"Lack of belief"

[ArtieE]

Only if you have a clear belief regarding the likelihood of god's existence.

Meaning?

 

[ArtieE]

"Weak Atheism" is weak in reasoning as the name suggests. Right?
Regards

Theism requires no reasoning at all. It only requires that you believe your parents if they tell you some god(s) exist, or that you believe what your preferred holy book says.

 

[Augustus]

Meaning?

You present a naturalistic view thus consider it so probable that babies don't have a belief in god that it should be considered to be the 'default'. This shows you consider the existence of god to be so unlikely to the point that His potential existence should not be factored into the equation. Even a mild scepticism towards the idea that 'god doesn't exist' would force you to concede that the 'default' state is unknown.

It is inconsistent with stating you 'lack belief' regarding god's existence as you very much hold a belief regarding the question 'Does god exist?'

 

[McBell]

You present a naturalistic view thus consider it so probable that babies don't have a belief in god, that it should be considered to be the 'default'. This shows you consider the existence of god to be so unlikely to the point that His potential existence should not be factored into the equation. Even a mild scepticism towards the idea that 'god doesn't exist' would force you to concede that the 'default' state is unknown.

It is inconsistent with stating you 'lack belief' regarding god's existence as you very much hold a belief regarding the question 'Does god exist?'

what evidence have you that babies believe in god?

 

[Willamena]

what evidence have you that babies believe in god?

That's kind of irrelevant, don't you think?

 

[McBell]

That's kind of irrelevant, don't you think?

really?
Irrelevant?
interesting.

 

[Augustus]

what evidence have you that babies believe in god?

Absolutely none. Why does it matter?

 

[Acim]

With respect to the debate between Willamena, Falvlun, Revoltingest, Acim, et al...

The basic point here is that any and all given theistic positions require the making of at least one assertion that one or more god concepts exist. Whereas it does not necessarily require even one assertion to disbelieve in any and all god concepts (i.e. weak atheism requires no assertions). Weak atheism is therefore the default position since it requires no assertions of theistic belief; adopting a position other than weak atheism is to make at least one assertion about a god or gods. The imagined position of infants notwithstanding.

And part of my point addresses the part I highlighted in blue. As a weak atheist, there is (or ought to be) a requirement of no assertions regarding theistic belief. Otherwise, those assertions (by weak atheists) do reflect on the position / understanding / conception of one or more god concepts. The imagined position of infants and our interactions with them where intellectual conversations are moot, make the infants stay consistent with the requirement. Not so much with adult weak atheists who may move from no assertions to disbelieving type assertions and counterarguments.

 

[viole]

"Weak Atheism" is weak in reasoning as the name suggests. Right?
Regards

In the same way strong atheism suggests strong reasoning.

Your call.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Acim]

And the belief in gods entirely remains a matter of faith in that which cannot be clearly explained or demonstrated.

The belief in existence remains a matter of faith which may not be clearly explained or (objectively) demonstrated. If you feel otherwise, please provide your explanation. I shall not hold back in my scrutiny of the leap of faiths I feel confident will be made.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

clearly cosmologists put aside their reservations for both Lemaitre and his theory when the evidence mounted to support the Big Bang theory.

? Atheist Hoyle, was the one who coined the pejorative 'Big Bang' to mock this 'religious 'pseudoscience', he refused to accept the theory, no matter the evidence, right up till his dying day not so long ago.

As another famous skeptic of atheism, Max Planck said, science progresses one funeral at a time.

 

[ArtieE]

You present a naturalistic view

I present the view that unless one can show that babies are capable of belief one must assume they aren't.

thus consider it so probable that babies don't have a belief in god that it should be considered to be the 'default'.

I consider it's probable that babies don't have beliefs in anything including gods considering their immature brains.

 

[ArtieE]

Absolutely none. Why does it matter?

Then we must assume they don't until you have provided the evidence they do simply because having a belief in something requires a concept of the something, not having a belief in something requires nothing.

 

[Augustus]

I present the view that unless one can show that babies are capable of belief one must assume they aren't.I consider it's probable that babies don't have beliefs in anything including gods considering their immature brains.

Then we must assume they don't until you have provided the evidence they do simply because having a belief in something requires a concept of the something, not having a belief in something requires nothing.

Which assumes a naturalist philosophy.

This isn't a critique of your position, just that it is incompatible with the assertion that you 'lack belief' regarding god's existence. You very clearly don't.

De facto, you believe god doesn't exist whether you choose to acknowledge this or not.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

I'm going to keep my responses short for lack of time, but can elaborate another time on one or more points if challenged...



Very well... but right off the bat, I have to wonder what you mean, exactly, by the human mind's contents being beyond or "aside" the scope of nature.



Where did you get this idea from? Clearly the contrary is the case. I'd argue that nature is quite creative. Just look around!



