Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.***[W:1682]****

[Mach]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

Google brings up essentially the same definition. I think you're just putting too much emphasis on the cannot know piece of it.

That's where the error is, of course I am pointing it out!

Yeah, see this is what is absurd. Obviously it's knowable. Maybe not right now, but you cannot predict the knowledge you might have in the future.

I don't think you understand the agnostic position based on that response.
You claim it's obviously it's knowable, but maybe not right now? Be logical. Either you can know, or NOT know. Which is it? If you can't be precise, you will need to do a little digging and figure out why that is.

Look at the agnostic position, and use it on itself. Or your position, and use it on itself. You should see the contradiction, I cannot do more than show you.
Mr Wonka claims that he knows with certainty now, that it's *possible* to have information in the future that makes god known to us (in the scientific/real sense).

Mr Wonka claims the he knows with certainty now, [the future].

That should be obvious to you as a mistake. It is no different than the vanilla agnostic contradiction:
An agnostic claims to KNOW, that the nature of god is "unknowable". (not, tomorrow, yesterday, doesn't change anything logically).
Claiming to know, the unknowable, is clearly a cluster ****.

No, they are not. The only difference between my definition and your definition is that mine adds the word "yet" to it. But the yet is so obvious it's implied. Only a complete moron would claim to know that they couldn't possible learn anything new about the subject.

That wasn't the difference at all, and it changes nothing.
The existence of god is unknowable
the existence of god is unknowable right now
the existence of god is unknowable now yet may be knowable in the future

Are all illogical statements. Yet changes nothing.

 

[Cephus]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

So then you are willing to take some things on blind faith and other you are not?

No, I take nothing on blind faith.

 

[Daisy]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

No, I take nothing on blind faith.

Not true...every time you get on the highway you take it on blind faith that everyone else will stay in their lane and not hit you...most things you do in everyday life are done on blind faith...

 

[Cephus]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

Not true...every time you get on the highway you take it on blind faith that everyone else will stay in their lane and not hit you...most things you do in everyday life are done on blind faith...

Nope, no faith involved. In fact, I don't trust that anyone else knows how to drive, that's why I am always ready to move out of the way to avoid idiots. It's called defensive driving.

 

[William Rea]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

Not true...every time you get on the highway you take it on blind faith that everyone else will stay in their lane and not hit you...most things you do in everyday life are done on blind faith...

No. That is not blind faith. There is evidence. Wrong again.

 

[Daisy]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

Nope, no faith involved. In fact, I don't trust that anyone else knows how to drive, that's why I am always ready to move out of the way to avoid idiots. It's called defensive driving.

So you KNOW no one will hit you? OK...glad you can predict the future...

 

[Cephus]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

So you KNOW no one will hit you? OK...glad you can predict the future...

I don't know anything, I am prepared for any eventuality. Because I have been hit in the past. I could be hit today. I do my best to avoid the idiots on the road. It's all anyone can do. Zero faith involved.

 

[Cephus]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

No. That is not blind faith. There is evidence. Wrong again.

It's funny how desperate these people are that everyone else be as crazy as they are.

 

[William Rea]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

So you KNOW no one will hit you? OK...glad you can predict the future...

Actually, we can predict the future, insurance companies do it all the time in order to make a profit.

 

[Angel]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

This thread has truly been a revelation.

Militant atheists do not believe that God does not exist!

Thanks to stevecanuck and all our member militants for their candidness.

Namaste.​

I'm pleased for you that your confirmation bias has assisted with your ongoing delusions and the fact that you have made a generalised sweeping ad hom on atheists like that shows where your spiritualism has made little or no difference to your character compared to anyone else on here.

Now, if you can just produce your immaterial we could end this atheism nonsense.

What are you in a lather about, William? I am applauding some of the militant atheists who've weighed in in this thread.
How many times, in threads beyond number, have we heard militant atheism declare that God does not exist?
Well, this thread has brought out the admission, from some stalwarts at least, that militant atheists don't believe that God does not exist.
Their candidness is praiseworthy. Don't you agree?

