<<How is it that you can have disbelief as your default position with regards to every other claim, and yet when it comes to potentially the most import claim, you start with the assumption that a god exists?>>

you need to elaborate.

AJ: <By the way, you were an atheist as a baby. This fact alone discredits your claim that anything but disbelief could be a default position.>>

Islam teaches that we are all born with fitra defined as "good human nature, the simple and healthy moral responses of someone who is natural; the soul's capacity to know Allah." (Ha Min Keller "Sea without Shore")

The Qur'an states:

"So set thy face to the service of religion as one devoted to God. And follow the nature made by Allah (fitratall&#257;hi)– the nature in which He has fashioned all mankind (fitratall&#257;hi). There is no altering the creation of Allah. That is the right religion but most men know not." (Qur'an 30:30)

The Prophet stated:
"No child is born except on the fitra and then his parents make him Jewish, Christian or Magian (Zoroastrian), as an animal produces a perfect young animal: do you see any part of its body amputated?"

We are born without sin and as pure believers. No child before "coming of age" or adolescence dies except as a believer. Their is no original and inherited sin in Islam.

cont...

cont...

For those seeking Allah:

"How should a heart be illumined whose mirror but reflects created things? Or how should it travel to Allah when manacled by its desires? Or how should it hope to enter the presence of Allah when unpurified from the strain of its forgetfulness? Or how should it hope to understand subtle secrets when it has not even repented of its wrongs (Ibn Ata'illah (1259-1310), Al-Hikam or Book of Aphorisms, quoted in Sea Without Shore)

The author of Sea Without Shore goes on to say: "In our times if the fitra or primal human nature is further to reach and take back than before, it is because our nature has become sullied by man's own hand. The ruh has been supersaturated not only with haram and offensive, but with the sensory, amplified by endless repetition through digital technology. the goal is the highest that can be imagined. It is real, and it is realisable. But only those who disentangle themselves from the web can reach it" (Huh Ha Min Keller, 2011, "Sea Without Shore", p169)

note:
ruh means "spirit ; the soul, the subtle reality within every human being tha was created to know, love and return to Allah"

That said, your idea makes no sense in the context of being a materialists. I think what you mean is that a baby has not heard of God. But then a baby, for a materialists, cannot not have any notion of belief or disbelief if they have no notion of god.

In reply to <<So how does Stenger arrive at the default position of “God does not exist”?>>

AJ says: <<We arrive at conclusions, not default positions. The default position is a starting point, not a conclusion.>>

Errr..? Victor Stenger chose to justify his position by arguing that "God exists" is a pure existential statement and so can not be falsified. But this is based on Popper definition which presumes something supposed to exist in space and time (like fairies).

In the case of God we are discussing the existence of the creator of space and time who it eternal.

Victor Stenger was, he died recently, a materialist and atheists whose works have been cited by Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, among other prominent atheists.

AJ says: <<It doesn’t matter what kind of a god it is that you’re referring to. You could worship a rock in your backyard for all I care, the principles remain the same regardless.>>

..and thereby misses the point. We are not talking about something that exists in space and time, like your rock. See the preceding point.

In response to <<The basis of an explanation of the universe that is rational but not based on science, is that god created the universe for a purpose…>>

AJ asks: <<How is that rational?>>

Would you accept testimony of modern scientists?

<<Again, the principles remain the same. If you’ve pushed your god into obscurity so that science cannot investigate it, then it just makes an, ‘is no evidence’, into a, ‘cannot be any evidence’. Either way, the end result is still ‘no evidence’ and disbelief is therefore justified.>>

But what if modern scientists were to say that although we cannot investigate God because science is limited to describing what is in space and time, yet nevertheless there are explanations which are rational?

cont...

Prediction: AJ will not take a position, just like he will not be willing to state the conditions under which he would be prepared to discard his hypothesis that god does not exist. Instead he will resort to personal insult, as exemplified by the following:

"Just what field exactly is it that you're in? Because it's starting to sound less and less like a legitimate field in anything. I certainty wouldn't want to trust any of the conclusions that those working in your field arrive at."

AJ,
I'm glad you're enjoying the thread.

I don't connect well with nearly anything Yusutsu says, but this last comment of hers (his?) I especially didn't agree with.
"...by discussing this with atheists you are playing with fire."

On the contrary, I'm happy to chat with anyone about anything, anytime, so long as they know how to be civil. I enjoy contrasting opinions. Why else would I come here?

Some of your last comments about theology I can well relate to, but I think you still haven't quite got the idea of God as Judge. You've said that God judges people for not believing in him. But I can't see that in my understanding of the Scripture. He stands to judge all people for their wrong doing, whether they claim to believe in him or not. He is the ultimate judge. I showed you the verse from the book of James, which says that the demons believe in God, and shudder. They know that they still stand under the judgement of God.

You may claim that openly believing or declaring that God exists is a step towards a true saving faith, or a right standing with God. Maybe or maybe not. It didn't help the demons, as I pointed out above. A true saving faith and simply believing in God are independent and may not necessarily relate at all. One may not lead the other. To claim one necessarily relates to the other is perhaps like claiming that growing hair on your chin is a step towards growing hair on you head. Now, in fact, I'm quite capable of growing hair on my chin but have great difficulty growing hair on my head. My wife, fortunately, has it the other around. She is very capable of growing hair on her head, but doesn't have much success with growing hair on her chin.

Rhian,
I'm glad you've brought up the issue of people's possible ulterior motivations for believing whatever they believe. It's true that Tas Walker is a geologist who makes a (meager) living by speaking and writing about evidence for creation. He would be well capable of making a lot more money by going back to his old job working for mining companies. But everyone has their cross to bear.

But you've asked for something rather odd. You ask for me to point to an atheist who believes in a global flood. Of course atheists don't believe in Noah's flood. If they did, they would no longer be atheists. If an atheist was convinced by the biological evidence to believe in God (as in the case of the former English Atheist philosopher, Antony Flew, mentioned here in Don Batten's article) then he would no longer be classed in the category of atheists. It's like you're asking me to point to a Liberal supporter who plans to vote Labor this election, something rather self-contradictory.

But if we're going to talk about motivations, it quickly becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that people will naturally want to follow the majority view. That's where the money is, as much as water flows into the seas. You could take the example of Big Bang cosmology, which is the popular cosmological theory of recent times. Because it's popular, that's where the funding grants are. If you want to work in astronomy, you better follow that line if you want a funding grant. Now, Big Bang cosmology is hardly a proven idea, but it's hard to buck the system.

But good research is capable of throwing up counter examples. I know you have a natural bias against creationist astronomers, so naming but one well known astronomer who comes to mind, having no connection with creationist circles, who is senior enough to shrug off the compulsion to fall into line with the consensus, but who also gave serious challenges to the ideas of the Big Bang, was Halton Arp (1927-2013.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halton_Arp