dimossi

The columnist, Rod Thomson, of this article, has the misconceived notion that atheists require faith to have a non belief in a deity. This is the article in which I am reffering to:
Religious signs in front of churches are free speech, not offensive - http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pb...4080380&Ref=AR

I suggest writing Rod, as I have done, and briefly point out his illogical argument and misconceptions. Rod Thomson can be reached by e-mail at rod@plow.org or by writing to the Herald-Tribune. I will be interested to hear if anyone receives a response from Rod.

Recommended reading: http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...certainty.html

dimossi

Here is the e-mail I sent:

Rod Thomson,

There are some parts of your article in the Hearld-Tribune that I am confused about. This is the article in which I am referring to:
Religious signs in front of churches are free speech, not offensive - http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pb...4080380&Ref=AR

Here is the excerpt from the article in question:

Why do you feel that it is the duty of the atheist to disprove the existence of a god in the first place? Do you believe in Ghosts? Fairies? Hobbits? If not, then do you require faith in order to hold this disbelief? I think not. The burden of proof is on the person proposing the existence of the supernatural being(s). This includes god(s). The atheist simply lacks a belief in god(s) until there is evidence to the contrary. Based on the current lack of evidence, it doesn't take any "faith" to deny the existence of ANY supernatural being(s), while fully acknowledging the lack of absolute certainty. This is simple logic.

Please let me know if you acknowledge your mistake in reasoning or if you would like to discuss this further. You may want to read this for further insight: http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...certainty.html

Thank you.

(edited to change typo)

GunnerJ

Typo.

lisarea

Well, as someone who's spent many hours ripping down illegally placed bandit signs (those Herbalife signs, "We Buy Ugly Houses" signs, etc.), this bugs me on a few levels.

I'm not even going to address the issue in the OP. It's just so obvious, and I'm so sick of repeating the same arguments over and over. If someone doesn't understand the difference between a belief and a lack of belief, well, I just don't think I can help them, short of swatting them on the nose with a newspaper.

Even aside from that, though, the argument in the column seems specious. The signs are 'technically' on government land. OK. According to most municipal sign codes I've seen, there are different rules for different types of sign. Real estate signs, garage sale, signs in front of businesses, and lost pet and other non profit motivated signs are given more leeway than are commercial signs. Venice's city ordinances are online, but they don't look like any I've seen before, so I can't easily find the sign code.

Regardless of the specific codes involved, though, it's entirely likely that the signs are actually legal, and covered by the first amendment. On the same hand, if Cheves were to put up his "Religion is Superstition" signs and so forth, they would be subject to exactly the same rules. In that case, he should. In fact, if the columnist wants to argue that atheism is a religious belief (as I'd classify something requiring 'faith'), there should be no real difference between the two types of signs.

Cheves would probably be better off simply insisting for the same treatment for his signs as the church has gotten for theirs. Any fees waived, any variances granted, should apply equally to everyone, regardless of the message.

In fact, if Venice does in fact charge a fee for non-commercial signage, they should either enforce it across the board or eliminate the rule. To grant special permission for some messages looks too much like government endorsement, and if the fees are waived for signs of a religious nature, they've got themselves a clear separation violation.

And possibly a swat on the nose with a newspaper.

dimossi

Here is the response I received:

David,

Thanks for the note, but your confidence exceeds your argument. Let me copy you a response to another atheist, who quotes Carl Sagan. His note, then my response:


Interesting example by Carl Sagan, a very smart man who I nonetheless obviously thought was wrong. Let's dissect the situation more than I had an opportunity to do in the Herald-Tribune column confined by space limitations. By the boundaries of the example of the pink dragon, no they are not equal. But let's modify that example, and say that there are traces of an unknown pink substance that shows up in the garage. That occasionally there are burnt objects (mom said the dragon is fire-breathing) and that when you talk to the invisible dragon and make requests, they often come true (although not always) even though he does not talk back. Now we have the basis for a more equal act of faith in accepting or denying. Now, let's add the fact -- in this case yet another analogous fact -- that 2 billion other people also believe in the pink dragon in their garage and see evidences, and it would become clearly a contest of unproveable faiths.

That, I believe, is the closer analogy.

I don't expect to change your mind, David, but perhaps give you something extra to ponder -- not least of which is that while my position includes faith, it does not exclude reason.

Rod

gravitybow

...And let's say that the pink is the remains of a pink lizard that died a long time ago, not much different than the yellow lizards, and the blue lizards, and the purple lizards. But to preserve the memory of the pink lizard, artists of unknown origin painted their own renditions (borrowing from the purple and the yellow lizards) long after the pink lizard had expired. Then one day, the overly-pinked lizard was declared the official lizard of the garage. The Pompous Prelates of Pinkness, who had never met the original pink lizard, gathered together to argue about what was really pink and what was not. The Prelates themselves painted tirelessly. They painted pink doctrines, and pink liturgies, and pink creeds, and pink histories, and the people bowed before the mighty Pink Dragon.

And there was scarcely a speck of the original pink lizard to be found anywhere.
And everyone lived happily ever after.

The End.

Amaranth

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems like begging the question. I order to assign these things to the IPD, you first have to believe in the IPD. I'm not sure I've assigned the correct term to it, but the problem with the logic (cart before horse) seem relatively obvious.

If you feel combatative, you could also say that based upon this logic, the fact that your car sometimes runs better when you ask it nicely and encourage it, as well as miraculously being fixed when you hit it, provides excellent ground that it is sentient. I think the formal term for the logic fallacy is false cause, yes?

This is a wonderful display of an ad populam argument. Remind him that an idea that is popular is not necessarily correct. If he insists, you could also note that 4 billion people are not Xians.

Really, his whole concept is just another approach to the old faith equivocation - Trying to say that not believing in something with no proof means exactly the same thing as believing in it. This is the same thing as saying that July in Arizona and the surface of the sun are equally hot.

Amaranth

braces_for_impact

It's an attempt to put faith and lack of faith on the same intellectual ground.

***Yawn***

:banghead:

Stephen T-B

I've just sent him this:

I don’t understand why I need faith NOT to believe in something.
I need evidence in order TO believe in something, and the more improbable that something is, the more unambiguous and convincing that evidence needs to be.
If you informed me that you could fly, I would not take that statement as evidence of your ability.
If you produced witness, I’d still entertain doubts.
(The fact that dozens, hundreds, thousands or even millions of people believe in something doesn’t make it true.
I wonder if you have heard the expression “democratically validated credulity”?
How many people, do you suppose, believed that Thor caused thunder? Did their belief make it true?)
Even if I saw you fly with my own eyes, I wouldn’t be convinced.
Why not?
I have seen tv pictures of magicians apparently “levitating” before people’s eyes on the street; I have seen David Copperfield apparently flying around a TV studio, yet I know these events were illusions.
For me to believe you can really fly, I would have a magician devise and control a test for you.
Until you have passed it, does my reluctance to believe in your ability to fly require faith on my part?
I don’t think so.
I think it requires a grasp of reality.
My not believing in your god is not a matter of faith on my part, any more than your not believing in my god requires faith on yours.

StrongMan

Nice letter.