Breaking news; the tea party is retarded

How does any of what I've bolded dispute what I've said? I never said "strongly" disagree, I said disagree, allowing any permutation of that word's use between "I'm not so sure about that" and "That isn't true!"

You said yourself that atheism does require conviction, which was my original point. Yes, if you're disagreeing with something you need something else to preclude why you don't agree with it, which in itself requires conviction (and no, I'm not exclusively talking about science). Agreement that something does not work given your experience, due to agreement that other explanations make more sense at the time(using the example you gave as well as allowing for "God can't exist if this is how the world is").

If an unknown concept isn't known, you can't accept or deny it. Just because I don't know about sometihing, dosn't mean I automatically deny it - I want proof, just like you, if an idea is introduced, because I've never known "grundlemeeps" were a thing until you came up with the idea. The evidence against the existence of these grundlemeeps far outweighs the evidence in their support, and it isn't until the concept is revealed that I even begin to consider it. A change in thought processes by revelation of a concept you never knew and therefore could not consider. There's no difference between "God" and "Grundlemeeps" now, because you told me about your Grundlemeeps - and no one can believe or disbelieve something until it's been introduced. Using the term denial implies a decision being made, but I don't recall hypothetically denying these grundlemeeps until you mentioned them, perhaps because I didn't know it was an issue to consider. The default position on any concept is agnosticism, because you can't argue for or against the existance of something you've never had a chance to comprehend. While the concept of "God" as we see it in pertinent holy books can be comprehended, what this entity, should it exist, "does," "is," "knows," can't, and that's due to implied scope. The key difference here is you never gave any indication of a grundlemeep's possible capabilities - I wouldn't even go so far as saying they're smarter than we are, because even if they've got 3 brains they would all have to work better than a single human one, and you never said they were smarter in the first place. All known concepts are human by design, but naturally vary in complexity and implication. Delve deeper into each one and you can readily see which reaches further. The Invisible Pink Unicorn, the Flying Spaghetti Monster - both take the role of God, but are a palette swap, and all three descriptions are totally superfluous when you would not be able to comprehend any being living on a higher plane than you, should that being exist.

What would you be to hypothetical life in two dimensions? A god. What would God be, at the very least, to we in three dimensions? A four dimensional entity. That raises the question of how such a being evolved, but our known physics and mathematics allow such a being to do everything it is said God can do.

Babies are born agnostic atheists because they don't know, but given a choice of explanations later in life, they can become either atheist or theist. The synonyms I used were the furthest thing from language manipulation because you actually ended up making my case.

 

No, I said that atheists CAN have conviction about theories which preclude God, but atheism itself doesn't require conviction. In fact - it is defined as the absence of any conviction in God. (Except when I'm arguing with Xyle - then it's defined as the absence of religious activity.)

This is where the language manipulation comes in. Disagreeing with something implies an active position, but disbelieving in a concept isn't an active position - it is just an absence of belief.

Language again - denial implies an active position. You can't believe in an unknown concept, but you can have a lack of belief in it. Same as if you've been introduced to the concept and found it unconvincing.

No, no, no - you don't need proof to disbelieve a new concept. The new concept needs proof to convince you to start believing in it. Not believing is the starting point for everyone.

YES! And atheists are all agnostic, remember? I'm sure I've mentioned that before. The default position in this case is "Until you convince me that this 'God' entity exists, I'm not going to waste my time considering it any further." Since theists have manifestly failed to do this, the result is atheism.

 

Thank you for using the definition I've been using the entire time we've been having this particular discussion. Now, I would like you to look up as many definitions of "disbelief" as you can so you can see how I've come to my opinion. Any active choice requires conviction. Disbelief is just as active as belief, regardless of how much proof would back it up, because all proof does is rationalize something - and a person's proof of anything might only make sense to them. People believe in gravity, and it happens to be interesting that fundamentalist Christians call it "divine pulling," as opposed to an effect mass has on space-time.

