Reviewing Atheist 'Lack Belief' in Deities theory. <<MOD WARNING ISSUED>>

I tend to use reality based fact to distinguish between the real and imagined. This has led me to the understanding that Humans cannot come back to life after death, there is not enough water on Earth to submerge all land masses and never was, that Humans were not created from mud....etc...as the deity in question is based entirely on these stories and the Book that contains them I am confident it is as fictional as the stories.
An Atheist to me is anyone that understands the Man made Gods are not real, and an Agnostic is the same who thinks there may be something no one knows about. A Theist is someone who has picked one of the Gods to consider as real.

 

and here you go again, claiming its not what the word means but by popular usage. I can list thousands of words that are completely misused in todays society, yet you insist on popular usage as a foundation for a word. Good luck with that.

Sure I do, I counter your 'widely' accepted definition, how much more can you ask to be engaged LOL

No insults at all, there are a large variety of levels in a discussion, and I have a talent to engage people on their level.

 

I see...so you appeal to psychology but only if it agrees with you?

 

math is completely a figment of the imagination yet you believe it.
You may have come to that conclusion of no life after death and that no God exists, but its a conclusion based purely on faith, (regardless how strong you believe your position is) which of course is why atheism is nothing more than another religion.

 

Nope, I open the door for your mother to argue her point, if in fact thats even her point in the first place since you were guessing.

 

Yes and the majority of the population knows nothing about philosophy, which is the conclusion I use which is based upon 'formal' philosophical arguments not a bunch of people sitting around the table smoking dope and drinking tea at parlor time, so I suppose thats true.

Explaining errors is not an insult, if the explanation to correct an error was an insult maybe it wasnt a very smart things to post.

We each make choices what we choose to believe, you simply choose differently than I do, and you choose argumentum ad populum a fallacious argument that concludes that a proposition is true because many or most people believe it: "If many believe so, it is so." .

You fail to address: Rocks lack belief, (in everything, including deities) atheists have that 800 pound gorilla on their heads.

 

No, you simply do not understand language, it would be nice to say that.
What talents you imagine you have! Self praise is feint praise indeed.

 

but its a pretense to insist any opponent arguing their sacred beliefs are going to praise me for anything. Condemn me yeh they do a lot of that as they have a huge wrench in the gears to deal with now.

'Internet' atheists have proven they are illiterate and lack language skills, which is why they misapply so many words in the first place.

 

You simply cannot help yourself with your appeals to authority, Formal philosophy! as if somehow smoking dope and drinking tea around the parlour is any less likely to produce interesting insights into the human condition than any other discussion!

Rocks lack belief, well if you believe in the supernatural then you must prove that premise to be true before you call on me to address it.

Actually the whole idea that I must take any position on gods is an argument ad populum, there is no compunction for me to take a position on gods just because it is a widespread belief.

Still you avoid your own conclusion on Zeus,

I never claimed God exists, or does not exist, I never took a position.
I neither affirmed nor denied the existence or nonexistence of deities.

No position, no belief.

 

Again you make an unsubstantiated claim, use mild insults but present no argument other than, "I say so".

Why you feel a need to be praised (even if it is only self praise) is probably a subject best left to Tecoyahs mum.

 

Dude, I have supplied you with several examples of definitions which do not state that atheism is the belief that gods do not exist. Again, you just repeat your own definition. If you use the definition that most atheists, dictionaries and I use, the contradiction disappears. The source of the contradiction is your definition. That's what all this boils down to.

I will happily answer the rest of the post too, but when it comes down to it, that's the real disagreement between you and, well, the english language.

It wasn't in the thing you quoted. Maybe it was somewhere else, I only read posts where I am quoted. Either way, I think I have boiled down the essence of our disagreement, bringing others into it isn't really going to help you (I have discussed separately with xWSmithx, but I think he stopped replying).

Why do I imagine an "atheist" has to be a person? Let's have a look at the definition.
"a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods" (google)
"A person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods" (Oxford dictionary)
"a person who does not believe in the existence of a god or any gods" (Merriam-Webster)
Clearly, the word atheist implies a person. No problem at all.

What do verbs have to do with it? The fact that you can ascribe atheism to a rock is not a problem. They are not an atheist since that would imply that rocks are persons.

I agree, why not?

Most atheists use one of the many definitions I have supplied, and they do not require atheists to believe there is no god (although they don't stop you either). Of course, many also do believe there is no god, but that's a subdivision. Being a sports car does not stop you from being a car.

Many who will present themselves as atheists are those who also say there is no god, but that's not the essence of the word (just as for instance Kilt-wearing bagpipe-playing scots are the ones who brand themselves as scots, but that doesn't mean that Scotland doesn't also have normal people).

