Atheism isn't a belief?

PurpleYouko...your language. My, My I am shocked...

iano writes:Whilst athiesm maybe irrational (your implication I hasten to add, I'd call it 'religion' - that doesn't sound so bad ) belief in God is not irrational if God has revealed himself to you. You might not have any basis to prove it to others but they can't disprove the proof given that your proof is supernatural so can't be dispproven naturally. That is different to the athiests position - which may be disproven if any proofs are posed for which there is no scientific (natural) evidence.

Omnivorous writes: God told him to make lures.

iano writes:He has a great way of illustrating things..does God. He told some fishermen "...and I will make you a fisher of men" Hope the bloke you read about got the parallelism

iano writes:If the p.p. you refer to is God and he exists then it may well be that he would chose not to come in where he is not wanted.

iano writes:If the p.p. is me...then I forgive you the slight.

iano writes:when faced with reasoned argument I must try and figure out how the 'knowledge' that God did (the answer) can be reconciled with how and why he did it (the question).

ds writes:As for the 'how', you have 'magical poofing', which is the same as saying, "He did it somehow." As for the 'why', you have any of a near-infinite number of possible reasons from which to choose.

Such a malleable God will fit into any gap. It should never be placed into any gap, though; as doing so removes the impetus for finding what is really in there. It's the end to all inquiry -- an arbitrary stopping point. "It fits. There, I'm done."

No thanks I'll just scoop out your God and continue, as I want to find what is really there. Only after every possible solid explanation has been tried and failed is one of the permutations of 'God' acceptable, as we'd be left with only nonfalsifiable hypotheses, so one is just as good as any other. (Given equal complexity)

GAW-Snow writes:So... do you believe in the IPU?

iano writes:Having a picture of the jigsaw your trying to piece together is much more fun (and more profitable) than trying to piece together a jigsaw when you don't know whether the pieces even belong to the same jigsaw or not.

iano writes: You've got one life to do it all in d.s. - that much is sure. If your intent on ploughing every non-God furrow, somehow I don't think you'll exhaust them all before you die.

iano writes:It's worth beaaring in mind that if he exists, he's your God too

iano writes:People can delude themselve for sure, but God could make sure the person knew they weren't deluded.

iano writes:P.S.
Please don't think there is any mocking or looking down on your position from my standpoint. The nature of these posts - dealing as they do with personal views - can waver on borders.

iano writes:Know that 4 years ago I would have been lurking here, cheering every point you make.

iano writes: At least you have the unshifting strength of your convictions on your side.

iano writes:People can delude themselve for sure, but God could make sure the person knew they weren't deluded.

omnivorous writes:The only Creator required in the lure-maker's scenario is the creative power of the human brain to solve problems of survival, a great reason to evolve one.

2)Delusion:
If God exists and choses to reveal himself, then nothing can stop him doing so. He would too, you may agree, be able to reveal himself in such a way as to ensure the recipient of the revelation would be under no illusion that God it was.

could I suppose take it from the general demeanour of the person whether they thought they suffered from delusion. Like, a person who is suffering from 'divine illusion' is likely going to demonstrate delusional tendencies elsewhere

4)"If it ain't a scientific proof then it ain't a proofEver been in love PY? Was it scientifically provable ('in love' can easily be falsified - especially if the recipient is a 85 year old geezer with billions in his account and a ropey ticker). Did you require scientific proof to know you were in love? Thought not

("I am the Lord your God, thou shalt not put false gods before me" You worshipping at the altar of the god of Science again PY )

Hi PY. I said I'd come back on weak athiesm with you. For the purposes of clarity - seeing as so much has been said and there are so many views on weak/strong/taking-the-epis atheism - could you do us both a favor and give a short synopsis of your defintion of weak athiesm, ie: what you hold to be the case. With too, the basis of it's validation/justification as a position. A few lines will do just to serve as reminders of the central points.

Weak atheism, also known as implicit atheism, is the absence of belief concerning the existence of deities, without the positive assertion that they do not exist. A weak atheist may however claim that given sufficient lack of evidence, nonexistence is most likely. An argument commonly associated with the weak atheism position is that of rationalism: any claims and assertions, and the beliefs arising thereof, must be justified, and not taken on faith. Theists make the positive claim that a particular god and/or deities exist. Weak atheists do not assert the contrary, but merely withhold their assent from the theists' claim. Some weak atheists simply have no opinion on the issue, either because they have not considered it, or because they find the arguments and evidence more or less equally compelling on both sides. Others, having considered the arguments and evidence, may doubt the existence of deities but are unwilling to assert no deities exist. They may feel it is not possible to prove a negative; that the strong atheist has not fulfilled his burden of proof any more than the theist; and that faith is at present required to assert or deny theism, making both theism and strong atheism untenable. The epistemological position that it is not known, and possibly not knowable, whether or not deities exist is known as agnosticism. This view is not equivalent to weak atheism, as agnosticism can also be subscribed to by theists who hold their beliefs on faith. However agnosticism is often the basis for weak atheism, a position sometimes called agnostic atheism. For a discussion of agnosticism and its variants, see: agnosticism, weak agnosticism, strong agnosticism, agnostic atheism.

The same site writes:Agnosticism is the philosophical and theological view that the existence of God, gods or deities is either unknown or inherently unknowable and that to deny the existence of God is also untenable. The term and the related agnostic were coined by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1869 and are also used to describe those who are unconvinced or noncommittal about the existence of deities as well and other matters of religions. The word agnostic comes from the Greek a (no) and gnosis (knowledge). Agnosticism is not to be confused with a view specifically opposing the doctrine of gnosis and Gnosticismthese are religious concepts that are not generally related to agnosticism.For some the central claim of agnosticism is that the existence of God is inherently unknowable, while for others it is that the existence of God is either uncertainty or subject to doubt. For this reason, agnosticism is a form of scepticism focusing on religious statements, and so faces some of the same philosophical issues. For example if an agnostic claims that absolute truth is not possible and does not restrict the scope of that claim, they are in danger of contradicting themselves. For then this individual would be obliged to hold that the statement there are no absolute truths is itself an absolute truth. An agnostic would be on firmer ground if they claimed that religious statements or statements about the numinous world are not or cannot be satisfactorily justified. In this case, it would be reasonable to reserve judgment. For instance, an agnostic might demand that religious statements be justified in the same way as scientific statements, perhaps in terms of the scientific method. Since this is adopting an attitude towards the quality of proof required to accept such statements, agnosticism becomes a matter of inclination rather than of logical proof. That is, one need only be willing to accept a different justification of religious statements in order to avoid agnosticism. Perhaps this explains why agnostics do not generally engage in proselytization.

PurpleYouko writes:You can believe that these revelations are genuine all you like but you can't objectively prove they aren't delusions.

Well since breaking up with the IPU after her Holy book intimated that she considered me a shithead, I had to find a new god to fill that aching void in my soul.