For Atheists - define what you don't believe in

[steve_bank]

I belive most belive in the 1st Amendment. We all have freedom of beliefs, expression, and association.

There is an old saying, your right to extend your elbow ends at my nose. Christians don't accept that and presume the right to get in our faces and attempt to use public institutions to promote Christianity. The justification is god wants us to do so, without any definition of god.

I don't believe in, or even support, your first amendment.

Its history is ignoble - as a means to prevent sectarian warfare it wasn't bad, but as a road to secularism it has been awful. Its effects are weak at best, and counterproductive at worst - European nations with established religions have done far better at secularising their societies than the USA.

It's a typical American idea - far better in theory and far worse in practice than the solutions applied elsewhere.

In the hard sciences, good ideas are a boon. In the social sciences, good ideas inhibit flexibility, and usually do more harm than good. Your bill of rights is a good example of this.

I will grant you that freedom from having soldiers billeted in your home is probably a good universal right.

If it is not religion it is something else. Race, politics, wealth, water...

I am fine with religion as long as any organized religion stays with bounds. Of course that is easier said than done with us emotional irrational humans. Still I would not have it any other way. No thought police. We speak, write, and think as we please and let it play out in the market place of ideas. In the Cold War overt communists in the USA tried to openly promote communism and were not jailed. It went no where. Equality for bvlacks was once controversial. Over decades of puplic discorse equal rights is now a cultural norm, with a small number of disenters. That was what the founders intended. Supression from an auhtorterian moral authority has failed. Cuba and Venezuela today, aling with Russia.

Are you a moral authority on human behavior? Pope Bilby?

The Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean regiems tried to harshly eradicate religion and failed.

Wiccans, atheists, Zorastorians, Christians, Ba Hai(Known a few), atheists, anarchists and the rest all have their say. It all plays out over time. In the 19th century the Frenchman De Toqueville toured the USA. One of his observations was in the long run the system corrected itself. That is it.

 

[Lion IRC]

"The trouble arises when an atheist gives their concept of what God means, then the theist replies "that's not what God is!" ...

That would be progress. Because then both sides would agree they aren't believing/disbelieving in the same thing. And what we see so often in the atheosphere is atheists asking Christians to debunk a dozen other non-Christian religions/definitions when the starting discussion should be "does God/god exist" not "which God/god exists"

I'll happily argue for Christian particularism with a non-theist whose primary objection is "I'd be a Christian except for...[Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism]"

But the stock standard repertoire of counter-apologetics is;
*Miracles are impossible
*The universe wasn't created
*Religion was invented
*"Thats not evidence"
*Argument from incredulity
*Utilitarian benefits of atheism

...and none of these demand an apologetic specific to the bible, let alone Christianity or orthodoxy.

 

[bilby]

I belive most belive in the 1st Amendment. We all have freedom of beliefs, expression, and association.

There is an old saying, your right to extend your elbow ends at my nose. Christians don't accept that and presume the right to get in our faces and attempt to use public institutions to promote Christianity. The justification is god wants us to do so, without any definition of god.

I don't believe in, or even support, your first amendment.

Its history is ignoble - as a means to prevent sectarian warfare it wasn't bad, but as a road to secularism it has been awful. Its effects are weak at best, and counterproductive at worst - European nations with established religions have done far better at secularising their societies than the USA.

It's a typical American idea - far better in theory and far worse in practice than the solutions applied elsewhere.

In the hard sciences, good ideas are a boon. In the social sciences, good ideas inhibit flexibility, and usually do more harm than good. Your bill of rights is a good example of this.

I will grant you that freedom from having soldiers billeted in your home is probably a good universal right.

If it is not religion it is something else. Race, politics, wealth, water...

I am fine with religion as long as any organized religion stays with bounds. Of course that is easier said than done with us emotional irrational humans. Still I would not have it any other way. No thought police. We speak, write, and think as we please and let it play out in the market place of ideas. In the Cold War overt communists in the USA tried to openly promote communism and were not jailed. It went no where.

Sure.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism

The free market of ideas in the US during the Cold War was so free that people were being accused of treason for supporting communism even if they didn't actually support it.

The more I hear Americans talking about 'freedom', the more convinced I become that most of them have no idea what the word even means.

Equality for bvlacks was once controversial. Over decades of puplic discorse equal rights is now a cultural norm, with a small number of disenters. That was what the founders intended. Supression from an auhtorterian moral authority has failed. Cuba and Venezuela today, aling with Russia.

Are you a moral authority on human behavior? Pope Bilby?

The Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean regiems tried to harshly eradicate religion and failed.

Wiccans, atheists, Zorastorians, Christians, Ba Hai(Known a few), atheists, anarchists and the rest all have their say. It all plays out over time. In the 19th century the Frenchman De Toqueville toured the USA. One of his observations was in the long run the system corrected itself. That is it.

The USA hasn't HAD a 'long run'. And it sure as shit hadn't in the 19th Century. It did manage to fall into bloody civil war less than a century after its foundation though, which rather suggests de Toqueville was wrong - even if he were not wildly premature.

There ARE no moral authorities, as the euthyphro dilemma illustrates. Hence the US Bill of Rights cannot be one - despite the tendency for Americans to lazily delegate their morals to that piece of paper.

 

[Copernicus]

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?

Yes!

The trouble arises when an atheist gives their concept of what God means, then the theist replies "that's not what God is!"

If we are to discuss this meaningfully, we have to get the believers to say what they mean by 'God'. But it appears every believer has a different concept; God(believer A) does not equal God(believer B) does not equal God(believer C), etc.

Atheists can try to work with very broad definitions; one I frequently have used-

"...And by theism I shall mean the view which holds, as one writer has expressed it, "that the heavens and the earth and all that they contain owe their existence and continuance in existence to the wisdom and will of a supreme, self-consistent, omnipotent, omniscient, perfect, righteous and benevolent being, who is distinct from, and independent of, what he has created."

I think that the trouble arises when people on both sides conflate different senses of the word "god". A fundamental distinction needs to be made between the proper noun "God"--a monotheistic god or a god of gods--and the common noun "god". The terms "theism" and "atheism" relate to the common noun senses, not the proper noun ones. Once you get that straight, then you can talk about how to properly define the common noun senses.

It is true that monotheists differ from polytheists (and perhaps other varieties of theists), but that is where the problem comes in that grabs people's attention in all these threads about the meaning of "god". If we used a different label to name the monotheistic god--say "Allah"--and a different word--say "god"--to name a generic sense of the word, the problem would then reduce to explaining what we all mean by that generic usage. It is not really hard to figure that out. All one needs to do is describe how people actually use the word. I think you'll find that both theists and atheists are in surprising harmony when it comes to the usage for the common generic word. It is just that theists get all hung up on which gods they consider real and which they consider false. Not surprisingly, monotheists just want to argue about the characteristics of the one "true" god that they believe in, but atheism is not just about their particular versions of God. Nor is theism, for that matter.

Trouble is, all such general definitions contain internal contradictions; and when efforts are made to remove those contradictions, you wind up with something like the deistic god- so meaningless, so unconnected with the real world, that it's pointless to believe in it.

Not necessarily. That is only one kind of deity that you can end up with. There is nothing particularly special about the meaning of words like "God" or "god". If you actually study word meanings, you discover that all words have vague and ambiguous edges. Our mental models of reality are always full of contradictions that we keep trying to resolve. You can't even pin down what we mean by simple object concepts like "dog" or "chair". They represent a dense network of associations. The word "god" is no different in that respect.

 

[skepticalbip]

^ ^
I think that you may be making more of the "debate" than it deserves. As I understand the non-believer's position is simply that any belief in an "intelligent force" that is supernatural is an unfounded belief.

After that starting point the "debate" gets much more nit-picky as the believer posits attributes of the particular God, god, gods, or godlike forces they believe in.

 

[Poppa Popobawa]

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.

The persuasive burden rests on whoever wants to do the persuading.
If atheists want to remain unpersuasive that's perfectly OK with me.

Well I don't want to persuade you, so I'm fine with you. In fact I have nothing to persuade you of.
I am an atheist, but I do not say that there is no god. I just haven't been convinced by any argument
or apologetic, so I don't believe in the existence of any gods. So the only thing I have, of which I might
convince you, is that I have no god-belief. And it makes no difference, whether you believe that or not.

However, if the theist wants to make restrictions or impose imperatives, on society as a whole, through
social practice or political legislation, then I think that they have a very heavy burden of proof. I do not
see the correctness of having to obey the rulings of a church or god, if I don't believe in the god that
the theists like to say exists, and is making demands.

I also acknowledge that we ought not to impose imperatives, or restrictions on society as a whole, through
social practice or political, which would make theists behave contrary to their beliefs. So societal norms and
legislative acts need to be made to satisfy both sides.So, for example, while same sex marriage may
be unacceptable to the religious, it ought not to be disallowed for religiously based reasons. The legal permissibility
of same sex marriage need not force the religious to behave counter to their beliefs - they are not obliged to
attend gay weddings, conduct gay weddings etc. etc. etc.

