BECAUSE I BELIEVE THE STORIES IN THE BIBLE ARE FICTION RATHER THEN FACTS MAKE ME A ATHEISTS ? I DON'T LIKE LABELS BUT COMMON SENSE TELLS ME A KID BORN IN THE WILDERNESS TO AN ALLEGE MARRIED VIRGIN IS RATHER FAR FETCHED. ALSO WHO DECLARED HIM THE SON OF GOD ? REMEMBER THERE WERE NO CELL PHONES OR ANY OTHER MODES OF COMMUNICATION OTHER THAN WORD OF MOUTH AND EVERYONE  KNOWS  THAT CAN BE DISTORTED AFTER THE THIRD OR FOURTH REPEATING.

All well and good and your opinion is noted.  Now: please ask someone to point out the Caps Lock key.

Caps off, eyeglasses on.

Not believing in the literal truth of the bible doesn't make you an atheist, just a rational non-xtian.  Atheists don't believe in gods specifically (of any religion), and most atheists also do not believe in anything of a supernatural nature including souls, miracles, afterlifes, ghosts, karma, astrology, etc.  Gods of course are also considered supernatural.

There are two general types of atheists.  "Weak atheists" simply lack belief in a god, while "strong atheists" make a positive assertion that there are no gods.  (We all start out as weak atheists when we're born.)  In looking at the possible existence of a god or gods, a weak atheist would require strong, testable, explainable, and repeatable evidence before conceding a possibility, and assumes that in light of the current evidence (or lack thereof), there are no gods.  A strong atheist holds that in all likelihood, no such evidence can or ever will be produced.

Richard Dawkins is a strong atheist and in his excellent book "The God Delusion," he makes the case that gods are not only improbable but impossible.  I highly recommend this book for theists and atheists alike.  (Disclaimer:  I have no financial interests involved here, I'm just a fan of the book.)

There is an educational foundation that has a standing offer to anyone able to prove the existance of the supernatural, preternatural,occult, and the Earth-centric solar system. The offer is $1 million with an agreed-upon testing process, unique to each circumstance, undertaken by professionals with no connection to the Foundation.

  See www.randi.org for details...

You posted:  "most atheists also do not believe in anything of a supernatural nature    "

 

The phenomena that theists refer to "supernatural", are merely things that science has yet to understand and move from the realm of the supernatural to the natural.

 

These things will be understood, it is just a matter of time and effort and the lack of another Dark Ages.

Perfect example of naturalistic presupposition and nature-of-the-gaps theory.

Nature of the gaps?  Nice word play.  The only problem is when we don't know the answer to what was the universe like 15 billion years ago we say we don't know. When xians/muslims say god did it they are claiming there is an answer without evidence. 

The only problem is when we don't know the answer to what was the universe like 15 billion years ago we say we don't know.

 

With regards to what plainjane had said, she said that we do not have explanations for everything (as you said, "we don't know"), but she went on to say that it all could be explained through natural causes (in other words, that much she does know).  I'd like to know how she knows that.  Where's the evidence for that?  It is her, and I would suppose your's too, presupposition.  I understand methodological naturalism in science but philosophical naturalism is what goes unchecked and is wrongly considered synonymous with science to many.

Distinction noted :)

I understand methodological naturalism in science but philosophical naturalism is what goes unchecked and is wrongly considered synonymous with science to many.
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You made a correct distinction between science and empericism, Packfan.  However, you used some very loaded and incorrect terms.
 
"Philosophical naturalism"?   I really don't know what that is.  Empericism, now that is what I think you meant to say.  Empericism is a philosophy with a long, and very rich history.
 
Aristotle and therefore the great Aristotle thief, St. Thomas Aquinas can be both considered empericists.
 
Roger Bacon (born around 1214)
Sir Francis Bacon, b. 1561
Thomas Hobbes, b. 1588
John Locke, b. 1632                            This is, of course, a very incomplete list.  Leaving off
Sir Isaac Newton, 1643                      some very  notable empericists.
George Berkeley, b. 1685
Francis Hutcheson, b. 1694
David Hume, b. 1711
  
Wow.  A philosophical tradition of success for empericism going back to 384 B.C.E.!  Aristotle's empericism was so successful that it was morphed into Scholasticism and became the public philosophy of ALL churches until the 1700's when a new flavor of empericism took over, now called Empericism.
 
