Here you admit you don’t now where those initial beliefs come from, you cannot RATIONALLY claim where they come from, and claim not to know.
That’s two contradictions you made right there, and you seem to think you can ignore the fact this makes your claims irrational, while creating straw man non-sequiturs about how we form logical beliefs.
Ignoring irrational contradictions in your claims is not a very compelling stance for all neutral observers you claimed you could convince, anymore than lying you hadn’t made the claim about the origins of initial beliefs.
"INTELLECTUAL HONESTY IS ABOUT HAVING HIGH STANDARDS FOR THE TRUTH.
It’s not just about not lying; it’s about stating the truth when you know it, hiding nothing, twisting nothing, leaving nothing out.
Intellectual dishonesty, on the other hand, is a sort of blanket term for being dishonest without necessarily straight out lying. It’s the failure to apply high standards for truth."
For the record anyone can read this discourse to see for themselves the level of dishonesty @Sherlock-Holmes has shown throughout this debate, and from the start.
For example his insistence on repeatedly lying in a sweeping generic way about how atheism is defined, in order to create a straw man argument, even when the atheists here had specifically and repeatedly told him how they defined their lack of belief. Turning into a crybaby now to play the victim after many months of such blatant dishonest is fooling no one, though it is perhaps apropos that rather than honestly address his relentless mendacity, he is continuing in that vein.
Expecting people to tap dance around such dishonesty with euphemisms, or even expecting them to pretend a blatant lie is just a difference of opinion, is simply risible. If you want respect then understand it involves reciprocity.
Now while this is just the second post, note the contradiction and the dishonesty that set the tone, describing atheism as “lofty talk”. When he just stated unequivocally that not knowing obviously mean you don’t believe, emboldened and underlined above. So his own assertion shows agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive, indeed they are synonymous. As I have asked repeatedly who bases belief on not knowing, no cogent answer ever offered. Lets move on and see how this dishonesty develops.
No it isn’t, it is saying I don’t hold any belief in any deity, we note again he is dishonestly trying to portray atheism as a claim. We are all born atheists before we even know it.
Note now he has deliberately misrepresented me again, just waved the fallacy away, and then states again that one needs to reject claims in order to be an atheist, when one cannot know whether they are true and would then in his own words above obviously not believe. Here it is again then:
Miracle
noun
an extraordinary and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore attributed to a divine agency.
Note in order to disbelieve such claims we make no assumptions about what can and cannot be explained by natural or scientific laws, all we need do is note the claim for divine causation is unevidenced and irrational.
Note this was in mid February where I very specifically explained that not all atheists define their atheism in the same way, but that when deviating from the common usage in the dictionary it is incumbent on anyone to say so, and specifically define what they mean. I encourage everyone to read the discourse and see that @Sherlock-Holmes continued to bait atheists here by dishonestly misrepresenting people’s atheism in a generic way that does not reflect the dictionary definition of the word, and despite every atheist I saw contributing to the discourse telling him specifically he was wrong, yet he dishonestly persist to this day, and is now hurling accusation of incivility at anyone pointing out his dishonesty.
Now there’s this:
I tried to highlight this contradiction and he dishonestly tap danced away from it.
Don’t sweat it my pommy mate. Whenever this charlatan has been presented with incontrovertible contradictions of his (admittedly amorphous positions) he has resorted to even more aphorisms.
The very definition of a dead beat theist, philosopher and honest human.
Understand something. Symmetry and conservation laws are two sides of the same coin, different mathematical ways of interpreting observations. Yes of course conservation laws arise naturally from invariants under coordinate system transformations, but that does not alter the fact that we are assuming something.
Symmetry is assumed, it is an axiom, an assumption just as you cannot prove conservation laws are never violated we also cannot prove that symmetry is never violated.
Tell me please what is “more than assumptions”? A proposition is either assumed to be true/false or proven to be true/false these are the only two scenarios.
Just to be clear symmetry being assumed is fine, I’m fine with it, but it is not proven, we cannot prove that symmetry can never ever be violated, all of our claims about the natural world are ultimately the result of assumptions.
