The Disingenuousness of "Weak" Atheism

reply to post by Blue_Jay33


It's not semantics, it's actually being accurate about a statement. The OP basically puts out a form of the excluded middle fallacy. It's either epistemological certainty one way or the other, or no decision at all. Instead of going for this logically fallacious excluded middle fallacy, we're saying that there is a sort of disk of choices rather than one of three. They don't even go towards theism vs atheism. There's pantheism and deism as well.

Epistemological certainty isn't necessary for a position. Again, atheism is the skeptical position regarding all theistic claims. We are skeptical, even though we admit that there is no way to be epistemologically certain.

Skeptical positions, like so-called "weak" atheism are perfectly valid and in no way disingenuous.

Originally posted by MrXYZ
Of course you don't provide proof of your claim...as always...but who cares about facts, right?

what proof ? it is a belief I have... do you not like my personal opinion ? everybody has one you know...

the "facts" are your video is not really what I was looking for, keep trying. I am sure there are others who would like to see atleast 1 video of a atheists bashing a Hindu.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


according to my customs, feelings, theory, logic, and yes belief... you never kick a man when he is down, I hope I am not asked to show proof and evidence of this backing my claim as your little brother would request of me

therefore I have no further questions for you in this particular topic.

reply to post by Cosmic.Artifact

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact
reply to post by madnessinmysoul

 

according to my customs, feelings, theory, logic, and yes belief... you never kick a man when he is down, I hope I am not asked to show proof and evidence of this backing my claim as your little brother would request of me

So you're back to your old habits of claiming victories you've never had. I'm sorry, but you do actually have to provide some evidence for any of your claims, yet you've provided none for any of them...which is your usual habit.

And I don't have any little brothers. If you're referring to another atheist user on this forum as my little brother, that would be an insult to their intelligence. If you're calling a request for evidence childish your statement is in the category of most ridiculous ignorance.

therefore I have no further questions for you in this particular topic.

You've actually not proven anything.

reply to post by Blue_Jay33


At least he's backing his posts up with facts and credible sources...which is more than you can say about you lot. Cosmic just stated that he's not going to defend his belief with evidence as he doesn't need to...fine. But at the same time, he's attacking rationality/logic/science without backing it up with evidence.

That's not how it works. If you want to attack logic/rationality/science, you HAVE to back it up with evidence. If you fail to do so, you look silly...so far, you and Cosmic have failed to provide even the slightest bit of evidence to back up your claims.

What you call "semantics" is in reality called the "English language" and it's quite important imo

reply to post by MrXYZ

Will all due respect from "us lot", so far the responses seem to have been:
"Your definition is wrong, mine is better"
...when both definitions are sourced

"I hereby discredit the the man you use to make your argument"
...an ad hominem attack

"You are attacking logic/rationality/science!"
...which is interesting, how you are trying to give yourself the higher ground, but it doesn't work, sorry. The most that you can claim for yourself is that you are empiricists (you don't believe in the existence of anything outside of what you can sense with your sight, touch, smell, hearing, taste and other senses) . Empiricism is just one small portion of rationality & science, and unfortunately for you, doesn't encompass it as a whole.

and "Epistemology is not necessary for forming an opinion"
...which is absolutely true, but then, as proponents of the oh-so-great ideals of science, logic and rationality, just because you believe something (in this case whether god does not does not exist), doesn't make it true, and having holding such a belief when you do not have all the information is contrary to the position of science, logic and rationality! If one wanted to be scientific and logical about it (which again, just in case you missed it, doesn't mean to be empirical about it), if you don't have knowledge of the existence of God(s) (you are agnostic), you can't have an opinion one way or another for something you do not have the complete knowledge about! Until further information is available, you HAVE to say "I don't know".

Otherwise the entire foundation of science and rationality might as well be guesswork!

So with "you lot" giving nothing more than opinions, or counter-sources to sources, I don't think "us lot" are any worse off.


PS: Madness, the false dichotomy, or fallacy of the excluded middle would only work if BigWhammy had given an either/or option. He DID provide a third one (in this case, "I don't know"), so isn't a false dichotomy.

Said by others,

"""""""I don't believe because I cannot accept the claims that have been made. There are those who claim to know know but also claim to believe, meaning there are also agnostic theists."""""""""

Accept : to receive willingly c : to recognize as true : believe

II Peter 3:
[3] Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
[4] And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
[5] For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

Yet this idea still follows the OP's post, I do not believe because I do not want to no explanation needed.

