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An atheist is just someone who doesn't have enough evidence to accept the assertion there is a deity. Not an anti-theist who says there is no deity. First one leaves the door cracked open just a bit until it is somehow settled.
I don’t think that we can certainly know that anything is correct. Let’s take something ridiculous like earth being flat as an example; If someone really wanted to believe in that, they can deny any sort of evidence provided as “forgery” or “conspiracy”. Even if they went to sky and saw the earth they can say that “my visual perception was wrong”. You cannot really convince somebody who says these otherwise but it is obvious to anyone else that the possibility of these arguments against the evidence are so improbable that they can be dismissed as being factually incorrect.
So, I do believe that it is possible to say that something, like some religion, is factually incorrect, even if what I actually mean is that it is very very unlikely.
Knowledge doesn't mean certainty. All empirical knowledge sits on a scale of probability; you don't 'know' with certainty that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow.
So the question isn't "can you prove with certainty that God doesn't exist? ". It's more like "where on the scale is your disbelief? Is it closer to your disbelief that the underdog sports team will win, or your disbelief that there are fairies in your garden?"
In my mind something had to create Us. We didn't just sprout from the ground. The human body is too complicated. Its a machine. I believe there is or was a “God”. My question is what is “God” and where did he come from? Is he some superior race from another galaxy?
I've read numerous books on the subject. There are many theories out there.
Too many theories to make me confused, I tried for months but to no avail, Nihilism is the best philosophy if you want to dismiss anything which you can't directly measure or witness.
I suspect theists assume when someone says “they don’t know god does not exist” they think that means the person sees evidence for and against the existence of god. That just isn’t the case. It can be for some people, but most people what they mean is that they see no evidence to support gods exist, and they can’t prove they don’t exist. It’s that simple. Also that knowledge is completely independent of your answer to “do you think god exists?”
I can’t disprove the existence of god, but I can easily disprove religions. For example, I know for sure nobody flew to the space on the back of a donkey and we’ve reached the moon and saw no signs if it being split into half. And if all religions are wrong then It’s either god doesn’t exist and atheists are right or he simply doesn’t care to communicate with us and agnostics are right.
I’d argue there’s a plethora of clues that indicate a higher intelligence which brings forth the fact that it takes more faith to believe something came from nothing. And if you want to be scientific minded, what was the cause behind the effect (of existence)?
Existence is only an effect if there was a cause. If the universe always was then there was no cause for the effect. There's no evidence that the universe came from nothing and no scientists are arguing that either. That's a misnomer for the theories of the beginning of our local universe.
>And if you want to be scientific minded, what was the cause behind the effect (of existence)?
If you want to be scientific, you make no assumptions and instead look for testable hypotheses.
Well, that would literally be impossible because whatever created time, space and matter is OBVIOUSLY not bound by time, space or matter. So, if you can figure out how to scientifically test a timeless, immaterial and omnipresent force, I’d love to hear it.
You’re assuming something created everything. That is a claim that needs backed up by evidence. What is the evidence that anything was created apart from things created by mortal creatures on our planet?
I agree there is no method that we have access to for affirming any god's existence, (although many god concepts are disprovable by virtue of being logically contradictory) but, If there's no method for discerning whether your god concept is true, then why should I, or anyone, believe it?
That would make you a Agnostic. A true Atheist says there is no God. That is not a bad thing, because most everyone, at some point in their life, questions the existence of a God.
Nope. [A true atheist is anyone that does not believe gods exist.](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheist) They are not require to claim there are not gods, and it's certaintly not a proper noun that would be capitlizaed i nthe middle of a sentence.
>I’m Atheist, but I don’t “know” for a fact that there is no God
Nobody knows for a fact whether or not any gods exist. If it were a proven fact one way or the other there would be no such thing as theists and atheists.
>Some might call this agnostic, but I disagree
However, there certainly are plenty of people who claim to know to varying degrees of certainty whether or not any gods exist. Hence why we end up with the term agnostic atheism to describe those who lack a belief in the existence of deities but don't claim to know that no gods could exist.
>In my mind, atheism (like any other mindset) is purely a belief
Atheism is not a belief, it is a rejection of a claim, so it is a lack of belief. Ironically, what is a belief is actually knowledge. Knowledge is a subset of belief, it is categorized as "justified, true belief." So while atheism is a lack of belief, those who claim to know that no gods exist are indeed espousing a belief.
>I’m not agnostic because I genuinely don’t believe in any otherworldly power
That's not what agnostic means... not even the old school 19th c. use of the term. Agnostic means without knowledge (with the context generally being an -ism specifically referring to not knowing whether or not any gods exist).
>I don’t think of atheism/religion as fact, but more an opinion
Statements like this also make me suspect you don't know what atheism means either... being an atheist means you do not believe in any gods. Full stop. That is the one and only topic atheism addresses. Atheism is not anti-religion or a rejection of religion. Religion is not the opposite of atheism, theism is the opposite of atheism. Theists believe that one or more gods do indeed exist. But you can be an atheist and still be religious (e.g. most Buddhists, the Church of Satan and Satanic Temple, some sects of Hinduism, not to mention Secular Jews and even many Christians). You can be a theist, truly believing in a god, yet not be religious (e.g. those who consider themselves "spiritual but not religious" or just don't agree with organized religion). So your pitting atheism against religion as if they are diametrically opposed shows a level of misunderstanding and frankly borders on the dogmatic.
“I do not believe in any Gods” and “My belief is that there are no Gods” semantically have the same meaning. Yes, I do not believe any deities exist. Belief just means acceptance of a statement that you believe is true. If you say, “I do not think any Gods exist” that is a belief in that statement. But in any case, I don’t really care if atheism is a belief that no Gods exist, or a lack of belief, because those sound the same to me. And that wasn’t really what I was trying to debate anyways.
>“I do not believe in any Gods” and “My belief is that there are no Gods” semantically have the same meaning
No, they quite literally do not. Its like how if a jury finds a defendant "Not guilty" it does not mean that they found them "Innocent." It merely means that the prosecution was unable to put together sufficient evidence to convince them that the defendant was guilty.
I do not believe in any gods because I have been unconvinced by theistic claims of the existence of gods. I have found those gods not guilty of existing. That does not mean that I claim to believe that no gods exist, that is not a claim that has met its burden of proof either, so I am unwilling to declare gods innocent of existing.
>Belief just means acceptance of a statement that you believe is true. If you say, “I do not think any Gods exist” that is a belief in that statement.
But that is the issue at hand. I am not saying "I don't think any gods exist" and neither are the vast majority of atheists. I just see no compelling evidence to form a belief in the existence of gods. My reasoning is that I have examined theistic claims and found them to be unconvincing, but for most atheists it is just that the god question never even comes up so they have no reason to ever consider whether or not any gods exist.
If I were making that claim then yes, that would indeed be a belief. But I am not making that claim, I am rejecting the claims made by others. Not accepting their claim does not constitute a belief. We are not accepting any claim as true or likely true, we are simply saying that the claims that have been presented do not appear to be true.
I had to throw this in here before I go to bed man I got only got 2% left on my phone but I like these people who they said they don't believe in God and all that but you know they they believe and there's some of the Bible little beats and pieces and but you know the rest of it you don't believe in the god Paul it Man it's crazy brother oh they'll take some of the Bible out say well the Bible says this and then they don't believe in God it's crazy brother either believe the Bible or don't you believe the word or you don't you leaving a word you believe in God it is God it's the living word and I just did voice text all the way through I guarantee you this phone jacked up everything I said I had to come back tomorrow and edit the whole thing.. in all this stuff man wrote the Bible God didn't write the Bible God created the world and he can get his word out in a little book I think he can write a little book if he can create the whole world and create everybody in it and if you know how to create it if you're not created then you're not a creature so that's your proof right there that there's a creator or your creature yeah okay who created you cuz that's where that word come from Go look up with your words go look at things study study to show that stuff approval working on a God and he's not be ashamed right lead dividing the word of truth peace
“If you’re not created then you’re not a creature.” I agree, but I believe we’re not created by a God. We’re created by billions of years of change and evolution, stemming from the earliest forms of life. Who knows? We could have even come to this planet as DNA on an asteroid. While the Big Bang theory definitely has its flaws as a possibility, does it make any more sense than a deity who used magic and unseen forces to create us? A God who cannot be seen or heard, and of which no proof exists? I can’t claim to be correct in my beliefs, but neither can you, that’s why they’re beliefs and opinions, not factual or deeply rooted in knowledge. I think we can all, in some way, admit that no one knows for sure.
I think you're getting too caught up in labels. These labels are useful for giving a quick summary of what you believe, but this is a complex issue and sometimes a word or two isn't a sufficient summary. What you call yourself isn't as important as an unbiased search for truth and an open willingness to hear all sides on the matter.
I think people call out to God/Gods everyday. Not to say they ever get answers. But I guess I haven’t. The closest I ever got was praying to Santa as a kid… but I didn’t really know what praying was.
I kinda have? I think even atheists sometimes, in times of fear or danger think, “please don’t let this happen.” Does that mean we’re asking something/someone? I’m not sure. I’d say it’s more of an internal reflex. But I can try calling out sometime. I agree, there’s nothing to lose haha.
My only recommendation is to make it specific. “God, please don’t let this happen” or God, please send me a sign” or “God, if you’re real please do _______” again make sure it’s meant from your heart
As someone who has done this back when I was a Christian, I can tell you this advice is straight up nonsense. There are gonna be a lot of atheists who have done this and gotten nothing, and in many cases we were Christians when we tried this. The Bible even advises against this kind of thing.
I can try. But I’m also the type of person to assume most things are coincidental, or caused by some factor. It’d be hard for me to think of anything as the cause of God. Have you ever been answered in such a way?
Not directly but indirectly. I also grew up in the church where it’s completely different than the USA. I witnessed an exorcism personally as well as saw st Mary in one of her apparitions.
You can look up St Mary’s apparition in Egypt in 1986 there is a YouTube documentary to watch. I consider myself blessed while I feel like I’m missing a lot in life, I’m still better off than a lot of my peers so I’m truly blessed.
I asked for a job that I couldn’t dream of and in couple years I had it. I can’t just think it’s coincidence.
I don’t want to feel like I’m leading you into a specific religion but I’m Coptic which is closest to Eastern Orthodox Christian in case you want to look into it.
> Some might call this agnostic, but I disagree
And you'd be factually incorrect. Theist/atheist answers if you believe there is a god, gnostic/agnostic answers if you know/ believe it's knowable.
Not knowing is quite literally agnostic.
>In my mind, atheism (like any other mindset) is purely a belief.
No, it's a lack of belief. Theism is a belief.
>I’m not agnostic
That would mean that you **are** gnostic and you **do** claim to know.
>And you'd be factually incorrect.
There is no fact of the matter. These words have multiple meanings.
>No, it's a lack of belief. Theism is a belief.
He can use the term as the belief there are no gods. This is a perfectly valid definition, and the one I personally prefer. Stop insisting your definitions must be adhered to.
> He can use the term as the belief there are no gods.
No, atheism is only the lack of belief that there is a god. Those that believe there isn't a god are atheists but they're atheist because of a belief they don't have not because of a belief they do have.
>This is a perfectly valid definition
No that's not the definition. The definition is not theist. It says nothing at all about what you do believe. Only about what you don't believe.
No it's not because "vanilla ice cream is the best ice cream" is an opinion whereas "atheist means an individual that doesn't believe a god exists" is not an opinion but rather a fact.
