(November 14, 2016 at 2:37 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote:

(November 14, 2016 at 2:16 pm)Whateverist Wrote: And yet as you yourself are fond of pointing out, in the meantime, awaiting a clarification, you'd have to admit you lack belief in gods.

"Lacking belief" is such a pet peeve of mine:

Lack
noun
the state of being without or not having enough of something.

Lack
verb
be without or deficient in.


Nothing is deficient or lacking... it's an absence not a lack

It also means what it says without the part I struck out.

(November 14, 2016 at 3:06 pm)robvalue Wrote:

(November 14, 2016 at 2:16 pm)Whateverist Wrote: And yet as you yourself are fond of pointing out, in the meantime, awaiting a clarification, you'd have to admit you lack belief in gods.

True, yes I lack belief in even the leanest and most sensible kind of "god" that isn't merely something else re-labelled. It's not just that there is no evidence, it's that the definitions usually preclude the possibility of evidence.

I feel the same way regarding the often absurd or incoherent definitions, but I'm still lacking any belief in this god stuff in the mean time.  Guess I'm just conservative about what I will claim to believe.

Thanks for acknowledging me, Whatev. You're a nice guy

(November 14, 2016 at 2:37 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote: Nothing is deficient or lacking... it's an absence not a lack

It's rather like saying that as a male, I am unable to carry and birth children. There's nothing lacking in me that makes me any less of a person - the capacity simply isn't present.

Yes. "Lack"'s primary denotation and connotation is one of "Not enough" or IOW... "Something is lacking".

I feel like whenever we tell the theists that we lack belief it's like we're throwing them a fricken ball with "Opportunity For You Theists To Equivocate" written on it lol.

(November 14, 2016 at 4:14 pm)Stimbo Wrote:

(November 14, 2016 at 2:37 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote: Nothing is deficient or lacking... it's an absence not a lack

It's rather like saying that as a male, I am unable to carry and birth children. There's nothing lacking in me that makes me any less of a person - the capacity simply isn't present.

I will still fight the Romans for your right to have babies.

(November 14, 2016 at 2:43 am)robvalue Wrote: It is true that atheism is a pre-emptive position. I'm probably going to say I lack belief in what someone eventually describes as being "God". But they may say something like "The universe is God", in which case I obviously believe in it. So whether I believe, disbelieve, believe to the contrary or just push the person into the nearest trash will depend entirely on their attempts to define "God". Apatheist covers it rather better really. I don't give a shit about anyone's "God", real or imagined.

This is my position, ignosticism. I have a problem with the question. I feel I always require clarification. So it's fair to say I'm not technically an atheist because I don't yet understand what I'm being asked, in the general case. But this is too much detail for most people

I'm sorry for such a late reply.

Richard Dawkins made a good point about the idea of the universe being God/sentient. The gist of it is that many people confuse the things that are in the universe being alive for the universe in whole being alive, and yes, while I agree that we cannot know for sure, I have to say it's a bit presumptuous and strange to say that the universe, all combining together, forms one God. I don't dismiss the idea, however, but there's a big difference between factors of the universe being alive and the universe being alive. Except for that, I completely agree.

I have seen this argument play out so many times it's not funny.  Technically a person who does not believe in any gods is an atheist.  That is the definition.  You are either "theist", having belief, or "atheist", not having belief.  But that's a technicality.  Some people prefer to identify as "agnostic" instead for whatever reason.  They don't like to be called an "atheist".  Personally, I'm okay with that.  When someone says, "I'm agnostic" I have a pretty good idea what they mean.  I understand what they're saying to me and I do not feel the need to shoehorn them into a label they are not comfortable with, even if it is technically accurate.  We forget sometimes that "agnostic" is a word too, and also has a definition which the claimant is properly using, so there is really no need for a correction of a statement which is already accurate.