This was left pretty much untouched until the 1910's to 1920's when empericism was modified by the Vienna Circle and called Logical Positivism.  This lasted until the 1940's (it was dead by the middle of the 1940's) to be replaced by a new version of empericism constructed by Karl Popper (which is what the current 21'st century empericism is based on.)
 
Later, in the 1960's, with Philosophers of Science such as Lawerence Bonjour and Thomas Kuhn, an anti-realist version of empericism was born, substituting different Theories of Truth  for the Correspondence Theory of Truth.
 
Other notable modern empericists are W.V.O. Quine, Ernst Mach, Richard Feynman, and Albert Einstein.
 
Golly, with a record of success going back to 300 B.C.E. it is no wonder why people have Empericism and Science conflated to the same thing.  There hasn't been ANY success in ANY science without empericism!

I'll bet relious people were saying that about people who started to suspect that demon possession and other backwards beliefs of the religous had a natural explaination.  It is also why Gallileo was imprisoned for the blasphemy of saying that the earth was not the center of the universe. Face it, religous people have been using the "god of the gaps" for eons. They have been proven wrong everytime. It is laziness at it's worst.

I'll bet relious people were saying that about people who started to suspect that demon possession and other backwards beliefs of the religous had a natural explaination.  It is also why Gallileo was imprisoned for the blasphemy of saying that the earth was not the center of the universe. Face it, religous people have been using the "god of the gaps" for eons. They have been proven wrong everytime. It is laziness at it's worst.

 

I don't think that everything unexplained by natural causes can only be explained by supernatural causes.  I just don't rule out supernatural causes b/c it doesn't fit into the way I'd like for the world to be.

" I just don't rule out supernatural causes b/c it doesn't fit into the way I'd like for the world to be."

 

Neither do I. It is just that phenomenon have never been attributed to supernatural causes, ever.  There  is always a rational and physical explaination.  It started with Galileo and has continued until today.  That is the reason religion requires "faith" to this very day.  There is no evidence for that "faith", that is why it is called faith and not the assurance one gets from facts and evidence.  You try and paint me as a person who sees what they want to see.  I am a person who sees what is and does not want to see a supernatural reason.  There is no evidence for the supernatural and never has been.  I think is a safe assumption that it does not exist, save in the minds of people who believe it does. Nothing wrong with that, but lets face facts.

The christian religion will soon go to the realms of the religions of Zeus, Thor, Odin, Kali.....Why don't you believe in any of those gods pack?  When you tell me the reason,  it will be your understanding of why I don't believe in the christian, jewish or muslim god.  You see the old adage of me just disbelieving one more god than you do is true and verifiable.  You are an athiest just like me.  You are an athiest to people who believe other myths of man.  Understand that and you will understand my rationality as to the subject of the supernatural.

I just don't rule out supernatural causes b/c it doesn't fit into the way I'd like for the world to be.

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Which means you have no evidence or no reason other than your own personal opinion.
 
That is fine, but don't try to constrain science by your own personal opinion, then.

Living here in the southern US, I sometimes dispair that we are sinking into another dark age, with the forces here trying distort good science to conform to their ancient religious texts.  But then again, I wonder if  instead (in the bigger picture) the increased religious frenzy in the desert religions (particularly Islam and Christianity)  is really the death gasps of the superstitions and the stranglehold they've had on world progress and rational thinking. 

 How many more generations will accept without question, people turning to pillars or salt, living 900+ years, or  a worldwide flood that is virtually impossible and completely unsubstantiated in our geology and biology?  How many more generations will accept God coming to earth as his son to serve as a blood sacrifice for himself so that he can forgive us for being exactly like he made us to start with?   How many hundreds of predictions of his return will it take before people give it up?   Will future generations continue to accept walking on water, burning bushes and virgin births, all with no proof, just a highly edited bunch of ancient writings (written by people we know nothing about except that they were hopelessly ignorant and barbaric by today's standards)?   Maybe that kind of unquestioning belief is actually declining, and that's causing the fervor in the institutions themselves.

Maybe what seems to be a resurgence of religious dogma and superstition is really just the convulsions before we accept that these religions are no more or less superstition than any of the others throughout history. I probably won't see it, it would take generations - the grasp of religion is so powerful.  But maybe? 

I  happen to think we would be better off.