This is weak as stated how have you proved to your self that God does not exist? Why do you believe man who is constantly proved wrong in every are even in the areas of "science", yet you adhere to it with the faith of a monk.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
reply to post by Blue_Jay33

 

It's not semantics, it's actually being accurate about a statement. The OP basically puts out a form of the excluded middle fallacy. It's either epistemological certainty one way or the other, or no decision at all. Instead of going for this logically fallacious excluded middle fallacy, we're saying that there is a sort of disk of choices rather than one of three. They don't even go towards theism vs atheism. There's pantheism and deism as well.

Epistemological certainty isn't necessary for a position. Again, atheism is the skeptical position regarding all theistic claims. We are skeptical, even though we admit that there is no way to be epistemologically certain.

Skeptical positions, like so-called "weak" atheism are perfectly valid and in no way disingenuous.

Madness this is blatantly false as I explicitly said there are 3 options. I suppose I should qualify my argument that I am arguing for the monotheistic God of the Bible (but everyone knows that). Sure there are panthiesm and polythiesitic options but that is really a side issue. They are still theistic.

In the debate in which you are in engaged and what you spend most of your time here attempting to discredit (in your pseudo-atheist persona) is the monotheistic God. In that discussion, there are 3 positions, God exists, God does not exist, or I don't know. There is no excluded middle. You are just obfuscating as you usually do. It really reveals the bankruptcy of the modern atheist worldview. Thanks for sharing it, please continue.

science is but a philosophy, logic is based in philosophy and established by majority...

"the study of light happens to be an ancient philosophy which by science we use experiment to gain a better understanding of light. Light inspires art, religion and science, modern science emerged from the religious quest to understand the nature of light"

that is an excerpt from a pretty good show about science and religion. (Light Fantastic)

reply to post by babloyi


alot of people do not understand this, I am coming to realize now what they are looking for are mythological creatures like unicorns and fairies, which of course do not exist.

oh well some people ya know...

reply to post by Bigwhammy

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
Madness this is blatantly false as I explicitly said there are 3 options.

It's still an excluded middle fallacy as you're limiting the number of options. Rather than being a line it's a triangle. The fact that I've pointed out alternative options to your premise shows that you're excluding something.

I suppose I should qualify my argument that I am arguing for the monotheistic God of the Bible (but everyone knows that). Sure there are panthiesm and polythiesitic options but that is really a side issue. They are still theistic.

Pantheism isn't really a form of theism as it claims that existence is the closest we can get to a deity, that reality itself has some form of...well, it takes various forms. Some pantheists think reality is conscious, that it has a sort of instinct...it's complicated. And there's still deism, which posits an entirely absent or possibly extinct deity.

And again, you're ignoring that there are agnostic atheism, agnostic theism, gnostic atheism, and gnostic theism.

In the debate in which you are in engaged and what you spend most of your time here attempting to discredit (in your pseudo-atheist persona) is the monotheistic God.

Logical fallacy #2: argumentum ad hominem. "Pseudo-atheist"? Really? I mean, the whole argument of this thread is basically an excluded middle fallacy with the intent to poison the well....but to come out and just use an ad hominem attack?


Logical fallacy #3: straw man fallacy
Please, show me where I attempt to discredit the monotheistic God. I have claimed that omniscience and omnipotence are contradictory, but that is a philosophical issue. But I've typically stated most simply "Where is the evidence?".

In that discussion, there are 3 positions, God exists, God does not exist, or I don't know.

No, there are many positions:
1: I believe God exists because I know God exists.
2: I believe God exists even though I have no evidence/certainty.
3: I do not believe God exists because I know God doesn't exist.
4: I do not believe God exists because there is insufficient evidence.
5: I don't care.
6: What is "God"?
7: I believe God used to exist because I know God used to exist.
8: I believe God used to exist even though I have no evidence/certainty.

...I'm sure I could come up with more.

Highlighting possible flaws in the positive arguments of those who claim a deity exists is compatible with either 3 or 4. The fourth option is a skeptical position and attacking positive claims is entirely compatible with a skeptical position. The fourth option also happens to be where all the atheists I'm aware of orient themselves.

There is no excluded middle.

I clearly showed that you're excluding a lot. You'e excluding the middle, the bottom, the top...basically everything but the sides.

You are just obfuscating as you usually do. It really reveals the bankruptcy of the modern atheist worldview.

And yet you're not demonstrating how I'm doing this. I've repeatedly made the claim that there are more than three positions, yet you've not demonstrated how there are only three positions. You've simply claimed it as fact without evidence (much like you claim your deity).

I'm not obfuscating and there's nothing bankrupt in my words.

Thanks for sharing it, please continue.

