Nature's Laws

[Esquilax]

First i'd like to point out that you've dropped/ignored the argument concerning the origins of your definition of atheism. If you allow that your definition was only imagined a couple of decades ago, brought into existence as part of a social engineering agenda to redefine atheism so as to make it a default position, with no other historical or logical grounding, then any later defense of that definition without first addressing its origin is specious and intellectually bankrupt.

I don't really care about its origins, though in my opinion having greater granularity within the terms we use to describe ourselves is reason enough to accept it, because you're not going to be able to suddenly change what my position is, simply by demanding that we use a different definition. I believe what I believe, and I choose to call myself an atheist because that is what best encapsulates what I believe. What you're attempting to do here is little more than slimy sophistry.

The definitions are only distinct arbitrarily, by what is man made and what is unknown, which i have already covered. A law is a standard of expected behaviour, it is the same whether we are talking about legal or natural law, you are making a distinction without a difference.

So you basically either didn't read the second definition, or don't want to deal with it, so you're dismissing it by fiat because it's inconvenient. Gotcha. But your assertion that it's arbitrary doesn't change the fact that what we're talking about, with regards to natural law, is fundamentally different from the legal definition, being that the former is derived from a series of observations about reality and not from a personal lawmaker like the latter definition. This is a non-trivial distinction, one that reveals your position here for the tawdry argument from analogy it is, and your simple dismissal does not constitute a rebuttal.

Your original claim was "You're making the mistake of thinking that your god is the only possible god, so therefore mocking your specific conception of god is denial of all gods.", which i'd like to point out you've dropped and this entire section is just a red herring. What you claim to have seen is really irrelevant. I've already given you quotes: "We're all atheists here. We're convinced, and rightfully so, that there is no god."

This is hilarious: "What you claim to have seen is irrelevant, but what I claim to have seen is just super duper important, so there!" Double standard aside, there's really nothing to respond to: you give quotes from people that aren't connected with this board at all, and expect them to be binding to us for some reason, and then you make vague assertions as to what else you've seen with nothing at all to back them up, as though that means anything... what exactly is there to respond to? You aren't talking about us, so what does that matter, where our positions are concerned?

There is no specificity here. Whats more is their use of small g god denotes that they are not specifying, rather talking about the very concept already outlined (to which you can add other generally accepted characteristics such as all-good, conscious, eternal. )

And now you're just nitpicking over spelling. You must have a terribly compelling argument, to be reduced to this.

About comedians, i never said that you must believe something doesn't exist to mock it. Atheists mock the concept or belief in an existing God, this mockery denotes their contrary belief. Comedians mock the nature of things already accepted to exist, the two are completely different.

So, let me get your argument straight: you don't need to reject the existence of something to mock it, but atheists do reject the existence of god when they mock it, because you say so. Because I notice you haven't given anything resembling a justification for that statement of yours, beyond connecting the mocking of something with rejection of it in this one specific case, as a bare assertion, when you've already accepted that the two conditions are not necessarily interlinked. It's special pleading, resting on a fiat assertion: do you have any reason why you think atheists must reject god to mock it, rather than just not believing in it? Or is it just what's most convenient to you? What's different between that and other forms of mockery?

The other thing is this, though: I can mock god, gods, whatever, as much as I want, but that doesn't alter my state of belief one bit. If you provide sufficient evidence to believe in god then I'll believe in whatever god you've managed to prove, mockery or not, and you know what? That belief might not even halt my mockery, depending on how worthy of it I find that particular god to be. What you're doing here is directly falsified by what I know about myself; evidence will still change my mind, no matter how you want to phrase my position. All this desperate twisting to drag us down to your level doesn't change a thing.

Nobody said that they disbelieve in God, and i certainly didn't tell them what they believe. I said "Well its really simple, if you don't believe either way or don't care enough about the question to bother, you are an agnostic. If you believe to any degree of certainty that there is no God, you are an atheist." I am advising how they should refer to themselves depending on what their position is, i am not telling them their position.

Oh yeah? Gimme a minute...

Okay, so you're saying your very first comment on this topic didn't run...

2: Most atheists do believe there is no God, and this is evidenced wherever atheists are. Whenever atheists ridicule the concept of God, which is all the time, it belies their position that they actively believe there are none. What they say is another matter because they are just trying to have their cake and eat it: ridicule God without wearing a burden of proof. Posting your blog to support your definition is as bad as Christians saying the Bible is true because it says so in the Bible.

You didn't say that? That what atheists state their position as doesn't matter, because they really do believe there is no god? That's not literally your words?

More relevantly he had this to say on the subject:
"So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of "agnostic". It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the "gnostic" of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant. ... To my great satisfaction the term took." - Huxley

This pretty much covers everything. My initial statement concerning its first use stands.

