Is Neo[Atheism] a Rational Religion?

"People who do not believe God exists" vs "[People] who believe God does not exist"

All I see here is typical neoatheist word salad!

Both you and the bird failed to demonstrate the existence of a distinction.

Fertile imaginations do not cut it.

The only possible conclusion one can draw:

Typical neoatheist semantic word games!

.....and no one can concoct a crazy enough story to demonstrate otherwise.

Flew made no applicable distinction.

.....and it certainly does not include agnostic since you cannot logically reduce an equation that requires 2 conditions down to 1 condition which I complained about 500 posts ago.

I have the patience of a saint!

 

You yourself demonstrate it every time you demand we use your preferred meaning of the word "agnostic".

You may want to rethink that, because you are wrong. And it has nothing to do with anyone be else trying to "reduce an equation that requires 2 conditions down to 1 condition".

That is what YOU try to do when you equate those two statements above. So it violates one of your requirements to call somebody "agnostic". It is amazing that you can't see that.

You can not both "believe X does not exist" and "not believe X does not exist". You can not both X and not X.

Swensson here is the one demonstrating remarkable patience.

 

Yet you don't seem to find the same word salad between "people who didn't vote yes" and "people who voted no", even though they follow the same grammar and logic.

The senator shows nicely the distinction between not(doing something) and doing the opposite of something (and that the former includes those who do nothing at all, or who go for some third option, whereas the latter does not) in a way you seem to understand. When we do the exact same thing to the "theist" equivalent, you seem not only to disagree, but fundamentally fail to understand. It seems it is your preconceptions that make you interpret things as word salad, as opposed to the actual things being said.

1. If you did not vote yes, it does not mean that you voted no, you could have abstained, and that is 100% logical.

Your phrase above shows full well that there is a distinction between not doing something and doing the opposite of something. That distinction exists, and it is the exact same one that we invoke in the theist equivalent.

It is your arbitrary and unjustified equivocation between "believing not A" and "not believing A" that is the incorrect word game. Luckily, we can rise above the "he said she said" and actually look at examples such as the senator example, which shows that such jumps aren't necessarily justified.

It is true that you cannot (as a rule) reduce an equation that requires two conditions down to 1. Luckily, we can point to the definition, as we have agreed on it:

Definition of atheist noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary
atheist noun
a person who does not believe that God or gods exist
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/atheist​

(source) This definition includes only one criterion. We're not reducing 2 conditions to 1, we're pointing out that there was only ever one condition to begin with. The definition doesn't include a "and did not abstain" condition.

 

You again have not 'shown' there is a distinction. I am still waiting for you to show or demonstrate there in fact is a distinction.

No abstention is not "voting no".

More false equivalency nonsense! Sort of laughable the way you put up partial or false descriptions all the time

I gave you the actual logic: If someone: "did not vote yes and did not vote no", they abstained.

They chose to abstain, this is done by choosing not to vote yes and choosing not to vote no, hence abstention.

That is the atheist premise.
Abstention requires 2!
Abstention rejects both the atheist and theist premise simultaneously.

I am still waiting for your demonstration of distinction in your grammar.

 

Good luck getting anyone to believe that nonsense!

Can you get serisous at some point?

False distinction, demonstrate there is a distinction. The rest has been explained to you countless times.

and that is perfectly clear! Im sure there are plenty of threads you can go exploring in

 

[CLARIFICATION ADDED] (Since you do not understand the use of brackets)

you have done nothing to SHOW "I do not believe there are Gods" is exactly the same meaning as "I believe there are no God's", (To prove it is NOT semantic), except spam my thread with your groundless opinion.

Neither can the famous atheist philosopher Bertrand Reynolds! LMAO

Not sufficient grounds is agnostic, not atheist as atheist philosopher Bertrand Reynolds points out.

Neoathiests STOLE AGNOSTIC reasoning and claim it is their own neoatheist reasoning by falsifying it to mean atheist. One is forced to conclude neoathiests are thieves.

 

Great!
Thanks for finally admitting the purported distinction is false and nonexistent.
I guess I should have read to the bottom of your post and saved myself a lot of typing.

 

You and a select few theists are the only ones who seem to have a problem with it. I speculated why that may be. Perhaps you really DO have such amazing powers of self deception that we lack. Perhaps you really CAN make yourself believe that you are an elephant. Many of us can not.

Did you mean to say SHOW THEY ARE NOT the same? Or are you now contradicting yourself even moreso? Above you said they are the same.

And if you did mean SHOW THEY ARE NOT the same, then that isn't on me either. That is YOUR position, when you demand we define "agnostic" as you do. That's what everyone has been trying to point out to you. You are contradicting yourself and claiming X and not X at the same time.

If "I do not believe there are Gods" is exactly the same meaning as "I believe there are no God's", then you can't hold both "I do not believe there are Gods" and and "I do not believe there are no Gods", because that would be X and !X. Yet you keep demanding that this is you as an agnostic.

