Problems with being an Atheist (or Evolutionist)

There's the problem of trying to keep one's temper when confronted with banal and stupid arguments.

I've simulate the evolution of strategies for the Iterated Prisoners' Dilemma on my computer. The gene pool converges rapidly on Tit-For-Tat style strategies.

An interesting point. The female preying mantis eats her mate during sex. Do we think her wicked for doing so?But humans are the ultimate eusocial species.

I'm not sure why this is off-topic. The OP, after all, was not about real problems that atheists actually have, but about imaginary problems that some dopey theist made up. I don't see, then, why it should be off-topic to discuss delusions of this nature.

He didn't say that it did --- he said that Tat for Tit defects initially. Which it does.

In those case where you are, as when you are applying for a passport or stopped by the police, I suggest that you should not try to shift the burden of proof. Neither bureaucrats nor policemen appreciate a smartass. On debate forums, most participants prefer to produce evidence for their assertions (if they have it) then to fall under the odium of making stuff up. If you don't find this a "legitimate reason" to back your assertions with data, that's fine; but you can't object if people then mock both your assertions and your style of debate. The implausibility of a claim is evidence suggesting (though not proving) its falsehood. If you claimed that your parents had christened you Humpty Dumpty Haddock-Floss Wufflepuff T. Bone Steak, then I should be a little skeptical: more so than if you claimed to be called Peter Jenkins or Joe Schultz. Similarly your claim that: ... seems to have aroused a similar skepticism in your audience. I would suggest that you are suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect.

He's trying to explain the concept of "burden of proof" to you.Whether or not this can be said to have a "point" depends on whether or not you are capable of understanding it. Perhaps it is as pointless as trying to explain the same concept to an eggplant. Only time will tell.

Some people seem to find your claim highly implausible. As my own knowledge of the American legal system extends no further than watching old episodes of Law & Order, my position is more agnostic. Or just being wrong.And no, it's generally your job to substantiate your claims (unless your claim takes the form of a universal, which in this case it didn't). You're entitled to the opinion that you're a small purple giraffe called Gerald. It's a free country.Other people are entitled to ask you for evidence, and to dismiss your claims if you don't present any.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Boo!

You seem to be (rightly) drawing a distinction between saying "I don't believe in God" (known as "weak" or "negative" atheism) and saying "I believe that there is no God" (known as "strong" or "positive" atheism.You then (wrongly) say that an atheist, "by definition", is someone who says the second.You then, and this is where it gets really weird, go on to imply that an atheist who affirms the negative atheism but rejects postive atheism is a liar and a hypocrite because they must really affirm positive atheism.This relies on a vast and stupid fallacy of equivocation. On the one hand, you class as atheists those people who call themselves atheists. On the other hand you redefine "atheists" as positive atheists. Then you complain that negative atheists are being dishonest for being atheists (which they are in the normal Enlish-language sense that they are atheists) but for not admitting that they have the opinions which define atheists (according to your redefinition of "atheist" which actually precisely excludes the people you're accusing of hypocrisy).They would be hypocrites if they were atheists by your definition of the word athiest and yet pretended that they weren't atheists by your definition of the word athiest. But this is not the case.Back in reality the most your redefinition could do (if it was generally accepted, which it isn't) is prove that negative atheists shouldn't call themselves atheists and should call themselves something else. But it cannot prove that they are "hypocritical" for not advocating views which they do not in fact believe.

I'll make it very simple and accurate:Theist: someone who believes in the existence of a god
Atheist: someone who does not believe in the existence of a god.You see, theism and atheism are antonyms. And according to this definition, they are. Under your definition, they're not: they would, for example, not cover the case of someone who had never had the concept of "god" explained to him and had never considered it in any way. * sighs *A positive atheist thinks that he has evidence that there is no god, and so believes there are none.A negative atheist thinks that he has no evidence that there is a god, and so doesn't believe in any.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

And is not the one you advanced. In fact, you explicitly said that "atheism by definition is not someone who doesn't believe in something" (my italics). "Huffy"? No, we just have a general tendency to correct errors. That would depend on the atheist. Well it depends on the degree of possibility.If you ask me whether it's possible that former President Bush is a lizard disguised in a human suit, as maintained by David Icke, I should say: Well, I suppose anything's possible. But in the current absence of any supporting evidence for it, I'd say that anyone who believes it must be off his head.If, on the other hand, you ask me whether it's possible that there's life on Europa then I might reply: Possible? Oh yes, it has liquid water and (obviously) an energy source sufficient to produce liquid water ... of course there is much we don't know about the origins of life, and no-one has been to check directly, but I should certainly call it possible based on what we do know. But in the light of the kind and degree of evidence we have on the subject, anyone making a positive assertion either way is guilty at least of overconfidence.---I should say that the negative atheist's attitude towards god is more like the first and the agnostic's attitude is more like the second.There may exist a sort of gray area between the two where it would be genuinely hard to think how someone should be classified. In such cases I would suggest that you ask him which he thinks he is.

That's as may be. I am not presently trying to justify the opinions of the negative atheist, just to explain to you what they are. And we keep telling you that we agree with you on that without reservation.

Well this is nonsense. Think about it for a moment.The reason that it is necessary to call some atheists "strong" atheists is precisely because not all of them are.Is the existence of the phrase green hat a "telling point" on the side of the argument that all hats are green?

In which you are peculiarly eager to participate.