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Post by FilmFlaneur on Dec 5, 2019 20:32:13 GMT
You begin the insults, then whine when reality is tossed back at you. I just can't find any way to sympathize with your self righteousness. Please quote where I have personally insulted you. Slight sarcasm does not count. Evasion will be noted. Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity and agnostic because they claim that the existence of a deity is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact. The agnostic atheist, therefore, combines elements of not knowing the existence of God with the unbelief in God. www.allaboutphilosophy.org/agnostic-atheist-faq.htm I hope that helps. Saying something does not exist will not make it go away. Thank you for your opinion. It is as long as you don't substantiate anything - and as such can be rejected on the exact same basis. But why are you so angry? Wow. Just wow. Did you type this standing up? .
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Post by FilmFlaneur on Dec 5, 2019 20:37:13 GMT
This has been brought up before. Even though an atheist will claim it is a lack of belief, they still have to hold the notion of theist belief in order to refute that belief, due to their own belief system. It sprouts from the concept of belief in the first place. And as before the response is the same: that one can have a 'notion' of something without affirming it or implying a 'belief system' of one's own more than merely 'believing' that you know what is being discussed. The concept of belief is separate from the possession of it. Thus one can understand what the faithful mean without investing in anything. It may be convenient for you to ignore this but that obvious distinction will always be there. It is also the case that one can lack belief in the deity without needing to 'refute' anything, which in the case of soft atheists like myself is what defines us.
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Post by Cody™ on Dec 6, 2019 12:06:08 GMT
More like a lack of common sense and logic.
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Post by Cody™ on Dec 6, 2019 12:07:13 GMT
There is an idea going around that theists alone hold the burden of proof, not atheists. “If you want to make the positive claim that God exists,” they say, “you must prove that claim true or false.” We might then wonder, “Aren’t atheists making a positive claim that God doesn’t exist?” By saying, “I believe there is no God,” aren’t they, too, tasked with proving their claim true or false? The answer, according to them, is no. They would say theirs is not a belief, but a “lack or absence of belief.”[1] In his book, God Is Not Great, the late Christopher Hitchens explains, “Our belief is not a belief.”[2] So, what exactly are atheists saying? The source doesn't seem to grasp that there are different types of atheism. There are indeed atheists who make a positive claim that god doesn't exist. And yes, they have just as much of a burden of proof. Others (who are most, as far as I know) indeed subscribe to the "lack of belief" position. No, this doesn't follow. They are, for instance, saying that the evidence which has been put forward for god is insufficient. When somebody claims that "there is a good rational reason to believe in the existence of at least one god", I say "I don't think that is the case." And if you try and provide reasons, I say "I don't think those reasons are good." These are statements which the weak atheist can and does make.
Why would it matter if it is convenient or not? This sounds like mere jealousy.
They do. And if one were being unkind, one could say that he source has just debunked its own claim - it seems that atheism as a lack of belief can indeed lead to actions. Are they, though? I have to wonder, is there any evidence that atheism led to those things? If atheists do a thing, does that automatically mean that they did it because they are atheists? It seems to me that one can have all sorts of reasons for reading sceptical websites, editing wikipedia articles, writing angry blogs, frequenting atheist discussion forums, and posting snarky anti-religious remarks on Twitter. Personally I do none of those things (I do post in an atheist subforum, this one), but I'm a pretty solid atheist. Seems like he needs to rethink this. A desire to convince others that they are wrong to believe, a desire to socialise with others who are of like mind, a desire to test their own position regarding religion and god by exposing themselves to contrary views, pure intellectual curiosity... seriously, there are many reasons why people do things. This line of argument isn't even weak, it's just silly. Ah, but which came first? I am a skeptic. But my atheism did not cause me to become a skeptic - my skepticism caused me to become an atheist. For me at least, atheism isn't a cause of things about me nearly so much as it is a result of things about me. But the source doesn't seem to understand that this could be so. Wait, what? Religious people don't claim that there could be a creator, they claim that there is a creator. That's kind of a big difference to just brush past.I find this to be borderline dishonest, and it makes me wonder about the source. Again, he assumes motivations without any evidence. His thinking seems to be that an atheist dismisses "evidence that there could be a creator" because "they don't believe in god". But again, he has it backwards - atheists in most cases don't believe in god because attempts to give them evidence of one universally fail. I've been an atheist for 35 years or more now. In that time I have never, not ever, not once, been given "evidence of god" that stands up to scrutiny. It's never even close. I don't think this evidence is poor because I don't believe in god, rather I don't believe in god because the evidence is so poor.Absolutely! And as soon as somebody comes up with some, I'll develop a belief in god. (I suspect the source wouldn't like how that played out, though, since 'believing' is a very different thing than 'worshipping'.)
