An athiest logical fallacy?

[Aleii]

That’s precisely why I said exactly that in my initial response.

Please point me to the best thread on the topic (IYO).

I don’t have a favorite, so I did a bit of searching. Unfortunately, maybe I’m searching the wrong keyword but I actually am not finding a whole lot of lengthy threads on this, many stop at just a few posts. Here’s one from CA that’s a decent size
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=194803&page=7&highlight=five
and here’s one from IIDB with CA’s own pfc. I like these types because they are usually well written and have commentary from both sides in peanut gallery.
iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=224061&highlight=aquinas
and here’s a more lengthy essay on the problems
devilsdictionarydefiled.com/Essays/AquinasProofGod.html

I’ve only done a quick skim on these to make sure they are on topic, haven’t read through them all to make sure they are coherent, as I need to get to work.

Perhaps, but there are a couple of distinctions which can be made. First, Catholicism makes a number of specific theological and historical claims which are inaccessible to those without exposure to them (hint: it’s called a ‘revealed’ religion for a reason). Atheism makes only one claim which is accessible to everyone with any religious belief. So exposure is a variable for which you’re not accounting. Second, Catholicism hasn’t been on the global scene for very long as compared to general religious belief as a whole (in its many myriad forms) – there’s been far less time for it to accumulate adherents. Given the rate of expansion in 2000 years (from 12 people or so to well over a billion), I’d say it’s only a matter of time until everyone’s Catholic (even including temporary hiccups in demographics). But that’s neither here nor there.

So let’s be sensible when we play numbers games, shall we?

=/ That’s the thing - I’m not playing the numbers game; I’m saying the numbers game does not work.
This is the fallacy called Argumentum ad populum, aka appeal to the majority

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
“This fallacy is sometimes committed while trying to convince a person that a widely popular theory is true…[for example] Since most of the world believes in God, God must exist.”

Probably far fewer than you think.

The link shows that this commonly held mistaken view was questioned earlier than many might realize.

If you prefer, the analogy can be substituted for belief that the sun revolves around the earth.

True enough – but you still have to be a bit of a snob to believe that everyone else is foolishly wrong about the most important thing in their lives…except you. Because you’re much, much smarter. Or Bright, so to speak.

God Bless,
RyanL

Pretty much everyone feels that they’ve got it right when it comes to their stance.

 

[RyanL]

I don’t have a favorite…
and here’s one from IIDB with CA’s own pfc. I like these types because they are usually well written and have commentary from both sides in peanut gallery.
iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=224061&highlight=aquinas
and here’s a more lengthy essay on the problems
devilsdictionarydefiled.com/Essays/AquinasProofGod.html

Thanks much – I’ll look into them, starting with the IIDB one.

=/ That’s the thing - I’m not playing the numbers game; I’m saying the numbers game does not work.
This is the fallacy called Argumentum ad populum, aka appeal to the majority

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
“This fallacy is sometimes committed while trying to convince a person that a widely popular theory is true…[for example] Since most of the world believes in God, God must exist.”

We’ve got two numbers games going. One says that you have to be a snob to be an atheist. I think that’s valid. The other one says that you have to be a snob to be a Catholic. I don’t think that’s valid. Neither numbers game (from my POV and usage) is used to claim that theism is right because more people believe it – again, it’s about snobbery.

The link shows that this commonly held mistaken view was questioned earlier than many might realize.

Questioned? I’d say conclusively shown as false. But maybe this link on the myth of the flat earth will help. Please pay particular attention to the segment labeled “Origin”. I don’t think people (as a whole) have been as dumb as you believe, but I could be overstating the stupidity you accredit them.

If you prefer, the analogy can be substituted for belief that the sun revolves around the earth.

Same response, though to a somewhat lesser degree.

Pretty much everyone feels that they’ve got it right when it comes to their stance.

Agreed. The question then becomes, “How do you know who’s right?”

