Haven’t those who reject morality just because of its religious roots ended up constructing another belief system

[Ben JS]

Atheism is the attribute of being absent of a belief in deities.

No, that's agnosticism. "A-" plus "theos," literally translates to "no + Gods". That's its meaning. If you didn't know, you know now. And "a-" plus "gnosis" is "not + know."

Agnosticism: is the philosophical view that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is ultimately unknowable, either in principle or in fact

Theism = belief in the existence of a god or gods

One can be both an atheist, and agnostic. They are not mutually exclusive concepts.
To be an atheist, is to be absent of belief in the existence of gods.
To be agnostic, is to believe it is unknowable whether gods exist.

One can be absent of a belief in god, and furthermore, believe that whether gods exist is unknowable.

So you're wrong twice.
I'm shocked!

If you "lack belief," you don't know anything about it.

Wrong again.

One can be aware of a belief without holding said belief.
If they don't hold the belief, they lack a belief in it.

I know what the description of a unicorn is -
I know what the concept entails.
I do not believe instances of actual unicorns exist in reality -
there are many representations of unicorns (such as toys),
but these artificial representations are not equivalent to the concept described.

I am aware of what the belief in unicorns entails [knowledge].
I do not not hold the belief that unicorns exist. [absent of a belief]

This is very simple.
Your claims are tired.
I've little interest in engaging with you -
only as much as to reveal your poor arguments.

===

For the 500,000th time, lacking belief does not require faith for everyone... rather, it's just a lack of belief.

"Lack of belief" takes nobody anywhere. You can't know anything or do anything or live a life without believing things, because it's impossible in practice.

This is where the deceptive fool conflates absence of a particular belief with absence of any belief.

We must have empathy for the old bugger - dribbles so much that they can't remember what's left their mouth.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

To wilfully choose ignorance, to dig that hole deeper, when knowledge is starkly engraved on the tombstone shadowing the hole, is sadly, amusingly impressive.

What is the psychological explanation? Of wanting to be wrong? Of living a lie?

Is it solipsism? Nah. That can be engaged in pseudo-rationally. Narcissistic grandiosity. Beyond the delusion that ones ignorance is superior to all knowledge, as in anti-vaxxers and the like, born of educational and representative deprivation. Hence Trump's unstoppable success in giving voice to Covid and global warming deniers in embracing the mob. Using ones obvious education to deny education is due to some other deprivation. Of reason, that no amount of education can address.

Hmmm?

[Belinda]

(i) Absolutely. I still think choice is involved, against feeling. An inexorable choice. What do I do now that I know there is no God? I must struggle to be kind. I fail on this site up against the afflicted. Even saying that is brutal. Why must I reach to be kind? To use my extroversion so? Because it's clean. I have to live with myself. And I'm spared serious addiction. And no, we certainly aren't tabulae rasae from the neural tube on.

(ii) I beg you pardon! I am a client. I dig Heidegger of course.

(iii) I have no significance whatsoever apart from relative to my own Dasein (and yes, German still capitalizes nouns), in the rapidly attenuating circles of separation. Each event is deterministically by chance and necessity. I have warrant for logos and not God. Chaos is according to logos us according to chaos. Nature is logos chaos.

Warrant me God, Love grounding being, or give me death.

I am not sure that to be significant one has to be significant to someone. I sometimes think of the logos as a person but that's because I was indoctrinated with belief in a personal God.

We're made by others. My significance beyond my skull is in others' skulls. It all attenuates after a lifetime for 99.999% of us.

I very much appreciate the honesty of your second sentence.

My indoctrination into religion was done by good people, with the best intentions. Fortunately for me I was taught also to think and to evaluate beliefs. When I was young I did not think much at all, but one way and another I was given some mental tools to think with and when I was older I could use those.

As for insignificance, to say the logos knows when the sparrow falls is to confuse two languages in the same sentence,but the meaning is clear that the logos is such that all that has happened necessarily had to happen, even me. Morally, and with regard to open -future, I feel that the broader one's awareness of others the better. I want to be awake despite that certain people disdain being woke. What age were you when you woke from your dogmatic slumbers?

