RE: Atheist vs. agnostic vs. agnostic atheist
May 30, 2013 at 7:18 pm
(This post was last modified: May 30, 2013 at 7:35 pm by bennyboy.)
(May 30, 2013 at 11:10 am)Simon Moon Wrote:(May 30, 2013 at 4:01 am)Tiberius Wrote: IMO if you are "still processing" whether you believe in something or not, you are already passively not believing in it.
I think this is the case.
A theist is someone that has an active belief (hold the propositions to be true) that a god or gods exist.
If someone does not have the belief that a god or gods exist, whether they phrase it as "I don't know", "I'm still processing", they are still in the psychological state of not having having the belief that a god exists. Nor is talking about the beliefs of babies, who have none.
I don't think that description is really an adequate one, because many things meet the criteria of lacking a belief. For example, by your literal description, my beagle is an atheist. So is his blankie. So is a lifelong confirmed Christian who is currently asleep or in a coma. But I don't think that's really how even you guys would take the word. There's an unspoken assumption: that one has a mechanism which COULD form positive ideas about the existence of God. But now you're up against philosophical issues with free will, determinism, etc. Could anything really be other than it is right now?
To avoid calling beagles atheists, I think it's more sensible to consider questions in both forms: "Do you believe God exists? Do you believe God does not exist?" If you lack BOTH of those beliefs, or if you accept BOTH as plausible candidates for reality, agnostic is a better term.
(May 30, 2013 at 4:01 am)Tiberius Wrote: IMO if you are "still processing" whether you believe in something or not, you are already passively not believing in it.
Babies are atheists; they don't have the capacity to believe, or the ability to reason to disbelief or belief. So they are in a default position of non-belief. The lack of a belief still makes them atheists.
I also disagree with your statement about being able to believe and disbelieve at the same time. That just flies in the face of logic. The example you gave is not of holding belief and disbelief in the same thing at the same time; they are quite clearly different things.
Comparing computers to beliefs is silly. Computers have no ability to believe, not do they think at all.
You have a model in your mind of a human being as a singular entity, capable of having only one answer to a yes/no question. However, this is not what people actually are. A name is a label for a billion parallel functions, which not only can, but very often do, work at odds with one another.
re: babies
Baby diapers are ALSO atheists, by your criteria. I do not think those criteria are adequate, because talking about the lack of religious belief of diapers isn't a very useful conversation.
