Why is it so often made a point to say “actively believe” instead of just “believe”? What does that mean exactly? I’d think it was as opposed to “passively believe”, but that doesn’t sound very meaningful.
e: Is there a difference between “I actively believe there is no god” and “I don’t believe there is a god”? I’m really not seeing the semantics here.
But even if he says he is certain God does not exist, he might not be a hard atheist (let alone a strawman one) since he may not believe that no gods exist at all. Substitute Baal for God and it will be obvious.
I am using it to distinguish between the null/neutral internal response/belief vs the non-null/neutral internal response/belief.
Note: I use internal response/belief instead of just belief because I think we don’t really have beliefs in the way I assume most people think we have beliefs.
Consider some abstruse question in topology: an as yet unproved theorem, which is in significant dispute. Someone asks you if you believe the theorem to be true. You’d certainly say you lack belief in the truth of the theorem, right? But you also would not say that you believe the theorem is not true. You don’t know enough about the field. However you’d probably say that it is possible to know for sure one way or another, because topologists are smart guys.
For an alternate take, consider the question of whether P = NP. None of us can claim to know the answer to this, but most people working in the field believe that it is not. Someone just starting in complexity might lack belief one way or another, but with study that threshold would be crossed and they would start believing.
Yeah, ok, that makes sense. Basically yes/no/undecided.
Yikes, it’s almost unsettling how easy it is to twist the various clearly dissimilar positions into sounding almost exactly like the other. If I didn’t take 10 minutes to think about it I could easily misidentify myself as an undecided by mistake.
Having actually given it some thought due to this thread, I’m going to have to say no - or at least, not the way you mean. (Prior to this I had not thought it through clearly enough and was just charging ahead on ill-concieved notions.)
I think that belief runs from 0 to 100% in the existence of any given god, and that the statement of disbelief in that god refers to the exact same continuum. Which is to say, it’s a glass half full/glass half empty thing. Whether you say that the glass is 0% full or 100% empty, it’s the same glass.
Given that, “Active” belief or disbelief and “positive” assertions of belief or disbelief would then just refer to whether you are willing to commit yourself to the level of belief you have. Which is to say, it’s basically a confidence thing. Most agnostics have a 0% belief/100% disbelief in all gods, just like all but the hardest strawman atheists - but they’re not willing to state this belief, due to having a low certainty in the correctness of their belief. The difference between them and the soft/hard atheist is that the stated atheist considers the evidence sufficient to declare a position. Not that this difference may not (and in this debate, is likely not) that the professed atheist as more evidence; he merely has a less rigid standard of certainty before he makes the declaration.
Tangentially relevent to the point, I think the reason some atheists are critical of those who primarily self-identify as agnostics is that they see double standards in those people’s standard of certainty. Agnostics don’t criticize people for stating disbelief in telepathy, fairies, and the notion that Star Wars is a documentary about another galaxy that Lucas picked up in his fillings. So why do they criticize people who state disbelief in gods?
What if the pointer on the continuum is right in the middle, equals portions of continuum on one side as the other?
I think that people go through very detailed (not in the number of explicit steps involved, detailed in the relationship to other experience/data) processes when thinking about all of these things. And that process is not inherently logical. The logical part (IMO) is a semi-separate process whose results are also combined with the quick process and we then end up with, possibly, multiple answers, one of which is provided externally, but all of which represent a view of that persons beliefs even if the answers are contradictory.
For each of the items you listed, there will be other supporting/un-supporting related evidence/experience/patterns/etc. that will lead the person to a specific position (stated). But each question is unique and I think it’s reasonable to expect that a question about God/god (which carries with it all kinds of cultural references/history logged away in your brain) would be treated differently than Star Wars. This is not to say one is right or wrong, merely that our brains are merely the tools they are and we can fight inconsistency, but we can’t eradicate it.
How should atheists and agnostics view each other?
As more than kin and less than kind?
They’re close, and both generally skeptical. It’s just that one side has a little doubt left.
Then the person will act as though each option is equally likely true. And Pascal’s wager will kick in like a mofo.
Admittedly, the precise behaviors enacted will depend somewhat on the stratification - you can be agnostic about some gods while dismissing others entirely, and whichever god you’re most credible about usualy defines how you self-label. (You only have to believe one to be a theist, for example.) So first you’d have to define which dieties you consider it a good bet exists. (50-50 odds is a good bet - or danged close.) Is it one that rewards the charitable? Then you’ll strongly lean towards charity with a healthy suspicion that you’re earning karma points. Is it one that is malevolent? Then you’ll be paranoid and engage in random meaningless rituals (knock on wood!) Is it one that created the universe and then discarded it? They you’ll seriously doubt your own worth, and flirt with general nihilism about everything. Is it one that never did anything to anything? Then you’ll spend a lot of time philosophizing pointlessly on message boards. 