I too enjoyed True Grit. Courage combined with duty is excellent
and I love stories with horses. I await Henry's verdict on the story.

[Belinda]

To wilfully choose ignorance, to dig that hole deeper, when knowledge is starkly engraved on the tombstone shadowing the hole, is sadly, amusingly impressive.

What is the psychological explanation? Of wanting to be wrong? Of living a lie?

I think it reduces to fear. Fear of casting oneself adrift without a sheet anchor.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

I am not sure that to be significant one has to be significant to someone. I sometimes think of the logos as a person but that's because I was indoctrinated with belief in a personal God.

We're made by others. My significance beyond my skull is in others' skulls. It all attenuates after a lifetime for 99.999% of us.

I very much appreciate the honesty of your second sentence.

(i) My indoctrination into religion was done by good people, with the best intentions. Fortunately for me I was taught also to think and to evaluate beliefs. When I was young I did not think much at all, but one way and another I was given some mental tools to think with and when I was older I could use those.

(ii) As for insignificance, to say the logos knows when the sparrow falls is to confuse two languages in the same sentence,but the meaning is clear that the logos is such that all that has happened necessarily had to happen, even me. Morally, and with regard to open -future, I feel that the broader one's awareness of others the better. I want to be awake despite that certain people disdain being woke. What age were you when you woke from your dogmatic slumbers?

(iii) I too enjoyed True Grit. Courage combined with duty is excellent
and I love stories with horses. I await Henry's verdict on the story.

(i) I'm sure mine was. I don't impute bad faith to any indoctrinator. I was taught to know, thinking came after. I could never have escaped cultism until the cult deconstructed itself. I had no beliefs. Only certainties. Dogmata. That eroded, mainly by the principle of parsimony. But I had to be led in deconstruction. My reason was enslaved by my passion for certainty. Until error was exposed, against my will. For some here, on this very thread, from its OP, that never happens. How sad, How human. I got lucky. I should have more sympathy for the still benighted.

(ii) It wasn't logos. He said it. Of 'the Father'. All that happens necessarily also intrinsically happens by chance. But yes, embrace the other. All others no matter how repulsive. There is no hope until liberals can do that. 65. The last of my religious certainties fell away. In the lifelong process of epicyclically de/re/constructing dogma.

(iii) Me too!

[henry quirk]

I've managed to avoid perpetrating those.

Good man...

I forgive you your misattribution. Pinkos don't advocate the violent overthrow of Western pluralist capitalist democracies, by lawless Leninist Red Terror, despite their being owned by an untouchable ruling class.

Noted (with just a touch of skepticism).

My ideal is equal opportunity of outcome by the liberation of all land ultimately; it can't be owned by anyone. Only rented. Since it was taken. With all back rent due. Generally by taxing wealth. It's called Georgism.

Uh, no. I purchased my plot, fair & square. It's mine. It's called natural rights.

you must have law and order.

A lil bit goes a loooong way. And we have way too much, across the board, right now.

Usin' apostrophes is a dead giveaway.

My secretary edits my posts, makes 'em coherent while preserving my natural charm and folksiness.

I see no evidence of unruliness whatsoever.

Then, my dear Liza, you aren't actually readin' what I write.

[henry quirk]

I await Henry's verdict on the story.

Didn't read the book. Enjoyed the hell out of both movies.

[Belinda]

We're made by others. My significance beyond my skull is in others' skulls. It all attenuates after a lifetime for 99.999% of us.

I very much appreciate the honesty of your second sentence.

(i) My indoctrination into religion was done by good people, with the best intentions. Fortunately for me I was taught also to think and to evaluate beliefs. When I was young I did not think much at all, but one way and another I was given some mental tools to think with and when I was older I could use those.

(ii) As for insignificance, to say the logos knows when the sparrow falls is to confuse two languages in the same sentence,but the meaning is clear that the logos is such that all that has happened necessarily had to happen, even me. Morally, and with regard to open -future, I feel that the broader one's awareness of others the better. I want to be awake despite that certain people disdain being woke. What age were you when you woke from your dogmatic slumbers?

