Weak Atheism. What a joke.

[S.A.M.]

Yeah. Hilarious.

C'mon supe, it was funny.

 

[Godless]

All the fuss about atheism again?

What a joke indeed, to try and redifine atheims to fit someone's absurd notions.

Atheism is without theism, theism is an assertion & belief in gods, and a-theism is a denial on "the" assertions of god and beliefs of such deities.

Theism & atheism both lack knowledge of what a "god" is, though theist claim to "just know" while atheists just claim "give me emperical evidence" of your gods. None has yet been presented in over 3000 years. Still waiting!

Theists make unsuported claims, "god exists" while a-theist make no claims what ever, they only wait for emperical evidence, non has been presented. Nuf said!

Godless

 

[Jaster Mereel]

All the fuss about atheism again?

What a joke indeed, to try and redifine atheims to fit someone's absurd notions.

Atheism is without theism, theism is an assertion & belief in gods, and a-theism is a denial on "the" assertions of god and beliefs of such deities.

Theism & atheism both lack knowledge of what a "god" is, though theist claim to "just know" while atheists just claim "give me emperical evidence" of your gods. None has yet been presented in over 3000 years. Still waiting!

Theists make unsuported claims, "god exists" while a-theist make no claims what ever, they only wait for emperical evidence, non has been presented. Nuf said!

Godless

You don't know what empirical means.

 

[TimeTraveler]

Fuck it. There is no god. I take as substantial proof the fact that, after millenia upon millenia of human existence there is no shred of convincing evidence of any but natural effects in the universe. Also, the fact that everything we study, no matter how deep we go, has either a well established natural explanation or can be explained better in the light of science rather than the useless idea of a "creator".

Ponderig the idea of a god is fun coffee shop chit-chat but we already know there is no god based on overwhelming lack of evidence. And I already know "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". This is a nice phrase, but the fact is, we all take the absence of evidence for ideas that have been throught the mill of philosophical, scientific, and practical examination (for thousands of years) as evidence of absence.

There is no god. For all intents and purposes, proven. More than adequately.

I am truly an atheist. Without gods. Certain there are no gods.

Yeah, you are an athiest, despite the fact that you have free will, you don't see free will as proof of a God, while a thiest does.

 

[TimeTraveler]

Why don't you explain these things to us using god? Please give us a nice explanation with observational accuracy and predictive power for any of these subjects.

And why would a mechanical universe, operating with a few basic "laws" need a god at all?

A mechanical universe, with laws, where do the laws come from? how do you know these laws are real and not just made up? Think big for a moment.

The exact same proof you use to prove to yourself there is no God, can be used to prove there is one. Nature is used to prove there is a God, along with science. The laws of the universe are God's laws.

 

[Raithere]

Hi Raithere. Great post!

Why is this a problem?
"Things that are not cats" is a clearly defined set, but it has no common label. "Not cats" or "noncats" would do at a pinch, but really "things that are not cats" is sufficient.
In the same way, "People that are not theists" doesn't have to have a label. "Not theists" or "nontheists" would do, but why bother?

Thanks. It's not really, except in that it's something we're attempting to discuss so it helps to have a label to simplify things. I find categorization suspect in any case (or at least always open to alternative designations) people have such a strong tendency once they've been able to identify a pattern to insist that it's somehow significant (race comes to mind here). But then, we are pattern seeking creatures.

Lixluke's thread here seems a good case in point where, imo, the pertinent questions are being overlooked. He seems more concerned with establishing his particular definitions than exploring what they mean or whether the positions they may or may not represent are valid.

Why is it necessary for "theism" and "atheism" to be complementary sets?

They don't have to be anything ( I made that point earlier). But the argument seems to be that the "weak atheist" position is somehow invalid due to a semantic error which is absurd. Whatever lixluke would like to label it, there exist people who hold the position of disbelief in god but refrain from the assertion of god's non-existence. All the while, he dances around the primary problem that the term "god" is so poorly defined that it introduces a multitude of uncertainties and vagaries.

But it's common enough that my set response to the question of whether I believe in god or not is, "define god". Depending upon the answer I can consider myself atheist, agnostic, or theist... strong and weak variants as well.