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[SpiritMeadow]

You are not obligated to respond to my responses of whatever it was I read. If you have nothing to say about something I say about something you say, then don’t say it.

God communicates to us in one of two ways. Natural law and divine revelation (in two parts, being public through the Church and private through personal “contact”).

Those are the only two ways possible. What do you propose are the other ways that He communicates with us?

There are many faiths, but only one God and only one public revelation (not derived from natural law of course), and any faith (religion) is only TRUE in as much as it is congruent with the one source of public revelation which is the Church (Catholic).

You are most correct. I should have ignored your statements since you were not being addressed and you brought in extraneous issues and your comments were not on point to the discussion.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

I don’t hate atheists. I hate what being an atheist does to the person professing atheism.

Atheists, so-called, are interested only in making their “theist” monkey-pets (that would be us, by the way) jump for their amusement.

My basic contention is that there are really very very few real atheists, and that ALL the so-called atheists who come here are merely people who call themselves atheists because God (and their mortality), at this point in their lives, are not important to them because they’re quite comfortable in life, and they like being one of the “cool kids” whose hobbies include bashing God and anyone who believe such “rubbish”.

Once again, love the sinner, hate the sin. I’m lovin’ the so-called atheist for his wit and intellect (as well as inherent dignity as a person of course), and hatin’ the evil that is atheism that has hold of him and digs more of a habitual rut for the poor sinner to have to deal with later in life every day.

Casting aspersions and calling people names is hardly helpful to the goal of conversion, and as a good Christian I am sure that that is your goal. Anything less would be simple meanspirited and of course you arent’ trying to insult or belittle atheists I’m sure. Calling names is considered uncharitible here and is cause for being banned from the conversation.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Once again, comment or not on what you wish. I claim the same right. Thanks and have a lovely day!

What beliefs of mine are blinding me, and to what are they blinding me from seeing?

Faith [not meaning “religion”] is an activity. It is a verb. It is the holding of a set of beliefs in hope that those beliefs are correct and will (hopefully!) be confirmed by holding them “long enough” to be confirmed.

Understanding comes from putting “the pieces” together so that they make sense. What are “the pieces”? They are the TRUTHS given by revelation.

To have faith in truths (hopefully true beliefs) in search of an understanding of why those truths are true is the exercise of theology, and the results of theology are confirmations, aka reasons, of the relationships between those (revealed or deduced from NatLaw) truths which we can understand.

“Faith seeking understanding” means WHAT to you?

That is a interesting self definition but unfortunately I don’t find that in the dictionary. You are more than entitled to define the world as you wish, but your attitude toward others here is mean in its content and in its portrayal.

 

[Jean_Anthony]

This thread is going off topic. Please stick to the OP’s topic and take side discussions to new or existing threads. Thank you all.

 

[phooney]

As the original proposition of an atheist logical fallacy seems to stem from a logical fallacy itself, namely the strawmanning of the atheist position, I think much of this discussion is entirely pertinent.

I hope you won’t mind too much if I at least just post the responses that I’ve already written up, before I noticed the warning that were were straying off topic…

 

[phooney]

@CatsandDogs

“But, just to be “giving”, here are the scientifically verifiable defintions of God:
*) He is omnipotent.
*) He is all-loving.
*) He is all-just.
*) He is all-merciful.”

See now, as a concept of god, I have no problem with what you have listed here. I lack belief in this concept of god, as I lack belief in any concept of god that I have come across. Other concepts of god might include the characteristic of omniscience, but perhaps you alreacy consider that included in ‘omnipotent’. Other common characteristics of concepts of god also include the entity which is directly responsible for the creation of the universe, the entity which is responsible for the creation of humans, the entity which is responsible for our morality, etc, etc.

So, when we are talking to each other about God, if you are using the above criteria to define the ‘entity’ (for want of a better word) that you are talking about, I don’t think our concepts are so utterly different as you say.

