient wisdom that we simple ignore in our papers...

Such as...?

Just because something can't be proven at the moment due to lacking the proper tools does not mean it's impossible that one day it won't become a proven science.

It's a bit of an double standard to say one can prove/disprove anything when no there's no generally no established research into the subject (at least from a scientific approach).

What evidence do you have to offer that there's anything there to study?

Depression patients (sorry i dont know if you use the same word in english, my translate is approximate), who receive the right chemical treatment, have the right neurchemical balance, but dont get better.

Depression patients who dont receive chemical treatment, but get better only with religious experiences.

Plascebo Effect: we know it works, we dont know how it works (we have a glimpse, though)

My personal views? Pretty much the emperor of man in 'the lightning stone' short story. Pretty much everything he says and do's. Empy for the militant atheist demi-god win.

 The Dwarf Wolf wrote:

Just because something can't be proven at the moment due to lacking the proper tools does not mean it's impossible that one day it won't become a proven science.

It's a bit of an double standard to say one can prove/disprove anything when no there's no generally no established research into the subject (at least from a scientific approach).

I mention that as far as we can see, there is not a soul shaped gap in our understanding. Certainly there are things we cannot explain currently; the point was that given our curent level of knowledge, we cannot forsee the need for anything that looks like a soul.

 The Dwarf Wolf wrote:
Depression patients (sorry i dont know if you use the same word in english, my translate is approximate), who receive the right chemical treatment, have the right neurchemical balance, but dont get better.

Depression patients who dont receive chemical treatment, but get better only with religious experiences.

I can't comment specifically on depression patients, however there are people who are "immune" to certain treatments; some aspect of their biology makes them less able to be affected by certain drugs or procedures. Similar to how some people are allergic to certain drugs.

A large part of treatment can also come down to patient outlook, which leads me on to...

Plascebo Effect: we know it works, we dont know how it works (we have a glimpse, though)

This is quite well understood, although the exact mechanisms are currently undefined. Again, nothing that would indicate that a soul is required.

However, nothing you have so far posted mentions ancient wisdom that we are somehow failing to exploit - though I could post at length on all the ancient wisdom that has been investigated and shown to be a load of rubbish, and a few wisdoms which have been taken on by modern science having been found to work.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 The Dwarf Wolf wrote:
Actually, there is a big gap in psychology who point toward the existance of a "soul". I remember speaking with an specialist in the area who said me "if the problem was purely chemical, we would solve it 90% of the times, but most of the time, the chemical problem is just the perceivable problem. There is something in the equation we quite dont know alredy".

I'm not a psychologist but I am a scientist; there is nothing that I am aware of that points to the existance of an everlasting soul, nor anything beyond an interaction of biology, chemistry and physics that generates "the mind". Given one can significantly alter personality, memory, behaviour, etc, through physical or chemical means, it would seem to suggest that "we" are just expressions of some combination of physical things.

Cool, im not a specialist, indeed im just a student... And i cant explain that.

I agree with you about it, all is physics at the end, but them, how much we really understand about physics? You are aware that your experimentation of reality is limited to your senses? And that physics suggests the universe is a lot bigger than it? (i mean, last time i checked, someone was claiming there is actually 11 dimentions, not only the 4 we can perceive).

What im saying is: womans in the second room are dying more than womans in the first room, and maybe we should wash our hands before dealing with each patient. Please, dont discard the ideia of a "disease vector" just because it sounds "mystical", this may be science we are just blind about...

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 The Dwarf Wolf wrote:
And yeah, modern science is blind about a lot of things, including a lot of ancient wisdom that we simple ignore in our papers...

Such as...?

I dont have gone deep into it, but "dark matter" (or Bob as Neil deGrasse calls it) is an example of those stuff right now. Microbiology was a good example two centuries ago...

I mean, im preparing to be a scientist in about a year (im practically alredy am, but in dont have the document saying it yet), and i try to dont assume anything as truth in this path of life. After all, we only need to disprove ONE theory to destroy Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Math at once...

It makes me really sad
a) that people only ever hear the opinions of the loudest members of any theist or atheist group (crazies always seem to shout the loudest).
b) that people will then base their opinions of entire ethnic or religious groups on the twisted interpretation of one extremist from said group.

I'm just intolerant of intolerance. I guess that just makes me a hypocrite.

