Is Neo[Atheism] a Rational Religion?

I don't write polling questions as a profession but I am afraid that defining the terms for them runs a risk of totally alienating some of them from taking the survey and others will simply apply their own definitions anyway. "Don't tell me what an atheist is or is not. If I say I am one, then I am one!

I don't think you will much benefit from telling them what they are, or what word they should apply to themselves. Pissing them off is never going to get you better science in a volontary survey.

 

I suspect attitudes about organized religion have shifted against it more than beliefs have shifted against spirituality or the existence of afterlife etc.

I have no data to support that, so I wonder why I think so and if it is true.

 

Good point. And keeping that in mind, I wouldn't use the ambiguous labels at all then, and only the definitions.

 

If you want me to understand something, show me where it comes from. Until you have shown the proof, you haven't proven anything, you've just made a lot of noise. So far, your treatment of convention remains unjustified.

There are plenty of times when + means something other than you having to add (link). Besides, it's not just about you proving it, it is also about seeing what kind of argument/source you are willing to accept, and a good reference may very well list exceptions, dependencies, justifications or examples that are useful for further discussion, descriptions of contexts etc..

I don't see how any of this demands that all things, or any things in particular, are symmetrical.

There are some sets of things that share symmetries with each other, and there are some useful conclusions that can be drawn from that. It does not follow that logical symmetry is somehow present in all things, or in the things we're talking about in particular. None of the quote you've given seems related at all.

What whole are you talking about? What does reflection symmetry have to do with it?

They stated it is a reason for preference, they have not supported your idea that Flew was bound by it.

Correct. Convention isn't logic though, nor is it mandatory.

Well, if there is nothing you can do to prove your point, what makes you think you have proven anything?

We know from examples such as "orange" that we have no obligation to construct one convention and stick to it. We know that the meaning of words depends on context. That's the only justification Flew needs.

It fits the things some want to describe very well, someone who is not a theist is occasionally a very useful group to refer to. Seems you have picked the wrong context to fit it to.

No it doesn't, the Stanford article is pretty good at spelling out the distinction between the different interpretations of atheism, the word atheism itself, etc.. In their use, it is always clear which context is active, they always use sensible context and transition clearly between contexts.

You've cited and regurgitated it plenty, but you have yet to even attempt to show how it supports your claims.

As before, the problem isn't resolved by just re-pasting the text again, it lies in connecting what is being said here to the conclusions you're drawing.

No amount of regurgitating the text is going to resolve the fact that they're describing what they think should happen, but not the things they say must happen. Luckily, they spell out this distinction. There are sentences in the article which mention what they think is demanded or proscribed:

"Again, the term “atheism” has more than one legitimate meaning, and nothing said in this entry should be interpreted as an attempt to proscribe how people label themselves or what meanings they attach to those labels"

They may have their preferences (and they do), but they do not pretend that their preferences are demands.

Repasting the same text over and over will do nothing but waste more time, unless you can show that the things the article describes as preferences are in fact logical demands, then the article has no logical problem with Flew.

I don't know what a percentage of a clear cut yes/no criteria is. An hexagon is a shape with six straight lines, what is 50% of an hexagon?
Is it a shape with three corners (i.e. half of six corners)? That seems to me like just a triangle, which isn't a hexagon at all.
Is it an hexagon cut in half (which therefore has 4 or 5 corners)? That again seems like not a hexagon at all, 0% hexagon.
Is it something that fulfils half the criteria of hexagons? I.e. is a shape, but has no other features of a hexagon? Seems like not a hexagon at all.

Similarly, what would it mean for someone to believe 50%?
Does it mean someone who believes the likelihood of something, "A", is 50%? That seems like a person who hasn't accepted the truth of A at all, and therefore does not have a belief.
Does it mean someone who is halfway from unconvinced to convinced? Again, that seems to mean they haven't accepted A, and therefore cannot be said to hold the belief.
Does it mean someone who has been given enough information to believe something, but is somehow halfway through forming it as a belief?
Does it mean someone who satisfy 50% of the criteria? Like, are protestants like 50% catholic (or some other percentage) given that they agree on some points?
There is such a thing as a person who is pretty close to believing, but unless they actually fulfil the criteria for belief, the statement "this person believes A" is false, 0%. Being 50% through some path towards belief is not the same as believing 50%.

