If I say that I believe the Earth is round, or
that the sun is 93 million miles away, or
that Jupiter's moon Europa may have ice on it,

then, according to recent posts by the theists, I have admitted that I have beliefs, therefore I have a belief system, therefore my belief system is equivalent to theirs - equal, that is, in an Orwellian sense. They think they have a "gotcha" whereby my argument fails.

Is it your thesis that the definition of atheism is the rejection of belief in a god and not the belief there is no god - and there is a logical distinction between the absence of belief and the belief of absence?

Isn't the difference between atheism and agnosticism one of certainty? Isn't an atheist certain there is no god while the agnostic sees no evidence either way and is therefore uncertain?

Atheism is about belief, or rather an absence of it. Agnosticism is about knowledge, or, again, the absence of it. They aren't mutually exclusive terms. Most atheists are, in fact, agnostic atheists. They do not believe in god, and they are not certain no gods exist.

whether a god exists. That strikes me as a reasonable position.

The position I am curious about - one often expressed here - that the adherent knows as a certainty that there is no god. That position goes beyond a lack of knowledge or belief to one of belief.

Many believe in a god or gods but they cannot know. Many believe there is no god but they cannot know. The statement that a person cannot know and has no belief - one way or the other - is intellectually honest.

It only requires disbelief that any gods exist. I don't know of any atheists who wouldn't change their minds if some compelling evidence for the existence of one or more gods came to light.

It simply requires that, personally, one does not believe in god/gods. As for your last statement, yes, you're right. I certainly am always open to compelling evidence. I just won't hold my breath in the meantime.

Atheism is a state of disbelief in god or gods. It is not a position of knowledge or certainty. Most atheists, including an overwhelming majority of atheists here, take the agnostic atheist position. They do not assert as fact no gods exist, merely that the evidence is insufficient to warrant belief.

As for intellectual honesty: We can't know anything for certain, as David Hume astutely observed nearly three hundred years ago. If you're going to demand people qualify their uncertainty on the existence of gods, then you really ought to be doing the same with gravity, germ theory, evolution, the atomic weight of cobalt, and whether or not the sky is really blue.

But in my view, the word belief has come to be associated strictly with theism.

where do you see this:

The position I am curious about - one often expressed here - that the adherent knows as a certainty that there is no god.

Very dubious on the category as a whole, but acknowledging the vanishingly remote possibility that one exists. Somewhere. In some fashion. Doing something. At least, doing something besides being the best hide-and-seek player in the universe.

Of course, one of the more obvious problems demonstrated by Pascal's Wager is that many theists confuse their imaginary friend with the total possibilities of divine existence. We can take it as a given that the Jehovah Monster, for example, doesn't exist, and for many theists saying so will be interpreted as a flat statement that no god whatsoever exists because they refuse to consider other alternatives. Most of the gods you could name as such are rather clearly manufactured by man, and an unknown entity is so unlikely as to not be worth worrying about--and if it did exist it would seem to like not being worried about.

Because there is no evidence for it. Not in the thousands of years that humanity has believed in gods has there been one concrete proof of one. Out of all the gods, all the religions, all the years and not one piece of proof. There is a ton of proof of humanity evolving from primates, but none of gods. Tons of proof of how the earth was created, but none of gods. How our solar system was created, but none of gods. Is it possible, anything is possible. But for me I believe things that have evidence for it.

that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it is a good starting point. Logically, the person asserting a position bears the burden of persuasion. It can no more be proven that there is no god than it can be proven there is a god. A person either believes or not but no one can know. The inability of either side to prove its premise requires a modest toleration of the other's position.

Only that I am certain there is not one. Just like Im certain there is no easter bunny, santa claus, zues, thor, or odin. For me to believe in something it has to have enough evidence to reasonably be true. I dont have to prove any premise at all.

First, the are examples of why the aphorism that absence of proof is not proof of absence is not strictly correct.

Second, tying belief in Santa Claus to belief in a creator is the kind of analogy that believers find to be demeaning. If there is to be an intelligent discussion, we must avoid demeaning one another.

Last edited Tue Apr 17, 2018, 09:31 PM - Edit history (1)

You analogize belief in a creator with belief in the Santa Claus. Let's approach this logically.

(1) No sane adult believes in Santa Claus;
(2) Belief in God is equal to a belief in Santa Claus;
(3) Therefore, no sane adult believes in God.

