All very true, but I think that is different from the meaning of "belief" that would probably be intended in a thread about world views. A "belief" in the (non-)existence of God would normally refer to a consciously considered viewpoint.

^ Yes, this.

Hi there, I'm here to clear up some definition confusion.

First off, belief vs knowledge: Belief and knowledge lay on a continuum, with belief being on the less certain end of the spectrum and knowledge being on the more certain end of the spectrum. Belief and knowledge have nothing to do with what is true, because even knowledge may be mistaken.

Because they lay on a continuum, they can mean different things to different people. Remember this, because this becomes important later.

When someone says that they believe there is no god, they are asserting that they simply do not find the arguments for the god concept to be particularly convincing. When someone says that they have knowledge that there is no god, they are asserting that they have reason to believe that the given argument for the god concept to be flawed in someway, either with respect to logic or faulty assumptions or something else.

Depending on the god, it's possible to be more certain or less certain about belief. For instance, with respect to the Christian God as literally described by the Bible, I have knowledge that such a story does not square with reality, so I can say that I have knowledge that such a God (as describe literally by the Bible) does not exist. On the other hand, with respect to a more liberal interpretation of the Bible, as most moderate Christians have, it's much more difficult to be certain about the concept, in part because not all Christains believe various parts of the Bible are literal or allegorical, and which parts depend on the person.

If you're attempting to be pedantic, please stop. These questions are hard and complicated, and pulling out the dictionary and saying "see! it says belief right there!" is not helpful. The nature of language is complex and not everything means exactly the same thing to everyone else. That's why legalese is pretty much its own language. It's an attempt to shoehorn a very inexact and fuzzy system (standard English) into a very strict and regimented domain.

The purpose of dictionaries is an anchor affect, to prevent meanings from drifting too much, so everyone knows what everyone else is saying. However, they are not authoritative, and should not be taken as such. OED or MW do not have monopolies on the English language. If you're uncertain about a definition, then what you should be attempting to do is reconcile your definitions with the other party, and find a definition that you can both agree on. Reconcile the minutae that the dictionary writers never intended. Invent words if you must. English is a tool to be brought to bear on a discussion and elucidate your meaning, not a prison in which to confine your (or more dishonestly, your opponent's) thoughts and intentions.

No. I was being serious. I have not seen, apart from here, the term "Atheism" used without specifically referring to the belief in no god. But yes, you are right about the belief and knowledge lying in the same continuum, which I did seem to overlook. Again, I was not trying to be pedantic.

If anything, I would suggest that this further asserts that the igtheist stance is the neutral stance on the matter, as it addresses this very issue of the necessity of defining what "belief" and "god" are before one can even get to the point of discussing religion with any sort of meaning.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that you haven't really hung out in places where atheism is discussed or debated much, or anything of that nature, correct? All of the places where I hang out or sources that I watch that have atheist slants use these definitions. (for instance /r/atheism, The Atheist Experience, The Friendly Atheist, etc.)

People do define god, a god is a conscious, supernatural being. There is a secular explanation for the existence of the universe, there could be gods, but since we cannot perceive them, it's irrelevant to argue for their existence, we can't come to that conclusion through evidence given. It would be an unnecessary and irrational assumption to make, Igtheism seems pointless for me, "we have no real definition of x, so we can't argue for or against it." We can come to the conclusion the universe can form without the assertion there is a higher, supernatural power, and until evidence for a god comes to light, there is no need to believe in one, that's an atheist's position.

Correxion, that was most famous atheists' positions, from Galileo to Hume to Dawkins and Hitchens.

it is both

It's not logical that the universe can form in and of itself, but rather that the universe has always existed with or without a creator. No one needs to set the universe in motion to change it's form, rather the universe is always in motion and never stopped and never will stop. So, I mostly agree, you make a good point, but it is irrelevant to a "god's" manner of existence. Assuming religious sacred writings are false, makes perfect sense with this, and also favors the evidence. However, there are religious philosophies that are not in contradiction with the evidence, which makes it possible to safely assume there is a God. It is simply a matter of whether you believe in a god(s) reality until proven differently, or whether you believe in a god(s) absence until proven differently.

The only requirements for the big bang theory we must make allowances for are that of a finite, yet large supply of energy and the existence of a singularity. Between these two facts it follows that after a near infinite amount of time (given that the high gravity would dilate time and energy absorption) the energy would no longer be enough to sustain the singularity (principles of general relativity mean that unless the energy supply is infinite, no large gravity well can be infinite in itself and would eventually destabilise, and thus the universe was born. Infinity as we know it can only be realistically achieved by having an infinite supply of energy with which to sustain speed of light travel or a massive singularity. Neither of which are plausible. Through this explanation, we can conclude the only "god" we need would be a finite supply of energy, but we have a word for that. A finite supply of energy.

