(October 7, 2016 at 4:09 am)robvalue Wrote: Yes, I don't believe that statement, if God is defined as "an intelligent creator". I disbelieve both the claim and the contrary claim. I am undecided. It's not required to make a firm decision one way or the other. Do you believe Gongrin is the most powerful goblin in my new card game? If not, does that you mean believe he isn't? I hope you watched the video because I covered this in detail.

Why should I care? You missed that part.

"Why should I care? You missed that part."
I ignored that because I'm not claiming that someone should care. I'm interested in how someone can assert with 100% certainty "God does not exist" without formally disproving the existence of God.

Okay, fair enough.

Not many people are asserting that. You're arguing with gnostic atheists only.

Interesting that you don't even think I should care about your God, though.

(October 7, 2016 at 3:20 am)ray3400 Wrote: Most of this is ad hominems, but I will respond to the one rebuttal you made:

You don't know what an ad Hominem is.

Other than that, it was entertaining for a while. I replied. Not to you, obviouly FUBAR into religion. TELL me, this "atheists have faith too" argument is of your idea? If it is, its not original.

Funny, since you were the one coming here saying what WE believe.

I am going fond Min's Method:

Go blow jesus out of your ass.

Quote:There's actually three distinct positions, two of which are atheism. These are sometimes called weak and strong atheism. (Strong atheism sometimes gets used to mean gnostic atheism too.) For more discussion on the meaning of agnostic and gnostic, please see here. Notice that there are actually two different questions that can be asked:

Question 1: Do you have an active belief there are one or more gods?
Question 2: Do you have an active belief there are no gods?

Position 1: Y, N: Theist (could be agnostic or gnostic)
Position 2: N, N: Weak atheist (agnostic) - since this position makes no claims of belief, it cannot claim to "know for sure"!
Position 3: N, Y: Strong atheist (could be agnostic or gnostic)

Everyone is in one of those 3 positions by definition. People who say they are "just agnostic" are almost certainly in position 2. So essentially they are agnostic atheists but prefer to drop the "atheist" part. This may be because of the stigma attached to the word, or it may be because they are using different definitions for words. By the definitions I use here, agnostic is not a middle ground between theism and atheism.

Position 2 is the default position. It is undecided.

http://robvalue.wixsite.com/atheism/what-is-atheism

I think position 2 is logically consistent with not requiring faith.
However, positions 1 and 3 do inherently require faith, due to there being a degree of uncertainty with each position. Why must there be a degree of uncertainty with positions 1 and 3? God has not been formally proven or formally disproven.

Let's suppose the amount of faith required is proportional to the degree of uncertainty involved.

For example, the strong atheist has a 0.0001% uncertainty and the theist has a 50% uncertainty, therefore the theist requires 500,000 times more faith than the strong atheist. The strong atheistic position requires faith nonetheless. The only way for the strong atheist position to be logically consistent and not require faith it to bring the uncertainty level down to 0%. This is impossible without a formal disproof of the existence of God.

I say there is no god.

Theist: "Prove it"

How? How can you disprove god?

Something that is not falsifiable can be dismissed without further consideration.

So far , I have no more reason to believe any god exists than I do Santa Claus. The pattern is the same. Bull shit that grown ups tell kids and then the kids grow up and tell their kids.

(October 7, 2016 at 4:56 am)ray3400 Wrote: I think position 2 is logically consistent with not requiring faith.
However, positions 1 and 3 do inherently require faith, due to there being a degree of uncertainty with each position. Why must there be a degree of uncertainty with positions 1 and 3? God has not been formally proven or formally disproven.

I'm not saying there must be a degree of uncertainty. I'm saying you can claim to be certain, or just to believe. That's the difference between being agnostic and gnostic.

Quote:Let's suppose the amount of faith required is proportional to the degree of uncertainty involved.

For example, the strong atheist has a 0.0001% uncertainty and the theist has a 50% uncertainty, therefore the theist requires 500,000 times more faith than the strong atheist. The strong atheistic position requires faith nonetheless. The only way for the strong atheist position to be logically consistent and not require faith it to bring the uncertainty level down to 0%. This is impossible without a formal disproof of the existence of God.

You're using the word "faith" in many different ways, I'm not sure what your aim is. What is your aim, anyway? Like I said, you're only even arguing with gnostic atheists, of which there are very few. Are you saying faith is a good or a bad thing?

In my opinion, absolute certainty, about anything, is unrealistic. We can just be certain beyond reasonable doubt.

The theist is 50% uncertain? I think this is highly unlikely. If they feel it's a coin toss, they are an atheist. You don't have a positive belief in god if you think it's that up in the air.

Fortunately, I don't have to logically disprove God as this statement "The creator of the universe, a spiritual being that is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. The source of absolute morality and absolute truth." has done it for me.

