My blog

[Dystopia]

I don't like how you say that atheism is not gnostic atheism. In case you didn't notice, it is an atheist proposition, just not the most common. When someone says "I'm an atheist" it's not possible to know if they are gnostic or agnostic. I agree that atheism doesn't require knowing that there are no gods, but making the claim that there are no gods is still atheism.

Work a little more on anti-theism - It's not just opposition to the god idea, it can be:

- Opposition to theistic beliefs (not only religious ones) because the anti-theist believes those to be harmful
- Opposition to the god and theistic ideas because the anti-theist believes it is nonsense and irrational
- Opposition to god regardless of him existing or not. In my case I would be an anti-theist if there was a god, I would be against god.
- A personal opinion of mine is that anti-theism can be the rejection of illegitimate authority, in this case god.

As another example, if I am about to flip a coin and I ask you whether you believe it will be heads or you believe it will be tails, the honest answer is that you don't believe either. You don't have enough information to make a meaningful judgement. Refusing to accept one claim of knowledge does not require belief that the opposite of that claim is true. There is no requirement to pick "one side or the other", it's perfectly fine to say you don't have a belief either way. You would literally just be guessing, so what is the point of that?

[this is quoted from your blog]

I don't agree with this... You see, it's not really 50/50, god existing or not is not dependent on abstract chance - In this case I'd say god is more like a coin that has two heads and no tail but no one has ever seen the other side to check if there is a tail - The coin flips and always ends in head, and therefore people end up betting that heads is more likely and start questioning if there really is a tail in the other side.

[robvalue]

Yeah we've had this discussion before I think I make it very clear that I'm talking about what you can assume about someone who is an atheist at a minimum, and that they can make further claims. We only use gnostic atheism as a shorthand for "claims to know there are no gods" which is not a direct response to the question, "do you believe in gods". It's a response of, "No, AND I know there is no gods." it's adding an extra proposition. Don't you think I make it clear that some atheists may choose to be gnostic atheists? I'm trying to take your feedback on board, but I don't understand the objection. Atheists can hold any further beliefs or make knowledge claims. and it's still atheism+something else, what is special about that particular extra claim of knowledge?

For example, you could be a mythicist atheist and believe all gods are a result of previous mythology, what's the difference?

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Would anyone else like to offer an opinion about this? Am I unclear in any way?

[Dystopia]

My objection is that a gnostic atheist is still an atheist. You are saying that "atheism isn't gnostic atheism". Doesn't the premise contradict itself? I'm confused rob. Basically you can say that the bare minimum is a lack of belief but I doubt most atheists are always agnostic, if we look at guys like Dawkins they are a 6.9 and sometimes a 7, a lot of atheists are also gnostic regarding the Christian god. I think you can say that you don't need to know anything to be an atheist, you don't need to be a strong atheist, but saying that "atheism isn't gnostic atheism" is confusing and it looks you're trying to differentiate people based on positions of knowledge. You see, I'm a strong atheist out of personal honestly but I'm an atheist as well. I'm still an atheist. If you wish, you could replace by saying that atheism is not necessarily the belief that there are no gods at all, but some atheists are stronger than others.

I've added more stuff on the previous comment

[robvalue]

I really don't get it, I'm sorry. I'm trying very hard.

What I am saying in my blog is that atheism is not necessarily gnostic atheism. I don't know how much clearer that can be... They are not the same thing, one is a subset of the other but they are not equivalent. It's the most common misunderstanding of all to equate them.

An atheist who likes sweets is a sweet-liking atheist, still a form of atheism. But not all atheists necessarily like sweets. I don't think anywhere I say that an atheist is not a gnostic atheist. But I'll read it all again. Thanks for the feedback

As for the coin thing... It's meant to demonstrate that you can reject both "a is true" and "not a is true". If you don't have what you consider enough evidence to make a conclusive decision either way, then you reject both of them. Maybe I'm not explaining myself well... If anyone else would like to chime in, is what I've written confusing?

[Dystopia]

You're comparing atheism to sweets? Basically, a gnostic atheist is an atheist. The title says "What atheism is not" and then you proceed to write "gnostic atheism" - Don't you see the contradiction between saying that gnostic atheism is not atheism? Dude, it's atheism. It's just the degree of certainty that changes. But it's atheism. It doesn't tell you anything else about the person in question, it doesn't make anyone an anti-theist.

I agree with anti-theism in the section because an atheist doesn't have to be an anti-theist and you can be a theist + anti-theist if you are against god. But gnostic atheism is not separable from atheism because when it exists it's connected to atheistic ideas. Basically, the way you wrote it, if I was an ignoramus about atheists and atheism I'd think that gnostic atheists are a separate group completely different from other atheists

[robvalue]

Ok I'm gonna put in some other words maybe I can make it clearer.

I'll put in "not necessarily" in various places, will that help? I think there are some places this would make it clearer, I take your point.

I thought I'd made this very clear, but I can always be clearer. I appreciate the comments I will try and remove all misunderstanding.

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I'll do this later, I don't have the opportunity right now, but I promise I'll go through the whole atheism bit and make very sure I try my best to remove all confusion here I'll say that atheism is not necessarily any of the following... And so on.

[Dystopia]

I think you can just say that atheism doesn't mean certainty that there are no gods. It could mean, but it's not mandatory. A lot of people assume atheists believe there are no gods the same way theists believe there are gods (at least one) and that's a terrible misconception.

No problem, just trying to help you perfect the blog. The logical fallacies part is going to be extremely useful because I often forget to memorize the names of fallacies and how to identify them. Thanks

[watchamadoodle]

For Ehrman to say he is certain of HJ is absurd. Certain? You have to be kidding me. I don't think there's even a 10% chance of it given the huge lack of evidence.

I agree with your assessment. If we use your tub full of candy that might contain either an even or odd count, this situation seems similar to me. The mythicists say odd, and the historicists say even. Each group has a few weak arguments and scraps of flimsy evidence for their claims. I think the sensible position is to remain unconvinced. Jesus may have existed or he may not have existed. If I had to make a wild guess, then I would guess that Jesus existed - but only because most of the historians guess this. It's still be not much better than flipping a coin.

[robvalue]

Well sure. But surely, if HJ have no case, then the default position is that jesus is fiction?

For example, say I tried to make the case to you that Harry Potter was real. I produced some really dodgy "evidence" and you conclude I haven't made my case. Would we say it's undecided? I think we'd agree that Harry is fiction unless demonstrated otherwise. And I equate jesus being fiction with him being a myth... Would you agree? I think mythicist is the default position. Am I right? tell me if not.

Again not trying to be a dick, this is a very interesting discussion and I appreciate you taking the time with me

I don't get why jesus gets special consideration over Harry potter, is what I'm saying. To me, it's not like the HJ case even comes close.

[Dystopia]

I think there's reasons to be skeptic about the historical Jesus. Not exactly 100% certainty but many records are confusing... You see, even if we assumed someone with the name Jesus was baptised and then crucified there were so many people with the same name at the time and so little people who knew how to write and read correctly that the probability is lowered significantly. I don't think it's wrong to think someone similar to the bible character existed sometime and inspired the holy scriptures but there's lack of evidence to at least be distrustful about the existence and life of Jesus or if it's the same person altogether