Likewise, if same sex marriage is the question, then they ought not to be illegal, if the foundation is that "God" says
they are wrong. The reason is that we don't all believe in "God", and so have no obligation to follow this god's commands,
especially if the existence of the god is not established to a certainty. And the existence of "God" is not established to a
certainty otherwise we would have no need of apologetics and no debates on the issue.

 

[Copernicus]

^ ^
I think that you may be making more of the "debate" than it deserves. As I understand the non-believer's position is simply that any belief in an "intelligent force" that is supernatural is an unfounded belief.

After that starting point the "debate" gets much more nit-picky as the believer posits attributes of the particular God, god, gods, or godlike forces they believe in.

Non-believers are usually materialists, but that isn't the defining feature of the "atheist" label. Materialism or physicalism is just a philosophical position that tends to reinforce atheism. The simplest definition I can come up with for "atheism" is "one who rejects belief in deities". Someone can do that and still believe in the supernatural, but that is rarer in these times than it was in the past. Believers tend to be Cartesian (property) dualists. Atheists tend to see minds as emergent properties of physical brains. That is, "souls", in the conventional sense of the word, do not exist.

It is certainly the case that theists tend to come off as dyed-in-wool deists when arguing with atheists, but that is just because they want to establish some kind of baseline from which to get from a deist version of theism to the particular destination they've arrived at. So they try to position themselves in what they regard as the least vulnerable position. Atheists engage in the same kind of jockeying, IMO. That is, they don't want to be bothered coming up with solid reasons to reject god-belief, so they arm themselves with a "burden of proof" shield, the problem being that theists usually feel that they have met that "burden of proof" already on some level. So the argument tends to get stuck in an endless round of posturing, where each side wants the other to come out from behind their buffer zones and just have an honest discussion of what motivates their respective beliefs. Why should one reject belief in supernatural forces or spiritualism? Not just gods, but spiritualism in general. If you can make that case, then the foundation of theism is undermined.

 

[skepticalbip]

^ ^
I think that you may be making more of the "debate" than it deserves. As I understand the non-believer's position is simply that any belief in an "intelligent force" that is supernatural is an unfounded belief.

After that starting point the "debate" gets much more nit-picky as the believer posits attributes of the particular God, god, gods, or godlike forces they believe in.

Non-believers are usually materialists, but that isn't the defining feature of the "atheist" label. Materialism or physicalism is just a philosophical position that tends to reinforce atheism. The simplest definition I can come up with for "atheism" is "one who rejects belief in deities". Someone can do that and still believe in the supernatural, but that is rarer in these times than it was in the past. Believers tend to be Cartesian (property) dualists. Atheists tend to see minds as emergent properties of physical brains. That is, "souls", in the conventional sense of the word, do not exist.

It is certainly the case that theists tend to come off as dyed-in-wool deists when arguing with atheists, but that is just because they want to establish some kind of baseline from which to get from a deist version of theism to the particular destination they've arrived at. So they try to position themselves in what they regard as the least vulnerable position. Atheists engage in the same kind of jockeying, IMO. That is, they don't want to be bothered coming up with solid reasons to reject god-belief, so they arm themselves with a "burden of proof" shield, the problem being that theists usually feel that they have met that "burden of proof" already on some level. So the argument tends to get stuck in an endless round of posturing, where each side wants the other to come out from behind their buffer zones and just have an honest discussion of what motivates their respective beliefs. Why should one reject belief in supernatural forces or spiritualism? Not just gods, but spiritualism in general. If you can make that case, then the foundation of theism is undermined.

That last bit is pretty much what underpins all these "debates". It tries to place the onus on the non-believer to prove that it doesn't exist (or to disprove any claim). This is an impossibility - a negative existence can not be proven. As an example, no one can prove that leprechauns don't exist. However, anyone claiming that they do could easily prove their claim by simply producing a leprechaun. This is why the onus of proof is always rightly on the one making the claim.

 

[bilby]

Why should one reject belief in supernatural forces or spiritualism? Not just gods, but spiritualism in general. If you can make that case, then the foundation of theism is undermined.

One should reject such belief because there is zero credible evidence. Every single phenomenon that has ever been ascribed to supernatural causes has either been tested and shown to have a natural casue, or has not been tested at all.

If your neighbour claims to have a dragon in his garage, it is wise to reject that extraordinary claim unless and until he can produce some extraordinary evidence. That goes double if he has a long history of making similar claims that, upon investigation, turn out to be false.

