Is there "hope" for atheists?

[Oreoracle]

How is that not a proposition?

“I don’t believe in X” and “X doesn’t exist” are different positions. Only the second is a proposition.

For example, I live near woods. Animals don’t roam from these woods often, but they occasionally do. It is possible that there could be a squirrel under my car as I sit here typing this post. I do not believe there is, since a squirrel being in that position at this exact moment given the relative infrequency of squirrels getting near my car is unlikely. But I concede that it is possible. Claiming categorically that there is no squirrel under my car is entirely different and would require evidence to be corroborated.

 

[Amandil]

“I don’t believe in X” and “X doesn’t exist” are different positions. Only the second is a proposition.

For example, I live near woods. Animals don’t roam from these woods often, but they occasionally do. It is possible that there could be a squirrel under my car as I sit here typing this post. I do not believe there is, since a squirrel being in that position at this exact moment given the relative infrequency of squirrels getting near my car is unlikely. But I concede that it is possible. Claiming categorically that there is no squirrel under my car is entirely different and would require evidence to be corroborated.

Proposition , a statement in which something is either affirmed or denied, so that it can be significantly categorized as true or false.

So then atheism isn’t even a matter of fact but merely your opinion? Just something that you share?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

For example, I live near woods. Animals don’t roam from these woods often, but they occasionally do. It is possible that there could be a squirrel under my car as I sit here typing this post. I do not believe there is, since a squirrel being in that position at this exact moment given the relative infrequency of squirrels getting near my car is unlikely. But I concede that it is possible. Claiming categorically that there is no squirrel under my car is entirely different and would require evidence to be corroborated.

The difference between being an agnostic and an atheist is negligible.

In both cases one lives as if there is no God because one shuts oneself off from God.

That is, one no longer looks under the car to see if there is a squirrel.

That is, one assumes there is no squirrel under the car because it isn’t likely.

And then you run over the squirrel!

 

[ThinkingSapien]

atheist now. Why should I care about any of those things?

chances are that if you are human you’ll still care about many of these things even outside of a religious domain.

 

[Amandil]

chances are that if you are human you’ll still care about many of these things even outside of a religious domain.

Really? How do you know?

And I still have yet to see any answer as to why I should?

 

[ThinkingSapien]

And I still have yet to see any answer as to why I should?

Would you mind rewording this part? I’m not sure if you are asking about obligation or contingency or one of the other things that can be expressed with the word “should.”

 

[Oreoracle]

Proposition , a statement in which something is either affirmed or denied, so that it can be significantly categorized as true or false.

So then atheism isn’t even a matter of fact but merely your opinion? Just something that you share?

I suppose I’ll whip up a more pathological example to illustrate.

Picture the universe. Now draw a sphere with a radius of one billion light-years around Earth. Consider the planet nearest the surface of the sphere.

We now have a well-defined object, even though we know little else about it. Suppose someone claims that this planet is smaller than Earth. Do you claim that they are correct, that they are wrong, or do you take the weaker position that you simply don’t believe they are correct (since you don’t know anything about the planet)?

 

[Amandil]

Would you mind rewording this part? I’m not sure if you are asking about obligation or contingency or one of the other things that can be expressed with the word “should.”

What is obligatory for an atheist besides whatever I decide for myself? Why should I, as an atheist, even care about obligation to anything or anyone outside of myself or apart from my own self-interest?

 

[Oreoracle]

The difference between being an agnostic and an atheist is negligible.

In both cases one lives as if there is no God because one shuts oneself off from God.

That is, one no longer looks under the car to see if there is a squirrel.

Most atheists I know would “look under the car” if they could. By all means, if you have a proof of God, step forth and claim your Nobel Prize. You would be the first Christian to render faith obsolete.

As a side note, and I doubt you truly care, when you say “agnostic” you really mean “weak/soft atheist”. Agnosticism is the position that we can’t have knowledge of gods or their properties independently of whether or not they exist. That is why some people (gestures toward self) are atheist and agnostic at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive positions because they are responses to totally different questions.

 

[Amandil]

I suppose I’ll whip up a more pathological example to illustrate.

Picture the universe. Now draw a sphere with a radius of one billion light-years around Earth. Consider the planet nearest the surface of the sphere.

We now have a well-defined object, even though we know little else about it. Suppose someone claims that this planet is smaller than Earth. Do you claim that they are correct, that they are wrong, or do you take the weaker position that you simply don’t believe they are correct (since you don’t know anything about the planet)?

Why do you just stop there?

Who’s making the claim? What is their authority?

And there’s still a universe of difference between the importance of the possibility of a plant existing in the universe smaller than the earth and the possibility of the existence of God and all that entails.

Why simply default and settle on the weaker position, especially with what is at stake?

 

[Oreoracle]

Why do you just stop there?

Who’s making the claim? What is their authority?

Assume we ask a question that no one could possibly know regardless of their authority. Maybe we could get more specific and talk about the details of that planet’s surface.

You don’t have to stop there. You can keep asking questions. But if someone put a gun to your head and asked what your position was, the only honest answer is “I don’t believe you, because I don’t know, and I don’t see any obvious reason that you would know.”

 

[Amandil]

Oreoracle:

But if someone put a gun to your head and asked what your position was, the only honest answer is “I don’t believe you, because I don’t know, and I don’t see any obvious reason that you would know.”

Who’s putting the gun to your head?

And frankly with that scenario it can go both ways.

But that’s besides the point. I’m still trying to understand how not knowing is preferable to knowing. Are you really taking the position that “ignorance is bliss”?