Isn’t Atheism a world view without reasons and arguments?

[Subduction Zone]

This is definitely a great answer. @Subduction Zone please note that I wasn't far off.

Thank you for your honesty, it speaks highly!

I may not agree, but we can live together in philia love (Gr) even if we disagree

I doubt if you understood it. Please note he is willing to admit that there is a very small possibility that he is wrong. Not only that if given evidence that he was wrong he would change his mind. This is totally unlike most Christians. Especially those that read parts of the Bible literally.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

False statements fail to posit how the world is. A 'positive' statement (root word 'posit') is anything that states a way the world is. If the statement is that the world is without gods, that is positive.

'Not', 'never', 'non-,' etc. are negative terms. But they can be used to make positive statements.

You have twisted English so thoroughly that up is down and black is white.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

which translates that different atheists believe differently.

Very true. The only position that all atheists share is a lack of belief in deities which is why that lack of belief defines atheism.

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

No, I would never say that atheist have beliefs.

I said: "You atheists and agnostics sound like a bunch of beleivers arguing about what they believe."

Your first sentence is contradicted by your second sentence.

 

[PureX]

So positivism is disingenuous? The idea that we should only believe things once we have good reason to do so always just struck me as common sense. Why do you disagree?

Ah, but you are conflating "good reason" with "knowledge of". And as an agnostic, you would have already determined that such knowledge is not available to you. So what your "good reason" demands, you cannot attain. Leaving you stymied. And yet I have never met an atheist that was willing to admit to being stymied. Instead, they all proclaim their rejection of the theist proposition, and then try and avoid having to defend their reasonless rejection by spewing some nonsense about "unbelief".

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

Based on logic

What logic?

You are correct in that it would be false for you. But you hardly represent atheism at large and certainly, as noted by others in multiple instances, your position of "I also don't assume that God does not exist' is not a prevalent definition of atheism.

Prevalent amongst who?

 

[paarsurrey]

And yet there are atheists right here on this forum telling you otherwise, and you continue to tell atheists that they are wrong about their own position. You won't let atheists define what atheism is, and instead push your own view of what atheists should or shouldn't believe.

Since Atheism is not an organized faith/no-faith, religion/no-religion, world view/no-world view whatever, so I believe, every individual that belongs to it can only speak about his/her own personal view about its meaning/no-meaning and has no exclusive rights on Atheism as other Atheists or believers may understand from it.It is free for all. Right, please?

Regards

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

That of course would be correct. Yes, I would say I positively believe I never said that. That is an affirmation of my belief.

So can you show us what a negative statement would be? It would seem that you call everything a positive statement.

"I don't" is an affirmation of what you are believing.

"I don't believe" is a description of what you don't believe. How is that not a negative statement? How are you twisting that around into a positive belief statement?

Let me ask you this, what do the words belief and faith mean to you, that you think it's a dirty word to use with atheism?

Belief is something you think is positively true. Not believing is a not accepting something as positively true. Faith is a positive belief that people hold in the absence of evidence. Knowledge is gained through evidence.

Theists think faith is a dirty word which is why they claim that "atheists have faith too" in order to discredit atheism.

What does future possibility have to do with a current position? The current position is "don't believe", which is a statement of your current views, or beliefs.

I am talking about the present. I am presently fallible. I could be wrong. Therefore, I don't make universal negative statements about what doesn't exist because I lack the knowledge and the ability to completely rule out something as true. It is merely an acknowledgement that humans are not omniscient.

No it doesn't. It simply means at the moment, it's how you believe.

How does "I don't believe" become a belief?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Ah, but you are conflating "good reason" with "knowledge of". And as an agnostic, you would have already determined that such knowledge is not available to you. So what your "good reason" demands, you cannot attain. Leaving you stymied.

I've noticed that you try to infer people's thoughts a lot, even though you seem extraordinarily bad at it. Why does this tactic appeal to you?

And yet I have never met an atheist that was willing to admit to being stymied.

Maybe that's because you've never managed to stymie an atheist.

Instead, they proclaim ad nauseam their rejection the theist proposition, and then try and avoid having to defend their reasonless rejection by spewing some nonsense about "unbelief".

If someone rejects some god-concept and you want to know why, ask them why they reject it. It's really not that hard to grasp.

If you want to know why they reject a god, then asking them why they're an atheist - which doesn't require rejection of gods - isn't going to get you the answer you want.