Now obviously you’ve said that “I absolutely agree with you that ALL the conclusions that you come to about your “god” are perfectly valid given the premises with which you base those conclusions on.” so I guess you’ll probably want to retract this. And of course your claims that those definitions are scientifically verifiable are sketchy at best.

“Your “concept” of god is “a nonexistent fantasy”. That IS your conscious concept of god. Your actual unconscious humanly-intrinsic concept of God (which of necessity MUST be correct) is the one that you, as a human being, USE while PROFESSING your “nonexistent fantasy” concept for “protective” reasons.”

Complete and utter irrelevant speculation about what my concept of god is, I’m right here, you could have just asked me instead of getting it so very wrong, I hope my paragraph above clears it up for you.

“As I said, your sig is not only descriptive of atheists, as I also don’t believe in a god. It is also descriptive of monotheists, and MOST particularly descriptive of Catholic Christians”

And again, I don’t think the concept of god that I lack belief in is so different from the concept of god you are using.

“Since you don’t SEEM to understand the utter incompatibility of God with “a god” or “the gods”, you can’t figure out WHY it is that your sig also describes Christians (and Jews and moslems and whatever other true monotheists there are out there).”

And you can’t SEEM to understand that other people have different concepts of god and gods, and as such this means that your concept of god is necessarily just one of many concepts of god.

“You profess, consciously, that God is “unreal”, which is nothingness, a vaccuum.”

No, I specifically do not profess that. I profess that I lack belief in any concept of god that I am aware of, one concept of which is your concept of god. As the ultimate authority on what I do or do not believe, it would behoove you to pay heed to this

“You are an “atheist” who defines “being an atheist” as “not being a theist”. That tells us what you aren’t, but not what you are.”

Exactly right. That’s all the ‘a’ prefix does. It’s not the same prefix as ‘anti’. Take the word symetrical and asymetrical. symetrical tells us that whatever shape it is, it IS a mirrored image down at least one central dividing line. Asymetrical only tells us that it isn’t symetrical. Likewise, if we’re talking about beliefs in a god, we are talking about theism. If you want to talk about what my beliefs actually are, you can’t logically deduce them from my atheism. Again, I’m right here, if you want to ask me, but personally I’m more interested in talking about God and the evidence or lack thereof at the moment.

“You are here solely to make us work, and largely spin our wheels”

Well, the burden of proof IS on those that make a claim…

“That is why you are of less than no value to converse with in the subject area of God-stuff.”

Gee thanks. I think you’ll find I’ve spent more time than the average theist considering many theological arguments, and hope you don’t always just dismiss out of hand that which doesn’t match your presuppositions. If you think there is any value in what you said the purpose of these forums are, then I think you may have overstated things here out of your own frustration resulting from your furiously spinning wheels, which have no traction of logic.

“And the ultimate barrier of the so-called atheist rises!”

Sorry for asking what terms you wanted me to define I guess.

“The process to verify these truths is:
*) Believe them. (Treat them as axiomatic.)
*) Have faith in those beliefs. (Hold those beliefs through time.)
*) Find the truths privately revealed to you which coincide with the public revelation of the Church to illuminate further truths to believe. (Confirm evidence against revelation to give reasons for further beliefs to be futher investigated.)
*) Rinse and repeat, forever and ever, amen.”

This is a horrible and twisted way of thinking. You can ‘verify’ anything at all this way, it has precisely zero relevance to any goals of finding truth or avoiding error. This is complete abandonment of your critical thinking functions.

“The problem is that you DO believe in God, while claiming that you don’t. How can I say that? Because it is not possible to be human and not believe in God. That you choose to call God something, or many somethings, else so that you can pick fights with people who call Him God is just a nifty little game.”

Again, I am the ultimate authority on what I do or do not believe, not you. As such, I can assure you that it is perfectly possible to be human and not believe in God. In your concept of god anyway.

