What should religion be based on?

[Hobbes' Choice]

Hobbes writes:

My atheism cannot be "right", as it has no content.

Oh. No content? So it doesn't affirm anything? I has no "claim," you say? So you DO believe there's a God?

Atheism is not a thing that is either right or wrong, but simply a reflection of a position. Atheism requires no proof, or evidence and is not a claim, but the rejection of a claim.

That's just silly. Do you really want to say, "I reject position X without proof, evidence or claim?" Ha. What's that amount to? It's like a child having a hissy fit and yelling, "You're not the boss of me."


I did not say that Atheism amounted to that.
Atheism is a position of not believing in any god. It is not a belief of any sort. That is as valid for a case where I had never heard of a god, as it is where I have.
What claim am I supposed to be refuting today? I other words which gods do I have to "disprove" to your satisfaction, m'lord?

I think you need to take a step back and look at the woefully idiotic things you are saying.
For example:

Oh. No content? So it doesn't affirm anything? I has no "claim," you say? So you DO believe there's a God?

If a position has no claim you cannot conclude that is does. You are displaying the fault of black and white thinking.

[Hobbes' Choice]

My atheism cannot be "right", as it has no content. Atheism is not a thing that is either right or wrong, but simply a reflection of a position. Atheism requires no proof, or evidence and is not a claim, but the rejection of a claim.

I submit that the core beliefs of all religions can not be "right", as they all claim, as none of them respect the most simple criteria of truth.
Truth is not gained by luck, wishes or faith.
But even should they have hit upon a truth, such a baseless claim would still be worthless.

I think you're confusing agnosticism for atheism. Your position is more agnostic than atheistic. Atheism rejects every claiming of a transcendent entity, so it either requires proofs to invalidate theistic ones. The rejection of a claim is just another claim. What doesn't need any claiming is just agnosticism, only agnosticism is neither right nor wrong.
Truth, what is truth? Quid est veritas? All religions claim to have the only truth. My professor in philosophy always used to tell us, remember, truth does not exist. Truths do.

No. Atheism is more vague than that. Atheism encompassed all who do not believe in God. Historically atheism also stood in for Theists who did not believe in the "RIGHT" god.
Agnosticism is a positive belief that you cannot KNOW about god. This obviously has to consider the basis of some claim or other about god, and why it would not be possible to know. This is a type of atheism, as long as the agnostic does not also, rather oddly, claim despite that they still believe in what is not knowable.
Atheism has also to point to those that for whatever reason, or for NO reason do not believe in a god.

I am atheist for the reason that all claims to god I have examined do not conform to the most basic rules of evidence. I am a skeptic, as we all should be. My skepticism has content. My atheism is nothing more than a consequence of the fact that I do not believe.
I reject the notion of belief.

So the idea that my atheism is without content is for the simply reason that I do not go around with an endless list of refutations for the million gods of human kind. I see no reason to "disprove". My skepticism means only allowing into my store of knowledge what can reasonably be known. I do not accept agnosticism. I seems obvious enough to me that were there a god it ought to be easy enough to demonstrate it.

[Hobbes' Choice]

David wrote:

My professor in philosophy always used to tell us, remember, truth does not exist. Truths do.

I hope you had the wit to ask him, "Well, is what you're saying TRUE?"
:

I think David had the wit to accept what he said in the knowledge that fools would ask your question, and not react like a wind-up monkey that likes to refute everything without understanding.

[Immanuel Can]

Hobbes proudly 'penned':

If a position has no claim you cannot conclude that is does. You are displaying the fault of black and white thinking.

Ha. Nonsense. I'm displaying the virtue of accurate thinking.

If your position "has no claim," then it's not claiming anything, correct?
Since it's not claiming anything, it's not claiming that God does not exist.
Therefore, it is allowing that God does.

See how wonderful logic is?

Your Atheism then allows that God exists, which means that it's not Atheism (by definition) at all, just as David says. It's Agnosticism at most, but absent even making the claim "God might exist" (since, as you say, it makes no claims) it cannot even be that. It must be mere personal confusion on your part. It "has no claim," and so says nothing.

Are you then proud of knowing nothing?

Hobbes added:

I think David had the wit to accept what he said in the knowledge that fools would ask your question, and not react like a wind-up monkey that likes to refute everything without understanding.

You can't even see the rational defeater for Relativism there?
Wow. You'll believe anything!

[Hobbes' Choice]

Hobbes proudly 'penned':

If a position has no claim you cannot conclude that is does. You are displaying the fault of black and white thinking.

Ha. Nonsense. I'm displaying the virtue of accurate thinking.

No I am not claiming that god does not exist. TO do so would be to validate some version or versions of god.
I am simply saying that I do NOT believe in a god.

If your position "has no claim," then it's not claiming anything, correct?
Since it's not claiming anything, it's not claiming that God does not exist.
Therefore, it is allowing that God does.

You already said this. It was stupid then, and no less so for being repeated.
You have heard of the phrase non sequitur I imagine?
You have a limited grasp of reality.

BTW - what do you mean by "god"?

[David Handeye]

David wrote:

My professor in philosophy always used to tell us, remember, truth does not exist. Truths do.

I hope you had the wit to ask him, "Well, is what you're saying TRUE?"

I would have, but I could not some professors are self-centred, especially professors in philosophy.
They think to be philosophers, but they're only graduated in History of Philosophy.

For if you did, then he would instantly be faced with the obvious evidence he was wrong. You see, if Epistemological Relativism (the belief that there are no universally-true facts) is true, there is no truth. But if there is no truth, then Epistemological Relativism is not true either. Which then means that Epistemological Relativism is false.

Which means that there is a truth, but the proponent of Epistemological Relativism doesn't know anything about it.