I'll keep showing how ignorant of the most basic precepts of philosophy you are until the cows come home, don't worry. I've dealt with far more ignorant and stubborn users before.

reply to post by babloyi

Originally posted by babloyi
reply to post by MrXYZ

 

Will all due respect from "us lot", so far the responses seem to have been:
"Your definition is wrong, mine is better"
...when both definitions are sourced

When one is from a theological dictionary, another is from an apologetics book, and the other is from a general reference that actually has a lot of elaboration that discredits the single line definition...then the one source is better than the other.

"I hereby discredit the the man you use to make your argument"
...an ad hominem attack

Where did MrXYZ do this?

Now, if you're referring to my claims about William Lane Craig...I backed that up with a link to all sorts of refutations of various points made by the man. I did this because an in depth discussion on his apologetics would have been wildly off-topic. I didn't discredit his character, as I know very little of the man beyond his apologetics.

"You are attacking logic/rationality/science!"
...which is interesting, how you are trying to give yourself the higher ground, but it doesn't work, sorry.

Well, they actually are attacking logic, and I've actually demonstrated this.

The OP is an elaborate excluded middle fallacy, which is itself a logical fallacy. The espousing of a logical fallacy is an attack on logic. Furthermore, the whole point of this thread is to attack atheists on their character. The title itself is calling 'weak' atheism, and thus all who claim it as their position, disingenuous. It is an attempt to poison the well.

The most that you can claim for yourself is that you are empiricists (you don't believe in the existence of anything outside of what you can sense with your sight, touch, smell, hearing, taste and other senses) .

Well, the claims of an attack on logic still stand either way.

Empiricism is just one small portion of rationality & science, and unfortunately for you, doesn't encompass it as a whole.

I'm sorry, but what sort of science is outside the empirical realm? Don't say mathematics, it's still within the material realm.

and "Epistemology is not necessary for forming an opinion"

...straw man. I claimed that epistemological certainty isn't necessary for forming a view. Epistemology is impossible to do without. You cannot have an idea without epistemology.

...which is absolutely true, but then, as proponents of the oh-so-great ideals of science, logic and rationality, just because you believe something (in this case whether god does not does not exist), doesn't make it true, and having holding such a belief when you do not have all the information is contrary to the position of science, logic and rationality! If one wanted to be scientific and logical about it (which again, just in case you missed it, doesn't mean to be empirical about it), if you don't have knowledge of the existence of God(s) (you are agnostic), you can't have an opinion one way or another for something you do not have the complete knowledge about! Until further information is available, you HAVE to say "I don't know".

babloyi...wall of text. Please, try to separate. I say this as someone who tends to respect you as a user. I'd hate for people to pass over parts of your posts just because they're daunting.

Simple answer to all of that? As I've said before, agnosticism rationally leads to skepticism of the claim. If you don't have knowledge of the existence of a deity you must reject that claim or else we must treat. Skepticism is at the heart of science. "I don't know" in science leads to "I'm not going to accept this"...unless there's some amount of evidence.

Now, there's also the question of certainty, which is why Richard Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion, put forth the idea of a continuum for these questions. 1-7. 1 being "I'm absolutely certain there is no God" and 7 being "I'm absolutely certain that a God exists"...most people are a 2, 3, 5, or 6. Few people will actually tell you

Otherwise the entire foundation of science and rationality might as well be guesswork!

Science rejects claims when it says "I don't know". It waits for some level of evidence. When there's a little bit of evidence something becomes a tentative hypothesis. When a lot of evidence comes in it becomes a theory. Once all evidence available points to that theory over all other theories consistently, it becomes considered as scientific fact.

You can make a decision to reject a claim when you don't know.

So with "you lot" giving nothing more than opinions, or counter-sources to sources, I don't think "us lot" are any worse off.

PS: Madness, the false dichotomy, or fallacy of the excluded middle would only work if BigWhammy had given an either/or option. He DID provide a third one (in this case, "I don't know"), so isn't a false dichotomy.

And excluded middle doesn't rely on an either/or statement. It's a fallacy in any instance where alternative options are simply left out. Now, had I said false dichotomy or dilemma, you'd be right. Unfortunately, I can come up with many options that BigWhammy has excluded, thus the middle has been excluded. In fact, "I don't know" isn't even an option on its own, it's merely a qualifier to other options.

reply to post by Cosmic.Artifact

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact
science is but a philosophy, logic is based in philosophy and established by majority...

Logic is based in pure reason. Logic is not determined by a majority. Philosophy isn't even determined by a majority. In logic we actually have an informal logical fallacy referred to as the bandwagon fallacy, which is the argument that a position is true because it is held by a majority.

Science may have started out in the realm of philosophy, but it has become a method unto itself. Science is in no way determined by a majority.

reply to post by Cosmic.Artifact


Unicorns don't exist? But they're mentioned six times in the Bible! Well, at least in the King James version. It's mentioned in Numbers, Job, and Psalms!

madness

It's still an excluded middle fallacy as you're limiting the number of options.

