Thanks for creating a forum with real debate!

[jstrodel]

The only thing that you have convinced me of is that you probably don't know what classical foundationalism is.

[Cyberman]

All this effort to try to redefine the word 'atheist' into something more convenient, and we just keep kicking the straw away before they can build their man. It's a shame really.

Not redefine, I want to position a atheism in a world in which rejection of theism is subject to the same standard of justification as acceptance of theism.

Yet you've been corrected numerous times now on the definition of atheism, by actaul atheists. But hey, it's your strawman. Knock yourself out.

What this amounts to is demanding that atheist rejection of theism proceed along the same lines of rationality, impartial analysis of known facts.

Then present these facts, so they can be assessed. Just don't go whining that we don't accept them if and/or when we decide they're not convincing, or not what they're made out to be.

An atheist cannot be a fidist unless an atheist can be a liar.

Of course an atheist can be a liar; what a strange thing to say. However, in the context of atheism, what would such a lie look like? We actually do believe in gods?

[Jackalope]

The only thing that you have convinced me of is that you probably don't know what classical foundationalism is.

Your mistake is in assuming that I necessarily subscribe to it.

[Ryantology]

Not redefine, I want to position a atheism in a world in which rejection of theism is subject to the same standard of justification as acceptance of theism.

Yes, we all know that you want to shuck off the burden of proof for impossibly fantastic positive claims which can only ever be justified by appealing to the supernatural or metaphysical, which are both just as impossibly fantastic positive claims. You wish to render every statement of faith as if each of them are equally likely to be true.

[Mister Agenda]

You're right here: atheism has no statement for anything other than as a response to the question on belief in theistic propositions.

How can atheism's critique of religion proceed out of the information contained in this? Atheism could be defined as an absence of theistic belief, but that definition does not actually defend the belief in atheism.

Very insightful. The same thing can be said of theism. It's not a flaw. They are words that descibe beief in one or more gods, or the lack thereof. Different people have different reasons for the positions they hold. Theism doesn't defend the position of theism, theists do. Atheism likewise.

Practically, atheism requires not only a rejection of theism, but all of the tools and methods required to defend this rejection, which encompasses hundreds of years of history and many, many different ideologies and movements working together towards the goal of eliminating religion.

Or you can just not believe in God. There's no rule that says you have to justify your position. And I doubt most atheists have eliminating religion as a goal. Who has that kind of time? I think you overestimate how energetic, goal-oriented, and anti-religion most atheists are.

But, you can't define atheism by any of those traits. Atheism neither demands any of those behaviors, nor does it in any way lead to them, passively. The same cannot be said of Christianity, a religion which derives from a God who revels in bloodshed, rape, misery, and torture, who commands people to murder, loot, and enslave, who will condemn a person for not believing in him. God embodies every one of humanity's worst behavioral traits and almost none of its best, and your religion, your dogma, your very faith, comes from that.

This is a good example of the role that ideologies non-central to atheism play in defining atheism's rejection of God. Consider the many reference of the words used and how they point back to different philosophical notions.

Consider the Raellians.

For an atheist critique of religion to be successful, it is necessary not only to demonstrate that atheistic beliefs critiques of Christian morality are true, but that the atheist morality that underlies these critiques is an authoritative understanding of morality.

Did you not read my post about swapping the words 'theist' for 'atheist' in a post to see if it makes equal sense?

For a theist critique of atheism to be successful, it is necessary not only to demonstrate that atheistic critiques of Christian morality are false, but that the theist morality that these crtitiques are aimed at is an authoritative understanding of morality.

Are you willing to wear both those shoes or do you want to kick off the one where theism carries the same weight you say atheism must carry?

---

Atheists feel like they are persecuted. Hah. If you want to see serious persecution, goto a public university. See how bad the atheists making $100,000 grand a year are being persecuted.

