Is Neo[Atheism] a Rational Religion?

Your post demonstrates philosophical ignorance despite the fact I have posted this:

“Atheism” is typically defined in terms of “theism”. Theism, in turn, is best understood as a proposition—something that is either true or false. It is often defined as “the belief that God exists”, but here “belief” means “something believed”. It refers to the propositional content of belief, not to the attitude or psychological state of believing. This is why it makes sense to say that theism is true or false and to argue for or against theism. If, however, “atheism” is defined in terms of theism and theism is the proposition that God exists and not the psychological condition of believing that there is a God, then it follows that atheism is not the absence of the psychological condition of believing that God exists (more on this below).. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/

......to assist in educating the board neoatheists, that we can bring this thread a little closer to resembling something academic, rather than the bar room brawl neoatheists always turn it into because they lack a formal 101 understanding of logic as shown above crayola'd in red and emphasized in pink. AGAIN!

Feel free to take the time to actually learn how these things must be interpreted from an academic perspective.

Swensson as usual misses the boat, and you followed.

He accepted because he knows that is a true statement.

Wow what nonsense!

Again had you taken the time to read both sides of the argument along with the applicable constructs posted before you post you may have noticed I explained it. A theist lacks belief in the nonexistence of God therefore a theist believes in any number of G/god(s) 1 to infinity.

You people assume that to be a theist you have to reject all G/god(s) but one, this is false on its face, no such requirement exists, your post is just more standard issue run of the mill neoatheist nonsensical atheology.

 

In fact its no different in court.

You go in with several counts all it takes is one count to stick to prevail.

All I see here is neoatheist squirming, inventing nonsense rules that dont exist or have any foundation in philosophy or a plethora of ridiculous strawman interpretations because they have no acceptable counterargument .

Applicable Stanford quotes explained;

 

I am actually a theological non-cognitivist, I agree that without an explicit definition of God, which is often sorely lacking, the concept and any related questions or statements are fundamentally meaningless.

That being said, it just so happens that the arguments that I'm having with Kokomojojo can be had without picking a specific definition of god without loss of generality. The argument of atheism being a true negation of theism can be had completely decoupled of what actually is included in the god concept. The more interesting disagreement I have with Kokomojojo would only be obscured by my unrelated criticisms of atheism.

Similarly, we could generalise my definition of theism to something like "the belief that there is at least one god", and expand the theist statement to "lack belief in there not being any gods". However, Kokomojojo and I have a fundamental disagreement, and the distinction between monotheists and polytheists doesn't really shine a light on that. It would just make the sentences longer.

 

Also, I would suggest you read the full text Kokomojojo links to in his response. I am of the opinion that he is severely mistaken on many accounts and presents an either deliberately deceptive or woefully misinformed edit of it. Of course, I don't want you to take my word for it, so I suggest you read it yourself if the points he mentions are of any relevance to you.

 

Long story short I am not the one trying to pound square pegs in round holes you are.
You are the one trying to sell orange paint as something tasty to eat, not me.
I went on to prove it with: "theists lack belief in the nonexistence of God" proposition is true
Bottom line stanford u and myself make similar arguments, your disagreement is not relevant because you have been incapable of supporting it.
You always want to drag the debate off into the strawberryfields, forever
standford u rejects flew as an 'academic' discussion as do I.
If pisa had read it and understood it, he would not have posted what he did.

 

From your link:

Which makes your pink emphasis irrelevant.

Define "god". Define "God".

Please quote the exact words in my post where I allegedly claim that "to be a theist you have to reject all G/god(s) but one".

Definition of "umbrella term":
A term used to cover a broad category of things rather than a single specific item.

Stanford quote, no explanation:

There's also something about context there, you might find it useful.

 

I'm not familiar with Non-Cognitivism, which explains why I have a hard time understanding some of your arguments. Found an article about it in Stanford Encyclopedia, hope to be enlightened soon.

I was never a theist, so the argument of atheism being a true negation of theism sounds a bit odd to me. I never defined my atheism in terms of theism, just like I never defined being able to see colors in terms of color blindness. Flew's definition suits me perfectly. Defining atheism as a true negation of theism is akin to a statement that theism is the default starting point. It might seem this way because most people are taught to be theists from early childhood, but the atheism of those who are not and remain atheists from birth is different. Maybe we should define theism as the true negation of atheism, since atheism is the default starting point.

