Possibilianism

[Moonbeam]

Sorry I should have clarified I was only talking about finding the starting point. I'm confident that we'll figure out the spark of life eventually. I'm also confident we'll figure out what started our universe. I'm not confident we'll explain the beginning of time (not just the beginning of this universe) as any beginning (in my uneducated opinion of course) is incongruent with our perception of time.

The perception of the flow of time is conditional on the state of awareness, the greater the density of information, the slower the flow of time to the point where total awareness stops time altogether. In that state all that happens happens by one's own will and everything is a miracle.

 

[Moonbeam]

Or how about I don't care and I don't intend on living for something else (god) and do good things because I feel like it? I don't need to believe in a higher being to be a better person. If that's what you need to help you to be a better person then so be it but I don't. If your religion is true then so were the Greeks with their gods and so is Scientology with their beliefs. Every religious belief in all of history is just as valid as yours no matter how weird you may think it to be. Since no one has proof that your religion is wrong, then that means all other religions cannot be proven wrong as well. Scientologists are on the same level as Christians and Muslims.

Are you trying to tell me that your sense of right and wrong, good and bad, better and worse, somehow adhere to your being?

 

[slayer202]

someone send this guy back to P&N, it's getting old already

 

[SMOGZINN]

You're allowed to be as closed-minded as you wish, but it is not scientific to completely and smugly dismiss any possibility you do not possess the data to to completely exclude.

It would seem that your understanding of science is very limited. You don't need to completely exclude anything in science. In fact, you can never completely exclude anything in science. That can only be done in mathematics and logic.

In science we do not completely exclude anything, we accept probable theories. We ask, does this theory have enough evidence to be considered credible? If the answer is yes, we accept that theory until something comes along to show that the evidence better supports a different theory, or some evidence comes along that precludes much of the supporting evidence from the old theory. Scientists don’t go around believing in things for no reason. That is not scientific.

You can rank possibilities according to probability, of course, but being completely closed-minded without proof is to be just as silly and superstitious as any religious fool, yo.

Now this makes more sense, but it undermines what you are trying to say. That is what the vast majority of what atheists do. They use logic and evidence to rank the probability of religious claims. It turns out that almost all those claims have a really, really low probability. When the probability is that low it is safe to say it is not true. With out those claims, there is nothing at all to even try to believe in. It is not that we are not open to possibilities. It is that we have looked at those possibilities and decided they are not at all probable. Come up with more possibilities and we will evaluate them as well.

Alternatively one could entertain the question of why one seeks to dismiss anything in the first place.

Because I have limited time and resources and have to find some way to allocate them.
If I have to attend every possible church, make every possible sacrifice, and stick to every possible restriction, then I will not have time to do anything else.

a·the·ism
   /ˈeɪθiˌɪzəm/ Show Spelled[ey-thee-iz-uhm] Show IPA
–noun

1. the doctrine or belief that there is no god.

2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheism

That feels like it was written by a theist as an attack on atheism. I have met very, very, very few atheists that would agree to that definition. It is like if Dictionary.com published a definition of Christianity that stated:
1. A doctrine that a magic man existed two thousand years ago who told people that cannibalism was the only way to live forever.
2. The belief in magic man cannibalism.

So, my question to those that agree with this definition of atheism: what do you call the 99% of atheists that do not believe in a god, but does not have a positive believe in no god.

 

[nick1985]

someone send this guy back to P&N, it's getting old already

Check out his posts in L&R...

 

[slayer202]

Check out his posts in L&R...

haha oh shit, I can't even imagine. I'd probably wanna kill myself

 

[zerocool84]

Check out his posts in L&R...

I just don't respond to any of his posts.

 

[nick1985]

I just don't respond to any of his posts.

He is one of 2 people on my ignore...

 

[Malak]

That feels like it was written by a theist as an attack on atheism. I have met very, very, very few atheists that would agree to that definition. It is like if Dictionary.com published a definition of Christianity that stated:
1. A doctrine that a magic man existed two thousand years ago who told people that cannibalism was the only way to live forever.
2. The belief in magic man cannibalism.

So, my question to those that agree with this definition of atheism: what do you call the 99% of atheists that do not believe in a god, but does not have a positive believe in no god.

That is the entire point to the OP! What most people say they believe is NOT atheism. The purpose here was to introduce a new term.

 

[Nik]

haha oh shit, I can't even imagine. I'd probably wanna kill myself

Here, come listen to me tell you about why you hate yourself...

