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The New Definition of Atheism

tosca1 said:
But to say atheism is lack of belief, is not a point of view! It's an irrational opinion! Lol. It's like............... belief is just simply void!

As an example, infants have lack of belief......but we don't say they're therefore, atheists! :lol:
It also means, the atheist is comparable to a........puppy! The puppy lacks belief!

You get now why it is laughable?
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The atheist simply does not believe the claims of the theist owing to a lack of credible evidence. It's that simple and owing to the fact that Lane Craig can't prove his belief system, he has to attack the sceptics ~ it's a common tactic among his type.


Then.....you haven't seen some of the posts here from atheists who try to explain away their position as atheists! :shrug:
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Yes, your lack of understanding is not their problem.

Funny.....here I thought it's atheists - especially the new atheists - who have done a lot of belittling and mocking - until they encountered rational pushback from theists!
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Then you should read your own posts. Where are these rational arguments you claim exist? I haven't seen one from a single theist so far. I've seen plenty of fallacious arguments and many that are just insane, but nothing of a rational nature.

When they can't respond to the obvious question, "if you don't agree with science - on what authority do you base your atheistic belief? - which, of course, they can't answer - that's when they start going through all the tap dancing! :lol:
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Because as questions go, it's somewhat ridiculous. If you can demonstrate that gods exist, great. If you can't, why should I believe your assertion? All your attacks and contortions do not alter the situation, and until you can prove your god exists, I do not have to take your assertions seriously.

As Hitchens once stated, 'that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.'
 
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tosca1 said:
But to say atheism is lack of belief, is not a point of view! It's an irrational opinion! Lol. It's like............... belief is just simply void!

As an example, infants have lack of belief......but we don't say they're therefore, atheists! :lol:
It also means, the atheist is comparable to a........puppy! The puppy lacks belief!

You get now why it is laughable?
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No. It's a fairly meaningless label by that definition but that doesn't mean the definition is factually wrong. Like lots of words, atheism has a number of distinct definitions used (and abused) in different contexts. This is just one of them.

Obviously if you're going to engage in any kind of meaningful discussion about belief in a god or gods, you'd need to involve much more details about all sorts of different ideas, beliefs and worldviews, which is exactly why spinning that entire topic as a simple binary "atheists vs theists" argument is so flawed in the first place. Ultimately, neither atheism or theism are especially useful concepts when discussing specific ideas about the existence of any god or gods. They're mostly used as labels for pointless division and hate, by some people on all sides. The smartest thing to do is to rise above all that.
 
Airyaman said:
One is positive statement, but one that cannot be proven (aka, to prove a negative).
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Also seems to indicate the level of the concern the person in question holds about the topic.

For one, there is no concern at all. For the other, in order to arrive at the negative, there must be a higher level of concern.
 
bluesmoke said:
Yeah. Union with omniscience is hard to turn down.
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If that's a conclusion you can draw from her action, then that's a good conclusion for you to draw.
 
zyzygy said:
I merely ask believers for proof of their particular flavour of god. Thousands of years have passed and not a shred of proof has been forthcoming. That is not a belief, it is a fact.
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The type of proof you demand is not the type of proof that inspires belief.

There are plenty of things that exist that do not independently exhibit proof.

Dark Matter is one. Love is another. God is another. Some things are evident only by how they affect other things that we can observe.

As Potter Stewart observed, even things that CAN be seen are not always what they appear to be. Sometimes, they are exactly what they appear to be. We must depend on the observer to "...know it when I see it". Or not.

I know it when I see it - Wikipedia
 
code1211 said:
The type of proof you demand is not the type of proof that inspires belief.

There are plenty of things that exist that do not independently exhibit proof.

Dark Matter is one. Love is another. God is another. Some things are evident only by how they affect other things that we can observe.

As Potter Stewart observed, even things that CAN be seen are not always what they appear to be. Sometimes, they are exactly what they appear to be. We must depend on the observer to "...know it when I see it". Or not.

I know it when I see it - Wikipedia
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The effects of dark matter and love can be observed. Gods, not so much. Name an effect of a god that I can observe.
 
code1211 said:
What is the difference in not believing that God exists and believing that God does not exist?
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Is that a serious question?
 
zyzygy said:
The effects of dark matter and love can be observed. Gods, not so much. Name an effect of a god that I can observe.
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Alcoholics Anonymous has millions of "effects" you can observe.
 
Quote Originally Posted by code1211 View Post
What is the difference in not believing that God exists and believing that God does not exist?


Those are quite similar, but these definitions of atheism are quite different:
-Doesn’t believe in God (assumes that there is a God to believe in).
-Doesn’t accept the existence of an entity called God (dismisses the existence of such an entity on the front end).
 
