For Atheists - define what you don't believe in

[DBT]

Skepticalbip and James Brown underscore the point I made earlier, Random. The equivalence between God and the Tooth Fairy is about arguments made to support belief in their existence. You can't dismiss the arguments for the Tooth Fairy on one hand but accept arguments for God on the other. The same arguments apply. The only difference is that we know the arguments for the Tooth Fairy are frivolous, but sincerity is irrelevant to the point being made. Hence, the argument for God reduces to special pleading.

Don't get duped into intellectual laziness. The Tooth Fairy can be dismissed through reason and logic. If god can be dismissed it will have to be with reason and logic that aren'y equivalent to the Tooth Fairy dismissal.

It is evidence that determines whether a belief or conviction is justified or not. Faith means holding a conviction or belief without the support of evidence.

 

[James Brown]

Don't get duped into intellectual laziness. The Tooth Fairy can be dismissed through reason and logic. If god can be dismissed it will have to be with reason and logic that aren'y equivalent to the Tooth Fairy dismissal.

Does that mean the difference between the Tooth Fairy and God are a matter of degree, not a matter of kind?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Don't get duped into intellectual laziness. The Tooth Fairy can be dismissed through reason and logic. If god can be dismissed it will have to be with reason and logic that aren'y equivalent to the Tooth Fairy dismissal.

Does that mean the difference between the Tooth Fairy and God are a matter of degree, not a matter of kind?

It's certainly a matter of of having a double standard, that much is certain. It may also be a matter of a lack of critical thinking skills or wearing religious lenses or just plain old prejudice, or other things. My very religious mother would admonish us for talking about ghosts, telling us they were not real, while she worshiped her religious Holy Ghost. I also think there's some kind of addictive component working in religious circles, a genuine brain phenomenon.

But the biggest vibe I sense from RP is loyalty to a false belief. We've all done it at some point in our lives.

 

[Jobar]

I still think it fair to address the topic suggested by the thread title--that atheists attempt to "define" what they do not believe in. Atheism itself is, after all, defined as a negative belief. My consistent position has been that atheists and theists largely agree on what gods are, although not everyone will assign exactly the same meaning. The word itself does not belong to people who hold or reject beliefs, but to people who belong to a speech community.

I agree with most of that, but I'm not sure that "atheists and theists largely agree on what gods are". Because when we press believers to tell us their definition, very often we have a hard time getting straightforward answers.

I have no problem giving a definition myself; see post 79. But in the past, when I start pointing out the internal contradictions in that definition, all too often the believers I'm discussing it with start moving the goalposts, and saying that the god of *their* belief isn't covered by my definition. So I prefer to work with a definition given by the believer(s) I'm addressing.

 

[phands]

I also think there's some kind of addictive component working in religious circles, a genuine brain phenomenon.

Agreed....and there is a significant body of evidence that shows that religion is a form of brain ̶d̶a̶m̶a̶g̶e mis-wiring.

Here's one link to a study....

https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/study-finds-link-between-brain-damage-and-religious-fundamentalism

 

[phands]

Don't get duped into intellectual laziness. The Tooth Fairy can be dismissed through reason and logic. If god can be dismissed it will have to be with reason and logic that aren'y equivalent to the Tooth Fairy dismissal.

Why aren'y(sic) they equivalent?

The claims made for either should be held to the same standards of analysis, dissection and (dis)proof. I contend that claims for deities can be dismissed with exactly the same reason and logic, as opposed to your Special Pleading brand of unreason and illogic.
Just because you said so doesn't make your statement correct....and there's no intellectual laziness in applying the same standards of proof to equivalently preposterous notions. There is, however, intellectual cowardice in your special pleading...

 

[phands]

Atheism itself is, after all, defined as a negative belief.

I disagree..atheism is defined as lack of belief, not as negative belief. Those are different things.

I refer you to the excellent "What is Atheism?" article on the American Atheists web site.

 

[phands]

We know tooth fairies don't exist because the money for tooth exchange is always perpetrated by the parents. Tooth Fairies don't exist whether god does or not.

We know gods don't exist because the actions and claims always come from theists. Gods don't exist whether tooth fairies do or not.

Once again, your arguments are weak to the point of ridicule, and you resort to the logical fallacy of Special Pleading....and you moaned about intellectual laziness.

 

[Keith&Co.]

We know tooth fairies don't exist because the money for tooth exchange is always perpetrated by the parents. Tooth Fairies don't exist whether god does or not.