Epistemological relativism is self-referential: believes itself.

[ReliStuPhD]

Epistemological relativism is self-referentially incoherent

Fixed that for you.

(But I also agreed with it before the edit.)

[David Handeye]

Epistemological relativism is self-referentially incoherent

Fixed that for you.

(But I also agreed with it before the edit.)

Thank you.

[Immanuel Can]

Hobbes wrote:

I am simply saying that I do NOT believe in a god.

Okay, but that's just you, right? It's not strong Atheism, because it doesn't suggest there isn't a God, or that other people cannot believe in Him. It just says, "I don't think there is one..."

So your problem is that your answer becomes inconsequential. Now, I might care how you feel about that, but no one else needs to...because you're saying you're not making a statement about a universally-compelling reality or truth ...just that you don't happen to believe in it. So?

You already said this. It was stupid then, and no less so for being repeated.

Yes, to say "Atheism makes no claims" is indeed stupid. But I didn't say it. I quoted you...

Do you even read what you write?

BTW - what do you mean by "god"?

You must know: after all, you're arguing that there isn't one. How could you argue against a concept you admit you don't even understand? So I assume you must understand it, right?

Awesome.

[Immanuel Can]

David wrote:

Epistemological relativism is self-referential: believes itself.

I understand what you're saying, but even that doesn't add up.

After all, if the statement "There is no such thing as objective truth" is true...then it's false...and no rational person can believe it, even the Relativist himself. After all, he must surely think that what he's telling you is the truth, right?

[David Handeye]

David wrote:

Epistemological relativism is self-referential: believes itself.

I understand what you're saying, but even that doesn't add up.

After all, if the statement "There is no such thing as objective truth" is true...then it's false...and no rational person can believe it, even the Relativist himself. After all, he must surely think that what he's telling you is the truth, right?

Right!

[Hobbes' Choice]

You already said this. It was stupid then, and no less so for being repeated.

Yes, to say "Atheism makes no claims" is indeed stupid. But I didn't say it. I quoted you...

Do you even read what you write?

"Atheism makes no claims" is no the problem. THe problem is you using that to conclude that Atheists must believe in God, which is fucking stupid.

BTW - what do you mean by "god"?

You must know: after all, you're arguing that there isn't one. How could you argue against a concept you admit you don't even understand? So I assume you must understand it, right?

No, you are not paying attention. I am not arguing anything. That's the whole fucking point. I do not need to argue the non-existence of a thing I do not believe. I can know I don't believe in a thing without knowing what it is. Do you believe in Dreandrogoos? NO? Well fuck me!

Awesome.

The fact is that "GOD" is not a single coherent proposition. God could mean anything. So I'll ask you again, because you seem to lack the basic discipline of thinking. What do YOU mean by God?

[Immanuel Can]

The fact is that "GOD" is not a single coherent proposition.

Oh, so you DO know what the word means? Because if you didn't, you could not be so sure it wasn't a coherent idea...but you seem so certain...

God could mean anything.

Oh, so you DON'T know?...for something that "means anything" also means no particular thing.

I think you'd best make up your mind whether you're wanting to be rational or not. Right now, you're self-contradicting within a couple of lines.

Meanwhile, the question is "What should religion be based on?" And lacking any definition so far of "religion," the rest of our interlocutors remain in a quandary you are doing nothing to solve.

I imagine you're just hoping to tee off on your old favourite, "Mock the Theists," which has never solved anything -- not for anyone else nor, apparently, for you: for if it had, you would have ceased to bother to debate it long ago. Apparently you're salving something inside yourself through venom, but your strategy does not seem to be helping you. I would suggest you try something different; but it's up to you.

If you're on this thread, however, you're already conceding the asker's premise, which is that there is something called "religion," and that we can ask questions about a right basis for it.

Are you fine with that? Okay, then contribute to it.

[thedoc]

I would think that if an atheist claimed to "not believe in God" it could be assumed that they mean "any God" which would be all inclusive, and trying to define which particular god they disbelieve in would be counterproductive, and would accomplish nothing. It would also be meaningless to assume that an Atheist allows that a God could exist, by claiming a non-belief, they are effectively denying the existence of any God. Sometimes logic gets in the way of understanding what the person is really trying to say, by nit-picking the details.

[Immanuel Can]

thedoc:

As you and every other rational person knows very well, Atheism does make at least one claim: namely, the claim that there is no kind of God anywhere. And that it leaves the concept "God" there undefined, far from helping its case, is actually a weakness -- the very point I was seeking to make.

For if "God" is undefined, then let us replace it with the word "X". The Atheist is then saying, "I know there is no X, but I don't know what an X is." If that isn't manifestly stupid, then nothing is.

Not only that, but let us ask them whether they regard their belief as gratuitous, or as a statement of evidence. If it's the former, it's of no consequence, being an expression merely of their personal tastes, not something necessitated of them by facts: but if it's the latter, then let's see what sufficient evidence for the non-existence of God would look like....

I don't see how an Atheist could ever claim to have such evidence. To possess it, he would literally have had to have gone everywhere in the universe and seen everything...for there always could be some kind of "gods" in some distant corner, or immanent in all things, or historically present but now absent...or too large to be contained by the universe itself...

So the Evidentiary Atheist is making a claim that is manifestly stupid from the word "Go." Nobody possesses such evidence -- that's surely obvious. But if they're just the Gratuitious (Non-Evidentiary) Atheist, then they are making a statement only of their personal tastes, not something they are giving anyone else reasons to believe.

It's precisely when we get into these details that the extreme stupidity of Atheism as a viewpoint becomes manifest. No intelligent person should ever be an Atheist. If they are, then in that regard they are falling short of their best selves.