 

I already told you that is nonsense, and you got busted down to your ankles over this already;


Pretty sad situation.

correct, omitting not was a typo.

Wow! you start with a false equivalency and I already explained why its legal and even gave a great voting example in addition to proving the point. Not much I can do to help you outside pointing you to the water.

 

You choose to believe you are not an elephant. So... you COULD choose to believe you are an elephant. I can't. That's not a choice I make. That's the same for many of us. You are different if you actually make that choice.

Yes. You really are a sad situation. People keep trying to have good faith conversations with you and you keep thumping your chest and playing silly word games instead.

And Swensson immediately decompiled your voting example to try to make you see your glaring contradiction, yet you still refuse to. You may as well be sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "LALALALALA" at this point.

 

inability to choose what you believe is hands down the stupidest theory I have heard to date.

You simply dont get it, if you were born into a society whos dictionary and teachings told you that you are defined as an elephant then you would have no other reference, therefore you would believe the definition given to you. I choose to call myself human because in the society I was raised in our dictionaries and body of knowledge defines me as such.

However, anyone capable of lying to themselves and calling themselves a atheist when they have no FACTS to prove no G/god(s) exist are equally capable of lying to themselves and calling themself an elephant, since its only a matter of degree. I am not capable of lying to myself, hence I CHOOSE to believe I am an agnostic.

Atheists are choosing to be theists and theists are choosing to be atheists all the time. Last time I checked 'choosing' is making a choice.

You should be embarrassed posting such nonsense but I bet you will only double down LOL

You proved you do not comprehend the believe/disbelieve (atheist/theist/agnostic) matter when you posted yet another dilemma fallacy, and no one especially me can teach you differently because you admit you are a preprogrammed automaton incapable of choice. Not my problem. I have far more patience for swensson (because he is just playing around trying to trip me up) than I will ever have for the complete over the top nonsense posts that you throw out here trying to argue matters you clearly do not understand and no one can teach you otherwise. Sorry.

 

You are playing yet another disingenuous word game. I am not talking about definitions, and you know that. And if for whatever reason I did understand by the word "elephant" a human, I would still have no choice on whether or not I believed I am one. Your word game changes don't grant me your powers of self deception.

That's not the question. I didn't ask what you call yourself. I asked what you believe, and if you choose it. Given this new squirming, I am unsure at this point if you actually think you do. I don't. Many don't. We believe ourselves to not be elephants and can't make ourselves believe otherwise.

Again, you say things like "call oneself" or "voted" instead of believe. I think you do this to provide yourself wiggle room for more of your disingenuous semantic games. Most who call themselves atheists actually do use a different meaning of that word, unlike people talking about elephants.

Nitpick here, but your saying equally and matter of degree is yet another of your many contradictions. I can jump a foot or two. I can't leap over tall buildings.

If you are not capable of lying to yourself, you have no choice but to believe that. Same as you have no choice but to believe you are not an elephant.

Are they? I have not met many who told me they choose what they believe. You are one of the very few. Most people believe what they are compelled to, given their life experience.

Brilliant.

When you berate and thump your chest like this after posting such idiocy, it only makes you look worse.

 

Do you acknowledge that the distinction exists in the senator example?

1. If you did not vote yes, it does not mean that you voted no, you could have abstained, and that is 100% logical.

There is a distinction between "not voting yes" and "voting no", do you agree? This seems to me to confirm that there is a distinction between not doing something, and doing the opposite of it. I feel like I've presented this several times, it is not clear why you're still waiting for it.

Abstention is a subset of not(doing something). It is telling that you're having to rephrase it using rules I don't agree to for you to find flaws in it.

That's the logic for agnostic/abstaining (which I think we broadly agree on), the question we're discussing is the logic for atheist. Unless the definition of atheist includes some clause that says that an agnostic can't be atheist (which, as we've pointed out, it does not), then what you present here as "the actual logic" is actually completely beside the point.

What difference would "choosing" make? Would a person who chose not to vote end up in a different category than a person who merely ended up not voting (maybe they got caught in traffic and missed the vote against their will). Doesn't seem to have an impact on the distinction between those who voted yes and those who did not vote yes.

Nope, the abstention rejects the theist position and the position that there is no God, but neither of those correspond to "the atheist position" in Flew's definition. If there is a distinction, as the senator example shows, then none of the positions that get rejected by agnostics is atheism, which means it is perfectly possible to be both.

You have to read more carefully. I said there is only one condition in the definition (and that condition happens to be about your stance towards the proposition that there is a god, not towards the proposition of there not being a god).

 

No, of course I disagree!

You need to be 'alive' and have some resemblance of your 'faculties' (minimally functioning brain) to "vote no", while you could be dead as a door nail and "(not)vote" yes. You need to have both parties verifiably alive or dead take your pick, not one who can be dead and vote compared to one who must be alive to vote.

