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Sense of the Atheism

questfortruth

questfortruth

Well-Known Member
lewisnotmiller said:
Regardless, my point remains. Atheists aren't even aware of all the God-beliefs that exist. Neither are theists, for that matter. We're not explicitly rejecting each God. That's not possible.
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Having not chosen from 100 000 religions tells me what atheists do not really care.
There is a god to follow for any taste. It is indifference, the point C.

lewisnotmiller said:
I'd need to know what you mean by 'True Gods'.
And even defining it in terms of there being potentially 10,000 really just speaks to polytheism in addition to monotheism.
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The god is true or false, no third option. The car is true, or false. The dust is true, or false.
The love is true or false. To anything can be applied true or false terminology.
 
TagliatelliMonster

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
questfortruth said:
I think, it is an unnecessary complication, which was absent just some 30 years ago. Why? Because the atheists admire Evolution
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Newsflash: of all people that accept evolution, theists make up the vast majority.


, then their doctrine has undergone severe evolution from simplicity into a complication.
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Atheism is not a doctrine.
Theism is the doctrine.
Atheism is the rejection of that doctrine. It's not a doctrine by itself.

Let us translate into common sense what the phrase "Atheism is in the broadest sense an absence of belief in the existence of deities." means.
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It means that when a theist claims "god exists!", that the atheist then replies "I don't believe you".
Or when the theist asks "do you believe in god?" the atheist answers "no".

That's about it.


Any phrase, if it has meaning, has consequences. You simply say: atheism is not theism.

This can mean three things:

A. Certainty and conviction, that the True God does not exist (gnostic atheism).

B. Assumption, that there is no True God, but without knowledge of it (agnostic atheism).

C. Religious Indifference.
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Did you not read the definition you yourself have quoted and selected to discuss?
It said "the absence of belief in the existence of deities".

None of your 3 options is an accurate and intellectually honest reflection of that definition.

Why is that?

In all these cases, it is the rejection of being the theist, rejection of the God-notion (shortly: the rejection of God).
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God is not being rejected.
The claim that a god exists is being rejected.

To "reject god", one would have to believe a god exists first, that there is something there TO reject.

This is not the case in atheism.
Atheism is the rejection of the claim that a god exists.

Subtle, yet important, difference.
 
TagliatelliMonster

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
PureX said:
Atheism is the conceptual position that God/gods don't exist.
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I'ld rephrase that as "the practical position that gods don't exist" and I might get on board with it.

For all practical intents and purposes, yes, I live my life as if gods don't exist. For the simple reason that I don't believe they do exist. Not because I actively believe they don't exist. There's a difference.

Let's use an analogy of a mythical beast we can both agree is mythical, that you don't believe in either.

Let's say that there is the claim that an undetectable dragon is circling the highway, waiting for the right blood to come along to feed itself. Let's say the claim includes that the only way to be certain that this dragon won't eat you, is by wrapping yourself in tinfoil. Because then the dragon can't smell you or something and you appear invisible to it or whatever.

We can say that we don't believe this claim. Can we demonstrate it to be false; disprove it? Absolutely not. We can never prove this undetectable dragon isn't real. We simply don't believe the claim that he is real. He could be real. We can't show he's not. We simply have no reason to believe it to be real...

Now suppose we need to drive over this highway. So for all practical intents and purposes, we now have a choice to make. Do we drive over this highway wrapped in tinfoil or not?

If the answer is "without tin foil wrapping", then that means that for all practical intents and purposes, we assume this dragon isn't real and that we aren't risking anything by driving the highway without being wrapped in tin foil.



As an atheist, I view gods - and by extension the supernatural in general - exactly in this way.

I have no reason to believe it's real.
I can't disprove it.

For all practical intents and purposes, I live my life as if it isn't real. Really, because I have no other choice. The alternative would be to go through life assuming is real without actually believing it to be real.
Also, to be logically consistent, I'ld also have to go through life assuming EVERY unfalsifiable claim is correct. And unfalsifiable claims are infinite in number. And mutually exclusive.
So yeah, that wouldn't work.
 
questfortruth

questfortruth

Well-Known Member
TagliatelliMonster said:
Atheism is not a doctrine. Theism is the doctrine. Atheism is the rejection of that doctrine. It's not a doctrine by itself. It means that when a theist claims "god exists!", that the atheist then replies "I don't believe you".

