Dropping the gloves, no holding back...

[Original Freak]

Alright atheists and possibly some of you Agnostics out there...

There is always a big deal with atheists that atheism does not mean stating there is no god but in fact stating 'no god belief'. The reason being the first is a positive statement which demands proof and evidence of a claim. There are those of us out there who claim to be Strong Atheist who do dare to make the Claim of there being no god. I am one. It comes down to a converstation I had on an old forum from an old show on Freethoughtradio.com.

So where on the chart do you fall. Are you a firm believer of the 'no god belief' line of thought on Atheism, are you a Strong Atheist. Do you believe that Strong Atheists have no more validity than those that claim God exists because they make a claim which demands proof?

I don't want to make this post too long so I'll hope for some replys first and allow my point of view to come from there.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

What you 'dare' is of less interest than is what you can substantiate.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

What you 'dare' is of less interest than is what you can substantiate.

Perhaps he should have left the gloves on. :biglaugh:

 

[jimbob]

What you 'dare' is of less interest than is what you can substantiate.

My day was just made

 

[michel]

What you 'dare' is of less interest than is what you can substantiate.

....."There are those of us out there who claim to be Strong Atheist who do dare to make the Claim of there being no god. I am one."......

I think Original Freak is trying to make the point that he is so convinced that there is no God that he will 'lay his neck on the line'...

 

[Original Freak]

The word dare was put in there because even with Atheists the opinion of Strong Atheists can be shunned due to people assuming all Atheists have this belief.

I basically want to know what the various views on this matter are with the Atheists here.

 

[michel]

The word dare was put in there because even with Atheists the opinion of Strong Atheists can be shunned due to people assuming all Atheists have this belief.

I basically want to know what the various views on this matter are with the Atheists here.

Now you've lost me ! An atheist is one who believes that there is no deity; how can you have a 'strong atheist' ? or, presumably, a 'weak atheist' ??

 

[Yerda]

As unlikely as the possibility appears I could not say 'there is no god' for the reason I do not know. I see no reason to submit to the idea of one, two, or loads existing however.

 

[Original Freak]

Now you've lost me ! An atheist is one who believes that there is no deity; how can you have a 'strong atheist' ? or, presumably, a 'weak atheist' ??

An atheist is someone with 'no god belief' They make no claim, they just don't believe in a god. A Strong Atheist is someone who takes one more step and makes the claim 'there is no god.' A statement which causes one to have the burden of proof.

The problem with being a strong Atheist is that peoples belief in god has become (thankfully) very liberal and involves a lot of feeling from the heart, blind faith, metaphors and opinions. Things that simply cannot be proved or disproved. It the Word for word type religious beliefs in god that can be disproved and that's where we come from.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

It is my personal view is that writing everything in bold is somewhat equivalent to writing everything in CAPS.

It is also my personal view that you have not made your case and, in fact, will find yourself unable to successfully do so. Consider the following (repeated from a different thread):

To be certain that God does not exist necessitates one of two positions:

• that the available evidence against God disproves God, or
• that the absence of evidence for God disproves God.

If you maintain the former position, it is then incumbant upon you to present the evidence and show it to be probative. If, however, your position is the latter, you are essentially asserting that all true things are knowable through the protocols available to science, i.e., testable evidence. But this is a clearly unsupportable position (Godel, Heisenberg). I am not "less certain" than you. I simply consider "certainty" in this area delusional.

 

[Halcyon]

How can you claim there is no God? How can you claim there is?

You either believe it or you don't, to claim to know for certain is foolishness, no matter which camp you sit in.

 

[The Voice of Reason]

I'll answer, as an Agnostic -

Lacking any evidence of God's existence, I will not make the leap of faith that our Theistic friends do - that God exists.

Since it is (logically speaking) impossible to prove that God does not exist, I will reserve judgement about His existence until my last breath of life.

As I have told Deut before - with each passing day of my life, I move closer and closer to Deut's position as an Atheist. Intellectually, I know that the possibility of God existing is virtually nil - I simply do not want to close the door, until the last possible moment.

TVOR

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

... and I couldn't ask for better company!

 

[Original Freak]

Alright, I'll quite with the bold, I just don't think the Comic Sans shows up without it.

Basically the view point stems from taking individual gods and the literal interpitation of where they come from and proving them wrong or imcomplete. For example the bible says Bats are birds and rabbits chew cud. This is just factually incorrect so the literal interpritation of the whole bible must be question. This leads to people interpriting the bible differently and using metaphors and opinions. Of course these views cannot be proved or disproved but it becomes untestable and undebatable. The strong atheist view has to take each and every opinion and view on god individually, which is practically impossible, so the view becomes general, and I find here in North American it tends to be about Fundamentalist Christianity.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Bad bad argument. To repeat an old tale ...

Someone tells you that 16/64 = 1/4, arrived at by cancelling 6's. You subsequently determine that the idea of cancelling 6's is seriously irrational. Therefore ...​

But the answer is still 1/4.

To claim certainty because of perceived flaws in the Bible's is substantively the same as claiming certainty about creationism because of Piltdown.

Nice font.

 

[Original Freak]

When it comes to fundamentalist beliefs you can claim certiantity because of flaws. Most Christians aren't fundamentalists and I'll agree it becomes impossible to prove or disprove their beliefs, but when you stick to the rigidity of fundamentalist beliefs you only have to break a single foundation post for the whole thing to come down.

 

[Tawn]

When it comes to fundamentalist beliefs you can claim certiantity because of flaws. Most Christians aren't fundamentalists and I'll agree it becomes impossible to prove or disprove their beliefs, but when you stick to the rigidity of fundamentalist beliefs you only have to break a single foundation post for the whole thing to come down.

But that only proves that particular interpretation of God to be almost certainly false. There could still be a God which is different to the one Chirsitians propose

 

[The Voice of Reason]

Original Freak -

You know that a generalization about Christianity based on Fundamentalists' (or Evangelicals') views is unfair. I would not wish my belief system to be judged by some of the posts put forth by others on this site.

TVOR

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I would not wish my belief system to be judged by some of the posts put forth by others on this site.

I'll try not to take that personally.

 

[Ceridwen018]

This whole idea seems extremely redundant to me. How is it possible to believe that god exists, but have no belief in him/she/them/it? To me, there is absolutely no difference in "having no god belief" and "declaring that god does not exist". Obviously, if you have no belief in god, you don't believe it exists!