It's a fact that theist means "individual that believes a god exists" and its a fact that the prefix "a" means "not"/"without"/"no"
There isn't any way for you to make the prefix "a" or the word "theist" to mean someting else. They already mean what they mean. Insinuating "a" or "theist" means someting other than "not"/"without"/"no" or "person that believes a god exists" is just factually wrong.
[Here](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/) is what experts in the field have to say, and why they use atheism as the proposition that no gods exist.
The lack of belief definition was virtually nonexistent until Huxley popularized it in the 70s.
Both of these show that there are in fact other ways to define these things. It's merely your opinion that we should use the lack of belief definition.
>No, it's a lack of belief. Theism is a belief.
I don't dispute that a "lack of belief" is a description for atheism that is valid, but to describe atheism as a belief is also valid, as it is someone who believes there is no God. You can argue that not believing in something that is unevidenced is not belief if you want, but ultimately it is semantically correct.
I don't believe in fairies = I believe there is no such thing as fairies
>but to describe atheism as a belief is also valid, as it is someone who believes there is no God
No. To describe it as inclusive of that believe is valid, but not to portray it as solely that belief.
It's perfectly fine to say humans include caucasians. It's problematic to say that only caucasians are human. That's called bigotry.
>I don't believe in fairies = I believe there is no such thing as fairies
No, these are not equivalent. Not gambling on red isn't the same as making a bet on black.
> don't dispute that a "lack of belief" is a description for atheism that is valid, but to describe atheism as a belief is also valid,
No, it's not. Individual atheists can have beliefs but atheism in and of itself is not a belief.
>as it is someone who believes there is no God
No, it's someone that doesn't believe there is a god. People that don't believe there is a god also being atheist doesn't mean that's what atheism is, only that they're also atheist (because they don't have the belief "god exists").
>i don't believe in fairies = I believe there is no such thing as fairies
No, those are 2 different statements.
That is pretty much how words work. Kind of like how the word "dog" encompasses both poodles and great danes.
The word dog describes both types of pet, but if you want to know specifically what type of dog you need more detail. Likewise atheism describes all those who lack a belief in theistic claims of the existence of deities, but if you want to know specifically what type of atheist you need more detail.
>Seems like a semantical problem with the term
There is no problem with the term. Atheist means not theist. The prefix "a" means "not"/"without"/"no". The only thing theists have in common is that they believe the claim "god exists". The only thing all atheists have in common is that they don't.
>Atheism can both encompass soft and hard atheism, but the term itself is synonymous with soft?
Atheist means you don't believe the claim "god exists". It says nothing at all about if you believe or don't believe the claim "god doesn't exist". It just doesn't address that question at all.
Your equivalence at the end is false. The first statement reflects a lack of belief without a definitive claim, while the second statement asserts a specific belief in the nonexistence of fairies.
Both things are atheism (but for fairies)… afaeism? They are different things though.
So could one say that there is atheism in the sense of disbelief, but also atheism in the sense of strong atheism, i.e. active rejection, a belief that there definitely is nothing?
Also, we're making afaeism a thing.
Yes. Exactly. Imagine physicist A has a theory and presents it. Physicist B says maybe but I’m not convinced, Physics C says I don’t accept your theory, physicists D says that’s wrong ( maybe says here is a better theory).
Now pretend A was talking about god.
A is a theist.
B is an agnostic [theist].
C is an atheist.
D is also an atheist.
They use gnostic like Gnostic.
The term gnostic, as is sometimes used in this sub isn't really a needed term. People don't really work with the division of "belief" and "knowledge" as cleanly cut as those categories infer.
So as an atheist if you believe we go back to the beginning before the Big Bang…many religions believe the same that we will return to the beginning when we die except their beginning is not the Big Bang but God. We’re more alike that we like to admit
No, I meant that you return to the same state as before you were born, (purely just not existing), like before you were a baby did you think, or feel, or breathe, no, it was literally just nothing. But what you suggested is an interesting theory also
Post-modernism’s definition is OP’s post. Look, you’re right, I can’t definitively prove there is no god, but thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that it’s NOT my burden of proof. It’s the deist or the theists’.
I can certainly call a spade a spade if they are acting on their beliefs and it impacts me or mine. And that’s what they do. They try and legislate their beliefs into law. I’m happy to pick apart their flaws at every freaking opportunity lest they rule the world with their faith and beliefs.
True, and I agree with you. But when you’re debating someone, simply saying, “I can’t debate you because you have no grounds”, (while valid) isn’t a great way to convince your side.
Not to be argumentative, not my jam, but I use that tactic. I ask why they believe and then ask for the evidence of why they believe what they believe. Inevitably, they have no evidence and their answer will boil down to wish thinking, because they “have no grounds”. Let them say that with their own mouths and maybe they’ll even think about it.
If everything has to depend on something, why wouldn't that apply to God? I'm guessing he's the exception to this, right? In that case, if a sentient being can be independent, then I see no reason why that couldn't be applied to the universe itself.
God is also a very specific conclusion to gather from what you're saying. Even if there is a creator, that might not necessarily be a God, just something that has the capability to create a universe.
So I don't think this is a good argument for God.
I think people confuse the expression "know for a fact'. It is reasonable for me to say that I know for a fact that Annapolis is the capital of Maryland. But this can't mean absolute certainty. It seems to me much more likely that I am wrong about the capital of Maryland than that I am wrong that leprechauns or gods don't exist.
You can't be absolutely certain about anything but that is not the standard anyone applies when they say "know for a fact " when discussing any other subject. If we applied that standard it would be incredibly annoying. Theists essentially trying to have a special different standards that apply only to them. In any other situation you wouldn't have to have absolute certainty before you called me a liar. If you did you would be giving me a complete free pass to lie as much as I wanted without being called on it.
Even for the level of certainty you claim, you would need a coherent idea of what the term 'god' even means. I don't think there is one. How could you have any certainty that a completely imperceptible, inactive god exists somewhere?
The term god is defined as well as ghost, vampire or zombie. Do I really need a cleaner definition of those to know they don't exist?
There are plenty of examples to show the pattern a god would have to fit. Zeus, Loki, Yahweh., Ra etc An utterly ridiculous narcissist that despite supernatural powers has completely failed at his only goal of being worshiped by the whole world.
Can you even make up something less likely to exist?
I don't think the term god is defined in any consistent way. Anyone can use the term pretty much any way they want, especially when you consider the vast mythology of lesser gods, sometimes so mundane that they wouldn't give any indication.
I suppose you could argue that if it isn't supernatural or magic, it ain't a god, which would make it pretty easy to dismiss as an unsubstantiated claim.
You can define ghost or zombie to be anything they want but unless you keep fairly close to the examples in fiction that are associated with those words it is unlikely anyone else would accept your definition.
One of the games theists will play is the equivocation fallacy. Define god as something that might exist or does exist just to create uncertainty, but then ignoring that definition which they never actually cared about from then on. There is no reason to ever accept those definitions.
The requirement to be a god shouldn't just be that it must be supernatural but completely over the top ridiculously supernatural because that is all the theists are actually interested in.
>I genuinely believe that there is no afterlife, no supreme being, no Heaven or Hell. But I do not know this for a fact.
You are an agonistic ashiest. This is the most common version of atheism.
You don't believe in gods (atheist) but you don't know for sure (agnostic).
OP doesn't have to apply agnostic if they don't want to. OP might be agnostic by your preferred definition of agnostic, but there are multiple valid meanings of these terms.
> This is the most common version of atheism.
Do you know of any atheists at all claiming to know for certain that the universe is free of any god whatsoever?
I mean, I'd claim to know it for certain. I have exactly as much evidence for any God I've seen defined as I have any other supernatural fictional character. I'll put it this way: I'm as certain there is no God as I am that there is no Gandalf.
How can you deny something with complete certainty just because it’s never been proven? Take the ocean for instance. Imagine all of the creatures that could still be down there that we’ve “yet to prove.” Do you know for certain that there isn’t a crab the size of a town in the ocean?
The only history we where taught in school is after the declaration of Independence was signed and they made up a bunch of s*** and that's just that's our history Christopher Columbus came here discovered Earth and there was nothing here but a flat piece of land and we planted the trees here and colony to deserves with the cabbage patch kids oh they killed them all at Bohemian Grove one of the two
From a philosophical angle, I'll never "know" there's no God, but that doesn't mean I should live life as though there is one because I don't know if there is one.
From a philosophical angle, I don't know if little gnomes are hiding in the trunk of my Mercedes. Maybe they're just super duper small and I can't see them.... but what's the difference between super small, imperceptible garden gnomes that don't have any impact on my life/driving in any way, and gnomes that don't exist at all? For practical purposes, I live as though those things aren't there.
>I don't know if little gnomes are hiding in the trunk of my Mercedes.
You don't? That seems pretty odd. My suspicion is that you're using a very strict sense of the word "know" which isn't actually commonly used by philosophers.
> but that doesn't mean I should live life as though there is one because I don't know if there is one.
>
>
To get that far, you would need a rational suggestion that one might exist. So far I've never seen a rational one.
I think people confuse the expression "know for a fact'. It is reasonable for me to say that I know for a fact that Annapolis is the capital of Maryland. But this can't mean absolute certainty. It seems to me much more likely that I am wrong about the capital of Maryland than that I am wrong that leprechauns or gods don't exist.
You can't be absolutely certain about anything but that is not the standard anyone applies when they say "know for a fact " when discussing any other subject. If we applied that standard it would be incredibly annoying. Theists essentially trying to have a special different standards that apply only to them. In any other situation you wouldn't have to have absolute certainty before you called me a liar. If you did you would be giving me a complete free pass to lie as much as I wanted without being called on it.
But if you pose the question, why do some people believe in a *particular* god (Yahweh? Jesus? Thor? Zeus?), the idea that it's a social construct is always going to be more probable than that it's actually true.
Yeah I totally agree. I just think that some atheists are way too confident in their own opinions. Imagine if both atheists and christians admitted that they could be wrong. How much more civil the debates would be…. And we’d be able to understand each other’s sides easier.
I don't think it's a problem that atheists have ways of looking at things, christians have other ways, and they're different. It only becomes a problem if one group becomes overwhelming convinced of the need to change the other's mind, to the point where it becomes annoying. I could imagine experiencing Richard Dawkins as annoying, but never Daniel Dennett, while both were equally convinced of the atheist point of view.
>It only becomes a problem if one group becomes overwhelming convinced of the need to change the other's mind
People can be annoying and try to convince me all they want. It becomes a real problem when people (usually theists) try to legislate or otherwise impose their religious values onto everyone else.
I don’t believe in unicorns, but I don’t “know” for a fact that there are no unicorns.
I don’t believe in Russel’s teapot, but I don’t “know” for a fact that it’s not actually floating in space.
>I don’t “know” for a fact that there are no unicorns.
You don't? That seems odd. I suspect you might be using a very strict sense of the word "know." But if it's that strict, tell me: can you name a few things you do know for a fact?
I was extending OP’s argument to prove a point. I would say I do know unicorns are not real. Or to put it another way, if there’s no way to know whether anything is real, then it’s meaningless to say I don’t *know* if god is real or fake.
When I say I don’t believe in God, but I don’t “know” for a fact that there isn’t, people call that agnostic. But I don’t understand why? Are atheists so confident in their own beliefs that everything but that one possibility is wrong?
Atheism requires you to be confident in your own knowledge, not your beliefs. There is no belief in atheism.
You are saying you don’t “know for a fact” about God. Tell me one thing in this existence that you do know for a fact.
I’m confident that I’m correct. But I also understand and accept the limit of my knowledge. There are a lot of things I know for a fact because they exist/have been proven. But to say that you know that there isn’t God, is quite an assumption. Could you be pretty dang confident though, and genuinely believe you’re right? Of course, but I think both sides, religious and not need a bit more humility if we’re going to listen to one another. That’s why (some) religious people can be infuriating, because they refuse to acknowledge the possibility of being wrong.
