Can America trust atheists?

A: I think you’re in the wrong thread.
B: Different bin Laden. Did you actually ever see the movie?
C: It is not banned.

Sentient Meat, the last paragraph was sarcasm. I know that I introduced a third possiblilty, it was a joke.

You seem to be interpreting weak and strong as being indicative of strength of belief. I don’t want to wade through the thread to find who made the distinction, but it has been made. Weak/Strong is not related to the strength of conviction, but rather of how many conditions are required to be satisfied. This is the same as the distinction between strong and weak forms of various theorems.

Example:

Type A people believe that the Earth is the center of the universe.
Type B people believe that the Earth is the center of the universe and that all of the celestial bodies inhabit invisible crystal spheres.

Every type B person is a type A person. Not every type A person is a type B person. One might refer to type A people as Weak Geocentrists, and type B people as Strong Geocentrists.

Now, if you meet someone on the street handing out flyers and berating people for believing that the Earth revolves around the sun, you cannot assume that he is a Strong Geocentrist (type B) just because he cares very deeply about the order of the universe. His conviction is strong, but his Geocentrism is weak.

I would agree that believing absence is equivalent to disbelieving presence. I am also allowing a third option, which you tacitly deny and which I did not make explicit before. That is, not believing anything at all. I contend that it is possible to not believe one way or another about a topic, even a topic which has a yes or no answer.

A conversation:

Geography Pollster: Do you believe the capital of Uganda is Kampala?
sinjin: No, I do not believe the capital of Uganda is Kampala.
GP: So you think that the capital is some other city?
sj: No, I have no thoughts on the matter.

With respect to coins:

No, when you don’t believe it will land tails it is passive. If you believe it won’t land tails, then you’re active.

No, to be an aSOCist (of any stripe), I need to have no belief that she does own a car. To be a strong aSOCist, I need to believe she does not own a car.

This is regarding whether or not I am left handed. You are using a different context for the word strong here. Strong in the context being used is not a synonym for devoutly held. It means “more restrictive”.

I don’t know whether you have siblings. I have no opinion whatsoever. Thus the statement “sinjin does not believe that Sentient Meat has a sister” is true. However, the statement “sinjin believes that Sentient Meat has no sister” is false.

Right, but that’s not the whole of your argument. You believe that, as that statement is true, there must be some First Cause - something from which all other things are consequences. And you believe that that First Cause can only be of supernatural origin.

If I understand you correctly, you believe that we haven’t seen anything that’s capable of being a “First Cause”, nor can we understand any way this could be (from your P.O.V., I can’t argue quantum mechanics like others); thus, it must be some supernatural cause. I disagree - what that evidence says to me is that the logical conclusion is to say “there is no First Cause - there is no beginning”, because we haven’t yet seen one. Why invent the concept of a supernatural being (something we have no scientific evidence for, nor (in my view) can there be any) when we can come to a rational answer without using any supernatural concepts? It seems a bit like saying a plant grows because of direct supernatural forces - sure, that’s a possibility, but we already have a rational explanation, supported by evidence. There’s no need for us to bring in extra theories that we have no supporting grounds for.

Mmmm … no, actually, it was the gradual opening of my mind to the idea that no religion stands up to the standard of emperical evidence that set me on the road to my apostasy and, eventually, atheism. The truth is, I miss the Episcopal Church and the good people in it, but I simply couldn’t mouth the words of the Nicene Creed any more. It took a lot of work and, I think, courage on my part to finally shed the shackles of religious oppression. And yes, that’s exactly what it was and is – repression. I take this very seriously because I have turned my back on a tradition that my parents worked hard to give me. This isn’t easy, having to explain to my friends, neighbors and family members – and expecially to my loving and devoutly Catholic wife – that I’m just not a believer any more. They see it as a betrayal of their trust and an attack on their very identities. I’ve tried to go back to church, to view it as just another group of wonderful people with whom I can do good works in the community, but I just cannot do it. It wasn’t arrogance that led me out of church. It was a long and painful self-examination, and I challenge any religious person to perform the same examination of themselves and their religion, and not come away changed in some way.

jeffrice, I suspect that you missed the spirit of MEBuckner’s post which was actually more important than his phrasing, given the specific post by Shagnasty to which he was replying.

You might want to go back to Post #289 and review the links he provided to get a better picture of his serious views on the topic (and to avoid one more hijack of this endless thread :wink: ).

