And one of us might be cherry-picking bullshit and ignoring the actual case that has been made. One of us might be equivocating definitions and ignoring the actual case that has been made. One of us clearly does not know how to read or define terms clearly.
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What made you conclude it was ever a belief? You believe in the existence of gods. I do not.
To add: you seem to be heavily implying that Atheism is exclusive only to Christianity. It isn’t. It applies to every religion that believes in the existence of a god or gods.
Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Pagans all claim they believe in god(s) without any evidence. Just a historical fiction novel that they believe has the facts. Atheists don’t buy into it and therefore making It a disbelief because it specifically doesn’t acknowledge those god claims.
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This guy is reminding more and more of that master of equivocation we had a few years ago on this site, Earned himself a life ban. Made all the same arguments used the same deflections…was as dishonest in every post.
Turned out to be a JW… remember him you older denizens of this 9th level of hell? Oh, he wouldn’t speak directly to me then either.
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They do them here in the UK too, courses at least, and in the EU, I even saw something about a course being taught in the USA (Miami) so I don’t know how much that counts for anything.
Although I accept Russian communist leaders might have preferred atheism, the premise that communism is atheistic is, at best, problematic. I’m not convinced one can even call Russia communist these days; yeah, I know it’s the same bunch of f#ckwits but they’re communist in name only and seem politically more fascist right now. But I digress.
Atheism hasn’t reigned supreme in Communist Russia and it appears that the Soviet government was more concerned with restricting institutionalized religion than with trying to eradicate all worship, a near impossible task so compromise was required. Sure, Communist leaders made strenuous, sometimes even murderous, efforts to promote atheism and eliminate religion but they were far from successful (supported by the massive resurfacing of religion after the demise of the Communist regime). There wasn’t a straight-line, unvarying, unrelenting suppression of religion in Communist Russia rather alternating periods, sometimes lasting for decades, of relaxing and of strengthening antireligious policies. Despite hostility between the two, there were times when the orthodox church settled into neutrality and even some support and, in the seventies, the Communist government revised its state/church regulations in favour of Orthodox and Baptist churches possibly as a reward for their support.
In essence, Christianity was present in the very heart of, “Godless Communism”. Indeed, the Orthodox Church bears significant responsibility for perpetuating the Bolsheviks tyrannical grip on their people; neither the first or last time that Christians have “sold their souls” for their own benefit.
I haven’t done any research on Chinese communism but, based on a casual view, it strikes me that they’re probably much the same. Not claiming that’s true though.
LOL. I always thought it was a box of cats but Google thinks I’m wrong, oh well!
UK Atheist
I didn’t say an atheist has no beliefs. I was saying that they affirm “I do not hold this belief” as having meaning. I’m of the opinion that the statement has no meaning, the atheist regards it as true though.
When presented with some proposition, one either agrees (asserts it is true), disagrees (asserts it is false) or is undecided, does not know how to decide if it is true or false.
Why “modern” atheists phrase their position as “absence of belief in deities” rather than “I’m undecided” is far from clear to me, it suggests that their true position is “there is no God” but they don’t want to admit that.
If faced with the proposition “it will rain at Heathrow sometime next week” and what they think, nobody would ever say “I do not hold a belief that it will rain”, they’d say either “Yes I think it will”, “No I don’t think it will” or “I don’t know”.
This why Berlinksi, myself and many others regard this version of atheism as pretentious, almost a cult, fanatical, storm in a teacup.
🤦🏼 Every single thread you beat this dead horse.
Rain has been evidenced.
Keep your obsession to one thread please.
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What do you mean?
You don’t believe in the other gods correct? So how hard is it to empathize that someone like me or @Sheldon is capable of not believing you when you or any Christian for that matter when say your god exists?
@Cognostic stated it best. Sufficient evidence. The bible is a claim, not the proof.
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It means I don’t believe in any deity or deities, and yes that is a factually correct statement.
Nope, knowledge and belief are not the same, as ever your grasp of language like your malleable definition of evidence, is being mangled to suit your agenda.
