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Atheism doesn't exist?:)

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
No. All of whom you are calling 'strong atheists' ARE atheists, in that they LACK a belief in any gods. But their BELIEF that there are no gods has nothing to do with atheism, since it's a declaration of a BELIEF and atheism is strictly about LACK of belief.
Lack of belief is about belief, in the same way that skirting the truth is about truth.
 

Milton Platt

Well-Known Member
Catchy title. A-theism means something like No theism. And it's rare maybe almost impossible that somebody would not believe in God 100%. Not even a 0.01% that maybe God created this world.
And if he/she thinks that there is a very small percentage so, than it's not atheism; and still he/she will call himself an atheist.
BTW, a famous said or wrote something like that.

You seem horribly confused about the people who are labeled atheists by believers. There are those who claim to know there are no gods, and there are those who simply claim that they hold no belief in a god. But in either case, they have no belief in a god. You cannot have partial belief. It is a yes or no. You are a Rabbi? So I suppose you do not believe in the god Thor? Is that lack of belief 1%? 10%? 50% 95 %? What were the calculations you used to arrive at that number?

In the end, it isn't what we believe that is most important, but rather what is demonstrably true.

But welcome to the discussion. This topic has been beaten to death since the day someone dreamed up the first god. You would think that if apologists had solid arguments and good evidence, this question would be settled after thousands of years....and yet even the apologists can't agree among themselves, much less mount a good defense.

You can find rebuttals to all the standard arguments for a god in past and present threads here, or Google the arguments by name or category, or read some of the many books written on the subject.

If you have a solid argument that has never been used in the history of apologetics, it will be a refreshing change.
 
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But can someone affirm that there is 0% chance that God ( or whatever you want to call) created this world?
Not talking about 0.1 or 0.0001.
How can one affirm such a thing?
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Lack of belief is about belief, in the same way that skirting the truth is about truth.
Really? Would that be the same as being vegan (not eating meat) is "about meat?" We stretch these things too far, too often, when we're just trying to make our own point, while dismissing those of others. I don't think that's a good thing.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
But can someone affirm that there is 0% chance that God ( or whatever you want to call) created this world?
Not talking about 0.1 or 0.0001.
How can one affirm such a thing?
What does it matter? If one perceives the chance as being close enough to zero, without actually being zero, then why would one give it any credence at all?

But then, I forget! People buy lottery tickets all the time, when they know (or could know, if they just looked) that the chance that they will come out ahead is vanishingly close to zero. And do you know what? Thinking people call lotteries (for what I think are very good reasons) "a tax on the stupid."
 

lewisnotmiller

Grand Hat
Staff member
Premium Member
Catchy title. A-theism means something like No theism. And it's rare maybe almost impossible that somebody would not believe in God 100%. Not even a 0.01% that maybe God created this world.
And if he/she thinks that there is a very small percentage so, than it's not atheism; and still he/she will call himself an atheist.
BTW, a famous said or wrote something like that.

That's not atheism though.
I am not theistic. I am an atheist.
Do I know exactly what caused the universe? Nope. Could it be God? Well...that might depend on how you define 'God'. But I don't think God was involved or exists in any way that I understand the term.

So I call myself an agnostic atheist as a nod to the simple fact that I don't have all the answers. I don't believe anyone does.

Why would you want to define someone like me as a theist? It simply removes all meaning from the term.
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Catchy title. A-theism means something like No theism. And it's rare maybe almost impossible that somebody would not believe in God 100%. Not even a 0.01% that maybe God created this world.
And if he/she thinks that there is a very small percentage so, than it's not atheism; and still he/she will call himself an atheist.
BTW, a famous said or wrote something like that.
Your argument is that atheism, even in its hardest form, is always somewhere on the agnostic scale? I doubt it.

In my own case, I'm not a believer; however, technically I'm not an atheist, since I figure that to be an atheist, I'd have to know what real thing I don't believe in.

Unfortunately, I don't; and no one will tell me.

So far all the definitions of 'god' /'God' are appropriate only to imaginary beings ─ omnipotence, omniscience, immaterial, spiritual, and so on. No real thing has these qualities. (Instead of 'imaginary', we could say 'purely conceptual' ie not corresponding to anything with objective existence.)

There doesn't even appear to be a coherent concept of real 'godness' ─ the real quality that a real god would have and a real superscientist who could create universes, raise the dead, travel in time &c, would lack.
 

rational experiences

Veteran Member
Science claimed it was an atheist in reference to religious science medical belief.

Where the title atheist versus religious science review came from.

For no scientist can state without lying that they are not searching for what they say is the Creator of everything.....and hence consciousness claims it as consciousness, in a male life as a form of self deisms….for he is the thinker of it.

So he claims the Creator is in his own image, as the researcher.

Human history states that nuclear science via temple and pyramid had been outlawed and given the title Satanism. Yet science, the con science theme, changed its title...and you would ask self for what reason did an applied male agreed title then be changed? If not for unethical male choice!

Science therefore then imposed that it had become the atheist, as to disassociate the self as the thinker in self deism with self. But you cannot include the self or else you simply would not think for science.

Therefore a spiritual male would identify and realise in his natural spiritual life that atheists are not telling any factual human truth.

They claim that God O the term in science philosophy of the stone had some other beginning other than accepting that God is just the stone...with no beginning, for stone is stone and the HOLY WORD about God, the stone said equals is the answer.

Stone = Stone

Owns historically no beginning and historically owned no end, for the condition spatial emptiness and cold allowed stone to form......so said it was not a reactive state which science and machine is stated by.

Atheism therefore declared that it can continue to do research, as it is searching factually for a beginning of a Creator without bringing to the public attention that they are against existence itself....those who believe in God.

