(July 6, 2012 at 3:09 pm)Skepsis Wrote: Don't really see why you don't understand. Theism, the positive belief that God exists, informs the belief sets underneath that positive claim directly. They give meaning to an otherwise meaningless set of beliefs.
For example, "God created the universe", a Christian claim, wouldn't mean anything unless you believed in God.
I feel like I am explaining to you the definition of "of". It's hard as hell to do, but represents the most basic of ideas.

Right, and you couldn't have an atheist motivating set without exhibiting atheism. Of course theist motivating sets are necessarily theistic. Atheist motivating sets are necessarily atheistic.

You're trying to come up with some kind of foundationalism, where motivating sets have to be drawn from some base set of foundational beliefs (or something of the like), and since atheism has no foundational beliefs, it can't form a motivational set.

Apparently, you think that this approach is so obviously correct that you don't need to think about what your own assumptions were in order to explain it to someone else, and that not automatically sharing your particular intuition for motivating sets is like not sharing your understanding of the English word "of". Cool beans.

What I'm thinking of is a bit more general than that. Maybe there are no foundational beliefs; maybe there's just an infinite tower of beliefs. I don't want to pigeonhole myself into only one kind of set structure.


But most of what you're talking about is already handled, I think, by things like implication. "God created the universe" implies "God exists"; thus, if "God created the universe" is in the motivating set, then so must "God exists" (since we're really looking at the closure of the set under implication). This means that if we include q in the set of motivating beliefs, we include all beliefs necessary to believe q.

Quote:Theistic sets make a positive claim that other ideas can use to be given meaning. Atheism is a lack of belief that cannot and does not mean anything to the positive beliefs that simply don't incorporate God.
You would have a single category for theism, and infinite categories for a-unicornism, a-Cthuluism, atheism, a-conspiracytheoryism- you get the point, I hope.
Atheism influences the beliefs of a Nihilist just as a-unicornism does, y'know?

See, I think you're looking at this differently than me. You're kind of looking at the kernel--in Theism's case, it's "At least one god exists"--and saying, "okay, how foundational is this to the motivating set?"

What I'm doing is more like, "Let's look at the motivating set. What are the characteristics of the motivating set?"

Quote:Like I explained, it is silly to try to say that lack of belief is the cornerstone of affirmative belief.

But the whole "cornerstone" approach is yours, not mine. Why is your approach better?

(July 6, 2012 at 2:18 pm)CliveStaples Wrote:

(July 6, 2012 at 2:13 pm)Ace Otana Wrote: You're logic is nonsense to me. Once more and for the last fucking time, atheism simply means without theism. Are....you....really....this....fucking....dense?

That's been my assumption the whole time. My definition perfectly corresponds to the one you gave. But it seems that you guys aren't comfortable with some of the implications--that belief systems like {"Two plus two equals four"} are technically atheistic.

Which is unfortunate. I assumed that you guys would enjoy talking about the implications that your definitions have; apparently, you just want to complain that the guy doing the proofs is somehow being 'fucking dense' for using logic. Odd.

We are not amused by trolls playing disingenuous games with pseudo-logic and heavy use of tactical fallacies.

(July 6, 2012 at 3:12 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Uh huh, again, if that's the entirety of their beliefs then that would make them atheists. That doesn't make the statements "atheistic", because without reference to a persons beliefs the qualifiers atheism and theism have no meaning, Mr Set Theory.

Okay, I guess I should have been more clear that I was referring to belief systems, not...spoken statements or something. When I was saying "X is just as atheist as Y", what I meant was "The belief system composed entirely of X is just as atheist as the belief system composed entirely of Y".

Quote:That's why any given motivation for something would have to stem from atheism to be called an "atheistic motivation" and not simply something that motivated an atheist.

Right, I guess I'm still not sure what "stem from atheism" means in this context. To my thinking, if a motivating set is atheistic, then it 'stems from atheism', since that motivating set when viewed as a belief system itself is atheistic.

Quote:Are we still having issues trying to imagine a motivation for an action for the set that contains only "I don't believe in god"?

Uh, no. You can think about that if you like. I've already expressed multiple times my view that "There exists at least one god" and "There do not exist any gods" never form a motivating set. If you want to investigate the matter, go right ahead, but I don't think there's anything to be found there.

(July 6, 2012 at 3:20 pm)CliveStaples Wrote: Atheist motivating sets are necessarily atheistic.