Yah, if only a Christian could make a hundred grand a year, then I'm sure they wouldn't claim to be persecuted anymore, because any group with rich members can't be persecuted in any way. I will not rest until Christians can make the same salaries as atheists. Solidarity, brother!

---

In order to defend your default position, you need to rely on some sort of external ideology.

Which would be...external. In order to defend your theism, you need to rely on some external theology. So what?

Atheism as a default position is really more of an argument from authority.

I don't need to appeal to authority to say I don't believe in God. Saying so doesn't involve me telling you that you should agree with be because I have the support of an inappropriate 'authority'. Are you just slapping random concepts together?

You need to know a great deal about the world to believe that there is nothing responsible for the creation of the world.

You need to know the origin of the universe to justifiably believe you know that it was created by a being, you need to know that being's attributes to justifiably claim to know about that being. You do not know the origin of the universe and you do not know anything about the cause of it. All you know is that you don't want it to be 'not God'.

Christian also suffer persecution throughout the world. It is a shame and I wish that the earth could be a peaceful place.

Word.

---

You need to know a great deal about the world to believe that there is nothing responsible for the creation of the world.

Anyone here believe there was nothing that 'created' the world? I certainly don't. I just don't believe that anything with a face did it; and if anyone does I'd like to know what they think justifies that belief. That's pretty much all there is to it.

I think it's oxymoronic to say nothingness ever existed.

---

1. K = J T B ( Knowledge = justified true belief ) - an accepted model of epistemology
2. Negative claims that something are not so are knowledge claims (to know that something is not, is not epistemologically different from knowing what is) - (self evident)
3. Negative knowledge claims are based on Knowledge equals justified true belief or something similar (Knowledge is defined as justified true belief) - N = negative truth claims - if N = K then N = KTB
4. Atheist knowledge claims are negative knowledge claims (self evident)
5. N = KTB so atheist negative knowledge claims require justified truth belief

I would figure this all so far would be completely self evident.

It pretty much is, which is why most of us are weak/agnostic atheists rather than stron/gnostic ones. It leaves the mystery of why so few theists are (or will admit to being) weak/agnostic theists, but I suppose that's their problem.

6. K=JTB requires an external ideology for its sense of justification, of truth, and nature of belief, as well as knowledge, and in the context of modernity, ideologies and science to support all the requisite labs, books, social freedom, everything that is required for K=JTB to exist in (self evident)
7. N=K=JTB and atheism is is N, so to know atheism is true you must have 6.

I would have thought that is all self evident (whatever you think of K = JTB) ...

I would have thought you've been here long enough to have a better grasp of our actual positions: one, that they're diverse; and two, that most of us don't claim to know atheism is true.

The only default position that people can have is ignorance, does not follow the form of K = JTB, is not knowledge. How is this an argument from authority? Because the certainty of justification is not based on rational considerations, such as knowledge = justified true belief or something similar, but it is based on invoking the authority of atheism as it has been transmitted from some other source or as it exists in the mind from non-rational sources. In this sense it is similar to religious belief, as good as the authority that it relies on.

Atheism is not an authority, has no authority, and no one is invoking it as an authority. We ARE ignorant. Everyone is. We're just making the best guess we know how to with the information we have. We can say that you don't seem to be aware of a reason to believe in God that isn't flawed in its premises or fallacious (or both). We can say that we are justified in holding the null hypothesis until it is overcome. We are not justified in saying that we have justified true belief/knowledge that there is no God...so we don't. Why is this so hard for you to grasp?

[Mister Agenda]

If it is not a knowledge claim, than it is non-authoritative and should not be used to de facto argue for the non-existence of God while requiring a different sense of justification for God (sneaky).

Can you give an example of an atheist using atheism to argue for the non-existence of God?

To argue for the non-existence of God requires knowledge that God does not exist, otherwise it is lying.

So I can't argue that it's unlikely that you have a skunk in the trunk of your car unless I know you don't have a skunk in the trunk of your car? Your position seems awfully tailored to the convenience of someone who wants to assert something for which there is no evidence.

