Your explanation seems to me to be that there’s an objective universe that can be understood through your senses in the form of evidence. You don’t need to have a complete answer (many theists talk about a lord who works in mysterious ways–they don’t always claim complete answers, either) in order to have some basic framework.
Sure you do. If you don’t have a better explanation, the pink fairy explanation is equally likely to any other. Pink fairies are only unlikely to the degree to which you can propose something better. Again, you don’t need to be sure what it was, but you probably have a general idea: an explosion, or something heavy falling, or something along those lines.
Der Trihs, saying that one must be a person to be an atheist is a strange answer. A comatose person is still a person, but lacks any belief in God at the moment (unless you have an idiosyncratic definition of “person” or “belief”), but if Billy Graham slips into a coma, I wouldn’t declare him a temporary atheist. Similarly, there could be a person with such severe mental disability that they lack the capacity to form any sort of opinion on the existence of a deity; would you consider that person to be an atheist?
I wouldn’t. I think an entity must be able to consider and reject the idea of a God before they may be considered an atheist. Otherwise it leads you into absurdities.
And a rejection of God as an explanation requires a belief that some other explanation for the universe is likelier, however fuzzy, ill-defined, or uncertain that explanation may be.
It’s difficult to imagine such a group, but I’m not sure I’d consider them to be atheists. When such a group exists, I’ll decide whether the definition applies to them. As it is, there are plenty of individuals who do exist but are incapable of belief regarding God: do you consider newborns, the severely mentally disabled, and the comatose all to be atheists? What about rocks, who also lack a belief in God?
It’s not that I don’t understand. It’s that there’s an underlying layer that you’re not discussing, for whatever reason. If you’ve dismissed God as having explanatory power, you’ve made that dismissal for a reason, and that reason points to what your alternate explanation is, even if that alternate explanation is very fuzzy.
If you admit the significant possibility of God as an explanation, then you’re much more agnostic than me.
(Incidentally, “explanatory power” is the reason why I’m not discussing the alternative to believing in leprechauns. AFAIK, leprechauns are very rarely invoked to explain something.)
Yes, they are all atheists, to the extent they are all anythingist. Most of us don’t use language that way because talking about the list of things that rocks don’t believe in is really silly since they don’t believe in anything. But, whatever floats your boat.
See, Czarcasm? This is why I brought up tangerines: it appears that some people do consider tangerines to be atheist. I find that idea very strange, and again, I think it’s a matter of definitions.
Normal human adults form beliefs about all kinds of different things: how many arms they have, what they’ll eat for lunch, how televisions work, whether vaccines cause autism, why there’s sickness in the world, how death changes us. The archetypal atheist is an adult (or adolescent, or at the very least post-toddler) human, full of beliefs. Where a theist invokes God to explain certain aspects of the universe–even if such explanations are mystical and full of “beyond mortal understanding” or whatever–atheists tend to invoke a rational, objective, naturalistic universe to explain certain aspects of the universe–even if such explanations are tentative and full of “I don’t really know” or whatever.
:rolleyes: You’ve read everything I wrote in this thread and come to THAT conclusion?! Unbelievable. I included that to just point out that EVEN if he wants some action from us and in the event that we might actual divine it someday, it may very well turn out to be “honor rationality above all else”.
It seems that you are the one with the baggage problem. And a reading comprehension one, as well. So strong are your biases.
I think it very strange, too, because tangerines don’t believe anything so asking whether they believe in god is a stupid question. But no, they don’t believe in god, so if that’s what it takes for the definition of “atheist” to make any sense to you, you’re welcome to include tangerines in the atheist set.
It amuses me if you think this is somehow a victory.
And the idea of a creator god doesn’t actually answer the question, how the first thing came into existence, it just shifts it to a second level. “How came the creator god into existence?”, is the next logical question. And if the answer is not a creator creator but that this creator didn’t need a creator to be, why not simply strike off that level and assume the existence of the universe without a creator? The assumption of a creator just isn’t helpful.
Nope. I’ll tell you what, you tell me what religious concepts are attached to it. and I’ll let you know if you’re right.
BUt since I’m leaving for the airport, let’s save time: you’re wrong. The Creator God I’m talking about is 100% areligious. It is of the mono variety, but I view that as a philosophical position—THE first cause.
Welcome to atheism. This strikes me as a more valid use of the term than claiming it involves “disbelief in gods” or whatnot. I figure an atheist is obviously someone who has no use for theism. Even writing “disbelief in God or gods” gives God or gods more weight than the concept has ever earned.
Once again you conflate religion with theism, which is a philosophical position. It may very well lead to a particular religious position, but one need not take that step.
Gah! Am I really being this unclear? I’m disputing the definition of atheist that includes tangerines, rocks, infants, and people who’ve never considered the issue of god. I’m arguing that in order to be considered an atheist, you need to have some alternate explanatory framework–however tentative or full of "I don’t know"s.
