Are the New Atheists just as messed up as Believers?

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woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,189
14,114
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Oh yes, the "fence-sitter" charge that atheists like to throw at people who identify as an agnostic. Way to be that Atheist.

Nope..

A "fence sitter" would be something like, I've reviewed the evidence and I think it's 50/50 or thereabouts, so I can't decide.

That may be one form of agnosticism, I suppose. But it's an awfully rare form. I think agnosticism, rather, based on how it is explained by agnostics, is that they view the state of the evidence pretty much the same way the atheists do. They'd just rather say they don't know instead say they don't believe. YMMV, of course, as you haven't detailed your thinking.

To be clear: If you identify as an a-theist, you are saying that there is no god. You are making a positive statement of fact. There isn't X".

To be clear: if you identify as a theist, you are saying that there is a god. You are making a positive statement of fact. "There is X".

Not really. It's the same as saying there is no proof. And it's totally logical. There's an infinite number of things humans have imagined or could imagine in the future. I don't really need to say "I don't know" for each and every one of them. Bring me proof and I will believe. Until then, it's something in your head.

I'm going back to the FSM to make what should be an obvious point. You and I would likely both agree that the FSM doesn't exist, not because such a thing is impossible in theory, but because there is no empirical proof. By your logic, our rejection of the FSM is a "belief."

I am neither as an agnostic, and that difference is not absurd. I am saying that I don't know and could never know and that saying that I know one way or the other is impossible. There might be "X", there might not be "X". That is right there on its face not the same as "There isn't X".

The fact that there is a clear difference between Atheism and Agnosticism that can be explained in sentence form means that it isn't absurd to say that you're an agnostic and not an atheist. Or to put it another way, I'm not on your team here, just like I'm not on the theists' team.

Ask yourself why you feel the need to say "I don't know" when you undoubtedly would feel no such need in the case of any other posited entity for which there is no common, widespread belief. No one feels the need to say "I don't believe in the FSM" even though the state of the evidence is the same. There must be all sorts of things you say you don't believe without being 100% certain.

What you are doing is treating "God" as a special case because you live in a world where lots of people say they believe in God and saying "I don't know" puts you less at odds with such people than saying "I don't believe."
 

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
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Atitude and belief are everything. We are the world and what you see is a projection of your mental state. Faith moves mountains and blah blah blah.

Faith doesn't move mountains. People with shovels and heavy equipment (and hopefully explosives) move mountains.

Attitude and belief absolutely do not change reality at all. They may change your perception of reality but I can assure you that the average rock couldn't care less what you think of it.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
73,286
6,351
126
Gravity has always been detectable. Stuff didn't suddenly start being affected by it after Newton. Everytime anyone dropped something (or didn't float off the planet) they were detecting gravity.

I'm not talking about a deep understanding of things.

There is no detectable trace of God. None.
If something leaves no trace or effect on reality then it doesn't exist.
The belief in God affects billions of people. You simply can't abandon your beliefs. God isn't out there affecting the universe. He is when the observer and what is observed is one. What you call reality is other, the product of delusion and division. If you can't get past the notion that if anybody believes in God they won't have any understanding of anything, then you really can't participate in this discussion which only peripherally involves belief in God. The author is an Athiest it would seem.
 

cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
23,993
13,519
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I would disagree, absolute certainly is quite different from maximal certainty.

I can be maximally certain that we are not in the matrix or that there isn't a God without being absolutely certain.

The problem with Gods is that as soon as you start giving the features that would manifest in the natural world they are immediately testable and without evidence we can be maximally certain that they do not exist.

That still doesn't believe that you are absolutely certain that the matrix or God isn't true, only that even if they were it would be of absolutely no consequence.
Well almost none. God and/or matrix would produce the same result for me... cause that means we can go looking for bugs in the code. If there is another set of rules besides gravity, atomic forces, electromagnetism etc. in play here, those rules can be fucked with.


Rules

 
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nickqt

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2015
7,695
8,095
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Do you carry this belief forward for everything else that isn't falsifiable? If not why not? Why is religion different?
Religion is a philosophy. It's a thought experiment. I know enough about the universe to know that I have close to zero actual understanding of what has happened in the past and what will happen in the future. It's one thing to measure light's speed or observe light or some phenomena, and it's quite another to say that "we don't see it, hence it doesn't exist". While it may just be a rounding error or whatever, dark matter and dark energy have just entered chat.

