If Atheism Means a Lack of Belief in There being a God?

[gnomon]

Why do you believe there is no God?

A loaded question imposing an ignorant definition upon the philosophy of atheism.

Me........I like cats.

And cheese.

Shredded, melted, cubed, stringed.......I love cheese.

I like cats and cheese.

What does this have to do about God?

No more than your question.

 

[Willamena]

Best as I can figure out, he is implying that we should not have a concept of weak atheism.

Why, I have no idea.

No, he's stating that what is asserted as weak atheism makes strong atheism out to be a blatant contradiction.

 

[LuisDantas]

No, he's stating that what is asserted as weak atheism makes strong atheism out to be a blatant contradiction.

I don't think that is true.

 

[Demonslayer]

Step back a little from this issue.

None of the Comic Book Gods, as I like to call them, are real. I'm talking about the Gods that have very detailed stories. Zeus with his lightning bolt weapon, Poseidon with his seaweed beard and giant pitchfork, Yahweh flooding the earth, impregnating virgins, parting oceans to let armies walk through, whoever that blue elephant head guy is, etc, etc.

I mean these stories are ridiculous! They are fun and fanciful, and there are thousands of them. It's like Marvel Comics in the Sky.

But come on people. There is no blue guy with 20 arms, no human looking things with the head of a Doberman Pinscher, no guy who rows souls across a river on a boat, no guy with goats feet, no guy with a massive sledgehammer...these are human depictions.

Now, does this mean I know everything and there is no powerful being out there somewhere? No, of course not. I don't know what is, but I damn sure know what isn't, and the Comic Book Gods are not real.

 

[gnomon]

Step back a little from this issue.

None of the Comic Book Gods, as I like to call them, are real. I'm talking about the Gods that have very detailed stories. Zeus with his lightning bolt weapon, Poseidon with his seaweed beard and giant pitchfork, Yahweh flooding the earth, impregnating virgins, parting oceans to let armies walk through, whoever that blue elephant head guy is, etc, etc.

I mean these stories are ridiculous! They are fun and fanciful, and there are thousands of them. It's like Marvel Comics in the Sky.

But come on people. There is no blue guy with 20 arms, no human looking things with the head of a Doberman Pinscher, no guy who rows souls across a river on a boat, no guy with goats feet, no guy with a massive sledgehammer...these are human depictions.

Now, does this mean I know everything and there is no powerful being out there somewhere? No, of course not. I don't know what is, but I damn sure know what isn't, and the Comic Book Gods are not real.

The OP trivialized atheism.

Don't trivialize belief.

There is no need whatsoever to introduce "comic book gods" especially given the fact that comic books have relied upon traditional notions of belief held unto this very day by numerous cultures as being true.

So just.....don't.

This thread is about the OP's ignorant and simplistic view of atheism. Nothing more.

 

[Willamena]

I don't think that is true.

Fair enough. As discussions have shown, some apparently don't see it, while to others it is obvious.

 

[LuisDantas]

Do you think it is possible to have anything resembling an objective discussion about god-concepts?

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

The latter (belief there is no god) is often based on philosophical materialism and reliance on naturalistic explanations, whilst excluding supernatural or theological ones as incompatable with scientific knowledge. The contradiction in religious belief is that it makes cliams to know things that cannot be known or proven and demands faith rather than evidence. This kind of Atheism is often presented as a scientific fact (rather than a hypotheisis in the former). The validity of this position is debatable because it could be described as a 'dogma' as it is often taken as self-evidently true as well as deviating from mainstream understandings of science. This is roughly "strong atheism".

I am this; however, I am humble enough to admit that I can't disprove a god any more than the next can prove that there is one. It is a belief-based basis; and based on somewhat of a weak foundation, which is this: Sometimes, lack of evidence is evidence of absence. The human race has been searching for god for thousands of years. You'd think that if there is one ... and s/he wants to be found ... we would have found it by now. And the existence of such a powerfull being would be difficult to hide from empirical evidence. Moreover ... like Bigfoot and Nessie ... every single attempt to "prove" its existence have failed scrutiny. Eventually, we have to throw our hands up and say, "Oh man. This is BS. There is no Nessie; or we would have found her by now. There is no Bigfoot; we would have found it by now. There is no God; or we would have found the evidence by now."

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

Do you think it is possible to have anything resembling an objective discussion about god-concepts?

It would begin with a clear definition of god and that god's properties. Without these clear parameters, critical and objective evaluation simply isn't possible.

The next hurdle would be for the believer AND the nonbeliever to come to a consensus on what constitutes "compelling evidence". Our standards on that are very diferent; which places a lot of miscommunication between atheists and theists; what one insists is "evidence" the other dismisses as arbitrary because we have no consensus between us about what constitutes "compelling evidence".