Disbelief is an active position as well, because your opinion doesn't come into play until after you know what the concept is. Using the word "disbelief" to define something you haven't heard of yet and therefore can't accept or deny is disingenuous, because I said in my post that you're quoting, it's a lack of knowledge that allows people to have no opinion of things they've never heard of. I know people who "don't believe" in phones - they know phones are a "thing," but they feel a phone's use denigrates communication and therefore choose not to use them.

I only used "denial" because you yourself used it, and I even said in my post that "denial implies a choice being made."

Proof that effectively counters the proof you already have discounting it once it's been introduced to you, if you happen to have what you consider your own evidence of a countering idea.

Atheists aren't all agnostic. Where did you read that/how did you decide that? You might be agnostic, people you know/know of might be agnostic, and hell, I'm agnostic - but not all atheists are agnostic. All atheists are atheists, how they come to that view isn't always through agnosticism.

 

This only seems true to you because you are basing your definition on perception...

...and not judgment. (e.g. The walls are white because the color of the paint is white and not because the walls LOOK white.) Religion is belief.

Believe (a religious activity) that God does not exist.

Atheism's set of beliefs are that God doesn't exist, that the causes of reality are natural, that the nature of the world is physical, and that the universe has no purpose except to exist. While is it true that Atheism exclude the supernatural, has no rituals, and doesn't contain a moral code, those characteristics are part of the "especially" clauses of the definition and not part of the core definition.

One cannot prove that God doesn't exist; therefore, atheism is a belief and a religion.

If someone doesn't believe in something in regards to whether or not God exists, they don't call themselves atheists; they answer with "I don't know."

Let's consider light's behavior: There are experiments that create non-deterministic outcomes so that a photon can travel one of two directions. Science has proven that if neither outcome is deterministically decided, both of a single photon's possible paths can interact with each other creating an interference pattern from a single photon. Atheism is one choice, theism is another, and "I don't know" can be liken to the interference pattern as a result of a lack of choice: When given two options are there three possible outcomes. Atheism is not the absence of belief, it is the choice to not believe. As it is a choice, it is also a religion.


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Emotional bonding... in this case, both people had emotional bonds with the deceased; therefore, when that person died, the bonds broke which resulted in both of the dreamers' subconsciouses experiencing the emotional break which prompted the dreams to communicate the experience to the conscious mind. While I don't think that explanation is scientific yet, it is rational enough that science can possibly and eventually test it, and most people (those that don't require strict scientific proofs) can accept it.

On the same night, my step-dad and my half-brother (same mother) both had dreams that the other died. I believe that the dreams were a product of the bonds between them being altered (maybe broken) by time and distance that were separating them.

Radios on the same frequency can communicate to each other, and brains are electrical devices, so why can't the brain be capable of long-range communication? Granted, because people aren't aware of the ability, it won't develop past the rudimental levels, but who's to say that the connections that we develop with others doesn't extent into the primal parts of our minds that are never developed?

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I disagree. Babies will believe everything that they are taught by their parents, and a child's default position is to believe. People learn to stop believing everything that they hear AFTER they learn that people lie. Until then, the evolutionary motivation is to believe everything so that the young can learn what others know without having to test and try everything.

But not all agnostics are atheists. Remember my post that I am an agnostic theist?

 

Sorry about the racism, Smuel, and I hope you're mum's well.

"Thy mother, english" is from the book, Shogun, where a portugese and an english pilot are both in Japan, and they communicate in latin, with "your mum" instead of 'hello'. I should add that it becomes an expression of affection between them.

Also, it's not just english culture which I find arrogant and self absorbed. Any nation which once held an empire seems to infect its citizens: Spaniards, Japanese, Greeks, Italians. It's just we get a lot of BBC and immigrants and tourists from England, they're easy targets. I used to live in a village of hippies where about a dozen english immigrants out of three hundred were notable because of their political machinations and their amazing ability to lie through their teeth.