A given atheist might cheer for the Chicago Cubs, enjoy Indian food, and reject certain gods... all of these things are compatible with atheism, but none are required by atheism. It makes no more sense to ask "why do some atheists reject god 'X'?" than it does to ask "why do some atheists cheer for the Cubs?" You're trying to tie together unrelated concepts.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Ah, but you are conflating "good reason" with "knowledge of". And as an agnostic, you would have already determined that such knowledge is not available to you. So what your "good reason" demands, you cannot attain. Leaving you stymied. And yet I have never met an atheist that was willing to admit to being stymied. Instead, they all proclaim their rejection of the theist proposition, and then try and avoid having to defend their reasonless rejection by spewing some nonsense about "unbelief".

There is no defense needed. You are merely trying to shift the burden of proof. The standard is not to believe in something until after valid evidence for that belief has been given. Why do you think that an atheist has to justify a lack of belief? What evidence do you base your lack of belief of fairies on?

 

[Thermos aquaticus]

Since Atheism is not an organized faith/no-faith, religion/no-religion, world view/no-world view whatever, so I believe, every individual that belongs to it can only speak about his/her own personal view about its meaning/no-meaning and has no exclusive rights on Atheism as other Atheists or believers may understand from it.It is free for all. Right, please?

Regards

But that's not what we are seeing. We are seeing theists claiming that they can define what atheists believe or don't believe.

If you ask millions of millions of atheists what they believe or don't believe, the only common position they will share is a lack of belief in deities. Yes, some atheists also believe that there are no gods, but some other atheists don't share that belief. If you define atheists as those who believe there are no gods then you are excluding a lot of atheists. If you define atheists by a lack of belief in gods, then you include all atheists.

 

[PureX]

What 'looks like a belief' to you, exactly? That the concept of a real god is incoherent? If so, that's not just a belief, it's a datum, and one clearly shown by your inability to offer a useful definition.

We're discussing what you mean when you say 'god'. And you still haven't told me.

Why does what I mean by it matter to you? The theist proposition is directed at each of us, individually, and must then be responded to that way. I could say that my definition of God is " a feeling of wetness", and so every time it rains I feels my God's presence all around me. But what good will this do you regarding the existence or nature of God?

The 'philosophical position' that what exists, exactly? Imaginary gods exist in vast numbers, but only in the imagination of individuals. Real gods?[/QUOTE]All ideas are imaginary. Including the idea of God, reality, truth, love, and so on. So what you need to define is why you accept some of them as 'valid' and dismiss others as 'invalid'.

I say the notion is incoherent, undefined, apparently undefinable.

Well, it looks to me like that's a problem with YOUR criteria for conceptual validity, not mine. So why are you asking about this?

You can disagree with that by providing a useful definition of a real god and then we'll both know what we're talking about.

You don't appear to me to even understand what "reality" is, or you would understand that it's both a relative and subjective experience. And not an "objective fact" existing apart from and beyond human cognition.

Imagination as one aspect of brain function is real, just as brain function is real. As for the things imagined, take the concept of a unicorn. The 'concept' part is real, exists as a brain state, just as a sheet of drawing paper can be real. The 'unicorn' part, the thing imagined, is not real, just as the unicorn I draw on the drawing paper is not real.

You keep saying "not real" when what you mean is not physically extant. But reality itself is not physically extant. It's a concept in our minds, just like a unicorn is.

The basic trouble here is that the unicorn, though imaginary, is well enough described to let us determine whether a real candidate unicorn is indeed a real unicorn. That is, the idea of a real unicorn is coherent, even though there aren't any. Whereas 'god', though imaginary, is not well enough described to let us determine whether a real candidate is indeed a real god. That is, the concept of a real god is incoherent.

The idea of a mystery is not well defined, either, and yet we all know it when we experience it, and we all agree that they "exist". Not everything that exists is well defined, nor physically extant. And yet they "exist" just as surely as those thins that are.

I really think you need to examine your criteria for what is, and what isn't "real" more closely, and more stringently.

 

[PureX]

I've noticed that you try to infer people's thoughts a lot, even though you seem extraordinarily bad at it. Why does this tactic appeal to you?

It doesn't. I have only the words posted to respond to. And so that's what I do. The problem is that a lot of people write without considering the logic of the idea they present. So I end up having to do it for them. Some learn, most just go into "auto-defend" mode.

 

[PureX]

There is no defense needed. You are merely trying to shift the burden of proof. The standard is not to believe in something until after valid evidence for that belief has been given. Why do you think that an atheist has to justify a lack of belief? What evidence do you base your lack of belief of fairies on?

