I do understand where you coming from. But I will tell you what the problem(IMO)is.
While I would definitely say that you are a “friendly atheist”(perhaps BL could start giving out badges😂)a lot aren’t. I hope they are in minority but I have come across disrespectful comments and even personal attacks* on random people in public just because they were religious. For sure they give you a bad name which you don’t deserve.
I may have opposite views to yours and yet I feel exactly the same. Like when people assume all Christians are antivaccers(!!)or don’t believe in keeping medical records(WTH?) ,or clearly you can’t believe in evolution(). I’m also often “accused” of being atheist because I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a feminist and a liberal. So narrow mindness exists on all fronts.
*before anyone says it, yes some Christians deserve to be attacked, good example are those who say you don’t need to wear a mask if you trust God
OK perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. Of course I don’t mean physical attacks. What I meant to say was that although it’s totally not OK to challenge people simply for their religious views, whatever they might be, situation becomes different when these people:
are forcing their views on others(this applies to views of any kind, political, whatever)
are using their religion or other worldview to justify discrimination, tyranny, violence and also what we’re seeing now with pandemic regarding masks etc(I think that’s mainly American problem though, I hope it’s not too widespread)
And another thing - even then I don’t think we should be challenging that person’s religion, we need to address those particular issues. It’s like assuming that if they are not Christian(or anything else)then all those problems will go away, I find that naive.
I hope this explains my previous comment better.
Funny side note . . . a funny retort to “I don’t need a mask because God will protect me” is “Then what do you need all the guns for?”. Might not work in all cases, but it still made me chuckle.
The classic definition of the word is disbelief. I can agree with saying this consists of a judgment seeing no reason to believe that any god exists. But I do not agree with the above lame atheism by default rhetoric. The above including all the newborn infants would make atheists the most ignorant people on the planet, where most are atheists because they simply do not know any better. I don’t think that is a good definition of atheism at all.
It seems you were not really paying attention. I explained that God made the laws of nature for a good reason and what you speak of would be an alteration of those laws. God can do miracles which will never amount to any more than statistical extremes (possible because there are no hidden variables within the scientific worldview), but not an alteration of the laws of nature which constrain the probability distributions. That means there could never be empirical evidence of any miracles.
Clouds form through natural processes. But this is demonstrably not a deterministic process because of chaotic dynamics and quantum physics. There is the so called “butterfly effect” right down to the level of quantum fluctuations because of the proof by Ilya Prigogine.
Exactly. All your word games and quibbling change absolutely nothing. The denial stated here remains.
Incorrect. Words are defined by consensus. By your BS I get to define theism as not having any proof that God doesn’t exist – which makes you a theist in rebellion. I recommend dropping all such silly self serving rhetoric and stick to definitions which serve the purpose of communication. Do you believe that atheists are the most ignorant people on the planet since according to you this group includes all the newborn infants?
If God is behind making those things happen then yes. People have certainly thought so.
Nope.
Got that forty years ago. Your denial of the claims about miracles remains in your last post.
If for you the word atheist does not mean a person who does not believe in the existence of God, what word does signify a person who does not believe in the existence of God? There are such persons are there not.
Yes, and a consensus of atheists define atheism as a lack of belief in deities.
Self serving rhetoric is exactly what you are pushing. You want to use a definition of atheism that better fits your arguments, even though that definition is not the position actual atheists are taking.
I am communicating to you. I am an atheist. What I mean by atheist is someone who lacks a belief in deities. That’s it. I do not make the claim that deities don’t exist. Again, I am an atheist. That’s what the word means. That is my position.
Is walking on water a statistical extreme that doesn’t break any natural laws? What about the Resurrection? What about spontaneously turning water into wine?
Hopefully you can understand how someone can accept both natural explanations and miracles. Accepting natural explanations does not exclude the possibility of miracles.
It is entirely possible that miracles have happened, but I have yet to see compelling evidence for those claims.
That is most often called strong atheism. It is a bit like the difference between a Christian and being a Catholic. All Catholics are Christians, but not all Christians are Catholics. All Christians accept the Nicene Creed just as all atheists lack a belief in deities.
True, but if my identity as a believer was most important as a Protestant , I would identify myself as a Protestant. You on the other hand so not identify yourself as a soft atheist, so how would any one know that you are not a hard atheist. Also making the distinct between an atheist who is open to belief in God if proven and an atheist who is not open to belief in God even if proven accuses hard atheists of being closed minded. It is like saying I am a hard Protestant if I would never be a Catholic under any circumstances.
For the record there is no evil in this world without humans. All God had to do to create a universe without evil is not to have created humans and/or their analogs, if they exist. It certainly would have made it a much more comfortable place for God…
No that is self serving rhetoric (and rather poorly thought out rhetoric too) and it represents far too few people to be a consensus of those who use the English language. The consensus is that newborn infants are NOT atheists. Therefore the this definition is simply inadequate and a failure of communication. After all we are just talking about a word in the English language and not membership in an organization.
Oh yeah… right! I am pushing the idea that atheists are NOT the most ignorant people on planet – that they are NOT just atheists because they don’t know any better. How terrible of me. But that is what your definition implies. So the real question is, why? Why would you imply such a thing? Why are you so desperate to include infants in the population of atheists?