Produce your immaterial.

Yes, if I were you in the present circumstances (the testimony from your fellows in this thread), I'd probably prefer to dwell in the past myself, as immaterial as it may be.
But the testimony is there, spread across a thousand posts -- militant atheism does not believe its own battle cry: God does not exist.

 

[William Rea]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

Yes, if I were you in the present circumstances (the testimony from your fellows in this thread), I'd probably prefer to dwell in the past myself, as immaterial as it may be.
But the testimony is there, spread across a thousand posts -- militant atheism does not believe its own battle cry: God does not exist.

Produce your immaterial.

 

[Mach]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

What are you in a lather about, William? I am applauding some of the militant atheists who've weighed in in this thread.

You are using a pejorative to snipe from the sidelines, not cool.
If you want to debate, debate....and then we can say you're debating (and not a militant theist, for example).

 

[MrWonka]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

That's where the error is, of course I am pointing it out!

I don't think you understand the agnostic position based on that response.
You claim it's obviously it's knowable, but maybe not right now? Be logical. Either you can know, or NOT know.

No, I don't think you understand the agnostic position. The idea that someone would claim they could never under any circumstances know is ludicrous beyond the pale. That is not at all what agnostics believe. Agnostics encompass both what you consider agnostic, and gnostic as well as potentially others. If you'd like to further divide agnosticism up with some other silly catagories I don't think anybody really cares. Certainly not me, but don't pretend one of your silly divisions is true agnosticism, and don't go around claiming those people are also atheists.

Here is maybe a better question for you. What word would you use to describe the person I have asserted is agnostic? A person who simply isn't sure if god exists or not, and has no idea whether they will ever know or not. This person does not seem to fall into any of your catagories.

Mr Wonka claims the he knows with certainty now, [the future].

False. I'm stating that an inability to predict the future would make gnosticism and agnosticism ridiculously silly and pointless things to refer to yourself as.

That should be obvious to you as a mistake. It is no different than the vanilla agnostic contradiction:
An agnostic claims to KNOW, that the nature of god is "unknowable". (not, tomorrow, yesterday, doesn't change anything logically).
Claiming to know, the unknowable, is clearly a cluster ****.

That wasn't the difference at all, and it changes nothing.

Yes, it is. It changes everything, and your reading comprehension skills are clearly poor.

The existence of god is unknowable
the existence of god is unknowable right now
the existence of god is unknowable now yet may be knowable in the future

Are all illogical statements.

False. Only the first of the three statements are illogical. The second and third are perfectly reasonable things to believe.

 

[MrWonka]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

Actually, we can predict the future, insurance companies do it all the time in order to make a profit.

No, they do not. They aggregate. That is completely different.

 

[Visbek]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

X is either real or not real, and cannot be both.
(this is law of identity, law of non-contradiction, and law of excluded middle).
X is either in set 1 or set 2 (in your wording), and cannot be in both.

You then seem to confirm this in your first statement:
"If P is in set1, then logically P is not in set 2" This is non-contradiction, true.

Then you reverse that(!).
"If P is in set2, then logically P is in set 1"

It was a typo.

Read what came right after that. And the rest of my post.

By the way, the LEM is no longer considered an axiom. It was rejected a long time ago due to the work of the Intuitionists. Some sets are constructed as mutually exclusive, but in other cases we can have multiple set memberships and degrees of truth-values. This is just a case where the categories are mutually exclusive. But I digress....

Based on the prior and on this, to me you are simply saying that:
"To discuss what is not real, is necessarily to discuss what is real". Which looks as illogical as one can make it.

No, it's perfectly logical.

Again: We stipulate that Set 1 and Set 2 are mutually exclusive.
If we say that X is in Set 1, then we know that X cannot be in Set 2.
If we say that X is in Set 2, then we know that X cannot be in Set 1.

