RE: Why atheism is a belief.
December 9, 2011 at 3:02 pm
(This post was last modified: December 9, 2011 at 3:06 pm by Mister Agenda.)
(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.