(iii) I too enjoyed True Grit. Courage combined with duty is excellent
and I love stories with horses. I await Henry's verdict on the story.

(i) I'm sure mine was. I don't impute bad faith to any indoctrinator. I was taught to know, thinking came after. I could never have escaped cultism until the cult deconstructed itself. I had no beliefs. Only certainties. Dogmata. That eroded, mainly by the principle of parsimony. But I had to be led in deconstruction. My reason was enslaved by my passion for certainty. Until error was exposed, against my will. For some here, on this very thread, from its OP, that never happens. How sad, How human. I got lucky. I should have more sympathy for the still benighted.

(ii) It wasn't logos. He said it. Of 'the Father'. All that happens necessarily also intrinsically happens by chance. But yes, embrace the other. All others no matter how repulsive. There is no hope until liberals can do that. 65. The last of my religious certainties fell away. In the lifelong process of epicyclically de/re/constructing dogma.

(iii) Me too!

I really needed to look up the following info about Logos:-

1. Greek Concept of Logos
In Greek philosophy, especially in Heraclitus, Stoicism, and later Hellenistic thought, Logos had several meanings:

Heraclitus (6th century BCE): Logos referred to the rational principle governing the cosmos. It was the underlying order and reason in the universe.

Stoicism: The Stoics developed this further. For them, Logos was the divine rationality that permeates and structures all reality. It was impersonal but essential to the coherence of existence.

Philo of Alexandria (1st century BCE/CE): A Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who synthesized Jewish theology with Greek philosophy, Logos became a mediating divine being—the intermediary between God and the world.

2. Christian Logos (Gospel of John)
In John 1:1, the famous passage begins:

"In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God."

This is a direct borrowing of the term Logos but with significant reinterpretation:

The Logos is not an impersonal force but a person—Jesus Christ.

The Logos is eternal, divine, and incarnate ("The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" – John 1:14).

It bridges Greek philosophical ideas of rationality and order with Jewish concepts of God's creative and revelatory word (e.g., in Genesis 1, where God creates by speaking).



ChatGPT

[Immanuel Can]

Atheism is the attribute of being absent of a belief in deities.

No, that's agnosticism. "A-" plus "theos," literally translates to "no + Gods". That's its meaning. If you didn't know, you know now. And "a-" plus "gnosis" is "not + know."

Agnosticism: is the philosophical view that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is ultimately unknowable, either in principle or in fact

The problem with that definition is that it makes agnosticism committed to something they could not possibly claim: how could they "know" that God is "unknowable"? So it makes them out to be irrational. Would you accept that sort of definition, then?

One can be both an atheist, and agnostic.

No, one cannot, actually. One can only say either "No gods exist," or "I don't know whether or not gods exist." If one doesn't know, one has no firm claim to make; if one does know, then how does one know?

So, is one claiming knowledge of something, or not? There's no half-way on that: either you know, or you don't. Which claim do you make?

If you "lack belief," you don't know anything about it.

Wrong again.

No, it's right.

A "lack" is an absence, a nothing, a blank. It means that something should be there, but isn't. Otherwise, it's not a "lacking" of anything.

I am aware of what the belief in unicorns entails [knowledge].
I do not not hold the belief that unicorns exist. [absent of a belief]

Do you mean to affirm that unicorns do not exist, or simply to claim that you have no idea whether or not they exist? You can't do both at the same time. If you know, you know something about it; if you don't know, you don't know about that.

Again, which one are you claiming -- that you know God does not exist, or that you don't know whether or not God exists? If you "lack belief," it implies that you know you ought or could have reason to hold a belief in God, but you fail to have ("lack") such a belief. Surely you don't want to admit that much, do you -- however true it may be?

[Martin Peter Clarke]

I've managed to avoid perpetrating those.

(i) Good man...

I forgive you your misattribution. Pinkos don't advocate the violent overthrow of Western pluralist capitalist democracies, by lawless Leninist Red Terror, despite their being owned by an untouchable ruling class.