 Ojox23 wrote:
I'm just intolerant of intolerance. I guess that just makes me a hypocrite.

Well, you are not alone... :/

Born again bible believing christian. amen

 The Dwarf Wolf wrote:
I agree with you about it, all is physics at the end, but them, how much we really understand about physics? You are aware that your experimentation of reality is limited to your senses? And that physics suggests the universe is a lot bigger than it? (i mean, last time i checked, someone was claiming there is actually 11 dimentions, not only the 4 we can perceive).

We understand a great deal about physics. And certainly there are many theoretical models of the universe which suggest there are dimensions outside of the 4 we experience on a day to day level. I am not an expert on string theory but my understanding is that these extra dimensions are mathematical expressions of different aspects of the universe (for example, a "gravity" dimension); it is a way of relating the effects of small dimensions with those of large dimensions.

What im saying is: womans in the second room are dying more than womans in the first room, and maybe we should wash our hands before dealing with each patient. Please, dont discard the ideia of a "disease vector" just because it sounds "mystical", this may be science we are just blind about...

Scientific method and acceptance of scientific findings has come a long way since then. If a reputable source says we have a soul (for a given definition of "soul" obviously...), and others can duplicate the results I would be happy to open up to the possibility of a soul.

I dont have gone deep into it, but "dark matter" (or Bob as Neil deGrasse calls it) is an example of those stuff right now.

I am not aware of ancient wisdom on dark matter. It would be interesting to see if there were some.

Microbiology was a good example two centuries ago...

"Microbiology" for a long time was considered to be daemons or vapours in the bood and air. When science advanced to the point it could explain what was seen on the macro level, it was quite quickly taken up.

I mean, im preparing to be a scientist in about a year (im practically alredy am, but in dont have the document saying it yet), and i try to dont assume anything as truth in this path of life. After all, we only need to disprove ONE theory to destroy Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Math at once...

There is no one theory that underpins any of the sciences. New theories emerge all the time and existing theories are updated. Physics was not destroyed because general relativity does not work as we get close to the speed of light; we adopted special relativity to take account of this.

I believe I already posted here, but it appeared on the home page so here's my take; I'm something of an Anti-theist Atheist, meaning that I don't think there is a God, but if a God does come down then I would probably denounce said God (for all the good it would do me) I don't mind people believing in Gods and miracles and things like that, as long as it doesn't interfere with the rights of others, I also think religion should be left out of politics, and that the only way to solve differences within the religion should be arguing, not trying to force their beliefs on somebody.

I checked Christian as that was how I was raised and believe that the basic tenats are good ones to live by but Agnostic is probably a more accurate desription of my religious beliefs for the past decade.

 Verstaka wrote:
Agnostic is probably a more accurate desription of my religious beliefs for the past decade.

'Agnostic' cannot describe a position on a belief as the word deals with what we know, not what we believe. There is no middle ground between theism and atheism. If you can't honestly say that you believe in a deity, then guess what? You're an atheist. You haven't passed through a phase of being agnostic.

 Riquende wrote:

 Verstaka wrote:
Agnostic is probably a more accurate desription of my religious beliefs for the past decade.

'Agnostic' cannot describe a position on a belief as the word deals with what we know, not what we believe. There is no middle ground between theism and atheism. If you can't honestly say that you believe in a deity, then guess what? You're an atheist. You haven't passed through a phase of being agnostic.

The position of belief describing the "I'm not sure" portion of the belief spectrum from "nothing will ever change my mind from believing" to "nothing will ever change my minf from not believing" is described as being agnostic.

Belief is not an absolute.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Belief is not an absolute.

Yes it is, you either believe in something or you don't; it's a binary position. You can be 'not sure' about a premise, but that doesn't affect whether or not you believe it.

Here are two opposing sources that both agree with this interpretation:

The arch-rationalist Iron Chariots wikia: http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Atheist_vs._agnostic

And Catholic Answers : http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/is-there-a-difference-between-atheists-and-agnostics

I'm aware that 'agnostic' is commonly used to describe "the "I'm not sure" portion of the belief spectrum" but this is incorrect (there is no spectrum, it's a binary situation), and is almost always being used by the speaker to avoid coming out as an atheist (which has negative connoitations in many cultures, including large parts of the USA).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BigRedStandingBy wrote:
Born again bible believing christian. amen

I find the idea of 'born again' very intriguing. I get that most acceptance of religion can be blamed on childhood & upbringing, after all we're conditioned to believe what our parents (and other adults who have been identified as 'authority figures') tell us. I can't, however, grasp what would cause an adult to embrace religious faith, especially if they have been a rational, skeptical person before.

