Originally Posted by Zulthus
That's the thing though. You can't possibly know for sure. That's why it's faith. You can believe there isn't a god, but you have no way to prove it. Unless, of course, you've come up with a way to do that, tell us how you figured it out so we can end all of this religious nonsense once and for all.
I respect everyone's belief, although I'm not religious myself, as I feel it's a waste of time.  |
There is a difference between not believing in something and having absolutely no reason or evidence to believe in something. Just because its possible doesn't mean its true, or even likely.
While it is entirely possible there was a secret nasa mission to deposit a teapot in orbit around the sun between earth and mars, there is zero reason to believe they did this, and zero evidence for it. It is not a 'belief' to state there is no teapot.
Do I really have to say I don't believe in Santa Claus? No. There is no Santa Claus. There was probably a Saint Nicholas, but we only know of him because Coca Cola had a marketing campaign.
There are no elves. No ents. No dwarves(at least not a race of them in the tolkien sense). No orcs. No fire breathing dragons. No vampires. No smurfs. No honest politicians. No flying reindeer, or elephants, or horses. No unicorns. No gryphons. Nobody is dragging the sun across the sky in a magical chariot.
Is it possible that somewhere in the universe some close approximation of some of these exist? Sure. Why not? But if they've existed on earth at any point, there is zero evidence of it. Until there is evidence to the contrary, its not a belief to say these things do not exist. Its a statement of fact.