[QUOTE]

I understand the thinking behind your position. I maintain that advanced knowledge and the availability of that knowledge to the masses may help change people’s concepts of God, {My own has changed and keeps changing} but not every concept.

Sigh! yeah, I cringe whenever I read how many millions of copies these have sold. I’m thinking about writing a sequel. “Left behind and really Glad about it” except I wouldn’t want to give their belief that much validity. I’ll bet most people who embrace that crap have no idea how recent that particular myth is.

I agree. It isn’t clear. It’s a process that is constantly evolving, and devolving at times I suppose. We have already set some limits. If a religion believes it must offer human sacrifice, we’re going to stop them. I think the first amendment and all it entails is really an amazing work in progress.

What I appreciated about the End of Faith was the author’s assertion that religious beliefs do spill over into the rest of society and for that reason we do get to challenge and question them. Of course sparks will fly but I think it’s good for all concerned. When we start talking about the laws that govern our society then

“Because that’s what God thinks” is a pretty bullshit reason.

OTOH if someone votes a certain way based on their religious beliefs they have every right to expect their vote to count just as much.

To reply directly to the OP, with specific appreciation ofTomndeb and MEBuckner’s posts:

The main problem with atheist’s understanding in the US is that there is, simply, no charismatic leader/ spokesperson for the Atheist mode of thought, and no unifying body or “church”. Without that organization, people get fearful, and see those without that as undermining their faith. Yep, you know all that, already.

I was raised totally without organized religion, by scientist biologists, who, when pressed, said Agnostic. But, that never came up in raising: we never got any religious thought at all, just biology, and the good church of nature, just taught about that well.

Coming of age, I wanted to expand from my ground zero of spirituality, was agnostic, then atheist, and am now Buddhist.

What I appreciate about Buddhism as opposed to atheism and agnosticism, is that it is an old school way of thought, well honed; that comes from all the points of not relying on a overarching God, and totally relying on personal responsibility of analysis of one’s own mind. Buddhist modes have Deitys, but you should try to get beyond that to figger your own mind out…

Very atheistic at it’s core, but has a certain Appeal; ie; Dalai Lama.

Plain Atheism doesn’t have a that core attraction. I certainly understand the thought, and appreciate it, but the average American doesn’t. Band together, and show that Atheists care and matter to society, working for good purpose.

That was me - it seems the only distinction which makes any sense.

You have introduced further conditions there (note the AND).

OK, just tell me waht the further condition is that Strong atheists believe given that belief in absence is logically equivalent to disbelief in presence, or tell me how they’re NOT equivalent (like I’ve been asking for several days).

THANK YOU. (Does anyone else here disagree? Voyager, you seem to have gone quiet on this point.)

And if you’ll read what I’ve written here carefully, you’ll see numerous occasions where I say things like

Again I ask, someone who considers god’s exsitence just as likely as not is an atheisthow, exactly? They are clearly just as much theists, and ought to be called indecivists or something.

ie. you have no reason to consider that answer more likely than all others. Yet again, this corresponds to indecision rather than atheism (which declares an at least infinitessimal move towards considering god’s existence less likely than its existence).

What’s the difference, given binary exclusivity?

Please, I am begging you: tell me what the logical difference is.

HOW??

Please stop just telling me with example after example that there is a distinction and explain how.

I missed your response - sorry about that.

The default probability should not be 50%. If you think it should be, you can get into all sorts of interesting paradoxes. The default probability is unknown.

So, for my case, without evidence, the default is “I don’t know” - which is the same as not believing (and not not-believing) - which is different from disbelief.

No - it is the same as believing in not any.

It is a matter of when a person feels he has a legitimate reason to believe. Certainly some people jump to beliefs - since they are beliefs, not claims to knowledge, I won’t even criticize this position. However, if there is no evidence, or not adequate evidence, I think the withholding of belief is a very legitimate position.

Consider common theist - atheist debates. In one, the theist says “how can you say there is no god without proof.” That’s typically a strawman, since it assume the atheist is talking about knowledge, not belief, which is not a common atheist position. But a more clever theist might say “how do you justify believing there are no gods anywhere, in this very big universe?”

However, if the theist says “how can you justify not believing in a god” the atheist responds “because you’ve never shown me any good evidence.” and the terms of the debate change.

That’s a misuse of probability. You can only compute a probability if you can enumerate the space of possibilities. It isn’t statistics, either, since there is no data. You can talk, loosely, about things being more or less likely to happen, but you certainly can’t talk about 50% + epsilon or 50% - epsilon.

