Is there any atheist, who would say: I would not believe in God even if he appeared before me, raised the dead, parted the sea, turned water into wine, and lifted me up on a cloud with winged angels playing harps?
I guess there might be one or two…
They would be more specifically classified as Strong-Atheists.
Or maybe super-duper strong atheists.
I guess I should have said above that I would consider QWERTY to be an atheist, but I kind of agree with Dinsdale (twice in one day!). Maybe not about the Humanist part (I was never really sure what that meant), but in calling QWERTY a non-theist. Atheist almost makes it sound like there is an organization or something that one belongs to. I’ve never liked that term applied to myself. I just say that I have no religious beliefs, and leave it at that.
John Mace, I’m one of them. I would much rather explain such by impressive technology a la The Matrix/Star Trek holodeck etc.
And yet, I entertain a probability (small though it is) that God exists.
I guess that makes me a Strong-Weak Atheist.
Well, Buck, that depends on whether you believe there is no definite answer to the OP or that one can theoretically be known but is not presently knowable! 
It’s possible that our own beloved Czarcasm might fit that bill. He once told me, back when his username was, I believe, Slythe, that if he met my God face to face he would chop Him up with a sword or something to that effect. That was in the old original Atheist Religion thread. But I think that there are one or two other hard-core hard atheists around as well.
There’s a difference between using a culturally accepted term of shock and horror, and actually believing what it means.
Just because lots of people believed in Thor and I cannot 100% prove that he never actually existed and either can anyone else. I then have to be agnostic about Thor.
Bollocks to that. Thor no more exists/ed IMO than the Judeo/Christian God.
I call myself an Atheist. If some people want to think that that is my “faith” or religion then fair enough whatever makes you happy.
Lib are you agnostic with regards to Thor / Odin / Zeus etc.
Yojimbo wrote:
Actually, the appropriate adjective would probably be “disinterested”. In the classic sense.
—you can’t believe in them since there is no proof or even indirect evidence, but if one was presented to you, you would probably change your mind.—
I’m an atheist. If evidence of god was presented to me, I wouldn’t “change my mind” in the sense of giving up and old belief for a new one, I would simply add a new belief. I don’t believe “there is no God!” I just don’t believe IN a god.
I’m not so kosher on all this recent “strong/weak” atheist stuff, which I think is more confusing than the problem it attempted to address. First of all, one who believes THAT there is no god is as much an atheist as any atheist: regardless of their “No X!” belief, they STILL lack a belief “X!” and so still fall under the definition of atheism. They may hold an ANTI-theist position, but they are also A-theists. Holding the ANTI-theist towards one or all gods is a position that you might hold, and except for the “all gods” option, even theists can hold it in regards to SOME gods.
But also: how can you helpfully apply a “strong” or “weak” characterization to a binary distinction with an excluded middle! That’s like saying that, though I don’t have an apple in my hand, my not having an apple is strong or weak. Eh? The closest meaningful interpretation of that I can think of is the idea that I may be more or les likely to have an apple in my hand in the future… but that is utterly beside the point.
Non-theist seems a perfectly good substitute for “atheist,” especially considering how demonized and confused that word has become. Of course, don’t look for theologians and misinformed agnostics to give up on their favorite
—Atheist almost makes it sound like there is an organization or something that one belongs to.—
For that, we can blame American’s poor grasp of the language, as well as organizations like American Atheists, who seem to think that it is their job to speak for a population they can’t possibly claim to represent the positive views of.
Finally, let me put in a word against Huxleyian agnosticism. If you admit that you don’t know anything about God, then how can you a) claim that it is impossible to know anything about God: you can’t know THAT either! b) even know what you are talking about (it needs at least some positive characteristics other than unknowability!)?
—I think that it is appropriate in General Questions to remind people of two logical fallacies, one of which, Affirmation of the Consequent, seems to be common among creationist theists and the other, Denial of the Antecedent, among strong atheists.—
Well, Denial of the Antecedent is also pretty common among theologians and other writers as well. C.S. Lewis in particular did this a lot: here is an atheist argument. It’s wrong, and here’s why. Therefore, god exists.
Since some agnostics, and especially atheists, get somewhat offended when you try to label them as the other, I tend to call people what they want in this arena. This is exactly the same courtesy as I extend to others in the arena of faith, or lack thereof. I wouldn’t accuse a Christian of not being a Christian when they claim to be one.
I also realize that some agnostics and atheists do not define themselves by a lack of faith, so, therefore, please dont take my statements comparing them to X-ian as a blanket statement that all of them fall under some “faith continuum”. They have a right to opt of of that if they so choose.
Apos wrote:
I don’t recall that sort of thing from Lewis. His stuff was more along the lines of “here’s the argument I used to make as an atheist, but here’s the argument I make now”. Some accuse him of a bifurcation for his Son-of-God-or-else-liar position, but it isn’t really, given his premises. While his premises might be untenable to some, once it has been assumed that the Jesus of the Bible is faithfully represented as giving testimony, then He is either being entirely truthful or not, just as would be true of anyone else testifying.