Anyway, my point is that it's hard to consider atheism a non-religion when Richard Dawkins carries on like the prophet of evolution.

I laughed to hear two different responses to his self-serving rationalism.

Dawkins: (concluding) So there's no proof for it at all?
Rabbi: You're right! I'd like to congratulate you on being the next messiah.

Dawkins: I'm an atheist and I don't hate anyone...
Muslim: I hate atheists because they let their women dress like whores.
Dawkins: (hate rising) We don't let them dress like whores! They dress themselv...
Muslim: There will come a day and that day is now when the soldiers of the lord will rise up and strike down the unbeliever!
Dawkins: (pwned).

Anyway, if you think atheism should be a non-religious word, you should tell Dawkins to stop using it like one.

It was only 2500 years ago that the buddha was making all the most secular, scientific and rational noises he could in response to old religion which became politics which became madness. Including the premise that there is no god. And hey presto! now it's religion.

It's happening, it's happening in our lifetime, that so-called secular, scientific thought is becoming dogmatic, exclusive and political. But I may just be confusing it with englishness in general.

In conclusion, thy mother.

 

I'm not sure how Einstein knew ytzk was raped by Richard Dawkins.

 

See Philes' signature for my reasons for disliking Dawkins.

 

I think in general dislike of the English is perhaps an Australian trait; last time my Dad was there a couple of years ago some Australians (unprovoked apparently) called him a "pommy cunt" and tried to bash his head in with a chair. He lives in NZ now, maybe they're more forgiving of englishness.

 

http://terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=248126#248126

We can talk about it if you'd like.

 

Yes.

No. See, belief is a thing. Disbelief is the absence of that thing. You're trying to make out that disbelief is a thing in itself. It's not - it's like a shadow. A shadow is the absence of light. The shadow itself isn't a thing - it just looks like a thing in relation to its surroundings, so we have a name for it, but the reality is that it's the absence of something. It's handy to have a name for the absence of belief, and it's handy to have a name for the people who don't believe, but it's just not the case that they are maintaining an active position with regard to belief in something.

You want to say that there are three states of belief. There is "belief", there is "disbelief", and there is "ignorance". However, the point is that disbelief and ignorance are functionally identical. You used to be ignorant of Grundlemeeps. Now you have changed state and disbelieve them instead. But what changed? Do you now go to agrundlemeep meetings and discuss your agrundlemeepism with other agrundlemeepists? No. By introducing this concept to you, and failing to convince you to believe in it, I have not changed your behaviour or your beliefs to any extent at all. From this persepective, disbelief is the same as ignorance - they are both the absence of belief. I've been told about God, and do not believe in the concept, so I'm living my life identically to if I had never been told about God at all. Either way, I lack belief in God.

We've already had this argument - atheists are all "agnostic atheists" by definition - an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God, and an agnostic is someone without belief. It's the same thing. You're going to try to say that a "dogmatic atheist" is someone who actively disbelieves, while agnostic atheists only passively disbelieve. But that isn't a real distinction. The amount of belief is the same in each case - zero. The only effective difference is that a passive atheist probably wouldn't write forum posts about his atheism.

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Ugh, there is so much wrong with that statement. Belief is not an activity, it is a state of mind. Belief isn't even exclusive to religion. I believe the earth goes around the sun - that's got nothing to do with religion. And you can't believe in a non-concept - that doesn't make any sense. You can only believe in concepts. God existing is a concept. God not existing is not a concept - it's the null hypothesis for the concept of God existing.

If you're still having trouble with what a "religious activity" is, maybe this will help. Name something that an atheist can be observed to do (other than saying "I am an atheist") which would allow others to work out that he is an atheist. A religious example would be seeing a man going to church every Sunday. If you saw a man doing that, you could reasonably conclude that he was religious. What activity could that man do instead that would lead you to reasonably conclude that he was an atheist?