I'm an agnostic on religion because we're not talking about ghosts or demons or election fraud, we're talking about what the Universe really is, when we'll never see all of it, from the inside or the outside, and I'm not going to go out on a limb and say, "There Is No God", because FFS I can't even observe .00000000001% of the Universe now, nevermind the previous 14B years or the next hundred trillion/heat death period after...or what the universe is expanding "into", if that even is a thing, and don't say you know, because even people who study this shit with PhDs don't know. That's "why".

It seems weird to take umbrage at implications of fence sitting then say...
Fence-sitter is an oldie but "goodie" accusation by typical Atheists who want to claim that I'm not what I say I am, and that I'm really what they say I am. If you don't know why I'd take umbrage at someone telling me that I'm not accurately describing my knowledge/lack of/belief system claim about myself, well, we probably aren't going to agree on anything after that.

I agree with him and you are wrong, agnostic/gnostic refers to knowledge while atheist/theist refers to belief.



No, atheist from the Greek a-theos literally means not-theist. It isn't a positive statement because "not" cannot be a positive statement.



This is also false, theist from the Greek theos literally means "with *belief* in a God(s)" and says nothing about knowledge.



You're either atheist or theist (the two are mutually exclusive), you either believe that there is a god or you do not believe that there is a god.

I'd say your position is agnostic atheist or weak atheist if you want to use language correctly.
So, what you're telling me is that I actually don't believe in God because of greek roots words and because you say so?

Yikes.

You're going to have to go back to Proto-Indo-European roots rather than Greek roots to convince me that what I think about myself is wrong because you say so.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
73,286
6,351
126
Faith doesn't move mountains. People with shovels and heavy equipment (and hopefully explosives) move mountains.

Attitude and belief absolutely do not change reality at all. They may change your perception of reality but I can assure you that the average rock couldn't care less what you think of it.
Hehe, color me a rock. Belief changes nothing in the world but it changes everything about how we see it. What do you think is the source of your persistence in this matter?

Thought experiment: I am right so why are you having trouble seeing it?
 

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
31,441
9,343
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The belief in God affects billions of people. You simply can't abandon your beliefs.
No arguments about either of those points. They don't say anything about the actual existence of a god though.

God isn't out there affecting the universe. He is when the observer and what is observed is one. What you call reality is other, the product of delusion and division.
You haven't shown that there is a god yet. You haven't shown any hint of his existence but you are still saying what he does and doesn't do.
If you can't get past the notion that if anybody believes in God they won't have any understanding of anything, then you really can't participate in this discussion which only peripherally involves belief in God. The author is an Athiest it would seem.
People can believe in whatever they want. Just because they believe in somethings existence doesn't mean that thing exists.
I'm not sure what you are going for here. I believe in a lot of the same things that religious people do, just not the existence of God bit.
 

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
31,441
9,343
136
Hehe, color me a rock. Belief changes nothing in the world but it changes everything about how we see it. What do you think is the source of your persistence in this matter?
You can't see that how you perceive something doesn't actually change the thing?
Thought experiment: I am right so why are you having trouble seeing it?
Because you're wrong.

That was easy. ;)
 

skyking

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
22,382
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Do you carry this belief forward for everything else that isn't falsifiable? If not why not? Why is religion different?
That is the crux of it, it gets assigned an outsized value greater than, say the loch Ness monster or Bigfoot.
It is a separate special pleading on top of the other special pleadings.
 

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
31,441
9,343
136
Religion is a philosophy. It's a thought experiment.
It pretty much isn't that. It's a belief in the existence of a supernatural being that created the universe and affects every natural law and every aspect of existence.
If you think it's just a thought experiment then you are certainly not a theist.
 

MtnMan

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2004
8,960
8,195
136
I think you have to have the ability to consider a proposition to reject it and I define atheism as the rejection of an idea with no evidence.
Ah yes, the prove the negative conundrum.
My parents were theists but they never imposed their ideas on me, they figured that I should come to my own conclusions. I turned theist and atheist within one year. Theist because I went with some friends to church and atheist because I read the Bible. Still good friends though, good people are generally good people with or without religion.
Note my signature line. Life experience has shown just how accurate that quote is...
 

MtnMan

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2004
8,960
8,195
136
Hehe, color me a rock. Belief changes nothing in the world but it changes everything about how we see it. What do you think is the source of your persistence in this matter?

Thought experiment: I am right so why are you having trouble seeing it?
And when one's view is changed, what does it change?

The angriest I ever recall my grandmother was when here sister died of a manageable disease simply because her sister married a christian scientist and bought into the belief. So yes, it did change her life...
 

MichaelMay

Senior member
Jun 6, 2021
453
465
96
Ah yes, the prove the negative conundrum.