Belief is not a sliding scale describing how likely you think something is, it is a switch that goes from false to true when you accept something as true. Anyone who for whatever reason accepts a proposition as true has a belief in that proposition. Anyone else lacks that belief.

It seems to me, percentages are simply not an appropriate way of thinking about fulfilling criteria. If a glass is half-full, then the proposition "the glass is completely full" is false.

Either way, it'd be quicker if you just describe what you think a person with 50% belief is.

It could mean the things the definitions say they mean.
Strong atheism is the proposition that there are no Gods.
Weak atheism is the absence of belief in the existence of Gods.

I understand the concept of less than, I question why someone who does not fulfil the one criteria for belief would still get described as having 50% of it.

Yet again, you seem to have made an argument with so many dodgy claims in it that the conclusions are unclear and not well supported.

Seems to me one chemical characteristic of oil is hydrophobia, which is very much defined using water.

"the premises you are using does not associate with the conditions of theist", I don't know what you mean by "associate", or why I should care about it. The meaning of words is specified by the definitions, not what you "associate" things with.

 

I don't mind that so much, "yellow" can be a shorthand for a proposition. That being said, which proposition was unclear. We know what it is like for an RGB screen to light up red and green LEDs and be seen as yellow, but apparently, for Kokomojojo's "yellow" proposition to be true, it turned out to be enough to find yellow somewhere in the border between red and green.

That being said, he had already lost the thread of the argument way before he got to that point. He wanted to show something about conjunctions and its conjuncts, but the example conjunction he gave was not constructed from the conjunct he gave.

 

when the subject under discussion was CLEARLY color BLENDING only an idiot would take a sheet of paper with red circle on the left and a green circle on the right with no overlap and claim see red and green is not yellow.

nonsense you prove and continue to prove that you completely turn off all deductive reasoning when an effective counterpoint proving you wrong is made.

The topic was color blending.

yellow = red and green.

and the yarmeat laughbly claims yellow cannot be a truth value. (maybe he thinks purple is the truth value)
such nonsense

yes where your colors were blended it was yellow therefore the truth value for yellow = red and green is T, T is defined as true.

 

Have you given that lesson to stanford? As one of the oldest most prestigious philosophical universities in the US that claim the opposite I think they would find that very helpful!

 

I havent seen oil defined as "hydrophobia", citation please

 

so I compare to a glass 1/2 or 3/4's full of water and you try to counterpoint with 1/2 of a hexagon? FFS swensson! This is becoming the twilight zone!

 

this is patently false!

DRI labeled himself an agnostic-atheist because he considers himself an atheist but lacks fortitude in his belief that God does not exist to go full atheist.
Therefore he lacks belief that God does not exist.

Stanford drew the same conclusion stating they could be almost a 100% theist and claim atheist because they lack 'enough' belief to claim 100% theism.

yet you try to claim that a belief is 0 or 100% and nothing in between?

Cite or Prove that belief is not a sliding scale

 

Oh, I agree. But drawing out the specific proposition is key. It tells you what follow-up arguments make sense and which don't. It gets us back on track of talking about propositions, which Koko was trying to avoid.

Bingo. Exactly. The whole color thing was something he used to try to run away from conjunction elimination. Once (if) you can get him to actually talk about propositions, whether they include color or not, his objections melt away.

 

My citation that I regurgitate points out why they rejected flew, its not philosophically sound and does not stand up to logic. Yes the definition is valid ONLY because people use it that way which has no bearing on correct usage, same as 420 is a legtimate definition for pot in subculture jargon ONLY because people use it that way, it has no bearing on correct usage.

This has been given to you several times along with citations from stanford and you have not even tried to address them. Demanding your preferred interpretations/definitions without valid justification, (you provided none) 50000 times wont get you any closer to a logical truth value.

stanford threw flew out because it was not philosophically feasible, why dont you start there and prove it is without violating symmetry and committing major contextonomy fallcies as you have been.

 

false, koko addressed that nonsense.

proving the limits of conjunction elimination is not running away, you cant handle a counter proof to the extremism you post, and consequently ran away when after I proved my point.

Hey self professed logic teacher, how you doing on "I dont know", have you proven that BLUNDER to be a valid response to a proposition yet?

