Wrong. If you’re going to insist that, find me one source that agrees with you and tell me where you got that definition from. If you can’t, admit that you’re making up your own definitions for a word that already has one.
What a coincidence. To me, a “real Christian” is someone who believes in the divinity of Jesus and only eats pistachio ice cream on Thursday.
If you aren’t sure, you don’t believe.
Wouldn’t that mean anything that caused the universe to exist is god?
Did someone recently release a Christian dictionary with alternate definitions? Between this thread and the other thread on atheism, I’m beginning to wonder.
Ok I admit I didn’t understand what an atheist is.
I thought atheists completely denied the existence of “god” and that all matter came out of nothing and had scientific proof of this.
I lack belief that a man in a hat is walking past my house right now, but I am not making the assumption that such a man is not walking past my house, one may be. I am simply without that belief because I don’t have evidence for it. It’s the same with weak atheism.
Is that what it says at dictionary.com?
edited to add: Hint-see post #195.
OK, so now you know.
We went over this in posts 119 to 128 already. Read them again.
The bible-thing says that a jehovallah person started with nothingness (which may not be quite the same thing as nothing) and made all this (what, the curtains?). Since I lack a belief in this particular mythos, as well as that of Yggdrasil, Olympus, et cetera ad infinitum, I do not even feel compelled to believe there was ever nothing. If there is real validity to the big bang theory, why should I necessarily regard it as the beginning of everything, rather than some cataclysmic event?
In other words, what if everything was already here, in some form or another, and has never not been here? Timespace is pretty weird, what we observe is a very tiny slice of it, there is no reason to believe in any particular creation event over the possibility that “eternity” stretch infinitely backward as well as forward.
No, a strong atheist doesn’t merely assume no god exists, a strong atheist is positive no god exists.
Yes, I say that’s an assumption – it’s lack of belief, but lack of belief (and the null hypothesis in general) is an assumption. Like when you have a physics problem in a physics class – unless there’s evidence to the contrary you assume that you’re operating in a vacuum in euclidean space, all objects are travelling at low speeds (etc).
I think you’re using a connotation of “assume” that’s stronger than mine. To me it’s essentially definition 1. here, “to take for granted without proof.” Because of Occam’s Razor, absolutely anything that I cannot know the answer to or have no evidence for I “assume” is false*, including statements I haven’t heard yet. You seem to be using assume in a stronger sense of “actively believe such a thing”. To me assumption requires no action, an assumption is the default state.
Anyway, the fact that I was hoping the whole “null hypothesis” thing would have hinted what I was getting at. Apologies if I worded that too awkwardly.
- Well, probability and fuzzy logic and all that, but we’re simplifying here
Your definition of atheist is incorrect. An atheist is just someone who does not believe in a god or gods. It does not imply certainty, and does not imply any particular beliefs about the origin of life, the universe, or matter.
Now that you have been provided the actual definition of “atheist”, do you understand and accept said definition?
Depends where you get your definition from. From infidels.org:
Some atheists go beyond a mere absence of belief in gods: they actively believe that particular gods, or all gods, do not exist. Just lacking belief in Gods is often referred to as the “weak atheist” position; whereas believing that gods do not (or cannot) exist is known as “strong atheism.”
Not really important to our discussion of weak atheism, though.
You said it was an assumption that no gods exist. Lacking belief is not an assumption that no gods exist. A weak atheist can be without belief yet believe that it’s possible that gods may exist- therefore an assumption that none exist can’t consistently be made at the same time (even using the definition that you provided).
I feel like we’re talking past each other here. Because that quote from infidels, to me, says logically the exactly what I just said with different words. A strong atheist actively believes god or gods do not/cannot exist == a strong atheist is positive gods don’t exist. I’m using “positive” in the sense that they feel it is logically or physically impossible – a claim which bears the burden of proof – and IMO entails and is entailed by the statement “do not (or cannot) exist.”
I feel like the definition I gave covers that 
. I say I merely assume no gods exist because I lack proof for them, and thus lack belief. However, I maintain that I could be surprised by evidence to the contrary. Or I could get proof no god exists, in which case I’d no longer be assuming, I’d be sure and thus a strong atheist. To me that’s covered by “take for granted without proof” – there is no proof so I take for granted no gods exist, if there WERE proof either way either I wouldn’t be taking it for granted (no longer an assumption) or I’d believe in a god (not an atheist, nor making assumptions).
(And tangentially to this whole thing because someone might bring it up. It’s possible to be a strong atheist with respect to some gods and a weak one with respect to others. For instance I’m a strong atheist with respect to a tri-omni god because it’s logically impossible, but a weak atheist to, say, Thor).
Why not use axiomatic that gods do not exist when describing strong atheism instead of assumption? Assumption implies an understanding of imperfect knowledge where the assumption can be modified pending new evidence which is the weak form.
I can’t help thinking this is just going to cause problems for pchaos and koufax.
I don’t think axiomatic works. An axiom is an assumption about the basic rules of a system, in math, the underlying rules are “called” axiomatoc because they can’t be proven but are needed to prove anything else in that system. A strong atheist claims to know for certain and thus is claiming that a god’s nonexistence is derived from the axioms of the universe (or logic). I guess a strong atheist could take it as axiomatic that a god doesn’t exist (which is awfully close to “having faith god doesn’t exist”), but it’s not the only way to be a strong atheist.
Think of it as bonus scenes for when they come back and look at the thread again once [del]induct them into our satanic cult[/del] [del]convert them to atheism[/del] get them to understand what it is.
It still depends on the definition of “god” and/or “gods”.
I don’t want to keep dragging dictionary differences into this, but I see a meaningful difference between those two statements. There’s a difference between believing something and being positive of it.
That may fit you, but it doesn’t fit all weak atheists. I lack belief that a man in a hat is walking past my house right now, but I don’t assume that such a man is not walking past my house. It is not necessary to assume that no gods exist to be a weak atheist.