Secular Humanism

[Nimos]

I have not stated my own personal views in this thread. I really intend it to be for those who identify as secular humanists to give their reasons for their views.

That's obviously fine. You just wrote that you had seen no proof for naturalism so thought that nature at least pointed in that direction. Whether it offers a full explanation is in the air. But I don't think you can find perfect proof for any of them, but rather arguments/evidence for them.

 

[Echogem222]

The author states that Atheism is not a world view, but that most Atheists do in fact have a common world view called Secular Humanism.

Yes, but they also state the Atheism can't be a non-secular religion, yet I believe in the non-secular religion, Flawlessism. Maybe they just misspoke, but I'd like to hear your take on that.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

That's obviously fine. You just wrote that you had seen no proof for naturalism so thought that nature at least pointed in that direction. Whether it offers a full explanation is in the air. But I don't think you can find perfect proof for any of them, but rather arguments/evidence for them.

I don't think there is conclusive proof for ANY of the three possibilities, naturalism, dualism, or immaterialism. So whatever view I hold, I admit in advance that I cannot prove it. It is a BELIEF.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Yes, but they also state the Atheism can't be a non-secular religion, yet I believe in the non-secular religion, Flawlessism. Maybe they just misspoke, but I'd like to hear your take on that.

I'm not sure what you mean. Aren't religions by definition non-secular? Could this be a typo on your part? Please help clarify what you mean. Thanks.

FWIW, I see atheism as being the absence of religion. But that's only if you similarly say things like Buddhism and Taoism are not religions. I realize it can be a complicated topic. I don't think that not having a belief in God/gods alone all by itself can qualify as a religion, but I think you can make an argument that it is POSSIBLE for an atheist to have a religion.

 

[Echogem222]

I'm not sure what you mean. Aren't religions by definition non-secular? Could this be a typo on your part? Please help clarify what you mean. Thanks.

FWIW, I see atheism as being the absence of religion. But that's only if you similarly say things like Buddhism and Taoism are not religions. I realize it can be a complicated topic. I don't think that not having a belief in God/gods alone all by itself can qualify as a religion, but I think you can make an argument that it is POSSIBLE for an atheist to have a religion.

Here is the definition of Secular Religion: A secular religion is a communal belief system that often rejects or neglects the metaphysical aspects of the supernatural, commonly associated with traditional religion, instead placing typical religious qualities in earthly, or material, entities.

In the video on that channel, "Atheist “Denominations” Explained", Satanism was mentioned, and that's a Secular Religion, so I assumed you knew about that since you seemed to often watch videos on that YouTube channel (but now it's obvious that's not the case). However, my religion, Flawlessism, is a non-secular Atheism religious belief by default, you can add in the existence of God, Gods, etc. as beliefs, but it's not in the base version of Flawlessism.

(if you want the link to that video I mentioned, here it is:

)

 

[LuisDantas]

What has atheism to do with these books, though?

The Christian Bible insists that people must believe in the literal existence of a certain concept of god that it also claims to be valid for literally all of humanity.

I don't think that ever happened before in any other doctrine.

That was arguably the event that made the existence of atheism as an idea necessary. And the specific attributes of those god-concepts made atheism as a practical reality unavoidable, even an epistemological and religious duty.

The Qur'an goes a significant step further in that it essentially faces atheists to say that either we are lying about being atheists or it is a false scripture proposing a false doctrine.

A very strong case can be made that Atheism would not even need a name were it not for those two texts. In broad strokes, atheists living in mostly Hindu, Shintoist, etc communities could well never even realize that they are atheists without first learning of the idea from Abrahamic sources (even if indirectly).

They've rejected one or two versions of God.

That's hardly a decent philosophical atheism.

I agree, far as agreement goes. But that is not really the point.

Atheism is really very undemanding in and of itself. It requires hardly any justification or elaboration. It amounts to a very specific piece of aesthetical inclination backed by as little effort of intellectual honesty as any given community requires.