No, the question "Does God exist?" has three responsive answers, Yes, No, and what in casual English is expressed by the idiom "I don't know." False dichotomy, or its generalization to some greater-k-fold partition, would arise just when there were some other responsive answer. There isn't. The query is an example of what we call it a "yes or no question."

Of course, anyone may answer responsively and then qualify their answer ad libidum. "Yes, but I haven't studied the question very carefully. Mostly, I have studied dance, and the question of God doesn't come up much in toe shoes. Well, it did once in high school....," and so forth.

So, by all means call a qualified responsive answer a "position" if you like. But the alternatives are: yes, with an optional explanation; no, with an optional explanation, and no opinion, with an optional explanation.

The question does not ask for the story of your life, and it does not ask why you choose the responsive answer you do. It is, however, courteous to give you the floor, after you have answered the question. However, only up to the comma is your answer to the question. The rest, if any, is tacked on in hopes that we better understand the answer you have just made.

Since you are not prevented from adding on whatever qualification you like, no responsive answer has been excluded. There can thus be no fallacy.

And again, you're ignoring that there are agnostic atheism, agnostic theism, gnostic atheism, and gnostic theism.

He's not ignoring them. He simply recognizes the first three as the oxymorons that they are. Also, as a native speaker of English, he probably knows that agnostic and gnostic are not antonyms, and that in religious discourse, gnostic does not mean having knowledge distinct from having belief.

As to your objection to the ad hominem "pseduo-atheist," quite so. BW ought to have said "pseudo-agnostic." Perhaps it was a a slip of the keyboard. In any case, I suspect BW might agree with me that you're a 100% genuine atheist. With an explanation, of course.

Please, show me where I attempt to discredit the monotheistic God. I have claimed that omniscience and omnipotence are contradictory, but that is a philosophical issue.

Your claim, if it were true, would be cause to believe that none of the Gods with a capital-G in English exists. They are all typically professed as both omniscient and omnipotent. In English, therefore, we may say that your claim, if true, discredits God.

The straw man bleeds.

We may also say that since you believe your claim to be true, that you are an atheist. Your assent to that inference is neither necessary nor solicited.

I'll keep showing how ignorant of the most basic precepts of philosophy you are until the cows come home, don't worry. I've dealt with far more ignorant and stubborn users before.

Lol, I don't know where you studied "philosophy," but you deserve your money back.

Originally posted by babloyi
Someone earlier in this thread went through the various combinations of "a/gnostic" and "a/theistic", but they missed out a few, because including them would show how weird such a position is:

Where is the gnostic-atheist who knows that god/s exists, but does not believe?
Can a person logically say "God exists, but I do not believe God exists"?

You misunderstood. A Gnostic Atheist would be someone who KNOWS AND BELIEVES that God DOESN'T exist.
Gnostic - Knowledge
Atheist - Lack of belief in God.

A person can be agnostic about anything. It's not a word that's only associated with God.

My last couples of posts got deleted because they specifically addressed a certain poster, I won't make that mistake again.

It is claimed that the sources used to define atheism were not valid because from their perspective they perhaps favor an opposite viewpoint.
The dictionary doesn't favor one side or the other, it just states the facts about the English language.

People that want to debate and argue with a dictionary definition are colossal ignorant fools or trolls, I would suggest they stop proving themselves to be that, by discontinuing that form of reasoning and posting.

Once again from a very impartial source Dictionary.com

atheist   – noun
a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

An atheist is one who denies the existence of a deity or of divine beings.

a person who does not believe in God or gods

agnostic   - noun
a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as god, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

one who professes that the existence of a First Cause and the essential nature of things are not and cannot be known.

theist –noun
the belief in one god as the creator and ruler of the universe, without rejection of revelation

belief in the existence of a god or gods

belief in a deity

In researching this I found a forth category, but really it is a sub-category

deism   - noun
belief in the existence of a god on the evidence of reason and nature only, with rejection of supernatural revelation

belief in a God who created the world but has since remained indifferent to it

belief in the existence of God based solely on natural reason, without reference to revelation

The belief that God has created the universe but remains apart from it and permits his creation to administer itself through natural laws. Deism thus rejects the supernatural aspects of religion, such as belief in revelation in the Bible, and stresses the importance of ethical conduct.

Sub-categories like that can go on and on, but they are just that, a further more detailed description of a belief structure.

The three MAIN categories are still:

1)Atheist -Doesn't believe in the existence of a deity.
2)Agnostic - Not sure about the existence of a deity.
3)Believer - Believes in the existence of deity.

"Eight Bits" explained it very well(a star for that), those with a logical mind and a clear understanding of English get it.