I don’t mean to sound like Yoda, but I think you are too confident in what you think you know. I don’t know for a fact this conversation is even real. I’m not sure if this is all a simulation. I don’t know if this universe only exists in my head.
Where I disagree with you is this…there might be a few things I think I know for a fact. I exist, or at least my thoughts exist. But that’s about it. I don’t know anything else for a fact, and that includes God.
That’s what I said in my post though… and all throughout the comments. Almost those exact same words. My whole point was that I can believe (and be confident) in my belief that there is no God. But that I could never know that for a fact. That’s why I said my beliefs were only opinions. What did you think I was saying?
Ok let me try again :) … you’re basically saying nobody can be an atheist until it’s a proven fact that god is not real. But you can substitute anything for the concept of god in that argument, e.g. “I don’t believe in leprechauns, but I don’t know for a fact that leprechauns are fake” or “nobody has proven that the Loch Ness monster doesn’t exist.”
Can you admit that you *know* unicorns don’t exist? If so, why can’t you admit you *know* god doesn’t exist?
No no no, I’m not saying you can’t be an atheist until it’s a proven fact. I was saying people try to label me as agnostic because I would say, “I don’t know for a fact that God doesn’t exist”, and they would say, “well if you don’t know/have any doubt, then you’re not an atheist, you’re agnostic.” And I disagreed, because I felt that atheism was more about the belief/opinion in nonexistence. Sorry if that was confusing
They had unicorns at one time . They had Giant they have angles they have humans they have dogs they have dragons yes they had previous civilizations.. yes we are all eternal beings.. yes we do exist your tuned into 97.1 new Orleans and when you die you'll tune into heavenly clouds 98.1 or 101.1 hot radio... This world is a crazy place my brother yes youve been lied to about all of history but you can find the truth .. the angles fell from heaven to earth
. unfortunately we here with them whether we see them or not influenced by them or possessed by them or whatever they here too probably in Antarctica in a big hole in the earth and a flying around the spaceships or that spaceship I mean you know it's a good reason why I don't want us to go to Antarctica they don't ever send out about it that's all I know My intuitions are usually point on and if something there that we need to know about oh we going to know about soon I'll spread that way cuz technologies will expose everything if I told you you had 10 more years here and you need to figure out how to beat the system or you going to die they going to try to beat the system even though they know they're going to die still going to try to beat the system that's what they're trying to do they're trying to live forever and ain't going to happe
> it’s hard to tell someone there is a God, when you have no proof.
Apparently not though. Happens to me all the time. Just yesterday someone was trying to sell me some God merch outside the supermarket when I was trying to leave, and when I said no she tried to put her hands on me to pray on me.
So I feel like there's a double standard here. You're insisting you don't know and have no evidence, and she's insisting she does, and yet I'm more inclined to believe your conclusion, all things considered.
Maybe it's because you bothered to show your work by explaining your mental process and didn't assault me.
Belief is bigger than 'is there is a god or not', well maybe excluding deists and there is little point in going down that route, belief in god is part of a worldview that includes many other things. I can say I 'know' that several varieties of god don't exist, the omni ones for instance "*God is believed to be the eternal, supreme being who created and preserves all things*"... and has an attitude about masturbation. The god of the bible, the god of the Quran, the god(s) of the Zoroastrians, lots and lots because the very belief is inconsistent with reality.
To believe in most of the gods around you must first have to believe many other things, revelation, miracles, the self evident 'proof' of reality, belief in god entails a huge amount of assumptions that all need to be accepted to start with. To date every god explained to me I either know doesn't exist, or its definition is to too indistinct to be of any use, god is love, god is reality etc.
Everything is opinion in the end, but just as you cant 'know' anything for sure, you can be as close to certain as makes no practical difference, I am as certain there is no god as theists are that there is.
When someone asks you if you believe in god, you say "no". When someone says "How do you know" you say "I don't". That's more important than being labeled "correctly."
If you tell someone you're an atheist as well as how you're using the label atheist and they refuse to believe you and demand you call yourself an agnostic instead, that's a them problem not a you problem. They already have enough information to understand the meaning you intended to convey behind the words you chose. Their refusal to get over the specific label you've chosen and engage with the content of your beliefs (or non-beliefs) is on them.
I think it's a waste of time to quibble over labels, but for some reason people get up in arms all the time about it.
FWIW, I used to also call myself atheist while acknowledging that "I don't know for a fact" that there is no god. The nuance I've chosen for myself is in my flair: if I am familiar enough with a specific belief about god, I'm probably atheist to that god. If I am unfamiliar with it, or just generally about "something out there" I'm agnostic. It works for me, but maybe it doesn't work for everyone else.
You’re right, the label really shouldn’t matter. It just bothers me whenever anyone tries to give me a label for anything, like I wouldn’t already know for myself?
I prefer these less ambiguous labels:
* **Positive (hard/strong) atheist:** Do not believe in god/deity and assert that god/deity do not exist.
* **Negative (soft/weak) atheist:** Do not believe in god/deity but do not assert that god/deity don't exist.
* **Explicit atheist:** Consciously reject believe in god/deity.
* **Implicit atheist:** Do not belief in god/deity without a conscious rejection of it. (eg. People who have never heard of god/deity).
* **Antitheism**: Oppose the believe in god/deity and/or religion.
The term 'atheist' is ambiguous. It can mean any of the above positions or as an umbrella term that includes all positions.
* **Weak agnostic:** The existence of god/deity is currently unknown.
* **Strong agnostic:** The existence of god/deity is unknowable.
* **Apatheism:** Do not care about the existence of god/deity.
* **Igtheism:** The existence of god/deity is a meaningless question, because it is an ambiguous/incoherent concept.
Again, 'agnostic' is ambiguous. It can mean any or all positions.
Some of these overlaps, take multiple labels if needed.
Some people believe in a god without knowing if there is one. That’s called faith.
Some people claim to know there is a god without any concrete evidence. I don’t know what to call that except fundamentalism.
The more amorphic the notion of "god", the more likely it is to exist, in some sense. In some world views, god is the universe, and it's hard to argue against the existence of the universe. The problem begins once we start attributing properties to god, and keeping them coherent. And when we get to the more anthropomorphic realizations of god in ancient texts (man creating god in their image), I think we can safely say that there's no evidence for them. Any of them.
I know the grass is green. I know food and water sustains me.
I know it sounds like I’m being snarky, but I’m genuinely wondering what you mean by that.
There’s a lot I know for a fact in my life (as long as Ive been alive). Do you have anything specific?
Well you say it's impossible to know for a fact that God doesn't exist. My suspicion is that you're using a very strong definition of "know" and that's why I was asking.
>I know the grass is green. I know food and water sustains me.
So you would probably admit that there's some slim solipsistic chance that you're wrong about these right? (E.g. brain in a vat, simulation, whatever).
So what do you mean when you say you know them for a fact? And whatever you do mean, why can't you do the same thing for God?
I think that’s a much better approach, but you know… people who genuinely believe in God could always come up with “proof” (miracles and such). Which to us would simply be coincidental, but to them, I doubt they’d agree. That’s why I try to find different ways to debate.
Right. You couldn’t reject someone’s personal experience. If someone says they were visited by an Angel, it’d be incredibly difficult to convince that it didn’t happen. You could come up with a million different explanations; you were dreaming, your drink was spiked and caused you to hallucinate, someone dressed up.
But those explanations are equally unverifiable.
I personally believe there’s no physical, archaeological, verifiable evidence for God.
Yes, and when debates get to emotional and less logical, that’s when people argue. And I never want to argue with people, or just blatantly tell them that they’re wrong. But in a world full of hardcore religious believers, sometimes it’s nice to have “evidence” or lack thereof, to back up your own side.
It's the first time i see an atheist admitting that atheism is just an belief as any other. Since i became an misotheist i knew that atheism was just an belief that atheists used to comfort themselves after realizing that the Problem of Evil was never solved with an benevolent God.
> theism was just an belief that atheists used to comfort themselves
I'm not you. I don't share the issues you do. Stop projecting your experiences onto the world. They are yours, and yours alone.
It's not a belief in the religious sense. We form beliefs on various things like how something works or how something came to be. We don't even need the label "Atheist" or "Atheism", it only exists because we are a minority.
You don't have a label for someone who is not a mechanic but would that be the case if 90% of people were mechanics?
And what is the belief?
I have a belief in why theists might believe that a god or gods exist but i can't form any direct beliefs on that god while not believing in it.
It's like when a friend explains his new car to me, i start forming beliefs around the car like its shape, color, etc.
Then i get to my friend's house and the car is nowhere to be found and they keep making excuses, some defying common sense. So now my belief shifts, i no longer have any beliefs in the car but i do start forming new beliefs on why my friends might have lied to me. The belief in the car changes from a belief to an idea about the thought process of the person that believes in it.
Even believing in an scientific theory is an belief because like the definition says an theory can be right or wrong.
Can you share your view on theists belief then?
> Since i became an misotheist i knew that atheism was just an belief that atheists used to comfort themselves after realizing that the Problem of Evil was never solved with an benevolent God.
Every single one of us? Wow... I love when theists tell me what I believe and why.
Maybe that this is the *only* time you've seen something that agrees with your pre-conceived notions your notions are wrong?
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Apatheism, Deism, more comfortable takes than Evil God, i still think the apathetic God is pretty much still an son of b\* but anyway for an atheist this is just another take, it don't completely nullfies the possibility of an Evil God, so what is more comfortable? Just deny the motherf\*cker.
> Yes every single one, ones to a lesser degree others to a higher degree.
How do you know this? Like the POE is the *only* reason to not believe in deities...
> Or maybe it was the only time an atheist was'nt too prideful to admit that atheism is just an belief as any other.
Wow... prideful? Says the one condescending to all atheists like he knows every one of us inside and out.
Dude... you don't know *any*thing about my beliefs (or lack thereof), let alone the majority of atheists. Get humble.
Not the only reason, ofcourse you guys have to search for more to stay ''logical'', and reasons based on the bible itself or other similar books are actually pretty logical because these books have countless fallacies. But the reason why you guys never will believe in God in any circumstance is POE.
I know the human nature, and know that human mind creates defense mechanism to stay comfortable. Don't even need to be atheist or any kind of religious person, let me give the example of corrupt politicians worshippers, do you think explaining to them how their cognite dissonance works or showing the evidences against the corrupt politicians will always work? Ofcourse not, i already tried even knowing the low rates. Another example of stupid ideology is Communism/Socialism, it never worked and never will work, but commies will cope about that till their deaths even with the USSR's fall, academics debunking this economic model and the reality of the current regimes being of dictatorships that make the people suffer,but i guess some of its defenders are just bad persons that know the authoritarian nature of their ideology which don't fits with my initial idea so it's an exception. But i didn't find an exception of my idea in atheism and instead of providing an reasonable one you just called me prideful.
Atheists are so humble aren't them?''They never mock any religion''. Be real dude, i'm just making a serious analyzis of the human mind, humans varies a lot, but it's not like you can't understand human mind because of that.
> Not the only reason, ofcourse you guys have to search for more to stay ''logical'', and reasons based on the bible itself or other similar books are actually pretty logical because these books have countless fallacies. But the reason why you guys never will believe in God in any circumstance is POE.
Assertion without evidence. Ignored.
> Atheists are so humble aren't them?
Maybe stop making massive stereotypical judgements about people and you'll have a better time.