I think most people would find it demeaning to be told they are insane.

If there is to be meaningful discussion, both sides need to avoid value judgments about the other.

for Saint Nicholas that Santa Claus is based on.

The difference is that Christians believe that Jesus did not stay dead. I am aware of no group that believes St. Nicholas did not stay dead. It cannot be proven that Jesus was resurrected, it is a matter of faith. There were witnesses supporting the claim of his resurrection but at the end, you either believe or do not.

Because a group believes one thing or another has nothing to do with it being fact. You can no more prove that Saint Nicholas was not resurrected than I can that Jesus wasn't also. Those are equal claims. The claim that St. Nicholas was a actual person though has a preponderance of evidence compared to Jesus being an actual person. What you call demeaning, I call more evidence for. As for the second part of each that of becoming a mystical entity, there is equal proof of neither, or equal of absence of proof. As someone who uses evidence, I find it perplexing that people are offended when you equate them, as one has more evidence.

The fact of Jesus' life and death is reported by Josephus in "Antiquities of the Jews" and by the Roman historian Tacitus, in "Annals." It seems incredible that a religion based on his life and teachings would have taken off so quickly in the area he was reported to have lived and died if he never existed. It was incredible at the time that there were so many followers of an executed itinerant rabbi.

My point was that no one (at least to my knowledge) believes that Saint Nicholas was resurrected. I am aware of no serious challenges to Saint Nicholas having existed.

I do not take offense at people who do not believe any more than I take offense at those who do. However, I question whether it is necessary or even useful to demean the beliefs of others. I started this discussion with the position that we can neither prove nor disprove whether there is a god. We all either believe or we do not but we cannot know.

Here is one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Carrier
Well, we can neither prove or disprove there is no santa claus.
"There is no independent evidence of Jesus’s existence outside the New Testament. All external evidence for his existence, even if it were fully authentic (though much of it isn’t), cannot be shown to be independent of the Gospels, or Christian informants relying on the Gospels. None of it can be shown to independently corroborate the Gospels as to the historicity of Jesus. Not one single item of evidence. Regardless of why no independent evidence survives (it does not matter the reason), no such evidence survives."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Carrier

"The Christ myth theory is a fringe theory, supported by few tenured or emeritus specialists in biblical criticism or cognate disciplines. It deviates from the mainstream historical view, which is that while the gospels include many legendary elements, these are religious elaborations added to the accounts of a historical Jesus who was crucified in the 1st-century Roman province of Judea."

Your reverting to equating belief in a god with belief in Santa Claus convinces me we are not communicating.

Peace.

You need me to not only respect your views but to not in any way challenge them , or its an attack on your beliefs. So, peaceout.

if you didn't comment on my posts or replies. If you feel the need to put me on ignore that would be fine. I for one will do my best to ignore you posts and replies.
Thanks!
Eko.

Even assuming they're genuine--which appears to be a mixed bag--none of those you're citing were even alive during the events in question. No actual eyewitness accounts, and some contradictory stories written decades after the alleged events and clearly containing outright fantasy. We don't have any particular reason to take them terribly seriously.

We don't have any really contemporary accounts of the Jesus character. None. The earliest we've got is Josephus, and there's a fairly well-developed argument even that was a later insertion.

We have no particular reason to think the Jesus character ever actually existed. The purported witnesses all wrote decades after the alleged events, and they really go out of their way to look like a bunch of raving lunatics. For example, Matthew 27:52-53 talks about lots of zombies wandering around town for a while, which is the sort of thing you'd assume somebody else would have noticed and be able to corroborate.

The consensus of scholars is that part of Josephus has some Christian gloss but that the core reference to the person of Jesus - his brother James - and John the Baptist are legitimate. The Gospels appear to have been written long after the fact. The Gospel of Mark was probably written before 70 CE. The writings of Paul were written from 60-70 CE. By the time Paul was writing, "The Way" was a religion distinct from Judaism. There can be little question that the early believers in Judea had seen Jesus.

The question being discussed was not whether the events described in the Gospels are historical. The question was whether the existence or non-existence of a god was subject to objective proof. The Gospels were apparently written during the second generation of Christians and necessarily not the accounts of witnesses.

There can be little question they were batshit crazy.

is that good, and not one I suggested.

