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A Serious Question To Self-Proclaimed Atheists ...

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PureX

Veteran Member
I will be very surprised if, by way of response to your question, you get anything other than repeated counter-assertions. Well rehearsed ones at that.

This is because the decision either to believe or not to believe in God cannot be - and I think you've illustrated this in your OP - a choice entirely driven by reason. It can be justified by reason, up to a point; but to go the last yard in either direction, intuition or emotion must come in to play. And a person who prizes reason above all other human qualities, is unlikely to admit to being driven either by emotion or intuition.
This why I made this thread. I worry that these new 'atheists' are rejecting insightful tools like intuition, and creativity, and spirituality in favor of an obsession with logic and reason and materialism that is not as positive and powerful as they assume it to be.

It isn't what we believe that really matters, it's what we become because of it.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
I would say he's profoundly agnostic. Clearly he has heard of the idea of "God", and never felt compelled to investigate it. That's an example of that indifferent/disinterested agnosticism: "don't know, don't care". I can accept that. But that's not atheism. Atheism goes beyond this into the presumption that gods don't exist.
Anything that isn't theism is within the scope of atheism. Disinterested agnostics are atheists; so are people who ardently believe that no gods exist.

Anyone who believes in at least one god is a theist; everyone else is an atheist.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
This why I made this thread. I worry that these new 'atheists' are rejecting insightful tools like intuition, and creativity, and spirituality in favor of an obsession with logic and reason and materialism that is not as positive and powerful as they assume it to be.

It isn't what we believe that really matters, it's what we become because of it.
Intuition and "spirituality" are not reliable tools. This is why they have never been accepted as evidence or as a method. None of this is new.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Note about atheism and agnosticism. I am both in one sense and only one in another. So to me you are asking strong atheism, the position that no gods exist.
Atheism isn't about what you believe or don't, or how intently. It's just a philosophical counter-proposition. There is no 'strong' or 'weak' atheism. There is only atheism. How strongly or weakly you identify with it is your own concern.
And no, I can explain the logic of that position, because I know that they don't accept the logic you use, so could you do it differently?
I know you believe you can do it logically, but let us forget that for a moment.
You and strong atheists think/feel differently, so you have to forget how you think/feel and try to get an idea of how they think/feel. Whether that is logical or not. Or if you like, you have to make a model of their world view as theirs.
I understand. We humans are complicated, and often paradoxical. And we are very 'dynamic'. Always changing. To tie ourselves to a single philosophical proposition would be pretty much impossible.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Why do you doubt that? Is there a superior approach to determine what is true about how things are?

Well, that is an odd question to a strong skeptic. I don't believe in truth and knowledge in any normal sense of it nor do I believe in things in the normal sense.
I am in the technical sense a global skeptic and I get you are of the local variations.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I've been trying to ask one or two self-proclaimed atheists, here, why they choose atheism as opposed to agnostic indifference and I cannot get an answer from them. I can't even get them to acknowledge the logic behind my question.

I presume you are referring to this atheist. You did get an answer. Here is part of it:
  • There is both benefit and logic in being an atheist. I don't have any need or desire to answer unanswerable questions using the device of a deity. I am agnostic, but all agnostics either have a god belief or don't, meaning all agnostics are forced to choose between theism and atheism in the face of that unknowing. I choose atheism because it is the only logical position possible. Theists may be correct, but if they are they are only guessing correctly. I prefer not to guess.
Here's more of the answer:
  • Our discussion here reminds me of somebody with blurry vision who received the miracle of corrective lenses, and now thinks that everybody needs a pair, even people with good vision naturally whose vision is actually degraded by these lenses, unaware that there are people who don't have any need that glasses can fulfill. You would be telling me that it is irrational for me to refuse glasses, and I'd be telling you that it would be irrational for me to wear a pair. I'd be telling you that I see clearly now, and you'd be calling me stubborn, incalcitrant, intransient for not wearing a pair, and I'd just be shaking my head as I am now in wonderment.
So why would anyone adopt the presumption that God/gods exists, or that God/gods do not exist, given this baseline premise of our lack of sufficient evidence or information to make a logical determination?

Beats me. I consider both logical errors, leaps of faith, non sequiturs. People may claim to know that gods exist or do not, but they aren't credible once one considers the perimeters of knowledge and what is knowable.

A huge barrier to your understanding atheists is your inability to understand agnostic atheism. You see these as mutually exclusive categories, meaning a person can be either but not both at the same time.

I've mentioned this to you:
  • In fact, by refusing to acknowledge the possibility of the concept of agnostic atheism, insisting that everybody can only be one or the other but not both, you undermine yourself and your message. You don't understand your audience. You don't understand me. You don't know what I believe even after me telling you multiple times.
I'm an atheist because I have no god belief. If you ask me if I believe in a god, my answer is no. Apparently, that's not an an atheist to you if I don't also add that I know that gods don't exist. And I never have and likely never will. Why? Because I'm also an agnostic. I don't claim t know that gods don't exist, just that there is no reason to believe that one or more do at this time. That's a pretty common and sound position, but to you, it doesn't exist.