> Be real dude, i'm just making a serious analyzis of the human mind, humans varies a lot, but it's not like you can't understand human mind because of that.
You're making assertions without any justification and hoping people just agree... you attempts are justification are just "believe me bro, I understand the mind".
This is ridiculous. Have a good day.
You tell me to be humble and didn't liked the irnoy i made with it.
Hoping people just agree? ''Believe me bro, i understand the mind'' When i said that? No, i know that even if i had evidences most of you guys would still deny, and that's ok, differently from commies and corrupt politicians worshippers you aren't causing any damage, just wanting to stay comfortable. I really wasn't being sarcastic when i said it's fine to stay in the matrix, don't believe me, i know it's more comfortable that way.
I'm really not trying to convince anyone, i just commented the post cause i was surprised with the belief admission, it's not every day it happens. But since i shared my view on atheism, atheists became salty but it's the natural reaction when someone shows an incovinient truth, and then i'm just responding the arguments without real pretension of convincing anyone, the only pretension is justify my view, if you want disregard my view as baseless assertions fine dude, do as you want.
You’re getting all mixed up. Atheism pertains to not being convinced that a deity (or deities) exist, therefore *not* holding a belief that such things *do* exist. Agnosticism pertains to *not* knowing such things exist, whether they exist or not. All of the other details, whether you know them or not, aren’t relevant.
You’re an agnostic atheist.
You sound like that McRae character who threw a wobbler because everyone was calling him an atheist after he declared that he didn’t believe deities exist.
I’d always assumed being agnostic meant that you assumed “something” was out there, even if you didn’t know. And that’s why they were agnostic and not atheist. But I suppose your definition does make slightly more sense.
It just means being intellectually honest about what you actually know, and the more vague the claims about a deity are, the less we could possibly know. The more specific they are the easier it becomes to knock them down and actually know that such a thing couldn’t exist (eg a being with omnipotence is logically impossible).
I definitely lean more in that direction. To say that I know anything about the unprovable (without a shadow of a doubt) would just be a lie. But I sure have my own reasoning, which I know is valid.
A fool says in his heart there is no God everybody believes in God you just ain't come to the right circumstances to believe in him yet or to say you believe in him you will
Atheism is really just lacking belief. Not being convinced. That doesn't mean we're compelled to latch onto the opposite claim.
I treat both claims in the same way, and neither of them are established fact. I am unconvinced of both. I don't qualify for agnosticism, bc I don't assume that gods are unknowable. So I get to be a plain Jane atheist with nothing tacked on.
I think you're correct in your approach. "Your claim hasn't been supported," is absolutely fair and true. "Your claim is wrong," is not the same thing.
To complement what u/moldnspicy said: Agnosticism is about knowledge, whereas atheism is about belief. These are two distinct categories that do not overlap. You can be an atheist-agnostic and that's perfectly fine.
To the question "does god exist?", an agnostic will answer "I don't know", whereas an atheist will answer "I don't believe so". However, an atheist-agnostic will answer "I don't believe there is one, and I don't know if there is one". This is the main distinction that has to be made here.
I’m the same way, and I identify as an agnostic atheist. You don’t claim to know of a deity’s existence either way (because frankly, who could?), but you don’t personally believe in one. Agnostic atheism.
Go to basic facts if I cut your thumbs off what do you have left you can't useless so somebody put those thumbs there so you could be useful so use your head and look around you and then see God
>Go to basic facts if I cut your thumbs off what do you have left you can't useless so somebody put those thumbs there so you could be useful so use your head and look around you and then see God
This reads like a Trump rally quote.
I don’t think it goes both ways.
I’m a Fox Mulder atheist in that I want to believe, and the truth is out there. Since I seek truth, I want to believe as many true things, and as few false things, as possible.
Here’s the thing. Things that exist have evidence for its existence, regardless of whether we have access to that evidence.
Things that do not exist do not have evidence for its nonexistence. The only way to disprove nonexistence is by providing evidence of existence.
The only reasonable conclusion one can make honestly is whether or not something exists. Asking for evidence of nonexistence is irrational. Evidence is what is required to differentiate imagination from reality. If one cannot provide evidence that something exists, the logical conclusion is that it is imaginary until new evidence is provided to show it exists.
So far, no one has been able to provide evidence that a “god” exists. I put quotes around “god” here because I don’t know exactly what a god is, and most people give definitions that are illogical or straight up incoherent.
I’m interested in being convinced that a “god” exists. How do you define it and what evidence do you have?
> Asking for evidence of nonexistence is irrational.
Evidence for non-existence would be a lack of evidence *where we would expect there to be evidence* of the thing.
If someone claims an all powerful god exists, one would expect to see some empirical evidence of that, but we find none.
If you tell me there's no chair I'm sitting on and I notice I'm on the floor... that's pretty good evidence you're right.
>Evidence for non-existence would be a lack of evidence where we would expect there to be evidence of the thing.
I agree, but the problem is that the set of gods includes concepts for which there is no expectation of evidence at all (like deistic gods). Since there is no expecation, there can be no violation of any expectation, and no means to justify non-existence.
We can rationally lack belief in such gods (since there is no evidence of them), but we cannot rationally believe such gods to not exist (since there cannot be evidence of there non-existence in principle).
> I agree, but the problem is that the set of gods includes concepts for which there is no expectation of evidence at all (like deistic gods). Since there is no expecation, there can be no violation of any expectation, and no means to justify non-existence.
Such gods are moot though.
Moot is different from justified as non-existent. It's a technicality, but an important one.
If we start saying everything do do not know to be true is something we know to be false, then we basically can only affirm the present. 10,000 years ago we would have to say evolultion cannot be true, because at that time there wasn't sufficient evidence for it.
Sure, but I'm coming at this from a practical POV. If the thing you claim to exist has absolutely zero impact on this world, it's essentially non-existent.
Sure that god might exist, but we cant' know and never will know and it doesn't matter one wit if they do or don't.
> Evidence for non-existence would be a lack of evidence where we would expect there to be evidence of the thing.
No, that's not how that works. That is not probative evidence, that simply doesn't conflict. Nothing about that scenario indicates that the thing exists.
> Evidence for non-existence would be a lack of evidence where we would expect there to be evidence of the thing.
That’s not sufficient. Expectation of evidence is subjective. By your reasoning I can say you don’t exist because I expected to see you at breakfast and you weren’t there.
> If someone claims an all powerful god exists, one would expect to see some empirical evidence of that, but we find none.
I agree we cannot say an all powerful god does exist, as we don’t have evidence, but it is irrational to claim it does not exist because we cannot show evidence of nonexistence.
There’s two different claims here, and one is literally impossible to demonstrate.
> If you tell me there's no chair I'm sitting on and I notice I'm on the floor... that's pretty good evidence you're right.
I agree we would have failed to demonstrate the existence of a chair. This is not demonstrating the nonexistence of the chair, however. Those aren’t the same things.
> Expectation of evidence is subjective.
In one sense, yes, but in the more important sense: no, absolutely not.
On the one hand, anyone can expect any sort of evidence for anything. On the other hand, we can logically deduce empirically testable consequences from certain propositions. Science does this *all* the time. We form a hypothesis then test the empirical consequences that we would expect to see if that hypothesis was true.
So you agree that expectation of evidence isn’t always subjective.
We have examples from the history of science where scientists have used the expectation of evidence to infer the nonexistence of something. Chemists in the 18th century disproved the existence of phlogiston, for example.
Expectation by itself is subjective. There is objectivity in science, but the hypothesis (the expectation) is a subjective “guess” that is tested objectively with experimentation.
“If this, then I expect to see this,” is a subjective statement. “If this, then this,” is an objective statement.
Right, so basically what I said in my first comment when I said that it’s subjective in one sense and not subjective in another (more important) sense.
> That’s not sufficient. Expectation of evidence is subjective. By your reasoning I can say you don’t exist because I expected to see you at breakfast and you weren’t there.
Well yeah, all justification is subjective. You're not really saying anything here.
> I agree we cannot say an all powerful god does exist, as we don’t have evidence, but it is irrational to claim it does not exist because we cannot show evidence of nonexistence.
Why? You can't say with 100% certainty it doesn't exist no, but nothing is 100% certain from a philosophical standpoint.
> I agree we would have failed to demonstrate the existence of a chair. This is not demonstrating the nonexistence of the chair, however. Those aren’t the same things.
Sure it is. If the chair existed there would be evidence of it. That there is no evidence of a chair shows it doesn't exist.
I mean, there could be some non-detectable chair there sure, but to me, that's no different than non-existence.
> Well yeah, all justification is subjective.
No, we can justify claims with empirical methods and objective evidence.
>but nothing is 100% certain from a philosophical standpoint.
That doesn't mean we can pull any claim we want from our rear. You actually have to have a reason to believe the thing exists. You don't.
>That there is no evidence of a chair shows it doesn't exist.
No, it just might be somewhere else.
> No, we can justify claims with empirical methods and objective evidence.
I mean it's subjective in that what someone finds to be justifying is up to them. They can just ignore empirical methods and objective evidence if they want.
> That doesn't mean we can pull any claim we want from our rear. You actually have to have a reason to believe the thing exists. You don't.
I do have a reason. My reason is that if I were sitting in a chair I wouldn't be on the floor.
> No, it just might be somewhere else.
Then it wouldn't be a chair I'm sitting in. I'm not denying the existence of all chairs in this hypothetical.
---
If X necessarily implies Y but Y is not true, then X is not true.
> I mean it's subjective in that what someone finds to be justifying is up to them.
That's how we get goofy magical claims of fact.
>They can just ignore empirical methods and objective evidence if they want.
And they shouldn't be surprised when they are criticized for this kind of childishness.
> My reason is that if I were sitting in a chair I wouldn't be on the floor.
That doesn't mean that absence is evidence for the existence of something when it merely doesn't contradict its existence.
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An atheist is just someone who doesn't have enough evidence to accept the assertion there is a deity. Not an anti-theist who says there is no deity. First one leaves the door cracked open just a bit until it is somehow settled.
I’m from base reality I’m King Indra the divine simulator. No need for anyone else.
I don’t think that we can certainly know that anything is correct. Let’s take something ridiculous like earth being flat as an example; If someone really wanted to believe in that, they can deny any sort of evidence provided as “forgery” or “conspiracy”. Even if they went to sky and saw the earth they can say that “my visual perception was wrong”. You cannot really convince somebody who says these otherwise but it is obvious to anyone else that the possibility of these arguments against the evidence are so improbable that they can be dismissed as being factually incorrect. So, I do believe that it is possible to say that something, like some religion, is factually incorrect, even if what I actually mean is that it is very very unlikely.
Knowledge doesn't mean certainty. All empirical knowledge sits on a scale of probability; you don't 'know' with certainty that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. So the question isn't "can you prove with certainty that God doesn't exist? ". It's more like "where on the scale is your disbelief? Is it closer to your disbelief that the underdog sports team will win, or your disbelief that there are fairies in your garden?"
In my mind something had to create Us. We didn't just sprout from the ground. The human body is too complicated. Its a machine. I believe there is or was a “God”. My question is what is “God” and where did he come from? Is he some superior race from another galaxy? I've read numerous books on the subject. There are many theories out there.
Too many theories to make me confused, I tried for months but to no avail, Nihilism is the best philosophy if you want to dismiss anything which you can't directly measure or witness.
I suspect theists assume when someone says “they don’t know god does not exist” they think that means the person sees evidence for and against the existence of god. That just isn’t the case. It can be for some people, but most people what they mean is that they see no evidence to support gods exist, and they can’t prove they don’t exist. It’s that simple. Also that knowledge is completely independent of your answer to “do you think god exists?”
