I see two problems with atheism (literally, “Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a God. – OED”)
You are taking a position on the existence of God, thus submitting yourself to all manner of conjecture.
Atheism somehow holds disbelief higher than belief, akin to holding that existence is held higher than non-existence. Utterly useless, and moreover, unproveable!
You see, there is a difference between being an atheist, and simply not believing in God. Disbelief is an action (literally, “The action or an act of disbelieving; mental rejection of a statement or assertion; positive unbelief.”) Not believing is not equivalent to positive unbelief, or the act of disbelieving. Thus, the atheist fully believes that God does not exist, just as the theist fully believes that God does exist.
It is fully reasonable to not subject yourself to either type of torture. I don’t even want to hear about the petty baloney of “strong” or “weak” atheism. All atheism is weak.
Alterego, since you’re drawing a distinction between “not believing” and “disbelieving” what is the proper word to use for someone who doesn’t “believe” in God, but doesn’t “disbelieve” in God either?
Personally, I would call such a person an “atheist”. But you clearly have a different term you would like to use.
Thanks to alterego for posting the same inevitable junk SOMEbody was bound to post. Glad to have that out of the way…
And?
This explanation is incomprehensible. You’re also tilting at windmills here: you don’t have to believe it’s possible to disprove the existence of gods in order to be an atheist.
That’s news to A LOT of people, myself included.
You’re basing all of this on a single word in a dictionary definition. The OED is a good dictionary, but dictionaries are guides to usage, not definitive statements on the real meaning of words. Not all dictionaries agree on what atheism means, either.
That’s too bad (and stupid). You’re splitting hairs here: according to you, weak atheism is just disbelief in gods, and atheism is equivalent to strong atheism. You’re trying to tell people that they’re using the word terms, which confuses the issue. It doesn’t clarify anything.
Offhand, I’d define that person as an agnostic: “One who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god” (m-w.com)
Ypu’re using a bogus definition of atheism and then claiming you don’t want to “hear about” the real definition. Well I’m sorry dude but atheism is not a “denial” of the existence of God. It’s the absence of a belief and that’s it. You don’t get to change the definition to suit yourself. Your semantics are kind of meaningless anyway. The condition of lacking theistic belief still exists, no matter what you want to call them and that IS the position that we’re talking about.
By the way, what do you mean by “holding disbelief higher than belief?” I have no idea what point you’re attempting to make with that statement.
Well, this is clearly just a semantic quibble, but… when I hear “extreme X”, I think “it’s X, but much more so”. So to me “extreme atheist” implies “an atheist, but much moreso”. So if an extreme atheist is very rude, and I’m just a normal atheist, that must mean I’m just somewhat rude.
I think a better phrase is something like “asshole atheist”.
I think there may or may not be a difference… the question is whether these Christians are just Christians who happen to be assholes, or whether their particular fundie branch instructs them to act the way they are acting.
I’m quite sure there is no atheist organization which tells its members to interrupt discussions of religion and start talking about magical sky pixies. I’m less sure that there is no church that does so.
Perhaps… but can you give it the old college try, rise above the level of the rest of us, and respond to my post #68 in good faith? I promise to try my darndest to respond fairly and objectively.
Maybe you can clear this up for me once and for all, because the constant flip-flopping of the burden of proof is very confusing.
There is absolutely no hard physical evidence whatsoever to support the existence of God. The Bible is not a valid historical document. Eyewitness account of the Virgin Mary and suchlike are dismissed for the same reason eyewitness accounts of UFO’s are dismissed. Modern advancements in science render God unnecessary as, unlike previous generations, we no longer need to suppose his existence to explain anything. If he exists he has, (as I think Sentient Meat neatly put it) created a universe in which he is totally superfluous.
Why is it, when an atheist states “There is no God” he is taken by theists as having made a positive statement which requires proof, rather than stating the most likely (some may say the only possible) conclusion given the complete paucity of evidence?
Carl Sagan (I think) once drew an analogy between theism and atheism and a magic dragon in his neighbours garage. Badly paraphrased, it runs like this:
Neighbour : I have a fire breathing dragon in my garage. Wanna come looksee?
Carl: Sure…hang on. Where is it?
Neighbour: Oh, it’s invisible.
Carl: No bother. We’ll just throw some sawdust on the floor, then we can track its footprints.
Neighbour: Sorry, won’t work. Can’t do that. This dragon hovers in midair.
Carl: Oh. OK. How about we spray some paint around? Then we’ll be able to see it.
Carl: Oh…well, you said it breathed fire. I’ve got some infrared goggles in my attic. I’ll just go get them and we can watch the fire.
Neighbour: Won’t work. The fire is heatless.
