Mythology and Belief of Anti-Theism

Perhaps it would be better to address your complains to those who merit them, as and when the occasion arises, rather than painting all "anti-theists" with the broadest brush you can lay your hands on.

Then perhaps you should have said so. What you wrote was: "Amongst the anti-theists, and by that I mean people typically regarded as fundamental atheists or religion-haters in general, there flows a set of core beliefs and behaviors that define them as a group in the same manner that members of religious denominations hold to tenets that define their membership."Now many people are "regarded as fundamental atheists or religion-haters" (in fact pretty much any atheist is so regarded by religious nutters irrespective of his actual opinions) and yet they do not share "core beliefs" such as bad arguments for the mythical status of Jesus.

I disagree. Math doesn't come into it; and in science the default position is that any given class of objects does not exist --- which in the case of deities constitutes atheism.In science such an attitude is conjoined with a willingness to revise this position if positive evidence is forthcoming; but if that qualification to disbelief is what you mean then I don't think you should call it agnosticism; or at least you should say that it is the point at which agnosticism overlaps with "negative" or "weak" atheism, in which case the two are not, as your post would suggest, mutually exclusive. Well, that depends on what you mean by "God". If you mean the guy who created the world 6,000 years ago, then the atheists have evidence that is as definitive as anything is; if you mean an omnibenevolent ruler of the Universe, then the atheists have evidence that is at least highly compelling; if you mean an intelligent being who made the Big Bang go bang then the existence of such a being is plausible; and if by "God" you mean my left leg then the theists have been right all along, though even in that case I wouldn't actually worship it. I'd feel silly.

No we don't. And as a mathematician I am flattered by their adulation.When do I get my burnt offerings? Well, no. In science, the non-existence of a class of things is always the default position. But I have said that already, so let me illustrate it.A zoologist, compiling a list of mammals, would include only those which have been shown to exist. He would not make a list in which he also threw in those that have not been shown not to exist. An anatomist enumerating the features common to mammals would then work from the former and not the latter list; as would a taxonomist trying to figure out their relationship. And Darwin, looking for a theory to account for their origin, only tried to account for those organisms known to exist; it would not be possible to produce a theory that would adequately account for everything which is not known not to exist. How would he explain the Samaritan Wombat, which habitually out of the purest altruism lays down its life for members of another species? He couldn't; he said that he couldn't. But he didn't have to.Nonexistence is therefore the default assumption; and this is not arbitrary, since it would be impossible to practice science on any other basis.Now, if we grant your premise that there is no evidence for gods one way or the other, then someone compiling a list of all deities, and working by the exact same principle, would end up with a blank sheet of paper. Perhaps you could expand on that. Well, have I argued against strong atheism? As I say, it depends on what you mean by "God" in the first place. Now if you are prepared to have "God" include a being who sets off the universe and then ignores it, then I grant you it would be difficult to be a strong atheist with respect to such a God. But I think if you ask a strong atheist what it is he's being a strong atheist about, he takes "God" to mean something else. Well, I don't think it does. As I say, I think the "strong atheist" usually has some specific kind of deity in mind. He does not, for example, mean to deny the existence of the sun, although some have worshiped the sun as a god.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Which is why after recapitulating my statement I went on to give you an illustration and justification of it, which you did not quote and to which you have not replied.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Everyone who's ever lived, but they did so tacitly.We practice science, and indeed everyday life, with the assistance of a set of rules to which we know no exceptions (the law of gravity; the proposition that cyanide is poisonous to humans; the statement that pigs can't fly). Although we can conceive of exceptions to such generalizations (and indeed the history of science is replete with examples of them turning up) no-one has come up with any superior practice (and if you like I shall argue at length that it is impossible to do so) than that we should act as though such statements are true unless and until we have positive evidence that they are false. Anyone who objects to this practice is free to put cyanide on their cornflakes or to try to defy gravity from a thirteenth floor window; but no-one does. Everyone tacitly agrees with the epistemological principle I have stated when it comes to a matter of life or death, even if they inconsistently repudiate it when it comes to relatively trivial and inconsequential beliefs such as their religious doctrines.Now, it follows immediately from this principle that rules of the form: "Objects of class X do not exist" must be provisionally accepted as true in the absence of positive evidence that would lead us to suppose that there are instances of class X. Absence of evidence is not proof of absence, but it is certainly evidence of it, and is in fact tacitly taken to be so by the universal consent of mankind, even those who use the phrase "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".And this applies to the various classes of supernatural beings just as much as to anything else.---And I think in the normal course of things you would in fact so apply it. Suppose we consider the existence of the Great Panjandrum, an invisible and malevolent being who is likely smite you with cancer of the everything unless you immediately send me $1,000. You can presently supply no positive evidence against his existence --- how could you? On the other hand, you have no reason to suppose that he does exist. Now, here's the question: how will you act? You will act (will you not?) as though he doesn't exist, and hold on to your hard-earned cash, thus coming down definitely on one side.Actions speak louder than words; and if you also were to pay lip service to agnosticism and to maintain that the proposition that he does exist is no more or less compelling than the proposition that he doesn't, then the question would arise whether you consider a 50% chance of an premature and agonizing death to be genuinely preferable to a 50% chance of wasting $1,000. To which your answer would of course be "no" --- in which case the only explanation for you not sending me the money is that you do not really think that the chances are 50:50, and that your lip service to equiprobability is the mere conventional hypocrisy of one who wishes to be thought open-minded.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Bear in mind that my analysis was directed to Anglagard's assertions about what the scientific method would tell us if we had no evidence for God and no evidence against him (excepting the absence of evidence for). In that case, as I have explained, scientific reasoning would compel "weak" atheism rather than some weaker position still such as agnosticism.If you suppose that there is evidence for God, or if you are happy to abandon rational thought when it comes to theology, or both, then my analysis hardly applies to you.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

It depends on the definition of God. However, according to the traditional definitions, God is burdened with a number of "omni-" adjectives which make him in principle more refutable than Caspar the Friendly Ghost.For example, God is traditionally defined as being omnipresent. Now this means that one could conclusively refute his existence just by showing that there is one place that he is not. To be similarly conclusive about Caspar you'd have to show that he is not in any place, which is more difficult.Or if he is defined as omnipotent and omnibenevolent, it would seem that one can refute his existence by seeing one bad thing happen; whereas no single occurrence would disprove Caspar.

Well, sure. I'm considering traditional definitions of God and indeed of Caspar the Friendly Ghost.As I say, the strong atheist is a strong atheist with respect only to a certain concept of gods. The concept of a super duper omni being does indeed open up wide new vistas of metaphysical speculation. Well God is usually defined as being of good character. If we discovered a thoroughly malevolent supernatural entity, we wouldn't identify it as God, but as some sort of devil or afrit or poltergeist or something.---So I still think that God (as usually conceived) has a different epistemological status. Consider the difference between disproving the statements "there is a unicorn somewhere" and "there are unicorns everywhere". The omni-ness of God means that a number of statements about him are statements of the second kind, and so may be more definitively refuted than statements about CtFG, which would be statements of the first kind.

Last I checked, these categories include, respectively, anyone who has ever said anything in favor of atheism and anyone who has ever said anything critical of religion (unless the religion is Islam in which case they're just being patriotic).This pretty much narrows it down to those atheists who now possess or formerly possessed the power of speech.