HelenM

Well, if you don't agree with the statements and rhetorical statements posted in response to you, tell us!!! And tell us why!

How about that?

love
Helen

not a theist

We have responded.
Many of us have responded line by line to your posts.
For example you said:
If a person truly believed that God doesn't exist, they wouldn't bother wasting their time debating his existence.

So I said:
It's called debunking.

Does James Randi secretly believe in dowsing, mediumship, and faith-healing just because he talks about them all?

Now you never answered that.
You also didn't admit that you were wrong.
Nor did you show me where I was wrong.

You just went on to say:
Atheists believe in at least one god, if they believe in themselves.

But that wasn't what you said previously. Previously you claimed that the fact that we often talked about God proved that we believed in him.

Ergo, talking about something a lot proves you believe in it. (That's the form that your argument was in.)

So I gave an example of a well known person who talks about something a lot which he obviously doesn't believe in.

If the example I gave is "sound", then your argument as a general rule fails. At that point you have a number of different options.
You can try to strengthen it by showing why my example was of a significantly different sort than yours.
You can restate your argument to be more specific about perhaps how we talk about God being different than the example I gave, or perhaps when, etc.
You can admit you were wrong.

You did none of these. You ignored my example without refuting it and moved on to a different argument.

Well, is my Randi example a good counter-example or not?
Do all people who talk a lot about something believe in it?
Does James Randi really believe in dowsing?
Because if all people who often talk about something believe in it, then Randi must be the most credulous man alive!
But if people can often talk about something without believing in it, then your argument fails.

Notice, this whole time, I've been responding to your argument - the very thing that you're claiming that we didn't do.

Now why don't you tell me if you still think that your argument is sound.

[ May 18, 2002: Message edited by: not a theist ]</p>

St. Robert

Yes, I grant you. I did shift the discussion from Lewis' claim to criticizing atheism. Perhaps, we should have an entire forum on whether true atheism really exists. Since I've been reprimanded several times now for changing the topic, I'm returning to Lewis.

Maybe Lewis began to wonder why a belief system (atheism) would be followed mainly because it countered other beliefs. Why make proclamations about what you don't believe? Does it really make sense that a person would essentially say: "I believe in not believing what they believe."

What does an atheist believe? It's clear what they don't believe.

Echo

I think it's funny ( and quite telling) when theists claim that someone must believe that claim X is true if they are constantly talking about or debating claim X.

Yet if Christian newsgroups, message boards, websites are any indication, theists spend a LOT of time talking about something they believe is false: evolution. Indeed they often spend a lot of time trying to "debunk" something they think doesn't exist or occur in the first place. Some, like Gish, even make it their life's work, and perform "research" and publish goofy little tracts decrying evolution as false.

Which, according to St Robert, means they really do believe evolution exists/occurs after all, or they wouldn't bother talking about it.

HelenM

Wizardry

Not only that, but because evolutionists talk about creationism so much, they must actually believe in it.

Everybody’s on the wrong side, apparently.

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Wyrdsmyth

Atheists might believe any number of different things. And the reason for that is that atheism is not a belief system. I know atheists who believe in ghosts (yet no god), and I know atheists who believe in aliens. I disagree with these atheists, in that I don't share their beliefs. I don't think there's enough evidence to believe in ghosts or aliens, just as I don't think there's enough evidence to believe in deities. So, atheism is really only a term that addresses whether someone believes in gods or not. It is not a belief-system, per se. The 'worldview' you may want to address is metaphysical naturalism, which is not a negative term. It's a worldview that doesn't define itself in terms of "not being theism," which I guess is the point you're after. You may find it odd that people would label themselves according to something they're not, but I don't find it very odd at all. Atheism doesn't define my entire identity, or my entire worldview -- it only addresses one aspect of something I don't believe, which happens to be very prevalent in our society. I don't have to bother calling myself an aleprechaunist (although I am one), since there is not a rampant, politically ambitious group of people who believe in leprechauns, and are spreading such false beliefs. But if there were, you'd see me denouncing leprechaunism, and proudly calling myself an aleprechaunist.

[ May 18, 2002: Message edited by: Wyrdsmyth ]</p>

tronvillain

HelenSL:
No, but I can still do it. St. Robert was just getting a little annoying.

lpetrich

I think it interesting to make a ratio between (1) advocating and investigating one's theories and (2) debunking opposing theories. Creationists spend much more of their time, relatively speaking, debunking evolution than evolutionary biologists spend debunking creationism.

HelenM

Maybe you can tell from my posts that I was a bit annoyed too...so I understand that.

It's just...well, you could have worded it differently...it sounded a bit ad hominem to me. If you had said "On these Forums we expect people to interact and respond to posts" - or something like that - it would have given more context to what you said, showing it was an 'across the board' expectation - as it were!

love
Helen