Quote:Sometimes you hear people say that they became an atheist as a child when they figured out that all religion is silly. If their understanding hasn't progressed since that time, they tend to continue to have a child's understanding of religion.

Ad hominem
Try another fallacy. We know you have a truckload of them in your sleeve.

Quote:Sometimes you hear people say that they became an atheist as a child when they figured out that all religion is silly. If their understanding hasn't progressed since that time, they tend to continue to have a child's understanding of religion.

The same would apply to religious people, when you apply that specious assumption, and that assumption presents obvious misgivings about religion's attempts to indoctrinate children.


However these speculations are largely moot, if you have an explanation that justifies the belief a deity exists, offer it, all you have offered thus far are the usual unevidenced subjective claims, and irrational attempts to reverse your claim's burden of proof. 

Just present the best most compelling reason you have for believing a deity exists, define it accurately, and evidence the characteristics you assign it.

(September 15, 2026 at 6:44 am)Sheldon Wrote: The same would apply to religious people

Yes, that's true. Many adults have a child-level understanding of religion. They learn something as kids and then don't bother to learn more. 

Quote:when you apply that specious assumption, and that assumption presents obvious misgivings about religion's attempts to indoctrinate children.

Why is this specious? Lots of people learn things as kids and then don't bother to learn more. Sometimes they learn wrong things and continue to be wrong. 

Quote:However these speculations are largely moot, if you have an explanation that justifies the belief a deity exists, offer it, all you have offered thus far are the usual unevidenced subjective claims, and irrational attempts to reverse your claim's burden of proof. 

Just present the best most compelling reason you have for believing a deity exists, define it accurately, and evidence the characteristics you assign it.

Why are you asking me? I'm an atheist. 

I'm interested in epistemology -- how people believe things. In philosophy, the word "belief" usually just means "something I hold to be true." We all hold some things to be true, therefore we all have beliefs. When we hear other people's claims, we evaluate them against what we hold to be true. 

What about this is false?

(September 15, 2026 at 4:47 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(September 15, 2026 at 3:51 am)Sheldon Wrote: You are making a very common error, one theists often make as well, atheist and atheism are not the same, and I never said atheists don't offer explanations for why they are atheists, only that atheism or any disbelief need explain nothing. It is an irrational argumentum ad ignorantiam argument to make a claim,  then defend it as the thread author did, by implying the lack of that belief can't explain anything / something.

Babies are all born atheists, since atheism does not need any beliefs be formed about the world, only the lack of one particular belief.

Thank you for clarifying your position. 

Quote:Sheldon: I was clarifying you're misunderstanding and the resultant error, in conflating atheist with atheism, that an atheist explains why they disbelieve (as I did and you pointed out) is very different from the thread author demanding that atheism offer explanations for as yet unexplained aspects of objective reality, which was when I said atheism need explain nothing, as it is neither a claim nor a belief. Do you understand that now? If not I can try and explain it again. 

Your earlier post said "there is no objective evidence [mermaids] exist, and the claim they do has no explanatory whatsoever."

Quote:Sheldon: I can't comment without a quote as all context is lost, though that appears to be a typo that has omitted a word, whether this omissive error was mine or is now yours, I can't say without the quote, but clearly it should read "explanatory powers". 

It sounded as though you were saying that the claim that mermaids exist explains nothing. 

Quote:Sheldon: Lets stick with deities for clarity, and yes the claims a deity did something does not in and of itself explain anything. 

Now I guess you are saying that if a person doesn't believe in mermaids, this person is under no obligation to explain anything else about the world, based on this lack of belief. 

Quote:Sheldon: Deities, and yes, mermaids was an analogous example of a subjective unevidenced belief, just to show how apologists treat their beliefs with bias. Of course I am willing to listen to any evidence they think they have for a deity. 

If one person believed in mermaids and another didn't, the first might inquire as to why so many sailors in the past claimed to have seen mermaids.

Quote:Sheldon: Either might do that much, I am not sure what point you're making, or why it is salient to the thread author trying to reverse hsi burden of proof by demanding atheism explain as yet unexplained aspects of objective reality. 

Then the non-believer, if he were interested in good-faith conversation, could offer explanations as to why people think they have seen them when they haven't.

Quote:Sheldon: You have made the same error, disbelieving a claim is not the same as holding a contrary belief, I have emboldened the contradiction for you. Not knowing whether a deity exists or not, and disbelieving claims they do (atheism) are not at all incompatible. 

But you're right he would be under no legal or moral obligation.

Quote:Sheldon: I said nothing like that at all, you are simply making things up and assigning them to me now? And again this is not about the person (atheist), it is about atheism, as I have now explained 4 or even 5 times?

(September 15, 2026 at 5:19 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(September 15, 2026 at 3:51 am)Sheldon Wrote: Babies are all born atheists, since atheism does not need any beliefs be formed about the world, only the lack of one particular belief.

You are not a baby.

Quote:Indeed, but since I never claimed to be, who knows why you're asserting a trivial truth that has no bearing at all on my point about atheism?

You are an adult, who can use language, who was raised in a society, who has heard and rejected the claims made by religious people. Have you rejected these claims for good reasons? If so, then these reasons are your beliefs. 

Quote:Fuck me, lets try bullet points:
1. I am an atheist. 
2. I was talking about atheism. 
3. No has claimed all atheists are the same. 

Atheism and atheist have a distinct difference, one you seem to be trying very hard to ignore, to misrepresent my posts, why is that? 