If there is not a strong sense of justification attached to claims against God's existence it is immoral to advocate anything which dramatically affects peoples lives without a strong sense of clarity that it is acceptable.

Translation: I'm going to go to an atheist forum and tell them it's wrong for them to tell me my position is unjustified, completely unaware of the irony or of just how many of my positions revolve around being able to say that people who won't agree with me are doing something bad.

Don't worry, I have a strong sense of clarity that people shouldn't believe things for bad reasons.

To start with the position "I do not believe any gods exist" and argue from that much weaker sense of belief which has no authority is to reject the epistemological norms which require more serious considerations to deserve a higher degree of certainty to attain to ethical justification (first do no harm - Hypocrites).

We're not arguing anything from our lack of belief. Our not believing in God is in no way an argument against the existence of God, and not only do we not do that, it's kind of silly to think that we would. I have a high degree of certainty that beliefs should be carefully scrutinized and rigorously critiqued so that we only retain the ones that are the most robust, and that our degree of certainty in our beliefs should be proportionate to the evidence that they are true. And I think you mean Hippocrates.

I would also argue that that statement "I do not believe any gods exist" is inconsistent and does not capture the rhetoric of the atheist movement which is almost always in actual practice saying "no gods exist". If a weaker sense of justification is understood, that sense should translate into the spirit of the words.

I would also argue that the statement 'I believe some god or God exists' is inconsistent and does not capture the rhetoric of the theist movement which is almost always in actual practice saying a particular God exists (even though they can't agree on which god or how many).

There is no 'atheist movement'. I know there are atheists who refer to one, but they are just as wrong as a Ba'hai who claimed there is a 'theist movement' would be. You repeatedly argue with us by making assertions about what the 'atheists out there' are saying without (or likely, to avoid) addressing what the 'atheists in here' are saying. You're just going to have to live with the heartbreak of our not conforming to your sweeping generalizations about atheists, and I have a faint hope that, years from now, you may realize the problem is not with us but with your stereotyping of us.

Regardless of what people describe about their actions, their words signify the sense of epistemic justification. The positions "I am not making a knowledge claim" and "I am making a knowledge claim are mutually exclusive". If a knowledge claim is being made, an argument can be made. If no knowledge claim is being made, no argument can be made, since it is morally wrong to lie (lying is sharing false beliefs and where there is no knowledge there could be false beliefs).

It's morally wrong to use rhetoric to poison the well of debate. Do you know that an asteroid the size of Mongolia isn't going to hit the earth in the next 72 hours? Then apparently, it would be wrong for you to make any argument that we'll still be here in 73. I'm trying to take you seriously, but you're not making it easy. I recommend thinking of possible counters to your claims before you make them. I don't know where you're getting your stuff, but you should consider another source.

[Something completely different]

The only thing that you have convinced me of is that you probably don't know what classical foundationalism is.

From wikipedia:

In philosophy, Foundationalism is any theory in epistemology (typically, theories of justification, but also of knowledge) that holds that beliefs are justified (known, etc.) based on basic beliefs (also commonly called foundational beliefs). Alternative views are usually called anti-foundationalism. This position is intended to resolve the infinite regress problem in epistemology. Basic beliefs are beliefs that give justificatory support to other beliefs, and more derivative beliefs are based on those more basic beliefs. The basic beliefs are said to enjoy a non-inferential warrant (or justification). This warrant can arise from properties of the belief (such as its being self-evident or self-justifying).[citation needed]
Possible candidates for foundational beliefs are thought to include perceptual and memory beliefs, especially reports of one's own subjective experience; beliefs about the meanings of sentences or words; and a priori intuitions.

You do realise that you are using the interenet? Or more importently - you do realise that not only you are using the internet? The internet gives everyone of it`s users the capabliity to search for explainations of things they dont know or understand.