 

[Willamena]

Do you think it is possible to have anything resembling an objective discussion about god-concepts?

Was this question addressed to me?

Anyway, my answer is of course. It's possible to have an objective discussion on literally any topic.

 

[gnomon]

Do you think it is possible to have anything resembling an objective discussion about god-concepts?

Absolutely.

But it requires a proper phrasing of the question.

Never mind the numerous culturally defined concepts of god concepts.

But loaded questions..........no thanks.

What so many forget is that theism is a belief in a specific form of deity. Atheism is a lack of belief but does not exclude the possibility that any form of deity, or more specifically a creator, exists.

Because all traditional forms of theism come preloaded with theological necessities as well as, and more importantly, cultural implications.

But to simply state..."Why do you believe there is no God"...is loaded because the concept of God is so convoluted and culturally specific.

I believe a proper discussion can be had.......but not preceding a loaded question and a false assumption about certain philosophical attitudes as introduced by the OP.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The next hurdle would be for the believer AND the nonbeliever to come to a consensus on what constitutes "compelling evidence". Our standards on that are very diferent; which places a lot of miscommunication between atheists and theists; what one insists is "evidence" the other dismisses as arbitrary because we have no consensus between us about what constitutes "compelling evidence".

Kinda sorta.

If a standard is so low that mutually contradictory ideas both clear the bar of "true", then it's demonstrably too low. Above this point, we can have legitimate disagreement about where the bar should be... but we're nowhere near that point with any religious belief that I'm familiar with.

Until we have a case for a god that's significantly better than the case for any competing belief that implies this god doesn't exist, we're justified in saying that the evidence for gods is not compelling.

 

[Ordinary Bloke]

All god-concepts that I have learned of seem arbitrary, unlikely, or all-out contradictory.

All the more so when they are presented as Very Important.

Also - you are ignoring the difference between weak atheism (referenced in the thread title) and strong atheism (which is what you are asking about in the OP).

Hi There, I spent most of my adult life as a sceptic at best until I was 44, I mean burning bushes, parting seas, water into wine...all pretty far fetched right. Then I got curious, I mean why do so many people, young, old, rich, poor, famous or not believe in it all. I spent years on a quest with an open mind to get to the bottom of why so many people do believe it all. The more and more I looked at it, the more I was amazed by what I found when I looked for evidence to explain the world around me.

Years later, I am a thoroughly devoted Christian and I still can't believe the difference in life....just saying

 

[LuisDantas]

@Ordinary Bloke - if you say so. I find myself wondering why you quoted my post.

 

[Jeff Strehlow]

The former (lack of belief) is based on using scepticism, reason and evidence to argue that the existence of god is impluasible (but not impossible). It uses science as a method to examine the question favouring naturalistic explanations as they are based on evidence but as It does not exclude the possibility that god exists, it may well have elements of agnosticism in that it is impossible to know for certian either way. This generally referred to as "weak atheism".

I don't quite agree with that. You are assuming that the person who lacks belief--the weak atheist--has thought about whether or not the Biblical or other gods exist. The person may have other things going on in his/her life and never even thought about whether or not these gods exist. Maybe the person simply doesn't care. There are a number of Buddhists, I think, that fit into that category. They really don't care because they don't feel that the answer to that question is important.

 

[Laika]

I don't quite agree with that. You are assuming that the person who lacks belief--the weak atheist--has thought about whether or not the Biblical or other gods exist. The person may have other things going on in his/her life and never even thought about whether or not these gods exist. Maybe the person simply doesn't care. There are a number of Buddhists, I think, that fit into that category. They really don't care because they don't feel that the answer to that question is important.

Thats fine. I don't share the agnosticism of the weak atheist but they are so common on RF that unless I am pretty clear there are multiple forms of atheism, I'm liable to be attacked for misrepresenting atheists views. This is a complex area as there is no doctorine an atheist can point to in order to clearly define the boundaries of one set of atheists against another, so I appreciate the input.

 

[Aletheia Athanatos]

Why do you believe there is no God?

I have never, personally, seen any evidence that supernatural tiny winged faeries exist. And the only accounts I've come across that have been claimed as evidence, such as the photograph shown to Arthur Conan Doyle (Google "Cottingley Fairies" to find out more) have been unreliable.

It would be true to say "Aletheia Athanatos doesn't currently hold a belief that supernatural tiny winged faeries do exist."

But that is not the same claim as saying: "Aletheia Athanatos currently holds a belief that supernatural tiny winged faeries do not exist."

For example, there are uncountable propositions I've never heard of or considered. Do you hold a belief that humans can sail upwind faster than the wind is blowing? What about the viability of the Scharnhorst effect?