No, more the "if you lack the ability to consider a subject you cannot reject it". You first have to have the ability to even understand the proposal to be able to reject it.

Note my signature line. Life experience has shown just how accurate that quote is...

Heh, well there you go, we're on the same page (also, I'm old enough to be a grandfather to a 12 year old so I can agree about how life experience shows it to be true). :)
 

MtnMan

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2004
8,960
8,195
136
No, more the "if you lack the ability to consider a subject you cannot reject it". You first have to have the ability to even understand the proposal to be able to reject it.



Heh, well there you go, we're on the same page (also, I'm old enough to be a grandfather to a 12 year old so I can agree about how life experience shows it to be true). :)
My grandsons are now adults.
 

MichaelMay

Senior member
Jun 6, 2021
453
465
96
Religion is a philosophy. It's a thought experiment. I know enough about the universe to know that I have close to zero actual understanding of what has happened in the past and what will happen in the future. It's one thing to measure light's speed or observe light or some phenomena, and it's quite another to say that "we don't see it, hence it doesn't exist". While it may just be a rounding error or whatever, dark matter and dark energy have just entered chat.

I'm an agnostic on religion because we're not talking about ghosts or demons or election fraud, we're talking about what the Universe really is, when we'll never see all of it, from the inside or the outside, and I'm not going to go out on a limb and say, "There Is No God", because FFS I can't even observe .00000000001% of the Universe now, nevermind the previous 14B years or the next hundred trillion/heat death period after...or what the universe is expanding "into", if that even is a thing, and don't say you know, because even people who study this shit with PhDs don't know. That's "why".


Fence-sitter is an oldie but "goodie" accusation by typical Atheists who want to claim that I'm not what I say I am, and that I'm really what they say I am. If you don't know why I'd take umbrage at someone telling me that I'm not accurately describing my knowledge/lack of/belief system claim about myself, well, we probably aren't going to agree on anything after that.


So, what you're telling me is that I actually don't believe in God because of greek roots words and because you say so?

Yikes.

You're going to have to go back to Proto-Indo-European roots rather than Greek roots to convince me that what I think about myself is wrong because you say so.

No, what I'm telling you is that you are equating not-theist with anti-theist. Words have meaning based on etymology and to me that matters. I know you probably consider me a pedantic twat but that is fine with me as long as you understand the words I'm using to communicate with you from now on. I'm just making sure we're all on the same page and your quip towards wolfe is simply based on your misunderstanding of what not-theist (not-believer in a god(s)) means.

He did NOT call you a fence sitter, he simply corrected your mistaken usage of the word.

If you persist I'll just ignore your posts from now on, there is no point in this meaningless discussion about you not understanding the words you're using and getting angry about others accusing you for things they did not.
 
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[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
15,285
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The belief in God affects billions of people. You simply can't abandon your beliefs. God isn't out there affecting the universe. He is when the observer and what is observed is one. What you call reality is other, the product of delusion and division. If you can't get past the notion that if anybody believes in God they won't have any understanding of anything, then you really can't participate in this discussion which only peripherally involves belief in God. The author is an Athiest it would seem.
Delusion affects billions of people. Delusion affected some 70m people last election. Humans are fragile, egotistical creatures; prone to delusion, fabrication, and any number of logical fallacies (as we have evolved to be, to survive). Do not assume that our weaknesses as organic beings is evidence of a godlike figure, beyond more advanced species.
 
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MichaelMay

Senior member
Jun 6, 2021
453
465
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Well almost none. God and/or matrix would produce the same result for me... cause that means we can go looking for bugs in the code. If there is another set of rules besides gravity, atomic forces, electromagnetism etc. in play here, those rules can be fucked with.


Rules


Well, if it has no effect what so ever in the natural world... I mean gluons are virtual particles that have effect, so are photons and we only know they exist because of their effect.

Also, gravity is vibration as much as it is mass. Go look up what gluons are and blow your mindhole into the next dimension.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
73,286
6,351
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That is the crux of it, it gets assigned an outsized value greater than, say the loch Ness monster or Bigfoot.
It is a separate special pleading on top of the other special pleadings.
So what is the name of people who do not believe in the tooth fairy? What is their connection to Nazi thinking, if any? What about the name of those who are on the fence? Why do Atheists assign an outsized importance to their disbelief?

