R: Is the Atheism/Theism belief/disbelief a false dichotomy? are there other options?
October 5, 2015 at 1:00 pm
(October 5, 2015 at 11:52 am)EvidenceVersusFaith Wrote:(October 4, 2015 at 9:16 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: So you object to being deficient in stupidity, foolishness, insanity, assholishness, etc.? Lacking something is a good thing, if what one lacks is bad. It is only if one lacks something good that lacking something may be bad.
The point is kind of that "to lack something bad" or be "deficient in something bad" makes no sense. You can by definition only lack a good thing. To be without or absent of something bad makes sense however. To say I lack belief seems to suggest not only that I don't believe but that I believe I ought to.
Look again at the definition you quoted for "lack":
"be without or deficient in."
First, the word "or" means that lack can be either one of the things. So "be without" is a possible meaning for "lack."
Second, be "deficient in" is suggestive not of a good, but of a purpose. Here are a couple of definitions of "deficient":
Quote:deficient
adjective
1Not having enough of a specified quality or ingredient:this diet is deficient in vitamin B
1.1Insufficient or inadequate:the documentary evidence is deficient
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini...ctCode=all
Not having enough for what purpose? Or insufficient or inadequate for what purpose? The answers to those questions need not involve a good. It can be that one ingested a deficient amount of poison to kill one.
This can apply to stupidity as well, as one might not be stupid enough to do a certain action. One would be deficient in stupidity for the purpose of doing that particular action. A con man may find his targets to be deficient in stupidity and thus his con (his purpose) may fail.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.