We only tend to forget that because we exist in communities that put a lot of effort into:

1. Telling themselves that atheism is somehow "odd", unusual, even rare (it is not and could never be).

2. Encouraging our own people to treat atheists with bad emotional and intellectual attitudes, mostly to sustain a sense of unity-against-the-other.

Atheism is simply not very meaningful - or necessary - outside of expectations that are really unusual outside of Abrahamic expectations.

 

[Kfox]

Of course it’s a world view. And according to it, those things you say other people call God aren’t. So clearly you have an idea of what should and shouldn’t correctly be identified as God. How else could you claim they are wrong?

I’m not claiming they are wrong for calling it God, they can call anything they want God as far as I am concerned, I’m saying I don’t call it God, because it doesn’t meet my personal qualifications for holding such a title.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Where do you think I am, if not in the world external to you?


The self I speak of is the same concept of self-awareness as in phrases like Cogito ergo sum, or the utter centrality of being oneself in one's own conscious thought, and being the one who reacts to particular perceptions and particular ideas.

Even if I were to imagine I was instead part of some single all-encompassing "consciousness", it would still be "I" who thought that.


Perception doesn't seem illusory to me. Since you're posting here, it doesn't seem illusory to you either. And I can imagine I am a microorganism, an owl, the earth, the solar system, the universe, but no one will be thinking that for me ─ it will still be "I" on the engine.

You’re in the same world I’m in. It isn’t external to either of us, it’s integral to both; we just view it from different perspectives.

This “utter centrality of being oneself” is precisely the illusion I’m referring to. Like the utter centrality of earth in relation to the universe, it’s a false perception created by perspective.

Sunrise and sunset didn’t seem illusory to our ancestors; the illusion was sustained by two factors; first, it was confirmed by observation; it seemed obviously the case. And second, it accorded with humanity’s self importance. The ego, in other words, placed itself at the centre of everything it perceived. But the sun neither rises, nor sets, in relation to the earth. Our relationship with the world outside our planet needed to be completely rethought.

 

[Dao Hao Now]

Which illustrates the one and only point that I myself want to make in this thread -- that while Atheists routinely rag on Theists for believing in something they cannot prove, they themselves have assumptions they cannot prove.

Which are what?

Atheists “routinely rag” on Theists for believing in something they have no credible evidence to believe, and therefore lack a rational reason to believe it.

The “cannot prove” bit generally comes from the Theists saying “you cannot prove that God doesn’t exist”,……
to which admittedly some atheists then reply “and you cannot prove that God exists” as an example of the unreasonableness of their (what seems to them is an insurmountable) defense of why they feel justified in their beliefs.
Much as it appears you are attempting to do here.

While atheists generally say things more along the lines of;
“Since all the known objective, demonstrable, repeatable, data or proposed models we have fail to indicate that there is any reason to assume there is, or even may be any sort of god, yet still describe to the best of current knowledge, how the universe works without invoking anything other than known, or at least predictably understood, natural physical laws and processes.
And, by using this methodology continue to gain more and better understanding of the workings within the universe why would we not expect that the scientific method would continue to produce positive results?”

While Theists on the other hand generally rely on often ancient texts from dubious sources, intuition, “revelation”, heresay, unverifiable testimony, likely misconstrued confirmation biased interpretation of personal experience, (all of which are always subjective), and logical fallacies.

Actually, if anyone makes the positive claim that ONLY the natural world exists, then yes, they do indeed have a burden of proof.

The problem is that only you have made that claim.
“Holding to naturalism” and agreeing that so far as is known “the natural world is all that exists”,
Is not synonymous with “ONLY the natural world exists”.

You have repeatedly said

I provided the source for these tenets of secular humanism, meeting my obligation. If you disagree with that, your beef is not with me but with the Atheist who created the video.

The attempt to pass the buck falls flat.
The problem being that you apparently misconstrued and in turn misrepresented what was actually in the video.

The video plainly states that not very many atheists fall into the “positive” (“hard”:”strong”) category — those that make a positive claim — and that in fact most atheists fall within the “negative” (“soft”/“weak”) category of atheism where there is in fact no positive claim.

