Is atheism a belief?

[j1i]

I get where you are coming from, I do. That thought and opinion are relative. I argue this myself all the time. My go-to example is the common house-fly. We humans think that human life is precious, however the house-fly would much rather encounter a dead human body than a live one. The fly's perspective is that he/she doesn't care, at all, about human life. The fly cares whether or not something is a prospective meal, and a warm, moist, nutritious place to lay eggs. Beyond this, it does not concern itself of the current or former welfare of the corpse lying before it.

But NONE of what you said gets at the true base that I argue we have ALL adopted, and that cannot rationally be denied. My stance is simply to call for more of the same, and deeper adherence to it. And that position is "adhere to the evidence" And by evidence, I am not talking about your intuition, your feelings, or your hopes and dreams - those are not the kinds of "evidence" to which I am referring. And this is exactly where I can definitively say that YOU have gone off the rails. All this talk between us, and NOT ONCE have you provided any useful evidence. Not once. And the huge error in judgment here is that YOU THINK YOU HAVE. That's the sad state of affairs we are looking at here. Somehow your mind has become completely warped as to what stands for evidence.

And the reason I state that we are all adherents to the "religion of evidence" is that we use it in proper ways CONSTANTLY, every day of our lives. Take learning to walk for example. When learning to walk, balance ends up being pretty key to properly mastering maintenance of the human gait. Having only two proper legs, humans must walk upright, and our walk ends up being (as some others have put it) more of a constant, graceful falling. Your mind helps you in this endeavor automatically, but basically what is going on is that the feedback of your senses is the "evidence" that your mind uses to determine what works and what doesn't. If you over-compensate for gravity pulling you in one direction or another, your mind takes note. Too much force from one foot, not enough from the other... try it a bit differently next time. And so, based on the evidence of your progressively more successful, intended stride, you learn to walk on two legs as well as you are able, or well enough that your walk is acceptable to you. Every minute movement you make with ANY amount of confidence can only be made at all deftly because you have EVIDENCE that what you are doing, the acts you are taking, the thoughts you are having, etc. works in the way you expect it to. You can move your arm to touch your nose, with your eyes closed, because you have previous evidence of the placement of your nose, you have prior evidence that your arms will obey your commands/thoughts and you have evidence that the precise length of your arms will line up to place your finger upon your nose at a very exacting set of coordinates in relative space. ALL OF THAT activity is BASED ON EVIDENCE. And that is what I propose that we adhere to. We strive to stick to the evidence, and strive to investigate and find the evidence when we have none for a proposition. And if, time after time after time we cannot find proper, compelling evidence for our proposition, then we admit that the proposition is not worth keeping in a "top of mind" space. We admit that we should not be trying to talk others into believing our proposition. We reserve our proposition for the only space in which it is even remotely warranted: OPINION.

There is one word modification in the reply
Of the word
Martyrdom
changed to Witness
Arabic has similar terms

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

One person believes there IS a God and another person believes there is NO God. Neither has real proof. Why are they not both beliefs?

Believing that there is no God is a belief, but it's not what makes a person an atheist.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

In what way have I described God?

You described it as "God," for one. You also (contradictorily) described it as undescribed.

You also used syntax that suggests you consider "God" to be a singular thing, not a plural set of things or a mass quantity.


You also used the term "God" in a way that suggested you were trying to communicate something meaningful with the term, though exactly what you were trying to communicate is a question for you to answer, not me.

I think you are attributing a description to my god image that I have never made.

Nope. I think you're just a bit too quick to see Abrahamicism where it might not exist.

I'm not surprised. We both live in a predominantly Abrahamic world. It's hard to dodge the assertions made about the True God, they're just so pervasive. But I stopped accepting their authority a long time ago.
Tom

You're still so wrapped up in Abrahamicism that you see it in the shadows and jump, apparently.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Thank you for your kindness, frankness, and many writing for me
I appreciate you and your generosity (I read it well)

Believe it or not, I am enjoying our conversation. I like the challenge of expressing my thoughts cogently and in defense of particular positions. I believe it helps hone my capabilities as a conversationalist/debater/etc., and without competing ideas, I would stagnate.

It is nice to discover the facts to support our ideas, my friend
But we cannot falsification facts in the name of science

Another problem I have here - I am not even talking about science. Note that in my last reply I didn't even mention science or the scientific method. Not once. I only talked about adhering to the evidence.