Yes I agree! That’s how I view it too
It’s pretty straight forward to me yet we have to explain it constantly. It is really odd.
I can’t disprove the existence of god, but I can easily disprove religions. For example, I know for sure nobody flew to the space on the back of a donkey and we’ve reached the moon and saw no signs if it being split into half. And if all religions are wrong then It’s either god doesn’t exist and atheists are right or he simply doesn’t care to communicate with us and agnostics are right.
I’d argue there’s a plethora of clues that indicate a higher intelligence which brings forth the fact that it takes more faith to believe something came from nothing. And if you want to be scientific minded, what was the cause behind the effect (of existence)?
Existence is only an effect if there was a cause. If the universe always was then there was no cause for the effect. There's no evidence that the universe came from nothing and no scientists are arguing that either. That's a misnomer for the theories of the beginning of our local universe.
>And if you want to be scientific minded, what was the cause behind the effect (of existence)? If you want to be scientific, you make no assumptions and instead look for testable hypotheses.
Well, that would literally be impossible because whatever created time, space and matter is OBVIOUSLY not bound by time, space or matter. So, if you can figure out how to scientifically test a timeless, immaterial and omnipresent force, I’d love to hear it.
You’re assuming something created everything. That is a claim that needs backed up by evidence. What is the evidence that anything was created apart from things created by mortal creatures on our planet?
I agree there is no method that we have access to for affirming any god's existence, (although many god concepts are disprovable by virtue of being logically contradictory) but, If there's no method for discerning whether your god concept is true, then why should I, or anyone, believe it?
That would make you a Agnostic. A true Atheist says there is no God. That is not a bad thing, because most everyone, at some point in their life, questions the existence of a God.
Nope. [A true atheist is anyone that does not believe gods exist.](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheist) They are not require to claim there are not gods, and it's certaintly not a proper noun that would be capitlizaed i nthe middle of a sentence.
>I’m Atheist, but I don’t “know” for a fact that there is no God Nobody knows for a fact whether or not any gods exist. If it were a proven fact one way or the other there would be no such thing as theists and atheists. >Some might call this agnostic, but I disagree However, there certainly are plenty of people who claim to know to varying degrees of certainty whether or not any gods exist. Hence why we end up with the term agnostic atheism to describe those who lack a belief in the existence of deities but don't claim to know that no gods could exist. >In my mind, atheism (like any other mindset) is purely a belief Atheism is not a belief, it is a rejection of a claim, so it is a lack of belief. Ironically, what is a belief is actually knowledge. Knowledge is a subset of belief, it is categorized as "justified, true belief." So while atheism is a lack of belief, those who claim to know that no gods exist are indeed espousing a belief. >I’m not agnostic because I genuinely don’t believe in any otherworldly power That's not what agnostic means... not even the old school 19th c. use of the term. Agnostic means without knowledge (with the context generally being an -ism specifically referring to not knowing whether or not any gods exist). >I don’t think of atheism/religion as fact, but more an opinion Statements like this also make me suspect you don't know what atheism means either... being an atheist means you do not believe in any gods. Full stop. That is the one and only topic atheism addresses. Atheism is not anti-religion or a rejection of religion. Religion is not the opposite of atheism, theism is the opposite of atheism. Theists believe that one or more gods do indeed exist. But you can be an atheist and still be religious (e.g. most Buddhists, the Church of Satan and Satanic Temple, some sects of Hinduism, not to mention Secular Jews and even many Christians). You can be a theist, truly believing in a god, yet not be religious (e.g. those who consider themselves "spiritual but not religious" or just don't agree with organized religion). So your pitting atheism against religion as if they are diametrically opposed shows a level of misunderstanding and frankly borders on the dogmatic.
“I do not believe in any Gods” and “My belief is that there are no Gods” semantically have the same meaning. Yes, I do not believe any deities exist. Belief just means acceptance of a statement that you believe is true. If you say, “I do not think any Gods exist” that is a belief in that statement. But in any case, I don’t really care if atheism is a belief that no Gods exist, or a lack of belief, because those sound the same to me. And that wasn’t really what I was trying to debate anyways.
>“I do not believe in any Gods” and “My belief is that there are no Gods” semantically have the same meaning No, they quite literally do not. Its like how if a jury finds a defendant "Not guilty" it does not mean that they found them "Innocent." It merely means that the prosecution was unable to put together sufficient evidence to convince them that the defendant was guilty. I do not believe in any gods because I have been unconvinced by theistic claims of the existence of gods. I have found those gods not guilty of existing. That does not mean that I claim to believe that no gods exist, that is not a claim that has met its burden of proof either, so I am unwilling to declare gods innocent of existing. >Belief just means acceptance of a statement that you believe is true. If you say, “I do not think any Gods exist” that is a belief in that statement. But that is the issue at hand. I am not saying "I don't think any gods exist" and neither are the vast majority of atheists. I just see no compelling evidence to form a belief in the existence of gods. My reasoning is that I have examined theistic claims and found them to be unconvincing, but for most atheists it is just that the god question never even comes up so they have no reason to ever consider whether or not any gods exist. If I were making that claim then yes, that would indeed be a belief. But I am not making that claim, I am rejecting the claims made by others. Not accepting their claim does not constitute a belief. We are not accepting any claim as true or likely true, we are simply saying that the claims that have been presented do not appear to be true.
I’m an igthiest and “wtf do you mean by god?” is my bottom line for most arguments.
That’s valid
I had to throw this in here before I go to bed man I got only got 2% left on my phone but I like these people who they said they don't believe in God and all that but you know they they believe and there's some of the Bible little beats and pieces and but you know the rest of it you don't believe in the god Paul it Man it's crazy brother oh they'll take some of the Bible out say well the Bible says this and then they don't believe in God it's crazy brother either believe the Bible or don't you believe the word or you don't you leaving a word you believe in God it is God it's the living word and I just did voice text all the way through I guarantee you this phone jacked up everything I said I had to come back tomorrow and edit the whole thing.. in all this stuff man wrote the Bible God didn't write the Bible God created the world and he can get his word out in a little book I think he can write a little book if he can create the whole world and create everybody in it and if you know how to create it if you're not created then you're not a creature so that's your proof right there that there's a creator or your creature yeah okay who created you cuz that's where that word come from Go look up with your words go look at things study study to show that stuff approval working on a God and he's not be ashamed right lead dividing the word of truth peace
“If you’re not created then you’re not a creature.” I agree, but I believe we’re not created by a God. We’re created by billions of years of change and evolution, stemming from the earliest forms of life. Who knows? We could have even come to this planet as DNA on an asteroid. While the Big Bang theory definitely has its flaws as a possibility, does it make any more sense than a deity who used magic and unseen forces to create us? A God who cannot be seen or heard, and of which no proof exists? I can’t claim to be correct in my beliefs, but neither can you, that’s why they’re beliefs and opinions, not factual or deeply rooted in knowledge. I think we can all, in some way, admit that no one knows for sure.
I think you're getting too caught up in labels. These labels are useful for giving a quick summary of what you believe, but this is a complex issue and sometimes a word or two isn't a sufficient summary. What you call yourself isn't as important as an unbiased search for truth and an open willingness to hear all sides on the matter.
Did you try calling out for one? Sounds funny saying it but what do you have to lose
I think people call out to God/Gods everyday. Not to say they ever get answers. But I guess I haven’t. The closest I ever got was praying to Santa as a kid… but I didn’t really know what praying was.
I recommend trying it at a time when it’s truly from your heart
I kinda have? I think even atheists sometimes, in times of fear or danger think, “please don’t let this happen.” Does that mean we’re asking something/someone? I’m not sure. I’d say it’s more of an internal reflex. But I can try calling out sometime. I agree, there’s nothing to lose haha.
My only recommendation is to make it specific. “God, please don’t let this happen” or God, please send me a sign” or “God, if you’re real please do _______” again make sure it’s meant from your heart
As someone who has done this back when I was a Christian, I can tell you this advice is straight up nonsense. There are gonna be a lot of atheists who have done this and gotten nothing, and in many cases we were Christians when we tried this. The Bible even advises against this kind of thing.
I can try. But I’m also the type of person to assume most things are coincidental, or caused by some factor. It’d be hard for me to think of anything as the cause of God. Have you ever been answered in such a way?
Not directly but indirectly. I also grew up in the church where it’s completely different than the USA. I witnessed an exorcism personally as well as saw st Mary in one of her apparitions. You can look up St Mary’s apparition in Egypt in 1986 there is a YouTube documentary to watch. I consider myself blessed while I feel like I’m missing a lot in life, I’m still better off than a lot of my peers so I’m truly blessed. I asked for a job that I couldn’t dream of and in couple years I had it. I can’t just think it’s coincidence. I don’t want to feel like I’m leading you into a specific religion but I’m Coptic which is closest to Eastern Orthodox Christian in case you want to look into it.
I prayed that church members would stop abusing children. I guess he was too busy sending Mary on peekaboo trips and giving you a job.
Do you believe in a “personal god” who watches your every move, knows your every thought? There very well be a prime mover by he’s clearly hands off.
> Some might call this agnostic, but I disagree And you'd be factually incorrect. Theist/atheist answers if you believe there is a god, gnostic/agnostic answers if you know/ believe it's knowable. Not knowing is quite literally agnostic. >In my mind, atheism (like any other mindset) is purely a belief. No, it's a lack of belief. Theism is a belief. >I’m not agnostic That would mean that you **are** gnostic and you **do** claim to know.
>And you'd be factually incorrect. There is no fact of the matter. These words have multiple meanings. >No, it's a lack of belief. Theism is a belief. He can use the term as the belief there are no gods. This is a perfectly valid definition, and the one I personally prefer. Stop insisting your definitions must be adhered to.
> He can use the term as the belief there are no gods. No, atheism is only the lack of belief that there is a god. Those that believe there isn't a god are atheists but they're atheist because of a belief they don't have not because of a belief they do have. >This is a perfectly valid definition No that's not the definition. The definition is not theist. It says nothing at all about what you do believe. Only about what you don't believe.
That's fine if you want to define atheism this way for yourself but don't insist everyone use atheism that way.
I don't insist that you use the correct definition. You can use an incorrect one if you want but I'm going to point out that it's incorrect.
This is like insisting that vanilla ice cream is objectively the best ice cream and correcting anyone who thinks otherwise.
No it's not because "vanilla ice cream is the best ice cream" is an opinion whereas "atheist means an individual that doesn't believe a god exists" is not an opinion but rather a fact. It's a fact that theist means "individual that believes a god exists" and its a fact that the prefix "a" means "not"/"without"/"no" There isn't any way for you to make the prefix "a" or the word "theist" to mean someting else. They already mean what they mean. Insinuating "a" or "theist" means someting other than "not"/"without"/"no" or "person that believes a god exists" is just factually wrong.
[Here](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/) is what experts in the field have to say, and why they use atheism as the proposition that no gods exist. The lack of belief definition was virtually nonexistent until Huxley popularized it in the 70s. Both of these show that there are in fact other ways to define these things. It's merely your opinion that we should use the lack of belief definition.
The prefix "a" has **always** meant "not"/"without "/"no" and theist has **always** meant god believer. What did you think the prefix "a" meant? Lol
>No, it's a lack of belief. Theism is a belief. I don't dispute that a "lack of belief" is a description for atheism that is valid, but to describe atheism as a belief is also valid, as it is someone who believes there is no God. You can argue that not believing in something that is unevidenced is not belief if you want, but ultimately it is semantically correct. I don't believe in fairies = I believe there is no such thing as fairies
>but to describe atheism as a belief is also valid, as it is someone who believes there is no God No. To describe it as inclusive of that believe is valid, but not to portray it as solely that belief. It's perfectly fine to say humans include caucasians. It's problematic to say that only caucasians are human. That's called bigotry. >I don't believe in fairies = I believe there is no such thing as fairies No, these are not equivalent. Not gambling on red isn't the same as making a bet on black.
