PLZ READ OP FIRST! The Atheist Delusion

reply to post by PuterMan

watch out, the C# guy will insist VB is missing a function required for god

Originally posted by Mike_A
I don’t believe that aliens exist

but I do not believe that they don’t.

What the hell are you talking about?

Originally posted by PuterMan

As a programmer that seem to me to be a complete impossibility. If you do not believe that aliens exist how can you "not believe that they don't" unless you are saying of course NOT "believe that they don't" which means that they do and again is a complete contradiction of NOT "believe that they exist"

I think I shall take a cold shower - this is getting complicated!!!!

To use a more earthy example, do you believe I am wearing black socks? If not, do you believe I am not wearing black socks?

If you believe any of these two option, why do you believe this?

[edit on 30-7-2010 by -PLB-]

Originally posted by -PLB-

Originally posted by ChickenPie

You're not an atheist?

My position is close to agnostic, I do however reject the existence of any god I know of made up by humans. And That makes me atheist, at least to the followers of those religions. Maybe fellow atheist will call me agnostic.

Got to say I agree with that approach. Surely a difference between Theism and Atheism is that the former is (usually) a set of collective individuals who (usually) believe in a deity/deities as prescribed within a faith based constitution.

Atheists have no collective organisation, they just don't believe that said deity/deities exist. Faith in God/s = collective (usually), no belief in God = individual.

If there is an organisation of Atheists though, than that to me establishes a belief based culture amongst its members as they have joined that organisation as it supports their beliefs which cannot be proved or disproved.

Originally posted by PuterMan

Originally posted by adjensen
Nope, the statement isn't an assignment, it's an evaluation.

int* god = null;

< interject reality, wherein God's existence is potentially assigned >

if (god == null)
atheismIsCorrect();
else
theismIsCorrect();

Maybe that clarifies it, lol.

[edit on 30-7-2010 by adjensen]

So translated to VB as I do not speak C# (or I try not to)

The pointer however says that the object exists but that in the assignment we are giving it a value of nothing, i.e. we have not filled the pointer with an integer that 'points' to God.

In atheism such a pointer cannot exist as there is not God, therefore Dim God as Pointer(Of Integer) is an impossibility!

No, it's not the abomination of MSFT C#, just plain old C, lol.

God does exist, as a concept. Whether God exists as an entity or not, he exists as a concept. In my source code, I even catered to your (well, TD's) point of view, as it is assumed that our base concept is null, that God doesn't exist and I used lower case! (Both good programming practices, by the way.)

A pointer is not an object in itself (well, it is, but that's not the point (har har) of it) -- it is simply a reference (read: concept) that directs one to the actual item.

Atheism admits the existence of the concept of God, or atheism itself has nothing to evaluate its belief or disbelief on. They just differ from theists as to whether that pointer (concept) ever gets assigned to anything.

My assignment in that code is buried in the "great mystery" (read: spaghetti code) of reality. Outside of that, it's simply evaluative.

There ya go, clear as mud :-)

reply to post by IamBoon

A deity or god as a metaphysical construct cannot be proven nor disproved in the notion that it exists

Which is why we all are agnostics.

Even theists who make a claim to be gnostic theists are being intellectually dishonest, as are atheists who make the claim there definitely isn't a God. Those are knowledge claims that we don't have the ability to falsify. We don't have enough information yet to say for certain whether there is or isn't a god and we may never be able to make either claim for certain.

Really there can only be agnostic theists and agnostic atheists, of which I am the latter.

Originally posted by LightFantastic
reply to post by PuterMan

 

watch out, the C# guy will insist VB is missing a function required for god

In his code, "god" is a variable, not a function. Well, I think it is, I am not a BASIC programmer (not anymore, at least.)

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer
One, because it's not always correct and there are too many misconceptions about atheism already.

OK, but I happen to BELIEVE that God does not exist. What misconceptions can there possibly be?

Two, many arguments against atheism rely on the concept of it being a belief.

You cannot argue against atheism any more than you can argue for God other than in a belief system since neither can prove their view point and both are based on belief.

The simple fact of the matter is that actually none of this exists and I am playing out this complete scenario in my mind. Well of course I can't prove that but neither can it be disproved.

reply to post by PuterMan


What you describe is a belief in the probability of aliens existing.

To say that I believe in aliens (or god) is a statement of fact, I'm saying aliens exist.

To say that I don’t believe in aliens leaves open the possibility, I am not making any judgement on their existence or nonexistence.

To say that I believe aliens don’t exist is a statement of fact relating to their existence.

That is the difference.




On the discussion of agnostic atheists and whether or not they make sense...

Agnostic (as it relates to deities) describes someone who believes that they cannot know whether or not there is a god.

Atheistic describes someone who lacks a belief in a god or gods.

The two are not oxymoronic but related. A person who believes that they cannot know if there is a god is agnostic but if they cannot know then they lack a positive believe and are thus an atheist; or agnostic atheist.

However the two are not synonyms because someone who believes that there are no gods is just as much an atheist as the first person but is certainly not agnostic.


[edit on 30-7-2010 by Mike_A]

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


Yes, agreed. The term agnostic is kind of useless. Being an agnostic just means you are not crazy.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer
I can easily make the assertion that there is no proof of any deities therefore it's not worth considering. This is not a matter of belief.