I've told you that this is my position, but all you hear is atheist, and to you that means that I have ruled out the possibility of gods existing. I can't get past that, and it's why you can't understand my answer. It's also odd that when I tell you that I am agnostic as well as atheist, you can't remember that. When I describe both my atheism and agnosticism to you, you don't comment on why you consider it impossible. You don't even acknowledge that you read it. You go for atheist, drop agnostic, and use your limited definition of an atheist when deciding what I am claiming about myself.

Here's an example of that. I wrote, "Here you are asking me why I presume that the psychedelic experience wasn't a god when I just told you that I didn't come to that conclusion - that I came to no conclusion at all about whether I was experiencing just my mind or more, and I choose not to guess." Your response:
  • You stated right at the beginning that you and your wife are atheists. So you did choose to guess, and you guessed that gods don't exist. So, obviously, you also have chosen to "guess" that your experiences were not of God. Had you simply remained agnostic, you would not have chosen to take a stance either way. And your mind would still be open. But your mind is not open. Because you have chosen to presume that gods don't exist. And I don't see the logic in making that presumption when there is no evidence of it, nor any benefit in it for you, or for anyone else.
How can I possibly get past that?

Because a great many humans do choose to move past their agnosticism, and into one determination or the other (theism or atheism).

Yes, this is you failing to understand yet again that agnostics can be either theists or atheists according to their answer to the question of whether they believe in gods or not despite their agnosticism.

This is how you conceive the logical possibilities: three, all mutually exclusive:

70568_037dc1a866d5e86b61587ad183569fd4.png


This is how most atheists conceive of them. We are the entire right side of this diagram. Most of us fit in the lower right box, a minority in the upper right box.

70569_271a0d5de2a53a089104c9e01998e227.jpeg


Obviously, you can't ever understand what somebody like me is saying if you can't conceive of agnostic atheism. You see the word atheist and consider only the upper right box. And it's intriguing to consider why, after being told this at least a half dozen times, you've never disagreed or even commented on this matter to indicate that you've understood what is being claimed. Here's the last time I commented on it, which also received no acknowledgement. You had written, "you determined rather passionately that god does [not] exist". I added the not, as I'm sure that's what you meant to write:
  • But you don't know what my position is despite telling you repeatedly. You continue to come back to this same error. And you ignore the value that I told you that leaving a faith-based life and embracing secular humanism had for me.
I also mentioned the following, which also received no acknowledgement:
  • Unless you are trolling, you, my friend, are under the sway of a confirmation bias. At one time, I would have concluded that you must be lying, that there was simply no way that you couldn't understand what I was telling you in plain English, which is that I do not deny the existence of gods, a fact I have demonstrated repeatedly in this thread alone, and why I call my form of atheism agnostic. I would not have believed that there was any other explanation for your behavior here than gaslighting. Then, a few years back, I encountered the testimony of an old earth creationist and geologist, Glenn Morton who had formerly been a young earth creationist. I found the man to be sincere and credible, so I believe him when he says that there are people who do what you have done that aren't lying in the sense that they know that they are telling an untruth.
Why is that. How can you read something like that and remain silent on the matter? Don't you have any interest in helping resolve this? Presumably, you don't believe either possibility is the case.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
Well, that is an odd question to a strong skeptic. I don't believe in truth and knowledge in any normal sense of it nor do I believe in things in the normal sense.
I am in the technical sense a global skeptic and I get you are of the local variations.
This is vague. Describe the kind of skeptic you are and contrast that with the typical skeptic. How is your approach better?
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
Atheism isn't about what you believe or don't, or how intently.
No, it's just not believing in religious claims about gods.

Now there can be specific arguments from non-belief, but those need to be dealt with in specific arguments.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member
Theism/atheism is about belief/lack off belief. Gnosticism/Agnosticism is about positive knowledge/no knowledge.
But you have to admit there can't be both knowledge AND no knowledge of the same subject.

There is knowledge about evolution, but theists who reject this knowledge can't claim there isn't adequate knowledge that explains evolution, they are just ignorant.
 

F1fan

Veteran Member

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
Well, that's just silly. Words have to mean something to mean something. They can't just mean anything or they don't mean anything at all.
They do mean something. Atheism is the complement to theism. Atheists are people who aren't theists.

If you managed to figure out words that work in a similar way (e.g. "civilian" - someone not in the military), I'm sure you can figure out "atheist" too if you try hard enough.
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
Words have to mean something to mean something.

They do, and atheism means "Disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods." So it's actually correct to say that if you're not a theist (you don't have an actual belief in any god or gods), you are within the scope of atheism.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
But you have to admit there can't be both knowledge AND no knowledge of the same subject.

There is knowledge about evolution, but theists who reject this knowledge can't claim there isn't adequate knowledge that explains evolution, they are just ignorant.

Well, since I am a cognitive relativist I don't believe in knowledge like you properly do. So I treat it as 2 different ways of understanding the world.

Read this part at least:
3. The definition of relativism
https://iep.utm.edu/cog-rel/#H3
 
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