It’s been my experience that such a view is a minority among atheists. Personally, I think the term “anti-theist” would most accurately describe such a view, but that word doesn’t seem to be catching on. The most common term for it seems to be “strong atheist”. I don’t like that one, because it’s really a misnomer; how can you strongly lack a belief in god(s)? I mean, you can feel strongly that there is no evidence for god(s), but that doesn’t mean you are against God. It doesn’t make sense to me. But I agree with Apos in that having a positive belief in no-gods still includes you in the group of people who lack belief in gods.
Although a-thiest and non-theist really should mean the same thing, the fact is that those with a vested interest in trying to portray atheists as “God-haters” have kind of usurped the word atheist. So for those of us who simply lack belief in God because we see no evidence for it, maybe “non-theist” is a better word, since it lacks the unfairly imposed connotations. As for the O.P., I would call him athiest or non-theist - take your pick.
—once it has been assumed that the Jesus of the Bible is faithfully represented as giving testimony, then He is either being entirely truthful or not, just as would be true of anyone else testifying.—
Yes, but “or not” contains quite a huge range of possible variation besides “completely lying”/“completely insane.” It’s nothing but subterfuge to phrase something as a binary with an excluded middle as a rhetorical trick to make people think one side only contains absurd extremes, when it could contain virtually anything that isn’t “entirely truthful.” That’s exactly the goal of the false dilemna: to make people forget what they know about conventional human personalities (that they have wide ranges and variable characteristics, truthfulness, intelligibility, etc.) and focus only on the extremes.
Blowero wrote:
Mine too. It is one of the things I learned here.
Apos wrote:
Distinctions without a difference. If an allegedly morally perfect God (again, presuming a faithful representation) isn’t telling the truth, then whatever He is doing it is equally immoral and a waste of our time.
“Agnostic” can mean way too many things.
There are people who call themselves agnostic theists. They have enough evidence of God to satisfy themselves, so in a philosophical sense they are agnostic, not blind faith.
Most religions say that God is beyond human understanding, so are they agnostics in Huxley’s sense?
Aside - there are two or three species of unicorn that I know of. Why does everyone knock unicorns?
That wouldn’t necessarily be “strong atheism” so much as it is “antitheism”. I do think there is a distinction between “strong atheism”–the assertion that God does not exist, or even that the existence of God is impossible–and “antitheism”–opposition to God. Logically, antitheism and strong atheism are quite incompatible. How can you oppose something if you believe it doesn’t even exist? To the strong atheist, there is no God to oppose. (There would be no such contradiction between strong atheism and opposition to organized religion.) Weak atheism is logically compatible with a conditional form of antitheism: I have no belief in God, not having any evidence for such an entity; if I were presented with evidence for such an entity, I would have to believe in its existence, but I’d be morally opposed to such an entity and even destroy it if it were in my power to do so. Or, more likely, for some definitions of God or the gods which have been put forth, I would be morally opposed to them even if I were convinced they existed.
I personally wouldn’t so much apply conditional antitheism to your God, Lib, but suppose we’re both wrong, and you meet up with the God of Jack Chick or Fred Phelps. Even if you were somehow convinced such an entity really had created the Universe and humankind, would you love and worship it?
I’m kind of the same way. If a “miracle” occurs (something I don’t know how to explain), I’m liable to believe in the following explanations:
- I’ve been bamboozled (no, that dude didn’t really make the Statue of Liberty disappear, he just rotated the stage while we weren’t paying attention).
- I’m viewing technology that I previously wasn’t privy to (he really did make the statue of liberty disappear, using his patented new Evil-Genius-Ray).
- I’ve gone insane.
- I’m viewing an omnipotent being in action (He really did make the SoL disappear, because he’s God and can do that sort of thing).
Now, presumably in some cases you could eliminate causes #1 and #2. I don’t know how you could eliminate #3 – except that presumably God could assure me of my sanity, being omnipotent and all.
But I know that #1-3 have happened to other people in the history of the world, have happened a lot. I don’t have anything that I consider to be good evidence that #4 has ever happened.
So it’d take a darn fine miracle to convince me that I was really viewing the actions of an omnipotent God. Assuming that I was convinced in my own sanity, even a rearrangement of the stars into a message that said, “I AM GOD, YOU FOOLS! BELIEVE IN ME!” is not so much a proof of omnipotence as it is a proof of pretty amazing power.
Paradoxically, any being with that much power is going to have an exceptionally hard time convincing me of anything: if they can move the stars around, surely they can manufacture evidence.
Finally, even if God figured out a way to convince me of His omnipotence without breaking the rules of His game (i.e., without compromising my free will), all that would do is convince me that God was omnipotent. Convincing me that He was worthy of worship would be a whole nother kettle of fish – and would be a lot easier to do if He didn’t convince me that He was omnipotent.
All that, and I don’t deny that God exists – I just say that it’d require a pretty kickass proof for me to believe in God (and a similarly kickass proof to make me believe in an absence of God). What does that make me?
I call myself an atheist.
Daniel
Buck wrote:
Gotcha. Thanks for that information. Another day of learning at the SDMB!
Buck wrote:
Absolutely not. As I’ve stated before, I would not recognize that creature.