And of course if you believe that more than one of a set of conflicting gods each have even odds of existing, you’ll do your best to please them all, and/or spend all your time hiding under your bed quaking in fear of retribution from one or another.
Seriously though - if you believe there is even odds that one or more gods exists, you’re not particularly an agnostic. You’re a sunday theist.
Right. Doesn’t stop self-proclaimed atheists from thinking that self-proclaimed agnostics are wishy-washy though.
What’s the difference between actively believing no leprechauns exists and passively believing no leprechauns exist? It’s the same for God.
I’m not sure what the difference is because I’ve never used the phrase “passively believe” and my only reason for using the term “actively believe” is to distinguish it from the null position in which there is no belief (primarily due to begbert2’s previous objections regarding belief).
If your question is really: “what is the difference between actively believing in God and not having a belief about the existence of God”, then it becomes pretty clear what the difference is, unless you subscribe to the theory that it is not possible to not have a belief about any given topic. If you think that for every topic that each and every human has a belief whether they want to admit it or not, then the challenge is not with the sentence but rather with our differing views on belief.
It’s not at all clear to me. BTW, do you really not think that *passively * is the equivelanet to not actively?
ETA: I assume you meant to say “what is the difference between actively not believing in God and not having a belief about the existence of God”
I don’t know what it means to passively believe something.
I can imagine that actively believing something is basically the same as believing something, but I can’t clear up any distinction between “actively believing” vs “passively believing”.
It sounds like you think humans have a belief about every topic that is presented to them, regardless of the information they may have available to them. Is this correct?
If you do think that, try this experiment:
Flip a coin but do not look at the result.
Do you believe it’s heads?
Do you believe it’s tails?
When I do this experiment, I think the only thing I believe is that it is heads or tails, but I do not believe that it is heads and I do not believe that it is tails.
If you ask me “do you think it is heads” I will say no. If you ask me “do you think it is tails” I will say no. If you ask me “do you think it is either head or tails” I will say yes. But I am not sure how this applies to God in any case. Not only do I have no reason to think that God (the quarter) exists, I don’t know what attributes (head/tails) God is supposed to have.
Imagine you came up and said “here is an invisible quarter, when I flip it do you think it is heads or tails”?
Regardless of any question as to God/god’s existence, the posts that you responded to were addressing the question of describing “belief”.
I notice that you did not answer my question about what you “believe” (you did tell me what you would say), so it’s still unclear to me what you believe in those situations, and more importantly whether you think humans have to have a belief about any topic presented to them.
Once it’s clear what each of our views are about “belief”, then it becomes much easier to discuss specific beliefs, like those about God/god.
So, are you willing to answer my previous questions about belief, specifically in the case of the flipped coin?
But Dibble does appear to be a strawman atheist. He is certain God does not exist. He is certain that a supernatural Loki doesn’t exist. He appears to be willing to engage the hypothetical theist who says, “Prove to me that God doesn’t exist”. Now, if you press him hard enough, he may relent. No matter: at the very least prior to intensive scrutiny Dibble was a strawman atheist.
If all that is the case, you may wish to call this type an “Ultra-hard atheist”. Then again, “Strawman atheist” has a certain ring to it.
Well I try and make my beliefs the result of my thinking and not the other way around. Do I “believe” it’s heads? No, that is not a premise I could hold as true in the case of a fair coin toss. Same for tails.
But the scientific method may be an overly narrow framework. One could borrow from the law and apply standards such as “Beyond a reasonable doubt”, or “Preponderance of evidence.” Scientists endeavor to build a structure of knowledge, so they set null hypotheses at some threshold (1 or 5 percent) and let theories languish that can’t meet the grade. They do this because typically there’s the possibility of always launching another experiment or gathering more evidence. (Observational sciences can run into problems here.) But historians adopt different methodologies: they typically attempt to sift through existing evidence and weigh it. A good historian will provide both his evaluation and a range where reasonable people might disagree with him.
By my reckoning hard atheists reach for the default option too quickly. They assume that the best stance is disbelief in the absence of evidence. But I see little wrong with suspending judgment until certain puzzles are resolved. As I said earlier, how am I to rule out an overarching consciousness if I have no idea how consciousness arises? It would be like debating whether the Grippe is caused by devils or vapours before the germ theory of disease were invented. Under the latter circumstance, the layman might weigh evidence on proper treatment but opining on underlying causes should require some circumspection.
In fact, we may have sufficient knowledge about consciousness to move to a conclusion on this matter, though that argument has not been demonstrated to me. Also, it might be possible to construct a reasonable pre-germ theory stance on disease that doesn’t involve agnosticism. I’m open to further argument.
Oh yeah. And a textbook fundamentalist Christian is an ultra-hard atheist with regards to Baal and an ultrahard theist with regards to the Lord.