Philosoft

I don't think this is relevant. Presumably, Goliath's argument necessitates "saldfjag" as a letter string without a conceptual referent. If we did not stipulate that "saldfjag" is a meaningless letter string, Goliath's argument would be subject to pedantic little objections like, "what if 'saldfjag' referred to the root of the ficus tree in Outer Mongolia in 1670?" which is far from the point of debate.

Philosoft

Agreed, but with the stipulation that neither one of these statements is necessarily dogmatic or faith-based. I really hate the typical stereotype of the "strong atheist."

Philosoft

As I said before, this is strictly true, but in practice, "I don't believe X exists" where X is a non-concept, is a generally intelligible, if syntactically incorrect, statement.

Novowels

You are saying you don't have a worldview?

You've missed my point, you have to ask what the word symbolizes, but you already have a view about the concept behind it. This can be either belief, or not belief (there is no third direction!) You are hiding behind semantics. You do not know what a saldfirac is. Fair enough. You've never heard of that word before. If a saldfirac is defined as a ghostly emanation that hides behind Jupiter and eats meteors, then you do not believe in it. (I would assume) Learning what saldfirac is defined as would not have created a nonbelief, it would merely define what the symbol means, so you can assign your belief/nonbelief to it. If, however, a "saldfirac" were another name for an angel, then you do already believe in it. The word is a symbol, and nothing more. You already have a system of belief for the concept behind it, whatever that may be.

Obviously, an American Indian in the first century is someone who has never heard of the Roman Gods. Therefore he does not believe in them. That is a part of their belief system (or more accurately, it is not in their belief system and is therefore nonbelief.) They would not say that the Roman Gods do not exist but they also would not believe in them. Lack of knowledge would = nonbelief. It would not equal belief, or "possibility." It would be nonbelief. After hearing about them, then one could change their belief (although that belief would be based on faith, rather than evidence). Et cetera.

THE_LEGENDARY_HQB

Bon dia otra bes esaki echt friu dia, Amy! Aki, e tempo ta miserabel, y toch frigido, y mi ta wardando p'e momento cu mi por bai p'e Caribe pa Vakantie.

Bo a bisa:
"LEGENDARY HQB, Philosoft, capnkirk I don't see much of a difference between saying "I believe there are no gods" and saying "I dont believe there is a god" Maybe a thin line but really "disbelieving" and "lacking a belief" wouldnt you say they are one and the same?"
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A thin line, yes, but a very important one nonetheless.

I view myself as having the following three options.

I BELIEVE IN GOD
To me, that means you have a belief that God exists.

I LACK BELIEF IN GOD
Now, this is my personal position. I see no reason to believe in a magic man in the sky, any more than I see a reason to believe in any other supernatural entity, so I suspend belief.I do not take the position that said invisible does not exist, because to do so would require knowledge that I simply don't have, IMHO.

I BELIEVE THAT GOD DOES NOT EXIST.
Now here, I have made a positive assertion. I am stating not only that I don't see evidence that God exists, but, to the contrary, that I see evidence that God does not exist. Since God is defined as Supernatural, i.e, above nature, I cannot claim, at least with my current level of knowledge, that I have any evidence that He is nonexistent.

Where I am willing to state "I believe God does not exist", is when He/It is defined with specific characteristics, that can easily be proven to be inconsistent, illogical, and just plain absurd.

Therefore, on the subject of any God as defined by any religion I'm familiar with, I consider my self a hard Atheist. I contend that the God of the Abrahamic Religions is nonexistent. As far as some kind of supernatural, sentient intelligence somewhere out there, I simply say "I don't know, though I doubt it".

I can see how it might seem to be mere word games to you, Amy. Before I took the plunge into atheism, I shared your attitude.

If this doesn't make you understand, well, I've done my part.

As you said though, no harm, no foul!

Stay warm,

The Legendary Right Excellent Lord Pasha Sir Hieronymus Q Blankenship {the Q stands for Flavius}, Esq.
Marquis of Willemstad.

Amie

I love you too

no actually I have no idea what any of this means however maybe thats a good thing
Thanks for helping me understand the difference. sheesh I have to go to work.

NovowelsThanks and I'll get back to you on that as soon as I can...

THE_LEGENDARY_HQB

Orignally posted by Amie:
"no actually I have no idea what any of this means however maybe thats a good thing
Thanks for helping me understand the difference. sheesh I have to go to work."
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Really? Not even "echt" and "vakantie"? It's Papiamento, the language of Aruba.

I would have expected you to at least pick up the Dutch words, Amy!

Say Lavee.

I don't have the time to translate it, sufficed to say its nothing bad. Remeber, you're on my A list for your insightful comments about licorice!

Lades,
HQB

capnkirk

This is a patent case of why philosophers need engineers to put their philosophical meanderings to purpose. Someone has to posit those pedantic little objections.

Obviously not everyone on this thread PRESUMES that "saldfjag" is a letter string (universally) without a conceptual referent. Goliath's response cannot be valid in the presence of such a stipulation, BECAUSE stipulation also makes his response self-refuting insofar as Goliath DOES in fact know what saldfjag is (even if that knowledge is that the term "has no meaning").

