Atheism's Definition - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

[Welsh cake]

The only real question here is who let lucent out of the R'lyeh? I thought that was the only forum "the condemned" could post in?

[Ace Otana]

The only real question here is who let lucent out of the R'lyeh? I thought that was the only forum "the condemned" could post in?

Yeah, I'm wondering that.... >.>

[reverendjeremiah]

I challenge Lucent to a formal debate in the debate forum

http://atheistforums.org/forum-23.html

I challenge him to an exercise of the mind during this debate. I challenge him to defend the atheist position, while I, an atheist, defend a specific theistic position. Me and Lucent only, with a moderator of Lucents choosing to help keep us on topic and in-line.

Also, to be even more fair, I would suggest to Lucent (this is merely a suggestion) that, if he is willing, that a good choice would be Tack-attack for the mod, as he is a fellow theist.

What say you?

[lucent]

Exactly. I'm an atheist. I lack belief in gods or anything belonging in the "supernatural" for that matter. Moving on.

You have a belief, that God doesn't exist. You've said this many times.

You don't understand what "disbelief" means lucent. Yes, a skeptical person can easily say they lack a belief in extraterrestrial life because there's no evidence and we're lacking a concrete definition of the term "life" in unequivocal terms. I lack a belief in gods because no one has ever provided a clear positive ontology of such a being. Get yourself a proper English dictionary for fucks sake.

It says nothing for whether something is true or false. It is an irrelevent detail about your psychology. The answer is either yes, no or I don't know.

Oh fuck here we go. The God of the gaps fallacy lucent is not an explanation, it is a non-answer that makes no attempt to understand the phenomena lacking scientific knowledge in question.

It has nothing to do with gaps. Either life and the Universe had an intelligent causation or it was the result of chance. So, the idea of God does have explanatory power. And it is not a God of the gaps when it is a better explanation for the phenomenon.

Shut up, no its not. We have no historical evidence of Jesus. Even with good theological scholarship we have no idea who wrote the Gospels. We have no contemporaries of the life of Jesus, at all. All you have is people who are reporting heresy. That's why when you ask your *educated* Christian friends they will remind you that you have to take the writings on Jesus' life and divinity on faith, because all you have is blind hope he was/is real.

Apparently you have no idea what constitutes historical evidence. What most atheists seem to want is video footage, but what historians consider good evidence is an entirely different story. If an atheist applied the same skepticism to other historical figures, our history books would be nearly empty.

This idea of the gospels being written by unknowns is ridiculous. Do you honestly think that the authors of the gospels were universally decided upon by the church without even a hint of dissension? Any student of church history will know that this would never happen. Since there is no evidence to the contrary, it isn't plausible.

We have writings from as early as 50 ad, I think that is pretty good. You have set an impossible standard for the evidence; if you actually did an *honest* investigation instead of a biased invesitgation that seeks out all of the negative evidence and feels content in being right, then you would find there are good reasons to believe it is true.

Yes, we take the gospels on faith, but it isn't blind faith.

I take nothing on faith.

You take quite a lot of faith, actually. Draw a large circle on a piece of paper, and let's call that circle the sum of human knowledge. Shade in the portion of that knowledge that you have acquired and then you'll realize how much you do take on faith. You take on faith the opinions of experts, the things that you read and hear about, and what's going on around you and what will happen in the future. You have faith that you exist, that there are other minds, and that the Universe didn't start five seconds ago and all your memories are false.

Human beings like you yes. You're in the evil cult that believes some sky daddy created the universe in six days with magic and you condemn non-believers in your fantasy to a make-believe realm of eternal torment and suffering. You should expect, indeed you deserve ridicule, even most Jews I've spoken to think you're barbaric on the doctrine of Hell.

Well, that's the difference betwen you and I. I believe that you're worthy of respect, and even love. I believe in treating you the way I would want to be treated. I believe that even if we disagree that you have an essential dignity that I can't ignore. So, I guess you can chop that up to different values; you don't value me, I value you. More than that, God values you, which is why I am here.

Disbelief in a claim until it has met its burden of proof with sufficient evidence IS the default position.

No it isn't. If someone called you and told you that a bomb was going to go off in your house in two minutes, would you sit there and wait it out? No, you would leave that house even though it hadn't been sufficiently proven as true.

First of all I'm not claming anything, you are.

Second, within epistemology and the philosophical burden of proof, positive and negative ontological claims are asymmetrical. The greater burden is always on the party positing the claim of a supernatural being's existence, because they are making a positive claim to knowledge and seeking to add to what information and data we already possess about reality. Negative claims "God does not exist" (strong atheism) have a lesser burden because its arguing for a negative, the party is not seeking to add any new information to our centralised pool of knowledge. Those who lack a belief (weak atheism) or who don't care either way have no burden.