(ii) Noted (with just a touch of skepticism).

My ideal is equal opportunity of outcome by the liberation of all land ultimately; it can't be owned by anyone. Only rented. Since it was taken. With all back rent due. Generally by taxing wealth. It's called Georgism.

(iii) Uh, no. I purchased my plot, fair & square. It's mine. It's called natural rights.

you must have law and order.

(iv) A lil bit goes a loooong way. And we have way too much, across the board, right now.

Usin' apostrophes is a dead giveaway.

(v) My secretary edits my posts, makes 'em coherent while preserving my natural charm and folksiness.

I see no evidence of unruliness whatsoever.

(vi) Then, my dear Liza, you aren't actually readin' what I write.

(i) Like the vast majority.

(ii) Got me. My eyes glitter at the thought of bathing in the blood of the ruling class.

(iii) I don't doubt it for one moment Sir! And believe it or not, from the get go I'd thought you'd be a John Locke man. I, of course, am not. I find the concept oxymoronic.

(iv) Well you will do if you won't have social justice.

(v) Behind which is a mind like a steel trap.

(vi) Um sorry, my eyes are too dim.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

(i) My indoctrination into religion was done by good people, with the best intentions. Fortunately for me I was taught also to think and to evaluate beliefs. When I was young I did not think much at all, but one way and another I was given some mental tools to think with and when I was older I could use those.

(ii) As for insignificance, to say the logos knows when the sparrow falls is to confuse two languages in the same sentence,but the meaning is clear that the logos is such that all that has happened necessarily had to happen, even me. Morally, and with regard to open -future, I feel that the broader one's awareness of others the better. I want to be awake despite that certain people disdain being woke. What age were you when you woke from your dogmatic slumbers?

(iii) I too enjoyed True Grit. Courage combined with duty is excellent
and I love stories with horses. I await Henry's verdict on the story.

(i) I'm sure mine was. I don't impute bad faith to any indoctrinator. I was taught to know, thinking came after. I could never have escaped cultism until the cult deconstructed itself. I had no beliefs. Only certainties. Dogmata. That eroded, mainly by the principle of parsimony. But I had to be led in deconstruction. My reason was enslaved by my passion for certainty. Until error was exposed, against my will. For some here, on this very thread, from its OP, that never happens. How sad, How human. I got lucky. I should have more sympathy for the still benighted.

(ii) It wasn't logos. He said it. Of 'the Father'. All that happens necessarily also intrinsically happens by chance. But yes, embrace the other. All others no matter how repulsive. There is no hope until liberals can do that. 65. The last of my religious certainties fell away. In the lifelong process of epicyclically de/re/constructing dogma.

(iii) Me too!

I really needed to look up the following info about Logos:-

1. Greek Concept of Logos
In Greek philosophy, especially in Heraclitus, Stoicism, and later Hellenistic thought, Logos had several meanings:

Heraclitus (6th century BCE): Logos referred to the rational principle governing the cosmos. It was the underlying order and reason in the universe.

Stoicism: The Stoics developed this further. For them, Logos was the divine rationality that permeates and structures all reality. It was impersonal but essential to the coherence of existence.

Philo of Alexandria (1st century BCE/CE): A Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who synthesized Jewish theology with Greek philosophy, Logos became a mediating divine being—the intermediary between God and the world.

2. Christian Logos (Gospel of John)
In John 1:1, the famous passage begins:

"In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God."

This is a direct borrowing of the term Logos but with significant reinterpretation:

The Logos is not an impersonal force but a person—Jesus Christ.

The Logos is eternal, divine, and incarnate ("The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" – John 1:14).

It bridges Greek philosophical ideas of rationality and order with Jewish concepts of God's creative and revelatory word (e.g., in Genesis 1, where God creates by speaking).

ChatGPT

Yep, knew that a lonnnng time before ChatGPT. Glad it agrees with me.

The Johannine school logos isn't known for transcendent Love. A cosmic Father who notes the death of a sparrow is a beautiful hint of that.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

I await Henry's verdict on the story.

Didn't read the book. Enjoyed the hell out of both movies.

