Is "lack of belief" a "kind of belief?"

[evangelicalhumanist]

Lack of belief in God does not inform my behaviour.

In actual documented real world fact, it has motivated you to type 376,876 billion trillion posts on this topic all over this forum.

Your claim is equally fantastic to any theist claim.

Your claim is in direct contradiction to the extensively documented evidence all of us can see with our own eyes.

So the question for me is, why would folks who so adamantly claim reason as their method be so relentlessly passionate about making claims that can so easily be debunked with the simplest bit of reason?

Let the dodging and weaving begin...

Your remarable inability to understand a very simple thing is not the equivalent of my "dodging and weaving." I repeat, lack of belief does not inform my behaviour. What others believe, and what they are apt to do with those beliefs, are what I am writing about here. I'm sorry you can't understand that, but there it is.

Let us take a f'rinstance. If I were to write scathingly, at length and repeatedly, about the denial of medical help to children suffering important illnesses because of belief (and I have) it is not my lack of belief that is motivating me. It is the effect of the beliefs of others, inflicted on those incapable of understanding, but who trust their parents to protect them.

The same thing was true when the battle for same-sex marriage was fought and won here in Canada. The primary opponents were religions, with the Catholic Church even threatening to excommunicate the Prime Minister and other Members of Parliament who voted in favour. The motivation for all my writing during that debate was not, I assure you, atheism. My motivation was 100% about what ill-informed (and often wrong) beliefs can in fact foist upon the world and its inhabitants.

Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.

[chaz wyman]

I thought you had chaz on your ignore list?

'aphilosophy' also promote a lack of will along with a lack of thought?

I think you can imagine how annoying that is.

[chaz wyman]

A lack of belief is a belief in exactly the same sort of way that Black is a colour. It is a belief to people who do not understand basic reality, like people who do not see that blackness is the absence of light.

But in most practical situations, and in common language, black is a colour. Any painter knows that.

True but that does not make it right in all circumstances.
If an atheist claims that his atheism involves him in a belief then that is okay for him.
But if another says that his atheism does not involve him in a belief then that should also be acceptable.
For the first is a painter, and the second is a scientist.

As for understanding "basic reality", who can claim to manage such a feat? I sure don't.
We all have our own - even you. I simply deserve the respect, as does anyone to construct my own in the way I see fit without being judged by others.
My atheism is concerned with not believing. It does not involve me in believing a thing does not exist, as to do so I would have to say what that thing is. When there is a single coherent version of God then I will choose whether or not to disbelieve such a thing.
As it happens, Spinoza's God is fully compatible with my world view. That also makes me an atheist, because his God does not amount to anything recognisable with Theism.
This argument is a dead dog. It sits on the Forum and rears its ugly head again and again. It stinks and it has always stunk.

The point is thatI beleieve things but not qua an atheist.
To have a belief about atheism I would have to choose a particular God not to believe in - for me that would be stupid.
Not only would it validate theism but it would mean that I would also be choosing not to choose other god's too.
The whole thing gets ridiculous.

[chaz wyman]

About time for the woods I think.

I noticed you were able to add text to my posting.

Does that mean you went back and added an certain emoticon to an earlier post??

[evangelicalhumanist]

Let's take another example of belief. Let's say that somebody believes completely in homeopathy. Now, it is true that among the alternative medecines, homeopathy is far and away the safest. Whatever substance you think you are taking has been so diluted as to in fact have pretty much (or actually) none of the original left. Thus, you are in fact taking distilled water, and nothing more.

However, the fact that homeopathy in and of itself does nothing to harm is not the end of it. It may also -- if believed (and urged by the homeopath) strongly enough -- convince the sufferer to eschew any other medical attention.

Can anyone see a reason to be suspicious of such beliefs? Can anyone see why one might wish to study, to test, to be skeptical?

Let me give you another example -- the death of George Washington.

During Washinton's time, bleeding was the common way of treating patients -- for pretty much everything. This was normally done using a lancet (that is why the British medical journal call itself The Lancet).

George Washington, who received the best medical care of the day, spent his last hour undergoing heroic treatment. On December 14, 1799, the former President came down with a severe sore throat. It was inflamed and gave him some difficulty in breathing. His overseer removed a pint of blood, but it provided no relief. A physician was called, who soon after his arrival applied a blister to the throat and let another pint of blood. At three o'clock in the afternoon, two other doctors came to consult with the first one, and by a vote of two to one, they decided to let more blood, removing a quart at that time.They reported that the blood flowed "slow and thick"

By then the President was dehydrated, and it would seem that the doctors must have had to squeezed out the final drops of blood. Washington died sometime between ten and eleven that same night. In his case heroic treatment consisted of removal of at least four pints of blood, blistering, and a dose of calomel. Perhaps he would have died in any case, but the treatment certainly provided no relief.

And everybody went away and continued to believe that bleeding was the very best thing to do in pretty much every circumstance!

As I said previously, the greater the impact of any belief, and the wider-spread that impact will be on others, the greater must be our dependence on proportioning our belief to the evidence. If a belief is harmless, who cares? If it is harmful only to yourself, then you should care but why should anyone else be concerned (unless they care for you)? But if your beliefs impact upon other people negatively, should you not be more careful, and more sure?

[Arising_uk]

I noticed you were able to add text to my posting.

???

Where? You mean where the mod appears to have deleted and edited posts?

Does that mean you went back and added an certain emoticon to an earlier post??

What?

Did you know you have a tendency towards paranoia?

[chaz wyman]

I noticed you were able to add text to my posting.

???

