Is Neo[Atheism] a Rational Religion?

Again, you have that much correct, and nobody has said otherwise. Realize this and you will see your error.

No, it doesn't. You either voted yes or did not vote yes. There is no third option regarding if you voted yes.

You either believe in God or you don't believe in God. There is no third option regarding if you believe in God. Believing there is no God is something more than just not believing in God. Voting no is something more than just not voting yes.

How many yes votes does somebody who did not vote yes have? How many yes votes does somebody who voted no have?

Zero. Exactly zero in both cases. Yet there is an important difference between not voting and voting no, now isn't there?

 

this is too hilarious to pass up!
So if you abstained from casting any vote then you must be a no-voter?

What if you: You either voted no or you didn't vote no, whether you abstained or not, does that mean that abstention from casting a vote is a secret yes-voter?

Then you are either a yes voter or a no voter, and abstention is obviously impossible.

there is not voting yes AND not voting no LOL

Would you pass that abstention not allowed message along to congress please?

Maybe we need to wipe abstention and agnostic out of our lives and the dictionary too?

So riddle me this batman: If you abstain from voting, as in you cast no vote either way, how do you know if you are a 'no-voter' or a 'yes-voter' since you have to be one or the other in your black and white world?

 

That's not what it says in the text you quoted.

You don't have to be a yes voter or a no voter. You do have to either vote yes or not vote yes.

 

maybe its not what you read in the text I quoted?

What rule is that? What if I do or do not vote no? Or does that mess up your play ground?

 

That's the LEM.

That does not mess anything up. You still have to vote yes or not.

 

so you are claiming that I cant vote no or not

So I walk up to the table upon which 3 boxes are labeled as follows:

NO VOTES HERE
YES VOTES HERE
ABSTENTION VOTES HERE

and I put my paper in the abstention box which is 100% legal, and means I did not vote yes and I did not vote no.

So yes vote = no
AND no vote = no

which satisfies both your must vote yes or not and must vote no or not requirements at the same time.

 

Nobody has claimed you can't vote no. You are imagining that. We have tried to tell you this multiple times.

Whether or not you vote no, you still must either vote yes or not vote yes.

Whether or not you believe there is no God, you must still either believe or not believe there is a God.

 

Correct. And had you put your paper in the No box, you also did not vote yes. In both of these cases you did not vote yes.

And by analogy, in the same way, you either believe in God or you don't. Regardless of if you believe there is no God.

 

Thats on swensson I never said otherwise.
I dont believe there is a God, and I dont believe there is no God. Im agnostic, a perfectly accepted condition.

But I can say whether of not I vote yes I still must vote no or not no. LOL

And had you put your paper in the Yes box, you also did not vote no. In both of these cases you did not vote no.

and in both cases I did not vote no.

round and round you go!

 

Nobody has said otherwise. If you imagine Swensson said otherwise, you misread what Swensson wrote, as I suspected, and tried to point out to you.

Correct. You either voted no or you didn't vote no, regardless of if you voted yes.

You either "believe there is no God" or you don't "believe there is no God". And if the latter is the case, that doesn't tell us if you Believe in God or not.

All we can infer is that if you answer yes to "believe there is no God" then you can't consistently answer yes to "believes there is a God".

 

which neither one by itself is abstention.

abstention requires 2 terms, you and swensson are committing ad reductio adsurdum fallacy.

 

Correct.

Incorrect.

Again, your confusion sits in your failing to see a difference between "not casting a yes vote"and "casting a no vote". Or between "not believing in God" and "Believing there is no God". You call this a distinction without a difference, but there is a difference.

 

false you are dismissing the second term in which case you are no longer analysing abstention.

 

Pardon? Explain.

 

What do I mean I abstained?
I was given 2 choices.
I rejected both sides of the proposition and opted for a 3rd choice, I abstained.

 

Yes. We all agree on that. You had two questions.

