Am I still an atheist if I believe in a higher being?

[vixene]

Well yes, I am fully aware that I'm a random person on the internet with an opinion. I've never stated that my opinion is fact and should be adhered to. Unlike yourself.

Um excuse me, you where the one who started a thread asking about the terminology. I didn't give you opinion on the matter I gave you the terms and how they are used, it is not my opinion nor have I ever claimed my opinion was fact, all you have to do is google the damn terms.

Ok.

[Pyrrho]

Deism isn't necessarily a belief in a god, what would you suppose is the belief in the possibility of a god but not a direct belief that one exists?

---

Why should anyone here be required to disprove your claim. You made the claim, you get the burden of proof.

But I didn't actually make a claim, I just said I believe in the possibility of a god.

Deism is the belief in a god:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini...ctCode=all

If "supreme being" throws you, take a look at:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini...upreme__18

If you believe that a god is possible, but do not actually believe in a god, you are a weak atheist.  Many such people, though, call themselves "agnostics."

[Pyrrho]

Ok, here we go...

If you lack belief in any gods, you are an atheist. This doesn't mean you have to believe that god does not exist. It simply means that you do not have a positive belief that he does exist. That seems like an odd distinction, but it's important, and the reason is "Burden of Proof."

Others kind of kicked you in the stomach with this, but I'm going to be the nice guy here (for once...don't get used to it...I'm an asshole).

You mentioned a common argument earlier: "You can't prove that god doesn't exist."

You're right. Nobody can prove that god does not exist. Here's the problem with that:

Nobody can prove that Santa Claus does not really exist. Nobody can prove that Darth Vader does not really exist. Nobody can prove that invisible pink unicorns do not exist. Nobody can prove that a flying spaghetti monster does not exist.

What I'm getting at here is the idea of "Burden of Proof." The thing is, it's impossible to prove that ANYTHING does not exist, no matter how absurd or unlikely. The existence of something is a non-falsifiable claim because no matter how much evidence we find of something not being there, the other side can always turn around and say "Well, you just haven't found it yet." Conversely, the NON-existence of something is easily falsifiable because all it takes is one scrap of definite evidence that something does, in fact, exist, and the statement immediately becomes false.

Because of this fact, the NON-existence of a thing is ALWAYS the "null hypothesis," or h0. This means that it is the default position of belief until it is disproven by evidence. This doesn't mean that the thing in question definitely does not exist; rather, it simply means that there is no warrant or justification for believing it exists until evidence shows up. This means the burden of proof is ALWAYS on the person making a positive claim for the existence of something. A position of non-belief does not require evidence but can be unseated by it.

You are quite mistaken in claiming that one cannot prove the nonexistence of something.  Anything whose definition is self-contradictory cannot exist.  Thus, there are no invisible pink unicorns, because "pink" and "invisible" contradict each other.  We can also know that things don't exist that do not fit with known facts.  For example, how messed up the world is, is incompatible with a being that is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly benevolent, so such a being cannot exist.  We can know that Santa does not exist because people have visited the north pole and his workshop is not there.  That, though, was unnecessary, as we know it is impossible for one man to visit every house on the planet in one night, and it is impossible for a man to fit down every chimney (not to mention the fact that not every house has a chimney).  The idea that one cannot prove that some things do not exist is just false.

[Brian37]

You cannot disprove a negative. You can't disprove that a giant unicorn farted the big bang, because we have yet to see beyond the background radiation. Things are not true or even possible by default. There are likely hood probability statistical factors. I find it infinitely likely that humans mere make these claims up because that, for most, is much easier than facing our finite reality.

[robvalue]

This all looks quite traumatic, but it seems you've arrived at atheism so congrats

Even strong atheism (belief there is no God) is not a statement of certainty that there can't possibly be a god. It doesn't preclude the possibility of anything; it's just a statement of your current active belief.

Of course, weak atheism is even more relaxed, it's simply the statement that you're undecided. You don't actively believe there is a god, but don't actively believe there isn't one either.

Personally I don't think less of anyone for being a deist, it's just putting a name to uncertainty. In all practical terms, it's the same as atheism. It's when people also put their favourite clothes on the "God" and start claiming to speak for it that I get worried.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

People can be an atheist and still believe in all sorts of crazy things. If we take atheism to be lack of belief in a god or gods, then yes, holding (for example) that homeopathy is true, or that there is a spiritual life stream of something, is true doesn't automatically mean one is not an atheist.

I know atheists who believe in ghosts...Ghosts.

Welcome to the forum Vixene ^_^

[robvalue]

Yeah, my wife believes in ghosts, and various other irrational stuff too. But she's an atheist. Not every atheist is a sceptic

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

Some people become an Atheist through their own reasoning.
Others require some form of help from others(Like from Youtube videos,some articles,an atheist they know,etc).

The first category would naturally believe in mostly rational things whereas the second category may have a tendency to believe in some things that may not be very rational to believe in,like say,Ghosts.A bit of help given can erase their irrationality though,so it's all good.

[Redbeard The Pink]

You are quite mistaken in claiming that one cannot prove the nonexistence of something.  Anything whose definition is self-contradictory cannot exist.  Thus, there are no invisible pink unicorns, because "pink" and "invisible" contradict each other.  We can also know that things don't exist that do not fit with known facts.  For example, how messed up the world is, is incompatible with a being that is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly benevolent, so such a being cannot exist.  We can know that Santa does not exist because people have visited the north pole and his workshop is not there.  That, though, was unnecessary, as we know it is impossible for one man to visit every house on the planet in one night, and it is impossible for a man to fit down every chimney (not to mention the fact that not every house has a chimney).  The idea that one cannot prove that some things do not exist is just false.

I go on to clarify in a later post that it's not logically unsound to rule out the existence of an impossible object. Those can be proven to not exist by showing them to be impossible, as I stated earlier. Perhaps this first statement was overly simplistic, which is why I expounded on it with the whole "Unicorns Vs. Square Circles" analogy.

Personally, I actually consider god to be an impossible object, in part for the reasons you described and in part for other reasons I've already mentioned. I consider myself a gnostic atheist because, by every use of the word I've ever encountered, some part of god's definition ALWAYS renders him either fictional or no longer a god.

[Excited Penguin]

Empty universes, it turns out, are unstable and decay into universes that are not empty.

I'm sparing you about 1/9 of wikipedia with that simplification.  No sign of God required to jumpstart things, just sit around and wait.

Actually I've heard this on youtube watching really smart physicists talk