Surely you see that one reason for why the question of God would appear as outsized is because God is real. The only weight your argument holds is the presupposition that God is not real. Seems a silly argument to me.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
73,286
6,351
126
What this thread shows me is that, as I often suggest, people are not generally able to set aside their sacred cows to examine the effects of unconscious assumptions and that who they truly what they actually manifest is an inner bigotry and intolerance of the opinions of other. Those sacred cows are there as crutches that serve to hide damaged egos, hidden feelings of inferiority that would be exposed by uncertainty. Everyone’s’ opinions are a ‘special case’ and that is what is projected.

For this reason, this endless triggering of threat by the opinions of others, we have no time in interest or capacity to evaluate impartially. We are not necessarily saved from fanaticism by faith or doubt.

The question becomes, are all castles built on sand and how would anybody know.
 

skyking

Lifer
Nov 21, 2001
22,382
5,347
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So what is the name of people who do not believe in the tooth fairy? What is their connection to Nazi thinking, if any? What about the name of those who are on the fence? Why do Atheists assign an outsized importance to their disbelief?

Surely you see that one reason for why the question of God would appear as outsized is because God is real. The only weight your argument holds is the presupposition that God is not real. Seems a silly argument to me.
The context of my answer was regarding agnostics and It would have been clearer with a multi-quote.
Where did Nazi thinking come up?
 
Nov 8, 2012
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You're reading from the salon.

Bring your IQ level up past that of a 2nd grader if you want an intelligent conversation.
 
Feb 4, 2009
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I started going to Church again 10 years ago this November or December.
I started going regularly as in typically once per week or more during the holy weeks.
I have attended some bible study and theological talks with the Pastor(s).
It has been a great thing in life, I am grateful someone brought me there.
As I have said I typically feel better when I leave vs before I arrived.
I have learned a lot about gratitude, appreciation, how to handle loss and grief. Plus some basic things nearly weekly.
For example:
This morning when I arrived at Church there was a car with “Vote Scott Brown” and a two or three various MAGA stickers on it. My first thought was look at this moron, they don’t know how to lose and they are too lazy to remove bumper stickers. I wonder who that is. While at service I’m looking around guessing whose car it is but I’m sort of stumped.
Then my Pastor does his sermon about translations in the book of Mark and the different languages translate slightly differently and add that to Mark had an unusual writing style where he goes off track then suddenly ties it together at the end. The verses could be interpreted (in Greek I think) about losing people but not necessarily losing as in they are dead. My Pastor then said “who here has lost someone over politics, friends, family, siblings, parents. I have.”
Wow that hit me.
It is not my place to be guessing who MAGA Man or Woman is. They point is they are part of my Church community and I should not judge them by their choice of bumper stickers.
Good simple lesson there about community, respect and judgement.

Back to the Atheism thing. Personally I don’t see how someone can go thru life without belief of something greater. I was one at one point but I realize that was not the life I wanted.
I do wish all find god and open their minds to others more often.





OP now watch what happens.
 

nickqt

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2015
7,695
8,095
136
No, what I'm telling you is that you are equating not-theist with anti-theist. Words have meaning based on etymology and to me that matters. I know you probably consider me a pedantic twat but that is fine with me as long as you understand the words I'm using to communicate with you from now on. I'm just making sure we're all on the same page and your quip towards wolfe is simply based on your misunderstanding of what not-theist (not-believer in a god(s)) means.

He did NOT call you a fence sitter, he simply corrected your mistaken usage of the word.

If you persist I'll just ignore your posts from now on, there is no point in this meaningless discussion about you not understanding the words you're using and getting angry about others accusing you for things they did not.
Re-read what I wrote, and re-read what I just quoted from you. I'm not angry at all. I'm enjoying the exchange. That said, you appear to be angry because of the semantics behind roots of words. To me, getting into a semantic argument about "belief" and "knowledge" is just that, semantics that are unimportant in describing beliefs OR knowledge.


I do not believe in any particular God. I also do not believe that a God cannot exist (I believe that a God can exist). This does not make me an atheist. It makes me someone who doesn't "believe" one way or the other. To me this is a distinction from an atheist who "doesn't believe in ANY God" and who in any non-semantic argument would (probably) extend that to say that THERE IS NOT ANY GOD. I would never say "there is not any God", or, "I do not believe a God can exist". I wouldn't say that, which an atheist probably would or could. This distinguishes my "belief".

I don't know if there is a particular God that exists. I don't think that it's possible to know that there is a God, or that there is not a God. This is why I describe myself as agnostic.

