Thanks Miller. I couldn’t find that in this thread for some reason.
Yep, Reagan wasn’t religious at all. 
Yeah, that’s what I was about to get at. Is Reagan claiming that this universe is the best gourmet dinner ever?
There’s some good parts, but there’s quite a bit of rotten and spoiled food served to us as well.
Of course, given the rather charmed life that Reagan got to lead, maybe he only did see the good parts.
The Reagan anecdote reminds me of Calvin Trillin’s version of Hell.
Trillin is condemned to sit at a table in the most fabulous Chinese restaurant ever. His dinner companions are college football players who will order for the whole table. Trillin is not permitted to indicate any food preference. He eyes the mouthwatering exotic entrees being served to other tables, while the football players dither over their choice. “Should we try some of that chop suey stuff?” one says. “Nah, let’s get some fried chicken” replies another.
Let’s try this one. Consider a galaxy a billion ly from us. Is there a god in this galaxy - god being defined as an immortal being with magical to us powers. I certainly lack belief in such a god, but I don’t have any good reason to believe that one does not exist. Or use the existence of intelligent life on some planet in this galaxy. I lack belief in this, but since there is almost certainly some intelligent life on at least one planet, I also don’t believe that none exists.
For many atheists going from lacking belief to believing there are no gods is a non-trivial intellectual step.
I don’t merely not believe in the Loch Ness monster. I believe there is no Loch Ness monster. I originally had no idea of the concept. Then I was exposed to the idea. I decided, based on what the information that I was given at that exact moment, that the Loch Ness monster did not exist. I went from lacking a belief in the Loch Ness monster to having the belief that the Loch Ness monster does not exist.
When I first read of the Loch Ness monster during my high school years I was exposed to a lot of books supporting it, including the famous pictures. It was not enough to make me believe, but enough so that I didn’t believe the monster didn’t exist. The lack of evidence and debunking of the evidence I read about since them puts me in the believe it doesn’t exist camp, but again that was a process. Ditto for UFOs.
There are lots of times where believing something does not exist has motivated people the same as any positive belief. People who “don’t believe in global warming” very much treat this like a belief. They make decisions based on this belief. They argue for this belief, trying to convince others. The same is true of any denialist.
Right, and treating global warming as a belief is one part of their problem. I never say I believe in evolution or climate change, I accept them because of the preponderance of evidence for them. Some people who treat it as a belief do so to spout the “you have the religion of science” crap.
If we define “atheist” so that it doesn’t apply to those who haven’t been exposed to the idea of god(s) or lack the ability to understand it, then the only distinction I can see is that we are saying atheism requires a (negative) belief. We’re saying that you must have an active belief (whether weak or strong) that God does not exist. You don’t merely lack a belief in the existence of God, but believe it is false.
I’m fine with saying that the concept of atheism doesn’t apply to rocks or babies. But what about if you believe that n gods don’t exist and hear of the n_1st. What is the more reasonable default - lack of belief in that god until you hear some evidence or lack thereof, or immediate belief that this god does not exist?
Here is an analogy I’ve not yet heard. When I review a scientific paper (and I’ve reviewed lots of them) I start of in a state of lack of belief in its conclusions. I’ll never know if the conclusions are correct, not having been there when the work is done. Starting off believing in the work is clearly incorrect, and one problem is the halo effect, which means that famous authors get their stuff accepted because reviewers start off believing them. Starting off believing the conclusions are incorrect is equally wrong. If the evidence presented in the paper gives me cause to believe the conclusions, I’ll accept it, if it does not, or worse contains flaws which drive me to not believe the conclusions, I’ll reject it.
God belief is similar to me.
But what about before you had accumulated enough evidence for this conclusion, and after you gave up belief in whatever god you had believed in?
I guess it’s like asking someone if there are a pair of scissors in a cupboard in their house. They can say that they keep the scissors somewhere else, they never had a reason to put scissors in that cupboard, and they don’t remember seeing them in there, so they don’t believe they are in there.