 

[Nik]

That is the entire point to the OP! What most people say they believe is NOT atheism. The purpose here was to introduce a new term.

At least they believe based on what they see/don't see instead of cling to blind faith based on absolutely nothing more than a silly book of fairy tales.

 

[Locut0s]

Here, come listen to me tell you about why you hate yourself...

I vaguely remember something like that. Is that from one of his threads?

 

[zerocool84]

I vaguely remember something like that. Is that from one of his threads?

Pretty much all his posts in L&R are him saying how perfect he is and why you hate yourself.

 

[alkemyst]

Pretty much all his posts in L&R are him saying how perfect he is and why you hate yourself.

I never got that from his posts. His posts are how everyone else sucks and he does more.

I think he is that watercolor dude Ross' soul somehow trapped in an emo kid that has no access to razor blades or sharp objects.

 

[Moonbeam]

Relation of threatened egotism to violence and aggression: The dark side of high self-esteem.

Baumeister, Roy F.; Smart, Laura; Boden, Joseph M.

Psychological Review, Vol 103(1), Jan 1996, 5-33. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.103.1.5

Abstract

Conventional wisdom has regarded low self-esteem as an important cause of violence, but the opposite view is theoretically viable. An interdisciplinary review of evidence about aggression, crime, and violence contradicted the view that low self-esteem is an important cause. Instead, violence appears to be most commonly a result of threatened egotism—that is, highly favorable views of self that are disputed by some person or circumstance. Inflated, unstable, or tentative beliefs in the self's superiority may be most prone to encountering threats and hence to causing violence. The mediating process may involve directing anger outward as a way of avoiding a downward revision of the self-concept. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA

Even the pros don't see that egotism and low self-esteem are one and the same thing, but the effect is the same. Tell an egotist he hates himself and he will want to get even. The freedom offered by possibilities that self hate is a lie will not be able to be considered. The sick are wedded to their sickness.

 

[SMOGZINN]

That is the entire point to the OP! What most people say they believe is NOT atheism. The purpose here was to introduce a new term.

I still disagree. A-Theism = NOT THEIST. That is what I am, not a theist. The word you are confusing it with would be antitheist, a person who opposes theists or theism.

 

[Malak]

I still disagree. A-Theism = NOT THEIST. That is what I am, not a theist. The word you are confusing it with would be antitheist, a person who opposes theists or theism.

Your arguments are pointless because the dictionary disagrees with you. You can't redefine it. You are only perpetuating the problem.

 

[sandorski]

Your arguments are pointless because the dictionary disagrees with you. You can't redefine it. You are only perpetuating the problem.

Caller at 3 minutes?

 

[SMOGZINN]

Your arguments are pointless because the dictionary disagrees with you. You can't redefine it. You are only perpetuating the problem.

Even your dictionary does not disagrees with me. From your example:

2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

This is actually the same as my definition, once you see the definition of belief and disbelief:

disbelief: The action or an act of disbelieving; mental rejection of a statement or assertion; positive unbelief.

believe: 1. To have confidence or faith in (a person), and consequently to rely upon, trust to.

I will admit that I actively have no confidence or faith in (a god) and consequently do not rely upon or trust in a god. For that I would have to have some evidence. It seems to me that your problem is stemming from a misunderstanding of what 'to believe' means.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Your arguments are pointless because the dictionary disagrees with you. You can't redefine it. You are only perpetuating the problem.

Oh, and one more thing. Yes, I can redefine it. When the dictionary's definition of a word is different from the everyday use of that word, it is the dictionary that changes.

EDIT: And, yes. I find it annoying too.

 

[Moonbeam]

Oh, and one more thing. Yes, I can redefine it. When the dictionary's definition of a word is different from the everyday use of that word, it is the dictionary that changes.

EDIT: And, yes. I find it annoying too.

You aren't changing anything; a consensus among dictionary publishers that the usage of a word has changed changes definitions. The definition hasn't changed until that happens. If you use a word differently than it is defined, you are using it incorrectly.

Doubtless there are folk who do not believe in all the various and preposterous gods that don't exist and have no further emotional reaction, but a few minutes in any religious atheist thread shows you that atheism goes much much deeper than that for a great many people, folk who are absolutely certain that because of all the silly gods that don't exist, no god does exist and they argue it vehemently. They do so because it is their belief. They have committed emotionally to the belief there can be no God. They are just as emotionally and irrationally attached to this position as any other religious nut case.

It is just the very fundamentalism that the scientist the OP quoted warns against.