The fact that I can be "further" categorized from an "atheist" to an "agnostic atheist" or "weak atheist" is, again, part of my argument on why I am not "an atheist", because I don't fit in that column, except for the semantic roots of words that are pretty unimportant to the larger argument on whether "there is or isn't a God". Belief and knowledge are two sides of the same coin. There can be 'incorrect" knowledge, and it would then be more of a "belief" than knowledge. It's degrees, not entirely separate concepts, here in reality, and not just on a piece of paper when attempting to categorize into neat categories.
It pretty much isn't that. It's a belief in the existence of a supernatural being that created the universe and affects every natural law and every aspect of existence.
If you think it's just a thought experiment then you are certainly not a theist.
You've got one thing right, I'm certainly not a theist. But that doesn't rule out that the entire Universe is just a thought experiment of a God, and we're just just wondering WTF is going on. Prove me wrong on that one.

Thought experiments, Gods, Beliefs vs. Knowledge...

Oh my!
He's not telling you what you believe, he's telling you what those words mean.
That's fine. We can get all deep into "knowledge vs belief", but that has almost zero actual relevance to whether you "believe" in God or "know" there is or isn't a God, because in reality, the question is whether "there is a God or there is no God". Belief and knowledge are just shades of that.

I can have false knowledge of a God, but it could be described as a "belief". If I say that at some point in the past I had some experience that proves to me the existence of God, that would make me a theist because I would claim that I "know" that there is a God. That same experience could be the very reason/only reason that I believe there is a God. So, that experience could also be the foundation of a "belief". Whether I'm focusing on the "knowledge" or "belief" is pretty irrelevant to whether I am saying "There Is A God".

How many books do we want to write trying to distinguish belief vs. knowledge? You think Merriams can nail that one down in a few lines, because I'd argue that it's something that two individuals could disagree on even on an infinite timeline.

I could say I don't believe in any God that's ever been described by another human, but it doesn't mean I wouldn't believe in a God if I, for example, had some personal experience that couldn't be explained (by someone else anyway) as natural, or not supernatural. Is that "belief" knowledge that you can never know but I can? If I was correct, that experience would be knowledge, but you'd probably describe it as belief.

Can personal knowledge that I say I have be automatically dismissed as simply a belief, or incorrect knowledge? Who does the categorizing there? And who is right and wrong? Would it take a third party to decide? Could a third party just up and say that my experience wasn't real and that my knowledge is just a belief?

Look, words mean what they mean, that's fine. But when we're getting all up in Atheism vs Theism, the separation of "knowledge" and "belief" as two separate concepts starts to lose its meaning, and I think it becomes counterproductive to try to say that belief and knowledge are two completely separate things, especially when we're actually dealing with subjective consciousness and our roles in the universe that is objective and observable, and the part of the universe that we can't even begin to perceive or measure.

You can label me an "agnostic atheist" if it allows you to categorize my "belief", but I'm literally saying that as an agnostic, my "distinguishing" feature is that I don't hold a belief one way or the other, because I don't think it's even possible to know one way or the other. OK, then I'm an agnostic atheist! Or a weak atheist! But again, your focus is on the Atheism because I don't believe in any particular God, when to me, the important thing is that because I don't think I can know one way or the other, I don't believe in any particular God, and I don't believe that there cannot be a God. Maybe Jesus is hanging out in the 11th dimension curled up inside of everyone and we are all really one and the separation we perceive is just a limit on our ability to observe the universe. Hell, maybe the FSM is curled up in there playing Dominos with Jesus. Fuck if I'll ever know, unless there's an afterlife or whatever, but I'm not holding my breath on that one, either.

I'm defining my belief based on my knowledge. You are trying to categorize my knowledge based on my belief or lack thereof right at this particular moment in regards to all of the Gods so far described. That's the semantic argument here, and I'm not angry, or saying "You are wrong", I'm just saying that just because I don't believe in any particular God as described by any human that has or does exist, doesn't mean I wouldn't believe in a God that I had a personal experience with, or "conjured" from my own observation of reality. But, I have a feeling (belief, knowledge?!?) that you probably would automatically disbelieve/unbelieve/not believe any argument for a brand new God, whereas I'd still probably go, eh, maybe, I don't know. And that would, in my warped mind, distinguish my agnosticism from your atheism.

My lack of knowledge is what defines me as an agnostic. I don't really care about belief one way or the other, unless my knowledge changes, which I don't think it will. Hence, I'm a-gnostic, I don't believe the knowledge exists or will exist, hence the belief part is useless anyway. I don't even get that far in the belief department, because of my agnosticism.

I think therefore I am. Philosophy. Belief. Knowledge. All just shades of observation. Observations that are clearly incomplete and comically indefinite. Etc, ad nauseam, until the heat death of the Universe or whatever.