(December 28, 2018 at 4:31 am)Gwaithmir Wrote:(December 28, 2018 at 2:22 am)Belaqua Wrote: This is the only claim I have been making: those atheists who have heard and rejected religious claims have reasons why they reject them. And that these reasons are the things that they believe.
For example, if a religious person made an argument for the existence of God based on what it says in scripture, you might reject that argument because you hold that scripture is not a reliable guide to what is true about the world. In this case, your belief is that scripture is not reliable, and you have used this as a standard by which to judge the claim.
Different arguments would demand different reasons to reject them. But in each case, if you find the argument unpersuasive, and you aren't just rejecting it on a whim, you have reasons and the reasons reflect what you believe.
Wrong! It's because I find that theistic claims do not pass rational scrutiny. Hence, I do NOT believe them. This is a rational conclusion, not a belief.
Well, I'm using the term "belief" in the general sense, to mean "something I hold to be true." If you want to use a different definition, I can work with that.
If you find that theistic claims do not pass rational scrutiny, it certainly means you are scrutinizing them based on what you hold to be rational standards. These rational standards are things you hold to be true. If you don't want to call them beliefs, OK, we can call them something else.
How do you differentiate things you hold to be true which are beliefs from things you hold to be true which are rational conclusions?
