Is Neo[Atheism] a Rational Religion?

So why can no one prove unicorns don’t exist. Should be easy according to the theists on this forum.

 

The Truth has no image, for any image produced by the human mind is guaranteed to be sprung from multiplicity, but God is One.

 

Can not possibly debate that level of idiocy. You win.

 

It is not possible to prove a negative, only a positive. It is not possible to prove non existence, only existence. That is just reality.

 

Yes you can. See the rest of my post #587 to you.

You are now choosing to deny Logic rather than admit that I am correct.

 

They can be proven if the set is a closed set, such as with a bag of marbles. I already told you how this works.

No, you are denying basic logic 101.

 

I’m schooling you on logic. Non existence can not be proven. That is reality. A negative can not be proven. That is reality.

 

No it can’t. I’ve already told you why you can’t.

no, I am schooling you in basic logic.

 

I feel like these two threads are building up to a "one Flew over the Koko's nest" pun somewhere.

The Stanford paper says not only that Flew's definition is valid to use, it explicitly says that it is so due to its use. Several dictionaries agree (although since you do not acknowledge some of the interpretations of lack and disbelief, you may have failed to see it). You even yourself often point out that this usage is prevalent. It seems to me, you're clinging to a conventionality that simply isn't a full picture of reality anymore.

The answer you provided is halved at best. You provide no basis for calling it fringe use, nor why fringe use would be philosophically unacceptable, nor why the arguments you challenge need to conform to the philosophically acceptable (not that I reject the idea of philosophy, I just imagine that your justification for why things need to be "philosophically acceptable" likely includes ideas that I would like to challenge).

The vast majority of my questions have remained without an answer, or with an answer which doesn't address the issue. I think every single question mark of mine (except quotations) have been sincere questions. The fact that the vast majority of them have gone without direct answers, I see as a silent acknowledgement that you are unwilling or unable to see my arguments in full. For instance, the very post in which you said that my questions were resolved, there were two questions which went unanswered.

You regularly reject definitions which depend on the idea of absence of belief, but in your previous post, you present one as well. It seems to me, the idea of absence of belief makes full sense, even to you, you just refuse to understand arguments which damage your sensibilities, or you would accept the absence definitions as readily as you present them when it suits you.

 

As mentioned before, I agree that the prefix implies negation, however, you seem to apply the prefix in an unusual way. As I have argued, negations follow the law of the excluded middle, that it is impossible to be on neither side of a negation.

Take your own examples.

Apolitical is the negation of political. Anyone who is not political is apolitical. There may be disagreement on what it is to be political, a person may vary in their politicalness, but the definition makes one thing clear, whatever we mean by "political", the only thing required to be apolitical is to not fall under the definition of political. There is no room for an equivalent of an agnostic, who purports to be neither. Being apolitical is not a proposition opposite to some political proposition that one must adopt in order to become apolitical, it is only the failure to attain politicalness.

Similarly, asexual is the negation of sexual. Asexualness is the lack of sexualness. There are different ways of thinking about being sexual, but whatever we mean by sexual, the only thing required to be asexual is to not fall under the definition of sexual. Being asexual doesn't require you to affirm some opposite stance of sexualness, all that is required is the failure to attain sexualness. There is no room for an equivalent of an agnostic, who purports to be neither.

Similarly, the law of the excluded middle applies to atheism, being an atheist (in Flew's definition) doesn't require you to accept the proposition opposite that of theism, all that is required is the failure to be a theist. An agnostic does not fall outside of the dichotomy. Of course, that's not to say they don't exist, they just fall into one of the categories. They don't fall into theism (since they wouldn't say "I believe god exists"), and the definition of atheism applies to them solely by virtue of the theist definition not applying to them, just like in the examples above.

In the same way, "there is no god" is the negation to "there is a god". There is no middle ground in which God both exists and does not exist. However, theism isn't the concept of God's existence, it is the belief in God's existence, and it is not true that belief in God's existence follow the same rules as God's existence. For instance, there is no middle ground between "there is a god" and "there is no god", but there is a middle ground between belief in "there is a god" and belief that "there is no god" (where agnostics fit).

Of course, this is all according to a classical interpretation of the a- prefix and Flew's definition of atheism. I will not fall victim to the etymological fallacy and claim that just because the prefix is normally used this way, it needs always to be used this way. I am well aware that atheism can be used to be the belief that there is no god. My argument is only that we should only use one of these definitions at a time (unless we spell out the difference plainly).

 

abstention from a vote in either direction is not a middle ground.

your questions are resolved, there is nothing I can do to fix your failure to recognize the fact.

Not even stanford works, you still come out here misrepresenting not only me but them as well.