Generally speaking I agree with most of your points, however I'm not sure I understand you correctly, at least not until I've had more than a peek at Non-Cognitivism.

I've read the relevant parts, and my opinion mirrors yours.

 

Yes we have seen a lot of your opinions that purport orange paint is semantic with orange fruit.

How do you think that is useful? I dont.
Stanford already rejected flew as non-academic for the purpose of determining a scolarly definition regarding atheism v theism, the nonexistence/existence of God.

Maybe you missed that part?

This circle jerk as swaensson turns everything in to is not and never has been anything other than academic.

Its self explanatory no explanation is needed, polysemous is irellevant to the sense I have been and continue to use the terms.
What explanation do you need?

the proposition God exists, yes no is universal. Every saense it is used in either does or does not hold the existence of G/god to be true.

You define G/god, Im agnostic, you are the one that took the position atheist, so the presumption is that sane people take positions based upon what they understand to be true. Atheist means you reject the existence of G/god(s) by definition.

I have already proved that, which shockingly (well may be) is beyond the abilities of neoatheists to comprehend.

Please try to keep up it was in ference to:

Which is 100% true statement and it defines theism as a negative just as you requested.

Really?
Swenssons arguments are more akin to an indiscriminate propositional nihilist, Ann Rand after two too many.

What you are has no bearing on the matter, first sign this is outside your paygrade.

So you have a G/god then? What a twisted mess you made out of that one lol

Just because it feeds you emotionally has no bearing what so ever when sorting the mess out philosophically.

So you reject stanfords standing on the matter.

"theists lack belief in the nonexistence of God" proposition is true

and you reject the mirrored proof based precisely on, using flews illogic and unreason?

Many others are taught to be atheists, your point?

WOW,
What a load of nonsequitur bullshit.
A stick that is black on one side and white on the is also white on one side and black on the other.
A default starting point has no relevance, one is the negation of the other regardless.
I already proved to you that theism is the default condition with a 100% true statement, that you cannot defeat.

Using flews reasoning as applird to atheism I can legitimately state:
"theists lack belief in the nonexistence of God"
and that is 100% true, regardless how you try to spin it.
Therefore using flew's and your logic theism is the default condition.
I warned you people this will all come back to bite you in the ass.

If you dont know and you call yourself an atheist then you are admitting to making making a choice out of willful ignorance.

Im agnostic, I couldnt care less how YOU or how Swensson or any other neoatheist define G/god, as usual SOP this turned into discussing swenssons language barriers and indiscriminate propositional nihilist with regard to theism and atheism, you people are the ones trying to stretch the meaning of atheist to the point well beyond having no meaning at all

 

Point being if its not crystal clear after having said it more times than carter has pills, if you have no definition for G/god and have concluded no G/god(s) exist, that is your irrational bed to sleep in not mine. You tell me 'your' definition of G/god, I have none, I abstained from taking a position one way or the other unlike atheists and theists both of which HAVE taken a position.
Atheism is the position no to G/god(s)
Theism is the position yes to (one or more) G/god(s)
Agnostic has no position.

 

I use the normal way of talking about oranges as an example of a well functioning system with several definitions. It works just fine, and has for eons. If you find it leads to any falsehoods or inconsistencies, then you must have misunderstood the point, since that system actually works.

I do not argue that it fails because it's not in a dictionary, that seems to be a strawman on your part. You are more than welcome to create definitions outside of dictionaries, I just argue that if you do so, you'd be taking others' arguments out of context (if those arguments have been made in another context), and failing to address the meat of the arguments.

When you say that neoatheist arguments don't make sense, the reason they don't make sense to you is that you have interpreted them using a different context, not that the arguments are fundamentally bad.

My rebuttal stands. The argument as it pertains to atheism works because "lack of belief in god" is the definition of atheism in that context. In the same context, "lack of belief in there being no god" is not the definition of theism, so the two versions are not using identical logic.