And so on and on and on we go, I proposing every physical test imaginable, you patiently explaining why they wouldn’t apply. At some point or other, the difference between your magic, levitating, invisible, intangible, cold-fire breathing dragon, and no dragon whatsoever, would simply disappear. Consequently, the only rational position to take is to tentatively reject the dragon hypothesis (which is all that this would be) until further evidence becomes available. In much the same way, rejection of the existence of God doesn’t require proof.
No, this hypothetical person isn’t undecided. He doesn’t believe in God. He just doesn’t “disbelieve” in God.
(Personally I think that this is a meaningless distinction. But since **alterego ** made such a big deal of “not believing” being different than “disbelieving” I thought this was a useful point to press.)
So which god do we actively disbelieve in again? To be an atheist, you have to lack belief in all gods. Do you really claim that to be called an atheist you must positively disbelieve even gods you’ve never heard of?
Or just possibly lacking belief in any and all gods is good enough to be an atheist. I hardly claim to be able to disprove some cargo cult god, but I lack belief in him. I think the reason for this common theist strawman is that it defines atheism into being a logical absurdity, which means the theists don’t have to address atheist arguments.
BTW, if you think belief is always better than disbelief, I assume you think believing in the tooth fairy is better than not believing in her? I’m not equating the tooth fairy to god, just checking asking if you would extend your argument to other areas.
Actually, I said “Not believing is not equivalent to positive unbelief.” Simply not believing is not active. Disbelieving, on the other hand, is actively not believing.
Right, belief has more to do with faith.
It’s called an operational definition. I wanted everyone to be clear what I was talking about. Go debate the utility or accuracy of the OED in another thread.
I’ll spell this one out for you. It was an insult.
Yeah, that’s fine =)
As far as definitions go, the OED is probably a better starting point than your ass.
IMHO, it’s because they [the atheists] care.
Yeah, someone was bound to bring that up weren’t they.
Alright. Your operational definition has nothing to do with what atheism means to atheists, which renders the argument based on that definition pretty useless.
I have come up against a particularly radical and dogmatic brand of atheistic skepticism here. Cultic in their “-ism”, bordering on evangelic in their weird and institutional Skepti-Comitatus Randi. They have a divine leader, they have books and their own magazines and have influence internationally with defined pathologies and proscribements. They are religous like the Scientologists, if you ask me.
Seems like they have gone so hard to the right of religion that they made full circle, no different in zeal and promotion of their own brand of logical conformity. Frankly, they are assholes of the first magnitude because of their certainty in dogmatic truth and characteristic lack of imagination.
Hmmm… I was sure it was clear that I didn’t make the argument that any atrocity, of whatever nature, commited by a country who had an official religion could be attributed to religion. I was trying to show what your example didn’t make sense.
Apparently, I wasn’t clear enough, or you had decided you wouldnt undrstand.
But now, if you insist on stating that any atrocity commited in history by a nation with an official religion must be attributed to religion, and any atrocity commited in history by a nation endorsing atheism must be attributed to atheism, please go on. It’s totally absurd, but anyway, once you will have added up the death toll on both sides, religion is going to win the “higher death toll” contest by a very large margin. With which nation of the antiquity do you want to begin the head count?
It’s absurd to credit Mao’s acts to atheist even if Mao runs around calling himself an atheist. Atheists don’t necessarily share anything in common: don’t share similar beliefs, don’t share political convictions. When you learn that I am an atheist, you lean exactly NOTHING about my beliefs, attitudes, convictions, and so forth other than they don’t include god beliefs.
The same applies to theist mass-murderers like Hitler. Hitler may have been a Catholic (and then some sort of neo-Pagan Catholic, and finally someone who saw himself as the annointed one of some sort of Aryan overgod). He may even have taken the “round up the Jews and get rid of them somehow so they stop poisoning our society” idea straight out of Martin Luther as he claimed. But Catholics and Christians don’t definitionally necessarily share those beliefs by any logic. All Christians necessarily share is the belief that Jesus was the divine savior sent by God. “Theist” or “religion” are even more vague: as a grouping, they tell us not much about what in particular people do or believe.
If hostility towards religion is bad, then there are plenty of Christians hostile to Islam, and vica-versa. There’s nothing special about atheists who are hostile towards religion. And Christians that are hostile towards Islam aren’t both Christians AND adherent to a religion known as “anti-Islam.”
Furthermore, even atheists that are hostile towards religion and assert that there are no gods: to call that a religion is to stretch the word into meaningless taffy. Is being hostile towards sports or any social practice a religion? Is advancing simple philosophical assertions necessarily religious? Not in ANY other context would people make such a ridiculous argument. But somehow, just to “get” atheists, it suddenly becomes a necessity.
Shodan’s definitions are merely convoluted bullshit that I doubt even he really believes.