However, I'd also argue about what "agnostic" means... I don't think that "agnostic" means "no assertion", but rather means the assertion that it is not known (or even can't be known) if God exists. I don't think that babies are agnostic either, for example.

That's just one possible definition. In regards to god's existence the agnostic makes no assertions either way. Which would make babies and cat's agnostic except that agnosticism is also generally defined as an active position. So we're lacking terms for passive atheism and agnosticism. But taken in context of the broader argument, it is the theistic position that needs be defended. Without the assertion of god no other position even exists. It's not like he's stomping around in the garden and the wife asks, "Who the fuck is that?"

It gets more complicated if we combine belief with epistemological positioning in which case we can have both theistic and atheistic agnostic positions. More interesting, but beyond my ability to diagram, would be to create a multi-dimensional array including all the possible stances. Belief, assertion, epistemology, ontology (we've yet to even touch that one, obviously god (presuming his existence) does not exist in the same way this keyboard does so what do we mean when we say "god exists"), and so forth.

What about rocks?

Rocks are clearly true believers.

~Raithere

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Right, but that does not imply that the baby is an atheist.

This true premise:
"All atheists do not accept the assertion 'God exists' as true."
Does not imply that:
"All who do not accept the assertion 'God exists' as true are atheists."

I am not sure that's the right premise-implication relationship. Consider:

Premise:
"All whom do not accept the assertion 'God exists' as true are Atheists"

Implication:
"All Atheists do not accept the assertion 'God exists' as true"

 

[Pete]

Your implication does follow logically from your premise. However, I think your premise is false.

The implication is true, but that does not imply that the premise is true

 

[Pete]

Another great post, Raithere. I have nothing to add, other than "I agree" (except about the rocks )

 

[Godless]

You don't know what empirical means.

Dipshit, you don't know what "god" means! yet alone have any evidence that it exists. Yea!! IT!

[QUOTEA central concept in science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence that is observable by the senses. ][/QUOTE]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empirical

 

[CRasch]

Exactly, it's the same with science. Science explains everything because religious science, the mixture of religious questions answered via scientific inquiry.

So basicly anything you cant explain with science at this point you push towards the supernatural?

Science does have answers for the soul, consciousness and the afterlife, the problem is it's not testable because ultimately people believe only in perception, not science or religion. Religon therefore blends with science because religion can code science in the way which people can understand it, while science is coded in a way for only science lovers to understand. So now we have religious people who actually cite science, and science people who cite religion, when explaining the new technology or ideas to the general public. It's neccessary to do this because the general public will not understand quantum entanglement when you use thousands of lines of math and science code to explain it, but if you just say that everything is connected, and that there is no such thing as seperate, sure it sounds like magic or religion, but it's scientifically accurate to say.

So because people are not educated they use religion as a crutch insted of simply saying "I don't Know"

Athiests believe the universe came from nothing, all by itself, and in natural selection, neither of these are scientifically proven or proveable. You can prove evolution, but only religion explains what evolution is, science just says it's there and explains the mechanics. Look, I'll say now, evolution is real, but that we control our own evolution, not some God of natural selection, but our own decisions, and even our language. Evolution is controlled more by language than by natural selection. The concept of God is what allowed us to evolve this far, it was the language.

I dont know where you got that idea that athiests believe the universe came from nothing, most athiests I've know have said we don't have enough information to come up a real hypothisis.

Sure but none of that is false. You cannot prove God is not energy, as fire, trees, water, air, all function on energy in different states. People worshipped the sun, and it's true, without the sun there would be no life, so it's safe to believe the sun is God, at least for our section of the galaxy.

That type of belief is not rational thinking. Yet there is no evidence of the supernatural. No evidence of God. Why believe in something that has no evidence for it.

You don't seem to get it. Science is actually now beginning to prove there is a God. Explain what string theory is, or unified field theory is, as an athiest, without using God or anything religious and you'll have a difficult time. Just the name unified field theory sounds religious. Just the idea that calculus and scientifc laws of the universe exist, I mean what is this? The commandments of the universe? Why can't we break them at will? Why would a universe without a God, follow any laws?