There are metaphysical things we can not explain science, including the first creation

As much as you may deny this, IT DOESN'T MATTER that the "first creation" cannot be explained by science. In fact, it does not matter if it can be explained at all! I challenge you to come up with even ONE reason that we must have knowledge of the beginnings of life on this planet (or in the universe) in order to live our lives here. Name ONE reason we simply "have to" know. I already know you can't come up with a reason - because the knowledge, while interesting, is not at all a necessity. And so, I would argue that unless we find out some way come to this knowledge of the start of life/the-universe by examining our universe and coming to conclusions WITH EVIDENCE, until that happens WE HAVE NO BUSINESS making ANY claims at all about how life began. We can hypothesize, sure - but claiming to have knowledge? Claiming that you know? At this point that is a fool's errand. You can't know. And if you do have the evidence to back up the position (again, not just assertions made by you or made in some book, and not what you hope the case to be, and not thought-experiments that make huge leaps to get you to your goal) then by all means, please present it. If you have the kind of evidence I am talking about, then you will change the world.

The atheist wants harmony with their material foundations in the interpretation of the universe and life

The atheist mostly just wants to see a compelling reason to believe. None of what you have brought forward in our conversation is compelling. It doesn't take much effort at all to deny it and inform you where you are thinking incorrectly about your assumptions. For that is what you are doing - simply assuming God, assuming that there "must have been" a creator, assuming everything you believe, which is why you are blind to any valid way by which you might actually convince a skeptic. It's all "so obvious" to you... and so your imagination dies in the attempt to even fathom what it would mean if there were no God. And so you can't see it from the other side, and mainly for that reason you will never be able to even understand what would constitute proper, compelling evidence.

Adherents of the myth (Superstition) of evolution and atheists rely heavily on terminology manipulation

So many people want to just be able to state that evolution is a "myth" - but this flies in the face of so much evidence - REAL, tangible, substantial evidence in our reality, capable of being witnessed and detected, measured and communicated. My goto evidence for evolution is ERVs - Endogenous Retroviruses. Within a DNA sequence, they are capable of being present if the examined cell has previously been infected by a virus, or if the sequences are passed onto you from your ancestors due to their cells (sperm or egg) having been infected. We share a common placement AND exact virus RNA/DNA sequencing in over 100,000 locations between our DNA and the DNA of other ape species. Over 100,000 same-viruses in the same relative locations. To deny this as evidence of common descent (ape to man) is to deny the ways in which the natural world functions. To deny this is to delude oneself. This is exactly the type of evidence that has never, ever been presented for God. Again - I don't even think any theist has thought long enough about what it looks like for there to be "no God" in order to even come up with places/parts to look for this type of evidence from. You've already assumed your stance to be correct, regardless the evidence - which is a philosophically precarious position to put yourself in.

The existence of the difference between the two worlds, the world of the unseen (metaphysical) and the world of martyrdom, a fact indicated by the sources of knowledge, including science, where it says that there must be a previous existence of matter, energy and laws studied by science

Even if scientists make some statements about understanding that there must be something fundamental underlying all of our existence, they MAKE NO CLAIMS about what that IS. You DO. Do you see your error there? How do you know? And if the best of what you have as evidence is what you have already provided to me in this conversation, then I'm sorry, but it is nowhere near good enough. It is not convincing, it is not compelling, it is based on a shaky foundation of assumption and circular reasoning.

Matter, energy and laws are meanings and inanimate objects that do not create, master or create

And because of that fact it somehow means YOU KNOW what created everything? Seriously? You don't come out and say that, obviously, because you don't want to directly embarrass yourself. But you may as well come out and say exactly that, because that is the only logical end result of what you are saying here. You are saying: "Because inanimate objects cannot create themselves it gives me the ability to say that I know what did create them."

How to find the first of living things, is beyond the norms of the basics of life, it is precedent

It precedes the reproductive processes of male and female beings as the chain of couples must form a beginning far from reproduction

I wouldn't agree with this. Not when, within lab conditions, they have produced molecular chains that, given a "soup" of raw materials to exist within, will reproduce themselves. And that is just based on the natural processes of the materials of the universe at work. So I can't say one way or the other, but with crystals that grow "by themselves" and chemical reactions constantly happening on their own throughout the universe, all I do know is that there is A LOT of activity, and we haven't yet witnessed the majority of it. Which makes it even more ridiculous when you say that you "know."