So your question "Why do you believe there is no God?" - it is based upon a false assumption.

I don't hold any such positive belief, except in the cases of specific proposed supernatural deities that are self-contradictory. For all I know, maybe Cthulhu exists and is lurking in his house at R'lyeh, "Dun Fhtagn". I don't rate it as remotely likely, but I can't disprove it through pure logic.

But neither do hold a positive belief that God exists. Why would I? I've never come across a shred of evidence supporting the hypothesis, and I'd currently rate the existence of the Jehovah depicted in the scriptures of the Abrahamic religions at a probability level of the same order of magnitude as the probability of supernatural tiny winged faeries existing. Maybe lower.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I don't hold any such positive belief, except in the cases of specific proposed supernatural deities that are self-contradictory.

Why not?

I mean, the only reason to hold the positive belief, say, that dinosaurs are extinct is a lack of evidence for them living now.

Personally, I have no issue saying that dinosaurs are extinct. I also see no need to have a special standard for gods and fairies.

An absence of evidence is evidence of absence. It may not be perfect proof of absence, but it's often strong enough for practical certainty.

 

[Ella S.]

I have never, personally, seen any evidence that supernatural tiny winged faeries exist. And the only accounts I've come across that have been claimed as evidence, such as the photograph shown to Arthur Conan Doyle (Google "Cottingley Fairies" to find out more) have been unreliable.

It would be true to say "Aletheia Athanatos doesn't currently hold a belief that supernatural tiny winged faeries do exist."

But that is not the same claim as saying: "Aletheia Athanatos currently holds a belief that supernatural tiny winged faeries do not exist."

For example, there are uncountable propositions I've never heard of or considered. Do you hold a belief that humans can sail upwind faster than the wind is blowing? What about the viability of the Scharnhorst effect?

So your question "Why do you believe there is no God?" - it is based upon a false assumption.

I don't hold any such positive belief, except in the cases of specific proposed supernatural deities that are self-contradictory. For all I know, maybe Cthulhu exists and is lurking in his house at R'lyeh, "Dun Fhtagn". I don't rate it as remotely likely, but I can't disprove it through pure logic.

But neither do hold a positive belief that God exists. Why would I? I've never come across a shred of evidence supporting the hypothesis, and I'd currently rate the existence of the Jehovah depicted in the scriptures of the Abrahamic religions at a probability level of the same order of magnitude as the probability of supernatural tiny winged faeries existing. Maybe lower.

Absence of evidence can also sometimes be concrete proof of absence. In Boolean logic, for instance:

p1: If A is true, then B is true.
p2: B is false.
c: A is false.

This can work with evidence like so:

p1: If water turns orange when exposed to an equal amount of salt, then we should observe water turning orange when we add an equal amount of salt to it.
p2: We do not observe water tuning orange when we add an equal amount of salt to it.
c: It is not true that water turns orange when exposed to an equal amount of salt.

p1 is roughly equivalent to a testable hypothesis.

Many types of Gods are testable. For instance, a God who answers prayers. If such a God existed, then we would expect to see prayers be answered. After several prayer studies have been done, and we have done our meta-analyses on them, we have discovered that such a God concretely does not exist:

Intercessory prayer for the alleviation of ill health - PubMed

This on its own does not discount the possibility of other gods, but it does disprove the existence of a prayer-answering God.

 

[Aletheia Athanatos]

Absence of evidence can also sometimes be concrete proof of absence. In Boolean logic, for instance:
Many types of Gods are testable. For instance, a God who answers prayers. If such a God existed, then we would expect to see prayers be answered. After several prayer studies have been done, and we have done our meta-analyses on them, we have discovered that such a God concretely does not exist:

Intercessory prayer for the alleviation of ill health - PubMed

This on its own does not discount the possibility of other gods, but it does disprove the existence of a prayer-answering God.

Using "prove" in the way the word is used in law (rather than in mathematics), we can say it has been proven that there are no Gods currently answering a statistically significant number of prayers in one particular category ("prayers for a sick person to become well"), or that they don't answer prayers offered up by a statistically significant fraction of a sample drawn up from devout practicing Christians in the location studied.

It doesn't prove that, for example, there's isn't a tribal God in some remove village, who is highly responsive, but only to prayers offered up by His chosen people.

It certainly seems to rule out certain interpretations of the Christian deity (eg "name and claim"), though even then it's proponents could try arguing that God's ways are mysterious, and it is not for us to know if he's deliberately not answering prayers monitored by scientific studies because He doesn't want to provide proof He exists as that would reduce the opportunity to be virtuous by having faith.


It is basically a terribly tricky area, and that's before you get into Descartes, and brains in jars.