“You DO believe in evidence that the world “holds together”, and the “time does move forward”, and that there is correctness and incorrectness.”

I can see the world holding together, and have some basic understanding of gravity. Time is absolutely mind-boggling, and I would have trouble articulating my thoughts on it. Again, you have pretended to know what I believe presumably because by asserting it as my position it makes your case easier to argue. This is just a strawman fallacy, and has little to no relevance to anything I’m saying. Correctness and incorrectness… I’m not sure of the context or definitions you’re using here, so won’t comment.

“There is just some “I don’t WANNA!” involved with you somewhere which has you playing your cute little game.”

Why wouldn’t I ‘wanna’? If you’re right, then with relatively little effort (in relative comparison with eternity) I could assure myself a place in heaven, which is generally supposed to be considered a pretty good place. I could see it as being very comforting to me to believe such a thing. Unfortunately, Pascal’s wager doesn’t work, because by believing in YOUR concept of god, I could very well be inciting the wrath of a different god. Meanwhile, it ignores the value of THIS life, which is the only one that I do have evidence for.

"You are an excellent example, and not necessarily, by ANY MEANS, a bad one, of what being a so-called atheist means. "

Well, thanks I think.

 

[phooney]

@Camron

“Let’s try italics this time.”

Ok, I’ve gone for some CAPITALS though.

“Atheism, as a world view, is more or less built upon the foundations of being skeptical toward anything that cannot be empirically proven.”

It’s not a worldview. It is a lack of belief in a god, nothing more. As such, the rest of your paragraph here and the next one is a strawman, and nothing to do with me.

“Ayn Rand would be proud of your speech right now.”

I’ve never read any of her works. A theist friend of mine highly recommended I read something by her that I can’t remember the name of. Her philosophy was called Objectivism, wasn’t it?

“And this really is the perfect example of the atheist fallacy—if you can’t see it then you don’t believe it exists.”

Well, close, except this isn’t a fallacy because it isn’t part of an argument, it isn’t inherently an atheistic trait and not believing in something doesn’t mean one believes in something else instead. So perhaps not that close afterall. If I might be so bold as to quote Carl Sagan again “Really, it’s ok to wait for the evidence to be in.” In regards to something that I “can’t see” or don’t find any evidence to point towards it, of course I lack belief in it. To not take this stance would require that I believe in EVERYTHING until I have evidence specifically contradicting it, that set of beliefs would include beliefs that were contradictory to each other, and so numerous as to be impossible to actively maintain. As an epistemological stance, it self-destructs.

“This is, in itself, an a priori assertion that you yourself cannot empirically prove yet you hold to it precisely because you feel it is more philosophically secure.”

It’s not an apriori assertion, not by me anyway. If I had said that everything I don’t know about doesn’t exist, or everything that I don’t know how to test doesn’t exist, then perhaps it would be an assertion of the kind you think it is. Unfortunately for your argument, that is quite distinct from what I actually claim. You too lack belief in things you have never heard of, and lack belief in things that you find no evidence for. This extends for more than the scope of intangible and supernatural claims. There might be a currently undiscovered species of marsupial in the outback of Australia somewhere. It would be measurable and tangible in every common sense of the words, yet I don’t believe in it at this point in time. I lack belief in it at this point in time. I do NOT ‘believe that it doesn’t exist’

“I would agree with you if I actually believed that the ant was actually consciously aware of the fact that it was leaving the benefit of 99+% of its active genome.”

I don’t think that, nor was I trying to argue that. This is just simple behaviour, which has the result of preservation of genes, yet on the face of it appears to be much more selfless than human examples of true altruism, of which I note you were able to give none.

“I’m still talking about another kind of altruism by the way. Remember when I made the distinction between true altruism and that other kind of altruism you keep bringing up?”

I remember when you asserted that the other kind of altruism exists, sure, and the distinction you made between them.

