Thanks for creating a forum with real debate!

[Whateverist]

Ok good that you can handle the heat, but please and I have seen this before, people say nice things like this but when they get hit with the heat, sometimes run away from it. Just separate your claims from you, the individual and understand when we attack your claims we are not saying you are a bad person, we are merely saying you got it wrong.

Actually he freely admits he has been a terrible person, but he attributes that to having been an atheist. He thinks that by jettisoning the atheism he has cast out all his horrible traits. I have tried to explain that he has shown himself to still be a horrible bore. Adding god has not washed out his horrible traits, he just thinks it has given him a fresh start. Perhaps it is fellowship with a crowd that embraces the motto that "we're all sinners" which makes him feel so special now.

[Ryantology]

I think there are atheist principles. Fundamental, dogmatic atheist principles.

Name them, and follow it with doctrinal evidence which insists that all atheists must follow them.

Rationalism and enlightenment principles are not uniquely atheistTM principles because atheists can be deliberately ignorant, irrational and unenlightened about their own atheism. Atheism is attended by dogmatic a priori assumptions and illogical assertions. It can certainly be shown to be every bit as much of a faith-based worldview as those which atheism condemns as irrational.

Atheists can be anything at all, pretty much. An atheist can be selfish, lazy, stupid, hateful, spiteful, mean, capricious, jealous, petty, violent, wicked and cruel. The only difference between us and you is that we do not worship a god who embodies every one of the qualities I just listed.

Being an atheist requires no real faith at all. All it requires is for you to look around, note the complete lack of any evidence pointing to the existence of any gods (much less the mass murdering criminal you consider to be the ultimate good in the universe), and accept it as reality. The only faith you have to hold is that man's gods are fictional, which is an extremely tiny leap of faith to take because not one single follower of any god or gods has ever demonstrated, even once, that they are real.

I think your personal view of what atheism is and is not, (like my personal view) is an individual view not a collective view held by all/most atheists.

It doesn't matter whether others who call themselves atheists agree or not with this statement. The word, itself, means "without god". Anything beyond that is, simply, beyond that. That is the single, sole requirement to be an atheist. The inverse is the same: the label 'theist' requires a belief in a god, or something like a god. That's it. There are no further requirements. You can be a theist who is a rational, scientifically-literate and secular individual, and just because most theists do not fit this description doesn't mean a theist can't fit that description.

We can write books, form communities and fight theological intrusion into every day life, but there is no reason a single atheist must ever do any of those things. Whereas, one must believe a number of specific things (while rejecting a vastly larger number of others) to be a Christian. Do you see the problem, there? You have to take the same, exact, leaps of faith we must take about all other religions and take it a huge number of steps further by believing in your God and whatever other nonsense you feel is necessary to make you feel as if you are safe from a threat, and privy to rewards. You believe in a religion which appeals directly to the lowest animal instinct: do what you think gets you the rewards and avoid what you think will get you punishment. We are subject to those same animal instincts, naturally, but most of us are probably honest enough to admit it.

The main thing between atheists and your specific brand of theism is that you have a scripture which commands you do to terrifying, horrible things, which the vast majority of believers refuse to do because they have managed to convince themselves that it isn't necessary. If those people had some more integrity, they would admit that they refuse to follow Biblical law because it is almost completely incompatible with human society. We have no such doctrine. We can do whatever we want, understanding that there are consequences for our actions right here, on Earth. We can believe in whatever we want, for whatever reason we want, and still be atheists, as long as gods are not part of that belief.

[Lion IRC]

I think there are atheist principles. Fundamental, dogmatic atheist principles.

Name them, and follow it with doctrinal evidence which insists that all atheists must follow them.

Naturalism. (Belief in supernatural events would be heretical. In fact, the acceptance of souls, angels, miracles, for example, would mean you were NOT an atheist.)

Empirical evidence-based scientism. (Myopia. Only tool you own is a hammer. All problems resemble a nail. We ''ought'' to rely on the scientific method but science doesnt do "ought". Science only does "IS".)

Presuppositionalism. (An unverified past-eternal, perpetual motion universe/multiverse can and must exist without a cause. This is necessary to avoid the Kalam cosmology.)

The fallacy of the default position / burden of disproof. (It is a logical fallacy to claim that your own metaphysical position is automatically the default truth against which all others must carry the burden of disproof. Especially when theism is the prevailing, long-standing, majority worldview.)

Of course, you can retreat to the neutral corner and fly the white flag of agnosticism pleading that you are open-minded and that God, angels, miracles might exist. But that would make you an agnostic. Not an atheist. And your brain would have two conflicting positions - a) theism might be true. b) atheism might be true.