You think science creates the laws of the universe? No, science tries to explain natural occuring penomena. Science takes a natrualistic view of the universe. There is no scientific evidence for God.

 

[lixluke]

Theists make unsuported claims, "god exists" while a-theist

Wrong. A-theist is the claim that God does not exist. Nothing else. Hence the "A". There is no such thing as lack of a belief.

 

[lixluke]

But the argument seems to be that the "weak atheist" position is somehow invalid

I never once mention that the position of weak atheism is valid or invalid.
But you have open my eyes to an error. I now see that the title of this thread is misleading.
What those of you who do not know how to read have overlooked. Was that those who claim to be "weak atheists do not fall under atheism". That is all that I am saying.

There is a difference between 1 and 2:
1. Weak atheism is invalid because of semantics.
2. Weak atheism does not fall under atheism.

Show me exactly how your hole in the brain got #1 from any of my posts.

 

[Jaster Mereel]

Dipshit, you don't know what "god" means! yet alone have any evidence that it exists. Yea!! IT!

That's right, I don't know what "God" means. Neither do you. How can you say something which doesn't have an agreed upon definition does or does not exist? Different people describe "God" as different things, and it is almost never what anti-theists think it is supposed to be.

There is plenty of empirical evidence for the various things which theists call "God". Look at your own definition of empirical:

A central concept in science and the scientific method is that all evidence must be empirical, or empirically based, that is, dependent on evidence that is observable by the senses.

This is what a religious experience consists of, namely, sensory experiences which not all people share. That constitutes empirical data. Of course, the lack of consistently repeatable religious experiences in controlled environments makes it difficult to say anything useful about them, but millenia of such experiences cannot be dismissed as mere hallucination or hoax simply because you find the subject inconvenient.

There is no consistently repeatable evidence for "God", but there is still data that cannot always be dismissed. It is too widespread.

 

[CRasch]

That's right, I don't know what "God" means. Neither do you. How can you say something which doesn't have an agreed upon definition does or does not exist? Different people describe "God" as different things, and it is almost never what anti-theists think it is supposed to be.
There is plenty of empirical evidence for the various things which theists call "God". Look at your own definition of empirical:

That’s another problem; (like you said) people have many definitions for the concept of God; from the common everyday life to the supernatural. It isn't logical or rational.

This is what a religious experience consists of, namely, sensory experiences which not all people share. That constitutes empirical data. Of course, the lack of consistently repeatable religious experiences in controlled environments makes it difficult to say anything useful about them, but millenia of such experiences cannot be dismissed as mere hallucination or hoax simply because you find the subject inconvenient.

There is no consistently repeatable evidence for "God", but there is still data that cannot always be dismissed. It is too widespread.

This is caused by the disposition usually by the influence of their parents. They take something they have no answer for and assume it is God.

 

[spidergoat]

I never said questions are answers, but all good answers require even better questions, and science cannot generate good questions and therefore it's mechanical nature is a limitation.

You seemed to have spent alot of effort to explain yourself, and I appreciate it, but your knowledge of what science is and how it works is very limited. The questions that science answers are often generated by the results of scientific inquiry. Other questions are the result of natural curiosity. Religions often go to great pains to create questions for which there is no answer, "who is God?", "where is God?", "how can God also be a trinity?". Science can tell you that such questions are not good questions, because the definition of God is so nebulous, and furthermore, there is no evidence for God as yet, although experiments have been run on the effectiveness of prayer. The questions, however, can come from anywhere. There is no limitation in science as to the questions you are allowed to ask, the field is wide open.

You said that religious people are sure about stuff they have no evidence for , but so are scientists. Then you have religious people who do have evidence, and you have religious scientists, therefore you have religious science.

Evidence for religious claims do not stand up to scrutiny. Scientists are people, too, and sometimes they seem sure about their pet theory, but what they actually mean is that in their opinion, the statistical likelihood of their theory being true is high. Religious science is often just pseudoscience, and it's a shame people don't know the difference.

Superstition is not the result of the medium it's expressed under, as it's expressed in science, religion, and anything else. Darwins theory of evolution was based on superstition just like Einstiens theory of relativity. Unified field theory is based on superstition just like how calculus was based on Alchemy.