No - atheism is the absence of any belief in God. Those other things you mention are not part of atheism. The ONLY requirement for being an atheist is that you don't believe in God.

One cannot prove that Grundlemeeps don't exist. Therefore, agrundlemeepism is a belief and a religion.

What's the difference between your statement and mine? According to your definitions, you are part of the agrundlemeepism religion. You're also part of a million other religions which are based on the inability to prove that a million other made-up concepts don't actually exist.

This is obviously not the definition of a religion.

That's odd. Every atheist I know of, including Richard Dawkins, freely admits that they don't know whether some kind of divine entity exists or not. The furthest that an atheist will go is to say that they don't believe in any of the specific Gods that have been proposed by religions.

If this were true, then in a world where religion had never been invented, then nobody would be an atheist because they wouldn't be able to make that choice - everyone would walk around saying "I don't know". However, this is obviously not the case. In a world without religion, everyone would be atheist, because they would all lack belief in God. That's what it means to be an atheist.

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Erm... thanks?

 

Not that I want to get balls deep into an argument again, but I'm curious. You're saying that disbelief is the same as an abscence of the sentiment "I believe in God" - and because it is an abscence it is a passive rather than an active stance. However unless someone was entirely ignorant of the concept of God, in which case they are entirely indifferent to the concept, they do make a choice to not believe in God. Though this doesn't impact on behaviour from the ignorant as you said, they have made a decission which implies a different sentiment to the complete indifference of ignorance. If they aren't completely indifferent, an active stance must have been taken at some point? Even if it's not something the atheist cares to discuss because he doesn't believe in God (implying passivity), their choice on the subject is maintained (implying, if only weakly, that their stance is active). Essentially, they must believe in their disbelief - which seems the same as disbelief being a belief to me (as you can't believe in something which isn't a belief in the first place - the truly passive indifferent stance of ignorance).

Abscence of thought about a subject (what I interpret you think disbelief is from what you've said) would not maintain a choice about that subject because you would not know of it, if that makes sense. There must be a belief to maintain the choice of not believing.

EDIT: Thinking about it more, I think what really separates atheism from religion is a belief system, which is why they're not comparable.

In atheism there is only one belief - "I don't believe in god(s)." In any sort of theism, not only do you believe in god, but you have a whole range of beliefs that sprout from that core concept; a system of beliefs which is divergent after its origin. No belief system arises from single belief in atheism, and although you may have related beliefs that link into atheism (scientific arguments, what have you), the beliefs are separable and do not necessitate each other hence are not systematic. There is no belief system behind atheism, therefore it is not a religion.

 

Yeah thanks, asshole. Whose side are you on, FOR FUCK'S SAKE?

It's not a choice between two equal things though. It's more like a choice of whether to opt in to something, where the default position is to opt out. Not making a choice is the same as opting out. Never being given the choice in the first place is the same as opting out.

Let's say that there you are, walking down the street one day, thinking about ninjas, when BLAM! I leap out leap at you and start droning on about how Grundlemeeps are really awesome and you ought to believe in them. Now, being a reasonable human being you go "this guy's a loon" and walk away. Yes, you made a choice to ignore me, but you aren't now suddenly an "active disbeliever in Grundlemeeps". Your state of mind is the same as it was before. Now, if I'm there every day when you walk past, eventually you're going to build up a more active defense against me. You might start coming back with arguments like "If Grundlemeeps lived on the moon we'd be able to see them." But it's not that your disbelief is becoming more active - just that you're getting fed up with hearing my nonsense every day and are trying to think of arguments that will get me to shut up. Eventually you'll start being vehemently anti-Grundlemeep because you're sick of people saying "Hey, maybe there ARE Grundlemeeps living on the moon. You know, we should respect Smuel's beliefs." And then at that point I can say "Hah! See, Jojobobo is a fanatic just like me" and you've lost the argument because I've tricked society into talking about agrundlemeepism as a dogmatic belief system that you've actively chosen. Really you didn't choose it at all - you were opted out in the beginning, and you're still opted out now - I've just failed to convince you that Grundlemeeps exist.