Ahhhhhhhh! I see.
Random, for some reason, thinks that by saying the two arguments are 'the same,' as in being of similar form, and using comparable evidence, we're saying that they're linked together.
No wonder he thinks he's somehow making a point in his little quibble, there.

 

[abaddon]

Isn't that weird! They think the analogy is an equivalence of the two entities. When all along the only equivalence is that the rules of reason should apply to any entity.

I suppose the idiotic idea of this thread, that atheists define believer's gods, is similar? Maybe atheists disbelieve the wrong god? As if different rules apply with different gods...

 

[bilby]

"Arguing with a theist is like trying to nail jelly to the ceiling".

"That's absurd; theists aren't made of jelly".

 

[skepticalbip]

We know tooth fairies don't exist because the money for tooth exchange is always perpetrated by the parents. Tooth Fairies don't exist whether god does or not.

And the money that supports churches and their activities is from the believers in the congregation. The church funds are not showered on them by god - if they were then I would need to have another look at religion.

 

[Keith&Co.]

The church funds are not showered on them by god -

Can we be sure, though? There IS that account of three pastors discussing the distribution of the tithing.
One draws a line on the floor and throws the money into the air. What lands on one side he takes as salary, the other side is used to support the church directly.
The second does the same thing, but draws a circle. What's inside the circle is God's money, outside is his.
The third does the same thing, but no lines on the floor. "Whatever stays up in the Air is God's, and whatever lands on the floor..."

Thing is, in all three accounts, the money always rains down! Just as if it were showered by God!

 

[phands]

I have had experience of ghosts.

I think it's a safe bet that you haven't.
As with many subjects, science is starting to poke holes in so-called paranormal experiences....

https://www.livescience.com/62888-paranormal-experiences-sleep-paralysis.html

 

[Rhea]

But the biggest vibe I sense from RP is loyalty to a false belief. We've all done it at some point in our lives.

Which is weird because RP keeps saying over and over that he does not believe in God.

 

[Copernicus]

I still think it fair to address the topic suggested by the thread title--that atheists attempt to "define" what they do not believe in. Atheism itself is, after all, defined as a negative belief. My consistent position has been that atheists and theists largely agree on what gods are, although not everyone will assign exactly the same meaning. The word itself does not belong to people who hold or reject beliefs, but to people who belong to a speech community.

I agree with most of that, but I'm not sure that "atheists and theists largely agree on what gods are". Because when we press believers to tell us their definition, very often we have a hard time getting straightforward answers.

I have no problem giving a definition myself; see post 79. But in the past, when I start pointing out the internal contradictions in that definition, all too often the believers I'm discussing it with start moving the goalposts, and saying that the god of *their* belief isn't covered by my definition. So I prefer to work with a definition given by the believer(s) I'm addressing.

Again, I see a tendency to conflate the concept of deities in general with the concept of a specific deity--the one that gets the proper name "God" in our monotheistic culture. Theists seldom try to define the general category that atheists reject belief in, and most people are really not trained to define words. So you get a lot of well-meaning attempts to explain different aspects of godhood. Everyone has an intuitive grasp of the word meanings that they use in the context of a speech community. Putting that intuition into words that define a word sense is an entirely different matter.

When you talk about "internal contradictions", I believe that you are talking about the specific deity that Christians worship, but even that deity covers a range of different concepts. Showing a specific version of "God" to be untenable might jar a given theist into rejecting belief in gods generally, but it is more likely just to make that person shift the goalposts around a little. It usually does little to undermine the foundation of beliefs that theism per se is grounded in.

 

[Juma]

It usually does little to undermine the foundation of beliefs that theism per se is grounded in.

And there is exactly where you are wrong.
It is exactly the foundation of the beliefs where most atheist disagrees with theist.
The fact that theists cannot know what say they know.
Not the details of their belief. Not the details of what ”god” is.
But HOW they (supposedly) know this.

 

[Copernicus]

It usually does little to undermine the foundation of beliefs that theism per se is grounded in.

And there is exactly where you are wrong.
It is exactly the foundation of the beliefs where most atheist disagrees with theist.
The fact that theists cannot know what say they know.
Not the details of their belief. Not the details of what ”god” is.
But HOW they (supposedly) know this.