There are lots of weird phenomena out there that are real, testable and reliable, despite being counterintuitive; But not one of them has been found to require a supernatural element in its explanation. Ever.



https://xkcd.com/808/


Theism has no foundation - it is a castle built on air. Believers in the supernatural are like Wile E Coyote, who having run off a precipice, doesn't fall as long as he is careful not to look down. As long as people remain ignorant of the science that has taken humanity millennia to develop, and in particular that which has been developed in the three or four hundred years since the enlightenment, they can keep on running with their medieval superstitions. But if they were to examine the foundations on which they rely, it would all come crashing down.

So they don't. They wall off their beliefs, and refuse to examine them scientifically - even if they are happy to use science to examine those things that they do not feel threaten their beliefs.

 

[Random Person]

^ ^
I think that you may be making more of the "debate" than it deserves. As I understand the non-believer's position is simply that any belief in an "intelligent force" that is supernatural is an unfounded belief.

After that starting point the "debate" gets much more nit-picky as the believer posits attributes of the particular God, god, gods, or godlike forces they believe in.

Non-believers are usually materialists, but that isn't the defining feature of the "atheist" label. Materialism or physicalism is just a philosophical position that tends to reinforce atheism. The simplest definition I can come up with for "atheism" is "one who rejects belief in deities". Someone can do that and still believe in the supernatural, but that is rarer in these times than it was in the past. Believers tend to be Cartesian (property) dualists. Atheists tend to see minds as emergent properties of physical brains. That is, "souls", in the conventional sense of the word, do not exist.

It is certainly the case that theists tend to come off as dyed-in-wool deists when arguing with atheists, but that is just because they want to establish some kind of baseline from which to get from a deist version of theism to the particular destination they've arrived at. So they try to position themselves in what they regard as the least vulnerable position. Atheists engage in the same kind of jockeying, IMO. That is, they don't want to be bothered coming up with solid reasons to reject god-belief, so they arm themselves with a "burden of proof" shield, the problem being that theists usually feel that they have met that "burden of proof" already on some level. So the argument tends to get stuck in an endless round of posturing, where each side wants the other to come out from behind their buffer zones and just have an honest discussion of what motivates their respective beliefs. Why should one reject belief in supernatural forces or spiritualism? Not just gods, but spiritualism in general. If you can make that case, then the foundation of theism is undermined.

That last bit is pretty much what underpins all these "debates". It tries to place the onus on the non-believer to prove that it doesn't exist (or to disprove any claim). This is an impossibility - a negative existence can not be proven. As an example, no one can prove that leprechauns don't exist. However, anyone claiming that they do could easily prove their claim by simply producing a leprechaun. This is why the onus of proof is always rightly on the one making the claim.

A negative existence can be proven. We know leprechauns don't exist because we can expect to have knowledge of their existence.

 

[Juma]

[…]
Atheists engage in the same kind of jockeying, IMO. That is, they don't want to be bothered coming up with solid reasons to reject god-belief, so they arm themselves with a "burden of proof" shield,
[…]

”burden of proof” is just a saying. you cannot prove anything in real life. you must come up with a valid hypotesis that actually has some explanative power.
first requirement for the god-hypoteseis is that is a valid hypotesis at all.
that is where theists fail.

 

[Juma]

I also acknowledge that we ought not to impose imperatives, or restrictions on society as a whole, through
social practice or political, which would make theists behave contrary to their beliefs.

So societal norms and
legislative acts need to be made to satisfy both sides.

What? there are all kind of goofy beliefs, there is really nothing special with religious beliefs.
if somebody believes their god tells them they can have sex with toddlers then it is somehow more accepted?

every belief must be considered from the facts it is based on.

we know perfectly well that there are no gods.

 

[Random Person]

I also acknowledge that we ought not to impose imperatives, or restrictions on society as a whole, through
social practice or political, which would make theists behave contrary to their beliefs.

So societal norms and
legislative acts need to be made to satisfy both sides.

What? there are all kind of goofy beliefs, there is really nothing special with religious beliefs.
if somebody believes their god tells them they can have sex with toddlers then it is somehow more accepted?

every belief must be considered from the facts it is based on.

we know perfectly well that there are no gods.

You don't want to live in a world where you are told what to believe.

 

[Juma]

I also acknowledge that we ought not to impose imperatives, or restrictions on society as a whole, through
social practice or political, which would make theists behave contrary to their beliefs.

So societal norms and
legislative acts need to be made to satisfy both sides.