Rationalism and enlightenment principles are not uniquely atheistTM principles because atheists can be deliberately ignorant, irrational and unenlightened about their own atheism. Atheism is attended by dogmatic a priori assumptions and illogical assertions. It can certainly be shown to be every bit as much of a faith-based worldview as those which atheism condemns as irrational.

Atheists can be anything at all, pretty much. An atheist can be selfish, lazy, stupid, hateful, spiteful, mean, capricious, jealous, petty, violent, wicked and cruel...

Thats right. They CAN. And atheism, has no objective basis to differentiate these acts as sinful/evil. But that too, is part of what can be used to define atheism.

[Ben Davis]

Naturalism. (Belief in supernatural events would be heretical. In fact, the acceptance of souls, angels, miracles, for example, would mean you were NOT an atheist.)

Not all atheists are naturalists

Empirical evidence-based scientism. (Myopia. Only tool you own is a hammer. All problems resemble a nail. We ''ought'' to rely on the scientific method but science doesnt do "ought". Science only does "IS".)

Not all atheists are empricists

Presuppositionalism. (An unverified past-eternal, perpetual motion universe/multiverse can and must exist without a cause. This is necessary to avoid the Kalam cosmology.)

Not all atheists are presuppositionalists

The fallacy of the default position / burden of disproof. (It is a logical fallacy to claim that your own metaphysical position is automatically the default truth against which all others must carry the burden of disproof. Especially when theism is the prevailing, long-standing, majority worldview.)

Not a fallacy: the burden of proof lies on those making a claim not on those who don't accept the claim on face-value.

Of course, you can retreat to the neutral corner and fly the white flag of agnosticism pleading that you are open-minded and that God, angels, miracles might exist. But that would make you an agnostic. Not an atheist. And your brain would have two conflicting positions - a) theism might be true. b) atheism might be true.

'A/theism' and 'A/gnosticism' are 2 different subjects, one referring to belief, the other referring to knowledge. Also, false dichotomy - correction: a) theism is true. b) theism is not true.

Thats right. They CAN. And atheism, has no objective basis to differentiate these acts as sinful/evil.

You're right here: atheism has no statement for anything other than as a response to the question on belief in theistic propositions.

But that too, is part of what can be used to define atheism.

...and then you're so wrong here, it's laughable: a lack of ability to differentiate good from evil is as much part of the definition of atheism as the lack of ability to differentiate bats from birds. Oh, hang on...

[Whateverist]

Naturalism. (Belief in supernatural events would be heretical. In fact, the acceptance of souls, angels, miracles, for example, would mean you were NOT an atheist.)

Not all atheists are naturalists

I agree with everything you say here, Ben. On a personal note, I do embrace a form of naturalism. But I wouldn't consider belief in any of those things heretical. I only insist that if they exist they must be natural. I have no knowledge of them and suspect they are all fanciful rather than supernatural, but I don't kid myself into thinking I know that for certain. The category of 'supernatural' only arises if our conception of natural is not robust enough. Even the stuff of our imagination is natural. But just because we can imagine a thing does not mean it must have any independent existence.

I don't think anyone is irrational for suspecting/believing that some things which we can imagine are real. There are certainly things -the existence of other minds, values and so on- which I accept on faith as well.

Surely we all accept that "the real" and "the fanciful" are not empty sets. Is "the supernatural" a subset of one of these? I wonder into which category theists would place their own gods.

[jstrodel]

Atheists can be anything at all, pretty much.

[Mister Agenda]

Name them, and follow it with doctrinal evidence which insists that all atheists must follow them.

Naturalism. (Belief in supernatural events would be heretical. In fact, the acceptance of souls, angels, miracles, for example, would mean you were NOT an atheist.)

If only, yet I have met atheists who believe in astrology, homeopothy, and reincarnation. There's not a commonly-accepted word for 'a-superstitionist', but an atheist can believe in anything except gods, even souls. The meaning of the word 'atheist' is not 'a-soulist' or 'monist', it's 'not-a-theist'.

Empirical evidence-based scientism. (Myopia. Only tool you own is a hammer. All problems resemble a nail. We ''ought'' to rely on the scientific method but science doesnt do "ought". Science only does "IS".)

Again,easily refuted by appeal to counter-example. See Raellians, who consider revelation a valid source of knowledge.

Presuppositionalism. (An unverified past-eternal, perpetual motion universe/multiverse can and must exist without a cause. This is necessary to avoid the Kalam cosmology.)

