The new Athiest Humanities downfall?

[Sheldon]

If only you could understand that all beliefs are real.

I believe that is wrong, if that helps.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

You are not describing an "effect caused by God." You are describing an effect caused by something some humans believe. Humans have believed that other humans were witches, and killed them for it. Their deaths were not caused by witchcraft or magic, but by mistaken beliefs.

If they were ontologically mistaken they wouldn't have worked. Mistaken as you use it, is an abstract in your mind. As part of your belief system.
And mistaken beliefs are real and exists, otherwise they could have an effect. What you are describing, is that some people believe and act differently than you and you then evaluate that in your mind/brain. We all do that.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I believe that is wrong, if that helps.

All beliefs are real, otherwise you couldn't talk about them and observe their effect. You do it all the time. You observe that people have beliefs that doesn't match yours and then you react to them. That is all real.

 

[Sheldon]

He thinks he IS the objective reverent. His reality IS reality, in Sheldonworld.

Projection and irrational ad hominem, dear oh dear, and I don't believe I have ever tried to insist anyone sees reality as I do. In stark contrast to your posts of course, insisting atheists must hold a belief, even after they explain they don't. then angrily throwing around false accusation of duplicity. Yes you're struggle to encompass the points of views of others has been impressive.

 

[Revoltingest]

Projection and irrational ad hominem, dear oh dear, and I don't believe I have ever tried to insist anyone sees reality as I do. In stark contrast to your posts of course, insisting atheists must hold a belief, even after they explain they don't. then angrily throwing around false accusation of duplicity. Yes you're struggle to encompass the points of views of others has been impressive.

Rigid thinking doesn't allow for understanding or learning.
To know so many things that are wrong or not even wrong
is very limiting.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Projection and irrational ad hominem, dear oh dear, and I don't believe I have ever tried to insist anyone sees reality as I do. In stark contrast to your posts of course, insisting atheists must hold a belief, even after they explain they don't. then angrily throwing around false accusation of duplicity. Yes you're struggle to encompass the points of views of others has been impressive.

Yeah, other people have beliefs, which are not real to you, yet you respond to them and debate them. That is what makes them real. They have effects.
Just when I thought you were done with new "woo-woo" you want and out did yourself.

 

[Sheldon]

No atheists do, or they would be agnostics, not atheists.

I am an atheist and I don't believe any unfalsifiable claims, as you know already.

This is what I mean by atheists lying.

All I see is you making a claim that many atheists including myself have told you isn't true, and then insisting they are are lying. You may find that kind of denial compelling, I can't say I do.

So many of them are lying, now, that it's becoming rare to find one that isn't. If you are spouting that rationale that you are an atheist because you have no evidence of gods existing, then you are not agnostic.

I am agnostic about all unfalsifiable claims, as I must be, and remain an atheist, as I have seen no one demonstrate any objective evidence for any deity.

If you really do accept that you don't and can't know that gods exist or not, because you can't even determine what "evidence" for gods existing would even look like, then you aren't an atheist. You are agnostic.

Firstly I don't accept that, as not all god claims are unfalsifiable, as I have already explained to you, and secondly I have also explained that where the god claim or concept is unfalsifiable I remain agnostic about it, as I cannot rationally be otherwise, but also disbelieve the claim, as to believe all unfalsifiable claims would inevitably lead to irrational contradictory beliefs, and to believe some or one would be biased. Again as I have explained.

You can be both, but not based on an expectation of "evidence", or on it's lack. To claim both, then, is to lie.

The expectation is not that evidence exists, only that it is unreasonable for me to believe any claim in the complete absence of any objective evidence, least of all if the claim is unfalsifiable. I am an atheist and where the claims are unfalsifiable I also remain agnostic about those claims.

Now since you didn't give a clear answer, and I have done you the courtesy of giving yet another candid explanation of my position as an agnostic and an atheist, perhaps you can give a clear candid answer, do you believe in all unfalsifiable claims, since you have asserted it is unreasonable to disbelieve a claim because it is unfalsifiable?

If you're done resorting to ad hominem fallacies that is?

 

[PureX]

You know, one gets tired of being a liar so often. Let us be a little clear, here: theism means belief in (not knowledge of) a god or gods. Atheism simply means lacking that knowledge.

Theism is the philosophical inquest regarding a belief in the existence of gods. Agnosticism is the belief that we humans can't know if or how gods exist. Atheism is the counter-proposition to the theist belief/proposition: that gods don't exist.