"Nonetheless, I do believe that evolution’s ultimate goal was to develop the latent image of Christ impressed upon it from the beginning (like a roll of film being gradually developed over billions of years) so that Christ Jesus, who bore the image of the invisible God, could eventually Incarnate onto Earth.

But that’s for another thread."

Ok… I’ll leave it.

“I’ll tell you what: When you can correctly give me a valid example of true altruism (and explain why it is considered true altruism) then we can talk seriously. Until you can at least see this I strongly suspect that we will be talking past each other and mostly wasting each others time.”

Why should I have to argue your position for you? I asked YOU to give ME an example of ‘true altruism’ as it was a concept that YOU introduced with a bald assertion.

 

[phooney]

@RyanL

"Well…which is it? Does no human look like that or is it reasonable to believe a paint-covered human made the shape? Self-contradictory hypothesis just don’t strike me as a persuasive way to argue in most contexts. The pollen objections (including those regarding Dr. Frei) were equally bad if not worse. "

Perhaps it would be self-contradictory if it was the same hypothesis, instead of a collection of a few different hypotheses. The pollen objections were not made solely on the grounds that Max Frei was of untrustworthy character, they were also made on the grounds of the distribution of said pollen, which were in a manner that suggested tampering in and of itself regardless of any precedent of the person who supplied the samples being involved in fraudulent activities.

“If he has anything of value to say, it should likely come up. Wanna’ join me in listening?”

Thanks for the links to the shroud lecture and the Craig/Ehrman debate. I haven’t listened to the shroud lecture yet, as I didn’t even want to get back into the shroud debate at the moment, as I indicated, but I will do at some stage. I read a transcript of the debate rather than listening to it, as I already know that Craig is a fantastic debater and speaker, but the written word cuts through showmanship and allows one to just look at the arguments. Craig is still an excellent debater in this format. Obviously the debate isn’t quite the same topic as what we were talking about. Regardless in the course of the debate, Craig does list of couple of modern historians that claim to trace back some of the oral traditions to within a few years of the death of Jesus.

Ehrman points out that listing modern scholars doesn’t prove anything, critisises the use of at least one of them because he has spoken to them and knows they haven’t read a particular text, and also asks for the ancient source of some of Craig’s claims, being that he, Ehrman, has read every currently available original document pertainint to the subject in its original language for the first five hundred years of christianity. In terms of what we were talking about, Ehrman schools Craig. In terms of the entire debate… I refrain from comment at this time

You also did not even attempt to address any of the other historians I mentioned, nor the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian church and if anything it is biased towards Christian belief (though I can’t argue with the superb scholarship of it).

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
Originally Posted by CatsAndDogs

To have faith in truths (hopefully true beliefs) in search of an understanding of why those truths are true is the exercise of theology, and the results of theology are confirmations, aka reasons, of the relationships between those (revealed or deduced from NatLaw) truths which we can understand.

“Faith seeking understanding” means WHAT to you?

That is a interesting self definition but unfortunately I don’t find that in the dictionary. You are more than entitled to define the world as you wish, but your attitude toward others here is mean in its content and in its portrayal.

So, what DOES “faith seeking understanding” mean to you?

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
“But, just to be “giving”, here are the scientifically verifiable defintions of God:
*) He is omnipotent.
*) He is all-loving.
*) He is all-just.
*) He is all-merciful.”

See now, as a concept of god, I have no problem with what you have listed here. I lack belief in this concept of god, as I lack belief in any concept of god that I have come across.

So, you don’t agree with God defined as I have, yet you CAN use that definition in our mutual discussion of God thus defined, yet you can’t agree with my conclusions ABOUT God based ON our shared definition of God?

This is the logical “circularity” of the so-called atheist:
Only that which is unbelievable (to him) as God is accepted as a definition of God in discussion about God, which guarantees that God is unbelievable to him, thus proving that having no belief in his definition of God is justified.

The believer in God is exactly equally “logically circular”, as it were, as to him the axiomatic qualities of God are accepted first which result in the impossibility of not believing in God.