Perhaps you don’t like this? don’t like to hear “assume” and “science” tied together like this? well tough, this is science and we shouldn’t sugar coat it just so that the fairy tales that atheism pedals needs that.
How many times does it have to be said that atheism is only a lack of belief in god/s before you grab it? Atheism does not peddle fairy tales. It sells nothing.
Well I know both agnostics and atheists who do not share that definition, if you choose to use the Flewsian definition that’s fine, you have every right but there is no single definition, it doesn’t hurt to point this out sometimes.
Atheism as espoused here in this website embodies more than a mere absence of belief, clearly there is a belief that theism is wrong, enough people here make this claim anyway, it’s a clear characteristic, far beyond “absence of belief” a great many of the posts directed at me across several threads espouse far far more than the innocent sounding “absence of belief”.
Many here are anti-theists not atheists, keep reading to see why I say this.
This website has a shop and sells atheist slogan t-shirts, speaking of which - how do these slogan follow from “I have an absence of belief in God”
Those are all affirmations of belief not absence of belief. The beliefs expressed are 1. Theists delude themselves, 2. Theists do not think and 3. There is no God and 4. Intolerance is good - to a theist these are indeed fairy tales, representing a cozy make believe world where the worship of scientism is the central doctrine.
Each t-shirt belittles, insults, ridicules those who are not atheists, this is bigotry, plain and simple, it’s a terrible shame that so many here cannot see this for what it is.
If you had the single slogan “I do not hold a belief in God” you might have a smattering of credibility, but please, don’t piss down my neck then tell me it’s raining.
First the fact that an assumption is borne out by experimental test does not alter the fact it is an assumption, I assume we agree on that point at least now.
Second one cannot compare science with religion for the same reason we can’t compare science with philosophy.
You are engaging in a semantic pissing contest with your assumption fetish. An axiom that is not supported by data is just an assumption, yes. But axioms supported by empirical data is one hell of a lot more than “just an assumption”. There’s a big difference there. I can assume the existence of <whatever>, but it remains just an assumption until I can show the existence of <whatever>. Then it is no longer an assumption, but a fact.
When religion tries to make claims about the observable world, things we can count, measure and derive, it is making claims about things that are within the domains of science. Therefore, one can use science to examine and judge the truth value of the religious claims. Religious claims do not become immune to scrutiny just by invoking Magic Man. When religion makes claims about non-observables, it is peddling in fantasies and magic shit, i.e. not claims about the real world.
Axioms in the sciences should be rationally justified no argument from me on that. But no amount of data can ever make an assumption into a fact.
Newtonian gravitation rests on axioms and these were supported by extremely strong observational data, but did any of that mean it was fact? No, it didn’t the axioms of Newton are now abandoned despite their huge empirical support.
Wrong, there is no “remains just an assumption until” it remains an assumption at all times, there is no “until” that changes it from an assumption to a fact and it cannot be anything else.
What exactly is a “religious claim”? It looks like your saying that only scientific claims can ever be true, is that what you believe? please telllme what YOU mean by “religious claim”, define what you mean by this.
Are you suggesting I created those t shirts and designed what is on them?
I don’t remember ever providing you with any slogans I’ve authored.
I, as others here, have told you how I define the label atheist. Yet, you continue to assert that people with that label think and behave in certain ways…as if we are hive members. It doesn’t work that way. To continue insisting that “atheists” think, say, act in X way is demonstrating your resistance to viewing us as individuals.
When I’ve disagreed with you, I think I’ve been pretty consistent it directing my comments to you, not to “theists” as you have so often done by your use of “atheists/ism” rather than a particular person.
So…please point out my slogans. Otherwise, another retraction is in order.
Atheism is just the lack of theistic belief, it makes no claims, thus it doesn’t need anything, since it is the default starting position. Nothing any atheist claims changes that.
It’s in the dictionary, so who cares whether a minority express themselves differently.
disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.
Making vague unevidenced assertions about unknown atheists whose opinions we can’t check are irrelevant to that definition, and everyone here has told you repeatedly this does not apply to their lack of belief.
It does when you are dishonestly creating a strawman to bait atheists with, like the one above.