We have so much in common. Infinitely more than our mere polar opposite worldviews.

[Ben JS]

No, one cannot, actually. One can only say either "No gods exist," or "I don't know whether or not gods exist." If one doesn't know, one has no firm claim to make; if one does know, then how does one know?

Another for the wrong tally.

One can say they are absent of a belief in gods.
This is neither claiming no gods exist, nor is it claiming it is unknowable whether gods exist.

One can do all three - or any combination of the three (including none).

It is very common for atheists to also claim that they believe no gods exist -
but this isn't a fundamental, defining criteria to meet the standards of atheism.

Thus, to critique those who declare no gods exist - is not to critique atheism,
it is to critique a (likely) subcategory of atheists.

I'm not interested in arguing the credibility of any particular god claim,
instead, I'm rebutting your gross misrepresentations & generalizations.
Not here to express any of my beliefs beyond that your claims are wrong.
To answer other questions is a diversion/distraction/red herring.

-

But it's starting to feel like beating a dead horse,
so even though I anticipate you will respond with another flawed argument,
I'm not planning to be dragged further into your bullshit.

So I'll leave on the core criticism:

Atheism is the attribute of being absent of a belief in deities.

No, that's agnosticism. "A-" plus "theos," literally translates to "no + Gods". That's its meaning. If you didn't know, you know now. And "a-" plus "gnosis" is "not + know."

Agnosticism: is the philosophical view that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is ultimately unknowable, either in principle or in fact

Theism = belief in the existence of a god or gods

One can be both an atheist, and agnostic. They are not mutually exclusive concepts.
To be an atheist, is to be absent of belief in the existence of gods.
To be agnostic, is to believe it is unknowable whether gods exist.

One can be absent of a belief in god, and furthermore, believe that whether gods exist is unknowable.

So you're wrong twice.
I'm shocked!

If you "lack belief," you don't know anything about it.

Wrong again.

One can be aware of a belief without holding said belief.
If they don't hold the belief, they lack a belief in it.

I know what the description of a unicorn is -
I know what the concept entails.
I do not believe instances of actual unicorns exist in reality -
there are many representations of unicorns (such as toys),
but these artificial representations are not equivalent to the concept described.

I am aware of what the belief in unicorns entails [knowledge].
I do not not hold the belief that unicorns exist. [absent of a belief]

This is very simple.
Your claims are tired.
I've little interest in engaging with you -
only as much as to reveal your poor arguments.

===
===

For the 500,000th time, lacking belief does not require faith for everyone... rather, it's just a lack of belief.

"Lack of belief" takes nobody anywhere. You can't know anything or do anything or live a life without believing things, because it's impossible in practice.

This is where the deceptive fool conflates absence of a particular belief with absence of any belief.

We must have empathy for the old bugger - dribbles so much that they can't remember what's left their mouth.

[Immanuel Can]

No, one cannot, actually. One can only say either "No gods exist," or "I don't know whether or not gods exist." If one doesn't know, one has no firm claim to make; if one does know, then how does one know?

Another for the wrong tally.

One can say they are absent of a belief in gods.

Absent? Okay.

You are absent any belief in Gods. Is that because of preference, or because of reason? If it's because of reason that you have this absence, then there will be a rationale for your position; if it's because of preference, then it's a wish that has no relation to reason or evidence.

Take your pick: which do you say it is?

It is very common for atheists to also claim that they believe no gods exist -

The problem, then, is the same for them: is their claim evidentiary and rational, or just a wish?

So I'll leave on the core criticism:

I always think this is very funny. When they refuse to deal with the refutation or the questions, to double-down by merely repeating that which has been defeated already, as if its mere presence in print were some sort of monument to its persistence as truth.

It's not. The argument is no more interesting than before, and now considerably less, since it's been seen and unpacked already.

"Lack of belief" takes nobody anywhere. You can't know anything or do anything or live a life without believing things, because it's impossible in practice.

This is where the deceptive fool conflates absence of a particular belief with absence of any belief.

Ah, no...I fear that this is where the Atheist demonstrates his complete lack of self-awareness.

