Is Neo[Atheism] a Rational Religion?

False premise

"Flew’s definition of “atheism” fails as an umbrella term" ~stanford
re:
Flew, Antony, 1972, “The Presumption of Atheism”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 2(1): 29–46. doi:10.1080/00455091.1972.10716861

get it????

you and the genius are either not capable of reading for comprehension or you are simply making **** up as you go.

I thought we went over this before but I dont remember so if I did you just got a freebee.

 

You neither linked to where you copied that from nor explained why that is so. Useless.

Somebody, even Stanford, saying something "fails as an umbrella term" doesn't make that so (appeal to authority fallacy), and doesn't make people not use a word as they understand it with others who understand it that way. People use the word as they want to, and you can't stop them. If enough of them use it that way it will become the dominant use of the term and eventually nobody will understand you.

 

Its rare to see a better demonstration of top shelf hypocrisy!

Oh? So so for you, one man (antony flew) makes a claim and its gospel, but a peer reviewed counter rebuttal that destroys flews illogical, unreasonable wacky-doodle theory is an appeal to authority.

Yep people can 'use' any word any way they want. We know there are hundreds of ignoramuses born every day that will cry and whine when they see their ill-gotten religion debunked and destroyed.

I can imagine the butthurt

I love it when booger buttinskis respond to posts not addressed to them, doesnt understand it, gets it all wrong, and blames me for not teaching them. Boohoo

No surprise the neoatheist movement has come apart at the seams!

Good! Glad to hear it, it helped prove the neoatheist hypocritical fallacies, one more nail in the wacky-doodle coffin, Id call that highly useful.

 

No. I hadn't even heard of Antony Flew before reading this thread. I simply know what some varying common meanings for these words are. I don't declare any of them "invalid" as you do or say that they "fail". I can work with any of them, so long as I know which is meant. And unlike you, I won't pretend another meaning was used when the speaker has made it clear what they mean by the word.

I'm not convinced you understand what you quote. And it is indeed an appeal to authority fallacy the way you have presented it. Perhaps Stanford would fare much better than you. Quite likely.

Possibly. But you have neither debunked not destroyed anything. All you have done is spew self-contradictory garbage, thump your chest, and declare victory. Many here have attempted good faith conversation with you and all have failed to get you to engage in it.

You do appear to be quite butthurt. I'm not at all.

I'm not "neoatheist". Nor are many of the others you presume to be.

 

Its good to know you are a highly analyst

you prove time and time again that you are not qualified to make those assessments. I have to admit I have never run across a group that self destructs as easily as neoatheists. Oh wait yes I have, the oct crowd is another fabulous display of failed reasoning.

 

"Stephen Bullivant (2013), defends it on grounds of scholarly utility. His argument is that this definition can best serve as an umbrella term"​

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/

Flew hasn't used it as an umbrella term, only Bullivant has. The "umbrella term" (and its failure) didn't exist until decades after Flew's logic. Luckily, the sentence you've quoted half of actually goes on to say that the definition is certainly legitimate.

We did indeed go through this before, I presented the argument above, and you didn't have an answer. Most recently here, you provided no response or counterargument. Here and here are other examples where I have brought up this argument, but you have failed to address it, you've merely restated your position without justification.

You have read the Stanford article to say that Flew gets rejected, I have not. So, until we have sorted out wherein the disagreement lies, you haven't proven anything but your over-eagerness to state that you've proven things.

 

this is where comprehension with correct inferences regarding what you read is crucial to a 'productive' discussion. If you do not understand convention, and its pretty obvious you do not since you demand 101 logic references this will continue forever, and it appears that is what you want.

It goes without saying that this has been reviewed by stanford using flews "Presumption of Atheism" as a premise, bullivant is simply an accessory with his attempt to defend flews long defunct wackyism.

False, after 86 pages of mostly you, dancing the same dance, being proven wrong at every turn, only to watch you rewind repeat, 'patience' is the correct descriptor, not eagerness, I grow increasingly bored with your bait tactics.

Its well explained, stanford did a good job sorting you out. You only need me at this point if you are in denial.

 

I never pretended to be an expert. I can only note that you constantly contradict yourself. Maybe Stanford doesn't, but Stanford isn't here. I know enough to be able to tell you know far less than you think you do.

Recognizing you as the crackpot you are doesn't require any qualifications. It is plain for all to see.

Again, simple prejudice and bigotry on your part, constantly labelling people you don't like or who question you to be "neoatheist" even when they are not, and broad sweeping statements about "neoatheists" as a group.

Oct crowd?

 

ah huh, its ONLY legitimate in terms of popular usage, just like 420 is legitimate for pot in popular usage and sd you well know that definition is 100% meaningless for this debate and would be an ad populum if you tried to pound that round stick into a square hole. I left it off because popular use does not apply, and Id hate to confuse people worse than they already are.
Maybe thats what you want? Or maybe to pretend it applies? I cant think of a legitimate reason for you to mention something that you know as well as I does not apply.