But I feel certain you will ignore this clarification because it doesn't serve your 'feel good' bias. Please prove me wrong!

As an atheist, I have repeatedly said I do not KNOW that there is no god, but rather that I do not believe there is or are not.

Then why are you calling yourself an atheist? You say that you have no position on the existence or non-existence of gods. Then why lie and claim you are an atheist? Or if you really do choose to believe gods don't exist, then why lie and claim you have no position on the question? If you don't know, and don't believe either way, why not just say so?

Why all the deliberate obfuscation? Or are you really this profoundly confused?

 

[Sheldon]

Actually, we find an enormous effect resulting from our choosing to believe that gods exist. Both positive and negative. I'm sure you, yourself, have whined about it many times. The belief is in many ways far more crucial and effecting than the thing being believed in. You keep missing the point of theism by focusing on a very narrow concept of what does or doesn't exist. And you keep overlooking the enormous effect and potential of trusting in the idea of gods existing.

People find many different things to lend meaning to their lives, no one is denying that, but that doesn't mean that what they imagine has created that meaning is necessarily real or extant. You keep making this accusation that atheists don't understand your beliefs, but the fact is I have over many years seen identical claims from innumerable theists for different deities and religions. I cannot believe them all, have not experienced what they claim to have, and since none can offer any objective difference between their beliefs and all the others, the only option I can rationally take is to withhold belief, and remain agnostic about their claims when those claims are unfalsifiable.

Unfortunately this seems to make you very angry, though is it is not clear why? According to your rationale you have got the winning lottery numbers, and I don't believe you, why you would even care isn't clear?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Theism is the philosophical inquest regarding a belief in the existence of gods. Agnosticism is the belief that we humans can't know if or how gods exist. Atheism is the counter-proposition to the theist belief/proposition: that gods don't exist.

But I feel certain you will ignore this clarification because it doesn't serve your 'feel good' bias. Please prove me wrong!

Then why are you calling yourself an atheist? You say that you have no position on the existence or non-existence of gods. Then why lie and claim you are an atheist? Or if you really do choose to believe gods don't exist, then why lie and claim you have no position on the question? If you don't know, and don't believe either way, why not just say so?

Why all the deliberate obfuscation? Or are you really this profoundly confused?

The way I understand at least one atheist here is in the following.

1. The world is physical as a fact, which can't be doubted.
2. I don't believe in God.
3. I am an agnostic.

But #1 means that the person is a gnostic or it is not a fact that the world is physical as per #3.
I suspect there is a lot more like that, than just one.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

People find many different things to lend meaning to their lives, no one is denying that, but that doesn't mean that what they imagine has created that meaning is necessarily real or extant. You keep making this accusation that atheists don't understand your beliefs, but the fact is I have over many years seen identical claims from innumerable theists for different deities and religions. I cannot believe them all, have not experienced what they claim to have, and since none can offer any objective difference between their beliefs and all the others, the only option I can rationally take is to withhold belief, and remain agnostic about their claims when those claims are unfalsifiable.

Unfortunately this seems to make you very angry, though is it is not clear why? According to your rationale you have got the winning lottery numbers, and I don't believe you, why you would even care isn't clear?

But then they couldn't act on it. It is real that they have beliefs which in effect works. Not matter how much you play around with the word "real".

 

[RestlessSoul]

Because the religious don't shut up about it, and keep insisting on blathering on about their beliefs all over the place -- including in devising the laws in which the whole of the public must operate. It wasn't all that long ago where I live that nobody could shop on Sunday (never mind that not everybody shares that Sabbath), and all tables in bars had to be clear of intoxicating drinks by midnight sharp on Saturday night. Oh, and I was a criminal for loving who I did. Those were the devices of the religious, foist upon me.

It wasn’t that long ago where I live - well, not much more than 40 years - when you couldn’t buy anything on a Sunday. And unless you worked for the emergency services, or were clergy, everyone had the day off. Families could be together, commerce and the heartbreaking struggle to make money stopped for a day; and a city the size of London stopped and breathed once a week, every week.

Now, commerce carries on round the clock, seven days a week, it never stops. People are bullied into working Sundays. My partner works in a wine shop and hardly ever gets a Sunday off. I really don’t see this particular trend, from God to Mammon, as any sort of progress.

 

[Revoltingest]

It wasn’t that long ago where I live - well, not much more than 40 years - when you couldn’t buy anything on a Sunday. And unless you worked for the emergency services, or were clergy, everyone had the day off. Families could be together, commerce and the heartbreaking struggle to make money stopped for a day; and a city the size of London stopped and breathed once a week, every week.

