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Why atheism is a belief.
#91
RE: Why atheism is a belief.
(December 8, 2011 at 11:22 pm)JoopWoop Wrote: Is "I believe it to not be true" a belief?
No.
The fact hat you put "I believe X" in there doesn't make the conclusion a belief regardless of what X is. For example, I believe in germ theory, but that is not a 'belief.'

(December 8, 2011 at 11:22 pm)JoopWoop Wrote: If you know it's not true, then it's not true until then you have no foundation of stating you lack belief, you simply lack belief in a god. Your position is as solid as anyone else's.
That's not really how "belief" works. You should have looked at the definitoins for the terms I provided you.

I've stated my foundation for rejecting religion and that does itself not constitute a belief. Given that the theistic claims of god and their religion have NO foundation, reason, or evidence whatosever, I'd say that I'm on better foundation for rejecting those conclusions than they are of accepting them. As such, no, we're not on the same level at all.
(December 8, 2011 at 11:30 pm)Shell B Wrote: Oh, that makes it easy, then.

Doop doop doop. Another one bites the dust. Doop doop doop. Another one gone another one gone another one bites the dust.

That's two idiots in one day. I came back from not being on the forums for a long time at a great time. That was entertaining while it lasted, at least until one of them returns with a new guise and attempts the same retarded thing.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925

Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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#92
RE: Why atheism is a belief.
I know it's fun to bat around the assholes, but we have a balance to consider. There are those who find the forums too "hostile" and those who think we should keep troll as chew toys. We can only have so many chew toys at one time or shit hits the fan. Even our "regular" interactions chase off regulars. *Hasn't seen Sae in a while.*

That terd flat out said he doesn't give a shit if I warn him, so what's the point of keeping him around? It's like going into a bar, pissing in the corner and ignoring the bouncers. One of them is likely to just toss you the fuck out.
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#93
RE: Why atheism is a belief.
(December 8, 2011 at 11:37 pm)Shell B Wrote: I know it's fun to bat around the assholes, but we have a balance to consider. There are those who find the forums too "hostile" and those who thinks we should keep troll as chew toys. We can only have so many chew toys at one time or shit hits the fan. Even our "regular" interactions chase off regulars. *Hasn't seen Sae in a while.*

That terd flat out said he doesn't give a shit if I warn him, so what's the point of keeping him around? It's like going into a bar, pissing in the corner and ignoring the bouncers. One of them is likely to just toss you the fuck out.

I'm not knocking you at all for banning him. He was breaking rules and just being level 5 jerk smothered in jerksauce.

You and the other mods do a fine job of keeping people like him out of here. My "oh darn, my favorite chewtoy is gone" was meant more as sarcasm as anything.
Having someone around who wants a legitimate discussion instead of what JoopWoop was doing is far better a poster than him and I'm glad he's gone.

So keep up the good work. It's appreciated.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925

Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
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#94
RE: Why atheism is a belief.
Oh, sorry. I didn't mean for it to sound like I had taken it differently than it was intended. I was just elaborating and explaining.
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#95
RE: Why atheism is a belief.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE

Big Grin
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#96
RE: Why atheism is a belief.
(December 8, 2011 at 11:22 pm)JoopWoop Wrote: Is "I believe it to not be true" a belief?

I may get some flack for this, but yes, it is a belief. A strong atheist is saying 'There is no God' or 'It is not true that there is a God'. No one is saying that the strong atheist's position on God is not a belief. A weak atheist is saying 'I don't believe in God' or 'I am unconvinced by the reasons for believing in God that I have been presented with'. The latter is the position that we are saying isn't a belief.

(December 8, 2011 at 11:22 pm)JoopWoop Wrote: If you know it's not true, then it's not true until then you have no foundation of stating you lack belief, you simply lack belief in a god. Your position is as solid as anyone else's.

Weak atheists are the majority of atheists. We don't know it's not true. We just don't think it is true. Bear in mind that there are hundreds of descriptions of God, some of which are inchoerent and logically can't be true, some of which at least don't have contradictory attributes, and the most plausible of which still don't have any convincing evidence supporting their existence. So most weak atheists, in my opinion. set the probability of some version of God really existing as being pretty small, but not zero. It would be valid to say that the opinion that there is probably no God is a belief...but the definition of atheist is not 'someone who thinks there's probably no God' and there's no reason a person couldn't put the probability of God closer to 50% and still be legitimately considered to be an atheist. Someone who puts the odds higher than 50% would be what I think of as an agnostic or weak theist.




(December 8, 2011 at 11:00 pm)JoopWoop Wrote: That you disbelieve something without proving means it's a belief. It must suck to have no idea why you're stupid, but then you wouldn't know that you are. So it probably wouldn't be that bad for you. Kinda like having down syndrome but not knowing it.

The part about proof? That's something you made up. Having or not having proof has nothing to do with whether something is a belief. But I can help you understand. I know it's incredibly tricky, but I'll walk you through it. Ready? Here it is:

Believing in something is a belief. Not believing in something is not a belief.

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#97
RE: Why atheism is a belief.
(December 8, 2011 at 11:00 pm)JoopWoop Wrote: That you disbelieve something without proving means it's a belief. It must suck to have no idea why you're stupid, but then you wouldn't know that you are. So it probably wouldn't be that bad for you. Kinda like having down syndrome but not knowing it.

I have a firm belief that fairy godmothers don't exist. I guess JoopWoop's eyes that puts me on the same footing as those who wanders their garden looking for fairy god mothers.
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#98
RE: Why atheism is a belief.
(December 8, 2011 at 11:37 pm)Shell B Wrote: That terd flat out said he doesn't give a shit if I warn him, so what's the point of keeping him around? It's like going into a bar, pissing in the corner and ignoring the bouncers. One of them is likely to just toss you the fuck out.

What a brilliant analogy.Smile

You are currently experiencing a lucky and very brief window of awareness, sandwiched in between two periods of timeless and utter nothingness. So why not make the most of it, and stop wasting your life away trying to convince other people that there is something else? The reality is obvious.

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#99
RE: Why atheism is a belief.
Open up that thread, there's a big ol' BANNED... there's a surprise. I'm liking this forum already. Angel

I mean, no. An atheist can be a believer of sorts, like me and the Set business (that I see as archetype with no agency - other Setians have different views); but atheism is more about "we don't wanna hear it."

That means no. Wink
[Image: twQdxWW.jpg]
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RE: Why atheism is a belief.
Quote:That you disbelieve something without proving means it's a belief

I know you're banned an all but I love turning bad arguments around and throwing it back at them.

You disbelieve in Roger Rabbit right? So based on your argument - you must have proof that Roger Rabbit don't exist.
So....demonstrate it.

Typical counter they'd use is special pleading but of course once they use a fallacious argument...they've lost the argument.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan

Mankind's intelligence walks hand in hand with it's stupidity.

Being an atheist says nothing about your overall intelligence, it just means you don't believe in god. Atheists can be as bright as any scientist and as stupid as any creationist.

You never really know just how stupid someone is, until you've argued with them.
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