Is Neo[Atheism] a Rational Religion?

That’s the problem because the definition keeps changing. Used to be an atheist had to believe a god does not exist. A lack of belief is an entirely different subset.

 

Sure it can. No evidence no existence.

 

True since there aren’t any that achieve rationality.

 

This doesn’t contradict what I said. Science can’t address the supernatural.

 

No they don't.

All that is required is a theory that cannot move beyond being a simple circular argument (ie, a theory that cannot be falsified by accessible, practical, specific testing against a null hypothesis that yields a specific result).

The theory that Jesus Christ exists and is who he said he is cannot move beyond being a simple circular argument. Thus, it is a religion... Same with the theory that God does not exist, the theory that Earth is many billions of years old, the theory that the Big Bang is how the universe began, the theory that current life forms evolved from past more primitive life forms, and the theory that the Earth is warming due to magick CO2 (and other magick gases).

 

All arguments eventually break down to infinite regression, circular reasoning, or foundationalism. All fo them. And if you think CO2 has to be "magic" in order to reflect heat, there are some junior high level science experiment kits you can order that demonstrate the phenomenon quite easily. Refractive indices aren't magic.

 

try to name one religion that doesn’t have a god or a supernatural being or an idealized non existent version of humanity. Koko tried and failed. Perhaps you care to try?

 

That is different from his latest that atheists “ lack belief that god exists”

 

No, that's what neo-atheists claim in order to weasel-word their way out of their belief. If so, then apparently theists "lack belief that god doesn't exist"

 

Theists believe that God exists. It isn't enough to say they lack the belief that he doesn't exist. That would simply make them agnostic.

 

Yes, and that is because ALL theories begin as circular arguments. The difference is that some of them can move beyond that point, while others cannot. The ones that can (ie, are falsifiable) become theories of science if they can continue surviving tests against their null hypothesis (ie, they don't get falsified). The ones that cannot (ie, are not falsifiable) remain circular arguments. The best one can do is throw a bunch of supporting evidence at it, at which point it becomes a religion.

I think that CO2 has to be magick in order to heat the Earth's surface, since heat can ONLY flow from hot to cold (2nd Law of Thermodynamics). Heat continuously flows from the sun, to the surface, to the atmosphere, and out into space (the ultimate heat sink). CO2 also has to be magick in order to do the impossible of trapping or slowing heat. Heat cannot be trapped or slowed. Heat is simply the flow of thermal energy.

 

Big Bang Theory
Theory of Evolution
AGW Theory
Shinto
Buddhism

I have already answered your question and have already explained what makes a religion a religion and what makes science science. I have clearly differentiated between the two and explained the logic behind what makes each one what they are.

 

Under that reasoning, atheists would be agnostics just as much as you're claiming that theists would be. It "wouldn't be enough" for atheists to say they "lack belief that God exists".

Atheism is the belief that God doesn't exist.
Theism is the belief that God exists.

There's no way to weasel-word your way out of it.

 

Science thrives on falsifiable proposals. Circular is not the option.

If you have ever put on a coat, you know that heat can be trapped. If you have a house with a thermostat, you should realize that heat can be trapped. You've failed junior high level physics, apparently. You do realize that actual greenhouses (for which the greenhouse effect is named) are a real thing that you can go visit any time you like, right? Your fantasy version of the laws of thermodynamics does not match reality, or what any scientist means when they mention those same laws. You have your own private version completely divorced from science and from reality.

This will apparently comes as news to you, but we have this thingie called an atmosphere. I'm sure you think that's magick, but it isn't. It is simple physics that my nephew and nieces have easily grasped. What don't you get about that?

I'll gladly send you a simple children's science experiment kit that demonstrates the greenhouse effect (which no scientist or remotely educated person denies) if you'd like to send me your address.

 

Theists believe that God exists. Strong/affirmative atheists believe that God does not exist. There are, on the other hand, agnostic atheists. They do not believe in God but they do not affirmatively deny his existence. It ain't rocket surgery. What requires further explanation?

 

you may want to look up the inventors intended meaning because yours is

not if you were the teacher, since when that happens it forms more clouds which reflect more of the suns heat away from the earth....and the earth heals itself....apparently your grade school book didnt include that little factoid

 

get serious

 

YM, do you deny that it is a FACT, that theists "lack belief that god doesn't exist"

that is 100% a true statement, maybe ym can find a few theists that dont lack belief in the nonexistence of God, got any yardmeat? anything at all to prove the statement incorrect?

 

It's because your proofs don't hold up. There are some pretty glaring holes in your logic, but since you don't write out your logic, it is often unclear exactly what has gone wrong. You write out bits of your logic, true, but not the bits we challenge. Indeed, the fact that you claim to write it out when you don't seems to suggest that you are unaware of how you are applying the logic, and what pitfalls you are likely to fall into.

Opposites and negations are different things. If the statements you said were negations, it would be impossible to fall between the categories. However, it is possible to fall between some of the categories you have mentioned, so by the law of the excluded middle, they are not negations.

For instance, consider the scenario in which God does not exist. He is therefore not present with the theist. That doesn't stop the theist from being a theist (all that is needed to be a theist is that they believe that there is a god), but God would not be with them. The two are different statements.

What makes you think it is a negation? How do you construct your negations, and how do you make sure they actually are negations? Because for two words to be negations of each other, it must be impossible to end up outside both (like an agnostic would). The issue here is that you sneak in the word "say" without taking it into account in the logic.