 

Back to the usual irrational an mutually exclusive nonsense, I see? Have you decided whether you are a theist, agnostic, or both yet? You keep jumping backing and forth, week by week. Where have you landed now? Or do you now (contrary to your previous claims) now believe that you can be both? You have claimed that you can't be both a theist and an agnostic, but you have also claimed to be an agnostic . . . while also claiming that everyone is a theist. When will you actually make a definitive statement instead of switching back and forth just to avoid taking a stand?

 

He's made some definitive statements. They just all conflict with each other.

Your argument should stand regardless of the terminology used. That you are completely stuck on the wording used and refuse to understand unless people use words as you deem proper, shows us that you have no actual argument.

 

Even this would almost be okay if @Kokomojojo would at least be consistent with the terms he demands that others use. He's said he's an agnostic, he's said that he (and everyone else in existence) is a theist, and that you can't be both. I've asked him repeatedly to make up his mind.

It is annoying to hear him claim that his definitions (which seem to belong to him alone) are ones that everyone else has to adhere to, but he can't even consistently adopt his OWN definitions.

 

My favourite was him demanding that not believing there is a God is the same as believing there is no God, and then telling us he neither believes there is a God nor believes there is no God. He sets up a binary and immediately violates it.

 

Yep, while also telling us that everyone believes in a god. He goes back and forth on that one and hasn't made up his mind yet. Bingo.

 

Wow, so much wasted bandwidth, all those wild accusations and not one quote or citation I guess that makes it easy, since no quote = lie therefore I have nothing to respond to.

Feel free to cite/quote your claims kiddies and I will be happy to review them.

 

What wild accusations? What precisely are you saying is not something you have written? Would you like to state your non-conflicting view on anything we've mentioned you being in contradiction on?

Or will you dodge so you can continue to self-contradict?

 

posts 2160 through 2164, no quotes = lies
I cant respond to nonquoted frivolous claims invented to mischaracterize me and present fraudulent strawman contexts, sorry. Neither can I respond to frivolous claims that do not address something that is quoted.

 

It doesn't need to go on forever, you can simply write down your conventions (at least the ones that seem to generate disagreements) instead of hiding them. That way we can assess together whether they are actually applicable.

I don't think it goes without saying at all, and in fact isn't true. The idea of considering atheism as an umbrella term was introduced by Bullivant, it is not present in Flew's definition, and is in fact at odds with Flew's definition. Indeed the Stanford article's rejection of Bullivant is based on the fact that it does match Flew's usage:

In the 4th paragraph of https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/ it is mentioned that Flew defines atheism as a certain "psychological state", it characterises Bullivant's view as a "variety of positions", and then rejects Bullivant's view because it covers only "positions", and not psychological states (such as Flew's atheism).

You can reject the above, or not, but either way, "it goes without saying" was incorrect, and in fact served only to avoid the actual meat of the question.

Sure it applies:

The ad populum appeal can be a correct inductive argument when what most persons or an exclusive group or persons believe is relevant and provides acceptable evidence for what is true. For example, conventional truths such as the proper definition of words​

(Source)

In fact, every aspect of language depends on popularity first and foremost, it is only by popularity that we have chosen to use English at all, and no word would carry the meaning it does if the people using the language didn't recognise it.

It seems to me, if someone uses 420 to refer to Cannabis, and someone uses the same understanding to read the sentence, they have in fact correctly conveyed information. The idiot is the person who hears someone saying "smoking 420" and refuses to interpret it any other way than the abstract number.

Yet again, you have concluded that you've won, not because you actually won, but because you are so out of touch with what arguments are actually being made that you cannot reliably tell what goes without saying.

 

So dodge it is. I thought so.

 

No. That would be more excusable. He can tell. He is deliberately pretending people meant something he knows they did not. It is his rhetorical trick that lets him pretend to "prove" people wrong and childishly declare he "wins" and they "lose".

 

False

Stanford did not say they rejected bullivants opinion or review of flew they said point blank in your face:

"Flew’s definition of “atheism” fails as an umbrella term" ~stanford

Departing even more radically from the norm in philosophy, a few philosophers and quite a few non-philosophers claim that “atheism” shouldn’t be defined as a proposition at all, even if theism is a proposition. Instead, “atheism” should be defined as a psychological state: the state of not believing in the existence of God (or gods).

This view was famously proposed by the philosopher Antony Flew and arguably played a role in his (1972) defense of an alleged presumption of “atheism”.

Flew’s definition of “atheism” fails as an umbrella term

The issue for philosophy is which definition is the most useful for scholarly or, more narrowly, philosophical purposes.

The fact that there is strength in numbers may recommend a very inclusive definition of “atheist” that brings anyone who is not a theist into the fold. Having said that, one would think that it would further no good cause, political or otherwise, to attack fellow non-theists who do not identify as atheists simply because they choose to use the term “atheist” in some other, equally legitimate sense.