I certainly have one: I tentatively believe that this is an objective, rational, logical universe that can be partially apprehended through my senses. When someone asks me to explain why I don’t believe in God, rather than mocking them with invisible pink unicorns and pouring contempt on them, I can talk about why I find this explanatory framework more compelling than whatever theistic framework they’re using.
I think most atheists have such a framework, but because they don’t want to be seen as equivalent to theists, a lot of atheists deny that such a framework rests on beliefs.
You are arguing that for other atheists to be consistent they need to say tangerines are atheist, too. And I’m saying sure, fine, tangerines are atheist. What the fuck ever. Stupid people, smart people, non-people, whatever. If they don’t believe in gods, they don’t believe in gods and yes someone can use the term atheist for them. Just like you could use the term apurple for air but you wouldn’t because not-being-purple is the default state for air and defining things by what they aren’t is going to take a lot of time, but again. If that’s what it takes to make it clear that no, some of us do NOT think there have to be beliefs of one sort in order for there not to be beliefs of another sort.
I was dating a guy once and he was out of town. I got a funny feeling that something was wrong and I called him. It turned out he had been in an accident.
I have no belief that I was suddenly clairvoyant but I don’t know why I had the funny feeling and I don’t particularly care. Belief rejected, not replaced by other belief but replaced by absence of belief.
Really, it sounds like you’re just making a very roundabout version of the silly old semantics argument:
I refer to my pencil sharpener as “God”.
My pencil sharpener exists.
Ergo God exists.
I mean, yeah, technically it’s true. But this undefined creative force of yours has absolutely none of the attributes associated with godhood, other than you appending the word “God” after it.
BTW, this is absolute bullshit guesswork, especially if some people’s brains are simply less inclined toward religious belief. The lack of belief for a lot of us comes first, long before we start to formulate any competing answers for “Why?” I grew up in the RCC. I avoided thinking about religion. I found it distasteful and embarrassing when people talked about religion. One day I finally realized it was because I didn’t believe in any of it. It was like wallpaper over a doorway. Once the wallpaper was gone, I could open the door to “Why?”
And, frankly, “Why?” is still not important to me.
I didn’t reason my way out of theism. Theism just didn’t fit me.
This whole discussion is odd. I’m not sure why it is so important to theists that not thinking there is a god counts as a belief system. Maybe we can start there.
On the other side, I don’t like viewing atheism as a belief system/pseudo religion because it puts the belief in God on a whole different plane than other beliefs. No one ever calls someone else an a-leprechaunist, or tries to say that by not believing in leprechauns you actually have a belief system. To say that about belief in God requires one to say that God is special, which means that you are starting with the idea that God exists. Kind of circular reasoning.
“I don’t know” is not an explanation, nor part of one. It’s an absurd sleight of hand to imply that saying “I don’t know” is an alternative belief system.
Science has covered a lot of ground but there are still plenty of things that scientists will acknowledge that they do not yet understand. Filling such gaps with gods though, provides no explanatory help at all.
It’s nice that it is easy for you; however, it is not so easy for me. I know that my senses can be tricked and that I am prone to making cognitive errors. There have been times that I have formed a belief and then had it destroyed. When people say something to me, or if I read something, I can keep things in the hypothesis stage without believing or disbelieving. I only wait for more evidence. For example, the day I read that scientists have been able to cure HIV in some people. I only briefly saw the title and did not continue reading. I understand the proposition; however, I neither believe nor disbelieve the claim. I do not have a belief that scientists can cure HIV. I do not say they can’t. I do not say it is impossible. I simply do not have the evidence.
If someone tells me that Olympians keep coming down and seducing mortals, I think that person has flawed logic or needs medication. I do not need to have a disbelief in their god to think that they need help. I would think the same if someone were to run around having unsafe sex after reading one headline. If either showed me evidence, it would be a different story.
Overall, however, I am rational in not forming a belief based on hearsay. Someone may describe something to me and I can still wait for more evidence without building a believe.
It’s interesting that you’d say this, as until quite recently (relatively speaking), gods generally were constrained in exactly that fashion; Hephaestus captures Aphrodite and her lover Ares in a net, Osiris is drowned in the Nile, Balder is slain by a spear of mistletoe, etc, etc.
IMHO the logical position is to state that I cannot **know **about the IPU or the FSM, that I **believe **them improbable, and that I will live my life as though they were not existent.
How about the OT version who wrestled with Jacob (Genesis 32). H would seem to fit the mould of DT’s “advanced alien” rather than the later omnimax version.
Look, all I want to know is: can I safely eat crustaceans, and wear wool-linen blends or not?
If the “Great God of the Vague” has no rules then His/Her/Its followers have no reason to push for restrictions on shellfish consumption or fabric content, do they?
Fundamental was used in the same context as a fundamental Christian. Your way is 100% right and any other way is completely wrong.
To the question, it’s a question asked from a position of ignorance. You do not understand my spirituality as you see religious folk as all being ignorant and stupid. I respect your views on what you believe, all power to you. For me I see the universe differently.