New things happen all the time without forethought. Genetic mutations, for instance. Or the fusion of new elements in stars in the formative universe. Not to mention the evolution of the mind and its creative power.



Your point does not stand up, I'm afraid. You place unsound restrictions of the capacity of nature as a creative force.

Put it this way, we know that creative minds can create entirely novel things, that is an unambiguous observation

Not so for nature, the more we learn, the more we appreciate that those elements essential for life on Earth, were created according to extremely specific math, blueprints, instructions, at the subatomic level-

they were not, as previously believed, the sort of thing that just spontaneously happens with the handful of simple laws of classical physics and lots of time and space.


So too with the development of that life, tempting as may be, there is no direct observation, measurement, repeatable experiment, that shows how simple laws and time, space, millions of significantly lucky accidents, can morph a single cell into a human being. Any more than we could show how classical physics accidentally produced such specific functional elements in the first place. Without instructions to follow, simple laws don'
t just get bored, and start developing their own consciousness to ponder themselves with! that all has to be written in from the get go.

It's always tempting, to extrapolate the superficial observations of automated function, into simple explanations of automated origin, but the same rationale would conclude that the software running this site, wrote itself for no particular reason. No ID required.

Without the creative will, the plan, the desired outcome, and a consciousness to harbor these things, the automated functions encoded here do not exist in the first place.

This we know for sure, but can nature do the same? This we simply don't know yet.

 

[Acim]

Then we must assume they don't until you have provided the evidence they do simply because having a belief in something requires a concept of the something, not having a belief in something requires nothing.

Interesting. I would say having a concept of something generally necessitates a belief (or disbelief) in something. Babies have no concepts of god(s) - or anything. Not having a concept requires nothing, which works well for how babies are operating in this discussion. They are plausibly the only true weak atheists in the whole discussion. Have a concept of deities, disbelieve it, and it's challenging to see that as weak atheism. Have no concept of particular god (or really anything in existence) and that would be weak / implicit in the disbelief. But, it could conceivably be something that is never discussed with the implicit atheists for once it is, the concept is more or less known. Not true with babies.

 

[ArtieE]

Which assumes a naturalist philosophy.

Babies have a naturalist philosophy?

This isn't a critique of your position, just that it is incompatible with the assertion that you 'lack belief' regarding god's existence. You very clearly don't.

We are talking about babies, not me...

De facto, you believe god doesn't exist whether you choose to acknowledge this or not.

We are talking about babies not me...

 

[Augustus]

Babies have a naturalist philosophy?We are talking about babies, not me...We are talking about babies not me...

I'm talking about your assumptions regarding babies, they aren't speaking for themselves after all...

 

[ArtieE]

I'm talking about your assumptions regarding babies, they aren't speaking for themselves after all...

No you're not. You said and I quote: "This isn't a critique of your position, just that it is incompatible with the assertion that you 'lack belief' regarding god's existence. You very clearly don't.

De facto, you believe god doesn't exist whether you choose to acknowledge this or not." There's no mention of babies here but a lot of "you"...

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Hi Guy,



In summary, I think this debate cannot continue until you honestly gain more understanding of biology. I do not have the time to teach you, and quite frankly, in gaining this understanding, you will undoubtedly change your mind about evolution.

Please understand that this is not intended at all as a put down. MANY people are in the same boat as you in failing to understand biology and evolution. There is a real problem in the United States (if you are American?) concerning our educational system more generally. I was greatly disheartened recently to find that most of the people I know, as well as many on Facebook where I first saw this posed, could not correctly answer a 9th grade-level math problem, an algebra question. A lot of people continued to argue that their wrong answer was correct, even after being taught how to use the correct order of operations (i.e. PEMDAS in the US, I think it's called BEDMAS in the UK). A few thought that math was a subjective discipline, that you could do whichever order of operations one felt like doing and still arrive at a "right" conclusion... tell that to the aerospace engineers, that they can make up the rules of math when they design planes. I'm not sure whether to laugh or to cry...

Anyway, until you gain more understanding of biology, your arguments for Creationism are as simple to me as those of someone claiming that the Sun must revolve around the Earth because it appears to do so in the sky from our vantage point. To such a person, I would suggest they read up on basic astronomy and that, once understood, the debate is over... because the facts become more apparent once a person correctly understands the parameters of the problem.

According to the most recent Gallup poll, belief in 'fundamentalist' evolution, (i.e. a purely natural process with no ID involved ) is around 19% (here) in the US.

Similarly, the number of fundamentalist creationists, is a minority

Like many I was taught in school to accept the former Darwinian extreme without question, and came to question it later with a little deeper investigation

Most us are somewhere between the two extremes, and so once again this often comes down to a semantic debate

I believe evolution has occurred if we define evolution simply as change; (as does the Bible) but it does not tell us how this change took place. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. Ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transitions than we had in Darwin's time.