Ok lets have a discussion about absence of belief:

The “a-” in “atheism” must be understood as negation instead of absence, as “not” instead of “without”. Therefore, in philosophy at least, atheism should be construed as the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, the proposition that there are no gods).

Discussion about absence and lack of belief over.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Discussion Flew's definition:

Although Flew’s definition of “atheism” fails as an umbrella term, it is certainly a legitimate definition in the sense that it reports how a significant number of people use the term.

Yes people do use it and dictionaries do report how its used without concern for proper grammar or context, gay.

The ENd. Nothing more to discuss about Flew.

///////////////////////////////////////////////

The “a-” in “atheism” must be understood as negation instead of absence, as “not” instead of “without”. Therefore, in philosophy at least, atheism should be construed as the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, the proposition that there are no gods).

Yep thats a wrap,

if that does not make sense to you, there is certainly nothing anyone can do to help your dilemma..

 

Hm, well, you seem not to be discussing any of the arguments I brought up. Obviously, I'm aware of the quotes you're giving below, it is their interpretation and relation to your conclusion that are lacking from your side.

You present a definition which relies on the absence of belief, yet previously you have rejected such definitions. If you accept the logic there, then it seems you were consistently bullheadedly wrong all the time when you said it wasn't logical or whatnot.

Discussion over? Stanford seems to disagree, it goes on for many pages, including bringing up Flew's definition. A fair discussion would not hide those aspects. In particular, it mentions that

'the term “atheism” is polysemous—i.e., it has more than one related meaning—even within philosophy'​

which means that at the very least, it is dishonest to cut the article short where you have, after just one meaning.

Nothing more? You seem to imply some incorrectness of this definition, some relation to "philosophical acceptableness", but no such incorrectness is implied by the quote, and has certainly not been shown by you. It seems to me the quote here means there is nothing problematic about using the definition. If you want to be able to say that you have shown or even attempted to show that you are right, you will have to connect those dots.

Yes there is. You could answer my questions and address my arguments. Any fool can repeat their own position.

 

Already discussed them.

Yes your interpretation is wanting.

huh

false, stanford does not disagree.
yes polysemous, and flews meaning is NOT one of them, ie not usab le.

your usage as usual.

already did, please review the links I gave you earlier


Slang
Slang is the use of words that are not considered standard English. It should never be used in academic or professional writing.

Often, these words are developed from fads or simple laziness. [or nutty fringe philosophers trying to force square pegs in round holes, Flew, or neoatheists who enjoy playing footsie, word salad.]

Sometimes slang is used by a given group and those outside the group do not understand it. Slang can also be insulting to some people or groups.

Some slang is associated with certain time periods. In the 1960s, young people used terms like groovy, cool, dude, far-out, and trippin'! Some of those terms are still used. Modern slang includes boo (boyfriend or girlfriend), baby boomers (people born between 1944 and 1963), green (money), my bad (my mistake), and shotgun (calling dibs on the front seat of a car).

 

false, it stresses my point proving the sociolinguistic incompetence demonstrated in the arguments you are pounding your drum about, and the reason I will not allow you to drag me back into your merry go round rabbit hole quagmire that you are so desperately struggling to accomplish.

 

No, you are now resorting to committing an Argument By Repetition Fallacy, a favorite of yours.

I already told you how those things CAN be proven.

They are provable in closed sets, such as a bag of marbles. If there are 10 red marbles, 8 blue marbles, and 2 yellow marbles inside of a bag, then I can prove the non-existence of green marbles inside the bag.

How? I simply pull out all 20 marbles and show that none of them are green. Simple as that.

 

Yes it can. I've told you multiple times how it can. You've chosen to ignore those arguments.

No you haven't. You've just repeated as a mantra that "you can't". I've told you that you can, and explained precisely how you can. You've ignored that argument of mine and keep repeating your original argument.

No, you are committing logic errors galore.

 

well, repeating the correct answer isn't a fallacy, lol.

which I refuted

no you can't. you can only prove the EXISTENCE of red, blue and yellow marbles.

using this argument, I can prove your god doesn't exist, due to the total lack of evidence for it's existence. You will now switch to special pleading...........

 

no it can't. I've told you multiple times how it can't. you've chosen to ignore reality.

I refuted your argument. You can not prove non existence nor can you prove a negative. This is basic logic 101.

yes, you like to claim this when your arguments get demolished. it's amusing.

 

We cant lose site of the fact that rahl is posting logic theory that is actually below 101, since 101 logic teaches that a negative can simply be negated making it logically a positive, then proving it as a positive which proves the negative.

Now claiming that we cant prove 'any' negative as rahl is claiming without taking conversion to a positive as a consideration is either severe lack of academic understanding at best or 100% intellectual dishonesty.

This could be a very dishonest game of semantics being played that neoatheists are so popular for using to spread their half baked atheological propaganda.

