When Atheists Can't Think Episode 1: No Evidence for God?

[Cato]

Provide evidence.

Sure he won't just repeat his mantra louder to drown out the evidence?

We won't know until you provide evidence, will we?

[Angrboda]

What I reject is tactical redefinitions. Redefinitions designed for rhetorical, debating advantage, that are out of step with the rest of our established body of knowledge.

This from the person who redefined 'religion' in order to include atheism. You're a hypocrite.

[Esquilax]

Well I agree that it suits you.

I just think it suits you in the same way that diplomatic immunity "suits" diplomats who want to commit crimes without prosecution.

Yes, I know: you'd rather impute malevolent motivation for a person you don't know, than you would honestly engaging with their position. In this case, I've explained to you what both words were first intended to mean, and that's why I use them as I do, and in response you begin by snidely suggesting that I'm trying to get away with hiding my actual position- which isn't what my stated position is- based on... nothing? The fact that I'm an atheist? What is it about what I've said that convinces you I'm not using the words for the reason I said?

In another post you call it a "tactical redefinition," but I shouldn't need to remind you that you that if you're using the original definition the word was coined with, it's not actually a re-anything. It's just a definition. If you were to actually go and read the word's first use, you'll see that it lines up with my usage most cleanly. You are the one redefining it, not me.

So I don't think it's a high-minded suiting. It's a self-interested suiting that doesn't necessarily line up with the interests of honest, substantive rational discourse.

What do you think it is I'm attempting to accomplish with this "self-interested" label, and how did you determine that this was my intent?

And I'm perfectly aware that people will try and create rationalizations of this suitability, just like the diplomats in New York City rationalize their immunity to suit their preference to park anywhere they want without worrying about parking regulations.

Ah yes, those sneaky atheists, using words in the way they were intended to get one over on you poor poor theists, who just want to redefine the words to better suit your ideological agenda! How are we not in prison right now?!

But the bottom line of my position I've laid out in the previous post. The one to which you responded " Do you actually think that quibbling over labels constitutes some real victory over what we as atheists actually believe?"

There, I pointed out that if you're truly an agnostic, the atheist part of your definition is superfluous, and vice versa.

Since they address different things, it's really not. Atheism is my belief, agnosticism is my knowledge. The latter is a modifier to my professed certainty of the former. Nothing superfluous about it; in fact, it allows greater clarity as to what I actually believe, or else it would, if people like you would stop muddying the waters by attempting to redefine the term into something it was never meant to be, as if you think that by changing the meaning of the label, my beliefs will somehow be dragged into the new definition, when instead all you've done is create a definition that no longer suits me. If that's a victory for you, then you're welcome to it, petty and small minded as it is.

When you want to discuss my actual beliefs, I'll be over here. My name suits me better than the label you want so desperately to take off me as a chew toy anyway.

This view is better, in my opinion, because it's not based on tactical redefinitions to avoid burden of proof or enhance your debating position, allowing you to take the label of atheist while defending the position of agnosticism.

Agnosticism isn't a position, though. It's a degree of certainty applied to a position: you can have agnostic theists, too, if they believe without claiming certain knowledge.

But more to the point: so you think that I really believe there is no god, but am attempting to be sneaky by insinuating that I merely don't believe in a god instead to avoid the burden of proof. Fine. How did you determine that this was my belief, such that you've empowered yourself to demand by fiat that my chosen label is a diversionary tactic, considering that we've never met and my stated beliefs are different than the one's you're asserting I have? Can you read my mind? How can you claim to know the contents of my head better than I do?

I think this is a problem with your presumptuousness, not my beliefs.

And I think it lines up better with epistemology, which takes belief and disbelief to be propositional attitudes.

If they are, they're propositions unconnected with how much knowledge one claims to have regarding them. It's the latter that agnosticism denotes.

[Reforged]

*sigh* Too much space between episodes, questions left unanswered, too many plot holes, story jumps around...
This is Lost all over again.

[robvalue]

I'm ignostic, and whether or not I'm technically an atheist depends on the exact definition. By the simple version of lacking belief, then I am. I can't believe in something when I don't understand what is being described to me. All I hear is a doubly question begging "who made the universe?" followed up with an array of meaningless accolades and non-properties which help it avoid ever possibly being mistaken for something real.

Any definition I have heard is at best unfalisiable and at worst incoherent. Either way, I can't believe in it. I can however believe it is most likely a figment of the person's imagination when they provide me no good reason for them to think it is real either.

