You've got to admire the consistency of his continued, albeit misplaced, sense of superiority. He can't help but think atheists are poorer for lacking that which he requires to make sense of things.
On faith
- Thread starter Magical Realist
- Start date
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
This is exquisite in its naivete. You have, in a very succinct nutshell, captured the essence of subjectivity.
Who' s trying to prove anything?
So what is your definition of 'true'?
Why would that matter to you?
You are a classic atheist.
Such as?
Why does it seem obvious?
Well that's not the object of my desire. Care to try again?
Your claim is worthless as you have no criteria on which to make it.
What does me posting here, have to do with anything?
You are 'without God', why would you want to be convinced that it is real?
jan.
Where have I denied empirical evidence?
And the 'proof of God' thread is over. I'm sure fun was had by all. I certainly had fun.
Exactly what claim of mine could you dismiss without merit?
There can only be physical evidence for you, and all other atheists.
Can you envision anything else?
jan.
"Yet more"? Where have there been any baseless claims.
As to your continued, albeit misplaced, sense of superiority... how else is one to consider: "It is what it is. You are without God, and you always will be without God, until you accept God. Then there's a chance you can start to believe in God." if not a sense of superiority you feel you hold in accepting God while us poor atheists lack?
Or: "It is a forgone conclusion that God exists. You are, without God. Atheos-Atheist." where you assert the truth of your claim that God exists as a "forgone [sic] conclusion"?
Baseless? Only as baseless as the quotes you provide, Jan.
You. Why are you typing?
A model that corresponds to reality and can make predictions.
I'm curious.
It's actually well supported by your lack of evidence. The burden of proof is on theists to prove their claim that God exists.
I want to believe as many true things as possible, and as few false things.
Here:
That the concept of God corresponds to something real, apart from physical the universe itself.
How is that in any way superior?
I never mentioned, or alluded to poor atheists'.
An atheist is without God, just as the word says, without embellishments.
Do you deny yhis?
I assert that it is a forgone conclusion that God exists for theists. Theism isn't the belief in the existence of God. It is the belief in God.
Your idea of theism is dressed up atheism.
Jan.
1. It is an assertion of truth that the other lacks visibility of, thus putting yourself in an superior position (i.e. you are declaring yourself sighted and the atheist blind).
2. It is an assertion that until one is as you are (accepting God) then one will continue to lack - again putting yourself, from your perspective, in the superior position over those that are not as you are.
3. A further assertion of the truth of God's existence (unless you wish to concede that you could believe IN something that you don't also believe exists?), coupled with a superiority of position that the lesser people might attain once he "accept God".
Your attitude is one of attempted superiority, Jan. It's a pity you can't see it in your own words. Or maybe I'm being too hopeful that if you could see it that you would actually curb your penchant for it.
Poor as in not at the "superior" level that is endowed to believers, as explained above.
They are without God because, at their core, they lack belief in the existence of God - as the word is defined.
Because they believe in the existence of God so strongly for it to be a non-consideration. And what they spend their time on is the less fundamental considerations - which differ from theist to theist.
So you believe, yet almost every dictionary and source would suggest otherwise.
You merely want the label to be associated with the clothes you wear rather than the underwear of theism. That is understandable, however inaccurate it may be.
But again, why are you continuing to divert the thread to matters of the semantics of labels? Do the labels define you philosophically more than your actual views? Really?
You seem hung up on the labels, Jan. It does you no good.
No. If I believed in God, I still wouldn't have it. Believers don't have anything special.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Actually, it's entirely posssible I misread your intent.
Taken without context, as this is:
it reads as if you are saying one can derive that God exists as a foregone conclusion from the premise that it is possible to "be without" it. (i.e. being without something requires something to exist for one to be without it). That would be a very naive position to hold.
In retrospect, I don't think that's what you meant.
I don't even think you are asserting that "it is a foregone conclusion that God exists". I think you are merely putting it forth as a common tenet of thiests in general (i.e. "this is what theists, in-general, believe - that God is a foregone conclusion")
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Is it any less meaningful to say I am "without unicorns"?
Or I am "without evil"?
Or I am "without the desire to torture"?
Not "having" something is not equatable to a shortcoming.
DaveC426913 said:
Nor is not "having" something necessarily equal to "having" something else.
That is to say, to be without God is, in this context, to not have a belief in God.
But I think there is an observable difference between not having a belief in God and not having a belief in unicorns. That is to say, one's relationship to the proposition of a monotheistic godhead is fundamentally different from one's relationship to the proposition of a unicorn.
To wit: Rare is the unicorn asserted to be a monotheistic godhead. Indeed, the nearest thing I can find in history are contemporary analogies requiring erasure of history.
What does it mean if God exists and this, that, and the other, rules, rules, rules, morality, glory unto God in the highest, and so on?
What does it mean if unicorns are real?
God fashions my experience according to His Will, as I understand the legend.
The unicorn is worth more to me dead than alive, as I understand the legend.
Right now the dispute seems to be more about invalidating one another than anything else.
"Without God" and "without unicorns" are only remotely equivalent in a perspective that cares none what belief in either actually means.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Only to a theist. To an atheist, not so much.
If a bunch of people developed a bunch of mythologies around unicorns, you'd get the same thing. That wouldn't make it any more real.
i.e. argument by popularity is still a fallacious argument.
DaveC426913 said:
And therein lies your problem.
Really, Dave, you need to stop invalidating everyone:
You only make my point: "Without God" and "without unicorns" are only remotely equivalent in a perspective that cares none what belief in either actually means.
In the end, you render your own argument unreliable; your critique of other people's beliefs has nothing to do with those other people.
Contd..
Jan ardena says that the existence of God is a foregone conclusion. This kind of statements can create further problems. As I said none, not even a theist, would be able to support this statement in objective manner. Statements like this would be immediately grabbed in the argument by those who question the existence of God, because the very next and obvious question about the 'form of God' will make it tough for theist to continue. The meaning of the word 'existence of God' as believed by a theist is not as simple as someone being present in physical form. An act X is moral for A, but immoral for B...then both A and B can never come together on this issue. Thats how theist and atheist are, in the logical and objective world atheist has upper hand in the argument, because faith has no associated objectivity and logic.
Then on what is faith founded? What gives rise to it? (In your view).