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General discussion (archive)A Message to Atheists and Agnostics - I get you(2370 posts)(2370 posts)
(2370 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted February 01, 2014
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Soyeong: Nope, as a Christian I try to keep the Torah.
Haha, with the misconceptions you already have I'm sure you think you try to. :P
Posted February 01, 2014
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BlueMooner: 1) "disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods."
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/atheism
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Krypsyn: Right, the belief in a negative. As I stated. If you lack belief in a God or gods, you implicitly believe there is no God or gods, since they are mutually exclusive.
Again, no. You are playing games with semantics. Positively affirming "there is definitely no X" is not the equivalent to making no claim at all, nor is it equivalent to saying "please show me evidence to support your claim that X exists."
Posted February 01, 2014
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pimpmonkey2382: For example.

Adam and Eve and the tree. God is all powerful, and knows everything that's going to happen, past, present, future, right?

He could have put the tree in any other location on earth, or better yet, don't even create the tree. BUT he decided to put it in a place with FULL KNOWLEDGE they would eat it and then punished them for doing so. That is deliberate pushing people into doing things thus it's not free will.
God's knowledge of counterfactuals does not remove our free choice to be disobedient.
Posted February 01, 2014
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pimpmonkey2382: For example.

Adam and Eve and the tree. God is all powerful, and knows everything that's going to happen, past, present, future, right?

He could have put the tree in any other location on earth, or better yet, don't even create the tree. BUT he decided to put it in a place with FULL KNOWLEDGE they would eat it and then punished them for doing so. That is deliberate pushing people into doing things thus it's not free will.
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Soyeong: God's knowledge of counterfactuals does not remove our free choice to be disobedient.
We were pushed into it, deliberately manipulated into it. Thus it's not free will.
Posted February 01, 2014
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Soyeong: Nope, as a Christian I try to keep the Torah.
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MaximumBunny: Haha, with the misconceptions you already have I'm sure you think you try to. :P
What's that suppose to mean?
Post edited February 01, 2014 by Soyeong
Posted February 01, 2014
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Soyeong: http://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908
Thank you for the link.
the point of the passage was not to foster arrogance, so to keep harping on that is really to miss what is being said.
My comment was actually an aside, and not a reference to your previous discussion with someone about dominion over the earth.
The common theme I see here is having confidence, conviction, or trust that something is true, which I don't think that comes from just merely wishing it to be true. Rather, it is evidence that gives us confidence that something is true, and the stronger the evidence, the greater the confidence we can have.
I'm a little girl who believes that one day a handsome man will marry me and I'll live happily ever after. I spend my life growing up expecting this man to one day appear. Is that not wishful thinking? Is that not a belief? What if I believe my parents are perfect, when of course they aren't? What if I attribute problems around the home to fairies, so I adjust my behaviour to make these fairies happy and thus minimize their mischief. Wouldn't that be a belief?

In any case, I think this line of discussion won't bear fruit as I think you're talking about beliefs coming from a vacuum, which I'm not saying myself.
A theist is someone who claims that god or gods exist while an atheist claims that god or gods do not exist. An agnostics is someone who doesn't know whether god or gods exist.
Theism and atheism deal with belief. Theists have it, atheists don't. Theism asserts something, atheism doesn't agree with that assertion. Atheism is not asserting anything itself. Atheism LACKS belief, and thus is not a belief itself (that gods don't exist).
God is good, He loves me and made me for a purpose, I love God, and it is good to express my love for God in obedience to His commands.
Why do you say your god is good?

Why do you say showing love = obedience? If your god loves you, does he show obedience to you?
1. that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof.
2. something that makes plain or clear; an indication or sign: His flushed look was visible evidence of his fever.

Again, this aligns with how I've been using it.
Perhaps it's been the examples you've used, but I've gotten the sense that you've been using evidence in a much broader sense. I agree that evidence serves as grounds for belief, but it has to be actual grounds and not mere possibility.

I remember the example you used earlier about the large universe being evidence for aliens, paraphrasing another poster. As someone responded, the large universe only increased the chances for aliens but didn't serve as evidence in and of itself.

Perhaps I use evidence with the assumption that it's credible evidence being talked about, and not just any thing at all. I don't consider Star Wars as evidence that Vader is real, because it's not credible, for example. Perhaps you believe the same way, I don't know. I've just been... confused... by your usage of it. Perhaps it's nothing.

I've seen the numerous posts of yours asking Pimp to clarify his view, and I think the error lies in what you think he said. You seem to think he said views form without anything behind them at all, which is not what he said.
He said, "I don't need to give it too much though, there's no proof in a religion. So there's no reason to believe it." That is essentially the same as saying that those views don't have anything behind them at all.
Which is not the same as saying the views came from absolutely nothing, just that they don't have credible evidence behind them (in his opinion). You had posted to someone that you felt Pimp was asserting beliefs came from a vacuum, which is simply not what he meant.