Triton said:
Does that stem from a belief in God or the existence of God, though?
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Many of the recovered have experienced a higher power to which they attribute credit for helping them to achieve their goals.

The number of AA success stories is impressively high, but only a sliver of the folks claiming to have experienced a higher power.
 
tosca1 said:
But to say atheism is lack of belief, is not a point of view! It's an irrational opinion! Lol. It's like............... belief is just simply void!

As an example, infants have lack of belief......but we don't say they're therefore, atheists! :lol:
It also means, the atheist is comparable to a........puppy! The puppy lacks belief!

You get now why it is laughable?
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It is still not laughable, just more play on words just as your source does.

tosca1 said:
Then.....you haven't seen some of the posts here from atheists who try to explain away their position as atheists! :shrug:

Funny.....here I thought it's atheists - especially the new atheists - who have done a lot of belittling and mocking - until they encountered rational pushback from theists!

When they can't respond to the obvious question, "if you don't agree with science - on what authority do you base your atheistic belief? - which, of course, they can't answer - that's when they start going through all the tap dancing! :lol:
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Expect that in return, especially when a theist is asinine enough to try to bring science into their debate.
 
zyzygy said:
I merely ask believers for proof of their particular flavour of god. Thousands of years have passed and not a shred of proof has been forthcoming. That is not a belief, it is a fact.
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We've discussed this at length in other threads Zy, your unwillingness to accept the proposition "God exists" could be because the proposition is undoubtedly unsupported by evidence or because you personally don't accept the evidence as sufficient for you to regard it as true.

Now just as in science we cannot unambiguously and emphatically construct a "proof" God exists any more than we can construct a proof that the laws of physics 10 billion years ago were the same as they are today.

It is ultimately personal choice, when there is no possibility of incontrovertible proof (as we might find in a mathematical theorem) then one either says "I agree" or "I disagree" or "I don't know".

Your opinion that no proof is convincing is just your opinion, it carries no more weight than mine and you are quite wrong to claim "not a shred of proof has been forthcoming" as is clear from a cursory search in Amazon books for "Proof of God", there are many of them, many proofs do exist and have existed for thousands of years, your unwillingness to regard them as true is not the same as them not existing.

If you cannot grasp that proofs for God do exist when they obviously do then what are you even doing discussing the existence of God?
 
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Sherlock Holmes said:
We've discussed this at length in other threads Zy, your unwillingness to accept the proposition "God exists" could be because the proposition is undoubtedly unsupported by evidence or because you personally don't accept the evidence as sufficient for you to regard it as true.

Now just as in science we cannot unambiguously and emphatically construct a "proof" God exists any more than we can construct a proof that the laws of physics 10 billion years ago were the same as they are today.

It is ultimately personal choice, when there is no possibility of incontrovertible proof (as we might find in a mathematical theorem) then one either says "I agree" or "I disagree" or "I don't know".

Your opinion that no proof is convincing is just your opinion, it carries no more weight than mine and you are quite wrong to claim "not a shred of proof has been forthcoming" as is clear from a cursory search in Amazon books for "Proof of God", there are many of them.
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It does indeed, but since you absolutely refuse to acknowledge a foundation of logic that “a negative can’t be proven”, it then becomes easy for you to make inaccurate statement comparing atheist to theists, the point being that it is incumbent upon those who propose a POSITIVE statement to then offer objective evidence for it, no requirement for the opposition to “disprove” it until you do so.
All you are offering is he very simplistic and WRONG claim that believers always fall back on: “prove there is no God”.
Like I said, dry simplistic, but no real meaning since it does not apply I a LOGIC manner.
But keep repeating it is you feel like it. All that it shows is that you negate your own arguments at their foundation.

(Sherlock double-talk to follow).
 
watsup said:
It does indeed, but since you absolutely refuse to acknowledge a foundation of logic that “a negative can’t be proven”
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I must stop you right there, I have never claimed a "negative" can be proven, and if this is the case then why does Zy believe no proof exists or ever has existed when he knows it cannot be proven?

watsup said:
it then becomes easy for you to make inaccurate statement comparing atheist to theists, the point being that it is incumbent upon those who propose a POSITIVE statement to then offer objective evidence for it, no requirement for the opposition to “disprove” it until you do so.
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You are quite wrong Watsup, every proposition implies a burden of proof on the proponent, what you don't seem to grasp is that if a negative cannot be proven then it should not be asserted for that very reason.

watsup said:
All you are offering is he very simplistic and WRONG claim that believers always fall back on: “prove there is no God”
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Yet I have never ever asked for that, and you'll find no post of mine asking for that so this is a strawman, attacking something I have never once said.

watsup said:
Like I said, dry simplistic, but no real meaning since it does not apply I a LOGIC manner. But keep repeating it is you feel like it. All that it shows is that you negate your own arguments at their foundation.
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Zy said "thousands of years have passed and not a shred of proof has been forthcoming" but he cannot prove it so why should anyone believe it? This is all that this is about, pretty simple, dogmatic assertions that X is the case without proof and without even the possibility of proof and you berate me for refusing to believe it?