It is also downright routine to discuss both halves of a contrary pair. If you're going to give a full explanation of the concept of "limited," then at some point you need to discuss the concept of "unlimited." Good luck discussing the concept of "order" without having any implications whatsoever, or wanting to discuss, "chaos." You can't discuss the mathematical concept of "equals" without also discussing "greater than" and "less than." So yes, you can't really discuss the concept of "real" without talking about what it means for something to be "unreal." Especially since there are so many flavors of unreality -- delusions, fictions, myths, no longer in existence, hypotheticals and more.

"A world that contains unicorns" is a contradiction based on the definitions.
Unicorns are by definition "not real", so you're writing "unicorns are not real, and are real".

No, you're just being obstinate. The concept of a unicorn -- or if you want to get super-picky and Kripkean -- an animal with every property we assign to unicorns except their non-existence -- is logically consistent. A non-unicorn that is still a magical white horse-like animal with a horn and that can heal illnesses could exist in a world. The fact that these unicorn-like animals don't exist in our world says something both about both unicorns and our world.

We should also note that it is perfectly normal, in these kinds of discussions, to posit counterfactuals that didn't or even can't happen in ordinary circumstances. E.g. if we are comparing a "world with unicorns" and "a world without unicorns," it's normal to just assume for the sake of the discussion that "unicorns can exist." Similarly, zombies don't actually exist, and most rational adults know this, but the creators of Walking Dead have undoubtedly given us their idea of what it might be like to live in a world full of zombies. (And clearly, if such a world did exist, it would be very different than ours.)

It's a bit rude to make me jump through a bunch of hoops about unicorn analogs, because you're so radically inflexible in your ideology that you can't even tolerate the hypothetical existence of a unicorn purely for the sake of a discussion. Don't expect me to do it again.

 

[soylentgreen]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

I am not sure if we are heading for the same point. I am talking rather generally, for although I do have a specific deity I follow, or maybe more accurately an specific interpretation of said deity, I also hold that I could be wrong and thus other deities or interpretations are equally possible. So I am looking in general what one would accept as empirical. Among the many pieces of evidence I have that supports my belief (keeping in mind my point of the difference between evidence and presentable evidence) is a large number of circumstances where things went my way, even against the odds, with a large frequency, both in the aggregate as well as within the individual situations. You know the saying. "Once is an occurrence, twice a coincidence, three time is suspicious." While I use a higher number for suspicious for such a thing, it is rather suspicious for the odds to turn as they have as often as they have. But how do you present such as evidence? You can't really. Some will believe you and others will not. That is why I say so much comes down to belief and faith to begin with.

This could simply be a case of no obvious answer so instead create one. Got lucky a few times, godidit. Sure , why not, let's go with that.

I do agree that theism requires belief and faith. Because it is the basic requirement it is difficult for a theist to start the arguement from the point that they need give a reason for me to even start using the concept of belief. I do not need belief either in the negative or positive for fictional characters. A theist is dependent on belief to move that fiction to a reality for them.

Nor can i help in the way of telling you what i require in the way of proof. It is your god, not mine. Not my place to tell you what will prove your gods existence.

What you describe is not evidence. It is a subjective interpretation of events. God makes good things happen, good things happen to you, therefore god exists. You need to actually believe in a god in the first place for this to be a credible line of thinking. So it is not evidence it is giving support to am already held belief.

 

[maquiscat]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

Nope, no faith involved. In fact, I don't trust that anyone else knows how to drive, that's why I am always ready to move out of the way to avoid idiots. It's called defensive driving.

Not all faith is religious in nature.

 

[maquiscat]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

It's funny how desperate these people are that everyone else be as crazy as they are.

It's funny how desperate these people are that anyone who doesn't agree with them must be crazy.

 

[Visbek]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

I just made up X in my mind, an imaginary, contradictory thing.

How is X "about the world", when logically it's specifically NOT about the world?
(obviously assuming we're not talking about me being real, and the concept in my mind itself being real, etc.)

OK, let's list the properties of unicorns. And per my previous post, this is a counterfactual, so I'm going to omit "unreal." If you don't like it, that's not my problem.