Now, commerce carries on round the clock, seven days a week, it never stops. People are bullied into working Sundays. My partner works in a wine shop and hardly ever gets a Sunday off. I really don’t see this particular trend, from God to Mammon, as any sort of progress.

People are paid to work Sundays.
Anyone who doesn't like it can refuse or quit.
This is better than government telling us when
we can shop & work....& when we can't (IMO).
You're more comfortable with them controlling
us for our own good than I am.

 

[Sheldon]

Theism is the philosophical inquest regarding a belief in the existence of gods. Agnosticism is the belief that we humans can't know if or how gods exist. Atheism is the counter-proposition to the theist belief/proposition: that gods don't exist.

But I feel certain you will ignore this clarification because it doesn't serve your 'feel good' bias. Please prove me wrong!

They're arbitrary definitions you have made up, so accusing others of bias is again thick with irony. Agnosticism is the belief that nothing is known or can be known, about the nature or existence of god. Theism is belief in the existence of a god or gods, specifically of a creator who intervenes in the universe. Atheism is the lack or absence of that belief.

Then why are you calling yourself an atheist? You say that you have no position on the existence or non-existence of gods.

Obviously because his atheism is not a position, rather it is disbelief in one.

why lie and claim you are an atheist?

He's not lying clearly, he could not have been clearer about his positions. You don't get tot ell others what they do and do not believe.

Or if you really do choose to believe gods don't exist, then why lie and claim you have no position on the question? If you don't know, and don't believe either way, why not just say so?

Do think repeating this sophistry to misrepresent what people believe and what they think will lend it some credence? He has made it clear, as have many others that their atheism is not a belief no deities exist, just because this perfectly rational position seems to make you inexplicably angry, doesn't mean they are not being candid.

Why all the deliberate obfuscation? Or are you really this profoundly confused?

No one is obfuscating at all, and again one has only to read this exchange to see that.

1. I am an atheist as I don't believe in any deity or deities.
2. I am also an agnostic, but only when the concept of a deity or any claim about any deity is unfalsifiable, as I am about all unfalsifiable claims.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Okay, let's "believe" that God exists. Fine, now let's see what effect God has on the world -- and sure enough, what do we find? Nothing.

Okay, so God exists, but to no purpose whatsoever. Whoopee!

You cannot conduct this particular thought experiment fairly, unless you are willing to believe, or at least to behave for a time as if you did believe.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

People are paid to work Sundays.
Anyone who doesn't like it can refuse or quit.
This is better than government telling us when
we can shop & work....& when we can't (IMO).
You're more comfortable with them controlling
us for our own good than I am.

I have other values.

 

[Revoltingest]

I have other values.

Rather authoritarian ones it seems.
I prefer more anarchy...of a libertarian flavor.

 

[Sheldon]

It wasn’t that long ago where I live - well, not much more than 40 years - when you couldn’t buy anything on a Sunday. And unless you worked for the emergency services, or were clergy, everyone had the day off. Families could be together, commerce and the heartbreaking struggle to make money stopped for a day; and a city the size of London stopped and breathed once a week, every week.

Now, commerce carries on round the clock, seven days a week, it never stops. People are bullied into working Sundays. My partner works in a wine shop and hardly ever gets a Sunday off. I really don’t see this particular trend, from God to Mammon, as any sort of progress.

Well no one has to work Sundays, there are plenty of jobs where they would be optional. Especially in a city like London..

People are paid to work Sundays.
Anyone who doesn't like it can refuse or quit.
This is better than government telling us when
we can shop & work....& when we can't (IMO).
You're more comfortable with them controlling
us for our own good than I am.

I'm inclined to agree, and I have worked plenty of Sundays, and been paid pretty well for it. I have also taken many off and enjoyed myself. I wouldn't work for anyone who insisted I had to work every Sunday, and in London Jobs are a lot easier to come by than other parts of the UK.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Rather authoritarian ones it seems.
I prefer more anarchy...of a libertarian flavor.

Yeah, it is all in the eye of the beholder.

 

[Revoltingest]

Well no one has to work Sundays, there are plenty of jobs where they would be optional. Especially in a city like London..

I'm inclined to agree, and I have worked plenty of Sundays, and been paid pretty well for it. I have also taken many off and enjoyed myself. I wouldn't work for anyone who insisted I had to work every Sunday, and in London Jobs are a lot easier to come by than other parts of the UK.

I didn't know you're a Limey.
Now you really must be stopped !!!