He believes many, many things, but claims to believe nothing at all. And that's a pretty funny claim. He believes in oxygen, in nourishment, in the persistence of every day. He believes in his doctor, in his lawyer, in his government, in his fellow man, in the stock market. He believes in Democracy, in Socialism, in revolution, in conservatism, and in human rights. He believes there's no God, no need of Gods, and that God is a delusion. He believes in Determinism and/or in free will. He believes he's rational, and that he doesn't need proof of anything; and he believes He believes there's no objective truth to morality, and also that he's a good fellow. And he believes he has no beliefs.

One wonders whether he knows he even believes his own Atheism.

[Ben JS]

No, one cannot, actually. One can only say either "No gods exist," or "I don't know whether or not gods exist." If one doesn't know, one has no firm claim to make; if one does know, then how does one know?

Another for the wrong tally.

One can say they are absent of a belief in gods.
This is neither claiming no gods exist, nor is it claiming it is unknowable whether gods exist.

One can do all three - or any combination of the three (including none).

It is very common for atheists to also claim that they believe no gods exist -
but this isn't a fundamental, defining criteria to meet the standards of atheism.

Thus, to critique those who declare no gods exist - is not to critique atheism,
it is to critique a (likely) subcategory of atheists.

I'm not interested in arguing the credibility of any particular god claim,
instead, I'm rebutting your gross misrepresentations & generalizations.
Not here to express any of my beliefs beyond that your claims are wrong.
To answer other questions is a diversion/distraction/red herring.

-

But it's starting to feel like beating a dead horse,
so even though I anticipate you will respond with another flawed argument,
I'm not planning to be dragged further into your bullshit.

So I'll leave on the core criticism:

No, that's agnosticism. "A-" plus "theos," literally translates to "no + Gods". That's its meaning. If you didn't know, you know now. And "a-" plus "gnosis" is "not + know."

Agnosticism: is the philosophical view that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is ultimately unknowable, either in principle or in fact

Theism = belief in the existence of a god or gods

One can be both an atheist, and agnostic. They are not mutually exclusive concepts.
To be an atheist, is to be absent of belief in the existence of gods.
To be agnostic, is to believe it is unknowable whether gods exist.

One can be absent of a belief in god, and furthermore, believe that whether gods exist is unknowable.

So you're wrong twice.
I'm shocked!

If you "lack belief," you don't know anything about it.

Wrong again.

One can be aware of a belief without holding said belief.
If they don't hold the belief, they lack a belief in it.

I know what the description of a unicorn is -
I know what the concept entails.
I do not believe instances of actual unicorns exist in reality -
there are many representations of unicorns (such as toys),
but these artificial representations are not equivalent to the concept described.

I am aware of what the belief in unicorns entails [knowledge].
I do not not hold the belief that unicorns exist. [absent of a belief]

This is very simple.
Your claims are tired.
I've little interest in engaging with you -
only as much as to reveal your poor arguments.

===
===

"Lack of belief" takes nobody anywhere. You can't know anything or do anything or live a life without believing things, because it's impossible in practice.

This is where the deceptive fool conflates absence of a particular belief with absence of any belief.

We must have empathy for the old bugger - dribbles so much that they can't remember what's left their mouth.

===

He believes many, many things, but claims to believe nothing at all.

"Lack of belief" takes nobody anywhere. You can't know anything or do anything or live a life without believing things, because it's impossible in

Casually conflating lack of a specific belief with lack of any belief.

At first glance, I'd have to say that's a silly thing to say. But maybe you'll explain it, so it makes some sense.

I was pointing out your transparent strawman.
Not for your benefit,
but for those who think you communicate in good faith.

Atheism is the attribute of being absent of a belief in deities.
Inanimate matter and most life forms are presumably atheistic.
A lack of a specific belief: that of deities.

One can lack a specific belief, without lacking all belief.
You conflated these two positions so you could provide your strawman argument.

Disappointing stuff.

IC does a full circle.
Demonstrating closed mind.
I'm a fool the longer I walk alongside his spiraling madness.

Blocked.