For rational human life mind psyche advice O said God is the stone and if you do not believe in that body, then you only believe in our destruction.

As the reason and historic teaching atheism, and its purpose against religious science end result, natural aware medical advice against radiation increases inside of a cold gas less radiating body.
 

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
Really? Would that be the same as being vegan (not eating meat) is "about meat?" We stretch these things too far, too often, when we're just trying to make our own point, while dismissing those of others. I don't think that's a good thing.
Surely being vegan is about avoiding meat and meat-related products? But being atheist isn't about avoiding a god (which affirms that there is a god).

I do dismiss the notion that atheism isn't about belief in gods.
 

night912

Well-Known Member
Catchy title. A-theism means something like No theism. And it's rare maybe almost impossible that somebody would not believe in God 100%. Not even a 0.01% that maybe God created this world.
And if he/she thinks that there is a very small percentage so, than it's not atheism; and still he/she will call himself an atheist.
BTW, a famous said or wrote something like that.
Unfortunately you showed that your argument fail when you tried to use the percentage to support it. It's actually the opposite of what you claim. If it's not 100%, then it means that you don't believe. Even if it's 99%, then that is "not believe."
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
The way that I see the word being formally defined in online identity atheism grammar policing is that any person who has any doubts or questions about the reality or existence of any God or gods is an atheist. That’s what I mean when I call myself an atheist. Sometimes people also use “atheism” as a synonym for hostile attitudes and behavior towards conservative Christians. Sometimes when people say “atheists,” they are only thinking of the ones who denounce conservative Christians and Christianity. My atheism is not that kind of atheism.
 
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Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
The way that I see the word being formally defined in online identity atheism grammar policing is that any person who has any doubts or questions about the reality or existence of any God or gods is an atheist. That’s what I mean when I call myself an atheist. Sometimes people also use “atheism” as a synonym for hostile attitudes and behavior towards conservative Christians. My atheism is not that kind of atheism.


No, it is a matter of belief. If you believe in a god, any god, you are not an atheist. Doubts exist always. But if you answer the question "Do you believe in God?" with a "Yes" then you are not an atheist. It does not matter how strong or weak your faith is.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Catchy title. A-theism means something like No theism. And it's rare maybe almost impossible that somebody would not believe in God 100%. Not even a 0.01% that maybe God created this world.
And if he/she thinks that there is a very small percentage so, than it's not atheism; and still he/she will call himself an atheist.
BTW, a famous said or wrote something like that.

For me, atheism is a matter of choice. Sure I could believe in a God, any God. There are plenty of Gods to choose from. I could create my own God or borrow someone else's God. Atheism means I choose not to invest any belief in any of them, not even concept of Gods I've had in the past or even imagined as possibilities.

Atheism accepts the humility of man's ignorance and avoids the arrogance found in those who make claims about God.
 

lukethethird

unknown member
Catchy title. A-theism means something like No theism. And it's rare maybe almost impossible that somebody would not believe in God 100%. Not even a 0.01% that maybe God created this world.
And if he/she thinks that there is a very small percentage so, than it's not atheism; and still he/she will call himself an atheist.
BTW, a famous said or wrote something like that.
God who?
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
In Advaita Hindu philosophy, there is no essential difference between the living entity and Brahman. The word often translated as Lord in early texts referred to ‘turiya’, the fourth state. ( @Aupmanyav may correct or confirm this.) So someone may be saying God to refer to an irrefutable and ongoing experience, not at all at odds with science. And not at all like the God of the Bible.
BTW.....note to posters....Atheism is not ‘belief that there is no God’, it is the absence of a belief.
I agree to your last deposition that atheism means an absence of belief in God. Strong atheism goes beyond that in denying even the possibility of the existence of God, soul or ghosts. I am a strong atheist.

As for Advaita (non-duality in Hinduism), there are various shades. They range from:
1. Acceptance of existence of Ishwara (God) as a worldly truth but denial of that at the level of absolute truth, where it is only Brahman (Sankara's Advaita),
2. Acceptance that living beings and Brahman are same but they have different attributes (Ramanuja's Vishishta Advaita), Ramanuja says that Vishnu is the Brahman.
3. Acceptance that living beings and Brahman are the same but their relationship is indescribable (Chaitanya's Acintya Bheda Abheda Advaita - Hare-Krishnas), Chaitanya says that Krishna is the Brahman,
4. Acceptance that living beings and Brahman are simultaneously same and different (Nimbarka's Dvaita-Advaita), Nimbarka says that Krishna is the Brahman,
5. Acceptance that there is no real difference between living beings and Brahman, like sandalwood makes its presence felt through its scent even if sandalwood can't be seen (Vallabha's Shuddha Advaita), Vallabha too says that Krishna is the Brahman.

My view goes beyond Sankara, i.e., "if Ishwara (God) is a truth only at the worldly level, and untruth at the absolute level, why accept its existence?"
For me, Brahman is not a God but the substrate that constitutes all things in the universe without any exception (living or non-living).
 
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Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
Catchy title. A-theism means something like No theism. And it's rare maybe almost impossible that somebody would not believe in God 100%. Not even a 0.01% that maybe God created this world.
And if he/she thinks that there is a very small percentage so, than it's not atheism; and still he/she will call himself an atheist.
BTW, a famous said or wrote something like that.
If someone says "I don't like beets," and they have actually tried beets they probably have got some neurons that enjoy beets but which are drowned out by neurons that don't like the texture. Even so you can't say they like beets just because some of their neurons appreciate the sugar. Choices involve suppressing some thoughts over others. It doesn't mean that a friend is an enemy or that like is dislike. It doesn't make a theist an atheist or vice versa.
 
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