When Atheists Can't Think Episode 1: No Evidence for God?

[Esquilax]

Well I agree that it suits you.

I just think it suits you in the same way that diplomatic immunity "suits" diplomats who want to commit crimes without prosecution.

Yes, I know: you'd rather impute malevolent motivation for a person you don't know, than you would honestly engaging with their position. In this case, I've explained to you what both words were first intended to mean, and that's why I use them as I do, and in response you begin by snidely suggesting that I'm trying to get away with hiding my actual position- which isn't what my stated position is- based on... nothing? The fact that I'm an atheist? What is it about what I've said that convinces you I'm not using the words for the reason I said?

In another post you call it a "tactical redefinition," but I shouldn't need to remind you that you that if you're using the original definition the word was coined with, it's not actually a re-anything. It's just a definition. If you were to actually go and read the word's first use, you'll see that it lines up with my usage most cleanly. You are the one redefining it, not me.

So I don't think it's a high-minded suiting. It's a self-interested suiting that doesn't necessarily line up with the interests of honest, substantive rational discourse.

What do you think it is I'm attempting to accomplish with this "self-interested" label, and how did you determine that this was my intent?

And I'm perfectly aware that people will try and create rationalizations of this suitability, just like the diplomats in New York City rationalize their immunity to suit their preference to park anywhere they want without worrying about parking regulations.

Ah yes, those sneaky atheists, using words in the way they were intended to get one over on you poor poor theists, who just want to redefine the words to better suit your ideological agenda! How are we not in prison right now?!

But the bottom line of my position I've laid out in the previous post. The one to which you responded " Do you actually think that quibbling over labels constitutes some real victory over what we as atheists actually believe?"

There, I pointed out that if you're truly an agnostic, the atheist part of your definition is superfluous, and vice versa.

Since they address different things, it's really not. Atheism is my belief, agnosticism is my knowledge. The latter is a modifier to my professed certainty of the former. Nothing superfluous about it; in fact, it allows greater clarity as to what I actually believe, or else it would, if people like you would stop muddying the waters by attempting to redefine the term into something it was never meant to be, as if you think that by changing the meaning of the label, my beliefs will somehow be dragged into the new definition, when instead all you've done is create a definition that no longer suits me. If that's a victory for you, then you're welcome to it, petty and small minded as it is.

When you want to discuss my actual beliefs, I'll be over here. My name suits me better than the label you want so desperately to take off me as a chew toy anyway.

This view is better, in my opinion, because it's not based on tactical redefinitions to avoid burden of proof or enhance your debating position, allowing you to take the label of atheist while defending the position of agnosticism.

Agnosticism isn't a position, though. It's a degree of certainty applied to a position: you can have agnostic theists, too, if they believe without claiming certain knowledge.

But more to the point: so you think that I really believe there is no god, but am attempting to be sneaky by insinuating that I merely don't believe in a god instead to avoid the burden of proof. Fine. How did you determine that this was my belief, such that you've empowered yourself to demand by fiat that my chosen label is a diversionary tactic, considering that we've never met and my stated beliefs are different than the one's you're asserting I have? Can you read my mind? How can you claim to know the contents of my head better than I do?

I think this is a problem with your presumptuousness, not my beliefs.

And I think it lines up better with epistemology, which takes belief and disbelief to be propositional attitudes.

If they are, they're propositions unconnected with how much knowledge one claims to have regarding them. It's the latter that agnosticism denotes.