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For Atheists - define what you don't believe in

Lion IRC said:
braces_for_impact said:
Can we stop with the shifting of the burden of proof? I expect better from theists that hang out here, this isn't Rapture Ready for fuck's sake.
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The persuasive burden rests on whoever wants to do the persuading.
If atheists want to remain unpersuasive that's perfectly OK with me. :cool:
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That doesn’t make any sense. I have no gods to prove so why would I need to describe one to persuade you? I don’t believe in any God(dess)(es). How would I “define” them? Why would you need to hear about what I don’t believe in?


Are you trying to ask, like, “A ‘god(dess)’ is a being that exists beyond the laws of physics”

Is that the “definition” you want? Okay. I don’t believe any of those exist.
 
Rhea said:
That doesn’t make any sense.
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It's obfuscation.
The burden of proof remains connected to the claim.
If there were a third party attempting to decide the facts in the atheist/theist dispute, both sides would have to provide their reasons for their stance, and each side would have the burden of persuading the third party of their side...

Lion cannot escape his burden of proof by claiming the atheists need to explain their side, too.

But apologists love them some tu quoque arguments, whether or not they make any sense.
 
Lion IRC said:
braces_for_impact said:
Can we stop with the shifting of the burden of proof? I expect better from theists that hang out here, this isn't Rapture Ready for fuck's sake.
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The persuasive burden rests on whoever wants to do the persuading.
If atheists want to remain unpersuasive that's perfectly OK with me. :cool:
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Then that means that all the gods of all the religions are true, but if all the gods of all the religions are true, that means the Bible is false because the Bible claims to represent the one and only true religion of the one and only true god.

I already explained this in an earlier post.

If the burden of proof works the way that you say, then your own arguments disprove Christianity. If you are right about the burden of proof, then your god exists, but Christianity is false.

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Lion, your god is a non-falsifiable existence claim. It cannot be disproved even if the claim is false, but it can be proved if true. If the burden of proof of the Christian god doesn't belong to Christians exclusively, then all the gods of all the religions are real, all because you didn't feel like accepting the burden of proving your own claims.
 
Jesus H. Christ Lion!

Talk about special pleasing! "I'm a Christian, the rules of argumentation and logic don't apply to me."

Reminds me of a scene from the film 'Liar Liar'.

"Your honor I object!"
"On what grounds?"
"On the grounds that it's devastating to my case!"
 
Would it be fair to say that many atheists don't believe in freedom of religious expression?
 
Random Person said:
Would it be fair to say that many atheists don't believe in freedom of religious expression?
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I don't think so. Most atheists are in favor of people being able to express whatever they want, so long as they don't try to impose their beliefs on others.
 
Random Person said:
Would it be fair to say that many atheists don't believe in freedom of religious expression?
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No. Not too many generations ago freedom of religious expression meant setting people on fire who disagreed with your religion.

And we should be teaching our kids world religions and religious history in schools starting in about the third grade It would then probably take one generation for churches to become ghost towns. Kids would know about other religious tales and other creation myths, gods, spirits, and quickly realize that they're not special in their particular flavor. But parents and preachers and all the religious salesmen would be up in arms.

There's just not much difference between religious imprisonment and religious freedom.
 
Lion IRC said:
braces_for_impact said:
Can we stop with the shifting of the burden of proof? I expect better from theists that hang out here, this isn't Rapture Ready for fuck's sake.
Click to expand...

The persuasive burden rests on whoever wants to do the persuading.
If atheists want to remain unpersuasive that's perfectly OK with me. :cool:
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How many gods do you not believe in again? A dozen plus? And then there are the hundreds of formerly worshiped deities you haven't even heard of.
 
Random Person said:
Would it be fair to say that many atheists don't believe in freedom of religious expression?
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No, I don't think so. Most atheists support freedom of religion, and in fact many are secularists. One should have the freedom to worship, or not worship as they see fit. The issue is that many Christians (I'm speaking of the US here, but it's the same for many religions) think they have a perfect morality handed down to them by a perfect god. This causes problems because such attitudes generally have Christians attempting to legislate their religious rules and making them the law of the land for everyone. Some examples are supporting churches and religious institutions using public funds, attempting to teach creationism in science class, restricting women from having the reproductive health of their choice, and many of the bad policies of the current Trump administration.

A secularist believes that the government should not support any one religion over another and that the government should be NEUTRAL with respect to religion and religious ideas.
 
I do not honestly believe that Lion is out of line to ask atheists to define what they think they reject. The thread title starts out with the assumption that the burden of proof is only on theists to define the concept of a deity, but both sides of a controversy bear an equal responsibility on that score. From many past discussions on this subject, I've learned that theists and atheists are all over the place on the question. Are we talking about a generic concept of a deity or the specific one that Christians or Muslims or Jews worship? Is atheism about rejecting belief in gods or just not holding a belief about their existence? Is it even possible to describe a generic concept of a deity that fits all of the various entities that people use that name to refer to?
 
Copernicus said:
The thread title starts out with the assumption that the burden of proof is only on theists to define the concept of a deity, but both sides of a controversy bear an equal responsibility on that score.
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Why? I mean, it's one thing if there are two competing theories about an event or artifact that both sides accept as a fact. For examples, the controversy on some Shakespeare plays. Whether you think Bill or Marlowe or Queen Elizabeth wrote them, they all agree that the play exists, details to follow.

But for most atheists, questions about God's qualities are like questions about Superman's abilities. There are references that can be used, common sources and less commonly accepted rewrites, fanfictions, movie interpretations, TV shows and so on. We can discuss god as described in the OT, in the NT, in the BOM, and so on, but none of those are atheist source documents. No atheist has set down the revelation he's received from God about God's nature.
If someone thinks God or Superman is real, then they are coming from an entirely different POV, not comparable to the 'within the fic-ton' discussion.
 
Keith&Co. said:
Copernicus said:
The thread title starts out with the assumption that the burden of proof is only on theists to define the concept of a deity, but both sides of a controversy bear an equal responsibility on that score.
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Why? I mean, it's one thing if there are two competing theories about an event or artifact that both sides accept as a fact. For examples, the controversy on some Shakespeare plays. Whether you think Bill or Marlowe or Queen Elizabeth wrote them, they all agree that the play exists, details to follow.

But for most atheists, questions about God's qualities are like questions about Superman's abilities. There are references that can be used, common sources and less commonly accepted rewrites, fanfictions, movie interpretations, TV shows and so on. We can discuss god as described in the OT, in the NT, in the BOM, and so on, but none of those are atheist source documents. No atheist has set down the revelation he's received from God about God's nature.
If someone thinks God or Superman is real, then they are coming from an entirely different POV, not comparable to the 'within the fic-ton' discussion.
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But there are not two competing theories. There are thousands. So the question of how to define a deity is not simple. Furthermore, it is complicated by the fact that a great many, if not a solid majority, of atheists are former theists, who did not suddenly develop a new understanding of what "god" means after they rejected belief in such beings. We speak a common language that conforms to norms of usage. The word "god" is an English word that means something to English speakers, not just atheists or theists who happen to speak English.
 
braces_for_impact said:
Random Person said:
I don't think so. I wasn't trying to be provocative.
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Oh. I assumed it was a sincere question asked in good faith, which is why I answered it the way I did.
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I appreciate it. It was a sincere question asked in good faith primarily for purposes of discussion. I was thinking about the question asked in the OP. Sorry I couldn't come up with something better.
 
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