Not with utter certainty but close to it. I would say I’m technically an agnostic but I think the chance one of the holy books are true is so remote it’s not worth even considering/worrying.
A more Deistic impersonal God I am much more willing to speculate exists, but I see no reason why it should.
The proper atheist stance is that all claims to knowledge of deities are necessarily false.
This is an excellent summary of my lack of belief - but I call myself an atheist and think that they fall squarely into atheism.
Yup. I consider myself a humanist/socialist/transhumanist more than an atheist. I think every person is their own God.
Why necessarily?
read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.
This is what I think about religion. Many, if not most people have a natural inclination to become part of a group of some kind. Most of the time, they simply follow the rituals and give lip service to the prayers because that’s what they are supposed to do. But in reality, 90% of the reason they are there is for the social aspect and the barbeques. And to feel like they are better people by being part of the group.
If most “religious” people really believed there was a God watching and judging everything they did, they would live their lives very very differently.
There are orthogonal concepts. I’d say atheist and a humanist rather than a humanis it more than an atheist - though trivially two things are more than one and humanism (and the other thing) says more about people’s beliefs than just atheism does.
I know what the word means. I’d agree that all claims to knowledge of deities are false - at least right now. I’d agree that claims of knowledge of self-contradictory deities, like the tri-omni god, are necessarily false. But why is a claim that Wotan appeared to me necessarily false?
Heh. I’ll get right on that. In the meantime, can you at least summarize why what you said is even remotely true?
Kant explains it, and it would take a long time for me to do that. Just read it.
So, you got nothing, then? Why should I believe Kant anyway? Who made him the philosopher of me?
What does the blurb on the inside dust jacket of the book say?
Anyway, to respond to the OP, before this thread goes completely off the rails, being an atheist just means you lack belief in a god or gods. Just like being an a-stamp-collector just means you don’t collect stamps.
It doesn’t mean you look down on stamp collectors, I mean theists, it doesn’t mean you hate god, it doesn’t mean you have any level of certainty about god’s existence. It just means you lack that particular belief.
I really don’t understand why this is so hard to get. I don’t believe in Santa Claus. I don’t believe in leprechauns, I don’t believe in god, I don’t believe in unicorns, I don’t collect stamps, I don’t rebuild classic cars. There is an infinity of things I don’t believe in, just like there’s an infinity of hobbies I don’t have.
You can be an atheist and still believe in reincarnation or ghosts or UFOs or astrology. You just don’t happen to believe in god. It’s really that simple.
It has to do with the antinomies.
Could you please point to the section of the Wiki page that pertains to what you are talking about?
This is beyond an internet discussion group. You need to take a class on the first *Critique *to understand it. Basically, and inadequately, Kant maintains that failing to limit statements to objects of possible experience leads inevitably to contradiction. So, all statements that go beyond possible experience are necessarily false.
Here is a summary of Kant’s argument. I don’t have time to read this in depth, but it appears that he refutes the common “proofs” of god. But as usual he was dealing with a limited set of gods, mostly that of western culture, and I don’t see anything therein which requires one to necessarily not believe. Refuting proofs of X does not imply ~X.
What kind of ‘god’ did you have in mind? How about this nice Joseph Abboud number with the peaked lapel?
Can you reply to what he said? He said that refuting proofs of X does not imply ~X. Kant found fault in some proofs of some gods (if you agree that he’s right, and your opinion seems to be that those are the only possible gods, why do you still believe?). He didn’t disprove, and can’t disprove, all gods.
I lack belief in god. If the right being came by and convinced me that she’s god (by arranging stars or something, maybe healing an amputee), then I would no longer lack belief.
If that god instead went to some other person and convinced that person, but I haven’t interacted with her (the god), I would still lack belief. But, that doesn’t mean that the other person’s opinion is necessarily false.
You stated that my lack of belief forces me to claim that all theistic beliefs are necessarily false. I showed you how that’s not true. Your turn.