Simple - belief in god's existence is not rational because you cannot do what this article seems to think you can - you cannot provide me with a single solid rational reason to believe in god. LOL
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2019 12:10:40 GMT
The source doesn't seem to grasp that there are different types of atheism. There are indeed atheists who make a positive claim that god doesn't exist. And yes, they have just as much of a burden of proof. Others (who are most, as far as I know) indeed subscribe to the "lack of belief" position. No, this doesn't follow. They are, for instance, saying that the evidence which has been put forward for god is insufficient. When somebody claims that "there is a good rational reason to believe in the existence of at least one god", I say "I don't think that is the case." And if you try and provide reasons, I say "I don't think those reasons are good." These are statements which the weak atheist can and does make.
Why would it matter if it is convenient or not? This sounds like mere jealousy.
They do. And if one were being unkind, one could say that he source has just debunked its own claim - it seems that atheism as a lack of belief can indeed lead to actions. Are they, though? I have to wonder, is there any evidence that atheism led to those things? If atheists do a thing, does that automatically mean that they did it because they are atheists? It seems to me that one can have all sorts of reasons for reading sceptical websites, editing wikipedia articles, writing angry blogs, frequenting atheist discussion forums, and posting snarky anti-religious remarks on Twitter. Personally I do none of those things (I do post in an atheist subforum, this one), but I'm a pretty solid atheist. Seems like he needs to rethink this. A desire to convince others that they are wrong to believe, a desire to socialise with others who are of like mind, a desire to test their own position regarding religion and god by exposing themselves to contrary views, pure intellectual curiosity... seriously, there are many reasons why people do things. This line of argument isn't even weak, it's just silly. Ah, but which came first? I am a skeptic. But my atheism did not cause me to become a skeptic - my skepticism caused me to become an atheist. For me at least, atheism isn't a cause of things about me nearly so much as it is a result of things about me. But the source doesn't seem to understand that this could be so. Wait, what? Religious people don't claim that there could be a creator, they claim that there is a creator. That's kind of a big difference to just brush past.I find this to be borderline dishonest, and it makes me wonder about the source. Again, he assumes motivations without any evidence. His thinking seems to be that an atheist dismisses "evidence that there could be a creator" because "they don't believe in god". But again, he has it backwards - atheists in most cases don't believe in god because attempts to give them evidence of one universally fail. I've been an atheist for 35 years or more now. In that time I have never, not ever, not once, been given "evidence of god" that stands up to scrutiny. It's never even close. I don't think this evidence is poor because I don't believe in god, rather I don't believe in god because the evidence is so poor.Absolutely! And as soon as somebody comes up with some, I'll develop a belief in god. (I suspect the source wouldn't like how that played out, though, since 'believing' is a very different thing than 'worshipping'.)
Simple - belief in god's existence is not rational because you cannot do what this article seems to think you can - you cannot provide me with a single solid rational reason to believe in god. LOL No answer, huh? Well at least we saved a lot of bluster and an emotional rant.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2019 12:11:32 GMT
Holding the idea of a belief isn't holding a belief, though. I mean, I don't believe that Superman exists. But I do have the idea of Superman in my head. But it would take an idiot to think that this means I believe in Superman. You BELIEVE that the belief of others doesn't exist. No I don't. I believe that the belief of others does exist. I just don't share it.
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Dec 6, 2019 12:13:48 GMT
More like a lack of common sense and logic. Most people religious and atheists lack that.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Dec 6, 2019 13:57:40 GMT
That’s like saying that before someone does not believe in Santa Claus, he/she must first have to believe in him. The belief then held, is that Santa or God DOES NOT exist. Or that God PROBABLY does not exist. There's an entire spectrum of belief between the binaries of "believe X exists" and "believes X doesn't exist." I always go back to the issue of intelligent aliens; we have no evidence to believe they exist, but the universe is too huge to definitely believe they don't exist. So any honest person would choose some probability between 0 and 100 to put their "belief" at.