Where? You mean where the mod appears to have deleted and edited posts?

Does that mean you went back and added an certain emoticon to an earlier post??

What?

Did you know you have a tendency towards paranoia?

Okay - someone added "you can delete this after it has been read - Amod", or something like that to my typing ****. I have already replaced the offending word with CENSORED.
I assumed it was you? yes/no?

I have no tendency towards paranoia.

[Arising_uk]

I thought AMod was the mod?

Well, you do a touch as you've accused two members of being the same person since you've been here and accused me of editing bits into your posts earlier.

[chaz wyman]

I thought AMod was the mod?

I thought you were a MOD?

Well, you do a touch as you've accused two members of being the same person since you've been here and accused me of editing bits into your posts earlier.

1) Someone edited my posts, 2) you made comments about the use of the word ****, 3) I thought you were the local resident Mod.

This is deduction not paranoia.
The issue about 2 members being one and the same is not paranoid.

[Arising_uk]

Used to be but got into a discussion with a member who was such a James that I wished to express that he was. As such I felt I had to drop the ability to edit his posts as I really wanted to delete the bastards existence from the forum. Conflict of interest.

p.s.
Ah! I might see, my name shows in the welcome from the mods post. I'll request that my post gets removed.

[Typist]

But if your beliefs impact upon other people negatively, should you not be more careful, and more sure?

SOME theists insult gays. They should be more careful, and not lump all gay people in to one big box.

SOME atheists insult theists. They should be more careful, and not lump all theists in to one big box.

[evangelicalhumanist]

But if your beliefs impact upon other people negatively, should you not be more careful, and more sure?

SOME theists insult gays. They should be more careful, and not lump all gay people in to one big box.

SOME atheists insult theists. They should be more careful, and not lump all theists in to one big box.

I don't wish to be a bore, but you are continuing to ignore the vast majority of what I'm saying, and homing in on some extremely unimportant stuff. Is that an attempt to divert attention from what I'm actually saying? I wouldn't do that to you. I'd really hope for better, but "what you will." (That's the alternative title to "Twelfth Night," Shakespeare's last comedy. May I call you Malvolio?)

[Typist]

EH, I'm ignoring the majority of what you're saying because it's just dogma chanting that I've read and replied to many times before.

The bits I'm picking out are offered to make this point.

Like many passionate ideologists, you're intent on trying to create a big difference between yourself and some other group. I'm proposing that difference is largely a creation of your imagination.

To depersonalize it, thought is doing it's thing, dividing and comparing. And in so doing, it's creating a distorted conceptual version of reality.

The punch line of the post in question was...

But if your beliefs impact upon other people negatively, should you not be more careful, and more sure?

I replied directly to your point, and agreed with it.

You want the answer to be...

"THEM, those people over there, they should be more careful!!"

The answer I'm suggesting is....

"You, me, and all the rest of us too should probably be more careful."

You're doing the very thing you're arguing against. You're lumping billions of people you've never met in to one big group, and then positioning yourself above that group. You want to analyze this process in others, but not in yourself.

When you get caught doing this, you dodge and weave and do all kinds of semantic dances, desperate to somehow keep the illusion of superiority alive. If you're willing to look at this in yourself, you might learn something about ideology.

It's your business, but if you are determined to do this in public, over and over again, it seems likely you will hear other views on the subject.

I'm guessing that you're posting on a largely atheist forum, instead of theist forums, because you don't really want to hear other views, but are instead seeking support from like minded individuals.

In theism they call that a "church". A bunch of folks get together and reinforce and strengthen their ideology, often so that they can then feel superior to somebody else. aPhilosophers do this too. It doesn't matter what the ideology is.

[Arising_uk]

...
I'm guessing that you're posting on a largely atheist forum, instead of theist forums, because you don't really want to hear other views, but are instead seeking support from like minded individuals. ...

Does it ever occur to you that your own ideology deafens you to facts?

As if you look at the active posters since you've arrived, and in general really, there is about an even split between the god-botherers and the non god-botherers upon this forum, in fact since you've arrived its probably more god-botherers than not, by god-botherers I mean theists and deists.

I suppose its understandable because given your avowed intention to be the debunker of the atheist you only hear what you wish.

You also have a habit of assuming your intentions are others and making proclamations about others that appear incorrect. As EH has regularly informed you that he has written upon god-botherer sites and has communicated with them upon his site. But then you have a tendency to not believe others, I guess its because it'd mean you'd have to then think non-'aphilosophically'.

[Arising_uk]

Hi Notvacka

...I think that you found the heart of this little debate, and it's made of lang,uage. Evangelicalhumanist's position would have been more reasonable in my native language, Swedish, since here the word for "belief" and "faith" are one and the same. In English, you can settle for atheism not being strong enough a belief to qualify as a faith. However, I think evangelicalhumanist tries to define "belief" in stronger terms, more akin to "faith". On the other side of the scale you have "opinion" which I would consider a weaker form of "belief". ...

I found this most interesting. So in Swedish how do you refer to what in English is called 'faith' as my understanding is we think it a belief without need for evidence. A total conviction of knowledge, so to speak. Whereas a belief is something that has shades of being knowledge, so to speak. Is it that the religious belief would be described in Swedish as not knowledge as you say knowledge is a belief and can never be assumed to be absolutely true? Sorry if this is unclear but its hard to say without using 'faith'.

I do think it interesting about English that because its an amalgamation of French and Anglo-Saxon that we pretty much have two words for every concept and thing that the originals had only one for. Makes it a pretty confusing but powerful language is my thought.