You have been told repeatedly that this is not true. You are just annoyed that your irrational arguments have been refuted, and so you’re trying to bait the atheists here again, it won’t work.
No, there are on occasion beliefs that individual claims theists make are sometimes wrong or irrational, you are deliberately misrepresenting atheists here, by equating the rejection of specific claims, with your straw man above.
Quote half a dozen posters here claiming no deity exists, otherwise I still think you’re peddling a dishonest straw man again.
This is another false equivalence fallacy, equating lack of theistic belief with not holding any beliefs at all, it’s a tired old canard apologists often trot out when their unevidenced superstitious spiel gains no traction.
I doubt it is many, I think that sneaky piece of hyperbole speaks for itself, but so what? The fact your panties are bunched because some people don’t share your belief, and others don’t like religious belief, is irrelevant to the dishonest straw man you’re peddling here about the definition of atheism.
Only one represents a belief no deity exists, and that quite obviously does not change the definition of atheism, or represent almost all of the atheists who have posted here. You’re spiel now just seems like desperate ad hominem, baiting atheists because your arguments have been exposed as poorly reasoned, contradictory and irrational.
One could believe that and still not hold a belief no deity exists, it might just be applied to a rational examination of their claims and arguments, like your demonstrably false assertion that your arguments are not irrational as one example.
Again they often don’t think rigorously about the claims they make, just read some of the many contradictions you have posted to see that, and again this doesn’t support your dishonest straw man about atheism being a belief.
This is not the dictionary definition of atheism, and not the position of the vast majority of atheists here, you’re simply lying again. Also the dictionary definition of atheism as the lack or absence of belief in any deity or deities, would include the minority who hold a positive belief no deity exists, you are trying to define it in such a way as would exclude the majority of atheists here, and we can all see this was a dishonest agenda you were peddling from the start.
I doubt anyone here cares about the subjective and dishonest opinion of one disgruntled apologist, whose seething because his arguments have been exposed as irrational.
Not all atheists are the same, some make claims, but you’re simply lying again by trying to pretend this means atheism is a claim, which is what you asserted above.
It does however mean not all assumptions have equal merit, as you were told the first time you tried to peddle this dishonest false equivalence. Of you course you rolled past the post explaining this with examples, as you are not interested in being objective at all. You simply hold a belief and are determined to bend all facts to it.
No, my remarks are clearly referring to “atheism” the social movement not you the person. You defined “atheism” and I’m showing you several reasons why that definition is a deception when we look at the collective behavior of atheism.
It does work that way. How a bigoted and intolerant cult superficially describes itself and how said group actually operates within society are rarely commensurate and atheism is no exception as the evidence of people’s posts, slogans on atheist merchandise all show.
My comments pertain to atheism not to you. My position is that the chosen definition of atheism is sanitized and that in reality there is much more to atheism than that glib definition. Now you could consider denouncing those t-shirt slogans, or at least openly state that they go far beyond the definition of atheism adopted by people in this forum.
It reflects common usage, as that is how dictionaries are compiled, so unevidenced assertions about people you claim to know, and what you claim they think has no relevance at all.
Not just on this, he is doing the same with other words, trying to redefine the dictionary to peddle his bigotry against atheism.
Indeed, like the examples of erroneous claims in the biblical creation myth offered to refute his assertion that religion and science are not incompatible, or the fact that the geological record demonstrates unequivocally no global flood has ever occurred, of course he rolled past and dishonestly didn’t respond.
That is laughable nonsense. and again I have a very strong suspicion you’re using an arbitrary and subjective interpretation of fact, care to define what you think the word means? Because you also claims a fact could never change, which is insanely funny, since there are countless things we once knew to be true, that new evidenced demonstrated were not.
You can, but one is a strict methodology for examining and understanding reality, and the other a collection of unevidenced superstitious beliefs in a superhuman controlling power or deity, based on faith.
Atheism necessarily encompasses all atheists, you are trying to peddle one bigoted view you personally hold of atheism, as @CyberLN says, it doesn’t work that way.
Atheism is the lack or absence of belief in any deity or deities.