This is a scientific principle and applicable and the subject of agreement even if any researcher discuss the scientific results of any experiment on the same basis of the first, rejection of his research and conclusions

But the scientists within the labs you speak of have mountains more realistic and present data/observation to work with than ANYONE does for ANY god concept. This is something you simply cannot deny.

So how it is the first metaphysical creation of various beings, which is not determined by options

The result is that there is a Creator of absolute power and will, and that his actions are not subject to material laws

Nope. This is a huge and unwarranted leap. You may have deceived yourself into thinking you know this for good reasons... but you don't. Especially given the types of evidence you have been giving.

The trap that atheists try to follow is the adaptation of verses of religions to fit the myths (Superstition) of false science, because this is an appropriate behavior for certainty.

Once again... you just don't have compelling evidence. You don't. End of story. I don't care about scripture, I don't care about "the failings of science." You don't have proper, compelling, inter-subjectively verifiable evidence for your claims. You don't.

What if the theory of evolution proves true in the future?

What do you mean? Based on all available evidence, it is the correct interpretation of the diversity of life NOW.

 

[ArtieE]

I'm talking about all those entities that man has created over the centuries. What's there to define? Gods is a manmade construct.

So what you are actually claiming is that in the whole of the universe or universes or dimensions or whatever no entities could possibly exist similar to those man has imagined over the centuries?

 

[ArtieE]

I'd be very surprised if that were true. If you asked a large number of atheists "do you believe no gods exist?" most would say yes.

The poll on the top of the page has most saying no to atheism being a belief...

 

[ArtieE]

One person believes there IS a God and another person believes there is NO God. Neither has real proof. Why are they not both beliefs?

They are.

 

[Augustus]

The poll on the top of the page has most saying no to atheism being a belief...

You mean the completely unrepresentative poll featuring pretty much entirely those who I identified as the minority of people who actually care about this kind of thing?

If I went to a Athletico Madrid game and asked people who the best team in Spain were, I wouldn't assume that this mean the majority of Spaniards think Althletico are the best team in Spain.


"I'd be very surprised if that were true. If you asked a large number of atheists "do you believe no gods exist?" most would say yes.

Not because they prefer one definition over the other, but simply because most wouldn't make any distinction between these positions as they don't read the kind of sources that consider this important."


So do you really think the average atheist, who spends 0% of their life reading atheist books/listening to atheist podcasts/posting on religious sites/etc. actually cares about what are largely quibbling technicalities with no functional difference?

 

[ArtieE]

You mean the completely unrepresentative poll featuring pretty much entirely those who I identified as the minority of people who actually care about this kind of thing?

So you are telling us that most of the minority of people who actually care about this kind of thing don't know what atheism is?

So do you really think the average atheist, who spends 0% of their life reading atheist books/listening to atheist podcasts/posting on religious sites/etc. actually cares about what are largely quibbling technicalities with no functional difference?

Define "average atheist". Is an average atheist a person who is simply not a theist or a person who actively believes gods don't exist?

 

[Augustus]

So you are telling us that most of the minority of people who actually care about this kind of thing don't know what atheism is?

No idea what that has got to do with anything I said.

I've never been offering a preferred definition, simply pointing out that most people wouldn't make the distinction between the 2 positions.

Define "average atheist". Is an average atheist a person who is simply not a theist or a person who actively believes gods don't exist?

The average person who would answer yes to the question 'are you an atheist'.

 

[ArtieE]

No idea what that has got to do with anything I said.

That's the problem.

I've never been offering a preferred definition, simply pointing out that most people wouldn't make the distinction between the 2 positions.

I see. You voted for atheism being a belief in the poll on top of the page but you don't have a preferred definition... OK...

 

[Augustus]

That's the problem.

Yes, it would be better if you focused on what I said.

Which two positions?

The 2 that were the entire focus of my discussion and are essential to being able to responding meaningfully: disbelief/lack of belief

And how many of those would be strong atheists do you think?

How many of these even know what a "strong atheist" is? 5%?

If you gave a large number of people who identify as atheists a questionnaire that included the question "I believe there are no gods" Yes/No I am absolutely certain that a majority would answer 'yes'.

While some people will make the "lack of belief" distinction most people do not. It's not particularly intuitive, and most people don't consume the type of material that would make a big deal of the difference.

In any large, diverse group you can very confidently assume that the average person cares very little for non-intuitive quibbling technicalities that have absolutely no impact on them.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Oh all right. If that's what you believe......