 

If I may the crux of the problem of lack of belief is a lack of evidence people need in order to form a hypothesis there are deities, which the theist side for obvious reasons cannot provide in that said deities being outside all means to study them from the human perspective would demand then the deities make the overt move to demonstrate they are real and as clearly as possible. They don't even with modern communication, the internet and media able to spread evidence to the corners of our planet they choose not to try so why then should Atheists or other skeptics bother with any kind of shady lesser evidence? Holy Books are not proof, spontaneous healing happens in nature the rare case of cancer going away especially when there is medical care when hope is lost isn't proof if a new treatment could have done it and the human body, NDE isn't proof, witnessed events could be but it would need to be well documented and have unbiased sources involved and so forth.

Do the theists here get it now we as skeptical people want real evidence, preferably repeatable evidence or its not going to sway us and the Atheist side will use lack of evidence as proof since if one deity showed up and proved its power and status Atheism dies.

 

I provided you with proof that 'lack of belief' is only a metaphorical representation.

That said, according to you Jainists, Budhists, agnostics are all atheists. your 'black hole' definition just wiped out several religions and agnostics as well. As an agnostic you are telling me what I believe, where is William Rea?

Even worse you are insisting that I am an atheist and I most certainly am not.

 

Interesting....I had no idea my imagination could provide such amazing advances and discoveries. To think with just my imagination mankind developed calculous, planned and created computers and sent spacecraft to explore planets. Damn I'm good.

 

math is the same way, it cant make an overt showing either, but we all believe in math

there is no real evidence for math either, both are a bunch of squiggles on paper.

 

Math has a clear application in most cases proving itself by using it if I need to add up a list of bought goods the number should match the value of a selected set of goods and match up, verifying the monetary value agreed upon with another party. Lets not go into the mathematical models of stellar objects its well over even my head but when they use mathematics to apply to stellar physics its proven in that way in the end. Whatever aliens might call the parts of mathematics its still going to in the end be the same thing if they call a meter a zigma its still the same distance.

Deities are not the same thing and to most theist not figments of calculation but are claimed to be active, intelligent in most cases, real, actual beings that reside in some other place so again its not hard they need to make contact and show themselves to be real since the limits humans have make it impossible for us to go to them and say - hello.

 

Take two carrots and put them in a bag. Take two more and put them on the table.

Now....empty the bag onto the table with the carrots.

If there are four carrots math just made an overt showing.

 

Your argument was based on the idea that agnostics reject atheism, but in order for that to be true, you have to use your definition of atheism. If you do not, then lack of belief in the existence of a god remains a reasonable description, and not a metaphorical one.

Some Jains and Buddhists certainly. There are atheistic Buddhists, there are even Buddhists who are atheists in your interpretation of Buddhism (I can't say I know enough about Jainism). There are also theistic Buddhists, who believe that Buddha is a god, or that there are other gods. Buddhism is far from wiped out by this interpretation. Remember, it is only in your interpretation that atheism is incompatible with certain other positions, a Buddhist who is an atheist does not have their Buddhism wiped out, it's quite possible to be both (just like the atheist agnostics which you seem familiar with).

I am not telling you what you believe (I don't know what you believe). I'm just telling you which words the english language applies to you.

 

now from your oxford:

Atheists are going completely against the definition.

Atheists are trying to establish this ground work for their religion but I dont see why anyone would take atheists seriously?

 

But math does not exist outside your ability to conceive it, just because you can compare it to something is irrelevant to the point.

 

Still re4fusing to accept that an atheist believes there is not god, simple as that.

Keep trying to shift that to other matters and claiming it (that lie) as some kind of victory while claiming that you yourself have no set belief in anything. You are about as dishonest as they come. By your own definition, any who believe you are wrong are actually worshipping you but trust all posters here, you are not worshiped, just laughed at for your intentional ignorance and rejections of facts.

 

By those standard EVERYTHING is subjective to my personal perception of it which negates any semblance of reality. If you truly think this way it explains much of your commentary and affirms the level of usefulness you represent in discussion.

 

I wonder why it's important to some theists that atheists have to 'believe' that there is no god, rather than the real situation, that they're looked at the proof and found none?

It's not a big deal for most atheists; we're comfortable with the concept of there being no god.

I wonder if the fantasy that atheists somehow have a 'belief' validates the theist's own belief system, and removes a 'threat' to their belief, which is of course being threatened by science and logical reasoning, and the spread of athiesm, particularly in the US. (I would post a recent article from SciAm but it's behind a paywall.)

The best solution would be for the people concerned to analyse their motives in starting threads like this.

 

in the world where math resides sounds about right. it was a counter to your argument not an answer to every question in existence

 

Actually, I think the problem here is that whoever wrote that uses a different definition of the word "disbelief" and possibly "denial". If you read the rest of the paragraph, you find "Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes". I think that's a clearer wording, whether disbelief in X means "I believe that X is false" or "I don't believe X" is sometimes unclear. I would probably agree that the article you quoted uses it wrongly, but I am not oblivious to what the writer intended.

Well, if you used the more common definition, then the problems you bring up go away.