Then they check in the cupboard and look around and there are definitely no scissors in there.
At first they didn’t believe there were scissors in there, now they believe there are none in there. That’s either a trivial distinction or a significant one depending on your perspective.
(…checks cupboards…) Nope. No god. 
You’re missing the point of the analogy. The proper position is to have neither oddist or evenist beliefs.
Matt also uses the law as an example. A jury finds someone either guilty or not guilty, not guilty or innocent. The jury finding someone not guilty does not necessarily believe the defendant innocent, but just that there is insufficient cause to find them guilty. I either believe god exists or lack belief god exists - and I might go further and believe god does not exist, but I should good reasons to do so.
Again I agree that something which does not have beliefs, like a rock, can’t be an atheist.
But say I ask you if you believe a garamara exists. I wouldn’t expect you would, but if you said you believe it doesn’t exist I might tell you that garamara is Lingala for cat. (Real language, made up word.) Wouldn’t withholding belief be more reasonable.
There is an engineering application of this. In digital logic, you might think that 1 and 0 are enough to represent all circuit values in a simulation. They aren’t. In some cases when the circuit comes up the output state of a flip-flop is unknown. You represent that as an X. An X might go away, like when it is an input to an AND gate with a 0 as the other input, but there are cases where the circuit is uninitializable and you never know. We had a real example of one of these once.
Picking either a 1 or a 0 to put on the output of a flop like this during simulation leads to incorrect results.
And that’s the most detailed technical explanation I ever will make in the Pit.
And his one-word apology response to that warning was his last post since then up to now.
All that because someone somewhere on the internet might have implied that religious belief was behind all bigotry and persecution (an implication which, if it existed, would be incorrect) and he had to make sure that we all shared his “knowledge” of what a huge responsibility atheism has played in that kind of injustice. I wonder if he convinced anyone.
I was taught about god in school and because I was a child I believed what I was told. I don’t think there was one moment when I stopped believing, it was a gradual thing as I learned more about the world.
He did say non-religious not atheist. Reagan certainly did invoke the Christian god a lot and he did pander to Christians. What he did not do was attend church regularly. When called on it he would say he didn’t want to disrupt the congregation with security measures. It was a point of contention at the time and his detractors did use it as a sign of hypocrisy.
Whether you have to attend church regularly to be considered religious is in the eye of the beholder. Reagan considered himself religious or he was lying through his teeth.
Maybe he got Ronald Reagan confused with his son Ron, who actually is an atheist?
And did he (Ron) say terrible things? Or is PwiS just terminally confused?
I consider myself religious and I don’t attend church ever, I haven’t attended service in many years. I’m not opposed to it, it’s just not a priority for me, and my family doesn’t attend either so if I wanted to go I’d be going alone. But I try to follow my faith and pray on occasion and have beliefs, which I think is enough. (Or I hope it is at least, I don’t pretend to be a great example of a Christian.)
I’m late because reasons, and haven’t read the entirety of this thread, but this here is where the Pit serves a useful function. Paul engaged in hurtful, flippant speech denigrating atheists and minimizing our experiences in a culture dominated by Christianity. Some other people were negatively characterizing atheists in that thread, but he really stood out as particularly bigoted. I’m really disappointed. The whole thread disappointed me, but him in particular.
So God is punishing me for being a nonbeliever by hiding all of my scissors?
That explains a lot.
Matthew 7:7-8
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
In other words, worship Him and He’ll stop hiding your stuff.
Nah that’s not it. The Lord has decided you just won’t stop running with scissors. Being as He cannot just alter you without taking away your free will, He protected you by hiding all your scisssors.
It’s ineffable it is.
So, upon taking the Scissors, and using them to cut the Holy Bible, he stood triumphant, seeing how he has defeated the Word.
And at that moment from the Heavens came a Fallen Star and struck him as he stood.
And thus the Lord spake, “Scissors beats paper, but rock beats scissors asshole.”
(That might not actually be in the Bible.)
We seriously need a like button.