It takes no more faith the disbelieve in such an incoherently defined God than it does to disbelieve in a married bachelor.

Boru

Generic creator: Weak atheist. No opinion.

Very specific creator with loads and loads of details, who happens to agree with the person I'm talking with on all moral issues: Strong atheist. I believe such a thing is extremely unlikely to exist, and is more likely to be a figment of their imagination.

I don't claim to have absolutely knowledge of anything.

My general position is ignosticism: "god" is not well defined. I have no clue what any particular person means by it.

Luckily for me, I couldn't care less about the existence of any of these things. So it gives me a nice unclouded perspective.

(October 7, 2016 at 5:29 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Fortunately, I don't have to logically disprove God as this statement  "The creator of the universe, a spiritual being that is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. The source of absolute morality and absolute truth." has done it for me.

It takes no more faith the disbelieve in such an incoherently defined God than it does to disbelieve in a married bachelor.

Boru

Actually... I am married, but the government thinks I am a bachelor. Single mother my wife is. Hmmm.

Heh, if trump does it...

robvalueOkay, fair enough.

Not many people are asserting that. You're arguing with gnostic atheists only.

Interesting that you don't even think I should care about your God, though.

(October 7, 2016 at 5:15 am)robvalue Wrote:

(October 7, 2016 at 4:56 am)ray3400 Wrote: I think position 2 is logically consistent with not requiring faith.
However, positions 1 and 3 do inherently require faith, due to there being a degree of uncertainty with each position. Why must there be a degree of uncertainty with positions 1 and 3? God has not been formally proven or formally disproven.

I'm not saying there must be a degree of uncertainty. I'm saying you can claim to be certain, or just to believe. That's the difference between being agnostic and gnostic.

Quote:Let's suppose the amount of faith required is proportional to the degree of uncertainty involved.

For example, the strong atheist has a 0.0001% uncertainty and the theist has a 50% uncertainty, therefore the theist requires 500,000 times more faith than the strong atheist. The strong atheistic position requires faith nonetheless. The only way for the strong atheist position to be logically consistent and not require faith it to bring the uncertainty level down to 0%. This is impossible without a formal disproof of the existence of God.

You're using the word "faith" in many different ways, I'm not sure what your aim is. What is your aim, anyway? Like I said, you're only even arguing with gnostic atheists, of which there are very few. Are you saying faith is a good or a bad thing?

In my opinion, absolute certainty, about anything, is unrealistic. We can just be certain beyond reasonable doubt.

The theist is 50% uncertain? I think this is highly unlikely. If they feel it's a coin toss, they are an atheist. You don't have a positive belief in god if you think it's that up in the air.

"You're using the word "faith" in many different ways, I'm not sure what your aim is."
In this case what I mean by faith is "one's ability to hold a belief despite a degree of uncertainty".
If one knows something for certain there is no need for faith. If one does not know something for certain, faith is required to varying degrees to hold a belief as true.


"In my opinion, absolute certainty, about anything, is unrealistic. We can just be certain beyond reasonable doubt."
This position makes sense, my purpose is not to doubt everything to the point of not knowing anything for certain. Many atheists (but not all), do express that they believe with 100% certainty that God does not exist.


"The theist is 50% uncertain? I think this is highly unlikely."
The point is, despite the extreme values given, faith is still required for the strong atheist position.

My aim is to show that what you call a "strong atheist" requires some degree of faith. Here is a refined version of what I'm proposing given what you've stated so far:

---

Proposal:
The strong atheist position requires faith.

Given:
Question 1: Do you have an active belief there are one or more gods?
Question 2: Do you have an active belief there are no gods?

Position 1: Y, N: Theist (could be agnostic or gnostic)
Position 2: N, N: Weak atheist (agnostic) - since this position makes no claims of belief, it cannot claim to "know for sure".
Position 3: N, Y: Strong atheist (could be agnostic or gnostic)

Everyone is in one of those 3 positions by definition.


Conclusion:
Position 2:
Position 2 is logically consistent with not requiring faith because it makes no claims.

Positions 1 and 3:
God has not been formally proven or formally disproven, so there is a degree of uncertainty with positions 1 and 3.
Do to this uncertainty, positions 1 and 3 do inherently require faith.


Example:
Let's suppose the amount of faith required is proportional to the degree of uncertainty involved.

If the strong atheist has a 0.0001% uncertainty and the theist has a 50% uncertainty, then the theist requires 500,000 times more faith than the strong atheist.
The strong atheistic position requires faith nonetheless. The only way for the strong atheist position to be logically consistent and not require faith is to bring the uncertainty level down to 0%. This is impossible without a formal disproof of the existence of God.

Also, if it is impossible to formally disprove the existence of God, and we cannot assume that all things impossible to disprove are automatically false, then the uncertainty level will never reach 0%.