Now if you wanted to change your position to lack of belief (atheists) and lack of disbelief (theists) now both sides can be dead in which case you would be correct that there would be no distinction. See the lacker truth table below for a full explanation.

 

Nobody understands theism to be just lack of belief Gods do not exist. Everyone uses this term to mean the positive belief that God(s) do exist.

Now, if only we could get a good faith explanation out of Koko as to why he thinks he can both call himself agnostic, define that as not believing God exists and also not believing God doesn't exist, and then also tell us that there is no difference between believing God doesnt exist and not believing God does exist.

If Koko would only address and/or explain away that obvious contradiction in good faith, without all the bravado, this thread could actually finally get somewhere.

 

Asked and addressed.
How unfortunate, try this:

​

 

So you disagree that there is a distinction at all, and then you proceed to detail the distinction. How can you write out what you think the difference is and still not agree that the difference exists?

I would agree that you need to be 'alive' and have certain faculties in order to vote no, just like you need to be 'alive' and have certain faculties to believe that god does not exist.

A person could be dead as a door nail and not vote yes, and another person could vote no and simultaneously not vote yes. That's not to say someone was simultaneously dead and voted no, just that there are two different states that are both correctly described by "did not vote yes". Being dead and voting no are both subsets of not voting yes (although different subsets).

Similarly, a person could be agnostic and not believe God exists, and another person could believe God does not exist and simultaneously not believe God exists. That's not to say someone was simultaneously agnostic and believed God does not exist, just that there are two different states that are both correctly described by "did not believe God exists".

Well, my argument in this thread is that Flew's logic is sound, and in Flew's logic, atheists are defined by their lack of belief that God exists, but there is no suggestion that theists would be defined by their lack of belief that God does not exist. It is true that theists lack that belief, but that lack is not sufficient to identify someone as a theist, whereas the lack of belief that God exists is sufficient to identify someone as an atheist (since that's what's in the definition that you supplied). .

 

If lack of belief that God does not exist is insufficient to identify a theist, then it stands that lack of belief in God is insufficient to identify an atheist.

In each case they 'instead' may be 100% agnostic.

Your theory falls apart again.

What Does Agnosticism Mean?
In the religious sense of the word, agnosticism means neither believing in nor disbelieving the existence of God

People who are politically agnostic don’t side with one political party or candidate.

Someone who is brand agnostic is not loyal to any particular brand when buying products. In computing, “platform agnostic” is a term that describes software that runs well on different platforms. “Device agnostic” describes software designed to work on various devices, such as computers, tablets, or mobile phones. https://www.grammarly.com/blog/what-is-agnosticism/

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What's The Difference Between Atheism And Agnosticism?

agnostic neither believes in nor disbelieves in a god or religious doctrine.
https://www.dictionary.com › ... › Mixed-up Meanings

Your agnostic-theist would have to have some level of belief, a contradiction
Your agnostic-atheist would have to have some level of disbelief belief, a contradiction

In ALL usages, (except yours) agnostic takes neither side.

Your theory fails from every conceivable angle. sorry

 

IOW:

Agnostic by definition takes NO side.

agnostic-theist takes the side of a theist, a contradiction
agnostic-atheist takes the side of an atheist, a contradiction

Therefore agnostic cannot be contextually blended, merged, melded, or otherwise joined with/to either side and doing so is a contradiction.

Likewise since a dead person lacks belief, it cannot be used to compare to either a theist or agnostic. Theists and agnostics both make a conscious choice and in both cases must be alive to do so. Lack of belief requires no living functional brain, however disbelief does which is why disbelief is semantically and logically compatible/comparable for the purpose of religion.

 

No it doesn't. Not by the definitions Swensson has used. Your claim here is a non sequitur.

No. Swensson didn't say otherwise about agnosticism. Your issue here is with atheism, not agnosticism. Try to understand. You can do it if you really try.

 

Sorry you have proven and continue to prove that you have no clue what my issue is, why not let swensson handle his own arguments instead of spamming the thread with nonsense?

 

It can if atheism means not believing in God(s), as Swensson and Flew have defined it repeatedly. You only run into the issue you mention above if atheism means more than just this.

 

Because you are too dense to understand and having more voices trying to break through to you may help.

 

Since you dodged and continue to dodge validating your own claims therefore proving you are not capable of supporting your claims on any level, therefore its reasonable to conclude that its not possible for anyone to reasonably engage with you on this topic, sorry

You failed to explain your contradiction claim:

Hell you didnt even attempt it! Just kept blurting it out all over the forum.

Then there is:

You seem to have the crazy idea that there is an atheist gene, as always no explanation just **** you post all over the board with nothing to back it up

Sorry, again you have proven your grammar and logic skills are simply too weak to carry on a coherent debate on this subject.

I will be happy to engage you if you play by the rules of debate. ie validate your ****.

 

That’s the best thing you’ve ever posted!