 

And that makes it the same as what Draper calls "atheism". So if symmetry is wanted, it is still there under the other set of definitions, changing only the label.

 

weak atheism is I dont think there are any G/gods so I hope there are none.

flew atheism is you can be brain dead and be an atheist.

then there is your version of atheism quoted on the previous page where you think you can believe in the holy spirit and still be an atheist!

 

that should have said red light on one side and green on the other too far apart to overlap

 

Thinking on this further, I do think that's what's going on here. Look how quick these folks are to label people "atheist" and "neo-atheist" , but then to define "atheist" as being as certain Gods don't exist as theists are that they do.

It's a religious strawman, demanding that those who don't subscribe to their faith based belief must be doing so by faith and must make just as strong a claim. I think this is done in a dishonest but maybe subconscious attempt to equalize the burden of proof.

 

I think that's a big part of it. However, I've also seen atheists use these labels to dodge a burden of proof, as when strong atheists hide behind the broader definition of atheist when challenged to debate. I've seen it happen several times before.

 

Even most strong atheists rarely hold as much certainty Gods don't exist as many theists hold that they do.

 

thats not true, thats your personal definition that you are trying to shoehorn in, not mine or anything I cited.
the only one trying to muddy the waters out here by adding "certain" nonsense into the mix is you.

nothing a little soap and water cant fix.

its ahuge part of doctor dodge's strawman fairy tales when he answers "I dont know" as truth value to a proposition and then laughably tries to convince us he is a logic professor.
Who needs comedy central got is all here folks!

 

Provide the syllogism. So far, this looks like conjecture to me. You could prove me wrong, by showing the syllogism. The Stanford article says nothing about 420.

You haven't made your point well enough for me to know what to address. Stanford doesn't say anything about 420. They don't even say anything about "correct usage".

Don't think that's what I'm arguing, looks like a strawman to me.

Where do they say that? All I see is "certainly legitimate".

You have yet to show what symmetries you demand and why, you have yet to show what contexts you think I'm violating with what. You've given some soundbites, but so far none of it has turned into an argument.

My point remains that your attacks do not match the statements in the Stanford article. Since they're not supported by the article, they remain unjustified. There isn't even anything for me to address at this point.

Let's confirm, @Dirty Rotten Imbecile, is this true? (I hope this pings him)

1. First, do you call yourself an agnostic-atheist?
2. Do you call yourself an agnostic atheist because you believe God does not exist, just without fortitude?
3. Or do you call yourself an agnostic atheist because God's existence is unknown to you (agnostic) and at the same time, saying that you believe that God exists would be false (atheist)?

Pretty sure the article doesn't talk about beliefs in percentages. You need to stop saying that people say things when you're changing what they say significantly.

What they actually say is:

"[Some people] may even believe that the truth of theism is more probable than its falsity." (source)​

For starters, they make it clear that they're referring to probability (which I agree can come in percentages), rather than % belief or % theist.

Secondly, something being more probable than its falsity is hardly the same as being "almost 100% theist". If I have a child, I believe there is around 51.7% chance that I'll have a son, i.e. I believe that "I'll have a son" is more probably than its falsity, but I wouldn't say that I therefore have accepted that it is true that I'll have a son.

Of course, you still haven't explained what you mean by a percentage of belief. Please describe a person who believes something 50%.

Sure

"believe: accept that (something) is true, especially without proof" (source)
"to think that something is true, correct, or real" (source)​

If you believe for instance that A is 50% likely to be the case, then it would most likely be false to say that you accept A as true, it would be false to say that you hold the belief A.

Different people and different situations have different standards for when to accept a belief. I require a higher likelihood to believe that my house has a solid foundation than I require to believe that my cousin has a puppy. Some people, like avid sports fans, could arguably even end up believing things which they actually know has less than 50% chance to be true (they may end up believing that their team will win, even though they know the probability is against them).

The likelihood percentage is not what makes a belief, however, when you make the decision/switch/whatever to accepting that something is true (for whatever reason), that is when you can be said to believe it, you can be said to have the belief. Before then, you might have a hunch, or a suspicion etc., but that is not what a belief is.

I mostly countered with asking what you think it means to believe 50%, and I'm hearing nothing.

