bennyboy Wrote:

Excited Penguin Wrote:While there are things others call God religiously and we may believe in them, that doesn't mean we believe in Gods unless we specifically think of them as Gods as well. So, once again, benny, do you believe in any Gods or not?

Do you believe in boobledyboo, or not?

Look, we can do this dance all day.  If you want to know if there's anything I call "God," then I'd say only good orgasms and good League of Legends junglers.  If you want to know if I believe in one of a variety of gods and deities, then you'll have to define them.

I don't believe in boobledyboo. How could I?

(August 1, 2016 at 11:15 am)Mister Agenda Wrote:

Excited Penguin Wrote:Oh, the fucking irony in calling me pedantic in this thread, of all the people.

Yeah, if he's going to call you pedantic, he should at least acknowledge his own pedantry...oh, wait.

Excited Penguin Wrote:

Alasdair Ham Wrote:Ignostics believe gods are undefinable though. Another name for ignosticism is theological noncognitvism.

If gods are undefinable, then there is no belief to be had in them. There is a lack of belief there. There is atheism. Ignostics are atheists, just as new born babies are atheists for failing to believe in Gods because they don't yet understand the concept.


This is why I call you people dishonest. Every one of you would agree and would say that we are all born atheists. And yet you give this all up and contradict yourselves just to defend a fallacious position. Why is that? Do you hate me so much you have to disagree with everything I say on principle and take the side of everyone else but me in a debate?

I disagree that we are all born atheists. the construction of 'atheist' isn't 'a-theist' or 'not a theist', it's 'athe-ist', a person concerned with 'athe', no god. Rocks, babies, and dogs aren't atheists; because they are not people capable of concerning themselves with the existence or nonexistence of God(s). A baby truly has no opinion one way or the other, and both atheism and theism are opinions on the reality of supernatural deities. In other words, I don't believe 'implicit atheism', absence of theism without conscious rejection of it, is a useful or accurate term. May as well call it implicit theism because the person has no conscious rejection of atheism. Such a person is a blank slate on the matter until they've been exposed to the idea. Implicit nontheism would be a better term, they're not a theist, but as I said, 'not a theist' is not all there is to atheism. There's a little bit more: not accepting theism.

Alasdair Ham Wrote:Babies believe in the presence of their mother before they know what a mother is.

I would say they believe in her presence because they have direct experience of it, they just don't have the words to define it. That seems quite a different matter from believing in blek without having any conception of what blek is.

Actually, studies have been done on this. They do something called separation, up until around age two. When they can see their mother is in the room, she exists. When the mother leaves the room, they separate from the thought that she is still "there". To them, she no longer exists (until she comes back in the room)

This is what is also known as black and white thinking. It's either all or nothing.

(August 1, 2016 at 11:15 am)Mister Agenda Wrote:

Excited Penguin Wrote:Oh, the fucking irony in calling me pedantic in this thread, of all the people.

Yeah, if he's going to call you pedantic, he should at least acknowledge his own pedantry...oh, wait.

As stated later, that's not what I meant.

(August 1, 2016 at 11:41 am)Nymphadora Wrote: Actually, studies have been done on this. They do something called separation, up until around age two. When they can see their mother is in the room, she exists. When the mother leaves the room, they separate from the thought that she is still "there". To them, she no longer exists (until she comes back in the room)

This is what is also known as black and white thinking. It's either all or nothing.

Yeah, the idea of object permanence isn't yet consolidated in their mind at their age. That's why the whole peek-a-boo works so well on them.

(August 1, 2016 at 11:32 am)Mister Agenda Wrote:

Excited Penguin Wrote:If gods are undefinable, then there is no belief to be had in them. There is a lack of belief there. There is atheism. Ignostics are atheists, just as new born babies are atheists for failing to believe in Gods because they don't yet understand the concept.


This is why I call you people dishonest. Every one of you would agree and would say that we are all born atheists. And yet you give this all up and contradict yourselves just to defend a fallacious position. Why is that? Do you hate me so much you have to disagree with everything I say on principle and take the side of everyone else but me in a debate?

I disagree that we are all born atheists. the construction of 'atheist' isn't 'a-theist' or 'not a theist', it's 'athe-ist', a person concerned with 'athe', no god. Rocks, babies, and dogs aren't atheists; because they are not people capable of concerning themselves with the existence or nonexistence of God(s). A baby truly has no opinion one way or the other, and both atheism and theism are opinions on the reality of supernatural deities. In other words, I don't believe 'implicit atheism', absence of theism without conscious rejection of it, is a useful or accurate term. May as well call it implicit theism because the person has no conscious rejection of atheism. Such a person is a blank slate on the matter until they've been exposed to the idea. Implicit nontheism would be a better term, they're not a theist, but as I said, 'not a theist' is not all there is to atheism. There's a little bit more: not accepting theism.

That is simply inacurate. Lack of belief is an acceptable form of atheism. Lack of knowledge of existence of belief is perfectly compatible with atheism as well.

To be fair, we do usually have an idea of what is meant by 'God'. It's fair to go with the 'usual definition' unless they say otherwise. If they mean God as 'whatever began this iteration of the universe, even if it was a quantum vacuum fluctuation' rather than God as 'supernatural person who created the universe', they should say so because they are using a nonstandard definition. That said, the definition of 'supernatural' is problematic in itself. The real differences I run into when other people use the word 'God' isn't the basic definition, it's all the baggage they tack on in addition, which sometimes seems to be different for every believer.

(August 1, 2016 at 11:16 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote:

(August 1, 2016 at 11:15 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: Yeah, if he's going to call you pedantic, he should at least acknowledge his own pedantry...oh, wait.

Like I already explained in a later post, which I'm sure you've read, notice the phrasing before jumping to conclusions. I didn't say you of all people are calling me pedantic, I said you were calling me pedantic of all people - meaning, out of everyone who was being pedantic about atheism and agnosticism and such you chose to only criticize me.

I hope this clears it up for you. If not, keep trolling, you're great at it.