Are cats atheists?

[Cato]

You are amazing. I thought it was physically impossible to achieve a higher level of stupidity and disingenuousness then I had attributed to you yesterday. But your god has worked another miracle and made you even stupider and more disingenuous than even my wide ranging and far reaching imagination had thought possible.

Let's see, we've got ad hominem, and...well, that's about it. Do you have any actual logical arguments to make? Or are you just not that interested in rational debate?

Clive,

Where exactly was the ad hominem attack? Italicising 'ad hominem' doesn't necessarily make it true.

What exactly was your point? You swooped in late to this discussion and have said nothing, so who are you to challenge someone to a 'rational' debate? Do you have something rational to debate?

[Creed of Heresy]

You are amazing. I thought it was physically impossible to achieve a higher level of stupidity and disingenuousness then I had attributed to you yesterday. But your god has worked another miracle and made you even stupider and more disingenuous than even my wide ranging and far reaching imagination had thought possible.

Let's see, we've got ad hominem, and...well, that's about it. Do you have any actual logical arguments to make? Or are you just not that interested in rational debate?

"Not interested in rational debate?" What are you- A movie was just posted up by libalchris which effectively disarms every claim you've tried to make and in the face of this you turn around and basically do the equivalent of folding your arms, turning your nose up in the air and saying with a very lofty, overblown accent: "No! I shall NOT listen to reason! I want to believe what I believe, and I shall be hearing NONE of this countering of my beliefs and personal views! Now, how about you all be rational and logical...by accepting what I am saying as absolute fact!"

That is EXACTLY what you just did. Don't get all butthurt and start whining about rational and logical discourse when you're obviously not interested in it. For someone who loves to keep pointing at the whole "Debate flowchart" thing wherein you must be willing to forfeit your opinions if information can be shown to directly counteract what you think, you sure as hell don't actually adhere to it AT ALL. You've changed your opinions a grand total of zero times in the face of constant, sound, logical counterpoints. While there's been some hostility directed towards you there's also been plenty of individuals who have had you at EVERY SINGLE TURN and you REFUSE to budge!

THIS is why we're hostile! Because religious people such as yourself come to this forum under the guise of partaking in rational discourse AND THEN YOU DON'T FUCKING PARTAKE IN RATIONAL DISCOURSE! You claim a position and then you simply DO NOT BUDGE. You've been wrong on so many levels, so repeatedly and yet you refuse to acknowledge that. If you were correct in an assessment, we'd accept that!

But the idea that you are wrong, that your personal, closely-held beliefs are NOT absolutely correct, is just too traumatizing for you to accept, isn't it? Because if one brick is pulled out from underneath you, the entire foundation of your faith and belief comes toppling down. The fear, the abject, absolute TERROR that must instill in you prevents you from allowing yourself to change your stance. THIS is why the religious always want to say atheists are afraid; it's projection! You're all TERRIFIED of the possibility you may be wrong, and hell I'm pretty sure you've all brainwashed yourselves [a remarkable feat, that] into genuinely believing you're NOT afraid, even though there's some faint little flicker in the back of your head still reminding you that, yes, you ARE afraid. Furthermore, why would atheists be afraid of being proven wrong? IF WE ARE PROVEN WRONG, ETERNITY IS IN OUR GRASP! Immortality! A endless sequence of understanding and knowledge and contentment for all time! WHY WOULD WE BE AFRAID OF THAT? The only ones afraid are people like you; if you are wrong, then that means that the immortality, the endless sequence of understanding and contentment for all time is a LIE and that there is nothing beyond the void, and THAT is why you won't budge.

So you'll have to be a bit more understanding when you realize why people are giving up on having any kind of rational discourse with you and why we're now all ubiquitously resorting to mocking your position and your intellect; because there's simply nothing else to do. When logic and rationality fails, well, might as well make fun of the guy too stupid to realize his own stupidity.

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Let's see, we've got ad hominem, and...well, that's about it. Do you have any actual logical arguments to make? Or are you just not that interested in rational debate?

Clive,

Where exactly was the ad hominem attack? Italicising 'ad hominem' doesn't necessarily make it true.

What exactly was your point? You swooped in late to this discussion and have said nothing, so who are you to challenge someone to a 'rational' debate? Do you have something rational to debate?

I've come to the conclusion that no, no he does not.

[libalchris]

Not necessarily. Everytime there is an absence of evidence it is not always the case that we should disbelieve something.

In a sense, this is true. Requiring evidence of every claim (such as simple conversations in everyday life) would be ridiculous and make communication impossible. However, when supernatural and incredible claims are made, especially those involving some sort of risk, you must meet your burden of proof for your claim. I will not believe your claim so long as you fail to put forth evidence.

Because there is not evidence for X, it doesn't necessarily follow that one should disbelieve X. Only if there is another premise in the argument like, "there is no evidence for X, and if X were true, we would expect more evidence than there is for X." However, this is not just an absence of evidence then. There is a claim here.

