Atheism on Trial

[raw_thought]

If I believe in God or not is irrelevant. Attack the argument, not the person.
For example, here is a logical fallacy (ad hominum) that you constantly commit.
1. Special needs students are bad at math.
2. Billy (a special needs student) says that 1+1=2
3. Therefore 1+1 does not equal 2.
I realize that you are very anal, so let me say that you did not talk about Billy. The above syllogism has yhe same logical form as your "arguments."

[raw_thought]

If you must know, I am very doubtful of God's existence. And if he does exist, our happiness is not one of his priorities.
In other words I believe that if God exists "he" is unconventional.

[raw_thought]

Hobbes,
To believe that unicorns do not exist is a belief. One can never dispense with beliefs.

[raw_thought]

Currently I am investigating alternative ways of knowing (mysticism ).. Before,you start a rant. Let me define "mysticism ". It is the direct perception of reality without the intermediary of words/symbols/icons. Words suffer from the symbol grounding problem. Hence one can even say that everything is ineffable. I believe that is the core of Wittgenstein's thought.

[raw_thought]

Also the correspondence theory of truth ( from now on referred to as CTT) is untenable. The CTT states that truth is when a proposition corresponds to reality. Does the CTT correspond to reality? By its own definition the CTT fails. Similarly logical positivism fails. The central idea of logical positivism is that if a proposition is not empirical or analytical it is nonsense. Is the central idea of logical positivism empirical? No! Is it analytical? No! Therefore by its own definition logical positivism is nonsense!

[Hobbes' Choice]

Like I said, it is much more rational and honest to use the common sense definitions.
Atheist= there is no God.
Theist= there is a God.
Agnostic= I don't know.

These are not common sense definitions. They are not definitions at all, not one is a definition makes grammatical sense.
A Theist is a person that believes in God (whatever god might mean).
An atheist is a person that does not believe in a god. That includes most agnostics including you.
An agnostic suggests that knowledge if god is not possible.

A tiny number of agnostics nonetheless believe in god. Which is not you, I take it?

A little anal arnt you. My meaning was clear.
But then you want to distract from your failure to grasp basic logic. If one says that an athiest does not believe that God is possible that means that he believes that God does not exist.
One can believe negative things. I believe that unicorns do not exist. In logic any proposition can be stated negatively. For example, " All Ravens are black" is logically equivalent to saying "There is no non-black thing that is a raven." See Hempel's raven paradox. It is very cool and related to what we are talking about.

Precision in language is the mark of intelligence. Calling it anal is childish.
Your thinking is a imprecise and your language.
Two things'
1) an atheist does not believe in god
2) an atheist believes god does not exist.
If you don't know the difference then I suggest that you think it over. Before you do ask yourself, what the fuck do you mean by "god" anyway.
Statement 2 is 'question begging'. If you don't know what that means, then run along and find out. It will help you understand many philosophical points. 2 has to include an affirmation that god is a meaningful concept in the first place.
Most atheists I know cannot accept that it is, and this is precisely why they are atheists.

Do you have a reason for being an agnostic? I suggest it might be for exactly the same reason.

A negative belief is a paradox because the meaning of 'belief" is abused. Think it over!

[Hobbes' Choice]

Hobbes,
To believe that unicorns do not exist is a belief. One can never dispense with beliefs.

I believe nothing, especially that!

A belief is a thing taken to be true. It is where reason ends. Knowledge is contingent on evidence and reason. I reject the first and maintain the second.

Why are you not agnostic about unicorns when you are about god?

[raw_thought]

OK,
I will agree that I am agnostic about unicorns and not a unicorn athiest. Its possible (but highly unlikely ) that somewhere on earth is a unicorn.
As for complaing that, "theist=there is a God" is not precise is an example of anal (concern over superfluous matters). My meaning was clear.

[raw_thought]

Ok Hobbes you are also a unicorn agnostic and not a unicorn athiest.

[raw_thought]

Actually, if you really like semantics,
Agnostic originally meant one that believes that God cannot be defined. Let X represent an undefined term. Does it make sense to say X exists? However, I am using the current definition of agnostic. Definitions constantly change. "fox" for example used to only apply to men.