You equate believing in santa claus as crazy, and if the belief in santa claus is crazy then belief in God is crazy. I cant argue with this at all. Both are insane. All of us are insane. Me included. To quote the great Mark Twain. “Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.”
I will be insane with proof for evidence before I believe something, you will be insane with beliefs that cant be proven, can we now talk as two insane people?

We can't be all insane. If so, there is no sanity.

I was unclear. I was attributing the correlation of belief in Santa Claus and belief in God to you. I was resisting that correlation.

I think you have to define what you mean by "god" before you can even discuss whether or not you believe in it. Is it a big man in the sky or is it just a general description of "all that is" or something else. I think we have to agree on the meaning of the word before we can even have a debate about its existence.

You raise the idea of Ignosticism - the belief that the idea of god/gods does not have a good enough definition, so saying "god exists" or "god does not exist" does not mean anything. Probably a different concept altogether from agnosticism or atheism.

You may have put your finger on the problem. It is difficult to discuss whether "god(s)" exist until we agree on what the word means.

I tend toward the simple - I hope not simplistic. I think the idea of a deity is that of an identity beyond our finite existence. Every religion will have its own definition for god(s). For the purposes of this discussion, I suggest a definition that is inclusive of all religions.

outside your own system of beliefs is difficult.

Said had "Orientalism" for how Westerners interpreted and analyzed Middle Eastern beliefs, but it's pretty much a given that outsiders have trouble sorting out what insiders actually believe. They don't see the diversity, and broad-brush everything. They don't see distinctions that are trivial to outsiders but crucial to insiders. They don't see connections that insiders make.

And yet it's a consistent fact that often outsiders claim to understand the inner workers of a living values system better than those who hold it. Not always; in fact, at time insiders know that given the welter of conflicting and divergent beliefs all under one roof it's best not to even try to sort out what, exactly, another 'insider' believes. Being an outsider can relieve a person of the need to worry about such niceties.

Sometimes--but don't assume this is true in any particular case--outsiders can see things insiders can't. But only sometimes. And by "sometimes" I really mean to rule out "99% of the time". It's rare.

Of course, that's really hard to accept. However obvious it may be to insiders when complaining about what outsiders misinterpret one's views to be. For example, how believers often broad-brush atheists' views. Or how, for example, atheists do the same in return.

We would all do well to ask questions, assume good faith and intelligence in others, and make few (or no) assertions about the views of others.

to begin with. Sometimes, that initial assumption is proven false. If someone repeatedly makes false assertions about the views of others, and continues to do so even after being corrected, it's reasonable to come to the conclusion that the person making those false assertions is dishonest, unintelligent, or both.

Which by design is endemic to those who have been thoroughly indoctrinated.

Certainly atheists can fall into that same boat, and it usually takes the form of insisting you know what someone else believes or doesn't believe, or trying to make broad generalizations that apply to the entire group.

..."I know you are but what am I?"

And lots of fallacies. Like they can't counter "good is like the Easter Bunny or leprechauns, or other mythical creatures" they just get upset that we're not paying their good the respect that they demand. So we have to construct all sorts of elaborate terms and rules so they are comfortable with our disbelief.

At least they don't murder us for it as much anymore.

At least some of you atheists want, oh, so desperately, to pretend otherwise. Why, I do not know. But the fact remains that atheism is faith-based, and to say otherwise is to lie.

Last edited Mon Apr 16, 2018, 11:59 PM - Edit history (1)

Dude.... relax.

Most atheists I know do not believe in a god, which is not the same as saying we have a positive belief there is no god. I do not believe in a god, and find the idea of one extremely improbable (to the point I comfortable saying “there is no god” as a kind if shorthand. But as someone who embraces the scientifc method, I am open to new evidence. Because my beliefs are based on evidence, not faith.

Atheism is not a “belief system” in a metaphysical sense. It is not a religion in and of itself. Just like “not playing baseball” is not a sport.

Some will never accepted widely held literal definitions for atheism due to cognitive bias.

And I'm not fond of the lack of integrity inherent in the rather tired and unimaginative straw man. But what really gets me is the sheer rudeness of the religious privilege involved in shoving the straw man down a group's throats after it's been explicitly explained that the straw man has no relationship to reality.

But unfortunately religion only builds character in those who have to deal with its adherents.

Some people prove themselves to be dishonest, unintelligent, or both.

But good try.

Just because empircal evidence doesn’t exist for or against one or more deities, doesn’t mean the probability for either is exactly the same, unless you place exactly zero value in logic.

