I think you’re still confused by the terminology here and/or want to think of yourself as open-minded and perhaps think of atheism as a closed position.
However, either you believe a particular claim, or you do not yet believe it. And the “not believing it yet” position encompasses specific reasoning such as thinking the evidence so far has been insufficient to draw a conclusion.
I’m an atheist and I’m open-minded. Show me the evidence, and I may come to believe in God.
I could never buy into the whole “Religion is about faith, not facts” thing. To me, it is like paying off your bills with a sealed envelope labeled “LOTS OF MONEY!!”.
I could ask similar questions of anyone who claims to be sure about anything. What I am questioning is not the belief, or lack thereof, but the sureness.
Seems like there’s an excluded middle here, though, between believing something exists and being sure that it doesn’t exist.
The bible is not evidence of anything except that some writings were made.
I never used the word “logic”. People can be convinced to believe something for good and bad reasons, that much is undeniable.
Consider the incredible vastness of the universe; billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars, spread out across billions of light-years and probably continuing on beyond the reach of our vision. I find the idea utterly preposterous that some conscious entity planned/created all that, and manages to care about the affairs of one particular species on this one little rock.
Yes it seems to be a very simple A/Not A position. Atheism is a direct negation of believing in god and there isn’t a third option. Agnosticism is a modifier of either theism or atheism and not a category by itself.
I consider any sort of existence preposterous. The easiest thing would be for there to be nothing. Any universal laws, gravity, how the universe works ultimately “just is” at some level. That’s not saying a god is any different. They’re equivalent. The existence of the universe is irrational however you slice it.
I “exclude the middle” because the claim that a god exists is not, to me, a reasonable claim.
It’s not like, say, claiming there’s a blue car in your garage. It’s more like claiming there’s a magical blue spaceship in your garage that only you can see.
I was a Christian my whole life, but recently I have become an atheist (I mentioned this in a topic I made a few months back; look in my profile if you’re curious). Atheism just has all the evidence there in the world (such as with fossils and space). Christianity has no evidence other than an old-ass book that was written by Christians. No disrespect to fellow Christian Dopers, but that’s just my stance.
Are you sure about that?
But I can prove that the universe exists, even if you consider it to be incomprehensible.
Atheist here:
Simply, Occam’s razor.
Seems to me you’re misunderstanding or misapplying Occam’s Razor if you think it’s a justification for being sure about anything.
How would you explain our universe to someone that had never seen it or anything like it? Do you think they would believe your story?
Of course there is - there is the position that “believing in god” is a meaningless statement. That’s not negation of a proposition, it’s something else entirely.
Can you elaborate on this please?
You can think it is meaningless, many do. That doesn’t stop people from disagreeing with you and having such a belief. (I assume you think they reporting their belief accurately). They are in the state of “A”
That you don’t share their belief simply means you are in the state of “Not A”.
You may have additional valid reasons for thinking the claims of theists are meaningless, so do I, but that does not change the simple fact that, of the two possible sets it is possible to belong to, you are in that set who do not accept such claims.
If an alien tried to make a claim to you in a language you didn’t understand, would you leave that conversation with an acceptance of that claim or not? Yes or no are the only two options.
You are forgetting the important part: you charge (or ask for donations) to see the blue spaceship only you can see, you get exemptions for all kinds of laws because you say you can see the spaceship. People call you “your highness” or whatever because you claim more vigorously than others that you see that spaceship. Etc. Etc.
It really is a beautiful con.
Accurately, but incoherently. “A” is gibberish. So is “Not A”
No, sorry, I do not agree. “Not A” is a negation of A, not a denial of its coherence.
No, they are not. And I’m pretty sure I haven’t beaten the alien’s wife, either.
Like I’ve said before - rocks are not atheists. Nor are babies. Despite what some atheists seem to think, atheism is not the ground state of the Universe - or human beings.
correct, and if “A” is a state of belief that you do not share that means you are “Not A” The reasons why you don’t share that belief are irrelevant.
you are not a rock, nor a baby, neither are those with positive belief in gods.
You don’t need to know diddly about X in order to not have a belief in X.
But to know that you don’t have a belief in X sort of requires that you have some notion of what X is, in order to state “nope, don’t harbor a notion that anything of the sort is real”.
Communication problems can occur when Atheist Three, who doesn’t believe in a God as (for example) described in the Bhagavad Gita, is interacting with Theist Fourteen, who means something quite different when using the word “God” (or the concept “theistic” or whatever). In the absence of knowing what the heck Theist Fourteen means, Atheist Three could be factually wrong in stating that they don’t rely on a similar notion of what is real.
It works both ways: Theist Fourteen is in no position to say “I understand something that you don’t” to Atheist Three. Atheist Three may use non-theistic terminology to describe the same underlying realities.