And the results of the respective “logical circularities” are similarly diametrically opposed:
The so-called atheist is driven into denying that any “end” (eschaton) contains any meaning, justice or mercy, as it is simply “an end”, while the believer is driven into finding reasons for hope that every “end” (eschaton) is an example of just and merciful meaning.

It’s really an “aesthetic” choice, where I personally choose the latter due to an awareness of what “end” (eschaton) means.

So, when we are talking to each other about God, if you are using the above criteria to define the ‘entity’ (for want of a better word) that you are talking about, I don’t think our concepts are so utterly different as you say.

But you won’t grant that any conclusions drawn from any definition of God (but your own of course) is valid because though you SAY you will agree to use another’s definition of God, you in fact won’t, and only accept conclusions drawn from YOUR definition of God, which is simply that everything about Him is nonsense.

Now obviously you’ve said that “I absolutely agree with you that ALL the conclusions that you come to about your “god” are perfectly valid given the premises with which you base those conclusions on.” so I guess you’ll probably want to retract this. And of course your claims that those definitions are scientifically verifiable are sketchy at best.

I DO fully agree that your conclusions about “god” as you define it are perfectly valid and true.

The problem is that you won’t give me the same right to claim that my conclusions are valid based on my definitions.

That is the inherent hypocrisy of the so-called atheist. He takes MUCH pride in the fact that other people agree that HE’S correct (given his premises) while he refuses outright and with indignation that anyone ELSE can possibly be correct (given their premises)!

A most childish exercise.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
“As I said, your sig is not only descriptive of atheists, as I also don’t believe in a god. It is also descriptive of monotheists, and MOST particularly descriptive of Catholic Christians”

And again, I don’t think the concept of god that I lack belief in is so different from the concept of god you are using.

Yet, you say you accept that we (supposedly) are talking about the same concept while you refuse, out of shear obstinancy, to come to necessary conclusions based ON our (supposedly) shared concept!

This merely means that you say one thing and do another. That is called lying.

Quote:
“Since you don’t SEEM to understand the utter incompatibility of God with “a god” or “the gods”, you can’t figure out WHY it is that your sig also describes Christians (and Jews and moslems and whatever other true monotheists there are out there).”

And you can’t SEEM to understand that other people have different concepts of god and gods, and as such this means that your concept of god is necessarily just one of many concepts of god.

I do accept that other people have different concepts of God and gods. But honest people in converstaion about God/god(s) don’t try to tell me that they are using my concept of God when they are really talking about their concept of god(s)/God.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
“You are here solely to make us work, and largely spin our wheels”

Well, the burden of proof IS on those that make a claim…

You seem to think that we want to prove something to you.

We only want to suggest you, and all people for that matter, properly investigate an amazing thing that we’ve found to be true.

We CAN’T prove anything to you. We can only suggest.

You may want us to prove something, God, to you, which is an admirable goal, but it is simply impossible for ANYONE to do that.

Now, why are you here? For us to help you as best we can to find God, or for some other reason? And what is that other reason, if that is the case?

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
“You are an “atheist” who defines “being an atheist” as “not being a theist”. That tells us what you aren’t, but not what you are.”

Exactly right. That’s all the ‘a’ prefix does. It’s not the same prefix as ‘anti’.

If you want to talk about what my beliefs actually are, you can’t logically deduce them from my atheism. Again, I’m right here, if you want to ask me, but personally I’m more interested in talking about God and the evidence or lack thereof at the moment.

Hmm. Shall I start a thread called, “What phooney DOES believe!”?

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
“That is why you are of less than no value to converse with in the subject area of God-stuff.”

Gee thanks. I think you’ll find I’ve spent more time than the average theist considering many theological arguments, and hope you don’t always just dismiss out of hand that which doesn’t match your presuppositions. If you think there is any value in what you said the purpose of these forums are, then I think you may have overstated things here out of your own frustration resulting from your furiously spinning wheels, which have no traction of logic.