Not true. Darwin's theory of evolution is based on evidence, not superstition. Higher mathmatics may in a certain way, be an outcome of earlier inquiry, but to say it is based on alchemy is false. I should point out that there is, as yet, no completely unified field theory, although some forces have been shown to have relationships.

What I'm saying is, there are no absolutes, and while you say science has the answers, so does religion. You can apply the scientific method to religion as many people have done, to prove with science the accuracy of the religion (or disprove it).

Yes, you can use science to disprove religion, showing that the existence of God is so improbable, that it is equally likely there are flying pink elephants. That's not 100% absolute, but it is so close, that the difference is irrelevant. Religions are full of "answers", but that is not how science works. There must be things that are unknown for science to inquire about.

So you are free to test in a lab, the theory of everything, unified field theory, quantum theory, chaos theory, evolution, and all the other theories based on speculation. You can believe in intelligent design and still believe in evolution. You can believe in God and still believe in science. You can be athiest and still believe in luck, and in random, and in other superstitious beliefs which don't really exist but which athiests like to claim exists.

No you cannot believe in ID and evolution, the two are incompatable. Evolution is not mere speculation, although at one point in Darwin's mind, it was. Since then, it has been proven to occur. Some scientists still believe in God, but they are rare. Most don't believe in a personal God, and are more Deists.

Luck, Random, Accident, none of these things exist in science, as everything is cause and effect. Athiests have to believe in these superstitions in order to explain a universe without a founder, the universe somehow randomly and spontaneously created itself from nothing, this is what Athiests believe.

You are incorrect in several assumptions. There is the concept of randomness in science. It is possible to call something lucky with no supernatural reference. No scientist says that the universe "somehow randomly and spontaneously created itself from nothing". What they say is that the universe seems to emerge from a small space, and is expanding. They have no way to know, at present, what came before the Big Bang, or if it was a random event, or preceded by another universe. Furthermore, a theory of the origin of the universe is not required to be an atheist.

The point is, we would not have cosmology at all if the athiests were asking all the questions, we would never have a big bang theory, we would never have discovered numbers or math, because how can you solve the universe with symbols and human thought that cannot be physically seen, measured or heard?

Inference, deduction. Atheists often ask creative questions, I'm not sure why you think religious people are more creative in their questioning. I have found them to be often distinctly incurious and anti-intellectual.

Do you see, our best math geniuses, our best scientists, our best thinkers were motivated by God, religion, it's just how it is,...

That's how it was. We came from religious societies, but we grow.

...and if you claim that some religions are more superstitious than others or require more faith than others, thats a true statement, but religion itself has no definition anymore than science does, so there is no way to claim superstition as a trait belongs to religion anymore than you can claim that because we use science to destroy ourselves, that science is a weapon. Science is a tool, and so is religion, and it depends on who is in control of the tool which decides how superstitious it is.

The difference between superstition and science is the scientific method, and evidence. Superstition is a guess about phenomenon based on culture, and not supported by any evidence other than personal experience, which is often flawed.

So when you think of Darwins theory of evolution, and natural selection, natural selection was an idea based entirely on intuition, based entirely on guesstimates and superstition. If we discover that in reality there is no seperate, and that you share on the quantum level, molecules and atoms with every living thing on the planet, and that these things are the core of the life engine, it sorta changes how you view evolution. It also changes the rules, as how fit you are no longer decides your fate when you are the one who defines what fit is for everything else.

I agree that everything is connected, is a unity, (unified field theory?). But there are still phenomenon, still chemistry, still DNA, still genes, and still the results of all this, plants and animals.

It's also not a matter of fitness once you realize that there are quantum lifeforms that can make a fit species unfit overnight, a virus could do it, a parasite could do it, a bacteria could do it, or just a new funky quantum particle could destablize matter and do it. There are so many variables that evolution as a theory is about as simple as saying
"Might makes right, do all what you want!"

There are no quantum lifeforms, another superstition? It makes no difference that lifeforms are volnerable to viruses or bacteria, or parasites. The existence of these is in fact predicted by evolution. Bacteria evolve at an enormous rate. True, there are many variables, but so what? To say that God did it is the extreme of improbable assumptions. The study of evolution reveals as much cooperation as dominance. "Might makes right" is a false interpretation of the implications of Darwinian evolution. You don't need science to have morals, in fact, our sense of morality is innate across religions and cultures, and is the product of our evolution, specifically our living in small groups where empathy was an important life skill.

