by your definition i'm not an atheist. by other definitions that i've heard i am. here's the thing... what makes your definition correct and the others incorrect? i'm really not that worried about the semantics of it all. at the end of the day i don't think there's a god but i acknowledge that's basically just a guess. call that what you will.
This whole thing falls apart because most atheists don't claim to "know" anything for certain. They either lack a belief in God/gods, or believe there is none. You're treating atheism as though it's indefensibly absolutist. As a wonderful example, Richard Dawkins himself would say your definition of atheist doesn't include him, per his book "The God Delusion" where he tackles this exact misconception. And if it doesn't include the figurehead for modern atheists, it's your definition that is undoubtedly wrong.
Because if your definition described me or any atheist I've ever met, read, or learned about, you'd be largely right. Alas. But as it is, the number of times I've been confronted with arguments like this, sometimes framed as "You can't prove a negative" or "how can you know there isn't a God?", it reinforces my own belief that atheism is largely misunderstood by its detractors.
Yeah, Gnosticism has to do with knowledge. Theism has to do with belief. Agnostic means "I don't know". Atheist means "I don't believe". You can mix and match both: Agnostic Theist [I don't know, but believe], Agnostic Atheist [I don't know, nor do I believe], Gnostic Theist [I do know and I do believe], Gnostic Atheist [I do know but I don't believe], or just simplify to a base Theist, Agnostic, or Atheist. I'm an Agnostic Atheist or just plain Atheist. I don't know whether the supernatural exist, but having been presented with zero evidence to support the existence of anything supernatural I don't believe it exists. My lack of belief isn't just in Gods, it's in the supernatural/magic as a whole. I think people just made those concepts up and ran with superstitions, and there's actual evidence to support that practice occurring. However, that's not a hard unwavering belief. I'd reassess my position if actual evidence (non-anecdotal, empirical evidence) were presented establishing that magic and magical beings actually exists. Then it would become a fact that magic actually exists.
I'd go a step further and say it only becomes a fact that there are unexplainable elements to the universe that are, perhaps, at odds with our fundamentally agreed-upon understanding of physics. "Magic" is a term I'd avoid. Because magic as it is commonly understood - as something that is non-causal or beyond reality bounds - is probably impossible.
We deal with comics a lot where a few characters - Mr. Terrific comes to mind - contend that magic is just as-yet unexplained science. But it's comics, so his contentions remain unresolved. But anything with the ability to interact with the existing universe would have to be causal and, therefore, able to be analyzed empirically. Thus, the whole concept of "supernatural" is a bit idiotic. If it did exist, it might be extradimensional, quantum, etc., or something we don't have a name for yet. But it would have an explanation. Labeling anything as supernatural, magic, or, for that matter, divine or "God" is, to me, just an intellectual shortcut for saying "I don't know, but I want closure, justified or not."
From my - and I'm guessing your - perspective, everything we experience is an intrinsic thing. If a person believes they experience the divine in a religious sense, all I see is someone having a profound inner experience that isn't caused by a creator. So an atheist can experience the divine, because we all have the same basic wiring and are capable of the same types of experiences.
But you're right, I'd almost certainly use different words to describe it. Though I wouldn't consider it incorrect to use "divine" in a general sense, because things like wonder, awe, contentedness, joy/rapture, etc. are what the "divine" experience is made of. Divine may simply be the most appropriate descriptor.
Indeed. The brain is capable of remarkable things, and equally as capable of ascribing those things to the wrong root causes.
Gender: Male Location: Southern Oregon,
Looking at you.
I didn't mean to exclude the possibility of using the word divine. But I would find it shocking to hear an atheist use such a word, with so much baggage. However, it is a perfectly good word.
Well, it is a set of beliefs, is just not an organized set of beliefs in the way religion is considered organized.
Unless you meant atheism is a set of non-beliefs, which is arguable at best. I don't care much of the distinction between pure belief and thought to be honest.
Prove that every supernatural "thing" will have an explanation you hater
A principle of folk logic is that one can’t prove a negative.
Dr. Nelson L. Price, a Georgia minister, writes on his website
that ‘one of the laws of logic is that you can’t prove a negative.’
Julian Noble, a physicist at the University of Virginia,
agrees, writing in his ‘Electric Blanket of Doom’ talk that ‘we
can’t prove a negative proposition.’
University of California at Berkeley Professor of Epidemiology Patricia Buffler asserts that ‘The reality is that we can never prove the negative, we
can never prove the lack of effect, we can never prove that
something is safe.’
A quick search on Google or Lexis-Nexis will give a mountain of similar examples.
But there is one big, fat problem with all this.
Among professional logicians, guess how many think that you can’t prove
a negative?