The reason that it’s senseless to have discussion with you about a shared concept of God/god(s) is that you simply won’t do it!

It’s always a one-way street. Non-you does all the work in the discussion.

I grant that what you think my concept of God is is utter nonsense!

I also grant that what you think your (professed) utter LACK of concept of a “god(s)/God” is is perfectly sensible and correct, and in fact morally incumbent for you to hold!

But, since you refuse to talk about anything but what you think my concept of God is, as opposed to what my concept of God actually is, talking with you about “anything God/god(s)” is a waste of time.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
“The process to verify these truths is:
*) Believe them. (Treat them as axiomatic.)
*) Have faith in those beliefs. (Hold those beliefs through time.)
*) Find the truths privately revealed to you which coincide with the public revelation of the Church to illuminate further truths to believe. (Confirm evidence against revelation to give reasons for further beliefs to be futher investigated.)
*) Rinse and repeat, forever and ever, amen.”

This is a horrible and twisted way of thinking. You can ‘verify’ anything at all this way, it has precisely zero relevance to any goals of finding truth or avoiding error. This is complete abandonment of your critical thinking functions.

A so-called atheist is MOST afraid of “losing control”, even when “losing control” is the entire point of the exercise.

The reason that you think that this “method” is horrible and twisted is because you overgeneralize it’s utilization.

It is ONLY to be used in ONE very specific field of study. It is NOT applicable to any other field, and only a VERY SELECTIVE set of intial “truths”.

The fact is that this “method” IS in fact extremely dangerous to use on any set of truths (the axiomatic starting points) but those provided by the Church!

THAT is why you are PERFECTLY CORRECT (in all but one case) in considering ANY person who uses this “religious method” to be INSANE and PERVERSE! What you fail to consider is that there IS a single case where this “method” is perectly safe and amazingly enriching.

Since your religion, your set of beliefs, won’t allow you to make the distinction between proper use and improper use of the “method”, you see (rightly in your blindness) ANY use of the “method” to be utterly harmful, and would prefer that all people see the danger just as you (rightly in your blindness) do.

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Quote:
“There is just some “I don’t WANNA!” involved with you somewhere which has you playing your cute little game.”

Why wouldn’t I ‘wanna’? If you’re right, then with relatively little effort (in relative comparison with eternity) I could assure myself a place in heaven, which is generally supposed to be considered a pretty good place. I could see it as being very comforting to me to believe such a thing.

You don’t “wanna” because it’s too much work for you to do so. You inherently KNOW the work involved in being a believer, as all human beings do, and it’s just too much work for the benefit that you imagine (wrongly) you’d receive.

Since you won’t take the hints (from us) about what you need to do (which is VERY psychologically uncomfortable for you) using the few and valid truths supplied free of charge (which you demand reasons for using before finding reasons to have used them) for rewards (which you imagine in your ignorance are silly and childish) you find “not worth the work”, your reaction to any suggestion that you give it a go are rather obvious.

Unfortunately, Pascal’s wager doesn’t work, because by believing in YOUR concept of god, I could very well be inciting the wrath of a different god. Meanwhile, it ignores the value of THIS life, which is the only one that I do have evidence for.

A “different god”? Once again you prove you have no interest in discussion about an agreed upon topic.

Quote:
"You are an excellent example, and not necessarily, by ANY MEANS, a bad one, of what being a so-called atheist means. "

Well, thanks I think.

So-called atheists such as yourself are so easily dismissable, due to your total lack of ability to agree on terms, that you give any believer a sure sign that it’s simply better to walk away.

The only formidible so-called atheist is one with a gun, which they will inevitably wield in their anger at those they see (justifiably in their own mind’s but incorrectly in truth) as “diseased by religion”.

 

[Camron]

@Camron
Ok, I’ve gone for some CAPITALS though.