No. The evidence for Grundlemeeps must be consistently underwhelming to fail to convince people after repeated attempts. The problem in the case of religion is that it's so pervasive in society that it does require active resistance, but don't confuse that with the passive opting out of belief that underpins atheism.

 

I'm on your side, I'm just not sure of the logic behind "disbelief of a concept" not being an active stance and a belief in its own right.

I'm still not convinced that opting out is passive, you've made a decision to not opt in in the first place. Even if I ignore you as the crazy man on the street, the reason why I don't believe in your alien race is because I already formed a belief ("this guy's a loon") which in effect negated what you had to say afterwards - but saying "this guy's a loon" is just an assumption and what you say may be correct. After further evidence I decide that you're wrong, and my decision has to be maintained by belief (even if that belief is formed because "I believe there is a lack of evidence" and the fact that there is also a lack of evidence is true aside from my belief) otherwise it would not remain decided. Just because I don't feel strongly enough to argue that point at that moment through lack of antagonism, does not mean that I haven't already decided to form the belief that you are incorrect which I have.

I guess what I'm trying to say - as succinctly as possible - is that passivity is neutrality to the question in general, and is the same as ignorance. If someone asked you "Do you like ham sandwiches" - and you'd never really considered this in detail before - you'd form and opinion (and I can't think of one instance where you couldn't substitute the word opinion for belief). When you were asked the question again, you would immediately know the answer as you'd already formed a belief about it, you wouldn't revert back to the passive stance of having to make that decision again as you'd already actively decided that you did/didn't like ham sandwiches in the first place.

To take a final different tact, "I disbelieve in the concept of god(s)" is identical in meaning to "I believe that the concept of god(s) is false"; the first statement only dresses something as passive when it is an active stance. If you can suggest anyway that those two statements are not identical in meaning, then I'll be convinced that atheism is not a belief and will redress my opinion about it. Typing disbelieve into google does tell be it is "being unable to believe in something" - but no one is truly unable (as in mentally incapable) to believe in a concept unless they are ignorant of it so I think that's a load of crap. I think this may be the crux of why other people are still not convinced also.

Also, I edited my previous post, I thought it would be in before a response. I don't think any of the content of the edit really pertains to whether disbelief is an active stance or not, it just links off that slightly, so it might not be relevant.

 

When the decision is to "remain opted out" then it doesn't need to be maintained. If I stop hassling you in the street, then you'll start to think less and less about the whole Grundlemeep thing, and eventually you'll forget about it completely, at which point you'll still be an agrundlemeepist. You're only "active" about it because I keep prodding you. Why don't you believe? Why? You ought to believe. What's wrong with the evidence? Tell me why you don't believe? In that sense, it's not you that's maintaining your disbelief, it's ME that's maintaining it, by not giving you a chance to forget about the subject. In my absence, your disbelief is passive. Just as if I'd never mentioned any of it to you in the first place.

But atheists ARE neutral. In the big debate over God and which religion is correct, and what we ought to do about the afterlife, the atheist position is "There is no evidence that any of these things exist, so lets do nothing." That's neutrality. Treating it as an opposing viewpoint is playing the religious game, and leads to atheism being cast as a religion "just like any other".

Or you could say that the latter statement only dresses something as active when in fact it's a passive stance. The problem here is that it's easy to manipulate the language to make it seem like atheism is a belief IN something, i.e. the non-existence of God. I don't have a good way to solve this, other than that you have to go to the underlying concepts and work out what the concept is, and whether the statement is an affirmation of the concept or not. In the case of atheism, it's not. It can't be, because if religion had never been invented then everybody would be atheist.

