Is Lack of Belief the Best You Can Do?

[robvalue]

That's right.

I understand some people wanting to not label themself atheist to avoid stigma, but it doesn't change the actual position. It's just renaming it. Theists can of course be agnostic too; most of the intellectually honest ones seem to be.

[Silver]

Fuck this problem with labels. Labels define us no matter what. Someone is female, I'm male, someone is short, I'm average height, labels are designed not as an encumbrance but as a more fluid means of communication.

More than anything, I hate people who think labels are bad.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I'd respect Chad if he backed down here and admitted that in fact withholding judgement when you feel the evidence is inconclusive both for and against, is a respectable position for any claim.

I agree. The key word you used here is inconclusive. When someone says he is an atheist for lack of evidence, he is not truly withholding judgment. He is rendering a judgment based on an apparent lack of evidence.

[robvalue]

OK... well, either we are convinced by the evidence or we are not. We don't consciously decide which. Our subconscious is refusing to commit to forming a belief, if it feels the evidence inconclusive. That would be weak atheism. In my case, whether this is a "created" reality or a "natural" one is something I can't possibly comment on. And if it is created, I can't comment on whether it was due to a deliberate intelligent act or not. I have no beliefs about it. If you want to call that a judgement, or maybe an assessment would be a better word, then that's cool. But a lack of a belief is not a belief. A person doesn't simply believe the evidence is inadequate/inconclusive to them; they know that it is. They have the result; at least the result of consideration so far. To say otherwise is to claim people only have beliefs about what they know, which is going way off topic. Of course, such an assessment about evidence is a personal thing and another person may come to a different conclusion based in the same evidence.

I'm glad you agree that it's a respectable position after all. Kudos for that. Strong atheism is going further of course, that the claim is so unlikely to be true that it can safely be assumed false, until further evidence shows up. In my case, once many further things have been claimed in additional to simply an intelligent creator, the likelihood goes down and down. It's getting more and more specific and extraordinary, and also frequently clashing with the evidence I do have.

Someone could be an atheist for whatever reason, though. They could lack a belief in God based on their emotions; but also not rule out the possibility of God based on some other random thing. Not all atheists use what I would consider to be logical processes. So just lacking a belief doesn't tell you how the person ended up lacking the belief.

[FebruaryOfReason]

"Not sufficient" for what purpose?

Not a sufficient response to the proposition of whether or not god(s) exist.

Not interested. I live my life. Someone else believes something. Irrelevant.

[Silver]

I have to agree that the lack of belief is the best I can do. You are right, Chad.

[FebruaryOfReason]

Hang on. There is not sufficient evidence for psychopathic cloud elephants either. Does that mean I am obliged to do something greater than simply say "I don't believe psychopathic cloud elephants exist"? What would constitute a satisfactory position on psychopathic cloud elephants then?

A rejection of belief in god when there is so much directly contradictory evidence against the idea of an omnipotent, forgiving, creative god who did it all 6,000 years ago (and has taken a very extensive sabbatical since) is not simply a lack of belief. It is a recognition of the basic laws of logic. If I say I believe in A and someone comes along and demonstrates that A cannot possibly hold true, it is my intellectual duty to discard my belief. No other action is required.

Do I have to then also come up with directly contradictory evidence against psychopathic cloud elephants? Am I obliged to refute each and every assertion that anyone else makes?

This is an attempt by the religitards to shift the burden of proof from themselves, and assert that they are right by default even when seven other bunches of religitards are making completely incompatible assertions at the same time.

A lack of belief in god may not be sufficient to convince a bunch of intellectual cowards to discard their security blankets. But for those of us who can't ignore the massive holes in those beliefs, it is a natural position that requires no further justification.

[FebruaryOfReason]

One incorrect - and repeatedly refuted - hypothesis is no more deserving of special treatment than any other incorrect and repeatedly refuted hypothesis.
The fact that it is a nice comforting security blanket for some people is irrelevant.

[LadyForCamus]

Hang on. There is not sufficient evidence for psychopathic cloud elephants either. Does that mean I am obliged to do something greater than simply say "I don't believe psychopathic cloud elephants exist"? What would constitute a satisfactory position on psychopathic cloud elephants then?

A rejection of belief in god when there is so much directly contradictory evidence against the idea of an omnipotent, forgiving, creative god who did it all 6,000 years ago (and has taken a very extensive sabbatical since) is not simply a lack of belief. It is a recognition of the basic laws of logic. If I say I believe in A and someone comes along and demonstrates that A cannot possibly hold true, it is my intellectual duty to discard my belief. No other action is required.

Do I have to then also come up with directly contradictory evidence against psychopathic cloud elephants? Am I obliged to refute each and every assertion that anyone else makes?

This is an attempt by the religitards to shift the burden of proof from themselves, and assert that they are right by default even when seven other bunches of religitards are making completely incompatible assertions at the same time.

A lack of belief in god may not be sufficient to convince a bunch of intellectual cowards to discard their security blankets. But for those of us who can't ignore the massive holes in those beliefs, it is a natural position that requires no further justification.

Chad is going to tell you that comparing God to cloud elephants is a category error...but he's wrong. [emoji12]

[robvalue]

You also have to be very clear on what you even mean by God.

The classic bait and switch is to present the harmless, invisible, tasteless deistic God as being above scrutiny; then when this is admitted to being unfalsifiable, swap it for a very specific, very active God who goes against the evidence we do have in a massive way, and pretend this is as reasonable. It's not. And almost no one actually believes in just mister tasteless. I wish they would.