Due to the fact that because of this atheism cannot be considered as a worldview (which you correctly stated in your OP), the
video’s author then instead divides atheists into 2 different categories — implicit and explicit — and chose to focus his research on “explicit” because he felt that “seemed just about right”, not too broad (by including those that were deemed to not have put sufficient thought into their position) and not too narrow (because he realized the “positive” atheism would be “too narrow”).

Here is where he made a serious category error;
(and you fell for it)

Like you in an attempt to derive a worldview in order to have what he deemed would be a positive claim (to counterpose to a theistic worldview’s positive claim) and since he (and you) acknowledge that atheism doesn’t hold such a positive claim, endeavored to find a proxy for atheism that he deemed to hold a positive claim and chose Humanism…..

Herein lies the category error.
By his own numbers Humanists only accounted for 9% of atheists.
So under 10% of atheists consider themselves Humanist;….
while the great majority of Humanists are in fact
atheists.

So it would be correct to conclude that Humanists in general share similar attitudes as atheists …..since they are atheists.
However, it would be incorrect to conclude that atheists in general share similar attitudes as Humanists…. since only a small fraction of them (less than 10%) are Humanists.

An equivalent:
Most Japanese have dark hair…..
Does not equate to:……
Most people who have dark hair are Japanese.
Thus one cannot presume because someone has dark hair…they are Japanese.


What you have done is attempt to erroneously use Humanism as a proxy for atheism in order to claim that atheists are making a positive claim.

Granted, in your OP you stipulated “secular humanist” in your challenge to defend their position….

If you are a secular humanist, I am interested to see you defend your positions, specifically
1. That the natural world is all that exists
2. That the universe is self existing (needs no creation by a deity)
3. That the only way to know things is through science and reasoning

Unfortunately you also misrepresented the Humanist position.
Of course you cite “the tenants of secular humanism” and claim this “meets your obligation”.

I checked out those “tenants of secular humanism” and, unfortunately failed to see anything about science and reasoning being “the only way to know things”.

Perhaps you could point me to exactly where in
“A Secular Humanist Declaration”,
“The Amsterdam Declaration”,
Or “The Humanist Manifesto iii”
It says this?



You did however, confess your true intent with:

the one and only point that I myself want to make in this thread -- that while Atheists routinely rag on Theists for believing in something they cannot prove, they themselves have assumptions they cannot prove.

claiming atheists (notice not Humanists) “make assumption they cannot prove”.
Yet, you plainly understand this is not true with statements such as…..

Atheism is simply the lack of belief in God/gods, no more, no less. This lacks the necessary elements (ontology, epistimology, and axiology) of a world view.

 

[blü 2]

You’re in the same world I’m in. It isn’t external to either of us, it’s integral to both; we just view it from different perspectives.

That is, you and I are different people with our own separate takes on everything we know through our senses, instincts, emotions and thoughts.

This “utter centrality of being oneself” is precisely the illusion I’m referring to. Like the utter centrality of earth in relation to the universe, it’s a false perception created by perspective.

Hit me with your best shot to demonstrate that my perception of the universe is not unique to me ─ and that instead there's only one consciousness and that my consciousness is merely an undetached fragment of it.

Sunrise and sunset didn’t seem illusory to our ancestors; the illusion was sustained by two factors; first, it was confirmed by observation; it seemed obviously the case. And second, it accorded with humanity’s self importance. The ego, in other words, placed itself at the centre of everything it perceived. But the sun neither rises, nor sets, in relation to the earth. Our relationship with the world outside our planet needed to be completely rethought.

I don't see how any of that is relevant to your thesis about one grand consciousness.

Nor do I hold the cosmological views of the ancients with contempt. Instead I wonder how primitive our own perceptions will seem in another three thousand years, assuming any humans are still around then.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

If you are a secular humanist, I am interested to see you defend your positions, specifically
1. That the natural world is all that exists
2. That the universe is self existing (needs no creation by a deity)
3. That the only way to know things is through science and reasoning

Aren't the first two the same thing?

And the claim is not that the natural world is all that exists, but that there is insufficient evidence to believe otherwise.

