Atheists can't hold office in the USA?

Are you an axemurdererinmyhouse-ist or an a-axemurdererinmyhouse-ist?
Are you a leprechaunundermyfloorboards-ist or an a-leprechaunundermyfloorboards-ist?
Are you a unicornundermybedist or an a-unicornundermybed-ist?Please provide the reasons for your stated belief or non-belief for each of the above. If you don't consider it fruitful to justify your belief or non-belief in the above and find the request to do so moderately irritating you are free to leave this discussion without consequence. Special pleading. Sure. And social prevalence is the basis of the special pleading in question. If someone in serious contention for the position of US president were to be 'outed' as an atheist do you think it would be 'requested' or 'required' (or indeed demanded) that they justify their position?Or would people just shrug and say "logically it's no different from being an a-axemurdererinmyhouse-ist".Edited by Straggler, : Typos

If you have absolutely no idea what an nggards is then you must be ignostic. As per Message 164 which is (subset) atheistic in terms of not actually holding a belief.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Contentless gibberish is very much how I would describe many uses of the term 'god/GOD'. Specifically those instances where the concept is so ambiguous and evasively undefined as to be entirely meaningless. We see lots of cases of that here at EVC.Anyway 'contentless gibberish' is very much the point with regard to ignosticism so your comment would suggest agreement with mine, and ultimately Tangle's, point here. Well done.

You are correct that this does reflect common usage. Without embarking on some long winded back and forth I am simply going to try and explain why non-believers might object to this usage for reasons that are not those being suggested (i.e. sad idiots playing semantics so that it looks like more people agree with them than actually do). You can reply safe in the knowledge that you can have the last word as I shan't reply back.It's about expressing the attitude one takes to un-evidenced entities, taking a consistent approach to such entities, and the effective special pleading that god/God/GOD/whatever gets as a result of common language use.Earlier we talked about axe murderers and the fact that I am an a-axemurdererinmyhouse-ist. I.e. I do not believe that when I go home tonight I will find an axe murderer waiting for me. Now unless I have upset the mafia or somesuch this non-belief in the presence of an axe murderer in my house is probably considered perfectly reasonable. So reasonable that making any sort of an issue about it (i.e. expressing my non-belief in said axe murderer) is frankly a bit weird. In fact belief in the absence of an axe murderer in my house is considered so reasonable that not even giving the possibility any particular consideration is a perfectly legitimate approach. I can wander through life not being confronted with any need to describe myself as an a-axemurdererinmyhouse-ist or do anything else that singles out my non-belief for this particular phenomenon for comment.And it's not just axe murderers. Unicorns under my bed. Leprechauns in my wardrobe. The usual raft of unevidenced entities that get theists in a huge Tiz whenever mentioned as comparable. The number of things I am silently atheistic about is practically infinite. Yet all of these things go unmentioned and there is no 'a-ist' word to describe them.Then we come to god/God/GOD/whatever. Alas whilst I honestly and genuinely think such a thing should be treated identically to all those other things about which I am equally atheistic the world around me doesn't agree. Instead it becomes necessary to justify the "positive position" (your phrase) that such a thing doesn't exist and to declare myself as a theist, an agnostic or an atheist towards that particular thing. So, with axe murderers and leprechauns and unicorns etc. in mind I say that "I am an atheist" towards gods because I have exactly the same non-belief in any gods as I do those other things.But then I am accused of being a fundamentalist, lacking evidence for my belief, being equally but oppositely as irrational as any theist and so on and so forth. All for taking the same consistent approach to gods that I do all those other things I am silently and largely unthinkingly atheistic towards.The prevalence of god concepts in society means that there is a form of special pleading going on that makes atheism towards such concepts somehow be a "positive position" where being equally atheistic towards other things is just the obvious default.I wish we could treat gods like all the other things we are all atheistic about. But that isn't the way things are and the language commonly used reflects that.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : Typos

Precisely. Yet I am relentlessly informed that my non-belief in gods/God/GOD/whatever is a "positive position" despite the fact my stance on gods is identical to my stance on axe murderers in my house, leprechauns in my closet, unicorns under my bed, griffins in the garden shed and so on and so forth ad infinitum.I don't really see why this stance as applied to gods is a "positive position" while it isn't with regard to all the other things I equally don't believe in. But people keep telling me that atheism is a "positive position" anyway.They seem to take it upon themselves to tell me my mind. I am glad you agree that this is uncalled for.....