What? By that logic you should be believing in just about everything imaginable. If I said that somewhere in the universe there is a pink space unicorn, there is no reason you shouldn't disbelieve it exists right? After all, the reason no evidence exists is because we wouldn't expect any to exist at this time, or we don't have the means of testing my claim. You should therefore believe my claim to be true. This logic could apply to most anything.

Sound ridiculous? That's because it is. That's not how science works. You're trying to escape your burden of proof by pushing the positive claim you're making (that god exists) onto us. You're trying to force us to make a positive claim that god doesn't exist and support it with arguments. We're not going to do that because it's not our job. You're making a positive claim, and it's your job to back it up with evidence. We're playing the skeptics, judging the validity of your claims based on the evidence your provide for them. We disbelieve your claims because they lack evidence, and/or there is no way to test them at this time. Depending on what god you're pushing, we may make a positive claim that your god does not exist, at which point we'd provide our reasons in an attempt to make our burden of proof.

The reason we lack belief in any god is because the idea of god has virtually no phenomena left to explain in the universe. That is, the only need for a god hypothesis would be to explain the origin of the universe, and possibly the origin of life. But there are many other explanations that explain those two phenomena equally well, many of them less complex. Since there is no supporting evidence for nor any way to test those ideas at this time, the only intellectually honest way to meet those claims is with disbelief until evidence is provided.

Just because they do not believe based on some argument doesn't mean they do so irrationally or ignorantly.

by definition believing without supporting evidence is blind faith. So yes, it is irrationally.

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How do you know? I am one of the most skeptical people out there.

Ahhhhh...... and I bet you think that YOUR god is the special one, huh?

Yes
[/quote]

Fantastic, if you're so skeptical, stop playing word games and being intellectually dishonest by trying to force a burden of proof on us that you earned by making an extraordinary supernatural claim, and start providing some evidence for your claim.

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So atheism isn't defined as the lack of a belief?

I'll renew my claim that atheism refers to a class of belief systems--specifically, those systems which do not include (or imply) the proposition, "At least one god exists". In this way, in order to be classified as an 'atheist', one must have a belief system that falls into the Atheist class; cats and trees don't have belief systems, so in particular they don't have belief systems that fall under Atheism.

The suffix -ist denotes a personal noun. Stop playing word games. How you just defined atheism is the same as saying lack of belief.

Let's apply set theory. Let's define a set for every individual. Each element of this set is something the individual believes with respect to god/gods.

If I were to say I am an atheist, atheist meaning lack of belief in god or gods, it would mean my set is the empty set. Now, if I were to say what you said, and say "my belief system does not include the proposition that any god/gods exist" my set would still be empty. It's a different way of saying the same exact thing.

That is the point that defines atheism, the set containing an atheist's accepted claims with respect to god/gods is empty. It doesn't say anything about what belongs to an atheist's "disbelief set." That is, the set containing what an individual believes to be false.

Strong atheists (those who do make a positive claim (that no god exists)) would have a "disbelief set" = U. That is all possible claims about god/gods are false.

However, for the purposes of this discussion, the definition of an atheist is someone who lacks belief in any god/gods, or their set of beliefs with respect to god/gods = ∅

[Jeffonthenet]

Hey all I just was able to get back on my account a little while ago since I couldn't remember my password and there was the required password change. I'm not going to have time to respond to everyone though.

[Bahraini]

atheism only exists because theism exists, the relationship between those two terms is factual.

there are two possible scenarios:
1- there is no theism in the animal world, so in this case, its not possible for cats to be atheists.
2- theism does exist in the animal world (who knows? they might believe that god created cats in his image), in this scenario, a cat CAN be an atheist, & that cat would be smarter than ~85% of the human population.

[Nine]

Reminds me of this Red Dwarf episode





Skip to 3mins for the theist "cat"

[DeistPaladin]

Atheists are generally very clear that they want atheism to be defined as a lack of belief in God, and not the belief or claim that there is no God. If this is so, why aren't cats and trees and birds and mentally challenged people who cannot think about things like the supernatural realm atheists?--they all lack belief in God too.

Cats aren't atheists. They think they are gods.

[Ace Otana]

Atheists are generally very clear that they want atheism to be defined as a lack of belief in God, and not the belief or claim that there is no God. If this is so, why aren't cats and trees and birds and mentally challenged people who cannot think about things like the supernatural realm atheists?--they all lack belief in God too.

I can't remember who said this (some famous scientist I think) but it is said that

Should any theist present such an argument as to compare sapient beings (beings able to make a concious and thought out actions and views) to non-sapient beings on the matter of belief and lack of, should be ignored and given no attention on the matter.

Personally, I'm astonished that this guy got a response at all.

[The Grand Nudger]

@OP, You should ask them. Wouldn't surprise me in the least if they responded to you.

[Erfalion]

Cats think that they are gods. If you don't know that, you must not be a cat person.

Aye,I second that, I had a cat before, I know that feel.

Also, found this on the net and decided to share. Seemed like a funny pic, regarding the thread.