I don't agree that Stanford comes to the conclusion you say it comes to. This is particularly highlighted by the fact that your conclusion even includes key words that the Stanford article doesn't, showing that you clearly bend the conclusions out of shape.

Atheism has many definitions, and in the context of many of the atheist arguments you have quoted, Flew's one has been in use. This seems to me to be consistent with the Stanford article. The Stanford article has only argued against Bullivant's usage of Flew's definition. It states:

"This undermines his argument in defense of Flew’s definition", ​

making clear that the idea that the author says fails is distinct from Flew's definition itself.

Nope, you have misunderstood my argument (or deliberately misrepresented it). I argue that "theists lack the belief in the nonexistence of God" is invalid (in the context that you try to use it) because it does not reflect the necessary and sufficient conditions to label someone a theist. Dictionaries are often good places to find definitions, and informs the usage which in turn informs the definitions, but dictionaries in themselves are not a part of my criticism of your proposed counterargument.

I doubt it, but regardless, it wouldn't matter. I challenge your attack on "neoatheist" arguments, and I use the words that are in use in that context. If someone else decides to include words in a dictionary at a later date doesn't change the point they were trying to make.

 

As a body of knowledge, science is comprised of ideas that can be, but have not yet been, disproved.
As a body of knowledge, religion is comprise of ideas that cannot be disproved.
By definition, religion is not rational.

My belief in the supernatural does not extend from religion; it extends from science.

 

Only in your mind. But nice attempt at diversion. If you can’t actually answer the question, divert. Thanks for playing.

 

No the evidence that your mind is seriously twisted is your need to pretend this is a binary choice. And the question does god exist has no more validity than the question do unicorns exist. Or do ghosts exist or any other hypothetical where there is no evidence to make a judgement about the existence or non existence of an entity made up by the mind of man.

 

So you are accepting that all your previous binary logic is horsepuckey?

 

false, you use a popular story line and anything that is not dictated and requires intellectual deduction by reason and logic you feign ignorance, or simply disagree without evidence supporting your disagreement or misapplied orange as paint = orange as fruit evidence.

It goes without saying that:

if atheism is 'without god', theism is 'with god'.
if atheism is 'absence of god', theism is 'presence of god'.
if atheism 'lacks belief in the existence of god', theism 'lacks belief nonexistence of in god'.
if atheism 'rejects god', theism 'accepts god'.
if atheism 'denies god', theism 'affirms god'.
if atheism says 'no G/gods exist', theism says 'G/gods exist'.

Negation is not real difficult except for indiscriminate propositional nihilists.

It doesnt get more in context that that!

Next spin!

 

no I accept that you have not so much as a hint of a clue of the points I have made.

 

So do I, so?

No chance you incorrectly applied as I have been complaining about.

Like flew did eh?
Disprove me you disprove flew, love it, keep going. There was no nonscholarly lack of belief craziness until flew, and now there is also a lack of disbelief context for theists to fight back against the neoatheist propositional nihilists.
Now theism is the default condition!

I didnt, thats your unfounded claim.

You dont have a rebuttal all I hve gotten from you is your groundless opinion.

Of course they are, theism is also polysemous.

yep so does theism.

kokos one will be in use.

Its consistent with yoru position on the stanford article which is not the position of the stanford article.

Flews theories were rejected for scholarly use by stanford in that article. You dont even apologize for it much less rebut it LOL

again: Flews theories were rejected for scholarly use by stanford in that article. You dont even apologize for it much less rebut it LOL

So while flews definition is fine if this discussion was about popular word usage which its NOT, it has no value for the purposes of this thread, any more than it does for stanford.

No I havent, you do not understand how to use deductive logic and reason to derive on point conclusions, and you are incredulous to anything stanford stated that runs contrary to view pretending they never said it.

Hell I can 'use' a crescent wrench as a hammer and call it a hammer, and that could win a popularity contest and everyone could call it a hammer, because they USE it as a hammer, but that does not make a crescent wrench a hammer, despite how you want to 'USE' a term, popular usage has no standing when sorting and reducing the terms to a real definition, which IS stanfords point.

As usual neoatheists provide nothing and claim everything!

 

"Goes without saying", I guess that's your way of saying that you don't have any evidence for it.