So throwing arround words in an online debate doesnt work.

Plus: I dont think that foundationalism can be successfully used to achieve knowlege. And the exploits of science and the philosophy science follows, which is critical rationalism have shown me to be correct.

From wikipedia:

Critical rationalists hold that scientific theories and any other claims to knowledge can and should be rationally criticized, and (if they have empirical content) can and should be subjected to tests which may falsify them. Thus claims to knowledge may be contrastingly and normatively evaluated. They are either falsifiable and thus empirical (in a very broad sense), or not falsifiable and thus non-empirical. Those claims to knowledge that are potentially falsifiable can then be admitted to the body of empirical science, and then further differentiated according to whether they are retained or are later actually falsified. If retained, yet further differentiation may be made on the basis of how much subjection to criticism they have received, how severe such criticism has been, and how probable the theory is, with the least[1] probable theory that still withstands attempts to falsify it being the one to be preferred. That it is the least[1] probable theory that is to be preferred is one of the contrasting differences between critical rationalism and classical views on science, such as positivism, who hold that one should instead accept the most probable theory. (The least probable theory is the one with the highest information content and most open to future falsification.) Critical Rationalism as a discourse positioned itself against what its proponents took to be epistemologically relativist philosophies, particularly post-modernist or sociological approaches to knowledge. Critical rationalism has it that knowledge is objective (in the sense of being embodied in various substrates and in the sense of not being reducible to what humans individually "know"), and also that truth is objective (exists independently of social mediation or individual perception, but is "really real").

[Angrboda]

....which require more serious considerations to deserve a higher degree of certainty to attain to ethical justification (first do no harm - Hypocrites).

The man's name is Hippocrates. (Though I can understand why you might have the notion of hypocrisy on your brain. Freudian slip much?)

---

It doesn't appear clear that Hippocrates ever even said this. But I'd have to research the matter more thoroughly. Is "First Do No Harm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">

---

[Mister Agenda]

If only, yet I have met atheists who believe in astrology, homeopothy, and reincarnation.

How does an atheist accept reincarnation, astrology, homeopathy if theres no evidence that these are possible, probable or true?

I suppose such an atheist isn't strong on requiring proportionate evidence for their beliefs. Although you asking me about it is a little like me asking you how Hindus justify their belief in reincarnation. Is it reasonable for me to expect you to know that just because you're a theist?

And how do they reconcile their open-minded gullability in relation to one form of woo with their dogmatic insistence on scientific rationalism and empirical evidence in relation to another? (God)

Maybe the atheists who believe in ghosts are not the same atheists as the ones who are more empirical.

Looks and smells like hypocrisy to me.

Maybe if you tried a little harder to imagine that atheists aren't all alike, your perceptions wouldn't fail you so badly.

WAIT!
Dont tell me. Let me guess.
Atheists can be hypocrites if they want.

Since that applies equally to theists, it's more a comment on humanity in general, but through a bigoted lens.

The main point I cant understand is; atheist (A) thinks its OK to believe in reincarnation and still call themself an atheist
but atheist (B) says they dont believe in reincarnation because...---> insert text book atheist mantra here <--- and that is the same reason they give when defining their atheism. ("theres no evidence")

You know, it's almost like atheism isn't an ideology that people adopt and use to conclude there's no God, but a label you slap on anyone who doesn't believe in God, kinda like theism is a label you can slap on anyone who does, no matter their reason for doing so or what else they do or don't believe.

If you're against rational skepticism, why not argue aga...never mind, that's kind of self-explanatory, now that I think about it.

---

All this effort to try to redefine the word 'atheist' into something more convenient, and we just keep kicking the straw away before they can build their man. It's a shame really.

Not redefine, I want to position a atheism in a world in which rejection of theism is subject to the same standard of justification as acceptance of theism.

Repeat after me: 'I, (insert your name here) believe in at least one god or God'. That is the standard for being a theist.

