Detached9

By positive atheism, I am refering to atheists who make a positive assertion. A positive assertion is one which claims to have proof or disproof of a certain proposition.

Negative atheists don't assert anything, they simply are without god belief.

Philosoft

Please give an example of such a proposition so we can discuss it.

Detached9

Please give an example of such a proposition so we can discuss it.

If you agree with my definition of what a positive assertion is, I don't see how you can disagree with this.

Positive atheists make a positive assertion. They assert that "There is no God" or "God does not exist". I feel like I'm repeating myself already.

Philosoft

Very well. What is wrong with either of your quoted statements?

Detached9

philo - I understand this isn't jeopardy (answering in the form of a question), but have you read this thread in it's entirety? I answered your question already. Perhaps there is a misunderstanding on one of our parts.

Jayhawker Soule

Obviously![?] Please proceed (unless, of course, you're still dealing with leprechauns and St. Nicholas in the other thread).

[ edited for spelling - RD ]

[ June 19, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

tommyc

Exactly, it would be ludicrous to define positive atheism as in the latter of your two definitions. If it were defined that way the following would occur:

Strong Atheist: God does not exist.
Git: Yes he does.
SA: Prove it.
Git: Ok, I define God as that table. You lose!
SA: sigh.....

Philosoft

The obviously, you haven't read this whole thread either; specifically my post three before this one.

[edited for: I can't possibly be this bad at math can I?]

[ June 19, 2002: Message edited by: Philosoft ]

[ June 19, 2002: Message edited by: Philosoft ]</p>

Synaesthesia

Detached9
The entire debate over "strong" atheism arises because we are not careful to insure that everyone means the same thing by "X does not exist".

When I make such an assertion (and I daresay the vast majority of strong atheists agree) I mean "it is an exceedingly poor theory with deep flaws that is never likely to prove correct. These flaws may be predictions that are not verified (eg. no santa @ N. Pole), positing a ridiculous amount of undetectable properties (eg. all Gods{hint hint.}) or making predictions that don't follow from the mechanisms in the theory.

In any case, there are billions of theories that are deeply flawed. Catholics don't, Hindus don't, you don't and god damnit, I don't take most of them seriously. No one feels the remotest need to be agnostic about most crackpottery simply because the theories involved are just bad.

By "God doesn't exist" strong atheists don't mean, "There can be no God, it's impossible!", they mean "God theories are terrible, why waste our time?"

Regards,
Synaethesia

Detached9

By "God doesn't exist" strong atheists don't mean, "There can be no God, it's impossible!", they mean "God theories are terrible, why waste our time?"

I've never heard of it that way before. Thanks for the feedback.