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Post by theauxphou on Dec 6, 2019 15:14:00 GMT
More like a lack of common sense and logic. It’s common sense to believe an invisible being created everything, including itself? Yep, that’s logical.
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Post by Cody™ on Dec 6, 2019 15:58:00 GMT
More like a lack of common sense and logic. It’s common sense to believe an invisible being created everything, including itself? Yep, that’s logical. It’s illogical to believe that our universe sprung from nothing and created itself.
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Post by Eva Yojimbo on Dec 6, 2019 16:03:30 GMT
It’s common sense to believe an invisible being created everything, including itself? Yep, that’s logical. It’s illogical to believe that our universe sprung from nothing and created itself. Unless you know something about modern cosmology, which you apparently don't.
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Post by faustus5 on Dec 6, 2019 16:12:07 GMT
It’s illogical to believe that our universe sprung from nothing and created itself. Unless you know something about modern cosmology, which you apparently don't. Exactly. Cody is so clueless about this issue that he doesn't even realize that the very concept of "nothing" is controversial and up for debate. There are arguments to be had that "nothing" is literally impossible.
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Post by general313 on Dec 6, 2019 16:28:29 GMT
Unless you know something about modern cosmology, which you apparently don't. Exactly. Cody is so clueless about this issue that he doesn't even realize that the very concept of "nothing" is controversial and up for debate. There are arguments to be had that "nothing" is literally impossible. What has me scratching my head a bit is why is it so important for some theists to show that atheism is a belief system (or, if I recall some earlier threads, a religion)? Is it that they deep down recognize the irrationality of religion and want to pull "atheists" down to their level (and perhaps undermine rational science along the way)?
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Post by faustus5 on Dec 6, 2019 16:58:26 GMT
Exactly. Cody is so clueless about this issue that he doesn't even realize that the very concept of "nothing" is controversial and up for debate. There are arguments to be had that "nothing" is literally impossible. What has me scratching my head a bit is why is it so important for some theists to show that atheism is a belief system (or, if I recall some earlier threads, a religion)? Is it that they deep down recognize the irrationality of religion and want to pull "atheists" down to their level (and perhaps undermine rational science along the way)? It does seem to be kind of childish.
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Post by theauxphou on Dec 6, 2019 18:08:38 GMT
It’s common sense to believe an invisible being created everything, including itself? Yep, that’s logical. It’s illogical to believe that our universe sprung from nothing and created itself.
Correction: The available evidence points to the universe's starting point as an infinitesimally small point of infinite energy. That's not exactly nothing, is it?
Whatever your answer is, that's what the evidence points to. There is no evidence of an agent—as in, an intelligent being. Your steadfast belief in such a thing, despite this, is illogical.
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Post by FilmFlaneur on Dec 6, 2019 19:17:12 GMT
And as before the response is the same: that one can have a 'notion' of something without affirming it or implying a 'belief system' of one's own more than merely 'believing' that you know what is being discussed. The concept of belief is separate from the possession of it. Thus one can understand what the faithful mean without investing in anything. It may be convenient for you to ignore this but that obvious distinction will always be there. It is also the case that one can lack belief in the deity without needing to 'refute' anything, which in the case of soft atheists like myself is what defines us. Since when! Since anyone sat down and saw the obvious distinction.
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Post by thefleetsin on Dec 6, 2019 20:49:40 GMT
the cutest cults classically coddle corn-holed caravans
although corn holing has been around since cain discovered able wasn't totally into it there has since been a long line of the more than willing eager to bend right over in front of you whether gentile morman catholic or jew and allow a magic spirit to do what every magic spirit lives for because one can't operate a baptismal or a brothel without first signing up enough whores to ensure every god shoots then scores.
sjw 12/06/19 inspired at this very moment in time why is he walking so funny.
from the 'blasphemy series' of poems
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2019 21:34:44 GMT
It’s common sense to believe an invisible being created everything, including itself? Yep, that’s logical. I don't like the idea that our universe sprung from nothing and created itself. Fixed that for you.
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Post by sublime92 on Dec 6, 2019 21:56:39 GMT
Despite our investment in said wholehearted beliefs we should all adapt harmony rather than division.
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Post by Cody™ on Dec 6, 2019 22:46:49 GMT
I don't like the idea that our universe sprung from nothing and created itself. Fixed that for you. You atheists really believe in a virgin birth: a universe from nothing.
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