What? there are all kind of goofy beliefs, there is really nothing special with religious beliefs.
if somebody believes their god tells them they can have sex with toddlers then it is somehow more accepted?

every belief must be considered from the facts it is based on.

we know perfectly well that there are no gods.

You don't want to live in a world where you are told what to believe.

you are free to believe whatever shit you want. but dont expect the society to accept you to act out on them.

 

[skepticalbip]

That last bit is pretty much what underpins all these "debates". It tries to place the onus on the non-believer to prove that it doesn't exist (or to disprove any claim). This is an impossibility - a negative existence can not be proven. As an example, no one can prove that leprechauns don't exist. However, anyone claiming that they do could easily prove their claim by simply producing a leprechaun. This is why the onus of proof is always rightly on the one making the claim.

A negative existence can be proven. We know leprechauns don't exist because we can expect to have knowledge of their existence.

You have posted a hell of a lot of really dumb assertions but this one has gotta go into the records.

 

[Random Person]

That last bit is pretty much what underpins all these "debates". It tries to place the onus on the non-believer to prove that it doesn't exist (or to disprove any claim). This is an impossibility - a negative existence can not be proven. As an example, no one can prove that leprechauns don't exist. However, anyone claiming that they do could easily prove their claim by simply producing a leprechaun. This is why the onus of proof is always rightly on the one making the claim.

A negative existence can be proven. We know leprechauns don't exist because we can expect to have knowledge of their existence.

You have posted a hell of a lot of really dumb assertions but this one has gotta go into the records.

Really?

If you think leprechauns exist or are not sure, then maybe you're not in the position to decide dumbness.

There ain't no Santa either.

 

[Jobar]

"The trouble arises when an atheist gives their concept of what God means, then the theist replies "that's not what God is!" ...

That would be progress. Because then both sides would agree they aren't believing/disbelieving in the same thing. And what we see so often in the atheosphere is atheists asking Christians to debunk a dozen other non-Christian religions/definitions when the starting discussion should be "does God/god exist" not "which God/god exists"

I'll happily argue for Christian particularism with a non-theist whose primary objection is "I'd be a Christian except for...[Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism]"

But the stock standard repertoire of counter-apologetics is;
*Miracles are impossible
*The universe wasn't created
*Religion was invented
*"Thats not evidence"
*Argument from incredulity
*Utilitarian benefits of atheism

...and none of these demand an apologetic specific to the bible, let alone Christianity or orthodoxy.

Lion, in my post you quoted from I gave a definition of God ("...a supreme, self-consistent, omnipotent, omniscient, perfect, righteous and benevolent being, who is distinct from, and independent of, what he has created.") meant to describe Jehovah/Yahweh/Allah. It's general enough to cover all the common monotheistic faiths. Would you accept it as an approximation of the God you believe in, even if it doesn't address every characteristic of your belief?

Even that very general definition is one that we find unbelievable, because of internal contradictions in the characteristics listed. So defining the God of your belief more specifically (maybe by adding 'who gave His only begotten son for the salvation of those who believe on Him') doesn't help you, if you want to convince us we are wrong in our unbelief.

Your list of counter-apologies doesn't include the point being argued here;
*Theistic definitions of God/gods are unintelligible/self-contradictory.

You really should put the Problem of Evil/Suffering in there, too.

 

[Keith&Co.]

You have posted a hell of a lot of really dumb assertions but this one has gotta go into the records.

Really?

If you think leprechauns exist or are not sure, then maybe you're not in the position to decide dumbness.

There ain't no Santa either.

And you miss the point yet again.

He's not arguing with your conclusion, he's saying the path whereby you reached it sucks. There's a distinction, subtle though you may find it.

 

[Random Person]

You have posted a hell of a lot of really dumb assertions but this one has gotta go into the records.

Really?

If you think leprechauns exist or are not sure, then maybe you're not in the position to decide dumbness.

There ain't no Santa either.

And you miss the point yet again.

He's not arguing with your conclusion, he's saying the path whereby you reached it sucks. There's a distinction, subtle though you may find it.

The path that allows me to confirm that leprechauns don't exist is wrong? I should instead the path that prevents from knowing whether or not leprechauns exist?

No thanks.

 

[Keith&Co.]

The path that allows me to confirm that leprechauns don't exist is wrong?

That's just it. You haven't confirmed it. Merely stated it.

I should instead the path that prevents from knowing whether or not leprechauns exist?

No thanks.

No one said that, either.
I must conclude you're being obtuse on purpose.