Or when the theist asks "do you believe in god?" the atheist answers "no".

That's about it. God is not being rejected. The claim that a god exists is being rejected. To "reject god", one would have to believe a god exists first, that there is something there TO reject. This is not the case in atheism. Atheism is the rejection of the claim that a god exists.

Subtle, yet important, difference.
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Atheism is more complicated than General Relativity. Why not the old simplicity: "No God"?
 
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lewisnotmiller

lewisnotmiller

Grand Hat
Staff member
Premium Member
questfortruth said:
Having not chosen from 100 000 religions tells me what atheists do not really care.
There is a god to follow for any taste. It is indifference, the point C.
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Poppycock. Pretty sure that's not a rule violation to say.
I'm an atheist who has books on the history of both Christianity and Islam. I have books of Greek and Norse mythology, as well as Native American, Papua New Guinean, Maori, and Aboriginal. I frequent this site, and generally have equitable discussions with theists here.

I have a lot of things I'm indifferent to, but religion isn't one.

As for God...well, it doesn't really make sense. I can't be indifferent to an entity I don't believe exists. It has nothing to do with whether I can find a God...or a religion...to my tastes.

Even were I to decide Catholicism was a perfect religion (for example) and I followed it's tenets and dogma without fail, I would remain an atheist. I don't believe in God, after all.


questfortruth said:
The god is true or false, no third option. The car is true, or false. The dust is true, or false.
The love is true or false. To anything can be applied true or false terminology.
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Grey is true or false?
Context is true or false?
Nuance is true or false?

Binary thinking is a poor map of reality. You can be 'right' about each component, and horribly misrepresent the whole.
The idea that 'love' is true or false, for example...it's an absurdity.
 
C

Clara Tea

Well-Known Member
questfortruth said:
DEFINITION
"Atheism is in the broadest sense an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities." (Wikipedia 2021 with references).

MAKING SENSE OF THE DEFINITION
I think, it is an unnecessary complication, which was absent just some 30 years ago. Why? Because the atheists admire Evolution, then their doctrine has undergone severe evolution from simplicity into a complication.

Let us translate into common sense what the phrase "Atheism is in the broadest sense an absence of belief in the existence of deities." means. Any phrase, if it has meaning, has consequences. You simply say: atheism is not theism.

This can mean three things:

A. Certainty and conviction, that the True God does not exist (gnostic atheism).

B. Assumption, that there is no True God, but without knowledge of it (agnostic atheism).

C. Religious Indifference.

In all these cases, it is the rejection of being the theist, rejection of the God-notion (shortly: the rejection of God).
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Wikipedia doesn't tell atheists what to believe. Furthermore, it is not a completely reliable source (though I use it frequently).

Wikipedia said that atheists disbelieve in God. That is not true of all atheists.

There is a big difference in not believing, and disbelieving.

Let me explain this difference further:

Atheists refuse to believe in God because there is no proof. But if someone wants to believe in everything that has no proof, they'd have to believe in Fred Flintstone, Santa Claus, and the tooth fairy.

Atheists generally don't assert that there is no God, because they don't have proof of that. They merely don't believe until there is proof.
 
questfortruth

questfortruth

Well-Known Member
lewisnotmiller said:
and I followed it's tenets and dogma without fail, I would remain an atheist. I don't believe in God, after all.
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But such a person will be happy in the afterlife: deeds count.

However, the truth is, that you will soon or later abandon Church, or you will stay forever as a true believer.
 
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TagliatelliMonster

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
questfortruth said:
Please watch and tell me, are these videos good or bad:


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This totals to more then 60 minutes.
Please summarize the main points for us instead of asking us to potentially waste our time.

If anything worthwhile is being pointed out in those video's, I'm sure you can repeat it here in text form.
 
Subduction Zone

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
TagliatelliMonster said:
This totals to more then 60 minutes.
Please summarize the main points for us instead of asking us to potentially waste our time.

If anything worthwhile is being pointed out in those video's, I'm sure you can repeat it here in text form.
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The latter one is by a rather poor apologist whose work I am familiar with. I could post a video that debunks his work, but there is no point in dueling videos that no one will watch. He is a retired detective that claims to use law enforcement tactics to investigate the existence of Jesus. The problem is that he did not do so. The sort of case he builds up would be thrown out by any court in the land. Somehow when it come to Jesus he could not properly investigate his existence.
 
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