Reviewing Atheist 'Lack Belief' in Deities theory. <<MOD WARNING ISSUED>>

You would of been so much better rejecting the opinions of other people because you were right than because you thought others were ****ing idiots. You would of also been better of understanding english is an organic language, a living language. But I have long suspected that arrogance and a closed mind go together.

 

Translation, Koko and Smith, the fakers, fake a victory in Koko world.

 

It's kind of cute. Like watching a 5 year old that thinks they have solved philosophy.

 

Which makes your posts what? Those of a deluded contrarian howling at the moon? An unfounded feeling of superiority that you see things that others don't is just that, your posts do not demonstrate what you claim. The internet is rife with people that see illuminatis, lizards, faked moon landings, heating furnaces, thermite, and remote lasers and yet they completely miss the crap that governments openly do right before our eyes. I guess if you focus on the former it makes the latter disappear.

 

The hardest thing to do is to show the obvious to the self delusional blind. I doubt even a good psychologist could reach some of these people. They just are not on good terms with reality. It's as you say Frankie: Ignorance is Bless--and if I may add--And damn it, don't you dare try to enlighten me.

 

God grant me anything but don't grant me perception!
The older I get, the truer it is.

 

Sure there is. Given that agnostics are not incompatible with atheism, using the definition I have provided, "agnostic atheist" can represent agnostics.

The definition of atheism that I have provided is not one of the positions which agnostics reject. I agree that agnostics reject the position that there is no god, but given that that's not what atheism is according to the definition in use, that's not what's being rejected.

 

Dictionaries benefit much more from being concise and accurate than shoehorning in definitions. They do rigorous research (again, I'm not claiming that they are flawless, but certainly not as arbitrary as you're making it sound).

I'm getting the feeling that you think that by saying that you're an agnostic, I somehow connect you with the position that there is no god. That is not the case, given that the atheism which I connect you to is not defined with that statement. Pure agnostics certainly exist in my world, and they look just as they do in yours. The question is whether they also don't accept the idea of the existence of a god as true.

 

In fact, we have more howling at the moon with that ongoing response. Literally no one has tried to connect agnostic with not believing! Indeed, I went out of my way to point out that agnostic does not even address the same question of belief. However, what has been said is that declaring yourself purely agnostic does, by definition, put you in the bracket of not being a theist, just like an atheist. I guess subtle distinctions of language are not a strong point with many! Two ears one mouth.

 

Why can't it be both? I would say words get their meaning from popular usage, and a lot of the time, we can pick it up without problem. However, when we want to understand some not-everyday words, it's hard for us to gauge the entire english speaking body, so we look to dictionaries who have appropriate methods for gauging it.

Well, then you're not applying the law of the excluded middle correctly. The law of the excluded middle says that for a negation, one of the sides must be true. If you find room for a neither option, then what you have is not a negation. For instance, a visible object can be dark or light. If it is not one, then it is the other, they are negations. However, a visible object can be black or white, but this is not a negation, since you can be green or red. It is merely an opposite.

Of course, I don't mean to say that it is impossible to say I don't know, I'm just saying that "believing that there is a god" and "believing that there is no god" are opposites, not negations. There being a god is however an opposite to there not being a god (since if god exists, then he must necessarily not not exist).

I mean, this will boil down to the not b(A) ≠ b(not A) issue again. A and not A are negations (god must exist or not exist). But b(A) and b(not A) are not negations (you don't have to pick one of believing god exists and believing god does not exist), they are merely opposites.

They are negations, but I wouldn't say they mirror each other in any following logic. Alive people bury dead people, but that doesn't mean dead people bury alive people. Just because two words are negations does not mean logic has to be invariant of you switching the words.

I'm not suggesting that I take your definition and just fulfil a bit of it and then call it a day. I'm suggesting there is another definition altogether, just like orange the paint is a different meaning to orange the fruit. Now, the two are certainly related, both in linguistics and in logic (just like orange fruits are orange in colour) but that's not what I'm invoking at this point.

I agree to the apple example. However the definition of atheism I have suggested corresponds in this example to "not green", not "not not red" (phew, there's a mouthful).

You say "Kokomojojo does not not believe there is no god". Let's see where that logic brings us. Logic tells us "A is logically equivalent to not (not-A)", so the not-nots in your argument can be removed, and we get: "Kokomojojo does believe there is no god", which seems incorrect to me.

The issue here of course lies in assuming that not b(A) is the same as b(not A). Without that, your statement would have been "Kokomojojo does not "believe there is a (not no) god" because he does not take a stand on the question", you don't get a contradiction and Kokomojojo falls under the definition I have suggested.

I doubt we'd have a problem. If any atheists read this, feel free to comment.

It literally does, though. The issues in the example you have provided comes from context, not from the words or the logic. If you have never beaten your wife, then you've never stopped beating your wife. There has never been a point before which you beat her and after which you did not.

Now, don't get me wrong, such implications can be important. It is true that many who don't believe in god also believe there is no god, and indeed, there is often a context in which those who wish to express that they don't believe are those who are invested in the topic, and those in turn are also more likely to believe there is no god. However, these are likelihoods, not equivalences of meaning. Most sheep are white, but that doesn't make whiteness integral to being a sheep.