If we look closer at those statements, several of them say different things, some are necessarily true, some are not necessarily true, some don't reflect reality (even if the conditional is true). Only some of them are negations.

For instance, the first two show theism and atheism as negations, they follow the law of the excluded middle (there is no way for god to be both/neither absent and present) but suffers from the fact that it is not what was meant by theism (theism being the belief in god's presence, not just god's presence).

The last one shows them not as negations (does not follow the law of excluded middle, it is entirely possible to have people who would say neither of the statements).

This isn't by itself a problem, but it shows both that the areas where you think stuff "goes without saying" actually glosses over important distinctions and that you cannot be trusted to pick those out.

We can add to the list: "If theism is to have a belief in god, then atheism is the lack of a belief in god". This follows the law of the excluded middle, and has the additional upside that its definition of theism is the belief in god (as any dictionary will agree) and not the presence/existence/with-ness of god (as some of your statements imply).

The lines you present are a perfectly fine context, and I can't fault you for using it. However, I can fault you for rejecting other contexts.

 

I guess the above post is your way of saying you are not capable of deductive reasoning, that you need someone other than me to tell you like a dictionary, they work great for people who dont want to think to blow someone off with an incorrect answer.

How come any time I turn up with a set of proofs neoatheists quote me and ask for evidence? Do the proofs that stomp neoatheology into the ground somehow cause a switch to trigger that turns of the brain off so that it loses all deductive reasoning power or something?

Yes atheism is polysemous, how about that?
Oh you missed the 800pound gorilla sitting on your key board!
They are all negations, you know opposites?

Ok now you need to supply us with more than your dictionary dependent opinion.
I cant wait to hear how a G/god is not present with a theist?

WTF? "if atheism says 'no G/gods exist', theism says 'G/gods exist'.
Neither is abstention from an answer, that last one is as direct a negation as is possible to have.

Still trying to sneak in agnostic and in the same damn sentence blame me for taking things out of context! You do that every time I pin your ears to the wall with proofs of all the atheological failures.

False, it shows you are the one who tosses everything into a pot at once to make alphabet mud soup.

HUH?
Categorizing Americans' Religious Typology Groups | Pew Research ...
Aug 29, 2018 - God-and-Country Believers are less active in church groups or other religious ... and ways they view and interact with God, among other factors.

So interacts 'with God' is not with God?
Get serious!

You dont get it, lack of belief is not a negation to belief.

You like to use the dictionary as your crutch rather than deductive reasoning so here you have it:

belief noun

1 mental conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon


Antonyms for belief
disbelief, discredit, doubt, nonbelief, unbelief

https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/belief

antonym

noun: antonym; plural noun: antonyms
a word opposite in meaning to another

negation;

1. 
   the contradiction or denial of something.
   denial, contradiction, repudiation, disproving, countering, disclaiming
   voiding, revocation, disaffirmation, disproval
2. 
   the absence or opposite of something actual or positive.

Sorry, lack of belief is not on the 'opposite' (ie Negation) list.

Its you that cant make the proper distinctions, not me.

...and I know that you will neglect that 800 pound distinction that this post points out to anyone NOT in denial. Everything I have said are direct negations, feel free to explain how someone who accepts God is not with God, or that God's presence is not with someone who accepts God, see if you can fathom why lack of belief in God is NOT a negation of belief in God?

 

An atheist claiming than an atheist is not an atheist does not magickally make an atheist into a non-atheist.

He's correct. There is no requirement that a religion be about a god of some sort.

 

I can't read your mind.

I can't read your mind.

Sure thing. Under my concept of God, God is the "unmoved mover". God is an uncaused, beginningless, changeless, spaceless, timeless, immaterial, personal being who created the universe and everything within it. In other words, the Christian God of the Holy Bible.

Yup, one can feel happiness regardless of their belief or non-belief in the existence of any deity.

 

His position has always been that atheists believe that god does not exist. That is the very definition of an atheist.

 

science can not address supernatural.

 

nope. the definition of atheism is lack of belief in a god or gods.

 

All religions require a god or a supernatural being or supernatural behaviors that humans are not capable of achieving.