1. Do you vote yes? You said no to that question.
2. Do you vote no? You said no to that question.

1. Do you believe in God? You said no to that question.
2. Do you believe there is no God? You said no to that question.

We all agree on all of the above. Swensson, myself, and you all agree and always have agreed on the above in this thread.

Where we disagree, or I suspect where we are failing to communicate, is that you called no to the first question a "distinction without a difference" from yes to the second question. But there is an important difference.

And Flew, Swensson, myself, and the dictionary definition you supplied us all said an Atheist is defined by answering no to the first question. You then demanded an Atheist is defined by answering yes to the second question. And you did notation on your dictionary definition to change the former to the latter, and claimed you changed nothing.

 

It is.
I never once said it is not possible to have another definition, they have an 'or' in that definition I can choose which ever side I like. Take flew for instance, all I said is prove it. My version is not assailable, and from what I have seen the flew version is not provable.

yeh you should fix that.
If the question is do I believe there is no God, then the other one should be do I believe there is a god, as I have also said several times before, that way its nice and clean and helps to avoid a few of these word games.

 

Prove what? It's just how he chooses to define a word. There is nothing to be proved.

Ok. So use that. It's also better than using "Disbelieve".

1. Believe there is God.
2. Believe there is no God.

Here is an opportunity to correct the misunderstandings that I suspect are there. Do you or do you not say that no to 1 is the same as yes to 2? Is it a "distinction without a difference"?

We thought you were saying that, and that is why we were talking about Y=!X. It wasn't us proposing that. It was us thinking you did.

Flew and Swensson, and your dictionary definition you provided before you added notation to it, all define atheist as no to 1. You define atheist as yes to 2. You added notation to your dictionary definition and changed it from the former to the latter, and claimed you didn't change the meaning. But you did.

That is all this back and forth between you and me and Swensson has been about. It is also why early on I kept telling you that while you were declaring others as "wrong", all you were really doing was insisting on your preferred definition of words.

 

Nope, I referred to the definition I used since the beginning of time. Anyone who wishes to challenge that definition is more than welcome to take their best shot.
a person who believes god or any gods exist,

Describing how I digitized it made no material difference to the definition.

Circumstantial, I said both, each version dependent on the circumstances.

Sure, there are hundreds of dictionaries out there. choose your poison


Atheism
The term “atheist” describes a person who does not believe that God or a divine being exists.
https://iep.utm.edu/atheism/
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Definition of atheist - Merriam-Webster
https://www.merriam-webster.com › dictionary › atheist

Atheist definition is - a person who does not believe in the existence of a god or any gods : one who subscribes to or advocates atheism.
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2 The literal definition of “atheist” is “a person who does not believe in the existence of a god or any gods,” according to Merriam-Webster.

10 facts about atheists | Pew Research Center
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The theory or belief that God does not exist. The word comes (in the late 16th century, via French) from Greek atheos, from a- 'without' + theos 'god'. From: atheism in The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable »

Atheism - Oxford Reference

 

a person who believes god does not exist,

 

That's rather cryptic.

So, clear things up with a direct answer:

Do you or do you not say that no to "believe there is" is a "distinction without a difference" from yes to "believe there is no"?

Because if you do say that, then you have fallen into what Swensson and I were addressing.

And if you don't say that, then we have had a failure of communication in this thread.

 

You did more than "digitize" it. You added to what it said.

I find it curious that 3/4 of the definitions you just listed use the same meaning that Flew and Swensson use, and only one of them uses your preferred meaning.

But I do agree with you that it doesn't matter. You can define words however you wish, so long as the listener understands what the speaker means to communicate.

The problem comes when you equivocate between meanings. And that happens when you insist it is a distinction without a difference.

 

That it is a philosophically feasible definition, not a couple of drunks in a bar definition.

in that case he could call it a turnip.

sorry you have no objects or determiners for your verb, please correct your grammar.

 

Sure. And so long as both the speaker and listener understand what is being communicated, that's not a problem.

I think you can figure it out, given that I have asked numerous times, and used your own choice of wording:

 

Thats absurd

dont ask me to make your claim for you, its your claim make it or shake it.