I'm new to this forum, and have questions about your perspective, I'm a little apprehensive on the response i'll get.
Asking a question is never the problem is dealing with the answer. right?
I'm not here to judge, to change or shame anyone and will expect the same courtesy, also please excuse my ignorance in certain subjects that may arise ( please educate me).
Excuse any spelling, grammar, and\or incomplete sentences, my thought seem to run faster then I can type.
Now to the first question.
why in your sign up page you only have the option of athiest or non yet no option for neutral\neither?
my other question will be on just doing my best to learn from you and how you see the world.
Thank You in advance for your tolerance.
Curious
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It is a binary issue. Either you believe that a god exists or you don't. The second option is atheist, the first is everything else.
It's the law of the excluded middle. A or not A.
Hope that explains the lack of options there.
But such a law refers to the truth of a proposition and not our beliefs about it, right? Either God exists or He doesn't; but beliefs themselves are not binary, there are as many variations as there are thinking heads to produce them:
I can believe God exists or believe He doesn't. I can believe something else entirely or, as the OP suggests, hold no beliefs at all.
"I can believe God exists or believe He doesn't."
You have again erroneously described the lack of a belief as itself belief, not believing something is not a belief, by definition. I assume there are things you don't believe in, even deities like Zeus and Apollo, now are each of these a belief you hold? So unicorns not being real is a belief you hold, also mermaids, leprechauns, etc etc..
It's the same old shit. The black and white trick. You either believe in god or you "believe" there is no god. Theist just can't grasp in NOT BELIEVING! They like to twist things to meet a predetermined narrative. Fucking stupid. Hey, all you theist!!!! I don't believe in a god! That is not the same thing as "believing that there is no god."
The reason theists always try to say that atheists believe that there is no god instead of saying that atheists don't believe in a god is so they can say that atheists have a false belief.
The fact is that there is no god until someone actually proves that there is a god. That is just a fact! What SHOULD be normal is no one believes in a god. That is natural. Everyone is born an atheist. You have to be indoctrinated or trained/brainwashed/coerced to believe in a god! It isn't a natural thing.
It's definitely in vogue to try and reverse the burden of proof, not a new idea, but idiots like William Lane Craig are leading the charge. It amounts to no more than a fallacious argument from ignorance. Quite risible stuff it really is, yet theists lap it up.
Its evident neither of you understood the comment.
No it isn't, though it now seems obvious you don't.
@ Breezy
The standard response.."its obvious everyone understands the comment but I will say you don't as I have no answer..."
Me: "I can believe God exists or believe He doesn't. I can believe something else entirely or, as the OP suggests, hold no beliefs at all."
Sheldon: "You have again erroneously described the lack of a belief as itself belief..."
"I can believe God exists or **believe He doesn't.**"
There are two possibilities, either you are unable to understand that your second choice is erroneous precisely because not believing something is not a belief by definition, or you're disingenuously misrepresenting atheism as a belief.
Atheism is the absence of a belief. This is one of two possible positions, either to believe a claim or not. The spectrum refers to knowledge and not belief.
As far as knowledge is concerned there is a virtually limitless spectrum, and in that spectrum one can admit to not knowing.. However this position is not a 50/50 position on belief, as it is absurd to claim to believe something exists when you don't know.
This then is why dishonest apologists try to pretend that atheism is a belief with the same burden of proof as theism. The lie is easily exposed by noting they don't apply this universally. As I said earlier do you hold separate beliefs for everything you don't believe is real?
There is no such thing as holding a "belief that you don't believe something", as you are trying to dishonestly claim.
As I said you don't understand the point at all. Or you're lying of course?
When you say my second choice, are you aware that I presented four?
Yes, you're wrong because you're mixing belief and knowledge together. That's why I was careful to quote only the two that applied to belief.
The spectrum refers to knowledge. As has been pointed out by others belief is a binary position, it can be nothing else.
Theists use special pleading because they attach a significance to their belief that they don't to other beliefs. This skews their reason.
Wheezy "I can believe God exists or believe He doesn't. I can believe something else entirely or, as the OP suggests, hold no beliefs at all."