Totally false. First, our "centralised pool of knowledge" contains the writings, knowledge, and understanding of billions and billions of people that say that God exists, and explain in intricate detail why and how and everything inbetween. You throw all of that away on the basis that "they must all be delusional!". You have dismiss a great deal of human knowledge and experience, probably the majority of it to get to this position. Right away you are straining credulity, and so your burden of proof is no less great. It just shows that you ignore everything that disagrees with your position.

Oh do kindly go and fuck off, what are you now watching that retard shockofgod for trump-cards? Atheism makes NO claims about reality.

It claims that God doesn't exist. So you have no evidence that atheism is true? It seems strange that evidence is so important to you when you have exactly zero that your position is true. Almost seems like faith..in fact:

of all choices, atheism requires the greatest faith, as it demands that ones limited store of human knowledge is sufficient to exclude the possibility of God.

francis collins human genome project

I agree, your statement is meaningless and further more, childishly silly. Yes there is. I AM an agnostic atheist you dumbass. Most members here are self-confessed agnostic atheists! >_<

It is a logically incoherent belief. Agnostics neither believe or disbelieve in God, atheists disbelieve in God. They are mutually exclusive.

You're making shit up as usual. You have a mental block that is preventing you from understanding what the definition, what the meaning of the label "atheism" actually is. Now, it's up to you to resolve that, or if you can't, seek psychiatric help or whatever.

If I look in the dictionary, it says "the doctrine that there is no God"..pretty hard to misinterpet that Welsh. To dispute this is the classic definition of atheism is called living in denial.

[reverendjeremiah]

...for me in the debate...I will be defending Asatru

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PozbCdtvi...re=related

[Norfolk And Chance]

Exactly. I'm an atheist. I lack belief in gods or anything belonging in the "supernatural" for that matter. Moving on.

You have a belief, that God doesn't exist. You've said this many times.

You don't understand what "disbelief" means lucent. Yes, a skeptical person can easily say they lack a belief in extraterrestrial life because there's no evidence and we're lacking a concrete definition of the term "life" in unequivocal terms. I lack a belief in gods because no one has ever provided a clear positive ontology of such a being. Get yourself a proper English dictionary for fucks sake.

It says nothing for whether something is true or false. It is an irrelevent detail about your psychology. The answer is either yes, no or I don't know.

Oh fuck here we go. The God of the gaps fallacy lucent is not an explanation, it is a non-answer that makes no attempt to understand the phenomena lacking scientific knowledge in question.

It has nothing to do with gaps. Either life and the Universe had an intelligent causation or it was the result of chance. So, the idea of God does have explanatory power. And it is not a God of the gaps when it is a better explanation for the phenomenon.

Shut up, no its not. We have no historical evidence of Jesus. Even with good theological scholarship we have no idea who wrote the Gospels. We have no contemporaries of the life of Jesus, at all. All you have is people who are reporting heresy. That's why when you ask your *educated* Christian friends they will remind you that you have to take the writings on Jesus' life and divinity on faith, because all you have is blind hope he was/is real.

Apparently you have no idea what constitutes historical evidence. What most atheists seem to want is video footage, but what historians consider good evidence is an entirely different story. If an atheist applied the same skepticism to other historical figures, our history books would be nearly empty.

This idea of the gospels being written by unknowns is ridiculous. Do you honestly think that the authors of the gospels were universally decided upon by the church without even a hint of dissension? Any student of church history will know that this would never happen. Since there is no evidence to the contrary, it isn't plausible.

We have writings from as early as 50 ad, I think that is pretty good. You have set an impossible standard for the evidence; if you actually did an *honest* investigation instead of a biased invesitgation that seeks out all of the negative evidence and feels content in being right, then you would find there are good reasons to believe it is true.

Yes, we take the gospels on faith, but it isn't blind faith.

I take nothing on faith.

You take quite a lot of faith, actually. Draw a large circle on a piece of paper, and let's call that circle the sum of human knowledge. Shade in the portion of that knowledge that you have acquired and then you'll realize how much you do take on faith. You take on faith the opinions of experts, the things that you read and hear about, and what's going on around you and what will happen in the future. You have faith that you exist, that there are other minds, and that the Universe didn't start five seconds ago and all your memories are false.

Human beings like you yes. You're in the evil cult that believes some sky daddy created the universe in six days with magic and you condemn non-believers in your fantasy to a make-believe realm of eternal torment and suffering. You should expect, indeed you deserve ridicule, even most Jews I've spoken to think you're barbaric on the doctrine of Hell.