And for any atheist you find, if they in addition to not believing there is a god, believe that there is no god, then you may question them on that. There is no opinion being snuck in under the radar. However, one shouldn't confuse that with the idea that their criticisms against religion is invalid.

Why does any word mean anything to you then? Why do you think the word apple means apple? If nobody had ever used the word "apple" to refer to an apple, do you think it should be in the dictionary? And if so, how could we possibly determine that?

I don't see why failure to mirror is a problem at all.

 

I think the problem is that many of the subtle distinctions simply don't permeate through the entire body of english speakers.

 

The definition you are trying to use is NOT a negation of theist which is why it fails.
The definition you are trying to use is absurd because it includes people that are not atheists.
Your definition is fully rebutted by the the contradiction: theists lack belief in the nonexistence of God.
As you can see its very painful for the kiddies when philosophy logic and reasn rips their religious beliefs from beneath their feet.
Further more as XWS pointed out you have contradicted yourself on more than one occasion.
As for the posts of willie ray and ra ra they amount to nothing more than heckling.

 

it also puts you in the bracket of not being an atheist, just like a theist, which proves lackers are blind in one eye and cant see out of the other, speaking of subtle distinctions being swept under the carpet.

 

which brings us to 'nontheist', which are people who do not affirm a believe in the existence of God but neither do they deny the existence of God like an atheist would, yet another group of people the neo lackers sucked into their black hole definition.

the point is there is no 'in addition', atheists believe that there is no god period.

 

I am an atheist, I lack belief.

 

glad you concede yet another point.

keep in mind their posting style is modeled after their religion, along with name calling strawmen misrepresentation and max butthurt its the only way neo lackers know how to concede a point, when their balls are being squeezed so tight their eyeballs are bulging!

 

I am an atheist, I lack belief.

 

Fakers gonna fake!

 

I am still waiting for anyone to define god in any way that is measurable or quantifiable. As long as a definition of god remains meaningless the discussion itself remain meaningless.

 

Absolutely, for instance I am quite sure Prince Phillip(who is considered a god by some) did not create any of the universe.

 

I think you're misapplying the excluded middle rule. The excluded middle only applies to the logic contained within the frame of the statements, it does not apply to anything outside the scope of the statements. "God exists" and "God does not exist" may have an excluded middle, but the scope of the statements says nothing about whether or not the 33,000 gods of Hinduism exist, for example. Likewise, it says nothing about the human beliefs in or about God, or how many possible options there can be in opinions about the statements, "God exists" and "God does not exist." As we have shown repeatedly, theists subscribe to option 1, atheists subscribe to option 2, agnostics say, "I don't know," deists say that option 1 is true but that it doesn't help you in this life any, polytheists say there are many gods, animists say God is in all, etc. So in the example of "I believe God exists" and "I do not believe God exists," there is no excluded middle. These are two statements of opinion from a wide range of possible opinions. Koko does not have to fit into either statement. It's like saying, "reptiles are the opposite of mammals, there can be no middle ground, so are birds reptiles or mammals?" Well, no, there are no half-reptile/half-mammal creatures (the platypus?), but birds are still their own thing, they don't have to fit in either box. In my example of, "Have you stopped beating your wife?", you say that there is an excluded middle of saying you never have, but if you answer the question, "No," you're implying that you're still beating your wife, not that you never started, which is why you need another option outside of your excluded middle.

Green is not a negation or an opposite of red, so it cannot stand in for atheism/theism. Light and dark are points along a scale and not really negations or opposites. Dark has a zero point like temperature, but light has no upper end, again, like temperature.

That's exactly what I'm saying you're doing. Taking the theist example, "I believe God exists," implies, "I do not believe God does not exist," but you're seizing on the latter and applying it to theists in a way that covers a whole bunch of people who would not agree with the inclusion, like agnostics, polytheists, and animists. But you're doing it with atheist, that "I believe God does not exist," implies "I do not believe God exists," and then taking just the latter half of the definition to mean atheist, but then applying it to agnostics, against their will. Or you're taking half the agnostic statement, "I neither believe nor disbelieve in God's existence," saying, "A-ha, you disbelieve in God's existence!" That is a mischaracterization of the agnostic position because you're taking half the definition and applying it to the whole.

 

I ran into this word awhile back, perhaps you can explain how nontheism differs from agnosticism. I can't see any distinction between the two. And then there's ignosticism, someone who claims ignorance on the subject of God, kind of like CourtJester, which just seems like either a subset of agnosticism or possibly absurdism.

 

Nontheist
-Verb
A term created by theists to define people they disagree with or wish to degrade when Atheist and Agnostic no longer give them jollies.

See also Heathen, Pagan, Satanic, Goingtohell, doo doo head.

 

cant, its the same, thanks.

 

I don't care what they call me, I lack belief, I self identify as atheist.

Dolts that think that dictionaries, etymologies and labels change my actual position are just playing games of philosophistry.