What motivation can one get from "I don't believe there to be a God or Gods"?

Quote:You're trying to come up with some kind of foundationalism, where motivating sets have to be drawn from some base set of foundational beliefs (or something of the like), and since atheism has no foundational beliefs, it can't form a motivational set.

...
Wow. You got it.

Quote:Apparently, you think that this approach is so obviously correct that you don't need to think about what your own assumptions were in order to explain it to someone else, and that not automatically sharing your particular intuition for motivating sets is like not sharing your understanding of the English word "of". Cool beans.

I was under the impression that people aren't capable of acting on things that they don't believe in.

Quote:What I'm thinking of is a bit more general than that. Maybe there are no foundational beliefs; maybe there's just an infinite tower of beliefs. I don't want to pigeonhole myself into only one kind of set structure.

Now just keep doing what you always do: Abstract and abstract until all terms become mixed jumbles of useless dribble.
Theists are informed by a positive motivation.
Atheists cannot be motivated by anything based on their atheism; atheism is a lack of fucking belief in a God or Gods.

Quote:But most of what you're talking about is already handled, I think, by things like implication. "God created the universe" implies "God exists"; thus, if "God created the universe" is in the motivating set, then so must "God exists" (since we're really looking at the closure of the set under implication). This means that if we include q in the set of motivating beliefs, we include all beliefs necessary to believe q.

If A' was translated in the function A' B C', and the square root of q is S', then- Wait, what was q again?
Anyway, God exists, a positive claim, gives meaning to "God created the universe". I don't know what you were trying to say. Don't assign shit letters. Type it out. Unless it's short.

Quote:What I'm doing is more like, "Let's look at the motivating set. What are the characteristics of the motivating set?"

What is motivating about "I don't believe in God"? Seriously.

Quote:But the whole "cornerstone" approach is yours, not mine. Why is your approach better?

The "cornerstone" approach is yours- whether or not you understand what you're typing is a different story.
For theism and atheism to both be sets, as you suggest, they must share the capacity to give meaning to the subsets that are informed by the larger set. For something to "motivate" other things (looky there, your approach), that something must be the cornerstone of what is being motivated. Well, not exactly; the former about necessarily being the cornerstone is simply because if what is being informed (i.e. Christianity) must be primarily given meaning by the set (theism) or else the set could be more meaningfully labeled.

(July 6, 2012 at 2:38 pm)CliveStaples Wrote:

(July 6, 2012 at 2:36 pm)Taqiyya Mockingbird Wrote: More shell game. You are trying to sneak your idea of atheism being a belief system in through the back door. When are you going to quit qith the dishonesty? That and all this fast-talking tomfuckery isn't supposed to be the domain of your devil-figure. Why the fuck are you wallowing in it?

I've said it like five times, I don't think atheism is a belief system. I think Atheism, like Theism, is a class of belief systems. I guess you don't understand what that means, or something.

If I wanted to argue that atheism is a belief system, I'd argue it. There's no need for 'sneaking'. It's an internet forum. Who would I be hiding from??

And I pointed out that you have gone from fucking dumb to fucking dumber with that. Your bleating it ad nauseum doesn't make it any less preposterous.

I find your utter disingenuousness astounding.

Quote:Okay, I guess I should have been more clear that I was referring to belief systems, not...spoken statements or something. When I was saying "X is just as atheist as Y", what I meant was "The belief system composed entirely of X is just as atheist as the belief system composed entirely of Y".

I still have no idea what you're talking about.
So here's what I think you're saying:

If I was in the mood for some toast then as far as I can tell your reasoning for this is "I want some toast because Atheism. God isn't real.".

That would be untrue. My reasoning would be "I want some toast because that's just what I want".

Is this correct? Please include toast in any other analogy/explanation you give as toast is delicious and keeps you regular.

(July 6, 2012 at 2:49 pm)CliveStaples Wrote: Where is my logic flawed? What's a better way to think about this? Why aren't you contributing instead of trolling?

Fuck you -- I and others have pointed out your false dichotomy several times.

Everything doesn't break down to "either theistic or atheistic". Your superstitions just aren't that fucking important.

(July 6, 2012 at 3:45 pm)Taqiyya Mockingbird Wrote:

(July 6, 2012 at 2:49 pm)CliveStaples Wrote: Where is my logic flawed? What's a better way to think about this? Why aren't you contributing instead of trolling?

Fuck you -- I and others have pointed out your false dichotomy several times.