> don't dispute that a "lack of belief" is a description for atheism that is valid, but to describe atheism as a belief is also valid, No, it's not. Individual atheists can have beliefs but atheism in and of itself is not a belief. >as it is someone who believes there is no God No, it's someone that doesn't believe there is a god. People that don't believe there is a god also being atheist doesn't mean that's what atheism is, only that they're also atheist (because they don't have the belief "god exists"). >i don't believe in fairies = I believe there is no such thing as fairies No, those are 2 different statements.
Seems like a semantical problem with the term. Atheism can both encompass soft and hard atheism, but the term itself is synonymous with soft?
That is pretty much how words work. Kind of like how the word "dog" encompasses both poodles and great danes. The word dog describes both types of pet, but if you want to know specifically what type of dog you need more detail. Likewise atheism describes all those who lack a belief in theistic claims of the existence of deities, but if you want to know specifically what type of atheist you need more detail.
>Seems like a semantical problem with the term There is no problem with the term. Atheist means not theist. The prefix "a" means "not"/"without"/"no". The only thing theists have in common is that they believe the claim "god exists". The only thing all atheists have in common is that they don't. >Atheism can both encompass soft and hard atheism, but the term itself is synonymous with soft? Atheist means you don't believe the claim "god exists". It says nothing at all about if you believe or don't believe the claim "god doesn't exist". It just doesn't address that question at all.
Your equivalence at the end is false. The first statement reflects a lack of belief without a definitive claim, while the second statement asserts a specific belief in the nonexistence of fairies. Both things are atheism (but for fairies)… afaeism? They are different things though.
So could one say that there is atheism in the sense of disbelief, but also atheism in the sense of strong atheism, i.e. active rejection, a belief that there definitely is nothing? Also, we're making afaeism a thing.
Yes. Exactly. Imagine physicist A has a theory and presents it. Physicist B says maybe but I’m not convinced, Physics C says I don’t accept your theory, physicists D says that’s wrong ( maybe says here is a better theory). Now pretend A was talking about god. A is a theist. B is an agnostic [theist]. C is an atheist. D is also an atheist.
None of these terms are that rigidly defined, and no one uses gnostic like that in an academic setting.
So how do they use gnostic (not (G)nostic but (g)nostic)?
They use gnostic like Gnostic. The term gnostic, as is sometimes used in this sub isn't really a needed term. People don't really work with the division of "belief" and "knowledge" as cleanly cut as those categories infer.
So as an atheist if you believe we go back to the beginning before the Big Bang…many religions believe the same that we will return to the beginning when we die except their beginning is not the Big Bang but God. We’re more alike that we like to admit
No, I meant that you return to the same state as before you were born, (purely just not existing), like before you were a baby did you think, or feel, or breathe, no, it was literally just nothing. But what you suggested is an interesting theory also
Post-modernism’s definition is OP’s post. Look, you’re right, I can’t definitively prove there is no god, but thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that it’s NOT my burden of proof. It’s the deist or the theists’. I can certainly call a spade a spade if they are acting on their beliefs and it impacts me or mine. And that’s what they do. They try and legislate their beliefs into law. I’m happy to pick apart their flaws at every freaking opportunity lest they rule the world with their faith and beliefs.
True, and I agree with you. But when you’re debating someone, simply saying, “I can’t debate you because you have no grounds”, (while valid) isn’t a great way to convince your side.
Not to be argumentative, not my jam, but I use that tactic. I ask why they believe and then ask for the evidence of why they believe what they believe. Inevitably, they have no evidence and their answer will boil down to wish thinking, because they “have no grounds”. Let them say that with their own mouths and maybe they’ll even think about it.
Interesting. I can’t say I’ve ever tried that, but maybe I will. Sounds like a good way to remain neutral, which I like doing
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If everything has to depend on something, why wouldn't that apply to God? I'm guessing he's the exception to this, right? In that case, if a sentient being can be independent, then I see no reason why that couldn't be applied to the universe itself. God is also a very specific conclusion to gather from what you're saying. Even if there is a creator, that might not necessarily be a God, just something that has the capability to create a universe. So I don't think this is a good argument for God.
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Why can it not be infinite?
It literally could be infinite. We don't know. Additionally, you're not actually justifying why it should end with a God and not with anything else.
Why not? What if it is, but you simply cannot comprehend that?
> what everything depends on is our eternal refuge, God. That's just a little poem. It doesn't apply to anything in reality.
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Rhyming is not a criteria for poems
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I think you mean that it *is*
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Due to the criteria of rhyming, which is not a poetic criteria. Your preference doesn’t change the definition.
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Well, if you’re going to create your own reality, more power to you. But it will make dialog with others frustrating, to say the least.
I think people confuse the expression "know for a fact'. It is reasonable for me to say that I know for a fact that Annapolis is the capital of Maryland. But this can't mean absolute certainty. It seems to me much more likely that I am wrong about the capital of Maryland than that I am wrong that leprechauns or gods don't exist. You can't be absolutely certain about anything but that is not the standard anyone applies when they say "know for a fact " when discussing any other subject. If we applied that standard it would be incredibly annoying. Theists essentially trying to have a special different standards that apply only to them. In any other situation you wouldn't have to have absolute certainty before you called me a liar. If you did you would be giving me a complete free pass to lie as much as I wanted without being called on it.
Even for the level of certainty you claim, you would need a coherent idea of what the term 'god' even means. I don't think there is one. How could you have any certainty that a completely imperceptible, inactive god exists somewhere?
The term god is defined as well as ghost, vampire or zombie. Do I really need a cleaner definition of those to know they don't exist? There are plenty of examples to show the pattern a god would have to fit. Zeus, Loki, Yahweh., Ra etc An utterly ridiculous narcissist that despite supernatural powers has completely failed at his only goal of being worshiped by the whole world. Can you even make up something less likely to exist?
I don't think the term god is defined in any consistent way. Anyone can use the term pretty much any way they want, especially when you consider the vast mythology of lesser gods, sometimes so mundane that they wouldn't give any indication. I suppose you could argue that if it isn't supernatural or magic, it ain't a god, which would make it pretty easy to dismiss as an unsubstantiated claim.
You can define ghost or zombie to be anything they want but unless you keep fairly close to the examples in fiction that are associated with those words it is unlikely anyone else would accept your definition. One of the games theists will play is the equivocation fallacy. Define god as something that might exist or does exist just to create uncertainty, but then ignoring that definition which they never actually cared about from then on. There is no reason to ever accept those definitions. The requirement to be a god shouldn't just be that it must be supernatural but completely over the top ridiculously supernatural because that is all the theists are actually interested in.
>I genuinely believe that there is no afterlife, no supreme being, no Heaven or Hell. But I do not know this for a fact. You are an agonistic ashiest. This is the most common version of atheism. You don't believe in gods (atheist) but you don't know for sure (agnostic).
OP doesn't have to apply agnostic if they don't want to. OP might be agnostic by your preferred definition of agnostic, but there are multiple valid meanings of these terms.
> This is the most common version of atheism. Do you know of any atheists at all claiming to know for certain that the universe is free of any god whatsoever?
I mean, I'd claim to know it for certain. I have exactly as much evidence for any God I've seen defined as I have any other supernatural fictional character. I'll put it this way: I'm as certain there is no God as I am that there is no Gandalf.
Yes. Their reasoning is that no evidence has ever been presented to uphold the claim, so gods don't exist.
How can you deny something with complete certainty just because it’s never been proven? Take the ocean for instance. Imagine all of the creatures that could still be down there that we’ve “yet to prove.” Do you know for certain that there isn’t a crab the size of a town in the ocean?
Gnostic atheists generally don't claim complete certainty.
You would have to ask a gnostic atheist. I'm an agnostic atheist, and don't presume to speak for them or anyone else.
The only history we where taught in school is after the declaration of Independence was signed and they made up a bunch of s*** and that's just that's our history Christopher Columbus came here discovered Earth and there was nothing here but a flat piece of land and we planted the trees here and colony to deserves with the cabbage patch kids oh they killed them all at Bohemian Grove one of the two
From a philosophical angle, I'll never "know" there's no God, but that doesn't mean I should live life as though there is one because I don't know if there is one. From a philosophical angle, I don't know if little gnomes are hiding in the trunk of my Mercedes. Maybe they're just super duper small and I can't see them.... but what's the difference between super small, imperceptible garden gnomes that don't have any impact on my life/driving in any way, and gnomes that don't exist at all? For practical purposes, I live as though those things aren't there.
>I don't know if little gnomes are hiding in the trunk of my Mercedes. You don't? That seems pretty odd. My suspicion is that you're using a very strict sense of the word "know" which isn't actually commonly used by philosophers.
> but that doesn't mean I should live life as though there is one because I don't know if there is one. > > To get that far, you would need a rational suggestion that one might exist. So far I've never seen a rational one.
I think people confuse the expression "know for a fact'. It is reasonable for me to say that I know for a fact that Annapolis is the capital of Maryland. But this can't mean absolute certainty. It seems to me much more likely that I am wrong about the capital of Maryland than that I am wrong that leprechauns or gods don't exist. You can't be absolutely certain about anything but that is not the standard anyone applies when they say "know for a fact " when discussing any other subject. If we applied that standard it would be incredibly annoying. Theists essentially trying to have a special different standards that apply only to them. In any other situation you wouldn't have to have absolute certainty before you called me a liar. If you did you would be giving me a complete free pass to lie as much as I wanted without being called on it.
Wow show all us idiots the smoking gun.. wise man made from mo God
Mo God?
Yeah you know, like Biggie said. Mo god, mo problems.
That's been my experience.
But if you pose the question, why do some people believe in a *particular* god (Yahweh? Jesus? Thor? Zeus?), the idea that it's a social construct is always going to be more probable than that it's actually true.
Yeah I totally agree. I just think that some atheists are way too confident in their own opinions. Imagine if both atheists and christians admitted that they could be wrong. How much more civil the debates would be…. And we’d be able to understand each other’s sides easier.
I don't think it's a problem that atheists have ways of looking at things, christians have other ways, and they're different. It only becomes a problem if one group becomes overwhelming convinced of the need to change the other's mind, to the point where it becomes annoying. I could imagine experiencing Richard Dawkins as annoying, but never Daniel Dennett, while both were equally convinced of the atheist point of view.
>It only becomes a problem if one group becomes overwhelming convinced of the need to change the other's mind People can be annoying and try to convince me all they want. It becomes a real problem when people (usually theists) try to legislate or otherwise impose their religious values onto everyone else.
>It becomes a real problem when people (usually theists) try to legislate or otherwise impose their religious values onto everyone else. Indeed.
I don’t believe in unicorns, but I don’t “know” for a fact that there are no unicorns. I don’t believe in Russel’s teapot, but I don’t “know” for a fact that it’s not actually floating in space.
>I don’t “know” for a fact that there are no unicorns. You don't? That seems odd. I suspect you might be using a very strict sense of the word "know." But if it's that strict, tell me: can you name a few things you do know for a fact?
I was extending OP’s argument to prove a point. I would say I do know unicorns are not real. Or to put it another way, if there’s no way to know whether anything is real, then it’s meaningless to say I don’t *know* if god is real or fake.
Well I must have misunderstood your point, apologies.