Bullivant had several screws loose if he defended flew prior to flews rejection, for anyone to defend something agreed upon is total nutterville.

Tho my preceding statement alone proves the point, I posted stanfords with the hope it will make it easier for you review the above quote to find your error so I dont have to make things bold and use crayolas. Good luck.

You posted no evidence that the argument is inductive or even can be. sorry

You posted nothing to support that. sorry

You blew on bullivant, looks like you blew it on induction as well. We shall see.

 

What do you think the above text proves? The writer is searching for the term most "useful [to who?] for scholarly or, more narrowly, philosophical purposes". That doesn't make other uses of the term invalid in at all. The text above even says other definitions of the term are equally legitimate. They just aren't useful to what he in particular is saying, and that's no a problem at all, so long as he is clear in what he means when he says the word, as we've been saying all along. Note that the red text doesn't pretend the word is used as it demands when it was clearly stated not to be.

Other meanings of the word are are commonly used, and will continue to be commonly used,. and they are useful in many cases. At the end of the day this is all just terminology and doesn't involve any actual argument or logic whatsoever. Bickering over semantics gets you nowhere.

And you think you "won" some sort of argument? And this is your proof? Really? lol

 

and your problem with that is what?

what other uses?

what other definitions? Useful for what? How are the other definitions useful?

They? What is they?

What is that supposed to mean?

What cases, how are they useful?

Citation? I dont see any connection, explain.

What semantics are you bickering over? Explain.

I did, you just have not figured that out yet

We need your full disclosure to clarify all those claims you made so we can sort this out. As long as you clarify the meanings of what you are trying to claim we should be able to move this forward in a productive manner.

 

Other uses that you have been declaring "invalid" among others. The writer of the red text mentions these too, so you should know what he is referring to if you are using him to push your view, no?

Agnostic: Can mean one who doesn't claim knowledge of God existing or not; Can mean one who claims knowledge of God existing or not is impossible.
Atheist: Can mean one who lacks belief in God; Meaning not-theist, with theist meaning one who has belief in God.

How are they useful? They are useful in communication and discussion, hence why people use them as above. It isn't a problem so long as they are clear what they mean by the word and the listener understands the meaning intended.

Bickering over terminology, and you pretending people used one meaning when they tell you repeatedly they use another is not logical argument.

I'm not. You are. When you demand some definitions are "invalid" and others are the ones you demand everyone use, and pretend they use them when attacking what they wrote. Swensson pointed this out to you just a couple of posts up. It isn't a refutation of what somebody says when you refuse to understand or acknowledge the clear meaning of what they said. It is just your word games.

You didn't. You didn't even address most of what other people said. You instead pretended they said something else. It may be useful for you to state unequivocally and clearly what exactly you think you proved, other than your glorious declarations that you proved people (Swensson, myself, Flew, whoever) wrong.

Agnostics (by a definition you refuse to acknowledge) are indeed Atheists (by a definition you refuse to acknowledge). That's what people mean when they call themselves Agnostic Atheists. Agnostics (by your demanded definition) are not Atheists (by your demanded definition). So Agnostic Atheists can't exist and are a contradiction by your preferred definitions. All of the above is so, because the words are being used differently.

 

If God is real, reason dictates that there can only be one true God and religion. And all else are the opinions, imaginings and choices of mankind. Atheism then is not a religion, but a personal opinion with respect to the concept of God. Even at that, it goes to the individual as to the path, purpose, or line of reasoning by which he/she arrived at that conclusion or opinion.

As such, Atheism is not a cult, or group or religion. But is rather a sprinkling of individuals among humanity, who arrive at a similar place/point for personal reasons, which vary according to the individual. Some arrive by their love of justice being wounded by injustice, and so blame God, and then come to reason for the sake of peace, rather than war against the concept of God, that there is no God to be. Others, made unsettled by the dizzying array of mans Gods, say enough, bring me meat and wine that is real, to sate my belly and steady my hand. And say no more of God to me. Solitude is my peace, and nature my provision.

Atheism then is the quest for sanctuary in this strange, unsettling world, where varied doctrines drive us all about. Even my words then might be to the cause of an Atheists defining or refining of place and purpose. But it is not my intent. Mine is to understand, to keep things pristine and orderly, because I am slow and easily confused.

In the best sense, Atheism is like a chaste solemnity in contrast to the religious orgy in which the world is aflame. That's not to say there isn't one true God and religion. But that Atheists have chosen to reject the temptation to counterfeit or approximate it any further than what already abounds in the world. Or to toss their own souls upon the worlds religious thrashing stones, to be then funneled into this or that slavish vanity. They say, if God is real and wants me, he knows where to find me. I am always right here, unknown and unmarked, betrothed and promised to none other. Truly there are no other Gods before him.