Everything doesn't break down to "either theistic or atheistic". Your superstitions just aren't that fucking important.

You haven't put him on ignore yet?

(July 6, 2012 at 2:53 pm)CliveStaples Wrote: What black/white bullshit? Can you give me a better way of looking at it that doesn't have this 'black/white bullshit'?

You can't possibly be that fucking stupid.

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(July 6, 2012 at 3:05 pm)CliveStaples Wrote: Okay, done with your trolling. Ignored!

That is fucking TrollSpeak for "I refuse to concede that you have utterly destroyed my bullshit."

Got your pelt hanging on my fencepost, twat.

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(July 6, 2012 at 3:47 pm)Ace Otana Wrote:

(July 6, 2012 at 3:45 pm)Taqiyya Mockingbird Wrote: Fuck you -- I and others have pointed out your false dichotomy several times.

Everything doesn't break down to "either theistic or atheistic". Your superstitions just aren't that fucking important.

You haven't put him on ignore yet?

I don't do "Ignore", but thanks for the sentiment

(July 6, 2012 at 3:38 pm)Skepsis Wrote: What motivation can one get from "I don't believe there to be a God or Gods"?

Asked and answered, multiple times now. None; the same motivation that one can get from "I believe there is at least one god".

Quote:...
Wow. You got it.

Yup. I'm a little curious as to why you didn't explain yourself, instead of making me guess, but whatevs.

Quote:I was under the impression that people aren't capable of acting on things that they don't believe in.

Their action is motivated by the set of beliefs. If the set of beliefs were theistic, they would be motivated by theism; similarly, if the set of beliefs were atheistic, they would be motivated by atheism.

Quote:Now just keep doing what you always do: Abstract and abstract until all terms become mixed jumbles of useless dribble.
Theists are informed by a positive motivation.
Atheists cannot be motivated by anything based on their atheism; atheism is a lack of fucking belief in a God or Gods.

But atheistic motivating sets are based on atheism.

Let me explain (since you again didn't go into detail about what it means to be 'based on' something). Your intuition seems to be that a theistic motivating set is based on theism, since the theistic set necessarily includes the belief, "At least one god exists."

But, your intuition says, an atheistic motivating set doesn't necessarily contain any belief, since atheism requires only a lack of belief, not the existence of one like theism does. There isn't a belief there for it to be based on.


I'm guessing it's something like that--maybe not exactly that, but probably something around there.


My intuition is something like this:

A theistic motivating set is based on theism, because anyone who would be motivated by that set would have to be motivated by theism--that is, a person's actions are based on theism if and only if the motivating set is theistic. In order for someone to be motivated by that particular motivating set, they'd have to go over into Theism to get it.

Similarly, a person's actions are based on atheism if and only if the motivating set is atheistic. In order for someone to be motivated by that particular motivating set, they'd have to go over into Atheism to get it.

Quote:If A' was translated in the function A' B C', and the square root of q is S', then- Wait, what was q again?
Anyway, God exists, a positive claim, gives meaning to "God created the universe". I don't know what you were trying to say. Don't assign shit letters. Type it out. Unless it's short.

Okay.

So let's say S is a set containing a bunch of propositions, call them {s1, s2, s3, ..., sk}.

The closure of S, Cl(S), is defined to be the set of all propositions q such that q is entailed by a conjunction of elements in S.

In English, the closure of S is everything that is provable if you assume that everything in S is true. So, for example, if S = {"John is 6 feet tall", "Suzy is 5 feet tall"} then "John is taller than Suzy" would be in the closure of S.

Everything that you're talking about--necessary foundations for some belief--are provable from that belief. If you have to believe p in order to believe q, then belief in q implies belief in p.

Quote:What is motivating about "I don't believe in God"? Seriously.

Nothing. Same goes for "I believe in God."

Quote:The "cornerstone" approach is yours- whether or not you understand what you're typing is a different story.
For theism and atheism to both be sets, as you suggest, they must share the capacity to give meaning to the subsets that are informed by the larger set. For something to "motivate" other things (looky there, your approach), that something must be the cornerstone of what is being motivated. Well, not exactly; the former about necessarily being the cornerstone is simply because if what is being informed (i.e. Christianity) must be primarily given meaning by the set (theism) or else the set could be more meaningfully labeled.

That's all a bunch of bullshit, frankly. The sets are given all of their meaning by the propositions included in them.