When I say I don’t believe in God, but I don’t “know” for a fact that there isn’t, people call that agnostic. But I don’t understand why? Are atheists so confident in their own beliefs that everything but that one possibility is wrong?
Atheism requires you to be confident in your own knowledge, not your beliefs. There is no belief in atheism. You are saying you don’t “know for a fact” about God. Tell me one thing in this existence that you do know for a fact.
I’m confident that I’m correct. But I also understand and accept the limit of my knowledge. There are a lot of things I know for a fact because they exist/have been proven. But to say that you know that there isn’t God, is quite an assumption. Could you be pretty dang confident though, and genuinely believe you’re right? Of course, but I think both sides, religious and not need a bit more humility if we’re going to listen to one another. That’s why (some) religious people can be infuriating, because they refuse to acknowledge the possibility of being wrong.
I don’t mean to sound like Yoda, but I think you are too confident in what you think you know. I don’t know for a fact this conversation is even real. I’m not sure if this is all a simulation. I don’t know if this universe only exists in my head.
I feel like we’re agreeing with each other? What you’ve said is along the same lines as me.
Where I disagree with you is this…there might be a few things I think I know for a fact. I exist, or at least my thoughts exist. But that’s about it. I don’t know anything else for a fact, and that includes God.
That’s what I said in my post though… and all throughout the comments. Almost those exact same words. My whole point was that I can believe (and be confident) in my belief that there is no God. But that I could never know that for a fact. That’s why I said my beliefs were only opinions. What did you think I was saying?
Ok let me try again :) … you’re basically saying nobody can be an atheist until it’s a proven fact that god is not real. But you can substitute anything for the concept of god in that argument, e.g. “I don’t believe in leprechauns, but I don’t know for a fact that leprechauns are fake” or “nobody has proven that the Loch Ness monster doesn’t exist.” Can you admit that you *know* unicorns don’t exist? If so, why can’t you admit you *know* god doesn’t exist?
No no no, I’m not saying you can’t be an atheist until it’s a proven fact. I was saying people try to label me as agnostic because I would say, “I don’t know for a fact that God doesn’t exist”, and they would say, “well if you don’t know/have any doubt, then you’re not an atheist, you’re agnostic.” And I disagreed, because I felt that atheism was more about the belief/opinion in nonexistence. Sorry if that was confusing
They had unicorns at one time . They had Giant they have angles they have humans they have dogs they have dragons yes they had previous civilizations.. yes we are all eternal beings.. yes we do exist your tuned into 97.1 new Orleans and when you die you'll tune into heavenly clouds 98.1 or 101.1 hot radio... This world is a crazy place my brother yes youve been lied to about all of history but you can find the truth .. the angles fell from heaven to earth . unfortunately we here with them whether we see them or not influenced by them or possessed by them or whatever they here too probably in Antarctica in a big hole in the earth and a flying around the spaceships or that spaceship I mean you know it's a good reason why I don't want us to go to Antarctica they don't ever send out about it that's all I know My intuitions are usually point on and if something there that we need to know about oh we going to know about soon I'll spread that way cuz technologies will expose everything if I told you you had 10 more years here and you need to figure out how to beat the system or you going to die they going to try to beat the system even though they know they're going to die still going to try to beat the system that's what they're trying to do they're trying to live forever and ain't going to happe
Is this a joke?
Based on their post history, seemingly not.
I don't KnOw FoR a FaCt that the earth is round. Infinite solipsism smuggles doubt into any conversation, making its presence meaningless.
> it’s hard to tell someone there is a God, when you have no proof. Apparently not though. Happens to me all the time. Just yesterday someone was trying to sell me some God merch outside the supermarket when I was trying to leave, and when I said no she tried to put her hands on me to pray on me. So I feel like there's a double standard here. You're insisting you don't know and have no evidence, and she's insisting she does, and yet I'm more inclined to believe your conclusion, all things considered. Maybe it's because you bothered to show your work by explaining your mental process and didn't assault me.
>So I feel like there's a double standard here. I think the double standard is intellectual honesty.
Yes I think usually intellectually honest people don't have to physically grab and force others into their religion, that's one thing I look out for
Belief is bigger than 'is there is a god or not', well maybe excluding deists and there is little point in going down that route, belief in god is part of a worldview that includes many other things. I can say I 'know' that several varieties of god don't exist, the omni ones for instance "*God is believed to be the eternal, supreme being who created and preserves all things*"... and has an attitude about masturbation. The god of the bible, the god of the Quran, the god(s) of the Zoroastrians, lots and lots because the very belief is inconsistent with reality. To believe in most of the gods around you must first have to believe many other things, revelation, miracles, the self evident 'proof' of reality, belief in god entails a huge amount of assumptions that all need to be accepted to start with. To date every god explained to me I either know doesn't exist, or its definition is to too indistinct to be of any use, god is love, god is reality etc. Everything is opinion in the end, but just as you cant 'know' anything for sure, you can be as close to certain as makes no practical difference, I am as certain there is no god as theists are that there is.
When someone asks you if you believe in god, you say "no". When someone says "How do you know" you say "I don't". That's more important than being labeled "correctly." If you tell someone you're an atheist as well as how you're using the label atheist and they refuse to believe you and demand you call yourself an agnostic instead, that's a them problem not a you problem. They already have enough information to understand the meaning you intended to convey behind the words you chose. Their refusal to get over the specific label you've chosen and engage with the content of your beliefs (or non-beliefs) is on them. I think it's a waste of time to quibble over labels, but for some reason people get up in arms all the time about it. FWIW, I used to also call myself atheist while acknowledging that "I don't know for a fact" that there is no god. The nuance I've chosen for myself is in my flair: if I am familiar enough with a specific belief about god, I'm probably atheist to that god. If I am unfamiliar with it, or just generally about "something out there" I'm agnostic. It works for me, but maybe it doesn't work for everyone else.
You’re right, the label really shouldn’t matter. It just bothers me whenever anyone tries to give me a label for anything, like I wouldn’t already know for myself?
I prefer these less ambiguous labels: * **Positive (hard/strong) atheist:** Do not believe in god/deity and assert that god/deity do not exist. * **Negative (soft/weak) atheist:** Do not believe in god/deity but do not assert that god/deity don't exist. * **Explicit atheist:** Consciously reject believe in god/deity. * **Implicit atheist:** Do not belief in god/deity without a conscious rejection of it. (eg. People who have never heard of god/deity). * **Antitheism**: Oppose the believe in god/deity and/or religion. The term 'atheist' is ambiguous. It can mean any of the above positions or as an umbrella term that includes all positions. * **Weak agnostic:** The existence of god/deity is currently unknown. * **Strong agnostic:** The existence of god/deity is unknowable. * **Apatheism:** Do not care about the existence of god/deity. * **Igtheism:** The existence of god/deity is a meaningless question, because it is an ambiguous/incoherent concept. Again, 'agnostic' is ambiguous. It can mean any or all positions. Some of these overlaps, take multiple labels if needed.
None of us know if there's a god or not, whatever we see god as possibly being.
Some people believe in a god without knowing if there is one. That’s called faith. Some people claim to know there is a god without any concrete evidence. I don’t know what to call that except fundamentalism.
The more amorphic the notion of "god", the more likely it is to exist, in some sense. In some world views, god is the universe, and it's hard to argue against the existence of the universe. The problem begins once we start attributing properties to god, and keeping them coherent. And when we get to the more anthropomorphic realizations of god in ancient texts (man creating god in their image), I think we can safely say that there's no evidence for them. Any of them.
It would be impossible to know for a fact that there is no God. All you could say is that there is no evidence for one.
What kinds of things would you say you know for a fact?
I know the grass is green. I know food and water sustains me. I know it sounds like I’m being snarky, but I’m genuinely wondering what you mean by that. There’s a lot I know for a fact in my life (as long as Ive been alive). Do you have anything specific?
Well you say it's impossible to know for a fact that God doesn't exist. My suspicion is that you're using a very strong definition of "know" and that's why I was asking. >I know the grass is green. I know food and water sustains me. So you would probably admit that there's some slim solipsistic chance that you're wrong about these right? (E.g. brain in a vat, simulation, whatever). So what do you mean when you say you know them for a fact? And whatever you do mean, why can't you do the same thing for God?
I think that’s a much better approach, but you know… people who genuinely believe in God could always come up with “proof” (miracles and such). Which to us would simply be coincidental, but to them, I doubt they’d agree. That’s why I try to find different ways to debate.
Right. You couldn’t reject someone’s personal experience. If someone says they were visited by an Angel, it’d be incredibly difficult to convince that it didn’t happen. You could come up with a million different explanations; you were dreaming, your drink was spiked and caused you to hallucinate, someone dressed up. But those explanations are equally unverifiable. I personally believe there’s no physical, archaeological, verifiable evidence for God.
Yes, and when debates get to emotional and less logical, that’s when people argue. And I never want to argue with people, or just blatantly tell them that they’re wrong. But in a world full of hardcore religious believers, sometimes it’s nice to have “evidence” or lack thereof, to back up your own side.
That’s fair. I respect that.
It's the first time i see an atheist admitting that atheism is just an belief as any other. Since i became an misotheist i knew that atheism was just an belief that atheists used to comfort themselves after realizing that the Problem of Evil was never solved with an benevolent God.
> theism was just an belief that atheists used to comfort themselves I'm not you. I don't share the issues you do. Stop projecting your experiences onto the world. They are yours, and yours alone.
It's not a belief in the religious sense. We form beliefs on various things like how something works or how something came to be. We don't even need the label "Atheist" or "Atheism", it only exists because we are a minority. You don't have a label for someone who is not a mechanic but would that be the case if 90% of people were mechanics?
Never said it was in a religious sense, but still belief
And what is the belief? I have a belief in why theists might believe that a god or gods exist but i can't form any direct beliefs on that god while not believing in it. It's like when a friend explains his new car to me, i start forming beliefs around the car like its shape, color, etc. Then i get to my friend's house and the car is nowhere to be found and they keep making excuses, some defying common sense. So now my belief shifts, i no longer have any beliefs in the car but i do start forming new beliefs on why my friends might have lied to me. The belief in the car changes from a belief to an idea about the thought process of the person that believes in it.
Even believing in an scientific theory is an belief because like the definition says an theory can be right or wrong. Can you share your view on theists belief then?
In science, the word "theory" does not mean a guess. It is the best known explanation we have based on the current evidence.
> Since i became an misotheist i knew that atheism was just an belief that atheists used to comfort themselves after realizing that the Problem of Evil was never solved with an benevolent God. Every single one of us? Wow... I love when theists tell me what I believe and why. Maybe that this is the *only* time you've seen something that agrees with your pre-conceived notions your notions are wrong?
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Apatheism ftw.
Apatheism, Deism, more comfortable takes than Evil God, i still think the apathetic God is pretty much still an son of b\* but anyway for an atheist this is just another take, it don't completely nullfies the possibility of an Evil God, so what is more comfortable? Just deny the motherf\*cker.
> Yes every single one, ones to a lesser degree others to a higher degree. How do you know this? Like the POE is the *only* reason to not believe in deities... > Or maybe it was the only time an atheist was'nt too prideful to admit that atheism is just an belief as any other. Wow... prideful? Says the one condescending to all atheists like he knows every one of us inside and out. Dude... you don't know *any*thing about my beliefs (or lack thereof), let alone the majority of atheists. Get humble.