Unicorn
• white
• horse-like
• has a horn
• magical
• magically heals people
• likes to fall asleep in the lap of maidens
etc

When we say "unicorns do not exist," why are we saying this? We are applying certain criteria to the world, based on our observations of the world. We don't see any animals or fossils that meet the description. We also often declare that "magical things are not real," which further rules it out. Clearly, in doing so, we are making and relying on statements about the world. We imply that the world can be observed well enough to determine whether an animal like this lives in it. We imply that fossils can be found in the world. We explicitly state that "the world does not have magic in it."

We also don't say: "The evidence for the existence of unicorns is weak; therefore, I lack a belief in the existence of unicorns." No, we say "The evidence for the existence of unicorns is weak; therefore, I believe unicorns don't exist." Or, "I believe anyway." Or, "I'm not sure."

In a related scenario: Unlike most other Western philosophers, Plato almost never comes right out and explains his ideas. Rather, the dialogues are designed to leave the key questions unanswered -- so that the reader can figure out the ideas for themselves. The interlocutor refutes common answers X, Y and Z, he brings the subject (and reader) to a state of aporia. You're supposed to learn by what is not said, as much (if not more) than what is said.

Beliefs and concepts don't exist in isolation from everything else in the human mind. We can't understand something without putting it into a larger context. Thus, when we say that "unicorns are not real," this statement has implications not just for unicorns, but for the real world as well.

 

[William Rea]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

No, they do not. They aggregate. That is completely different.

They still base that on a risk assessment; if they didn't then they would not be competitive in the market.

It is not different at all.

 

[Visbek]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

No i do not lack a belief in these kind of things because i have evidence and good reason to assume that they exist. No such thing can be said for a god an as such i lack any reason to have a belief about a god.

Yet again, you are unable to actually provide a real response. That speaks volumes about our position.

I'm not talking about the actual world. It's a counterfactual. I'm illustrating that no one else demands that a lack of evidence produces a lack of belief. It's an argument that you can't counter, because no one else talks that way.

Do you have any evidence that a god exists or even one good reason that it does. Until then there is no reason as to why i should not treat this god as nothing more than a fiction. Fiction requires no belief or disbelief there is no reason to bring belief into the picture when dealing with fiction, so therefore it is a lack of belief.

I'm not trying to prove that deities exist.

What I'm pointing out is that your insistence on a "lack of belief" is, well, it's bull****. As far as I can tell, no one else talks like that, in any other field. There is no rational reason to make that claim, because atheists unquestionably hold systems of belief that support their position, including "the evidence is lacking." American Atheists are even explicit that their motivation for that kind of phrasing is because they don't like how "theistic influence taints those definitions."

It is not my problem if other people are so wrapped up in their own dogma that they can't accept basic definitions.

You really do not know what an ignostic is do you.

Or, maybe you don't. You keep saying I get it wrong, without actually providing a definition. Meanwhile, everyone else on the planet seems to think it is a system of belief in which human beings don't gain any benefit from trying to figure out or understand the nature of God.

 

[Cephus]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

Not all faith is religious in nature.

And the faith that isn't is called trust and I have none of that either.

 

[Cephus]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

It's funny how desperate these people are that anyone who doesn't agree with them must be crazy.

Then maybe they ought to stop acting crazy. Because adults having imaginary friends are, in fact, crazy. There is something wrong with them.

 

[MrWonka]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

They still base that on a risk assessment; if they didn't then they would not be competitive in the market.

It is not different at all.

Predicting the future, and playing the odds are not even remotely the same thing. One is impossible the other works more often than not, but is still not assured.

 

[William Rea]

Re: Why theists are so desperate to call atheism a belief.

Predicting the future, and playing the odds are not even remotely the same thing. One is impossible the other works more often than not, but is still not assured.

It wasn't my analogy it was Elvira's, you are changing the parameters to try to win an argument that no one is engaged in. I will allow you to drift so far but, I'm not that desperate to show you are pretty much wrong about everything you have posted in this section. You are assisting others in that task very ably.

Not true...every time you get on the highway you take it on blind faith that everyone else will stay in their lane and not hit you...most things you do in everyday life are done on blind faith...