Does not believe in atheism? What does that mean? It's illogical. How can anyone say they don't believe that someone is an atheist? Or that atheism doesn't exist. Makes no sense.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
I see no value in atheism
- Thread starter The Transcended Omniverse
- Start date
You are overstating the case. One does not have to "choose" to be an atheist, any more than one has to "choose" not to have an interest in, say, high fashion.
Even using the word "rejection" is overstating the case. If belief in God is to have any significance, it can't be presumed until explicitly evidenced for.
Yet it's still a choic, IMO. You reject the idea because it makes no sense and is pure myth. For,you, the idea of God is an invention and you reject that. I have no problem with this but I still see it as choice.
I'm pretty certain that American Atheists would find the idea of "belief in atheism" rather strange. Your definition of atheism is very extreme, caricatural even.
Sapiens
Polymathematician
You do seem to like to tie yourself up in strange and unnecessary knots.
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Well no, I don't see how it is a choice at all. Certainly in my case it is not. I believe according to what I see evidence for, it is not a choice at all.
Agreed Luis. If you are resting the case on the lack of evidence, it's still rejection of some idea d/t the lack of evidence. Most of the atheists I have known or interviewed tell me it's about a lack of evidence and some are very vocal about this. When one rejects the idea d/t lack of evidence, it's still choice, IMO. Sort of like knowing the concept of intelligent life on other planets but rejecting the idea d/t lack of evidence. Should that evidence one day present itself, one would have to reconsider the idea.
Ok. I understand that and respect your position. I just don't agree with it. I guess we will have to agree to disagree. And since it's 4am, I guess I better get my butt to work. Will return to this later. Have a good morning Bunyip.
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
I don't consider beliefs a matter of choice, strictly speaking. Once you have seen a hundred sunrises, you cannot simply "choose" to believe that the sun won't rise on a particular day. Beliefs are responses to observations and a consequence of our understanding. Equally, lacking a belief isn't a matter of choice, neither for the explicit or implicit atheist. I do not "choose" to find the reasons given for God's existence unconvincing, I am merely not convinced by them as a consequence of my understanding and my personal critical approach and skepticism. Likewise, implicit atheists reject the concept not as a matter of choice, but as a matter of simply not having the concept put forward to them for them to accept it.
Last edited:
That is still an odd, slanted way of putting it, though. Ambitious, unsupported ideas with lack of evidence should be rejected as a matter of course.
Would you call my belief that there are no watermellons in my refrigerator a choice?
If you truly want to see some sort of active choice in the matter of theism and atheism, it seems to me that it is necessary to make it in the form of theism being the choice. Specifically, the choice to believe without proper evidence.
Because they (we) lack the choice, I am willing to bet.
We are rarely given much choice on the matter between being supportive by omission or instead being, as you put it, "very vocal".
Ah, but is that even the case? I don't think so. Refusing to be bullied into belief (or pretense of belief) is just not much of a choice - or even much of a rejection, frankly. It is more like self-defense really.
Until then, it is very much a stretch to say that one is choosing not to believe in that idea.
Besides, this is an imperfect parallel. Life on other planets is basically meant to be barely detectable, while the existence of god is generally described as very consequential indeed.
Mohammad Nur Syamsu
Well-Known Member
The words have a proper logic attached which works. If you want to change the logic attached to the words, then you must show that this logic works. But with the normal logic attached to the words that you use, then the logic in your words is contradictory, it is error. And when you would redefine fundamental terms, you pretty much have to redefine the entire dictionary, because many other words rely on fundamental terms. It all just becomes one big questionmark.
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
It means that someone who has never heard of atheism, and therefore can not possibly believe the general aims of atheism as defined by Amercian Atheists as the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a life-style and ethical outlook verifiable by experience and scientific method, independent of all arbitrary assumptions of authority and creeds.
Aims and Purposes | American Atheists
The atheists here on this thread are claiming such people who have never been exposed to the concept of theism/god, and who naturally therefore do not believe in atheism as defined above, are still considered atheists because they are not active theists....
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
Well you are wrong....didn't you read my post...it is not my definition of atheism, it is that of American Atheists....I provided the link....
And that lack of belief is based on something. It doesn't just pop magically in to a person's mind from nowhere.
No offense to anybody in particular, but honestly, so many forum atheists like to pose themselves as these laser sharp reasoners, but you have to explain the simplest things to them over and over and over again, in thread after thread after thread.
I hereby grant any mod the legal right to delete any post, preferably all of them, that I may write on atheism. Perhaps that will cure me of this pointless irrational hobby? Apparently I am not such a laser sharp reasoner either, or I wouldn't be here doing this.
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
Are you seriously suggesting that the American Atheists organization are the de facto deciders of what constitutes an atheist, what atheists should believe, and what should be considered atheistic?
Last edited:
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
It's based on the lack of evidence and the courage not to clutch at metaphysical straws.
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
So, do you believe in the existence of the Tragmaflagmavore?
Right, thank you, atheism is based on the lack of evidence.
1) The atheist applies their human reason to the question.
2) By doing so they are assuming human reason is binding on the question.
3) Where is the proof that this is true?
Please consider what human reason actually is, and what the God claim actually is.
Human reason is the poorly developed ability of a single semi-suicidal species on a single planet in one of billions of galaxies. A species only recently living in caves, a species with thousands of hair trigger nukes aimed down it's own throat, a well known ever pending existential extinction threat it rarely finds interesting enough to discuss.
The God claim is a proposal about the ultimate nature of all reality.
So, this one little half insane species on one tiny planet in one of billions of galaxies thinks the rule system it has developed is binding on everything everywhere (a realm it can't even define in the most basic manner) and thus upon any gods who may or may not reside within.
Now it could possibly be true that human reason is binding everywhere. Just as the Bible could possibly be true.
But there is no compelling evidence to prove either.
Thus the entire debate is faith based on all sides.
And finally...
Theists generally get this.
Atheists generally don't.
I stand corrected... I guess I can say context matters, but still, I stand corrected.Well you are wrong....didn't you read my post...it is not my definition of atheism, it is that of American Atheists....I provided the link....
Of course not.
It is theism which does, after all.
In recent weeks I have learned of and began to consider the hypothesis that theism arose originally of a lack of proper coordination between the two brain hemispheres. It is an intriguing idea and I think it is probably not too far from the mark.
Atheism does not need to pop magically, nor to justify itself. It never did, nor could it ever do - unless actual evidence for some form of deity is produced, I suppose.
No offense to anybody in particular, but honestly, so many forum atheists like to pose themselves as these laser sharp reasoners, but you have to explain the simplest things to them over and over and over again, in thread after thread after thread.
I hereby grant any mod the legal right to delete any post, preferably all of them, that I may write on atheism. Perhaps that will cure me of this pointless irrational hobby? Apparently I am not such a laser sharp reasoner either, or I wouldn't be here doing this.
No comment.