You might be able to say that the probability of god existing is 50%, with an error bar of 50% on either side. :slight_smile:

Yep, my bad. :smack: It’s impossible to read through all of these threads, and I’m new to StraightDope, so I’m still finding all the landmarks. No excuse for being lost, tho.

Actually, I’ve read the links in MEBuckner’s post many times. The “Introduction to Atheism” is part of a rather thick volume of text I’ve compiled over the past few years.

Please pardon the self-pitying tone of my previous post. I guess I never realized how much not doing something can rock one’s world. It makes one thin-skinned for awhile. To toughen up, I visit Slate.com’s fray frequently and scrimmage with the minor-leaguers over there. StraightDope folks are so much better educated and well-reasoned, and I’m not yet used to that.

That’s a good question. If America was majority Jewish, would “under YWHW” be part of the pledge?
I think it’s some of each. Partly it’s just that there are lots of Christians, so many of them that some of them (from some parts of the US) are used to living in a society in which basically EVERYONE is Christian. Partly it’s that Christianity is an evangelical religion. And partly it’s that some branches of Christianity have beliefs which contradict science. (And not just in the sense of whether God exists, but about things like evolution).

Do hard-core Jews or Muslims or Buddhists believe in the equivalent of intelligent design and deny evolution? I’m honestly not sure.

First of all, magellan’s god is NOT “yahweh”, in any particularly meaningful sense. Also, and this may seem weird, magellan’s god isn’t really supernatural. It answers the question “why and how does the universe exist in the first place?”, which is really not a question that any natural laws relate to, and is also (depending on how you define things) not really a question that science addresses at all. What supernatural qualities does magellan’s god have? None. He just happens to use the word “god” to describe it, even though it’s basically unrecognizeable compared to the normal conception of the Christian god.
That’s very different from someone who claims there’s an invisible pink dragon in their garage. Occam’s razor instantly and effectively argues against that dragon, because the world obviously doesn’t need that dragon. Is it, however, immediately obvious that the question of how the universe exists is one with a simple and obvious and “non-supernatural” (although any answer to that question is probably outside what we normally think of as natural vs. supernatural) answer? I personally have a “non-supernatural” answer to it that I’m happy with, but unlike, say, the question of why rocks fall from the sky from time to time, it’s not one that has a scientific and rational explanation that only a fool would reject.

btw, magellan01: why did you not respond to anything in my previous lengthy post?

Welcome… Stick around. You’ll come to appreciate the standards here and what it brings out in you. Learn a lot too. I know I have.

Even though you may have misunderstood the post you responded to I think you made a good point. I identify. I have relatives who are evangelical Christians and old friends who are still members of the church I used to belong to. I think the fact that I once believed as they did gets a different reaction than if I never had. It seems to make them feel I have just lost my direction and with a little prodding I can be brought back to the fold. My response is to learn a lot more about Christian history and the Bible. I tend to think and let think most of the time but when someone wants to discuss things they’d better come prepared. I’ve learned a lot about these subjects from some folks here.

“I don’t know” means “I cannot tell you whether it’s more or less likely to be true or false”, yes?

What’s the difference? (Remember, we’re talking about atheists here, not the utterly indecisive who are just as much theists.)

Hear, hear. And the diffference between knowledge and belief is … ?

And this atheist says “in precisely the same way as justifying my lack of belief that there are any”. How does the clever theist respond to that?

How? The judgement that gods were absent (= gods were not present) was itself based on evidence in the first place (or, at least, my judgement is).

The space is exclusively binary, agreed? Gods can either exist or not, with no third option. Given that, when we vocalise our judgements as to which of the two options is more likely we are telling people our beliefs, yes? How is it different to my belief that Liverpool will not win the Premiership this season (=a lack of belief that Liverpool will win = not believing in Liverpool winning the Premiership)?

Of course, just like anything else from coin-flips to future Liverpool seasons, yes?

SentientMeat, I’m really not understanding how you’re having so much trouble with this not believe x/believe not x stuff. I’ll try one more time.

Suppose I’m about to roll a die, and ask you if you believe it will come up 3 or less. You will of course not believe that, nor its negation, but rather believe that it and its negation are exactly equally likely. It’s precisely 50/50 odds of coming up 3 or less. All good so far.

