1. I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist

Comment #82927 by Learning on October 28, 2007 at 9:30 am

Dr. Dawkins, My best contribution here is as follows:

Rather than accept the question as asked, I would put the burden on the person asking the question to define what THEY mean by "faith" (they will probably have a hard time answering the question). Then, I would state that, to me, "faith" means COMPLETE, or NEAR-complete confidence in an idea or concept. From there, take the argument that, as a child, one might be taught to have faith (complete confidence) in Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny... but as time passes, a child begins to seek actual evidence of these things, and it eventually does not stand the test of their scrutiny -- so the faith (or total confidence) becomes unwarranted, and the child therefore decides to discard the belief, and stop acting upon the belief as if it were true. Likewise, but in a more sophisticated way regarding more serious matters, rather that just accepting religious dogma at face value, some people over the ages have decided to use their reason to critically examine the so-called holy books, and also seek outside evidence that is independent about the world through science. This examination has shown the so-called holy books, which were initially targeted toward illiterate people of past eras, to be internally inconsistent. Also, over time reasonable people (initially, at extreme risk to their personal welfare) have successfully used the scientific method which provides us with superior, provable/near-provable alternative ways to understand the world we live in. In some ways it DOES take a lot more effort to NOT believe in a god, if one takes the matter seriously, because in order to gain near/complete confidence one has to learn about the science and other alternative ways of explaining things. I would say the time and effort is a life-long pursuit of truth that changes along with the evidence, but the journey should be embraced, as it is rewarding, and well worth the effort.