That being said, agnosticism is very much not the "most logical position".  No, there is no evidence that no gods exist and never will be because it would be impossible for something which doesn't exist to leave behind evidence that it doesn't exist.  If your position is "If you can't prove it's wrong then the most logical thing is to believe it might be right", that really doesn't work in the real world.  Are you also agnostic about fairies and trolls?  What about unicorns?  Many people have claimed to have astounding psychic powers, but every one ever tested under controlled scientific conditions has utterly failed to produce a positive result.  There is no evidence that psychic powers are not real and there is no evidence that they are real.  By that logic one should be agnostic about the existence of psychic powers.  But when you look at it realistically that position just doesn't make sense.  On the one side you have many, many claims of psychic powers and on the other side you have many, many tests producing no positive results and zero tests producing positive results.  The same could be said about the existence of gods.  On the one side you have claims, on the other side all of those claims which weren't too vague to be tested and which have been tested have failed to produce positive results.  To say that being agnostic about it is the most "logical" position is to say that claims are equivalent to scientific testing which does not produce positive results.  Anyone can make a claim.  No credibility is required.  And all false claims tested fail to produce positive results.  It could be no other way since they are "false".  A "claim" should be suspect to begin with, especially one concerning fantastical magical beings.  And if no evidence can be found to support that claim the "most logical" thing to do is to dismiss that claim.

It is only because we are trained to believe in magical beings from childhood that we even feel that we need to entertain these silly ideas at all.  Imagine you had never heard of or even imagined any gods.  The thought that there might be some magical creator being has never crossed your mind.  Now, as an adult, someone tells you that there is a magical being responsible for the existence of everything.  You would find this idea to be ludicrous.  You wouldn't give it a second thought.  It is not only just a claim, it is a ridiculous claim.  The claimant is asking that you believe in magic; that you believe that the laws of physics to not apply except when the claimant wants them to apply (as in the "first cause" argument, where the laws of physics are absolute and unbreakable...except when they're not).  If we were not trained from childhood to entertain this magical thinking we would all dismiss it outright as nonsense.  This is exactly why Christians in America are so desperate to get magic back into the public schools so that all the little children are trained from an early age to believe it's possible.

(November 14, 2016 at 5:29 pm)RiddledWithFear Wrote: I'm sorry for such a late reply.

Richard Dawkins made a good point about the idea of the universe being God/sentient. The gist of it is that many people confuse the things that are in the universe being alive for the universe in whole being alive, and yes, while I agree that we cannot know for sure, I have to say it's a bit presumptuous and strange to say that the universe, all combining together, forms one God. I don't dismiss the idea, however, but there's a big difference between factors of the universe being alive and the universe being alive. Except for that, I completely agree.

I like Dawkins, and I enjoy seeing him eat theists for breakfast, but I think this is a logic fail. 99.999999% of a human is empty space. Would you then say the HUMAN isn't alive, it is just the neurons inside him which are alive? No, that doesn't work, either, because the neurons themselves are 99.9999999% empty space, too. So, for that matter, are all the atoms in the neurons.

It's kind of paradoxical, really-- there's nothing that humans are made up of that can knowingly be said to be life/alive, and yet here we are-- living out our days with intent, and sense of purpose, and a rich subjective experience of our actions and their consequences.

So yeah, I'd say that if much/most of the stuff IN the universe is acting in a particular coherent way, then one could reasonably define the Universe as being alive. I'm not saying that's the case-- just that deconstruction doesn't work for ANY living thing, and so applying it to the Universe-as-God idea doesn't really prove anything.

(November 14, 2016 at 8:05 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(November 14, 2016 at 5:29 pm)RiddledWithFear Wrote: I'm sorry for such a late reply.

Richard Dawkins made a good point about the idea of the universe being God/sentient. The gist of it is that many people confuse the things that are in the universe being alive for the universe in whole being alive, and yes, while I agree that we cannot know for sure, I have to say it's a bit presumptuous and strange to say that the universe, all combining together, forms one God. I don't dismiss the idea, however, but there's a big difference between factors of the universe being alive and the universe being alive. Except for that, I completely agree.

I like Dawkins, and I enjoy seeing him eat theists for breakfast, but I think this is a logic fail.  99.999999% of a human is empty space.  Would you then say the HUMAN isn't alive, it is just the neurons inside him which are alive?  No, that doesn't work, either, because the neurons themselves are 99.9999999% empty space, too.  So, for that matter, are all the atoms in the neurons.

So yeah, I'd say that if the stuff IN the universe is acting in a particular coherent way, then one could reasonably define the Universe as being alive.  I'm not saying that's the case-- just that this particular logic doesn't really work.

I was trying to make a rebuttal here but it would be contradictory to my main point, so I'll just say touche.