Now THAT is an atheist I've never encountered: one who says the Kalam argument isn't true because the universe is past-eternal. I've heard that the Kalam argument doesn't address the possibility that the univerese might be past-eternal; but that's not presuppositionalism, it's just part of pointing out that the Kalam argument is built on unsupported assertions. Try looking up 'presuppositionalism', it's a Christian thing, apparently.

The fallacy of the default position / burden of disproof. (It is a logical fallacy to claim that your own metaphysical position is automatically the default truth against which all others must carry the burden of disproof. Especially when theism is the prevailing, long-standing, majority worldview.)

It is not a fallacy to hold the null hypothesis until it has been overcome.

Of course, you can retreat to the neutral corner and fly the white flag of agnosticism pleading that you are open-minded and that God, angels, miracles might exist. But that would make you an agnostic. Not an atheist. And your brain would have two conflicting positions - a) theism might be true. b) atheism might be true.

You should know this by now, but one can hold the position that theism might be true without holding that it IS true because those positions do not, in fact, conflict. I can acknowledge that there might be a large diamond at the center of the earth without believing that there IS a large diamond at the center of the earth; for instance.

Atheists can be anything at all, pretty much. An atheist can be selfish, lazy, stupid, hateful, spiteful, mean, capricious, jealous, petty, violent, wicked and cruel...

Thats right. They CAN. And atheism, has no objective basis to differentiate these acts as sinful/evil. But that too, is part of what can be used to define atheism.

Neither does theism, which is merely the belief that one or more gods are real. It doesn't say what's right or wrong, or any of that, because mere theism isn't a religion, it's just theism. Mere atheism is just atheism. If you want to compare, say, secular humanism to Christianity or rational skepticism to Spiritualism, you can do that; but comparing atheism to Islam is a non-starter because they aren't comparable, it's comparing apples and oranges to compare a general non-belief with a specific belief. It would be equally confused to compare mere theism with (for instance) Ethical Culture.

[Ryantology]

Thats right. They CAN. And atheism, has no objective basis to differentiate these acts as sinful/evil. But that too, is part of what can be used to define atheism.

You have none, either. You just think you do.

But, you can't define atheism by any of those traits. Atheism neither demands any of those behaviors, nor does it in any way lead to them, passively. The same cannot be said of Christianity, a religion which derives from a God who revels in bloodshed, rape, misery, and torture, who commands people to murder, loot, and enslave, who will condemn a person for not believing in him. God embodies every one of humanity's worst behavioral traits and almost none of its best, and your religion, your dogma, your very faith, comes from that.

A decent Christian is a person who refuses to emulate the example of God's behavior (even if they would never admit to that).

[jstrodel]

You're right here: atheism has no statement for anything other than as a response to the question on belief in theistic propositions.

How can atheism's critique of religion proceed out of the information contained in this? Atheism could be defined as an absence of theistic belief, but that definition does not actually defend the belief in atheism.

Practically, atheism requires not only a rejection of theism, but all of the tools and methods required to defend this rejection, which encompasses hundreds of years of history and many, many different ideologies and movements working together towards the goal of eliminating religion.

---

But, you can't define atheism by any of those traits. Atheism neither demands any of those behaviors, nor does it in any way lead to them, passively. The same cannot be said of Christianity, a religion which derives from a God who revels in bloodshed, rape, misery, and torture, who commands people to murder, loot, and enslave, who will condemn a person for not believing in him. God embodies every one of humanity's worst behavioral traits and almost none of its best, and your religion, your dogma, your very faith, comes from that.

This is a good example of the role that ideologies non-central to atheism play in defining atheism's rejection of God. Consider the many reference of the words used and how they point back to different philosophical notions. For an atheist critique of religion to be successful, it is necessary not only to demonstrate that atheistic beliefs critiques of Christian morality are true, but that the atheist morality that underlies these critiques is an authoritative understanding of morality.

As a side note, the Christian life consists in the believer in some ways imitating God but it is not required that there be a direct correspondents between the ethics that God follows and the ethics of Christianity. Christianity does not teach this, so for Christianity to be contradictory, it must be shown that this is required in some other way.

[Angrboda]

Name them, and follow it with doctrinal evidence which insists that all atheists must follow them.

Naturalism. (Belief in supernatural events would be heretical. In fact, the acceptance of souls, angels, miracles, for example, would mean you were NOT an atheist.)

I recently conducted a poll on this very forum aimed at addressing this specific topic. The results of the poll seemed to indicate, among the self-selected atheist respondents, only 15-20% considered that atheism required the complete rejection of the supernatural.