superluminal:
"Wow! I apologise. But in fairness, that was one misleading post. After reading your response, I still have no fucking clue as to your position. What the fuck is an "atheistic pantheist"?"
Apology accepted.
And apparently it was a misleading post. For that I offer my own apologies. I had thought I was lambasting both sides of the coin, when you took me for charging only one side - the Atheist - with the anti-philosophical stance.
But as to a clarification on my position: I consider myself an Atheistic Pantheist on the foundation that I am convinced (on the grounds of philosophy) that many attributes of God as classicaly interpreted - omnipresence, eternity, infinity, immutability, omnipotence - are necessary for existence and, in fact, make up existence. That being said, other attributes - such as omnibenevolence, omniscience in the sense of actual knowledge, all-love, all-mercy, all-justice, sentience, sapience - are not to be found possibly in this God-like thing, for they are incoherent, and cannot be shown to be part of this thing. Or to put it otherwise: I accept and affirm the existence of God because of certain attributes that essentially make it such, but point to the fact that it is not a being, but is in fact simply existence. That is to say, I am a Pantheist because I affirm that God is everything, but I am an Atheist because this everything is not sapient and it is basically a reitteration of the term "existence", but called "God" so as to signify its key link back to certain attributes.
If you want more information on my reasons for the above, you can probably find them across my writings here on SciForums, specifically in the essay-esque threads I have started to propound certain beliefs.
"Wrong bub. A-Theism. The absence of theism. A neutral statement of lack. Agnostics refuse to make a position statement based on a percieved lack of evidence either way. As atheists, we have no more need of theism than we do for alien visitors. But no atheist will assert that god 100% certainly does not exist. Ask the atheists here if you don't trust that."
According to definition 1 the first entry at
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Atheism , Atheism is:
a. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
b. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
Etymologically speaking, theism stems from "theo", God, and of course "ism" is a suffix meaning "belief or creed", so that one can say the term means "the belief in God (deities)". The prefix "a" means "without", so that atheism translates as "the belief without God (the deities)", or "the belief in no God (the deities)". That is to say, the term implies one which affirms that God does not exist.
As Wikipedia notes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism :
In early Ancient Greek, the adjective atheos (from privative α- + θεος 'god') meant 'without gods' or 'lack of belief in gods'. The word acquired an additional meaning in the 5th century BC, expressing a total lack of relations with the gods; that is, 'denying the gods, godless, ungodly', with more active connotations than asebēs, or 'impious'.
Moreover, what you describe as atheism as "no more use for God than alien visitors", yet not explicitly denying God's existence, and even going as far as to say no Atheist could possibly deny God 100 percent (which is silly if we are dealing with a logically necessary being), is virtually indistinguishable from the very definition of agnosticism you gave. For if you do not deny explicitly, but say there is simply no proof that God exists, then you are not saying that either side has presented more compelling proof than one another, nor claiming a single thing, but that God to you is irrelevant. This indifference is indistinguishable from agnosticism's.
"Ok. But if you want any more responses from me, you'll need to stop with the philosophical theology in the august tradition of dealing with the issue of God separated from dogma including Pre-Socratic metaphysical/ontological arguments regarding omnibenevolence as the refutation of a concept. 'K?"
If you insist.
"First I signify that I be an Atheist, yar. As in a-tonal (lacking tonality). A-theist (lacking theistic beliefs)."
Okay.
"As to your faith question, invalid in what realm? The objective or the subjective? Here's a working definition:"
In both, really. Even subjectively one cannot affirm something by faith if it is to be considered invalid. But more specifically, is faith justified epistemologically, that is, does it offer us an objective foundation for anything?
"Faith: Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence."
Fair enough definition.
"This definition squarely places faith in the realm of the subjective. In this realm, one of personal truths and ideas, the idea of validity or invalidity is clearly meaningless as the validity or lack thereof is also purely subjective."
Agreed. It most certainly forces a subjectivity on faith, on the foundation that it rests upon arbitrary beginnings.
"Now to the real debate - the validity of "faith" as it applies to the objective world. Given the above definition, unless something can be shown to exist by logical proof or material evidence, then it must be considered invalid in an objective sense."
Agreed.
I am pleased to see you have an argument that directly shows the invalidity - at least on an objective sphere - of faith. Good work.
"I would submit that there is certainly no convincing objective material evidence for a god. I would like to see the logical proof for the existence of gods. If it is convincing enough, I will capitulate."
I have some proof I think convincing of my conclusions, but if you wish to find them, just browse my various threads. Although this is somewhat irrelevant at the time being.