"Belief" is irrelevant to the discussion. The discussion is about accepting or rejecting the validity of the theist proposition. That's what defines theism and atheism, ... not what one does or doesn't "believe".

 

[Subduction Zone]

"Belief" is irrelevant to the discussion. The discussion is about accepting or rejecting the validity of the theist proposition. That's what defines theism and atheism, ... not what one does or doesn't "believe".

Like it or not that is a belief based position. Nice attempt at a dodge though.

 

[Augustus]

Would you say that Russell was an atheist?

I quoted what he said on the subject a page or 2 back.

tl;dr: from a purely philosophical perspective, agnostic. In a practical sense, atheist.

 

[Windwalker]

Belief is something you think is positively true.

Correct. You positively believe the Golden Gate bridge is not painted blue. You positively believe such a claim is false. To say "I don't believe in X", is a positive statement that you believe that X is false. Very simple. "Not-this" is an affirmation of of rejection. You positively reject a claim, you're not neutral about it.

Not believing is a not accepting something as positively true.

Correct.

Faith is a positive belief that people hold in the absence of evidence.

Skeptics understand faith that way. What it is however, is a bit more complex than that.One can have all their beliefs shattered, yet still have faith some truth may yet unfold for them. Beliefs are generally formed ideas about something, whereas faith is more about a felt sense, when speaking in the religious sense of "faith".

Knowledge is gained through evidence.

It is gained by experience. That experience serves as evidence. Experience replaces faith.

Theists think faith is a dirty word which is why they claim that "atheists have faith too" in order to discredit atheism.

What? I think we have hit on the source of the discomfort that atheists feel, and why all the denialism about it being a belief or a faith. I personally don't find these as negatives or "dirty words", at all. What I DO think however is that many atheists mistakenly assume faith is a dirty word based upon seeing such things as evolution denial, and hence why all the denialism that they are actually engaging in faith themselves! It's not faith that is the the problem but rather the insistence that what one believes must be preserved at all costs. That is an abuse of what real faith actually is. It's a gross misunderstanding of faith as being the same as "unfounded beliefs".

I say atheism is a faith, and that is a positive thing. It has faith enough to reject ideas that don't fit with modern knowledge. The result of that is to free faith from outdated garbage beliefs. Faith pulls one through this difficult process of casting off error in pursuit of truth. And that drive, that impulse towards truth, is exactly what faith is. Not this other nonsense. Atheism is an act of faith in pursuit of truth. Now, that is not discrediting atheism. It is applauding it as a truer faith than those who bury their heads in the sands of denialism in order to perverse their beliefs. The "True believer" in other words, has next to no faith.

I am talking about the present. I am presently fallible. I could be wrong. Therefore, I don't make universal negative statements about what doesn't exist because I lack the knowledge and the ability to completely rule out something as true.

As do I, but I think it's quite safe for me to say I don't believe God looks like Santa Claus. Same as you. I think it's safe for me to state positively, that I don't believe in that. I affirm that as a positive belief, that Santa Claus God is not something I believe in.

 

[Cacotopia]

I'm not foolish enough to respond to people who will dismiss 90% of my post without even reading it. Unless you actually address what I said, this conversation is over.

but you just did.

 

[Apologes]

I am saying that "There is no God" is not a necessary position for an atheist.

Not for a negative atheist, but it for a positive atheist.

And yet there are atheists right here on this forum telling you otherwise, and you continue to tell atheists that they are wrong about their own position. You won't let atheists define what atheism is, and instead push your own view of what atheists should or shouldn't believe.

I'm simply stating facts about a words history and the heritage of the view it refers to. Those things aren't up for debate and the people in this thread are wrong if they think other wise.

Regardless, it should be obvious from my posts that I'm not shoving anything on anyone. It is true that won't let people redefine atheism in such a way that would fail to acknowledge the historically predominant and still relevant today positive position.

The historically predominant view amongst who? Christians?

As I said before, among atheists. It is deluded of you to think that Christians have been bossing atheists around when it came to defining atheism. I am strictly referring to academia throughout history and have been also quoting contemporary atheist philosophers on this issue.

 

[Cacotopia]

There are no personal congruencies which extend to all atheists other than the base definition of the word, lack of belief in gods, their thoughts and beliefs, should they have any are singular and limited to each individual within the group. No atheist I have ever spoken to has ever agreed 100% with my own views. We share a label, and a few ideologies, or ideas. But no complete consensus exists within the group other than a lack of belief I know I am reiterating this point. But just to make sure.