That is how you view it, because you find it so straightforward to reject belief. You aren't motivated to "keep the faith". You don't put any hopes in prayers, have a community of believers that you've bonded with in support of your faith, engage in sacrificial acts, or engage in any of the activities intended to support the mindset. Unless you can get a religious person to question the foundations of belief in gods, not just the particular god that (s)he believes in, that person is likely to do what we all do in cases where some aspect of reality gets contradicted. We tinker with the edges of the belief that give us the most trouble. If you suddenly discover that your birth parents actually adopted you, you don't suddenly come to the conclusion that you had no birth parents. Your world is shaken, but you still believe that you had birth parents, even if the ones you believed in weren't the ones you thought they were. You can convince a Christian that his or her version of God is somewhat off in some respect, but that is rare. It isn't all that difficult to patch up the conceptual hole left behind, given a strong motivation to maintain faith. Usually, arguments are successful mainly with those who have already somewhat come around to the conclusion it leads to. The argument you make may help give them a little shove, but it isn't because you have shattered their world. Chances are, it already had a lot of cracks in it to begin with.

 

[Juma]

It usually does little to undermine the foundation of beliefs that theism per se is grounded in.

And there is exactly where you are wrong.
It is exactly the foundation of the beliefs where most atheist disagrees with theist.
The fact that theists cannot know what say they know.
Not the details of their belief. Not the details of what ”god” is.
But HOW they (supposedly) know this.

That is how you view it, because you find it so straightforward to reject belief. You aren't motivated to "keep the faith". You don't put any hopes in prayers, have a community of believers that you've bonded with in support of your faith, engage in sacrificial acts, or engage in any of the activities intended to support the mindset. Unless you can get a religious person to question the foundations of belief in gods, not just the particular god that (s)he believes in, that person is likely to do what we all do in cases where some aspect of reality gets contradicted. We tinker with the edges of the belief that give us the most trouble. If you suddenly discover that your birth parents actually adopted you, you don't suddenly come to the conclusion that you had no birth parents. Your world is shaken, but you still believe that you had birth parents, even if the ones you believed in weren't the ones you thought they were. You can convince a Christian that his or her version of God is somewhat off in some respect, but that is rare. It isn't all that difficult to patch up the conceptual hole left behind, given a strong motivation to maintain faith. Usually, arguments are successful mainly with those who have already somewhat come around to the conclusion it leads to. The argument you make may help give them a little shove, but it isn't because you have shattered their world. Chances are, it already had a lot of cracks in it to begin with.

You didnt understand my point: its not the definitions of gods that makes someone atheist, its the noncomittment to the religious way of ”kno wledge”. The christian god is obviously not a rational thought and most christian wokld probably agree. They believe in jesus and god DESPITE rational arguments, not because of any.
The fools that try to rationalize their belief in deitises can we ignore. They are obviously bonkers.

 

[Underseer]

I still think it fair to address the topic suggested by the thread title--that atheists attempt to "define" what they do not believe in. Atheism itself is, after all, defined as a negative belief. My consistent position has been that atheists and theists largely agree on what gods are, although not everyone will assign exactly the same meaning. The word itself does not belong to people who hold or reject beliefs, but to people who belong to a speech community.

I agree with most of that, but I'm not sure that "atheists and theists largely agree on what gods are". Because when we press believers to tell us their definition, very often we have a hard time getting straightforward answers.

I have no problem giving a definition myself; see post 79. But in the past, when I start pointing out the internal contradictions in that definition, all too often the believers I'm discussing it with start moving the goalposts, and saying that the god of *their* belief isn't covered by my definition. So I prefer to work with a definition given by the believer(s) I'm addressing.

Again, I see a tendency to conflate the concept of deities in general with the concept of a specific deity--the one that gets the proper name "God" in our monotheistic culture. Theists seldom try to define the general category that atheists reject belief in, and most people are really not trained to define words. So you get a lot of well-meaning attempts to explain different aspects of godhood. Everyone has an intuitive grasp of the word meanings that they use in the context of a speech community. Putting that intuition into words that define a word sense is an entirely different matter.

When you talk about "internal contradictions", I believe that you are talking about the specific deity that Christians worship, but even that deity covers a range of different concepts. Showing a specific version of "God" to be untenable might jar a given theist into rejecting belief in gods generally, but it is more likely just to make that person shift the goalposts around a little. It usually does little to undermine the foundation of beliefs that theism per se is grounded in.

This kind of crap is why I often think the igtheists/ignostics have the right of it. The concept of god(s) is too poorly defined to have a meaningful discussion.