And yes, knowledge is acquired empirically. No other method generates useful ideas, ideas that can be used to predict outcomes and control some aspect of one's experience. You'll hear others talk about knowledge of gods or spiritual truth, but they have nothing to show others, no ideas of value except perhaps to comfort those who can be comforted by them.

You left the moral compass out of this list. It was number 3 in the list above the one I quoted. The humanist decides right and wrong according to the dictates of his conscience. Most support utilitarian ethics for societies and the Golden Rule for guiding their own lives. He also advocates for freedom of and from religion, and church-state separation. These are the societies that maximize freedom, opportunity, and happiness as determined by surveys.

 

[PearlSeeker]

Thank you for your reply. I agree that we humans do often follow our intuition. I certainly do. But these sorts of intuition have a high rate of error. For example, humans are notorious for intuiting the existence of agency when none exists. In my own view, any view based on intuition needs to be red flagged as a possible error.

Studies show that intuition can be very accurate in some scenarios. Sometimes it's even more accurate than thinking it through.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Studies show that intuition can be very accurate in some scenarios. Sometimes it's even more accurate than thinking it through.

What studies? What scenarios? What explanation was offered?

Unsubstantiated comments such as yours are simply unhelpful.

 

[PureX]

There is a difference between what people adopt and what is demonstrably true, again people believe all kinds of things that are wrong, have nothing to do with religion, just talking generally. And besides, for them, these adopted beliefs hold no value.

What you're failing to grasp here is that what is "demonstrably true" is whatever works for people in their lives. And only they can decide that. Not you. Your life experience and understanding is not the ideal by which everyone else's should be measured. And yet this seems to be what you're doing, and suggesting everyone else must also do.

Absolutely not.

"I don't believe you are correct when you say that vaccines are bad for people."
"I don't believe you are correct when you say that abortions are wrong."
(Obviously just examples, not saying these are your positions on these)

My disbelief in what you believe will make me oppose your beliefs and influence society in ways that I think are for the better. So disbelieves are just as valuable as beliefs are, especially if your beliefs are based on nothing demonstrable.

You can't even write that drivel with a strait face. And none of it even matters. Because what you believe or don't believe is irrelevant to anyone else. All that matters is how you behave toward them.

Again that is nothing but a flaw in humans and again why the evidence and proof of one's beliefs are crucial.

You think it's a flaw in humans that they don't accept your truth as their truth? Why should they? Why would they, even?

Because I agree with you that such things are very common. Yet if I present you with evidence that vaccines are good for human health and we go through all the data supporting it, and you ultimately do not care, that is an issue, hopefully you would agree to that? Yet, that is basically what atheists have to deal with daily, especially in highly religious societies, yet that is not considered absurd for some reason.

What you decide is significant evidence is your own concern. Why should I care? I can decide that for myself? What is valid or significant evidence according to your life experience is not likely to be of equal significance to mine. So it only makes sense that I would decide this for myself.

Yes, but following the above. Do you agree that it is kind of absurd then that atheists in certain countries get killed or that people, in general, are told to behave according to certain interpretations of scriptures if no one knows if God(s) exists?

And you seem to be assuming that your interpretation of reality and truth should be the ideal by which everyone else's is judged. You think your 'evidence' and logic rules. While everyone else's is flawed. So why would you be surprised and revolted when other people think the same way about their own concepts of reality and truth?

Are atheists being irrational here? What would you think about laws punishing people for criticizing or writing "mean" things about aliens

I think a lot of people are stupid and arrogant. And cause each other a lot of harm because of it.

This is also why any rational scientist will always answer "I don't know" when asked what happened before the big bang, they can present theories, etc. But you will have no doubt that these are merely guesses.

Not the scientism crowd, though. They all think they know how the universe began, and that it was a spontaneous accident of physics.

Exactly and this is where people potentially get scammed, fooled and misled. Whether it is worth something for the individual is irrelevant to whether it is objectively true or not, which is not what the OP is talking about.

We can never know what is "absolutely true". And thinking that we can is the first "scam" that we perpetrate on ourselves.

Something that isn't remotely verified isn't knowledge, whether we apply it or not in life.