If you define an atheist as someone who must believe there isn’t one or more deities, you could be lying or you could be just ignorant of what it means to be an atheist.

Not that THAT'S ever stopped you from posting before.

You are consistent.

You're very good at it.

the sermon fell on stony ground.

Maybe PM your friend's directly.

more irony was demonstrated.

Notifications can be buggy.

I'd like to see the example you're speaking of.

Should be easier, unfortunately it's often more like pulling teeth...

Most will simply say that they do not believe that deities exist. That is a very different statement that saying they believe there are no deities.

Faith is not involved in atheism. Disbelief does not require faith. It is the default position. Lacking any evidence of the existence of deities, they simply don't believe such things exist.

The difference is that the first is expressed as a negative, the second as a positive.

Similar to saying:
I hate peas, or
I do not like peas.

Of course, one must understand language to understand that.

Generally, people who do not understand the difference between nouns and verbs are not capable of understanding more nuanced information about language, I've found.

You are providing an example of that with your post.

Further, I do not like peas, personally, but will eat them if they are served to me, out of politeness. If I hated peas, I would not eat them, even then. Those two statements are also not equivalent.

Your understanding is not subtle, nor accurate.

I understand. And speaking of understanding, you apparently misunderstood the point of my example. Or ignored it.

Allow me to further simplify:
Expressing the same position positively or negatively does not change the position. It is a stylistic choice.

I believe that there are no gods. A positive affirmation, expressed as a positive.


I do not believe that gods exist. The same affirmation of a position, expressed as a negative.

Identical in outcome.

The two statements are not identical in meaning. There is a difference, and it's an important one. That you are unable to detect that makes it clear that you have a limited understanding of the language. Perhaps English was not your first language. I don't know. But, you apparently cannot see the difference. We're trying to explain it to you, but you refuse to pay attention to those explanations.

My qualifications? I make my living through writing. I am also a linguist, and have worked professionally in that field.

Your qualifications? You write posts on a discussion forum, apparently. Clearly, you have trouble with fairly common and obvious nuances in the English language. We will always be happy to explain those to you.

Your qualifications are what you claim them to be.

If you cannot recognize that the 2 statements express the same thing, that says something about your ability.

As I previously wrote to you, this statement resonates:
Le seul Narcisse coupable est celui qui trouves les autres laids.

If you need help translating and comprehending that statement, private message me and I can help you with that.

You might have attributed that Jean Giraudoux quote to him, though. That would have been the polite thing to do. Otherwise, people might mistake it for your own words.

What I claim my qualifications to be is exactly what they are.

Anything to defend the faith I guess.

What are you on about now? In any case, you have worn out my attention on this matter, so you're on your own from this point on.

https://qqcitations.com/citation/106243
http://dicocitations.lemonde.fr/citations-mot-narcisse.php

I think you might have thought he was replying.

As to fluency, there is the act of reading, and there is the comprehension of what is read. Correct?

Allow me to add a link:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=278491

I try not to engage in such useless banter, you see.

when there is someone serious who can participate. You may read anything you like into that.

Revealing more.

weak atheism - there is no evidence for deities.

strong atheism - It is proven that there are no deities.

Most atheists are claiming the weak atheist position.

MM, does this accurately reflect your position?

I am an atheist. I belong to no group. I am part of no movement. I simply do not believe that any deities or other supernatural phenomena exists.

I'm not fond of labels. Every atheist I have met is unique. I don't usually inquire into the details of his or her atheism.

While I think that there is and can be no evidence for deities, that is not the entire basis for my atheism. After considerable study and consideration, I find that I am simply unable to believe that any such entities exist. I have actually never met an atheist who thinks there is proof that deities do not exist. If I did meet such a person, I would probably argue the impossibility of such proof. I need no proof to hold my negative opinion of their existence. Lacking any evidence at all that they exist, I simply cannot believe that they do. I also believe that such proof of their existence is impossible.

So, it's a bit complicated, and labels just don't cut it for me.

It would go a long way toward fostering real dialog if you'd acknowledge what many atheists are telling you.

But then again, you've demonstrated you are against any kind of real dialog. You only want an echo chamber where everyone praises religion to your liking.

to say I don't believe in a god is not at all the same thing as saying I don't believe there is a god or that there is no god. Does it require faith for you to say I don't believe the moon is made of green cheese?

