I can believe in things before I know the words for them. Babies don't disbelieve in God because they don't know the word "God".

(July 29, 2016 at 12:54 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote: I can believe in things before I know the words for them. Babies don't disbelieve in God because they don't know the word "God".

I didn't say they disbelieve in it, I said they lack a belief in it, there is a world of difference in that. It also happens to be the difference between soft and strong atheism, perfectly good concepts one of which benny has said earlier he doesn't agree with. If you ask me whether I'm twenty or twenty one, which do you think might be better, that I tell you I don't agree with my age, or simply telling you my age?

(July 29, 2016 at 12:54 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote: I can believe in things before I know the words for them. Babies don't disbelieve in God because they don't know the word "God".

You can believe in things you directly experience before you know the words for them, not ones you can only conceptually get in touch with.

Hmm.

(July 29, 2016 at 12:48 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote: Ignostics believe gods are undefinable though. Another name for ignosticism is theological noncognitvism.

Personally, I'm happy to accept any definition from any given person. I'll treat whatever they say it is as "God". It's just that until it's been cleared up, the word can mean anything. If you pick any supposed quality innate to "God", you'll find people somewhere who are referring to something without that quality. For example, people used to worship the sun as a god. Nothing to stop them doing that now.

The only way round this is to tell everyone what they can and can't call a god, which seems equally pointless. I wouldn't presume to tell people that. Since it has no positive association with anything actually real, and no universally understood definition, it's a placeholder.

I can tell people what they probably mean. They probably mean "intelligent creator of our reality" plus "word salad garbage". But they might not even mean the first bit, so how can I assume anything? And once they've layered on the second bit, I'm dealing with a huge fucking mess that makes no sense.

Excited Penguin Wrote:

Alasdair Ham Wrote:I can believe in things before I know the words for them. Babies don't disbelieve in God because they don't know the word "God".

I didn't say they disbelieve in it, I said they lack a belief in it, there is a world of difference in that. It also happens to be the difference between soft and strong atheism, perfectly good concepts one of which benny has said earlier he doesn't agree with. If you ask me whether I'm twenty or twenty one, which do you think might be better, that I tell you I don't agree with my age, or simply telling you my age?

I know I'm probably being pedantic, but on of the definitions of 'disbelief' is 'lack of faith in something'.

(July 29, 2016 at 1:22 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote:

Excited Penguin Wrote:I didn't say they disbelieve in it, I said they lack a belief in it, there is a world of difference in that. It also happens to be the difference between soft and strong atheism, perfectly good concepts one of which benny has said earlier he doesn't agree with. If you ask me whether I'm twenty or twenty one, which do you think might be better, that I tell you I don't agree with my age, or simply telling you my age?

I know I'm probably being pedantic, but on of the definitions of 'disbelief' is 'lack of faith in something'.

Well yeah, what I mean is the difference between strong and weak atheism, is all.

(July 29, 2016 at 12:58 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote:

(July 29, 2016 at 12:54 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote: I can believe in things before I know the words for them. Babies don't disbelieve in God because they don't know the word "God".

You can believe in things you directly experience before you know the words for them, not ones you can only conceptually get in touch with.

Then my beagle's an atheist.

It's not a very useful way to describe him, though, and I doubt he cares enough to declare that way.

If EP (or theists) would instead just say, "Do you believe our reality was created by an intelligence", then a sensible answer can be given. No, I don't believe that. Nor do I rule it out as an explanation. If this is what they are asking, it's a much better question. If that's not what they are asking, then I don't have the foggiest what a "God" is supposed to be, or what distinguishes a God from a non-God.

Crucially, the way I behave wouldn't change even if I knew it to be true. So it's just not important to me.

I already put forward my final question. Is there something you identify as a God which you believe actually exists, or not?