I am an agnostic about all unfalsifiable claims, and I disbelief all claims for which insufficient objective evidence can be demonstrated, those two assertions are not mutually exclusive and will overlap.
I don’t believe you since they and I have spent days explaining this very simplest of epistemological concepts.
No that is a lie you seem determined to peddle, whilst whining like a child every time your disrespect is remotely reciprocated, you came to peddle your superstitious wares, and are simply annoyed that your vapid spiel has made no dent.
False equivalence fallacy, the prospect of rain isn’t unfalsifiable. The truth is that many atheists simply have a far better grasp of logic and epistemology, and so they don’t make ludicrous claims when they don’t know, unlike theists, as your posts have amply demonstrated of course.
You can believe in unevidenced magic sky fairies if it makes you happy. I could care less what a dishonest faux intellectual tries to claim about what I should and should not believe.
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My post was entirely appropriate for the thread given the title “Is atheism a belief system” - we are discussing that theme. Furthermore I was responding to a remark made by UK atheist directly addressing what the person said.
Finally I have no obsession, just a desire to challenge and discuss ideas.
Incorrect. I might well say that god X does not exist, or I might say I don’t know, I would never belabor the point with the waffly “I do not hold a belief in X”.
I don’t know if the universe is deterministic, there are indications it might not be, but I would never say “I do not hold the belief that the universe is deterministic”, I say " I don’t know if the universe is deterministic".
Yet the “modern” atheist strenuously avoid saying this, they never say it, and they disapprove of definitions that are phrased that way.
So why is that? surely if one doesn’t know then they don’t know do they?
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Do you believe the deities you don’t know exist are real? Only I tend to withhold belief from claims I can know nothing about, as it is the only rational position.
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I am an atheist, because I do not accept any currently claimed existence of deity, be they of the creator type or one of many. I do not know whether there are no gods at all but, on the basis of what we so far can prove (that no currently accepted scientific explanation requests or requires the action of deity) I believe it to be highly unlikely that any will ever be found to exist. I am no more “undecided” about this issue than I am about the existence of Santa Claus or Superman (although I have arbitrarily decided that Black Widow may well be a goddess).
It’s all about the claim that gods exist. If people didn’t claim that, there’d be no need for atheism or even the word “atheist” and few atheists I know of will explicitly claim that there is no god because that’s almost as dumb as claiming there is.
This feels pretty much like a strawman.
To my mind, there is only one version of atheism - if you do not believe or do not currently accept claims that a god or gods exist, you are an atheist. Simples!
UK Atheist
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I’m an atheist because I don’t buy into the religious claims that deities exist. I myself don’t know whether there are gods or no gods. I have been given no sufficient evidence that proves that they exist.
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No.
Is “I do not hold a belief that proposition X is true” semantically equivalent to “I don’t know if proposition X is true”?
What about non-religious claims that deities exist?
OK.
It’s a claim no different than a religious one. Whomever makes any kind of unevidenced claim inherits the Burden of Proof.
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So you are decided and the decision is “I do not know if a deity exists or not”. But it seems you do go further, you are of the opinion that the existence of a deity is “unlikely” (a statistical claim) but that’s fine I think I understand your overall position.
Very well, I regard the proposition “God exists” as true myself. I regard it as entirely rational and consistent with what I understand about the universe, physics, cosmology and mathematics. Why we reach different conclusions from the same data is the interesting point for me.
Well I can’t see why you’d say that but never mind. I can’t see any semantic difference between saying “I don’t know” and “I do not hold a belief”, if there is one I’d be interested to learn more of is.
Or do not know?
Tell me then, what makes some proposition “religious”?
Someone who identifies as Christian and is non practicing doesn’t mean they’re any different than a Christian whom is devout, prays to their god, and goes to church. They’re both Christians to me. So which one has to say “I believe in god” or “god does exist!” for me to make that proposition in your rule book? The non practicing one or the devout one?
Bullshit.
Then keep this obsession in this thread.
You’ve been answered numerous times. Accept the answer and move on.
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