Again, you seem confused.

What is it that you think I believe?

 

[Augustus]

I see. You voted for atheism being a belief in the poll on top of the page but you don't have a preferred definition... OK...

I never said I don't have a preferred definition, I said I've not been offering a preferred definition in this thread. In my opinion, for someone who identifies as an atheist, the distinction between "I don't believe gods exist" and "I believe gods don't exist" is grammatical not cognitive. It's just a topic that has been done to death so I can't be bothered having the same discussion for the hundredth time

What I'm discussing has nothing to do with what I think is better though.

 

[ArtieE]

Yes, it would be better if you focused on what I said.

I do focus on what you say. For example you said you didn't have a preferred definition but voted for atheism being a belief in the poll.

The 2 that were the entire focus of my discussion and are essential to being able to responding meaningfully: disbelief/lack of belief

The meaning of this sentence is unclear. Are you of the opinion that disbelief and lack of belief are two different opinions? 1. Lack of belief is a synonym for disbelief.
Disbelief | Definition of Disbelief by Lexico
2. Lack of belief is not a position, it's the lack of one.

How many of these even know what a "strong atheist" is? 5%?

If you gave a large number of people who identify as atheists a questionnaire that included the question "I believe there are no gods" Yes/No I am absolutely certain that a majority would answer 'yes'.

And the rest would also be atheists showing that atheism is the absence of belief in gods not the belief that gods don't exist.

 

[ArtieE]

I never said I don't have a preferred definition, I said I've not been offering a preferred definition in this thread.

You said and I quote: "I've never been offering a preferred definition". So voting for atheism being a belief in the poll is not the same as offering a preferred definition? OK.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I never said I don't have a preferred definition, I said I've not been offering a preferred definition in this thread. In my opinion, for someone who identifies as an atheist, the distinction between "I don't believe gods exist" and "I believe gods don't exist" is grammatical not cognitive. It's just a topic that has been done to death so I can't be bothered having the same discussion for the hundredth time

What I'm discussing has nothing to do with what I think is better though.

I think this is the aspect of the debate people get hung up on a lot - the idea that one definition is "better" than another, which I think is a bit inane.

While it is useful for practical purposes to have a common and precise definition that is shared across all parties in a discussion, I think people lose sight of the fact that it is not the definitions themselves that matter but the concept under discussion. While I personally accept "lack of belief in god" as the broadest definition of atheism, I do not feel it is necessarily wrong to discuss the concept of "belief that there is no god" and to label that position "atheism" (provided, of course, that it is understood that this definition is only being used in the debate for that purpose and doesn't apply necessarily to all uses of the term).

I've seen far too many discussions become bogged down in grammatical wrangling when it would be easily over come by one or both sides simply saying "Okay, we shall adopt this definition for the sake of convenience so that we can discuss the concept, as long as it is understood that this is not necessarily the way I would define the term outside of this discussion".

While I wouldn't consider myself a devotee of his, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote a fun little dialogue which I think illustrates the problem of definitions and a reasonable solution:

SOURCE: Disputing Definitions - LessWrong 2.0

If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?

Albert: "Of course it does. What kind of silly question is that? Every time I've listened to a tree fall, it made a sound, so I'll guess that other trees falling also make sounds. I don't believe the world changes around when I'm not looking."

Barry: "Wait a minute. If no one hears it, how can it be a sound?"

Albert: "What do you mean, there's no sound? The tree's roots snap, the trunk comes crashing down and hits the ground. This generates vibrations that travel through the ground and the air. That's where the energy of the fall goes, into heat and sound. Are you saying that if people leave the forest, the tree violates conservation of energy?"

Barry: "But no one hears anything. If there are no humans in the forest, or, for the sake of argument, anything else with a complex nervous system capable of 'hearing', then no one hears a sound."

Albert: "The tree produces acoustic vibrations. By definition, that is a sound."

Barry: "No one hears anything. By definition, that is not a sound."

Albert: "My computer's microphone can record a sound without anyone being around to hear it, store it as a file, and it's called a 'sound file'. And what's stored in the file is the pattern of vibrations in air, not the pattern of neural firings in anyone's brain. 'Sound' means a pattern of vibrations."

Barry: "Oh, yeah? Let's just see if the dictionary agrees with you."

Albert: "Hah! Definition 2c in Merriam-Webster: 'Sound: Mechanical radiant energy that is transmitted by longitudinal pressure waves in a material medium (as air).'"