As for a sensible definition for God, such as a being running a simulation, I simply have no idea. Maybe, maybe not. Things would seem the same either way.

[God of Mr. Hanky]

Do you actually think that quibbling over labels constitutes some real victory over what we as atheists actually believe?

Not necessarily a victory. But I think it points out the self-deception atheists engage in. 

And intellectually responsible atheists care about not engaging in self-deception.

Please read and educate yourself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_o...robability

Realistically, I'm a 6.999 on the atheism scale, and since the balance has to be something, agnosticism is what naturally follows. I would not be calling myself an agnostic unless I considered the question to be wide open, which is not the case. I'm an atheist because of what I do not believe, not because I have any beliefs which preclude any possible reality of a god or your god outside the minds of the believers. Not precluding the existence of any god, or even your god means I do not have the belief that no god is possible. It's possible, but I see the chances of this possibility as extremely unlikely. This is something which a pure agnostic would probably not say, which is why I am agnostic by only the smallest conceivable percentage. I don't see any significant probability that any supernatural being does or ever had anything to do with our existence, and then the claims made by other humans on gods of their culture or cults are even less probable, but none of the above which I've said constitutes absolute dismissal, therefore call me 6.999, not 7.0 - that sort of claim would be unfalsifiable, therefore too much like those made by religious believers!

There's also the very nasty question of how would your own perceptions of a god have to change if it was discovered to be real, becoming available for our observation just like everything else which can be observed in this universe? I'm positively doubtless that such a discovery would murder it's mystique in any context by which it has been regarded as a god - especially when observations reveal that the reality isn't quite everything which was believed of it before said discovery. This only brings me much closer to completely ruling out any possibility of anyone's claim to knowing an eternal, perfect, and necessarily mysterious god having any basis in reality. Any solid establishment of facts regarding your claim would be disastrous for faith, so isn't it best to keep the nature of your claims mysterious, never to become proven in any way factual? Mystery works for those who want it, you wouldn't want them to go running away scared by reality when they now occupy your church pews in their efforts to avoid their daily realities, nor would you want them to go drifting away bored when fact makes a god no longer such a big deal. Point is that the human motivation for claims on knowing any mysterious god is much too obvious, and that only makes it having any basis in reality that much more doubtful.

Besides the desire to keep my own assertions scientific, the other reason I still won't go the rest of the way over to 7.0 on the scale is that I believe the believers, even insulting dicks such as you deserve the chance to make your case, if you have one which you can present by the rules of rational discourse. So if you can do that, then have at it, otherwise you should learn the difference, keep your eyes open, and mouth shut until you find the evidence which is required. To do otherwise, as all of you do every time, is nothing other than dishonest!

[Jehanne]

One of the standard mantras atheists are taught to say is "I'm an atheist because I have seen no evidence for God."

This is not a convincing reason to be an atheist. Why?

It's possible for someone to be too blind or too ignorant to see or understand the evidence. Just like a toddler might say "I see no evidence of the validity of Quantum Mechanics" or a blind woman might say "I see no evidence of the existence of colors" the problem might be with the person and not the evidence. 

Clearly, if the atheist wants the public to believe that there is no evidence, they have to be able to respond meaningfully to purported examples of theistic evidence. 

Atheists here, for the most part are not competent enough to do this. 

And hence, when someone says they are an atheist because they have seen no evidence, the best response seems to be to send them to an optometrist.

I haven't read all 27 pages of this thread, but being new here, I cannot help but recall the proposition of the race of talking donkeys on a World 150 light years away who speak fluent English and spend their days analyzing the collected works of Shakespeare, which, someone, from this World, transmitted to them several hundred years ago, just prior to the known invention of radio.  After all, "Why not just believe?"

[Angrboda]

Gods are part of a mental model of the world. They're instanced in the brain but never fully elucidated. Like a fading image in a dream, they have no exact boundaries. Asking for something that never fully escapes the mind as a concept is something of a category error. It's like asking the question "Who is X?" The answer has no definite boundaries. The definition of God is just a misty bundle of images in the brain that has a name. Just like Mr/Mrs X.

[Jenny A]

Provide evidence.

Sure he won't just repeat his mantra louder to drown out the evidence?

Still not seeing that convincing evidence.  Seriously, what do you have that shows a god, any god, to be more likely than not.

[Angrboda]

Sure he won't just repeat his mantra louder to drown out the evidence?

Still not seeing that convincing evidence.  Seriously, what do you have that shows a god, any god, to be more likely than not.

He's got a link to a bunch of arguments from ignorance! "I don't know how X, therefore God."