...and of course if we cant prove a negative then rahl cant proof 'lack' of belief regardless how ridiculous that is in the first place he now has rendered anything to do with disbelief invalid!

Way to go rahl!

 

ARF. RAAA.

... as well as the non-existence of any other colored marbles. Every single marble was picked out of the bag. Every single marble was examined. Non-existence was proven.

Take another example of a car lot. That is also a closed set, as only "x" number of cars are in the lot. One can examine every single car in the lot and prove that a Ford Focus does not exist inside that lot.

No you can't. You are now switching from a closed set to an open set. In an open set, it is not possible to prove non-existence.

To think of it with my marble example, think of it as attempting to pull out infinity marbles from a bag of marbles. There is no way for a person to pick out every single marble as there is always another marble inside of the bag to pick out. Thus, you cannot prove that a green marble does not exist as it is entirely possible that you just haven't picked one out yet. Thus, attempting to prove non-existence (or prove a negative) in an open set would be committing the Argument From Ignorance Fallacy.


This is all basic set theory. Look it up and learn about it sometime.

 

Your first part is incoherent gibberish.

this is basic logic 101. You can not prove non existence. And as I predicted, you would resort to special pleading.

 

why not?

 

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/145/Proving-Non-Existence

 

Woah!
this guy puts all sorts of falsely invented rules out there to prove his point and he even gets them backwards. Admittedly Im a bit surprised anyone would publish that, and I noticed there is no name on it

That said, he demands universality and there is no such requirement in logic, and worse he gets it backwards FROM YOUR LINK:

Proving Non-Existence

Description: Demanding that one proves the non-existence of something in place of providing adequate evidence for the existence of that something. Although it may be possible to prove non-existence in special situations, such as showing that a container does not contain certain items, one cannot prove universal or absolute non-existence. The proof of existence must come from those who make the claims.

The dofuss (some one faking to be a PhD) calls common usage special, and special usage common, they are swapped, what a dill pickle dope head.

rahl did you bother to look down the page at some of the comments? The one guy gets it right on the money, exactly what we have been telling you is wrong with the position you chose. Dont accept wooden nickels man. If you look at his examples this is not about proving or disproving nonexistence, it about pretending neoatheists have no burden of proof. Hell I will just show you what this guy said.

@Bo Bennett, PhD:
I clearly see the problem with your athiestic position is that you think the door only swings one way, and logic doesnt apply to your position.

Athiests, such as yourself, demand rationality, coherence, proof and evidence for a theistic view point, and yet you provide no proof or evidence for believing what you believe.

Now there is nothing wrong with asserting that you are unconvinced with the evidence that someone may provide in supporting the theistic claims, but a blanket denial of those theistic claims can not be considered as negations of those claims. It is merely a position of opinion and denial. And yet you demand more proofs and evidences for theism, assert that it is rational to do so, I would agree, all the while holding onto the opposing position that lazily refuses to provide any rationality or evidence for it's own position.

Demanding evidence from theism, all the while shirking your own responsibility for your position on the fallacious premise that one cant prove a negative.

Athiesm is a self evident defenseless position self admittedly. As athiests run around, pounding their chest in pride that they are who they are and dont have to provide a rational reason as to why they believe what they believe.

The athiest position is an affirmative position of there not being a God. Simply inserting a negative into your belief doesn't relieve you of the necessity of providing evidence as to why you believe what you believe. And yet you believe your position devoid of any evidence.

The truth of the matter is that you can not provide any evidence for your belief. And its is a belief, because you believe it, and do so with no evidence.

If you could provide evidence, you would, but you cant, so you dont.
The lological fact is there is a God or there is not.

Both premises cannot both be true. Could never be true. And yet atheists lazily default to the position that is not evident nor is there any evidence to support their belief.

Athiesm by definition is nothing more than an indefensless oppinionated position. Nothing more.

@Bo Bennett, PhD: My position is that you offer no evidence of why you believe what you believe, all the while demanding evidence from the opposing side. My position is you can't begin to logically or rationally defend why it is you believe what you believe.

My position is that your position is self evidently at the very heart of hypocrisy at its narrowest definition of terms.

Sir, provide evidence for why you believe what you believe as you demand of the theist, or else you will continually and necessarily leave yourself in a defenseless position.

Your position is self evidently a constant proof that atheism is indefensible.

Athiesm is far worse than the strawman my friend.

this guy proverbially ripped him a new one

I cant think of any reasonable defense that you could come up with aside from simply going into denial since as usual its nothing more than another neoatheist house of cards that built on a false premise.

I have been saying all along that the neoatheist position is indefensible.

 

meanwhile, it is not possible to prove non existence or a negative. Atheism remains by definition, not a religion.