However, I'm somewhat uncomfortable speaking for someone else, and since Pimp has declined to answer I won't speak in his stead. I simply wanted to interject where I thought misunderstanding may have lain, since it was clear to me that what you seemed to think he said, wasn't the case at all.
Posted February 01, 2014
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Soyeong: God's knowledge of counterfactuals does not remove our free choice to be disobedient.
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pimpmonkey2382: We were pushed into it, deliberately manipulated into it. Thus it's not free will.
So God, knowing that we would disobey a command, shouldn't have given us any commands in the first place? God's after obedience, and it's our choice whether to obey.
Posted February 01, 2014
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solzariv: Again, no. You are playing games with semantics. Positively affirming "there is definitely no X" is not the equivalent to making no claim at all, nor is it equivalent to saying "please show me evidence to support your claim that X exists."
If you lack belief in something then you disbelieve something. In isn't semantics, there is just no way around it. If you even somewhat believe in something, even in the remotest possibility of such existing, then you no longer lack belief in that thing. If one disbelieves the existence of a thing, then one must believe in the nonexistence of that thing; nothing else is logical. Thus, atheists believe in a negative, or else they are no longer atheists.
Posted February 01, 2014
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pimpmonkey2382: We were pushed into it, deliberately manipulated into it. Thus it's not free will.
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Soyeong: So God, knowing that we would disobey a command, shouldn't have given us any commands in the first place? God's after obedience, and it's our choice whether to obey.
It takes away free will, and also makes him an asshole. Because he knew exactly to the finest detail what would happen if he put the tree there. Instead of just not having it at all. But manipulates adam and eve into eating from it and then punishes all humans for it. That is asshole-ish, immoral and takes away any free will.
Posted February 01, 2014
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Krypsyn: If you lack belief in something then you disbelieve something.
This would only be true if the words "active" and "passive" have the same meaning, but they don't.
Posted February 01, 2014
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Soyeong: if atheism is simply the lack of belief in god or gods and if God exists, then theism is true in that God exists and atheism is true at the same time in that they lack a belief that He does. Theism makes no sense apart from the claim that God exists and neither does atheism make sense apart from the claim that God does not exist.
Theism and atheism aren't about truth, they're about beliefs. People believe all sorts of things which are false. Truth and belief are separate things.

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Soyeong: It also helps if you look at how atheist philosophers define it or how the term has been historically used. Trying to get out of defending your position by defining rocks and trees as atheists is nothing but a modern invention.
Etymology of words is interesting but not always useful. Words change meaning and usage over time, not to mention culture and even geography. Do you consider atheist to still exclusively be an insult? Do you consider atheist to still only apply to the xian god? Words change.

I'm sorry you think I'm trying to dodge a position I don't hold.
Post edited February 01, 2014 by BlueMooner
Posted February 01, 2014
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solzariv: This would only be true if the words "active" and "passive" have the same meaning, but they don't.
Not in this context. Theists believe in the existence of a higher power (of some sort). Atheists believe the opposite: in the nonexistence of a higher power (of some sort). Just like morality is the existence of morals (whether good or bad), and amorality is the lack thereof. Each is the antithesis of the other, by definition.
Posted February 01, 2014
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Krypsyn: If you lack belief in something then you disbelieve something. In isn't semantics, there is just no way around it. If you even somewhat believe in something, even in the remotest possibility of such existing, then you no longer lack belief in that thing. If one disbelieves the existence of a thing, then one must believe in the nonexistence of that thing; nothing else is logical. Thus, atheists believe in a negative, or else they are no longer atheists.
You have a relative who is sweet and kind. They are accused of murder. Do you believe they did it? Do you assert for a fact that it's impossible they could have done it? Or do you lack belief they did it, while acknowledging, however unlikely, that they MIGHT have done it?
Posted February 01, 2014
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solzariv: This would only be true if the words "active" and "passive" have the same meaning, but they don't.
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Krypsyn: Not in this context. Theists believe in the existence of a higher power (of some sort). Atheists believe the opposite: in the nonexistence of a higher power (of some sort). Just like morality is the existence of morals (whether good or bad), and amorality is the lack thereof. Each is the antithesis of the other, by definition.
Believing in the non-existence? I don't think atheists run around and actively disbelieve things or actively believe in the non-existence of things.

I mean, you might not believe in the existence of jikinikis but that isn't the same as believing in their non-existence, is it? You just don't have "belief" towards them. It's not there.

Atheism is that lack of a belief and not the belief in a non-existence.


[i]Edit: Typos! Typos!
[/i]
Post edited February 01, 2014 by Piranjade
Posted February 01, 2014
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BlueMooner: You have a relative who is sweet and kind. They are accused of murder. Do you believe they did it? Do you assert for a fact that it's impossible they could have done it? Or do you lack belief they did it, while acknowledging, however unlikely, that they MIGHT have done it?
I believe that they might have murdered; my belief in this is not lacking. Without further definitive proof either way, I would make no further assertion.
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Piranjade: Atheism is that lack of a belief and not the belief in a non-existence.
If you are amoral, how many morals can you have before you are no longer amoral?

By the same token, if you are an atheist how much divinity can you believe in before you are no longer an atheist?

You can disagree until you are blue in the face, this is what these words mean. An 'a-' before a word means "the total absence thereof". If one has zero belief in something, then they implicitly disbelieve it.
Post edited February 01, 2014 by Krypsyn
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)A Message to Atheists and Agnostics - I get you(2370 posts)(2370 posts)
(2370 posts)