1) one can believe God exists (theism)
2) One can not believe God exists (atheism)
3) Holding no brliefs about the existence if god is also atheism.
There are no other belief positions one can hold about whether a deity exists. All the other positions are about knowledge, this includes agnosticism.
No, we understand Breezy. We definitely understand. You thought you'd slip it by.
Atheist Paranoia
That is your latest game and it's getting old Breezy!
Theistic special pleading.
I am going to try, (and probably fail,) to explain atheist to people that do not seem to understand.
Commonly accepted definition of believe in this use:
accept (something) as true; feel sure of the truth of.
If we can agree that theist means someone that believes in god. Then atheist is: someone who does not believe in god.
That is it. You can not add anything to this super easy and short definition, it is the opposite of theism. The a in front of the word denotes opposite of. (Latin roots I believe.)
An example: typical and atypical. The difference between the two definitions is a simple "not." Atypical is not a variation of typical, it is the opposite of typical.
You would have to add additional meaning and definition to the word: "atypical" if you wanted the word "atypical" to mean something that is slightly different from typical but shares the same characteristics of the word typical. Making it no longer a word denoting the opposite of.
Do not make the mistake of such a simple "not" definition much more than it is. Keep it simple, as it was intended to be used that way.
---Lightly edited for clarity---
"I can believe God exists or believe He doesn't. I can believe something else entirely or, as the OP suggests, hold no beliefs at all."
The first sentence here is correct. The second, not so much.
Here's a good explanation for you, Breezy:
It's black or not black. Whether not black means purple or green or White is irrelevant... It's not black. So you believe in god (black) or you do not (not black). That's what the law of the excluded middle is refering to.
I agree that something is ultimately either 'black' or 'not black;' and also that 'not black' includes every possible category that isn't 'black.' That's clearly binary, since something can't be both 'black' and 'not black' or be neither simultaneously.
However, beliefs don't work the same way. I can believe something is black; you can believe the same thing is not black; and another person may be completely neutral on the issue, and it would be inappropriate to place such a person in the 'believes its not black" category.
No, you are totally wrong. Either you believe or you don't. There is no third option. This is logic 101. A thing is or it is not. You say with one sentence that you understand and then with the next you demonstrate that you do not.
Again, I agree a thing 'is' or 'is not;' but a persons beliefs on whether a thing 'is' or 'is not', do not fall into such a binary system.
Beliefs about any subject can fall into a middle, neutral, category. You're treating beliefs as if they were actual 'things' rather than as an opinion about actual 'things.'
The same method can be repeated to produce a binary distribution:
A = someone has the belief X
B = ¬A; someone does not have the belief X.
Notice that all of the following are subsets of B:
Right, which is what happens when a belief is treated as a thing rather than as an opinion about a thing.
For example, if X = God 'does not exist;' then someone who isn't sure about belief X, logically falls into subset B and not A. If instead X = God 'does' exist, the same unsure person still falls into subset B not A.
That's an uninformative way to split things up, since being unsure/neutral means you don't identify with any of the possible options.
Far more expedient are the following options: Does God Exist?
1. Yes, I believe God does.
2. No, I believe God does not.
3. Unsure.
The primary purpose of that question on the forums is to determine access to the Atheist Hub sub-forum. User access to the sub-forum is binary, so the question is as well. I've already demonstrated that the question does in fact perform a binary sort (despite the claims to the contrary). The fact that a couple users don't like the sort is not likely to change anything.
That's fine. In fact, that's a better answer to the OP's question about why there's only two options, than saying its because there are only two possible beliefs on the topic of God.
As long as people recognize that options A, B, C, and D exist, emphasizing that B, C, D are not A, or that A, D, B are not C seems obvious and redundant. Clearly, that doesn't change the fact that there are still four options.
There are an infinite number of options. But all of them are covered by A and not A.
Right, its like asking what your political views are, but only giving you the option of Republican and Not Republican.
Yes, that is exactly it; will you have access to the Atheist Hub, or will you not.
I just changed my profile's view to atheism, where do I find this Atheist Hub?
P.S., I'm down for changing Cyber's gender from female to non-male. Hopefully she doesn't mind, since that would just be illogical of her.
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