In that case, it'd be a matter of believing that since there is no evidence for any deities, then the idea of their being any deities is not worth considering.

And since it's technically disbelief - the antonym of belief, it is therefore not belief. "Not A" does not equal "A", "not existing" does not mean "existing".

But when you disbelieve something or lack belief in something that in itself carries assertions and reasons. So long as there are assertions and reasons one could argue that you're dealing with a belief system.

Let's take lack of belief in God as an example. Why would you lack belief in God? I'd say the only two good enough reasons not to believe in God would be that He probably doesn't exist or that He doesn't exist (of course there is logic and evidence that precedes these conclusions). Correct me if I'm wrong. And if your belief that God doesn't exist does not carry one of those assertions, then why do you hold the belief?

[edit on 30-7-2010 by ChickenPie]

Originally posted by Titen-Sxull
Really there can only be agnostic theists and agnostic atheists, of which I am the latter.

That's nonsense. Agnosticism says that you don't and can't know about the existence or lack of existence of God, so there is nothing to base your second categorization (theist / atheist) on. In the vacuum of information your universal agnosticism implies, your choice is either arbitrary or disingenuous.

If I know nothing of Subject A, and can never change that lack of knowledge, I can make no honest claims about it, aside from saying that I know nothing about it and never will.

Originally posted by -PLB-

To use a more earthy example, do you believe I am wearing black socks? If not, do you believe I am not wearing black socks?

If you believe any of these two option, why do you believe this?

[edit on 30-7-2010 by -PLB-]

As regards your black socks I would have to admit the existence of black socks in the universe as I have had experience of them. This has absolutely nothing to do with whether I believe you are wearing black socks since I have no information that could possibly lead me to a conclusion where I could realistically determine that nature of the coverings upon your foot (if any)

To what "this" are you referring?

Originally posted by ChickenPie
In that case, it'd be a matter of believing that since there is no evidence for any deities, then the idea of their being any deities is not worth considering.

Incorrect, but I'm not going to go through this again.

But when you disbelieve something or lack belief in something that in itself carries assertions and reasons. So long as there are assertions and reasons one could argue that you're dealing with a belief system.

No. There are reasons and assertions for accepting that 1+1=2. This is not a matter of belief and it is not in any way a "belief system".

Let's take lack of belief in God as an example. Why would you lack belief in God? I'd say the only two good enough reasons not to believe in God would be that He probably doesn't exist or that He doesn't exist (of course there is logic and evidence that precedes these conclusions). Correct me if I'm wrong. And if your belief that God doesn't exist does not carry one of those assertions, then why do you hold the belief?

I don't hold a belief. I lack belief. Again, disbelief does not equal belief.

Originally posted by adjensen
In his code, "god" is a variable, not a function. Well, I think it is, I am not a BASIC programmer (not anymore, at least.)

I know . I thought I would just get a C# v VB thing in here, we have had everything else. Your code is equally valid for C or C# although I personally dont like your * placement and I recommend always using braces for 'if' and 'for' etc, even if there is only one line at the time of writing. All said light-hearted of course...

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer
I don't hold a belief. I lack belief. Again, disbelief does not equal belief.

If you 'lack' a belief in God then it could be argued that you believe that God does not exists, therefore you have a 'belief'. :bnghd:

Originally posted by Mike_A
reply to post by faceoff85

 

Unless your evidence is so conclusive that no christian on earth can disagree, it is still based on belief/faith..

Yes but that relates to my disbelief in named gods not my lack of belief in undefined gods. Both come under the term atheism and the positive belief in the first instance does not confer a positive belief in the second.

You may believe in unnamed Gods but not named ones? Surely Atheism doesn't allow you to pick and choose or you may as well say you just don't follow any named religions but still believe in Intelligent design which means you aren't an atheist?

reply to post by PuterMan

If you 'lack' a belief in God then it could be argued that you believe that God does not exists, therefore you have a 'belief'.

Then what is the belief? If belief is something that is held to be true what does someone who lacks a belief hold to be true?

We don't believe that god exists but we also don't believe that god does not exist. Where is the belief in that?

Originally posted by PuterMan

As regards your black socks I would have to admit the existence of black socks in the universe as I have had experience of them. This has absolutely nothing to do with whether I believe you are wearing black socks since I have no information that could possibly lead me to a conclusion where I could realistically determine that nature of the coverings upon your foot (if any)

To what "this" are you referring?

This refers to any of the two options.

You stated that a lack of believe in something results in the belief of the opposite. The example is to illustrate that this is not the case at all. You can perfectly well both not believe I am wearing black socks and not believe I am not wearing black socks. Just like you can perfectly well both not believe god/aliens exists and not believe god/aliens do not exists. It is a perfectly valid position.

reply to post by adjensen


Right. We can never know for sure that there is or is not a God as long as God is defined as supernatural and is therefore outside the realm of scientific inquiry and objectively verifiable evidence.

If we accept God as part of the natural world, as part of the Universe, than it may be possible to prove his/her/its existence but it would still be impossible to disprove its existence without searching 100% of the Universe.

We are therefore ALL agnostics when it comes to the actuality of gods and can really only either believe or lack belief (theism and atheism).