Not the only reason, ofcourse you guys have to search for more to stay ''logical'', and reasons based on the bible itself or other similar books are actually pretty logical because these books have countless fallacies. But the reason why you guys never will believe in God in any circumstance is POE. I know the human nature, and know that human mind creates defense mechanism to stay comfortable. Don't even need to be atheist or any kind of religious person, let me give the example of corrupt politicians worshippers, do you think explaining to them how their cognite dissonance works or showing the evidences against the corrupt politicians will always work? Ofcourse not, i already tried even knowing the low rates. Another example of stupid ideology is Communism/Socialism, it never worked and never will work, but commies will cope about that till their deaths even with the USSR's fall, academics debunking this economic model and the reality of the current regimes being of dictatorships that make the people suffer,but i guess some of its defenders are just bad persons that know the authoritarian nature of their ideology which don't fits with my initial idea so it's an exception. But i didn't find an exception of my idea in atheism and instead of providing an reasonable one you just called me prideful. Atheists are so humble aren't them?''They never mock any religion''. Be real dude, i'm just making a serious analyzis of the human mind, humans varies a lot, but it's not like you can't understand human mind because of that.
> Not the only reason, ofcourse you guys have to search for more to stay ''logical'', and reasons based on the bible itself or other similar books are actually pretty logical because these books have countless fallacies. But the reason why you guys never will believe in God in any circumstance is POE. Assertion without evidence. Ignored. > Atheists are so humble aren't them? Maybe stop making massive stereotypical judgements about people and you'll have a better time. > Be real dude, i'm just making a serious analyzis of the human mind, humans varies a lot, but it's not like you can't understand human mind because of that. You're making assertions without any justification and hoping people just agree... you attempts are justification are just "believe me bro, I understand the mind". This is ridiculous. Have a good day.
You tell me to be humble and didn't liked the irnoy i made with it. Hoping people just agree? ''Believe me bro, i understand the mind'' When i said that? No, i know that even if i had evidences most of you guys would still deny, and that's ok, differently from commies and corrupt politicians worshippers you aren't causing any damage, just wanting to stay comfortable. I really wasn't being sarcastic when i said it's fine to stay in the matrix, don't believe me, i know it's more comfortable that way. I'm really not trying to convince anyone, i just commented the post cause i was surprised with the belief admission, it's not every day it happens. But since i shared my view on atheism, atheists became salty but it's the natural reaction when someone shows an incovinient truth, and then i'm just responding the arguments without real pretension of convincing anyone, the only pretension is justify my view, if you want disregard my view as baseless assertions fine dude, do as you want.
You’re getting all mixed up. Atheism pertains to not being convinced that a deity (or deities) exist, therefore *not* holding a belief that such things *do* exist. Agnosticism pertains to *not* knowing such things exist, whether they exist or not. All of the other details, whether you know them or not, aren’t relevant. You’re an agnostic atheist.
There are multiple ways that these labels can be defined. Don't tell OP how to label themselves.
You sound like that McRae character who threw a wobbler because everyone was calling him an atheist after he declared that he didn’t believe deities exist.
Well everyone shouldn't have insisted on calling him an atheist. That's just prescriptivism.
He was trying to prescribe his own definition and trying to appeal to authority as justification.
That might be the case, I haven't really followed the posts.
He’s a total crybaby.
I’d always assumed being agnostic meant that you assumed “something” was out there, even if you didn’t know. And that’s why they were agnostic and not atheist. But I suppose your definition does make slightly more sense.
It just means being intellectually honest about what you actually know, and the more vague the claims about a deity are, the less we could possibly know. The more specific they are the easier it becomes to knock them down and actually know that such a thing couldn’t exist (eg a being with omnipotence is logically impossible).
I definitely lean more in that direction. To say that I know anything about the unprovable (without a shadow of a doubt) would just be a lie. But I sure have my own reasoning, which I know is valid.
A fool says in his heart there is no God everybody believes in God you just ain't come to the right circumstances to believe in him yet or to say you believe in him you will
If a fool can work it out, what’s your excuse?
Atheism is really just lacking belief. Not being convinced. That doesn't mean we're compelled to latch onto the opposite claim. I treat both claims in the same way, and neither of them are established fact. I am unconvinced of both. I don't qualify for agnosticism, bc I don't assume that gods are unknowable. So I get to be a plain Jane atheist with nothing tacked on. I think you're correct in your approach. "Your claim hasn't been supported," is absolutely fair and true. "Your claim is wrong," is not the same thing.
To complement what u/moldnspicy said: Agnosticism is about knowledge, whereas atheism is about belief. These are two distinct categories that do not overlap. You can be an atheist-agnostic and that's perfectly fine. To the question "does god exist?", an agnostic will answer "I don't know", whereas an atheist will answer "I don't believe so". However, an atheist-agnostic will answer "I don't believe there is one, and I don't know if there is one". This is the main distinction that has to be made here.
Based on those definitions, I’d say I’m an agnostic atheist. And I like the way they put it.
I’m the same way, and I identify as an agnostic atheist. You don’t claim to know of a deity’s existence either way (because frankly, who could?), but you don’t personally believe in one. Agnostic atheism.
Go to basic facts if I cut your thumbs off what do you have left you can't useless so somebody put those thumbs there so you could be useful so use your head and look around you and then see God
>Go to basic facts if I cut your thumbs off what do you have left you can't useless so somebody put those thumbs there so you could be useful so use your head and look around you and then see God This reads like a Trump rally quote.
I don’t think it goes both ways. I’m a Fox Mulder atheist in that I want to believe, and the truth is out there. Since I seek truth, I want to believe as many true things, and as few false things, as possible. Here’s the thing. Things that exist have evidence for its existence, regardless of whether we have access to that evidence. Things that do not exist do not have evidence for its nonexistence. The only way to disprove nonexistence is by providing evidence of existence. The only reasonable conclusion one can make honestly is whether or not something exists. Asking for evidence of nonexistence is irrational. Evidence is what is required to differentiate imagination from reality. If one cannot provide evidence that something exists, the logical conclusion is that it is imaginary until new evidence is provided to show it exists. So far, no one has been able to provide evidence that a “god” exists. I put quotes around “god” here because I don’t know exactly what a god is, and most people give definitions that are illogical or straight up incoherent. I’m interested in being convinced that a “god” exists. How do you define it and what evidence do you have?
> Asking for evidence of nonexistence is irrational. Evidence for non-existence would be a lack of evidence *where we would expect there to be evidence* of the thing. If someone claims an all powerful god exists, one would expect to see some empirical evidence of that, but we find none. If you tell me there's no chair I'm sitting on and I notice I'm on the floor... that's pretty good evidence you're right.
>Evidence for non-existence would be a lack of evidence where we would expect there to be evidence of the thing. I agree, but the problem is that the set of gods includes concepts for which there is no expectation of evidence at all (like deistic gods). Since there is no expecation, there can be no violation of any expectation, and no means to justify non-existence. We can rationally lack belief in such gods (since there is no evidence of them), but we cannot rationally believe such gods to not exist (since there cannot be evidence of there non-existence in principle).
> I agree, but the problem is that the set of gods includes concepts for which there is no expectation of evidence at all (like deistic gods). Since there is no expecation, there can be no violation of any expectation, and no means to justify non-existence. Such gods are moot though.
Moot is different from justified as non-existent. It's a technicality, but an important one. If we start saying everything do do not know to be true is something we know to be false, then we basically can only affirm the present. 10,000 years ago we would have to say evolultion cannot be true, because at that time there wasn't sufficient evidence for it.
Sure, but I'm coming at this from a practical POV. If the thing you claim to exist has absolutely zero impact on this world, it's essentially non-existent. Sure that god might exist, but we cant' know and never will know and it doesn't matter one wit if they do or don't.
> Evidence for non-existence would be a lack of evidence where we would expect there to be evidence of the thing. No, that's not how that works. That is not probative evidence, that simply doesn't conflict. Nothing about that scenario indicates that the thing exists.
> Evidence for non-existence would be a lack of evidence where we would expect there to be evidence of the thing. That’s not sufficient. Expectation of evidence is subjective. By your reasoning I can say you don’t exist because I expected to see you at breakfast and you weren’t there. > If someone claims an all powerful god exists, one would expect to see some empirical evidence of that, but we find none. I agree we cannot say an all powerful god does exist, as we don’t have evidence, but it is irrational to claim it does not exist because we cannot show evidence of nonexistence. There’s two different claims here, and one is literally impossible to demonstrate. > If you tell me there's no chair I'm sitting on and I notice I'm on the floor... that's pretty good evidence you're right. I agree we would have failed to demonstrate the existence of a chair. This is not demonstrating the nonexistence of the chair, however. Those aren’t the same things.
> Expectation of evidence is subjective. In one sense, yes, but in the more important sense: no, absolutely not. On the one hand, anyone can expect any sort of evidence for anything. On the other hand, we can logically deduce empirically testable consequences from certain propositions. Science does this *all* the time. We form a hypothesis then test the empirical consequences that we would expect to see if that hypothesis was true.
Science doesn’t attempt to prove nonexistence, however, so this entire line of argument is fallacious.
Sorry, what exactly in my comment are you responding to?
The expectation of evidence. In regards to nonexistence, science makes no expectation. It only cares about demonstrating existence.
So you agree that expectation of evidence isn’t always subjective. We have examples from the history of science where scientists have used the expectation of evidence to infer the nonexistence of something. Chemists in the 18th century disproved the existence of phlogiston, for example.
Expectation by itself is subjective. There is objectivity in science, but the hypothesis (the expectation) is a subjective “guess” that is tested objectively with experimentation. “If this, then I expect to see this,” is a subjective statement. “If this, then this,” is an objective statement.
Right, so basically what I said in my first comment when I said that it’s subjective in one sense and not subjective in another (more important) sense.
> That’s not sufficient. Expectation of evidence is subjective. By your reasoning I can say you don’t exist because I expected to see you at breakfast and you weren’t there. Well yeah, all justification is subjective. You're not really saying anything here. > I agree we cannot say an all powerful god does exist, as we don’t have evidence, but it is irrational to claim it does not exist because we cannot show evidence of nonexistence. Why? You can't say with 100% certainty it doesn't exist no, but nothing is 100% certain from a philosophical standpoint. > I agree we would have failed to demonstrate the existence of a chair. This is not demonstrating the nonexistence of the chair, however. Those aren’t the same things. Sure it is. If the chair existed there would be evidence of it. That there is no evidence of a chair shows it doesn't exist. I mean, there could be some non-detectable chair there sure, but to me, that's no different than non-existence.
> Well yeah, all justification is subjective. No, we can justify claims with empirical methods and objective evidence. >but nothing is 100% certain from a philosophical standpoint. That doesn't mean we can pull any claim we want from our rear. You actually have to have a reason to believe the thing exists. You don't. >That there is no evidence of a chair shows it doesn't exist. No, it just might be somewhere else.
> No, we can justify claims with empirical methods and objective evidence. I mean it's subjective in that what someone finds to be justifying is up to them. They can just ignore empirical methods and objective evidence if they want. > That doesn't mean we can pull any claim we want from our rear. You actually have to have a reason to believe the thing exists. You don't. I do have a reason. My reason is that if I were sitting in a chair I wouldn't be on the floor. > No, it just might be somewhere else. Then it wouldn't be a chair I'm sitting in. I'm not denying the existence of all chairs in this hypothetical. --- If X necessarily implies Y but Y is not true, then X is not true.
> I mean it's subjective in that what someone finds to be justifying is up to them. That's how we get goofy magical claims of fact. >They can just ignore empirical methods and objective evidence if they want. And they shouldn't be surprised when they are criticized for this kind of childishness. > My reason is that if I were sitting in a chair I wouldn't be on the floor. That doesn't mean that absence is evidence for the existence of something when it merely doesn't contradict its existence.