Because atheists have logical mind.
It is not logical, however, to not believe in something because of a lack of physical evidence, and that seems to be the primary reason that most atheists are atheists.
Don't you realise how ridiculous you sound whenever you say something like that? The fact is religious people will happily believe in god ( because they've usually had it literally beaten into them at an early age ) yet somehow all the other stuff like unicorns and santa claus don't exist. You create your own rulesets for scientific evidence and change the definition of words to suit what you say and try to force somebody who tries to debate you into those rules, that's why these kinds of threads go onto hundreds of pages rather than just be 1 page.
It isn't clever, it just makes you either incredibly petty, or somebody who resorts to circular logic because you've had whatever you believe programmed into you at an early age, I wouldn't have so much of a problem with major religions in particular if it weren't for the fact that you're blatantly trying to infiltrate governments and school systems, that's putting it very politely as well.
If people wanted to worship satan or the flying spaghetti monster, I couldn't give a fuck, just don't expect me to go along with your bullshit because that I find is the most insulting thing of all, that you expect me to go along with what you believe or else.
Responding according to paragraph:
1) How many dozens of academic sources about the limits of Empiricism would you like me to cite for you? A dozen? Ten dozen? This is common academic knowledge. Do you realize how ridiculous you sound when you can find the implications of what I'm saying, either directly or indirectly, in literally thousands of works, grade school, high school, and collegiate text books, etc.?
Claim: It is silly to believe in something without evidence.
Counterclaim: It is silly to believe in something without good reason.
Intelligent Design (assumption of religion) --> No evidence
Positivistic Universe (assumption of Empiricism and Science) --> No evidence
Scientists maintain the assumption of a Positivistic Universe without evidence. The assumption is empirically unfalsifiable (to scientifically falsify this assumption would require the observational collection of data in a Universe totally absent of any observers).
So, why do scientists maintain this assumption without evidence? Simple -- they have a good reason to maintain the assumption. Specifically, the reason is that it is sound to control for the effects of observer participation so long as we recognize and obey the rules of logical inference and inductive reasoning.
The face value of the assumptions of Intelligent Design and a Postivistic Universe are the same. In the same way that scientists defer to reason to justify certain assumptions, you must also defer to reason to justify your assumption.
Evidence is irrelevant in this case. Sorry, you're wrong, and you will forever be wrong if you maintain this position. It's not even any less unsound than anything BADecker has been saying. There is nothing to debate, here.
2) I'm not even religious. I hate dogma, and I defer to no holy book or authority. I've submitted research proposals to the APA board and have carried out experimental studies. I've taught research and experiment design in college classrooms. You really had better check yourself if you are intellectually honest and care about the topic you're engaging in discussion. Again, none of this is uncommon knowledge. I can provide dozens of references for you. No matter how you spin it, Intelligent Design falls outside the scope of Empiricism in the exact same way that Science's own assumptions fall outside the scope of Empiricism. Evidence is an irrelevant consideration. Sorry, you need to do better. I don't know how else to tell you except you're wrong.
Simple deductive argument:
Premise 1 Empiricism cannot comment and explore upon that which is not bound by physical constraints (axiom; self-description).
Premise 2: An omnipotent Intelligent Designer is not bound by physical constraints (axiom; self-description)
Therefore: Empiricism cannot comment and explore upon an omnipotent Intelligent Designer.
TKO. I'll give you the rest of your natural life to refute that.
3) Flying Spaghetti Monster is an invalid analogy to an omnipotent Intelligent Designer. An omnipotent Intelligent Designer is defined in terms of a lack of constraint while the FSM is defined in terms of constraint. Phrased another way, a lack of constraint is the distinguishing characteristic -- the *only* one -- which differentiates between it and any constrained forms it could take, such as an FSM. Accordingly, there theoretically would be a way to empirically prove or falsify an FSM but not an omnipotent Intelligent Designer.