So in order to interpret reality, because no human has a brain big enough to actually interpret reality without negative or positive bias, we require a religion as the interpreter. If a new alien lifeform came to earth in the form of a virus or parasite, it could take only a matter of days, or weeks before all of us were infected. If we had no concept of "alien", we would not know what the hell was infecting us, and we'd not know how to deal with it at all.

Could you be a little more clear? I sure as hell would not be trusting ministers and priests to save us from an alien virus.

Another example, had religion not been invented, we would never have developed money, because money is not real, it's a symbol, a representation of something else, just like a number, it's based on superstition, but it works because everyone believes in the superstition. Scientists, in specific scientific minds that have no concept of of the fact that perception is reality, and that there is no reality besides the reality we all agree on, they'd spend their entire lives solving pointless puzzles for the sake of solving puzzles.

Science makes use of symbolic knowledge. I'm not sure what you mean beyond that, are you?

You know the type, the type who study science for the sake of and enjoyment of studying science, they get all A's in school, they study their lives away, and in the end they don't accomplish anything because they don't have a reason to study. Once again

Many people that study science accomplish interesting things, discover new facts about the planet and the life on it, about other planets and starts, ect...

If you are athiest, what is your reason for studying? There is no God? Ok, so what do you believe in? Athiests do believe in something and do have faith in things, sometimes it's faith in money, sometimes it's faith in science, sometimes it's faith in math, sometimes it's faith in people, but they have faith too and are no better than people who have faith in God. If you have no faith at all, then you study science for fun, not to find real solutions.

Because, since I'm not religious, I perceive a wonderous universe full of things not yet discovered. I have a provisional faith in the tools of science, and so far they have proved fruitful. Without science, you would have no computer to type on.

 

[Syzygys]

There is no such thing as lack of a belief.

Sure there is. Basicly it is a person who doesn't give a shit on the subject.
From Wikipedia, and I am done with this semantics war:

"Weak atheism (also called negative atheism) is the absence of belief in the existence of deities, without the belief in the non-existence of deities. Weak atheism contrasts with strong atheism, which is the belief that no deities exist, and theism, which asserts that there is at least one deity."

 

[Jaster Mereel]

That’s another problem; (like you said) people have many definitions for the concept of God; from the common everyday life to the supernatural. It isn't logical or rational.

Well, I would contend that it is indeed very rational. Too rational, in fact. People draw causal connections where none exist. Take astrology, for instance.

This is caused by the disposition usually by the influence of their parents. They take something they have no answer for and assume it is God.

I don't think so. I've had religious experiences, even though it hasn't changed my effective atheism, and I didn't grow up in a religious household. In fact, my family is full of level-headed engineers who never spoke of anything even remotely mystical. It has nothing to do with upbringing, I think. It's inherent to the human mind. A less open-minded atheist might have a religious experience and not attribute it to anything more than a hallucination (since most rationalistic thinkers don't seem to fully trust their own sensing). First, we'd have to define what a "religious experience" is, because not everyone is prone to calling it that. A more neutral phrase would be appropriate. That way, people who have an emotional reaction to the idea of being religious won't reject it out of hand.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Your implication does follow logically from your premise. However, I think your premise is false.

The implication is true, but that does not imply that the premise is true

I suspect you don't like the premise because it's a wider scope than you're comefortable with (ex. it would include babies).

 

[baumgarten]

Wrong. A-theist is the claim that God does not exist. Nothing else. Hence the "A". There is no such thing as lack of a belief.

Mention something that is completely new to me and I will at first have no belief whatsoever regarding it. No opinion at all. Ignorance implies, and constitutes, lack of belief.

Therefore I say that one who is ignorant of the concept of a god does indeed lack belief in any god. However, one who describes himself as an atheist must, by knowing the meaning of the term, know of the concept of a god, and therefore partake of an active disbelief, regardless of the level of vehemence or ambivalence surrounding it.