I guess you can be an atheist for bad reasons though.

 Riquende wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Belief is not an absolute.

Yes it is, you either believe in something or you don't; it's a binary position. You can be 'not sure' about a premise, but that doesn't affect whether or not you believe it.

Here are two opposing sources that both agree with this interpretation:

The arch-rationalist Iron Chariots wikia: http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Atheist_vs._agnostic

And Catholic Answers : http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/is-there-a-difference-between-atheists-and-agnostics

I'm aware that 'agnostic' is commonly used to describe "the "I'm not sure" portion of the belief spectrum" but this is incorrect (there is no spectrum, it's a binary situation), and is almost always being used by the speaker to avoid coming out as an atheist (which has negative connoitations in many cultures, including large parts of the USA).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BigRedStandingBy wrote:
Born again bible believing christian. amen

I find the idea of 'born again' very intriguing. I get that most acceptance of religion can be blamed on childhood & upbringing, after all we're conditioned to believe what our parents (and other adults who have been identified as 'authority figures') tell us. I can't, however, grasp what would cause an adult to embrace religious faith, especially if they have been a rational, skeptical person before.

I guess you can be an atheist for bad reasons though.

no you're wrong.
Atheist is the response to the question of "do you believe in god", which you could say contains an absolute response because that response can only be yes or no. Agnostic is the response to "is there a god", which based on it's dependence on evidence to answer the question, then "I'm not sure" points to Agnostic. They are two completely different questions, one can not believe in a god, thus be atheist, then the default position on the next question can be "i'm not sure", indicating agnostic. You're welcome to pounce up and scream "AHA! HE DOESN'T BELIEVE! THEREFORE ATHEIST!" but, no. Belief is a willingness to assume that an understanding is true despite a lack of sufficient or absolute evidence. In this strict sense, most scientists are "believers" because there is no concrete evidence that chemistry or physics really is the way it is. That still doesn't give you the liberty to turn science into a religion because adherents of scientific principles happen to exhibit belief in their process. Similarly, Atheists can be agnostics, but not all agnostics are atheists.
Additionally, it comes down to understanding the definitions in the question. It's conceivable to believe in the concept of a being greater than oneself, but as to whether that conceived of being is part of a pantheon or the judeochristian/islamic abusive arch-father figure, well, in that context it's entirely possible to be unsure if one believes. The conext and content of the bible point out several things when taken in properly and entirety:
1.) there are sufficient implications in the bible to support that a claim that there is more than one god,
2.) taken from the satanist view of things, we are created in gods image. By definition, we share the powers, strengths, weaknesses and follies of god, making us gods too,
Then there are always competing views of what god is supposed to mean. Is it a definite being or is it a concept of a unified system? Using Dr. de Grasse-Tyson's words: "...If that’s how you want to invoke your evidence for God, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that’s getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on..."
Your argument is predicated on a false dichotomy. It's possible to be a church-going agnostic, just as it's possible to be an agnostic whose fervent religiosity only extends to participating in easter egg hunts.

Have you quoted the right person? You tell me I'm wrong then spend the first and last paragraph agreeing with my position, that belief and knowledge are two different (albeit linked) proposals.

There's a bit of muddy thinking in the middle, though. Your example would seem to indicate someone who definitely does believe in a deity (so no 'unsure' there), but doesn't know which one to believe in (so no 'unsure' there either, they simply don't believe that any of the claims made to them so far are true).

Again, belief is a binary proposition, with a yes/no state. Let me try to break it down.

The opposite of 'belief in a deity' is NOT 'belief that there is no deity'. The opposite of 'belief in a deity' IS 'lack of a belief in a deity'. I want to clarify here that I'm talking about 'a deity' in a way that would indicates responding to a claim about a specific god concept, not necessarily all god concepts at once.

If you can't say that you believe in a position, then, automatically, without needing to find some alternative belief or position first, you have a lack of belief in that position. It doesn't mean that you're stuck between two positions.