Atheism requires one necessary belief: that the claims made by religious people are unpersuasive. 

Quote:No it doesn't, I just gave an example that roundly contradicts this, and you have ingored it?

1. Babies do not believe in deities when they are born. (this would make them atheists)
2. Babies have not been persuaded that deities don't exist. 

Try and understand these simple distinctions:

1. Atheism and atheist are not the same.
2. Atheism is not a claim or a belief. 
3. Atheists can make claims and hold beliefs, not all atheists do. 
4. What atheists claim and believe doesn't change what atheism is. 

All thumbs are fingers, not all fingers are thumbs. Perhaps a Venn diagram will help you understand?

I think that Sheldon has hit the nail on the head. No claim requires a counter-claim to justify skepticism. If an atheist wishes to provide one, well enough, but it is something extra on top of his atheism. Any such counter-claims are not legitimately said to belong to atheism, whether they be of character epistemological or not.

@Belacqua

Quote:I'm interested in epistemology -- how people believe things.

But not interested enough to learn what ‘epistemology’ means, apparently - it’s a helluva lot more that ‘how people believe things’.

Boru

Sheldon,

Something has gone wrong with your formatting, so it's difficult to read your posts. As far as I can tell you're arguing against things I've never said.

I can make out these two sentences:

Quote:3. Atheists can make claims and hold beliefs, not all atheists do.
4. What atheists claim and believe doesn't change what atheism is.

The first one I think is false. Atheists are human beings, and all human beings hold some things to be true. What these beliefs are, and how they relate to religion, differs from person to person.

I understand that you are using the lacktheist definition of atheist, which says that atheism is a simple lack and not a claim in and of itself. I'm fine with that definition and have not argued against it. I have said, however, that people reject claims for reasons.

(September 15, 2026 at 7:34 am)Angrboda Wrote: I think that Sheldon has hit the nail on the head.  No claim requires a counter-claim to justify skepticism.  If an atheist wishes to provide one, well enough, but it is something extra on top of his atheism.  Any such counter-claims are not legitimately said to belong to atheism, whether they be of character epistemological or not.

I have not said that atheists must make a counter-claim. I have said that they use beliefs to evaluate other people's claims. 

If you want to say, as some have, that rocks and lizards are atheists, that's fine. Atheists of this type do not evaluate claims. But as far as I can tell there are no rocks or lizards posting here. Everyone here is capable of evaluating claims.

(September 15, 2026 at 6:52 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(September 15, 2026 at 6:44 am)Sheldon Wrote: The same would apply to religious people

Yes, that's true. Many adults have a child-level understanding of religion. They learn something as kids and then don't bother to learn more. 

Quote:Sheldon: Then why specify only atheists? Especially as religions like the Abrahamic religions tend to suppress dissent and critical scrutiny in favour of the bias of faith. 

Quote:Sheldon: when you apply that specious assumption, and that assumption presents obvious misgivings about religion's attempts to indoctrinate children.

Why is this specious? Lots of people learn things as kids and then don't bother to learn more. Sometimes they learn wrong things and continue to be wrong. 

Quote:Sheldon: I found it specious as it a) was presented in a generic way without evidence to support it, and b) was aimed only at atheists and not at theists. I also don't see what this has to do with the thread, since it is the person making the claim who offers the explanation of why they find it credible, not the person offering doubt.  The complexity of what is imagined does not in and of itself evidence what is imagined, and given humans have imagined countless deities, it is unreasonable to imagine those who believe have examined them all in sufficient detail for the distinction to matter, can they demonstrate anything beyond a subjective belief that any deity exists outside of the human imagination is all that matters to any unbiased or objective observer.  

Quote:Sheldon: However these speculations are largely moot, if you have an explanation that justifies the belief a deity exists, offer it, all you have offered thus far are the usual unevidenced subjective claims, and irrational attempts to reverse your claim's burden of proof. 

Just present the best most compelling reason you have for believing a deity exists, define it accurately, and evidence the characteristics you assign it.

Why are you asking me? I'm an atheist. 

Quote:Sheldon: The quote has no name attached, and I assumed it was from a theist, my apologies. However if there is no compelling adult explanation of theism, then the claim some atheists still cling to childlike explanations is largely moot, as I said, the responsibility to fully explain a belief lies with the person offering it, and not with those it is being offered to. 

I'm interested in epistemology -- how people believe things. In philosophy, the word "belief" usually just means "something I hold to be true." We all hold some things to be true, therefore we all have beliefs. When we hear other people's claims, we evaluate them against what we hold to be true. 

What about this is false?

Quote:Sheldon: The last part (emboldened) seems a little inaccurate to me, as we do not all set the same threshold for credulity, nor do we therefore have the same evidentiary standards for belief. I might say for example that I evaluate claims against the evidence provided to support them, what I believe is not necessarily important, though if a claim obviously contradicts objective facts, as the thread author did, like species evolution, then obviously I'd need evidence at least as compelling and substantial as the accepted scientific theory that supports what he is contradicting with naught but subjective unevidenced claims, and a biblical quote of exactly the same ilk. 

Atheism as I said is not a claim, or a belief, it is an expression of doubt, that some atheists go farther is true, but irrelevant to that definition. Disbelief is a default starting point, whether we continue to be dubious is down to what is offered in support of a claim / belief, and of course choosing to set a threshold for personal credulity is a subjective choice, but the threshold itself need not be, that depends how much subjective bias we try to remove.