Knowledge is the result of personal experience. Theories aren't knowledge. Theories are just theories. When we apply the theories, and get results, then it's knowledge, right or wrong.

In many cases, these things you refer to are our common sense or simple ways of rationalizing what to do, and in many cases, it is not based on anything except our intuition, past experiences etc.

Yes, intuition is an excellent method of determining a course of action in the moment. It serves is very well most of the time.

The reason we apply methods is to reduce the amount of mistakes we make. In everyday life, the most common one is critical thinking, but even that is not without flaws and in many cases, we simply don't have enough data to make the most rational decision. For instance, a choice you are making might depend on the choice of two others.

Everyone thinks critically. But we don't all do it the same way, or via the same criteria. So we don't all arrive at the same conclusions. You don't seem to be grasping the inevitable significance of this in relation to your fellow humans.

In science when using the scientific method, the idea is to reduce the amount of uncertainties to control the experiment, so that as few unknowns are influencing the data, which include human errors, biases etc. But a lot of what is discovered in science isn't directly transferable to our behavior but will tell us something about the reality in which we live. In other cases, science might discover that a certain thing is dangerous and therefore we avoid it or do change our behavior. Climate change and Covid are good examples.


if your behavior is dictated by something for which there is no evidence and you at the same time admit that your belief is unproven. And you still decide to vote for certain aborting laws or punish nonbelievers due to such belief, is that not to be deluded?


What if I did in fact have evidence for unicorns? then it is not silly. The only reason you call it silly is because of the word "unicorn". It could just as well be me claiming to have evidence of what happened before the Big bang.


I don't think we understand or use the word knowledge the same.

When Im talking about knowledge, we could look at something like gravity being real, it doesn't matter what you might call it or whether we as such understand it. We both experience it and we can demonstrate it to be true. That is objective verifiable knowledge.

What you seem to refer to as knowledge, is a subjective experience. Explained with a simple example. The taste of an apple.

I might say that I like it and you that you don't. Neither of us can demonstrate that we are right and in fact, both of us could be, because of how we experience taste.

That is not knowledge as it is with gravity.

That's exactly what I just said.

YOU defined God out of existence for yourself, and now you're claiming everyone else's God isn't real as a result.

What does that say about you?

 

[Polymath257]

The only difference is that the latter is nonsensical gibberish.

You keep saying this even though it has a clear and distinct meaning. And that many people think in exactly the way you seem to think is absurd.

That is not certainty, and so still requires a degree of trust from us. And that is what needs to be acknowledged.

Sure. 99.9999999% is not 100%. But for most purposes, the difference is irrelevant.

Of course it does. Otherwise the word is meaningless, and we wouldn’t use it. We would just say we “know”, or we “trust”.

Your claim is that belief requires that we ignore reasonable doubt. That is simply not the case. We can hold beliefs *tentatively*, which acknowledges that we cannot be absolutely sure. Knowledge, on the other hand, is a situation where the doubt is significantly less.

Not if you’re being honest or logical, you can’t.

What is to prevent me? If the abundance of the evidence points to the existence of dark matter, it is reasonable to believe in dark matter, albeit tentatively. This is much less of an ask than to say I have *knowledge* of dark matter, which would require much stronger evidence, probably direct detection.

No one cares about that but you. The rest of us still know that you can’t know that what you are believing to be so, is so. We all know that you belief is not honest or logical. And the same goes for God belief (of the belief that gods don’t exist). We can presume, hope, trust, surmise, and act as if, but we still can’t know it to be so.

From my perspective, you live in a very, very strange world. Belief is honest if you actually hold that opinion. It is not as strong of a claim as knowledge. There is nothing illogical about having a belief based on evidence while acknowledging uncertainty, or, more to the point, having a *lack* of belief because the evidence is weak.

It’s sad that you can’t see why that’s just meaningless gibberish. Or why so many atheists can’t admit to it.

We don't think it *is* meaningless gibberish. And you haven't given any good reason to think your judgement is correct in this matter.