That's not really true. There are a lot of ways we could "conceive" the Universe to have created itself, or have been created out of something else without a God or Godhead (but this means the same could be said of God Itself).

We only say it's illogical that there could be something instead of nothing because we perceive nothing as the baseline of existence based on our perceptions and culturally determined "common sense." But we can't see atoms, elementary particles, most of the EM spectrum, superstrings, or energy, so we can't necessarily assume that our "baseline" assumptions of "nothing without something" make sense.

We see spontaneous pair production and some other forms of matter "appearing" or "disappearing" in nature. The only requirement is that there is enough energy to make the mass, according to E=MC². As an example, we could theorize that a singularity spontaneously produced itself out of energy.

Now you could argue that energy has to come from somewhere, but I could just as easily argue that it doesn't have to come from somewhere; our day-to-day observations don't necessarily apply to energy. In fact, everything we know about energy implies that it cannot be created or destroyed, which means that it is more logical for us to assume that the Universe's permanent baseline of energy is greater than zero, not zero.

Even more interestingly, if we find that this Universe is the breaking point from a different Universe with different physical laws, as many theorists believe to be possible, we couldn't predict what the baseline for existence is with those physical laws.

TL;DR: Assuming that nonexistence is more natural than existence is not necessarily based in "logic," it's more like "common sense." Common sense gets in the way of understanding very frequently.

^ Add this to my point. The only requirement for our universe's existence is a finite supply of energy.

Philosophically, that is an unusual usage of those terms. If we're having a formal debate, I think we should try to use the language that has been most frequently adopted for that debate. Namely, I think we should consider knowledge to be justified, true belief. In that case, knowledge and belief are not regions of a spectrum. Rather, belief is a prerequisite for knowledge. One needs to believe something in order to have knowledge of it. But one also needs to be justified in that belief, and the belief needs to be true. (And interestingly, since truth is not confirmable with 100% certainty, we can never actually know that we have knowledge of anything, even if we do in fact have knowledge.)
Actually Galileo was a devout Catholic.

What interests me are the matter theories of the universe. If the universe does have enough matter to counter the pull of gravity that its center provides, keeping us all in orbit, then the universe will collapse upon itself to a single point. Of course, all that matter colliding will cause an explosion: a big bang. Therefore, the universe could be cyclic.

This gets really weird, because if the universe is cyclic, we've done this millions of times before. What we think is original has already been done. And it will be done again. Yeah.

We could be the first cycle though. :P

Unless time collapses at the same time. Then we are in both the first and last cycle.

*head explodes*

Huh, that's an interesting point. If time and space are inextricable (and I believe they are), then there would be no real first, second, third, ... cycle.

*head also explodes*

Nice to know I'm in good company.

But still one could argue who set the cycle in motion to begin with. I suppose there's always a point to argue.

I was under the impression that there was no actual 'big bang', but that the universe is continuously expanding for near infinite measures.

But if someone has a source that could explain how it was actually an explosion caused by gravity pull, I would much appreciate it.

Edit: I understand that it began with high density and temperature, therefore high levels of gravity was involved, but no initial big bang.

The big bang was not caused by gravity, but you're right that "big bang" is itself a misnomer. A more accurate descriptor would be "cosmic expansion". The universe began as a singularity, then underwent rapid inflation, and that inflation continues to this day.

But wasn't the high levels of density which caused the expansion in the first place as a result from gravity pull?

No, how could gravity ever cause an expansion? Gravity pulls in. Unless you're talking about some kind of rebound after a universal collapse...

"According to the standard theory, our universe sprang into existence as "singularity" around 13.7 billion years ago. What is a "singularity" and where does it come from? Well, to be honest, we don't know for sure. Singularities are zones which defy our current understanding of physics. They are thought to exist at the core of "black holes." Black holes are areas of intense gravitational pressure. The pressure is thought to be so intense that finite matter is actually squished into infinite density (a mathematical concept which truly boggles the mind). These zones of infinite density are called "singularities." Our universe is thought to have begun as an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense, something - a singularity."

Extract from this website. I assumed that there was a moment of immense amount of compression of mass, then followed with something that we are not certain of, (Such as a massive explosion). But what caused this in the first place seemed to be black holes which involve gravity.

I'm definitely not that knowledgeable, so I'm just trying to understand, not prove. :)

Black holes and the initial state of the universe both concern singularities; that's true. But the singularity of the big bang wasn't (or at least isn't known to have been) caused by a gravitational collapse.

Oh right, thank you.

So it hasn't actually been proven what was in the first stage.

Anything "before" the big bang is just theoretical speculation at this point.