That’s right: zero.
Yes, Virginia, you can prove a negative, and it’s easy, too.
For one thing, a real, actual law of logic is a negative, namely the law of non-contradiction. This law states that that a proposition cannot be both true
and not true. Nothing is both true and false. Furthermore,
you can prove this law. It can be formally derived from the
empty set using provably valid rules of inference. (I’ll spare
you the boring details). One of the laws of logic is a provable
negative. Wait... this means we’ve just proven that it is
not the case that one of the laws of logic is that you can’t prove a
negative. So we’ve proven yet another negative! In fact, ‘you
can’t prove a negative’ is a negative so if you could prove
it true, it wouldn’t be true! Uh-oh.
Not only that, but any claim can be expressed as a negative,
thanks to the rule of double negation. This rule states that any
proposition P is logically equivalent to not-not-P.
So pick anything you think you can prove.
Think you can prove your own existence?
At least to your own satisfaction?
Then, using the exact same reasoning, plus the little step of double negation,
you can prove that you aren’t nonexistent. Congratulations,
you’ve just proven a negative.
The beautiful part is that you can do this trick with absolutely any proposition whatsoever.
Prove P is true and you can prove that P is not false.
No, it really isn't. It's the lack of belief, or, at best, a single belief. The whole idea is kinda that there isn't a doctrine.
Setting aside 100% objective proof, which is impossible for literally anything from our subjective viewpoints, I actually think we can build a reasonable empirical case for this based on our observation of the universe's deterministic forces. Everything is deterministic, so far as we know. We don't know everything, of course, but we know a lot. At that point, I could invoke lots of argumentative maxims to make my case as this being the most plausible, including burden of proof, which doesn't currently rest on the determinists. And if something is deterministic, it's empirically testable and repeatable. So there's the start of the defense.
....yeah, I only said I was often confronted with that logic when it comes to atheism and its detractors, not that it was my stance. It's also not what atheism is (proof of God's nonexistence).
So...ok. You missed the point of my post entirely anyway, but that's not really a surprise. The logic train that was that text dump is a bit odd too, but I don't want to fly down a pointless tangent.
So, I'm on a dating site now, and they give you an option to state your religious inclinations. Originally I had my religion as "atheist," and while I didn't run into any trouble because of it, I recently changed to blank because there are always going to be people who will avoid a stranger who they know is an atheist but will have no trouble accepting them after they've already gotten to know them.
Irrational? Probably. But I'm sticking with this policy.
__________________
“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."
-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.
Not at all irrational, and good luck. I still live in the Midwest, but used to live in the Midwest, so to speak. Much closer to the Bible Belt. And I've had struggles numerous times with dating as it relates to my atheism, up to and including being broken up with over it. So...yeah, it's a thing. It's unfortunate, of course, but it's definitely something to leave off a dating profile.
When I did online dating (it was a very brief period, but was interesting), I was always honest, but learned this fairly quickly as well. Lots of girls are fine with it, but far fewer are fine with it when they aren't face to face with you, and can just click "next" to see another guy.
You could always list agnostic, and be truthful on a technicality ("Well, we don't know...") It will keep the hardcore religious ones away that you might not be into, but won't limit you like "atheist" will. In general, though, I'm all about casting a wide net with those things. Too many details of any sort are a hindrance toward that. You can weed them out later.
It's hilarious when girls start an argument preemptively in their profile. Usually not about atheism (although sometimes they do), but often about feminism or other progressive topics.
I'm wincing, thinking, "I agree with you, but damn you're burning a lot of bridges before you can even collect a toll on them."
__________________
“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."
-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.
There's a ton of interesting research on dating profiles, because they're all easily-collected data points. The levels of nuance that you can work toward to maximize your "hits" with the other sex (or same sex, depending) are incredibly fascinating.
Poor black women. I grew up in (and am currently back for the holidays) an area where admitting you find black women attractive is like admitting you're a communist.
__________________
“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."
-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.
I was watching "Inherit The Wind," yesterday. In one scene, a local God-fearing woman / fan of Mathew Brady stood up in court and, with a vehemence reserved only for the lowest forms of life, she called out at Henry Drummond, "Atheist!"
I immediately thought of this thread.
__________________
Shinier than a speeding bullet.
My point was on semantics, a belief about something not existing is still a belief. Just clarifying as I think you pretty much pointed out that possibility on your second line.
Regarding my other troll comment, I wonder if admitting determinism is by default denying the term supernatural of any absolute value...
I'd like to believe there is something out there more than just nothing like.... I want there to be a god but I really want proof of the existence of god...but science seems like the only choice at the moment.
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Nov 14th, 2014 10:01 AM