What this amounts to is demanding that atheist rejection of theism proceed along the same lines of rationality, impartial analysis of known facts.

The same lines of rationality and impartial analysis of known facts that theism does, you're saying?

An atheist cannot be a fidist unless an atheist can be a liar.

Anyone can be a liar. Could you elaborate more on why an atheist cannot be a 'fidist' or why one would want to be or claim to be one?

---

I'd like to give jstrodel props for his contributions to this thread exemplifying its title.

[jstrodel]

Yet you've been corrected numerous times now on the definition of atheism, by actaul atheists. But hey, it's your strawman. Knock yourself out.

You are making an argument from authority, believing that atheists should be able to define their movement anyway that they want. Someone may consider themselves to be "a tory" and that may be acceptable, but that says nothing about the rationality of that identification.

People may think of themselves as anything, but that does not mean doing so is acceptable.

You ignored the argument that I made showing why this is so.

---

....which require more serious considerations to deserve a higher degree of certainty to attain to ethical justification (first do no harm - Hypocrites).

The man's name is Hippocrates. (Though I can understand why you might have the notion of hypocrisy on your brain. Freudian slip much?)

---

It doesn't appear clear that Hippocrates ever even said this. But I'd have to research the matter more thoroughly. Is "First Do No Harm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">

---

Like I said, I have average intelligence, if you are trying to prove that I'm basically average, that is unnecessary. There are millions of people smarter than me. If you want to actually argue about ideas, that is a different story.

---

The only thing that you have convinced me of is that you probably don't know what classical foundationalism is.

Your mistake is in assuming that I necessarily subscribe to it.

What philosophers do you consider to be your biggest influence? What sort of position are you coming from?

---

You do realise that you are using the interenet? Or more importently - you do realise that not only you are using the internet? The internet gives everyone of it`s users the capabliity to search for explainations of things they dont know or understand.

Was not meant to be obscurantism or intended to be an obscure phrase. Not everyone has studied epistemology, doesn't mean that you are a stupid person. Cthulu dreaming has made a few statements like "I do not believe God exists" is a rational statement because it describes a true proposition, the person is believing that God exists. This seems to me to indicate a very deep level of confusion about the nature of epistemic justification (I could be wrong).

---

Yes, we all know that you want to shuck off the burden of proof for impossibly fantastic positive claims which can only ever be justified by appealing to the supernatural or metaphysical, which are both just as impossibly fantastic positive claims. You wish to render every statement of faith as if each of them are equally likely to be true.

No, an irrationalist worldview undermines Christianity because Christianity teaches that God is knowable and belief in God is justified along very specific criteria such as the moral character of God (morals being presupposed first in assessing the nature of knowledge, pointing to God, and good actions including what a sense of a good account of knowledge being grounded in a creator - a chicken and egg problem), miracles which are common in devout believers and historically form an unbroken stream of supernatural (only fantastically impossible if you have no skill in the spiritual), the resurrection of Christ (attested by many eyewitnesses), the confirmation of prophecy, the moral authority of the church, the evidence of good fruit in sincere Christians lives, the evidence of Christian societies which have existed for 2000 years, the explanatory power that Christianity has in dealing with competing claims of revelation, the coherence and explanatory power of theism, etc.

It is possible to know that Christianity is true, although that knowledge comes through seeing the historical reality of Christianity manifest in believers lives. This is something I have had personally happen to me.

The last thing I possibly could want is that all beliefs be placed on an unequal footing, otherwise I would lack insight into morality, law, love, holiness, beauty, wisdom, marriage, power, philosophy, the supernatural, the nature of justice and the joy of mysticism.

I can assure you that I do not want to place all beliefs on equal footing. I want to show, on the contrary, that only Christianity has the ability to shed light on the human experience with clarity and authority, and that apart from Christianity people are sort of confused as to what their life means and where they fit into everything. They think that they have to make it all up.