Are two wholly different statements, completely unconnected to each other. That way, you can continue to pretend that being an atheist is exactly as much an act of faith as being a believer. Thank you for reminding us all that atheists can be just as dishonest as believers.

that is a specious argument that should be dismissed at once.

It's an eye-roller.

Most atheists simply do not, or cannot, believe that any supernatural entities exist. That is not a belief. It is simply disbelief. It in no way indicates that they believe there are no deities, although some believe that. It is simply a statement of disbelief.

Perhaps theists of various sorts are unable to believe that anyone can disbelieve. That's odd, since those same atheists disbelieve the atheists' disbelief.

As I wrote above, it's an eye-roller, and not worthy of individual argument with theists or religionists.

in fact I can not detect any evidence of the existence of any deities nor has any been proffered to me . If there is some evidence I would like to see it, but I have been told evidence is not necessary if you have faith. I suppose that is true I can't be certain as I have no faith. Given how fluid the claims for deities and higher powers inevitability are I have a hard time even understanding what you would mean by a deity. So my position is there are no deities same as with anything else that I have seen on evidence for.

Faith means believing without evidence.
Accordingly, an atheist believes that there is no God without having seen evidence contradicting the existence of God.

Guess what?
There is an infinite amount of things that we don't believe to exist, and for each of those infinite things we have never seen evidence that they don't exist.

If atheism is a belief-system, then literally an infinite amount of other opinions must count as belief-systems as well.

But the word "belief" is associated mainly with religious belief.

Thus, each of us has infinitely many beliefs.

Increased storage/memory is not an option for my outdated CPU.

Please don't project those limitations onto others. Thanks.

Eventually, however, Xty denied even the existence of all other deities but the Abrahamic one. That did entail a set of beliefs in the non-existence of all the tens of thousands of other deities, great and small.

Today, the word is typically used in much the same way as it was in Imperial Rome -- to otherize those who choose not to conform to the narratives that keep the powerful powerful.

That refers to historical narratives of all types.

Thus why we have a Religion group. Fascinating how this point keeps eluding you.

But that gives it no special weight.

And it does give you special weight. That's called privilege.

employed, a citizen of the US? Any or all of the mentioned categories? Welcome to the land of privilege.

We're in the Religion group. Religious privilege is the topic here. Defending your religious privilege by pointing out other kinds of privilege exist only reinforces that you don't understand privilege.

OK, gil. Whatever you say. I understand why you refuse to discuss religious privilege.

In fact it defeats the whole purpose of the narrative, which is undoubtedly your reason for doing so.

Did Jesus tell his followers to do that? Are you behaving like a good Christian?

The early Jews were polytheistic and possibly henotheistic.

Over the course of the babylonian exile they reformed their religion and switched to monotheism, because they blamed their suffering on not worshipping Yahweh enough.

What other gods did the early Christians believe in?

The only example of henotheistic Christians I know was during the Renaissance when some esoterics mixed Christianity with ancient polytheistic religions. But that never caught on and many of those got burned on the stake as heretics.

Pagans who were convinced to join a Christian community did not immediately become monotheists, of course, and, as the wealth of current scholarship seems to say, the large majority of early Xian converts were pagans not Jews.

We're all familiar with the pagan origins of many xian religious holidays appropriated by the monotheistic cult. That theft was part of a transition, and ISTM you're asserting that henotheism was basically the approach taken in transition. Am I off base?

Current scholarship attributes growth of the Christian Church over the first 300 years or so as a very slow process, individuals and family units "converting" from paganism (a HIGHLY misunderstood term) to the worship of Jesus/God of Abraham because he/they had proven more powerful than all the other gods and demigods. It is thought to have developed via people's natural social networks, so that by the fourth century it was fairly commonplace. I don't know specifics of how individual holidays and rituals were co-opted, off the top of my head though.

Still, I think we're on solid ground saying they infiltrated pagan customs as part of their takeover, even if some of the specifics are lost in the mist of time.

Jews at the time of Jesus were middle class at best. Greeks and Romans who were decidedly pagan and made up the wealthier classes. There was quite a bit of turmoil in the early church with waiving the admission requirement of circumcision which was required by mosaic law. In the end, money talks and the rest is history.

any god or deity.

what do you have? Much the same thing.

A theist could certainly believe in one or more non-interventionist deities and not really give much passing thought to the subject beyond that. I think a great number, if not most theists are that way and are basically irreligious.