In fact, I just realized that your insistence that saldfjag being a string of letters without meaning is without merit. Goliath's response (which is specifically at issue at the moment) begins with "I don't know what a saldfjag is...". The implication here is clear that saldfjag has a meaning to someone, else there is no reason for the question. It is further implied that Goliath (the responder) understands this too, else there is no reason for the disclaimer!

This establishes the foundation for my argumentive point, as well as Amie's and several others on this thread. We clearly understood the 'lack of referent' to specifically apply only to the person being asked the question. IN THE ABSENCE OF any stipulation to the contrary, a satisfactory degree of definition of the term MUST be obtained before a credible denial can be declared.

As to being far from the point of the debate...the inclusion of your stipulation renders the entire saldfjag example irrelevant (unless you draw some implicit but as yet unrevealed correlation between the sum of individual understandings of god and a letter string without a conceptual referent). To the contrary, the relevance of the example absloutely DEPENDS on the understanding I have detailed to you here. When the example was first offered, it was to refute Amie's claim that Goliath could not credibly declare that he did not believe in 'her' god until he had some definition of 'her' god. To make Goliath's counterexample congruent with Amie's claim, similar properties in each example must align. (i.e. Amie knows what her definition is, but Goliath doesn't need to. ergo: the questioner knows the meaning of saldfjag, but Goliath doesn't need to.). Else, the relevance of Goliath's counterexample lies buried beneath layers of unrevealed, non-intuitive, stipulations and implied correlations.

Do not conclude from this posting that I concur that Goliath must hear Amie's definition before declaring his non-belief in (her) god. I prefer the analogy offered by the poster who used the feline analogy, which contends "I have heard lots of definitions of god(s), and find them all utterly lacking in credibility. Therefore, I can confidently "out-of-hand" dismiss your definition as well." The only omission in the feline analogy is that of a serious and in-depth investigation of the nature of cats and how they could wind up in my closet leading to the conclusion that the probability of ANY cat finding its way into my locked dwelling, opening the door to my closet, and closing it behind himself is preclusively infinitesimal.

IMHO the feline analogy with the inclusion of the attached addendum, accurately represents the process behind most athiests' (seemingly out-of-hand) rejection of one more theist's concept of god. That the theist has not been privy to the process DOES make the rejection of his particular concept appear callously arbitrary.

Philosoft

No, you've missed the point of stipulating something for the purposes of a logical argument.

What we're after is a letter-string that can stand-in for the phrase "letter-string that does not refer to a concept." It doesn't matter what the letter-string is, only that we stipulate prior to creating our argument that the letter-string in question is, for the purposes of the argument, a "letter-string that does not refer to a concept."

It may be the case in reality that "saldfjag" refers to some concept; it would be presumptuous to claim it does not. But, for the purposes of Goliath's argument, we can allow "saldfjag" to stand-in for "letter-string that does not refer to a concept."

Think of it as a hypothetical. A "saldfjag" is a hypothetical meaningless letter-string. Better?

This is where I disembark. I was only interested in the sytactical/semantic nuances of Goliath's argument. It's up to Goliath to acknowledge that "God" means the same to him as "saldfjag."

capnkirk

Welcome Joseph!

I can tell we're going to have some fun with you! OK, let's start.

Definition:
prag·mat·ic adj.

• Dealing or concerned with facts or actual occurrences; practical.
• RE: Philosophy. Of or relating to pragmatism.
• Relating to or being the study of cause and effect in historical or political events with emphasis on the practical lessons to be learned from them.

Of these definitions, the common thread is "actual" occurrences. In my experience, this is NOT the native domain of philosophy; philosophy tends more to the manipulation of intangibles.

First, I profoundly disagree that any philosopher has "proved" the existence of god, except perhaps in his own mind. This I presume is what you mean by "pure thinking"? The problem with "pure thinking" (in this context) is similar to that of a car up on blocks. The engine may run fine, but you can't drive it anywhere (except in your imagination). When the constructs of the mind are not supported by external reality, but are held as truths anyway...that is the very definition of delusion; the moreso when external reality provides counterevidence to (whatever) subjective truths.

Athiesm DOES subordinate subjective experience to objective experience because athiests perceive reality to be wholly external (as does Xtianity. While some eastern religions consider reality to be wholly internal, I think we can safely exclude them from the present discussion.). So, for athiests, the veracity of external reality serves as our guardian against self-delusion. Indeed it is the sole guardian.

Here we go again...back to definitions:
em·pir·i·ci·sm n.

• The view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge. a) Employment of empirical methods, as in science. b) An empirical conclusion.
• The practice of medicine that disregards scientific theory and relies solely on practical experience.

The definition of empiricism rather makes your statement redundant, now doesn't it? The basic tenet of empiricism mitigates strongly against the expectation of anything that can't be directly experienced (or through the extensions of our senses that we call tools). What is the purpose of philosophy to empiricism? Why, to provide material to filter through the empirical sieve. That which passes through is reality. That which the sieve traps is trash.