What's wrong with 1/2 of a hexagon? If you have take a hexagon and slice it in half, then you have a new shape, which doesn't have six sides, and therefore isn't a hexagon at all.


Taking one half of the hexagon can give you the green area. The green area does not have six sides, and thus is not a hexagon at all.

"It should be 'painfully' obvious you dont use water to define the elemental characteristics of oil" (source)

You didn't ask for the definition of oil, you asked about the definition of elemental characteristics of oil. One of those characteristics is being hydrophobic, and that is defined with reference to water (source).

Of course, you can also find definitions such as these:

• "Definition of oil: any of numerous unctuous combustible substances that are liquid or can be liquefied easily on warming, are soluble in ether but not in water, and leave a greasy stain on paper or cloth" (source)
• "thick, liquid fat obtained from plants which does not mix with water" (source)

but I think that's neither here nor there.

There are plenty of things that are defined in terms of what they're not. "Asymmetrical" and "amoral", "virgin", "unsafe", etc..

Besides, when you say "you dont use water to define the elemental characteristics of oil", it is unclear whether you're trying to say that no words can be defined in terms of any other things, or just that there are words that aren't defined in terms of certain other words, or if you're trying to say something specifically about oil and water or something else entirely.

Why would I? They haven't written any sentences that don't make sense, you have. They haven't said anything about "associate with the conditions of theist", you have. It is only your interpretations of them that isn't making sense, theirs is just fine.

But yeah yeah, all this sass and you still haven't explained what you mean. If you can't explain, I guess this is another dead end in your argument. We'll pop it on the pile.

The topic wasn't colour blending, the topic was logic. We criticised you for bringing in additive colour models, which have a whole bunch of separate rules that are not fundamentally logic-based.

We were trying to assess the properties of "AND", and you provided a bunch of properties of "colour blending in an additive colour model", which is something different. You failed to provide a reason why colour blending would accurately model logical "AND".

For instance, this picture is red and green, but doesn't have any blending in it (there is a black line separating the two, but it is still red and green).



This serves mainly to show that colour blending does not model "and" very well, there are ways to show "red and green" that do not correspond to "a colour blend of red and green in an additive colour model". Even if there wasn't a line in the middle, the vast majority is red and green but not blended to yellow.

Why don't you show your yellow logic in syllogistic form:

• Bob is wearing a hat
• Bob is wearing a coat
• A conjunction is true if and only if both conjuncts are true
• Therefore, Bob is wearing a coat and Bob is wearing a hat.

Why is it that you have to go as far away from the subject (from convention, if you will) as possible to get your points to make sense? I have an answer, but the forum rules don't let me say it.

Nope, "AND" is not "where it was blended, it was". Again, you make jumps of logic that you don't justify, which leaves them both poorly defined, weirdly interpreted and often outright wrong.

 

So colors are illogical?

citation please

if you want to continue to leap over the deep end with a claim yellow is NOT "red AND green", (proven by my led citation given earlier) well there isnt to much I can say about it, well maybe a little.

swenssons picture has a red square and green square.
therefore swenssons picture has a green square.

I mean ****ing seriously already?

One half of swenssons hexagon is green the other half of the same hexagon is white.

um...that is a thought process, a thought process is required by the reader to understand language and properly arrange their thoughts to match the context of the words that are being used, this is understood as comprehending what the writer is trying to communicate, so you are correct they do not think for you, neither can I.

a definition is an association by definition! lmao

stanford pointed out the failure of flews association of the meaning of his "personally preferred words" that flew used for his definition of atheism is not logical and presented the most accurate definition of atheism.

 

1. First, do you call yourself an agnostic-atheist? Yes
2. Do you call yourself an agnostic atheist because you believe God does not exist, just without fortitude?
3. Or do you call yourself an agnostic atheist because God's existence is unknown to you (agnostic) and at the same time, saying that you believe that God exists would be false (atheist)? This. I am agnostic because God’s existence is unknown to me and I don’t practice theism.

 

/thread

 

It's a bit of a shame. If there were a thread that focused less on the semantics and more on the actual beliefs/lack of belief/causes of doubt/thresholds for belief, etc. I think it could be a fruitful discussion. It's really the ham fisted, defenseless semantics that drag threads like this on. Maybe I'll start an epistemology/agnosticism thread when my personal life cools down a bit, if people are interested.