Also, ask yourself this: when you couple survival instinct with linguistic intelligence and awareness of one's own impending death, what is one outcome you're likely to see in a large portion of the population?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4224241&forum_id=2#37955070)

Also, many scientists identify as agnostic as opposed to atheist. Atheism is the total denial of the existence of god or anything like it which most scientists agree there is no direct evidence for the non-existence of such a thing so default to an agnostic position.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4224241&forum_id=2#37955083)

some people need that i guess, and i sort of understand it since i felt the same way as a child. but you're not going to convince those of us who have studied this that there's any merit to it, nor do i get why you feel compelled to to do.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4224241&forum_id=2#37955113)

Additionally, there are many questions that science is unable to answer, among them Why are we here? Or, what is the meaning of life? Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project, puts it this way:

"ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views.

As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan.

I did not always embrace these perspectives. As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked "What do you believe, doctor?", I began searching for answers.

I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as "What is the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?" "Why does mathematics work, anyway?" "If the universe had a beginning, who created it?" "Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?" "Why do humans have a moral sense?" "What happens after we die?" (Watch Francis Collins discuss how he came to believe in God Video)

I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds. My earlier atheist's assertion that "I know there is no God" emerged as the least defensible. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, "Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4224241&forum_id=2#37955207)

John Collins is one example (of many), but the statement above isn't an appeal to authority.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4224241&forum_id=2#37955493)

That's a silly thing to say.

1. It falsely assumes that some sort of perfect factual knowledge is necessary. But many conceptions of gods entail contradiction. There's no need to search under every rock in the universe to realize A and not-A are incompatible.

2. Not all atheism is positive atheism. Negative atheism exists and isn't subject to that objection.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4224241&forum_id=2#37955603)

on one hand, questions like "why is there something rather than nothing" are unwarranted generalizations of hunter-gatherer survival essentials like "why will i bleed to death if i'm mauled by a bear". there's no answer because the question itself makes no sense

on the other hand, questions like "what happened at the beginning of time" absolutely ARE being chipped away at by science. we're closer to understanding that shit than 10 years ago, 100 years ago and 10,000 years ago

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4224241&forum_id=2#37955857)

The question "Why is there something rather than nothing" is not a "generalization", it's just a question that no one has been able to answer.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4224241&forum_id=2#37956053)

But the human mind's capacity for abstraction sometimes leads to absurdities. You can put a "why" in front of a statement and make it grammatical but it makes no sense. What kind of answer do you envision to the 2nd question?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4224241&forum_id=2#37956099)

"Why is there something rather than nothing" is a pretty straightforward question.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4224241&forum_id=2#37956186)

you might say the reincarnation has no idea of the previous life. but that would mean the liver of the first life, once dead, is eternally dead.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4224241&forum_id=2#37956469)

https://www.nature.com/articles/28478

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4224241&forum_id=2#37957788)