It is significant that some people lack a belief in God *because* so many people who have the belief judge those that do not, often in quite cruel ways. So, yes, many people *do* care about that lack of belief and have made it an issue repeatedly over the course of history.

So be it.

 

[Polymath257]

What you're failing to grasp here is that what is "demonstrably true" is whatever works for people in their lives.

And that is the fundamental place where we differ. People can be mistaken. Beliefs can 'work' while being false.

And only they can decide that. Not you. Your life experience and understanding is not the ideal by which everyone else's should be measured. And yet this seems to be what you're doing, and suggesting everyone else must also do.

Your views are not those of the vast majority of people. However much it may 'work' that someone believes an idea without evidence, it will almost certainly *stop* working. And that shows the belief was *wrong*.

You can't even write that drivel with a strait face. And none of it even matters. Because what you believe or don't believe is irrelevant to anyone else. All that matters is how you behave toward them.

And beliefs lead to actions. Historically, the lack of belief in a deity has lead to persecution by those with that belief.

You think it's a flaw in humans that they don't accept your truth as their truth? Why should they? Why would they, even?

It is a flaw, I believe, that humans think their own ideas are 'true' without testing and verification. Truth is not personal.

What you decide is significant evidence is your own concern. Why should I care? I can decide that for myself? What is valid or significant evidence according to your life experience is not likely to be of equal significance to mine. So it only makes sense that I would decide this for myself.

If you choose not to pursue the truth, that is your call. Most people consider delusions to be a bad thing.

And you seem to be assuming that your interpretation of reality and truth should be the ideal by which everyone else's is judged. You think your 'evidence' and logic rules. While everyone else's is flawed. So why would you be surprised and revolted when other people think the same way about their own concepts of reality and truth?

if they think so without evidence or logic, their opinion matters quite little.

I think a lot of people are stupid and arrogant. And cause each other a lot of harm because of it.

Not the scientism crowd, though. They all think they know how the universe began, and that it was a spontaneous accident of physics.

No, they do not. Thy have *evidence* that points to conditions in the early universe, but I have yet to see anyone that claims they *know* how the process started. There are many conjectures based on available evidence, but it is inconclusive. That means they *believe* but do not *know*.

We can never know what is "absolutely true". And thinking that we can is the first "scam" that we perpetrate on ourselves.

But there are degrees of confidence. An idea that fails 10% of the time is quite different in reliability that one that has never been seen to fail. The goal of knowledge is finding ideas that never fail.

Knowledge is the result of personal experience. Theories aren't knowledge. Theories are just theories. When we apply the theories, and get results, then it's knowledge, right or wrong.

Those theories became scientific theories because they have been tested and retested and re-retested. People have *tried* to show them wrong and have failed in the attempts. That is why we say they are knowledge.

Yes, intuition is an excellent method of determining a course of action in the moment. It serves is very well most of the time.

Only in very limited contexts, usually social.

Everyone thinks critically. But we don't all do it the same way, or via the same criteria. So we don't all arrive at the same conclusions. You don't seem to be grasping the inevitable significance of this in relation to your fellow humans.

Yes, we are all wrong a significant percentage of the time. But some are wrong less than others.

That's exactly what I just said.

YOU defined God out of existence for yourself, and now you're claiming everyone else's God isn't real as a result.

What does that say about you?

That there are standards of belief that go beyond 'it makes me feel good right now'?

 

[Altfish]

1. That the natural world is all that exists
I see no evidence of anything else, so this is what I assume; show me evidence, I'll possibly change my mind.
2. That the universe is self existing (needs no creation by a deity)
Certainly, since I do not believe in deities, the universe must be self existing
3. That the only way to know things is through science and reasoning
Science certainly gives us answers about the physical world, it provides technology, medicine, etc.
It has less to say about concepts such as 'Love' or 'Hope'

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

2. That the universe is self existing (needs no creation by a deity)
Certainly, since I do not believe in deities, the universe must be self existing

Seems a bit circular, i.e., 'there is no intentional first cause because I don't believe in an intentional first cause.'

 

[Altfish]

Seems a bit circular, i.e., 'there is no intentional first cause because I don't believe in an intentional first cause.'