Am I an a-axemurdererinmyhouse-ist?
Are you?
Am I an a-leprechaunundermybed-ist?
Are you?Are these "positive positions"? Are these strong or weak 'a-ist' positions as defined by you?If my stance on gods is identical to all the things that we could sit here for a lifetime identifying and expressing 'a-ist' positions on, most of which we haven't even thunk up yet and which we are silently 'a-ist' by default towards, where does that leave us?I'd say it leaves us in a situation where usage of the term 'atheist' as a "positive position" that somehow requires more justification than any other 'a-ist' position is to embrace the special pleading that theists apply to their preferred concepts.For obvious reasons someone who is suggesting that gods/God/GOD/whatever should not be privileged to such special pleading is going to be reluctant to embrace terminology that has that special pleading innately embedded.

I suggest you do search for the words "positive" and "fundamentalist" and see what comes up for this thread.

Yes that is my point.The word 'atheist' in and of itself reflects the cultural bias towards special pleading gods over other concepts which are just as evidentially (un)worthy of consideration.

So according to you we are all (the vast majority of the world's population) "strong atheists" towards leprechauns under the bed and pretty much every un-evidenced concept we can think up.Why are all those people who don’t believe in leprechauns under their bed (presumably the vast majority of the world’s population) strong a-ists with regard to that but those who hold an equal non-belief in god would be defined by you as agnostic? How does that work?Can you explain why the effective default for all this infinite array of things that we could spend our time listing (but won’t) is strong atheist (as defined by you) whilst the default for gods is expected to be agnostic (as defined by you)?

I know. That is the basis for the special pleading that god concepts receive.The word 'atheist' as used to describe a "positive position" in and of itself reflects the cultural bias towards special pleading gods over other concepts which are just as evidentially (un)worthy of consideration.Anyone who goes home tonight confident in their belief that there won’t be an axe murderer waiting for them is (according to your definitions) a strong atheist who holds a "positive position" with regard to the presence of an axe murderer in their house.But I would suggest that calling this a "positive position" rather than simply the default position of most sane people is to give the entire silly idea more credence than it probably deserves. The fact is that in normal everyday life I do use the terminology in the way that you are so fond of.What I am trying to make clear to you (and others) here is that this common usage inherently panders to the privileged position that believers think their preferred concepts should hold.For historical, cultural etc. reasons the idea that gods are just another concept which should be treated in the same way as any other is considered strange and heretic. Hence language is used in the illogical way that it is.But if you are going to discuss these things on a regular basis (as you do) I think it perfectly valid to point out that treating non-belief in gods as a "positive position" is the same as treating the non-belief in all sorts of things that you happily don't believe in (e.g. leprechauns) as a "positive position" too.

So you take a "strong atheist" (your definition) "positive position" (your definition) towards both leprechauns and axe murderers waiting for you in your house.Now along comes a devout believer in leprechauns, a leprechaun-ist. He takes umbridge at your proclaimed a-leprechaun-ism. He declares that your a-leprechaun-ist stance has no more validity than his positive position that leprechauns do exist. He says that leprechaun ism and a-leprechaun-ism are two sides of the same coin, both positive positions neither one more justified than the other. He demands that you supply the evidence which disproves the existence of leprechauns and insists that without it you must be agnostic towards leprechauns.How do you respond?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Useful and practical in cultures that are biased towards treating god concepts as having more credence than other similarly (un)evidenced concepts.In a culture where there was a historical and present majority belief in unicorns a-unicorn-ism would be the equivalent and you would be telling me that comparisons with the term 'atheist' were unwarranted as compared to common usage....

Right.
So he tells you that your stance equates to the logical fallacy of "If some then All" and that just because we know some leprechauns are fictional doesn't mean that they all are must be.He excitedly proceeds to draw a number of diagrams explaining to you why your "positive position" (your definition) that leprechauns don't exist and his positive position that they do are entirely equal in terms of validity of conclusion.Given that you agree that you both hold a positive position do you think there is anything wrong with his approach, or is he correct that leprechaun-ism and a-leprechaun-ism are equal in terms of validity?

Taking someone like Faith as an example....How does one distinguish between what Faith actually knows and that which she merely believes she knows?

Who cares? Well anyone discussing the difference between knowledge and belief may want to give it some consideration.... If that is your approach to knowledge and belief then it is little wonder you are so hopelessly lost here.