Fine. But keep in mind that all caps usually indicate someone yelling over the internet.

It’s not a worldview.

Come now…it most certainly is a world view. There’s definitely no unified atheist world view per se, just as there is no unified theist world view per se. Even still, I think that many atheists would uphold Richard as their champion spokesperson to be sure, just as various theistic groups have their spokespeople.

Regardless of what you claim, aside from atheistic Buddhists for example, atheism, in the modern contemporary sense, is most properly intrinsically kinked with the world view that only that which is material in nature matters, i.e., materialism.

All else is fundamentally irrelevant in the mind of the atheist. And if you do not consider this a world view then you do not understand your own ‘faith’ or else you are being deliberately obtuse.

It is a lack of belief in a god, nothing more.

No. Atheism is a belief which is largely dependent on the philosophy of the materialist’s reasoning, something which incorporates the belief that the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is matter. In fact, it is considered a form of physicalism.

Fundamentally, to the mind of the materialist, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions; therefore, matter is the only substance.

As a theory, materialism belongs to the class of monist ontology. As such, it is different from ontological theories based on dualism or pluralism. For singular explanations of the phenomenal reality, materialism would be in contrast to idealism. And this world-view is indeed where atheism is most deeply rooted.

As such, the rest of your paragraph here and the next one is a strawman, and nothing to do with me.

That’s only so because you don’t like the idea of your faith being categorized right beside other faiths and philosophies. All people of faith, aside from the most radical of us, clearly understand our faith to be deeply integrated with a particular world view. And for the most part we don’t have any problem with this precisely because we realize that this is necessary if we are to have a rational dialogue with people of other faiths. I know I don’t have any problem with this.

However, I do have a problem with someone who deliberately plays semantics games with their own faith in their attempts to distinguish it as being superior to other people faiths by simply labeling it as “not a faith” because they don’t believe in “a god”. The problem is you do believe in something. It’s what you assume does not exist (or what you assume cannot be proven to exist) which defines your entire approach to faith too.

I’ve never read any of her works. A theist friend of mine highly recommended I read something by her that I can’t remember the name of. Her philosophy was called Objectivism, wasn’t it?

Yes, but I’m speaking more about her views on charity, which were downright cold and monstrous in my opinion. I wouldn’t recommend her anytime soon. I’ve only noted that your thoughts sound very much like hers in some ways-- particularly with the rejection of the idea of true altruism.

Well, close, except this isn’t a fallacy because it isn’t part of an argument, it isn’t inherently an atheistic trait and not believing in something doesn’t mean one believes in something else instead. So perhaps not that close after all. If I might be so bold as to quote Carl Sagan again “Really, it’s ok to wait for the evidence to be in.”

And maybe it’s not ok. Even though I have enjoyed his writings, the late Carl Sagan certainly wouldn’t know this to be true. He would only believe this to be true—which places him in the same category as the rest of us “believers” whether he likes this or not.

Anyway, we seem to have some sharp points of disagreement separating our own individual world-views. In fact, since you’re clearly not seeking answers to the Catholic faith, I am left puzzled as to why you are participating here. If you’ve come to convert others here to atheism I suspect you’re going to stir up the bee’s nest very soon.

Like I said, once you can see that true altruism exists then we can seriously talk. Unfortunately I don’t really see that happening anytime soon. But we can hope and pray for sure.

Thank you for your time. And may the Lord open your heart to His Divine Love.

 

[RyanL]

For simplicity’s sake, Phooney, where are you in this chart?

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/AtheismImplicitExplicit3.svg/275px-AtheismImplicitExplicit3.svg.png A chart showing the relationship between the definitions of weak/strong and implicit/explicit atheism. Strong (or positive) atheists explicitly deny the existence of deities. Weak (or negative) atheists include implicit atheists (those who have thought little, or not at all, about gods) and those who explicitly eschew belief in deities without asserting deities do not exist.