Maybe, but the question seems to head you in that direction.
I'm an atheist, so I have discounted the existence of gods, so why ask if I believe gods were responsible for the creation of the universe??

 

[PureX]

You keep saying this even though it has a clear and distinct meaning. And that many people think in exactly the way you seem to think is absurd.

Only because you have convinced yourself that this absurd nonsense of claiming a negative as a positive means what you want it to mean. But I did not buy into that foolishness and so I can call it what it is. And I will continue to call it what is.

Sure. 99.9999999% is not 100%. But for most purposes, the difference is irrelevant.

The degree of surety we impose on our uncertainty is irrelevant to anyone but us. What is important is to recognize and acknowledge that we (all of us) are subjectively imposing a degree of surety onto our theories of reality and truth because we cannot be certain of their real-ness or truthfulness. Pretending to be certain, and "believing in" that pretense is fundamentally dishonest. And is therefor a form of self-delusion. That goes just as much for our "believing in" the surety of science as it does for our "believing in" the surety of God.

Your claim is that belief requires that we ignore reasonable doubt.

Yes, because that's what belief is. And if you were to stop auto-defending for a moment, and actually consider what we mean when we say we "believe", you would see that what I am saying is true.

That is simply not the case. We can hold beliefs *tentatively*, which acknowledges that we cannot be absolutely sure. Knowledge, on the other hand, is a situation where the doubt is significantly less.

What is to prevent me? If the abundance of the evidence points to the existence of dark matter, it is reasonable to believe in dark matter, albeit tentatively. This is much less of an ask than to say I have *knowledge* of dark matter, which would require much stronger evidence, probably direct detection.

No one cares what you believe. No one cares why you believe it. Why can't you just accept this? All anyone cares about is whether or not this idea of reality or that idea of reality works for them when they apply it to their experience of reality. BELIEF IS JUST SELF-DELUSION. A pretense of surety that is indeserved and unwarranted.

From my perspective, you live in a very, very strange world.

That should tell that your perspective is too narrow. It's blinding you to possibilities that are open to others.

Belief is honest if you actually hold that opinion. It is not as strong of a claim as knowledge. There is nothing illogical about having a belief based on evidence while acknowledging uncertainty, or, more to the point, having a *lack* of belief because the evidence is weak.

You're just changing the definition of belief to something else, to defend you misrepresentation of it (theory, presumption, hopeful expectation, trusted choice, faith, and so on). But when we choose to "believe in" these, we are setting aside the innate doubt that they embody.

We don't think it *is* meaningless gibberish.

Yes, and that is sad. Because the nonsense of it is obvious to anyone willing to assess it logically and honestly. You're creating a definition that defines nothing. Means nothing. Says nothing. It's just nensical gibberish intended to avoid actual articulation.

And you haven't given any good reason to think your judgement is correct in this matter.

I just did, and I have many, many times on many of these threads. But the auto-defenders of this nonsense can't acknowledge it. Because that's what an ego-driven bias does to people. Especially one that gives them ideological impunity to attack the theories and beliefs of others.

It is significant that some people lack a belief in God *because* so many people who have the belief judge those that do not, often in quite cruel ways. So, yes, many people *do* care about that lack of belief and have made it an issue repeatedly over the course of history.

No one cares about what we DO believe, let alone what we don't. You're just deluding yourself about this. Your ego wants you to imagine that what happens in your mind is of the gravest concern to others. And it's really not. The only people that would ever even think about it do so because they are stupid enough to presume they should be the judge of what and how you or I or others think. And why? They clearly have no control over it. They clearly are no better at thinking than anyone else is. So it's just their ego what tells them this. So why should any of us care? When someone's actions show them to be good at understanding and negotiating with this mystery of existence as we experience it, then we'll want to know how and what they're thinking. So we can try it for ourselves. Otherwise, who cares?

Knowledge comes from personal experience. Not from logical theorizing or "belief". And it is NOT iniform. Or consistent, or one-size-fits-all. What works great for you may not work at all for someone else. That is the first 'truth' we need to face.