Right, so Huxley clearly states he coined the term as an antithesis of the "gnostic" who professes knowledge claims on the divine... and somehow you think your statement about it concerning belief claims stands. Are you just not reading the quote, or does your mind just replace the word "know" with the word "believe" wherever it's most convenient for you?

As for its general use, even wikipedia agrees;

Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims – especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether or not God, the divine or the supernatural exist – are unknown and perhaps unknowable.[1][2][3] According to the philosopher William L. Rowe: "In the popular sense of the term, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of God, while a theist believes that God exists, an atheist disbelieves in God".

"Unknown or perhaps unknowable," and somehow you still think they refer to beliefs.

And the primary definition in dictionaries

: a person who does not have a definite belief about whether God exists or not

: a person who does not believe or is unsure of something
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agnostic

someone who does not know, or believes that it is impossible to know, if a god exists
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/agnostic

Aswell as philosophical dictionaries:
"The term is used especially in reference to our lack of knowledge of the existence of god. In this, the agnostic, who holds that we cannot know whether or not god exists, differs from the atheist, who denies that god exists."

Interesting: I guess dictionary definitions are only worthy of consideration when convenient to you, then?

Also, please note that the definition regarding knowledge is one of the ones in Websters, and also the only one used in the philosophical dictionary. You're doing my job for me, here.

What you are trying to argue is plainly false; the term agnostic has always pertained to the existence of God, other uses are secondary and practically metaphorical, irrespective of the etymology of its constituent parts.

Are you just not fucking listening? That the term pertains to divine or supernatural concepts was never the issue, but rather that you were insisting, against all etymological knowledge, plus the words of the very person who invented the term, that it discussed levels of belief, rather than levels of knowledge. In the end, I have the inventor of the term, the root word, one of the definitions in the dictionary and the majority of the quotes you yourself furnished to justify my interpretation of the word, and you have... one of the other dictionary definitions.

Hmm.

Is that your argument? Can you demonstrate how a belief comes into existence in the absence of any knowledge or assumed truth (same thing) pertaining to the subject of the belief?

Someone's clearly never heard of probabilities, before. Assessment of the evidence suggests certain things in various probabilities, and the evidence currently at our disposal shows no sign of a god or gods existing, but also demonstrably shows that we are not nearly in possession of all the relevant facts regarding the areas in which gods are traditionally most present. Therefore, though one is not equipped with sufficient knowledge to believe in gods, he is also not equipped with sufficient knowledge to dismiss the notion out of hand, keeping in mind the obvious maxim that additional evidence should always change one's views to fit.

Hence, I do not need to know that gods do not exist to be an atheist, anymore than I need to know they do before I become a theist; we don't wait for certainties to form our beliefs, after all.

We're talking about grounding beliefs. You are defending having a nonbelief, which is defence of agnosticism. Your calling it atheism is just a word-game, unless you believe that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

No, I'm not playing a word game, I'm just using a more defined and granular set of terms than you're comfortable using. But your unwillingness to use anything other than simplistic labels is not binding on the rest of us, nor do you get to dictate labels for everything on fiat say so.

Incoherent.

Yeah, well, nah-nah-nah boo-boo, right back at ya.

This is your earlier statement:

theism and atheism refer to belief, gnosticism and agnosticism refer to knowledge, hence the root word "gnossis," which means knowledge. Agnostic is a modifier that can be applied to both atheists and theists, depending on the degree of certainty that they place on their beliefs, which are dictated by the first label. An agnostic atheist believes in no gods, without claim to knowledge. "

So we are examining the coherency of having a belief that there are no Gods, in the absence of any knowledge: "agnostic atheism".

Ha ha, no: we are examining the coherency of lacking a positive belief in gods, in the absence of knowledge. The whole point of the modifiers is that we no longer have to shunt just one type of atheism under that label, that we get to accommodate the shades of belief that one can hold within that label.

My position is that it is incoherent because you cannot have a belief without assuming to be in possession of relevant knowledge. Your defence is insubstantial: "it is unwise to believe in things without sufficient evidence, and theists have not provided sufficient evidence in favor of gods. ", as you are not defending a belief, only a non belief, and playing a word game by calling it atheism. You need to demonstrate how a belief can exist in absence of any knowledge pertaining to the subject of the belief, to have any grounds for asserting the coherency of "agnostic atheism". All you've done is rationalise why you have a non-belief, and arbitrarily called it atheism, even though you acknowledge twice above that atheism refers to belief.

Look, if you're not even going to address the terms of my position in your rebuttal of it, then don't even bother playing. But you don't get to strawman me by demanding I defend something I did not say, on the basis that you don't think my actual words are legitimate. Shockingly, "what YGNinja thinks" is not the yardstick by which I judge the validity of my every claim, nor is your word some binding force that obligates me to abandon what I'm actually saying in favor of what is most convenient for you.

Either rebut what I say, or stop talking.