Now suppose I tell you the die is loaded. It’s not precisely 50/50 odds of coming up 3 or less. Now, do you believe it will come up 3 or less? Or do you believe it will come up 4 or more. That’s a binary option. You know that the options are not equally likely, because I’ve just told you they aren’t. You also have no clue as to which option is more likely.

If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t believe either option. I’d refrain from believing anything about the matter at all, pending further evidence. This doesn’t make me hopelessly indecisive. It merely makes me conservative with regards to forming beliefs in the absence of evidence. And again, whether defining weak atheism as not believing in god renders it pretty much equivalent to some definitions of agnosticism is something I don’t care about. I’m just baffled by this refusal to acknowledge that one doesn’t have to believe anything about something.

Sorry, Max. I didn’t think one was required. I would like to say that I appreciated your thoughtful post and that, prior to writing it, you were careful enought to read the words I actually wrote and digest my position accurately. There hasn’t been a lot of that going on here, as is evidenced by the the same mischaraterizations or questions coming up again and again. I was ascribing this to some lacking on my part in not being able to convey my position clearly, so your post was a welcome one. You were able to read my words and comprehend my position accuratley.

That said, it seems to me that there is willful mischaractization of my position, stubborn intransigence on even the most minor issue, so this will likely be my last post on the topic. If anyone cares clarification, I suggest they simply reread what I’ve already written in the thread. If not, fine, everybody’s happy.

I’d slice it a little differently. In your last sentence I would substitute the word “actual” with “practical”. Although the decision tree of logic one must climb down in order to arrive at his position may rarely be the subject of debate, it plays just as real (actual) a role than the words coming out of his mouth. And since atheists so often argue for ateism by arguing against religion, I think it is important to point out the error.

That was not my intent. I answered the OP then was challenged on my response. I would have much preferred to not have this debate. I’ve had them before and everyone knows where everyone else stands.

I don’t think that this is an accurate or fair characterization of what has transpired in this thread. I direct you to my initial post, #18, which was a direct answer to the OP and post #26, which is a clarification that addressed another question by the OP. Then, after some back and forth with a few posters and seeing that we were in the usual positions I attempted to put the thread back on track with my post #168. If your criticism is that I should have done that or bowed out erlier, I agree.

Yeah, except the blah, blah, blah refers to the faulty dichotomy they draw. I do not think that those on a debate board should bristle at being asked to apply logic to their positions. This is not the “practical” world". It is a world in which we put our thinking under a microscoope. And it is simply not correct to argue that because religion is wrong or dumb or faulty or evil or unprovabale, that therefore there is no god (small “g”). No doubt people will continue to do so, but their arguement is then built on sand. (Whether they are correct about the reality of god, though, is another matter entirely.)

That is up to each person. If someone decides that ther is a “god”, they then make other decisions. For instance whether or not that god is God, and requires some action on his part.

I thought this was put extremely well. I wish I had written it.

I think there were three or four in this thread. I’d just leave it there.

This seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Agreed.

I think you are correct as far as weak Atheists go. It gets back to the semantics discussed earlier: “I don’t believe there is a god” is not the same as “I believe there is no god”.

That’s a fair conclusion, yes.

I include those who lack belief as atheists. They are not necessarily indecisive. If someone says that they haven’t decided whether they believe or not, they may be oscillating between atheism and theism. Is that what you mean by indecisive?

Well, I took a Theory of Knowledge course on just that topic. Knowledge is assertion. I know that evolution happens because I have studied the strong evidence. If I just trust Richard Dawkins, I might say I believe evolution happens, not from evidence but from other things. (And knowledge is not 100% certainty in my definition.)

Supporting lack of belief is a defensive action. Lack of belief should be the default, and supporting it means examining, and rejecting, pieces of evidence believers present you. “The Bible says this.” “The Bible is not accurate.”

There is certainly evidence against any god existing. That’s why I believe in no gods. But the weak atheist does not have to appeal to any of this - though the arguments he uses against the theist’s argument might overlap those of the strong atheist.

No, it is not binary, because there are many definitions of God. What is the probability of God with a son, God without a son, Krishna, a Shinto god, Thor, Zeus, Mithra, etc., etc? There are many who disbelief in God (standing for the Western God) who are not atheists. Remember, the Romans called the early Christians atheists for not believing in their gods.

Like what? Aren’t you confusing lack of supporting evidence with evidence for “no god” position"?

Thanks for this nugget. I was unaware of it.