What other things are you imagining that I am pushing? Let’s see if any of those things are actually correct rather than just paranoid delusions on your part.
And I have no problem with that definition either, just as I have no problem with the definition that you make the judgement that there is no good reason to believe that any gods exist. Those definitions do not include newborn infants and thus don’t support the conclusion that atheists are just ignorant.
What about them? Do I believe that God breaks the laws of nature which He Himself created? No, I do not. This topic has been discussed before. I guess you missed out on my position on this. We have discussed those particular cases too.
Does this mean I support the philosophical position of naturalism? No. Why? Because I believe there are other things which exist which are not explained by the laws of nature.
Correct. But accepting natural explanations for some things is not the definition of naturalism.
I have yet to see compelling evidence for those claims either, but I don’t believe such evidence is even possible. I think it is a contradiction in terms.
That is why I am not a naturalist. I don’t believe reality is restricted to what the objective evidence can show.
The self serving rhetoric is the one you are pushing. You want to claim that all atheists claim gods don’t exist so you can attack that strawman. Sorry, but we get to decide for ourselves what our position is.
You are claiming that all atheists claim there are no gods. That’s false.
Where did I ever say anything about infants??? When you are done beating that strawman to death, perhaps you could address what I am actually saying.
Are you saying the miracles in the Bible did not occur?
Some atheists claim that they simply do not see sufficient reason for them to believe there are any gods.
Some atheists claim that religion and the belief in gods is a (social or mental) disease.
Some atheist have simply decided that religion and talk of gods or supernatural beings for which there is no objective evidence simply is not of sufficient interest for them to spend any of their time on.
Some atheists claim that all religion and talk of gods is a tool of power and manipulation.
Many atheists claim that religion and belief in gods is a detriment to rational morality.
Some atheists see religion and belief in gods serving a pragmatic purpose in supporting morality even if they don’t think such things are real.
All of these can be understood as what the traditional definition of atheism as disbelief includes as a spectrum. Most categories of beliefs include a spectrum like this rather than meaning only one particular thing. I have considerable sympathy with some of these, like 2, 4, 5, and 6. And thus I frequently argued that atheism is a perfectly rational alternative to theism, and have even suggested that this is a considerable improvement over some forms of theism.
Every time you insist that atheism MUST be defined as simply not having a belief in gods rather than having made a judgement that they don’t see sufficient reason for them to believe in any gods, you insist that infants be considered atheists. I have pointed this out repeatedly and your studious efforts to just ignore this changes absolutely nothing.
Since you do not address the question of why SOME atheists insist on this nonsense then I shall do so for the sake of clarity and explaining why I have called this definition to include infants self-serving rhetoric. It is to prop up the notion that their position is not a belief, judgment, or decision and thus the argument that this must be accepted by default and that all burden of proof is on anybody who disagrees with them. This way they can justify any intolerance and forcing their beliefs on other people by demanding that others must prove their position while their own position does not require any proof. I certainly reject this rhetoric. The burden of proof is always on anyone who expects others to accept the truth of their position and the special pleading argument that negative beliefs are exempt from this is nothing but intolerant trash.
This is NOT all atheists. I have repeatedly argued that the majority of atheists are described by number 4 above. But there is a growing number of atheists who quite intolerant and adopting a number of rather irrational claims to support their intolerance. For the most part you have seemed to be described more by number 2 above than anything else. Are you developing a persecution complex moving you in the direction of intolerance? I hope not.
What is the ONE thing all atheists have in common? That would be a lack of belief in gods which is why that is used as the definition.
I have never insisted that infants be considered atheists. Inherent in all of my posts is the process of reasoning and skepticism. I am talking about humans who have the capability of reasoning, logic, and judging evidence. Where to draw the line is a bit fuzzy, but infants are safely on one side of that line.
I don’t understand why I have to defend a position that I don’t hold.
What is the one thing that all trees have in common? They are alive. Therefore we should define trees as things which are alive.
WRONG!
The aim of a good definition is NOT just to include all which are described by the word but also to exclude all those which are not described by the word.
Yes there are lots of fuzzy definitions, and we overcome that problem with better definitions. Infants are neither theists nor atheists because they have not even considered the question. A good definition of atheism simply doesn’t include them or imply that the majority of atheists are so simply because they don’t know anything.
What is the average education of an atheist?
Using a definition which does include infants: far below average.
Using a definition which does not include infants: considerably above average.
Which do you think is more accurate?
Well it helps that you make it clear that you don’t hold such a position and don’t defend it. I certainly consider being lazy with your definition to be better than being intolerant. What I am not going to let anyone do is to use such laziness to sneak fallacious rhetorical advantages into their arguments.
Oh? am I projecting too much rationality on atheists. Since I was not raised in a religion then perhaps I am biased in this regard.
The irrational atheists like to play games of inconsistent rhetoric so that they can have things both ways even though they are contradicting themselves. But in this they are no different than the irrational theists I have encountered, and the irrational ones of the group defines neither theism nor atheism.
). I’m also often “accused” of being atheist because I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a feminist and a liberal. So narrow mindness exists on all fronts.