"God exists / God does not exist" is indeed a negation, it is impossible for it to be the case that neither is true.
To say that God exists, and to say that God does not exist, are not negations, since it is possible for neither to be true (i.e. a person fails to say either).

In other words, by adding the word "say" to the statements, you have broken your own logic. The same happens when we talk about belief. God existing and God not existing are negations, but that does not mean that the beliefs in those two statements are also negations. Clearly, you do a lot of behind-the-scenes processing of your own logic which aren't actually logical.

Agnostics exist, and if they don't fit in the two categories, the categories are not negations of each other. I think it is a good counterexample to your logic. Agnostics existing isn't really a feature of the context, they're a real thing that the context should be able to deal with (or rather, they tell us that the two words are not negations in that context).

Again, this seems to me not a definition but a description of a specific thing. Monkeys interact with bananas, but that doesn't mean monkeys are defined as "with banana".

It also seems to me that you're playing fast and loose with some of the grammar here. If "with god" was what made someone a theist, then it'd be impossible to be a theist unless god actually existed (for instance, I think the article you quote doesn't actually mean "interact with god" so much as "think that they interact with god").

I'm afraid I'm going to have to outright disagree:

Antonyms for belief
disbelief, discredit, doubt, nonbelief, unbelief (source)​

and

Definition of nonbelief
: absence or lack of belief (source)
​

That being said, I think you're playing fast and loose with antonyms. Not all antonyms are negations. "Push" and "pull" are opposites and antonyms, but they are not negations, it is possible for an object to be neither pulled nor pushed (or for a person to neither pull nor push).

Your assessment of negations is incorrect, as I have pointed out many times. For something to be a negation, it must be impossible to fall outside of the two negations, which is not true for believing that there is a god and believing that there is no god.

It seems to me that you have arrived at the erroneous negations by mixing up negations and opposites, or by assuming that belief in a proposition follow the same logic rules as the proposition themselves, either of which would be incorrect. The solution to this of course is not to just write out the same incorrect negations again and again, but by showing in painstaking detail, step by step, why you think they are negations.

One example of a way in which God is not with a person who accepts God is that God might not exist, at which point God would not actually be with that person, the person would merely believe that God is with that person.

 

Flew didn't respond to an argument in which atheism already meant something.

Source?

Well, to be fair, theism is sometimes defined as the belief in a god and sometimes as the belief in a personal god (as opposed to deism), but I can't find a theism definition about lack of belief that there is no god (other than your personal one).

You can use it however much you want, but you shouldn't pretend that other people were using it. Some of your counterarguments against atheism only work if one uses your definitions, and given that they weren't doing that, that's a you problem, not a them problem.

What about phrases like

Of course the first thing we will see come out of this thread is neoatheists will scream that atheism is not a religion (source)​

and

Neoatheists of this board claim atheism is by definition not a religion ignoring the fact (source)​

and

If we are to stick to the strict standards [neo]atheists demand of theists to prove there is a God, that God is a fact ,then atheists are also required to stick to those same strict standards (source)​

? The atheists who will say that atheism is not a religion are primarily Flew atheists talking about atheism in the Flew sense. The atheists who demand high standards of theists but don't attempt to meet any themselves are Flew atheists, presenting Flew's atheism.

You yourself say about the thread that:

I commented on neoatheists expressed beliefs (source)​

but the expressions you comment on are largely Flew atheists talking about Flew atheism.

It seems to me you talk a lot about Flew atheism, you just haven't realised that that's what it is you're commenting on.

That is not what we mean by linguistic usage. The word "thou" fell out of usage and was replaced with "you", because usage changed, to the point where "you" is simply correct English. That's not to imply that we started referring to multiple people (as "you" was the plural of "thou"), the word "you" started to mean the thing that "thou" was previously used for.

 

Swensson; do you deny that it is a FACT, that theists "lack belief that god doesn't exist"

 

Yep

A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of The United States
ATHEIST, one who denies the existence of God. As atheists have not any religion that can bind their consciences to speak the truth, they are excluded from being witnesses. Bull. N. P. 292; 1 Atk. 40; Gilb. Ev. 129: 1 Phil. Ev. 19. See also, Co. [WOW without conscience, no solid connection to any requirement to tell the truth, liars, 5 court cases listed!]

The Synonymous, Etymological, and Pronouncing English ...
William Perry (lecturer in the Academy at Edinburgh.)
Althe-ism, s. (atheist) disbelief of a God, A'theist ...

A General and Complete Dictionary of the English Language
Atheism, f, the disbelief of God. Atheist, 3, one who disbelieves the being of God. -- - Atheist'ical, w, belonging to atheism.

Neoatheists dont get that however.

as we can see in the 2 quotes below that do not have any response much less a direct response, they vanish rather than admit the fact neoatheists atheology is a global failure.

When the going gets tough neoatheists get going, they run away!

 

No. However, I have a sneaking suspicious that you will read more into that statement than is actually being said.

You gave me no more than four hours on a Saturday before concluding that I didn't have an answer? That's rich, given the two posts that you have so far failed to respond to.

 

And atheists stay and win!

 

Oh, I am. You tried three times last time I asked and I posted statements from the religions that showed you were wrong. Want to try again? Be a mensch and go for it. No supernatural. No supernatural states of humanity. No supernatural beings. Go for it!