Why do Atheists think they are smart if they can't conceive of things beyond sciences ability to measure it?

I can certainly conceive of them, I just don't believe they exist.

BTW, it should be "it isn't provable right now, so there's really no reason to believe in it at the moment."

To *ever* explain? I doubt it. To explain *now*? Sure. By the way, you're quite mistaken about some of the things you said. The idea of "11 dimensions" is an hypothesis -- no scientist "acknowledges that these other dimensions exist." That will only occur when and if there's evidence they exist. Finally, darn near anything is "possible." It's "possible" my Uncle Harry created the entire universe 30 minutes ago, and just implanted memories in people and made it look 13 billion years old. That's *possible,* but it's not plausible in any way, and there's no evidence it's correct, so there's no reason to "believe" it. Same with claimed magical gods. And even if people who make up claimed magical gods say they're "beyond this universe," they're all (with the possible exception of a deist god) said to interact with this universe -- and that would leave evidence. There is no such evidence. Finally, agnosticism is not simply a statement that you "don't know." It embodies a *claim* that it's not possible to know if gods exist or not. I find that claim worthless and unsupportable, since we can't predict what we will or won't know in the future, and there's already more than ample evidence to know beyond any reasonable doubt that the majority of human-claimed gods do not, in fact, exist. Most are logically self-contradictory in the first place. Atheism doesn't mean you claim to "know" or "believe" there's no god, it's a lack of belief in other people's claims that there are gods. If you worry about anything that's "possible," then you'll spend all kinds of time chasing after implausible and worthless nonsense. The more rational position is to consider claims worthless until there's evidence to show them correct. That's what I do. Peace.

The question is never, "Can we conceive of it?" The question is whether or not it's real. I can conceive of an afterlife. I can also conceive of leprechauns, phlogiston, and a dog standing on its hindlegs playing with a hula hoop.

The question is: are these things real? How can you tell if they exist? There are really two paths:

1 - Sensory perception. If you see, touch it, hear it, smell it, and so on, and so forth, you can accept that it's real. However, all of our sense organs are physical. We know how they work. If your physical sense organs can detect it, then any other physical object that senses the same stimuli would also detect it. For example, if you see light, a camera should pick it up. If you hear a sound, a microphone recorder should be able to pick it up. And so on, and so forth. In that case, scientific testing should reveal anything that we can detect with sensory perception.

2 - Logical deduction. A valid argument is defined as an argument in which it is impossible for the conclusion to be false while the premises are true. A sound argument is a valid argument with true premises.

We can deduce that some things are true without testing them. For example:

1 - My pet is a cat.

2 - All cats are animals.

3 - Therefore, my pet is an animal.

4 - All animals lack cell walls.

Therefore, my pet lacks cell walls.

Valid and, more importantly, sound. I don't have to study my cat's cells to make sure that her cells don't have cell walls. I know it because I know that no animals have cell walls.

However, when it comes to gods and afterlives, no arguments have ever succeeded. I've been studying philosophy for a decade and spent 8 years specializing in the philosophy of religion, which is the forefront of the arguments. Every single one has been flawed, and it doesn't even take a lot of work to see why.

--------------

If there's no detectable perceptions (which could be measured) and if there's no compelling, logical argument for it, then there's no way to know that the thing exists. If you conceive of it anyway, all you're doing is exercising your imagination. That's a fine pasttime, but don't be surprised if there are people who don't take those particular ideas seriously.

No one said they can't CONCIEVE of your non-existent beings and places.

We just don't think that they are REAL.

I can enjoy Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and reading Harry Potter without making the insane leap of thinking those are all real things and events.

??? No, I don't say "if can't be proven so it must not be true" -- I know of no one who has ever said that.

I don't believe in an impossible being with a set of incoherent and self-contradictory attributes, for which there is NO evidence, exists.

LOL, don't believers realize how ridiculous you all look, being proud of your ignorance and delusion. Spewing the same idiocies, day after day.

All because you can't stand the fact that there are people who don't share your delusions.

I hate when theists try and spin our words and act like there is some sort of logical fallacy in Atheism.

"It can't be proven so it must not be true" -- That's not exactly it. It's more like "There is NO evidence FOR it and WAY too much against it. I don't believe it. Present some evidence and maybe I'll consider it."

Or, "There are hundreds of religions in the world. What makes yours true?"

Things beyond science belong in the science fiction category or mythical category which one of those two does god and heaven and the spirit world belong to ?

If it has absolutely no evidence then how could we possibly know about it in the first place? No, requiring evidence IS smart, I'm afraid. Even though religion tries to teach the opposite.

I can conceive of those things just fine, just don't think those things help me in my day-to-day life so forget them. We can all imagine stuff that isn't actually going to happen (like the Lakers winning tonight), but that doesn't mean we are going to put stock in those things.

However, I'm not really an atheist, I'm a pragmatist...if it ain't helping me today, don't care about it.

but if you are getting your information from a 2000 year old book

theres nothing smart or thoughtful about that

Christians get there information from a book

Atheists get their information from books

its just one group gets their information from a 2000 year old book

you wouldn't visit a hospital that used techniques from 2000 years ago

or attend an engineering school using 2000 year old technology

why is this one 2000 year old book better and more informative than modern books

EDIT

"There is SO MUCH irony in your answers"

Ummm how exactly ?

what do you think irony means

I can conceive of all of those things and more. I just don't see a reason to believe in any of them.