[uwot]

I've just read the article. What a load of old tripe. Dr Anderson lazily constructs the usual strawman that atheism is the claim that there is evidence for no god, which any fool can dismantle in two seconds flat. That is not what atheism is claiming, I should know, I'm an atheist. What we claim is that there is nothing that theists claim as evidence of some god which cannot be explained some other, usually much better supported, way. Here it is spelled out for the hard of thinking:
Strawman atheist: There is evidence for no god.
Actual atheist: There is no evidence for god.
An agnostic by contrast, is someone who isn't persuaded by any 'evidence', or doesn't give a monkeys.
No doubt the above point has been made elsewhere in this thread, but I like to stick my oar in from time to time and can't be arsed to read the whole thing, especially not pages and pages of 'You're a moron.' 'No, you're a moron.' that morons get involved in.
Anyone interested in reading a high quality article in Philosophy Now, need look no further than this*: https://philosophynow.org/issues/104/Ph ... d_Branches or here, if you are not a subscriber: http://www.willibouwman.blogspot.co.uk/ ... nches.html


*Other high quality articles are available at PN.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Ok Hobbes you are also a unicorn agnostic and not a unicorn athiest.

"unicorn atheist" is meaningless.
You are confusing yourself.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Actually, if you really like semantics,
Agnostic originally meant one that believes that God cannot be defined. Let X represent an undefined term. Does it make sense to say X exists? However, I am using the current definition of agnostic. Definitions constantly change. "fox" for example used to only apply to men.

Wrong. Thomas Huxley invented the term and he was not concerned with definition as such.
The case for god is not made or defeated on the matter of definition. You cannot define a thing with no referent.

[Hobbes' Choice]

I've just read the article. What a load of old tripe. Dr Anderson lazily constructs the usual strawman that atheism is the claim that there is evidence for no god, which any fool can dismantle in two seconds flat. That is not what atheism is claiming, I should know, I'm an atheist. What we claim is that there is nothing that theists claim as evidence of some god which cannot be explained some other, usually much better supported, way. Here it is spelled out for the hard of thinking:
Strawman atheist: There is evidence for no god.
Actual atheist: There is no evidence for god.
An agnostic by contrast, is someone who isn't persuaded by any 'evidence', or doesn't give a monkeys.
No doubt the above point has been made elsewhere in this thread, but I like to stick my oar in from time to time and can't be arsed to read the whole thing, especially not pages and pages of 'You're a moron.' 'No, you're a moron.' that morons get involved in.
Anyone interested in reading a high quality article in Philosophy Now, need look no further than this*: https://philosophynow.org/issues/104/Ph ... d_Branches or here, if you are not a subscriber: http://www.willibouwman.blogspot.co.uk/ ... nches.html


*Other high quality articles are available at PN.

Thanks.
The strawman atheist definition is usually foun din the mouths of Theists wishing to accuse atheism of being just a system of belief. With such an act they pretend to give their own delusion a measure of credibility by suggesting that the converse of it requires a systemic approach to be refuted, but they also inadvertantly tar the atheist with the same brush, by suggesting that atheist is also 'just a belief", thereby shooting themselves in the foot by traducing belief systems per se.

[PoeticUniverse]

Hobbes is clearly and sensibly relating that he doesn't have to support the proposal of an unknown, unshown supernatural realm headed by a fundamental, First, all-powerful Person with a system mind referred to as 'God' (faith's honest meaning), as it is reasonless and is thus on based on a wish, belief, desire, feeling, etc., none of which above states that he is indicating or showing the opposite (which doesn't set up the straw man that is the silly, human trick of the article).

Nor does the unbased whole house of cards of all that is layered upon the original supposition as the large structure of religion have to be accepted with no evidence.

Other typical human tricks, even unknowingly sometimes, are to so much believe in something as to fall into the dishonesty of stating that the object of the belief is truth and fact, for one isn't as likely to obtain followers when being ethical and saying only that maybe it could be so.

When we don't know something for sure such as whether the sun will 'rise' tomorrow we trust (not have faith) that it will because there is a precedent and so that forms the reasoning as a good probability judgment. There is no reasoning by/through faith. When there is no precedent, we can only fall back to probability alone to estimate the question, yet probability stances can be underlain by reasoning, which can change the odds from 50/50 to something else.

All in all, though, what hasn't been established needn't even be addressed, which position, again, does not automatically mean one has totally contrary stance as one of the characters in the Wizard of Oz.