 

I understand what you're saying, that in a world where the concept of god never came about everyone would be atheist, but don't you think the fact the question "does god exist?" is and has always been pervasive to humananity that by answering "no" you are taking an active stance? Also the fact that the question is constantly asked (unlike if your Grundlemeep thing was never mentioned again) makes your primary opinion on the subject a belief? The context - the existence of that question - makes the stance active and atheism a belief; the world is contextually religious whether you want to play the religious game or not, and comparing things to a world where this isn't the case is unfortunately irrelevant. I don't think such a world could exist; the question "does god exist?" would always predate significant scientific and philosophical advancement that could make such a question implausible.

I suppose that might be the difference between my two statements, in a world where gods never were a concept you could say "I disbelieve in the concept of gods" because you are unable* to make a belief about it because of ignorance. However "I believe the concept of gods is false" is correct in a world that is contextually religious.

*See another minor retro edit I made before I thought I would get a response, which you may have missed, in that same paragraph.

 

No, just because theists won't shut up about their religion, it doesn't change my absence of belief into a belief. Even if Xyle had never posted here, I'd still be an atheist. I'd just be a slightly more popular one for not having made everyone read this drivel.

On the contrary - I think that postulating a world without religion is very useful for demonstrating that atheism is not one.

It may be true that society has to go through a period of religious delusion before it can reach the point where science can develop, but since we've now reached that point, I'd like to hasten religion to its extinction. The idea that atheism is a religion or an irrational belief is what allows religious people to persuade school boards to stop teaching evolution properly.

 

But then relgious people could say in a world where gods were a palpable physical thing everyone would be religious - being religious would be the neutral passive stance and wouldn't be considered a subject for disbelief. Though that idea may be ridiculous to you, because of the strength of their faith the same may be true of religious people for your argument. Trying to negate the question only dodges it; because the question exists, an active stance must be taken.

This won't ever happen till science can answer every little detail of the universe, or enough of the details to make religion implausible enough for people to stop putting stock in it. The only way forward really is scientific advancement; then maybe one day atheism will be thought of as the norm and not a religion because the context would be different.

 

Actually no - in a physically different universe that contained active superbeings, everyone would also be atheist, because nobody would have found it necessary to invent the concept of "God", and the people who studied the superbeings would be called scientists.

I'm not negating the question, I'm justifying my answer. The question is "Is atheism a belief?". My answer is "No, it's the absence of belief". My way of showing this is to imagine a hypothetical world without religion where everyone is atheist but doesn't believe in anything. The opposite hypothetical world, where everyone is religious, doesn't really demonstrate anything because nobody disputes that religion requires belief. If you create a hypothetical world where religion doesn't require belief then it's not religion any more.

I'm more optimistic than that. Northern Europe is now largely secular, and I see no reason why that shouldn't spread to the rest of the world eventually. Sure, there will always be religious people, but then there are people who still believe in astrology and they don't do much harm.

 

But then by Xyle's reckoning gods could change the very fabric of reality so there wouldn't be anything to study. Having them be physically in front of your eyes could be the only proof they would let you have, if this were the case. Furthermore if the called themselves gods and wanted to be worshipped as gods and people did so, you couldn't really say that people weren't religious.

Be thankful you don't live in an area where you don't have Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and other fundamentalists visitting you almost weekly, then you might not be as optimistic. Some go out there way to deliver more stable arguments, such as "reputable scientist x has said the chance of life assembling on earth is astronomically small (with use of appropriate scientific arguments to back up why this is implausible), therefore a creator must have had a hand in something". Of course I'd respond that due to the billions of planets in the universe that it statistically likely that life would occur, furthermore that assembly of some small molecules is thermodynamically favourable and over time when these assemblies came together to form larger assemblies life could certainly form. Still I'm more equipped to answer that than most people, and they also go out of there way to present things they want you to believe in in a well rounded fashion with pretty leaflets and such. I'm pretty sure the legions of moronic scumbags in my city would be more easily swayed.