Barry: "Hah! Definition 2b in Merriam-Webster: 'Sound: The sensation perceived by the sense of hearing.'"

Albert and Barry, chorus: "Consarned dictionary! This doesn't help at all!"

Albert: "Look, suppose that I left a microphone in the forest and recorded the pattern of the acoustic vibrations of the tree falling. If I played that back to someone, they'd call it a 'sound'! That's the common usage! Don't go around making up your own wacky definitions!"

Barry: "One, I can define a word any way I like so long as I use it consistently. Two, the meaning I gave was in the dictionary. Three, who gave you the right to decide what is or isn't common usage?"

Albert: "This is the dumbest argument I've ever been in. You're a niddlewicking fallumphing pickleplumber."

Barry: "Yeah? Well, you look like your face caught on fire and someone put it out with a shovel."

(Time rewinds fifteen minutes. Eliezer appears from nowhere in a peculiar conveyance that looks just like the time machine from the original 'The Time Machine' movie.)

Barry: "Gosh! A time traveler!"

Eliezer: "I am a traveler from the future! Hear my words! I have traveled far into the past—around fifteen minutes—"

Albert: "Fifteen minutes?"

Eliezer: "—to bring you this message!"

(There is a pause of mixed confusion and expectancy.)

Eliezer: "Do you think that 'sound' should be defined to require both acoustic vibrations (pressure waves in air) and also auditory experiences (someone to listen to the sound), or should 'sound' be defined as meaning only acoustic vibrations, or only auditory experience?"

Barry: "You went back in time to ask us that?"

Eliezer: "My purposes are my own! Answer!"

Albert: "Well... I don't see why it would matter. You can pick any definition so long as you use it consistently."

Barry: "Flip a coin. Er, flip a coin twice."

Eliezer: "Personally I'd say that if the issue arises, both sides should switch to describing the event in unambiguous lower-level constituents, like acoustic vibrations or auditory experiences. Or each side could designate a new word, like 'alberzle' and 'bargulum', to use for what they respectively used to call 'sound'; and then both sides could use the new words consistently. That way neither side has to back down or lose face, but they can still communicate. And of course you should try to keep track, at all times, of some testable proposition that the argument is actually about. Does that sound right to you?"

Albert: "I guess..."

Barry: "Why are we talking about this?"

Eliezer: "To preserve your friendship against a contingency you will, now, never know. For the future has already changed!"

(Eliezer and the machine vanish in a puff of smoke.)

Barry: "Where were we again?"

Albert: "Oh, yeah: If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?"

Barry: "It makes an alberzle but not a bargulum. What's the next question?"

 

[Augustus]

I do focus on what you say. For example you said you didn't have a preferred definition but voted for atheism being a belief in the poll.

You said and I quote: "I've never been offering a preferred definition". So voting for atheism being a belief in the poll is not the same as offering a preferred definition? OK.

It's not that difficult to grasp the point. In the discussion I've not been offering a preferred definition because it is irrelevant to the point I'm making.

The meaning of this sentence is unclear. Are you of the opinion that disbelief and lack of belief are two different opinions? 1. Lack of belief is a synonym for disbelief.
Disbelief | Definition of Disbelief by Lexico
2. Lack of belief is not a position, it's the lack of one. And the rest would also be atheists showing that atheism is the absence of belief in gods not the belief that gods don't exist.

Never mind, you're still not getting any closer to discussing what I was discussing.

My point: most people do not make the distinction between "don't believe gods exist" and "believe gods don't exist".

This was in response to someone making the claim that most atheists 'lack belief' and believing gods don't exist would be a small minority position.

If you asked a large number of self-identified atheists, I think it is highly unlikely that you would get a major difference in the positive response rate to "I believe gods don't exist" compared to "I don't believe gods exist".

This has nothing to do with what the "best" definition of atheism is, it is about the fact that, on any given issue, the average person doesn't really care about quibbling technicalities with no impact on their lives (especially when the distinction is not particularly intuitive so they basically have to be taught it before thinking about it).

 

[ArtieE]

This was in response to someone making the claim that most atheists 'lack belief'

I might have missed that post. Who was making the claim that most atheists lack belief? All atheists lack belief. I would like to correct the individual.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You mean the completely unrepresentative poll featuring pretty much entirely those who I identified as the minority of people who actually care about this kind of thing?

Quite right. The imaginary atheists that you invented and reside only in your head are much more representative of reality.