Well, that's the difference betwen you and I. I believe that you're worthy of respect, and even love. I believe in treating you the way I would want to be treated. I believe that even if we disagree that you have an essential dignity that I can't ignore. So, I guess you can chop that up to different values; you don't value me, I value you. More than that, God values you, which is why I am here.

Disbelief in a claim until it has met its burden of proof with sufficient evidence IS the default position.

No it isn't. If someone called you and told you that a bomb was going to go off in your house in two minutes, would you sit there and wait it out? No, you would leave that house even though it hadn't been sufficiently proven as true.

First of all I'm not claming anything, you are.

Second, within epistemology and the philosophical burden of proof, positive and negative ontological claims are asymmetrical. The greater burden is always on the party positing the claim of a supernatural being's existence, because they are making a positive claim to knowledge and seeking to add to what information and data we already possess about reality. Negative claims "God does not exist" (strong atheism) have a lesser burden because its arguing for a negative, the party is not seeking to add any new information to our centralised pool of knowledge. Those who lack a belief (weak atheism) or who don't care either way have no burden.

Totally false. First, our "centralised pool of knowledge" contains the writings, knowledge, and understanding of billions and billions of people that say that God exists, and explain in intricate detail why and how and everything inbetween. You throw all of that away on the basis that "they must all be delusional!". You have dismiss a great deal of human knowledge and experience, probably the majority of it to get to this position. Right away you are straining credulity, and so your burden of proof is no less great. It just shows that you ignore everything that disagrees with your position.

Oh do kindly go and fuck off, what are you now watching that retard shockofgod for trump-cards? Atheism makes NO claims about reality.

It claims that God doesn't exist. So you have no evidence that atheism is true? It seems strange that evidence is so important to you when you have exactly zero that your position is true. Almost seems like faith..in fact:

of all choices, atheism requires the greatest faith, as it demands that ones limited store of human knowledge is sufficient to exclude the possibility of God.

francis collins human genome project

I agree, your statement is meaningless and further more, childishly silly. Yes there is. I AM an agnostic atheist you dumbass. Most members here are self-confessed agnostic atheists! >_<

It is a logically incoherent belief. Agnostics neither believe or disbelieve in God, atheists disbelieve in God. They are mutually exclusive.

You're making shit up as usual. You have a mental block that is preventing you from understanding what the definition, what the meaning of the label "atheism" actually is. Now, it's up to you to resolve that, or if you can't, seek psychiatric help or whatever.

If I look in the dictionary, it says "the doctrine that there is no God"..pretty hard to misinterpet that Welsh. To dispute this is the classic definition of atheism is called living in denial.

Meaningless theistic waffle.

[lucent]

I challenge Lucent to a formal debate in the debate forum

http://atheistforums.org/forum-23.html

I challenge him to an exercise of the mind during this debate. I challenge him to defend the atheist position, while I, an atheist, defend a specific theistic position. Me and Lucent only, with a moderator of Lucents choosing to help keep us on topic and in-line.

Also, to be even more fair, I would suggest to Lucent (this is merely a suggestion) that, if he is willing, that a good choice would be Tack-attack for the mod, as he is a fellow theist.

What say you?

Alright, I accept your challenge. Let's do it in standard debate format with four rounds..opening, 2 rebuttals, and closing. Tack is fine for mod, but I'm fine with whomever. What theistic position are you going to be defending?

---

...for me in the debate...I will be defending Asatru

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PozbCdtvi...re=related

Asatru? I don't know if that is going to be very fruitful. You might as well be arguing for the FSM. If I am going to have to argue as an atheist, I think you should have to argue as a serious theist and not from obscure pagan belief.

[Ace Otana]

Meaningless theistic waffle.

Tell me about it.

[reverendjeremiah]

No, I disagree. asatru has much more influence on our American society than FSM. I would even suggest that Asatru probably has more influence on our american traditions than Christianity does.

There is no "flyingspaghettiday", but there definitely is a "thursday" (thors day)

But, if you do not like me doing Asatru, I will gladly adopt a theistic position that is modernly popular.

[lucent]

No, I disagree. asatru has much more influence on our American society than FSM. I would even suggest that Asatru probably has more influence on our american traditions than Christianity does.

There is no "flyingspaghettiday", but there definitely is a "thursday" (thors day)

But, if you do not like me doing Asatru, I will gladly adopt a theistic position that is modernly popular.

Since you want me to take your position, then you should take mine. I'll agree to this if you defend Christianity. Otherwise I am not really interested.