But as if that wasn't bad enough it's trivial to see that there are lots of proofs! they do exist and have existed for thousands of years - just search Amazon books - do you not agree with me?
 
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Sherlock Holmes said:
I must stop you right there, I have never claimed a "negative" can be proven, and if this is the case then why does Zy believe no proof exists or ever has existed when he knows it cannot be proven?



You are quite wrong Watsup, every proposition implies a burden of proof on the proponent, what you don't seem to grasp is that if a negative cannot be proven then it should not be asserted for that very reason.



Yet I have never ever asked for that, and you'll find no post of mine asking for that so this is a strawman, attacking something I have never once said.



Zy said "thousands of years have passed and not a shred of proof has been forthcoming" but he cannot prove it so why should anyone believe it? This is all that this is about, pretty simple, dogmatic assertions that X is the case without proof and without even the possibility of proof and you berate me for refusing to believe it?

But as if that wasn't bad enough it's trivial to see that there are lots of proofs! they do exist and have existed for thousands of years - just search Amazon books - do you not agree with me?
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“Every proposition requires a burden of proof on the proponent.”
Umm, no. It if they Are simply pointing out that a positive proposition has no evidence to support it.
In that case, The person who states the positive proposition must then provide evidence to support it. If no evidence is provided, then it is just considered as so much nonsense in logic.

Examples:
There are wood fairies.
There is a God.

In both cases, no objective real world evidence has been provided, so the LOGICAL conclusion is that they don’t exist.

I would ask you for evidence, but people have been doing it till they are blue on the face and you have not provided any objective reality-based evidence so far, so why would you start now?
 
watsup said:
“Every proposition requires a burden of proof on the proponent.”
Umm, no. It if they Are simply pointing out that a positive proposition has no evidence to support it.
In that case, The person who states the positive proposition must then provide evidence to support it. If no evidence is provided, then it is just considered as so much nonsense in logic.

Examples:
There are wood fairies.
There is a God.

In both cases, no objective real world evidence has been provided, so the LOGICAL conclusion is that they don’t exist.

I would ask you for evidence, but people have been doing it till they are blue on the face and you have not provided any objective reality-based evidence so far, so why would you start now?
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So tell me how do you establish the truth of a proposition like "There is no X" for any X? Why should I believe such a proposition if we both know and agree it cannot be proven true?

And you are still very confused, you wrote:

watsup said:
It if they Are simply pointing out that a positive proposition has no evidence to support it.
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Which is just repeating what he said!

What is the difference between me "pointing out" and "proving"? You admit we cannot prove a negative, so we agree we cannot prove "no evidence to support it" now, if we cannot prove it how exactly can one "point it out"?

I ask three rather clear questions above (red question marks), please do me the courtesy of answering them.
 
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Sherlock Holmes said:
So tell me how do you establish the truth of a proposition like "There is no X" for any X? Why should I believe such a proposition if we both know and agree it cannot be proven true?

And you are still very confused, you wrote:



Which is just repeating what he said!

What is the difference between me "pointing out" and "proving"? You admit we cannot prove a negative, so we agree we cannot prove "no evidence to support it" now, if we cannot prove it how exactly can one "point it out"?

I ask three rather clear questions above (red question marks), please do me the courtesy of answering them.
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Yeah, I’m the one who is very confused, not the person who posts the mishmash of double-talk above. *L*
 
watsup said:
Yeah, I’m the one who is very confused, not the person who posts the mishmash of double-talk above. *L*
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Why did you not answer my questions? did you not understand them?
 
code1211 said:
Alcoholics Anonymous has millions of "effects" you can observe.
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How so? Let's see you show how that is anything more than a placebo.
 
tosca1 said:
You didn't watch the video, did you?

IT'S NOT A VIEWPOINT!

Watch it.
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Theism is a viewpoint because you believe that God exists. Atheism and agnosticism are equally valid and unlike theism, they are logically supported because believers have yet to put forth evidence that supports that their sentient creator actually sexists in a way that can be falsifiable and testable by people who are not believers.

As I have explained to you believe you are making the claim that a creator exists so the logical burden of proof is on you to prove that you claim is true with evidence that doesn't rely on faith and belief. Believers of all theistic faiths have failed at that task for the past 2000+ years because they continue to rely on faith and belief. Ergo, God does not exist.
 
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