RE: Atheist VS Naturalist - the latter sounds more appealing to me...
May 17, 2020 at 8:08 pm
(This post was last modified: May 17, 2020 at 8:24 pm by Belacqua.)
(May 17, 2020 at 7:24 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: Why would one's lack of beliefs go unexpressed, unexplained, and possibly unexamined? I don't get why that would follow from the position of not being convinced that gods exist?
I agree with you. The fact that a person lacks a belief in God is not a ticket to be excused from justifying ones beliefs.
Other people on this forum have argued that since they lack a belief, they have nothing to explain or examine. I don't think this is true for thinking adults.
Quote:One of my main goals in life, is to have the best epistemology as possible. I want to believe as many true things as possible, and disbelieve as many fasle things as possible. I think it is important to have my internal model of reality map as closely as possible to actual reality.
The best method ever devised to do that is, basing one's beliefs on: demonstrable and falsifiable evidence, reasoned argument, and valid and sound logic.
Not only will I believe all claims that meet those criteria, if someone is able to point out a belief I currently hold that does not hold up to those criteria, you know what I will do? I will stop believing it.
THe reason why I stopped believing in gods, is because theists continually fail to provide a case that meets those criteria.
This all sounds very reasonable.
When you say that the claims made by religious people are unsupported or insufficiently proven, you do so with a clear and examined set of criteria for what supported and proven beliefs must consist of.
You acknowledge your standards. You examine other people's claims according to those standards. As a thinking adult, you are aware that you have heard and actively rejected those claims, based on reasons.
Other people on this forum have claimed that they can reject the claims of religious people without any sort of criteria or reasons. Thus they don't have to make any argument or justification for their decision, because they deny that it is even a decision, or based on anything.
I have only been arguing that thinking adult atheists have such criteria. And that those criteria are themselves things that can be discussed, challenged, debated, etc. I AM NOT saying that your criteria are bad -- in fact I think they are very reasonable. I am only saying that the rejection of other people's claims requires the use of such criteria.
