Soul Invictus

BBT,

I think you've been able to address issues important to my stance...especially with this example with the toggle for me being the strong atheism-weak atheism distinction. I think Goliath alluded to it before, however w/o an additional commentary for me to reflect on. Re-reading the thread, I'm seeing the importance of the strong-weak issue for my assertion, which although the concept of two atheist views is not totally unfamiliar to me, I've never really given it a terrible amount of consideration. Like I said in the beginning, I said I could concede my stance or the thread if the refutation was clear for me to reason out, (or to quote myself correctly if it were "strong enough" (implications the same)

Goliath,
I'm sure you are not an antagonistic person by nature, however your style of exchange appears so. My misunderstanding of your views were not intentional and although you may have been annoyed by my continual reposting of the same material it was because my stance was unchanged. This meant that your dispute of my information gave me nothing to reflect with or counter for me to relate to...just a rebut to try again and get it right next time. I even gave examples in case my wording were unclear, and I think the personal attacks that CJD and I were subject to wouldn't have even been necessary if the dialogue were genuinely a friendly exchange instead of a large type (emphasis added you said) retort match. Your information again was beneficial, however a bit more info exchange savvy may allow for a more conducive discussion.


In conclusion, BBT's last reply concerning the positive stance would have important for my display, but to no avail given this weak atheist position (I think it is) that Goliath is. If anything, my points is probably suited for the strong atheist, if I read BBT's post correctly.

Thank you all for the input...it's been interesting.

Soul Invictus

You're still on that. Did you miss where I had said that "Since God thus far is not a verfiable entity..." The first time you acknowledged my typing something I did not mean was when I typed "Man does not know that God exists, nor can God be proven" and I stated that this was not my original intention. Nor undoes my initial claim that "thus far God is not a verifiable entity"

-That makes my stance consistent...so where outside of this example which I had addressed the first time you brought it to my attention did I imply that it is impossible to prove that no gods exist? It just derails from that whole matter of fact vs opinion issue I was working with

paul30

It seems it would be well to DEFINE the God who is either there or not there.

But in most definitions--creator, designer, controller, care-giver, etc.--there is about as little evidence for as there is against.

To state positively that you know such a thing does not exist strikes me as presumptuous as to state you know it does.

Charlie

In response to Paul30, regarding God's existence, we should probably be at that forum, but anyway here goes my position:

As a living thing, god does not exist.
As an inanimate object, god does not exist.
As something that leaves behind physical evidence of it's existence, once again god does not exist.

The only place that one could say god exists, is in the minds of believers. However, there is one definition in Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary that states existence to be: "reality as apposed to appearance.. ..the totality of existent things.. ..living being, having being, LIFE.. ..the state or fact of having being esp. independently of human consciousness and as contrasted with nonexistence.." One could attempt to use this as argument to say that just because someone can imagine a "creature" or "being" in their mind, does not justify that the imagined "being" has existence. With this one could argue that god does not exist at all, even in the minds of believers!

I would like to also submit that if humans did not exist then god would not exist. Once again because god only exists in the minds of humans. If there were no humans, then it would just be the slightly lower life forms, ie. animals, plant life... living on this planet doing the best they can to survive with no god, imagined or otherwise.

Of course, it all depends on one's definitions of god and existence! Also, if you try to start talking about "other" realities, other worlds, other energies and sciences, perhaps saying that we could not possibly know all there is to know and therefore there may actually be a god? Please save your breath! What does it matter about other realities, worlds, energies.. that may or may not be? It Doesn't! Meaning it doesn't matter to us! The only thing that matters is OUR world, our reality! And I'm not being egotistical. I'm simply stating that we must be aware of, and realize that this is all we are! Sure it is ok to imagine and dream about the possibilities of all kinds of things. Why can't humans just remember that that's all it is, dreams! Instead humans turn their dreams into belief, and then turn their belief into their truth and thus religion is born leading to control, power, oppression, killing, wars...

Now back to the subject here.. Atheism is not a belief! I explain this in my previous post..
Charlie

Soul Invictus

Charlie, I must commend you on your humorous style....very convincing nonetheless. Your posts are most entertaining!

SteveD

Soul Invictus,

Here are my thoughts on your Iraq example.

Your statements "I do not believe we should have inavded Iraq." and "my belief is we should have stayed out of Iraq." are not equivalent. The second is what we are referring to as a positive claim. The first states a lack of belief and the second makes a positive statement about belief.

I consider your statement about your opinion, "my opinion is that we should not have gone into Iraq", to be equivalent to your positive belief statement.

An equivalent opinion for the first statement would be; "It is not my opinion that we should have invaded Iraq". Someone with no opinion on the subject could say this and could also say "It is not my opinion that we should have stayed out of Iraq." There is no inconsistency there.

This is equivalent to Goliath stating that he has no belief that god(s) exist while also stating that he has no belief that god(s) don't exist.

Based on some of your recent posts it appears that you are willing to concede that weak atheism is not a belief. If so, I congratulate you on your understanding. this seems to be a significant hurdle for some people.

Steve

MBS

I would say atheism is not a belief. I think the distinction between weak and strong atheism is splitting hairs. If one includes unverifiable claims in the set of all possible truth claims there would be an infinite number of claims to consider. After all, one can claim as many imaginary things as one can think up. It would be rather tedious to have to disprove the existence of (or consider the consequence of the existence of) every invisible monster I can think up before going on with my life--actually, doing this would probably land me in a mental hospital.

On the other hand, because our perception of reality is subjective, it is technically impossible to make any (not just religious) absolutely positive claims regarding the outside world. I consider myself agnostic not because I cannot disprove the existence of a god.

I am agnostic because I am not a strict materialist. I do not believe that empirical examination of the world (using science and logic) is the only source of knowledge. So I would say there is a good possibility there is some sort of "spiritual force" (sounds a little too religious--I can't think of any better word). Unlike religious people though, I don't claim this vague belief as truth. There is also a good chance I am wrong. For all I know I might not even have free will. I can't even prove there is consciousness outside of myself. However, I do feel I have a moral obligation to assume other human beings are conscious and that I can make choices for their well-being. This is human instinct, and I couldn't live without it.

Daleth

There is a word for "strong atheism" as I've read it called here. The word is antitheism, the belief that there is no god. It's a perfectly good word, and I've never known anyone to use it.

Atheism means a lack of belief in god or gods.
Antitheism means a belief that there are no gods.

Calling atheism a belief is like calling my dogs immoral. They have no concept of morality, so they are amoral or non-moral. I have no belief about gods, so I am an atheist or non-theist.

Is the word antitheist not used because it sounds too confrontational, or what?

Dal

paul30

Dear Charlie:

My cats inform me that God is actually a large feline.

Daleth

If your cats had to tell you that, you should consider yourself quite lucky that they didn't eat you immediately after. Honestly, everyone is supposed to know that intuitively.

Dal