Belief is not binary; there are degrees of belief which broadly fall into three categories - a large area of the spectrum is "belief", with an equally large portion of the spectrum on the other side "disbelief". The region in the centre between the two is a region of uncertainty which in terms of belief in god(s) is termed agnosticism.

So too with knowledge, something can be known to be "true" or "false" but there is an entire spectrum of certainty in how true or false that thing is, with a region in the centre where something in unknown, uncertain or unknowable.

Uncertainty is an established concept in both belief and knowledge, with written examples of agnosticism dating back to C5 BCE.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Belief is not binary; there are degrees of belief which broadly fall into three categories - a large area of the spectrum is "belief", with an equally large portion of the spectrum on the other side "disbelief". The region in the centre between the two is a region of uncertainty which in terms of belief in god(s) is termed agnosticism.

That's just completely, utterly wrong. What you getting confused with is how we feel about our beliefs, and how important we hold them. The core belief itself is a binary proposition, you either believe or you don't. If you feel uncertain, that means you don't hold the belief.

I'm not sure how much simpler this can be broken down to be honest; and I'm not altogether interested in a back and forth against someone's opinion when they're not even citing sources. I suggest if you want to take it further you read deeper into it first, starting with the links I posted above, and in the meantime we can get the thread back to what it should be, the education and enlightenment of the religious masses.

That's not how it works. The implication of your claim is that everyone is an atheist, because there is no human being on this earth that believes in every conceivable deity. While you are technically correct, what have you contributed apart from a pointless technical achievement pointing to your a meaningless technical accuracy?

there are options that places the subject between the two sides because the individual has not made a specific decision on one of the questions. You don't get to pick one question and make that the truth. That's rigging the system. The answer you get is analogous to trying to establish a person's gender by asking if they have a penis or a vagina. It should be binary, but you very quickly find in practice it's not the case.

 poda_t wrote:
That's not how it works. The implication of your claim is that everyone is an atheist, because there is no human being on this earth that believes in every conceivable deity.

No, you don't understand my position at all then. I'm talking about reactions to specific claims.

there are options that places the subject between the two sides because the individual has not made a specific decision on one of the questions. You don't get to pick one question and make that the truth.

We're not dealing with truth, we're dealing with belief. And we deal with our beliefs on specific claims one at a time.Like I advised Silver, I think you need to have read up on this if you're really interested, as you're pretty much just bouncing around on this, not really comprehending it.

The answer you get is analogous to trying to establish a person's gender by asking if they have a penis or a vagina. It should be binary, but you very quickly find in practice it's not the case.

Very poor analogy, but maybe I can use to explain a good one.

It's like trying to establish a person's gender by asking 'are they biologically male or not-male?' If they have a penis and no other genitals, we can classify them as male, if not we classify them as not-male.

The binary position of belief/not-belief is analogous to the proposition of male/not-male, we do not construct a binary proposition of male/female, because those are not opposite to each other. Similarly, we don't construct a proposition of 'belief/belief in an alternative', we deal with a specific claim and ask 'belief/not-belief' in that claim.

Is any of this sinking in?

 Riquende wrote:
That's just completely, utterly wrong. What you getting confused with is how we feel about our beliefs, and how important we hold them. The core belief itself is a binary proposition, you either believe or you don't. If you feel uncertain, that means you don't hold the belief.

Uncertainty is not just about how you feel. I am an athiest - I do not believe there is a god. However, I understand that there is a level of uncertainty in the evidence that I base by beliefs upon. While I believe that the evidence is significant in favour of there being no god, I admit that there is the possibility that there could be. This is uncertainty of knowledge leading to uncertainty of belief. How strongly I hold to my beliefs is immaterial to this, although is another aspect to my belief in general.

I'm not sure how much simpler this can be broken down to be honest; and I'm not altogether interested in a back and forth against someone's opinion when they're not even citing sources.

I am unsure what to cite given that you seem to be lacking in basic understanding of well established concepts.

I suggest if you want to take it further you read deeper into it first, starting with the links I posted above

The links you posted above are both heavily religiously biased and do not conform to either general understanding of the terms being discussed, nor scientific understanding of the terms.

and in the meantime we can get the thread back to what it should be, the education and enlightenment of the religious masses.

Unfortunately, this thread is about the discussion of religious viewpoints, not the attempted conversion of people to your point of view.