My Beliefs- GDR

The absence of a body is not evidence of resurrection. It's absence of a body. Then you've not been listening; there are many alternatives. The first being that Jesus never existed to start with and they work on down from there. [I'm not arguing that Jesus never existed, I'm simply saying that the argument starts there for some people.]You have, as always, started from the position that the resurrection has happened, then cherry picked some weak evidence for it - all originating in a single book written many years after the event then tampered with down the centuries for political purposes.The resurrection was a requirement of the story, so it was probably added as confirmation - it could easily be just as simple as that.Those of us that do not accept the bible as evidence of anything other than a collection of hearsay stories require real evidence before blithely believing something that we know is impossible. Now you're doing it AGAIN. It is not necessary to believe that the apostles had a superhuman faith to reject the resurrection for lack of evidence.But you have real evidence of the every day existence of delusional superhuman faith. Do you believe that the terrorists that flew their planes into the Twin Towers had a superhuman faith or do you think that they were merely delusional?

More accurately where the evidence favouring myth, embellishment, delusion, hoax, wishful thinking, Chinese whispers and all sorts of other deeply evidenced human proclivities is superior to the evidence favouring the phenomenon in question as real. Think Bigfoot. Think ghosts. What is the scientific consensus regarding the reality of such entities? Now apply the same thinking to your beliefs - And what do you get? If you start with the premise that the Christian God exists then unsurprisingly you will conclude that various events related to the Christian God have occurred. Nobody here is denying possibilities. If genuine evidence of people being resurrected were forthcoming minds would change. You start with a belief in God, accept the story of Jesus on that basis and then conclude that Jesus is providing information about God. Circular reasoning is by definition illogical in the sense that starting with your conclusion as a premise is a well established logical fallacy. Do written accounts of Bigfoot also qualify as objective evdience as far as you are concerned? We can scientifically say that lots of holy books exist. We can scientifically say that lots of written accounts of various Gods and creatures such as Bigfoot exist. Scientifically we can look for what causes people to believe in these phenomena to the extent that they feel the need to document those beliefs.But beliefs, documented or otherwise, are not evidence..... No. Again think Bigfoot. Think ghosts.There is a scientific consensus regarding these entities that doesn't just rely on subjectively deciding what we want to believe. Now apply the same thinking to your beliefs and you will start to understand the atheist position. Rather than some sort of subjective-free-for-all why not take the same scientific approach that is applied to Bigfoot, ghosts etc. etc. Wrong. Science says that there is an enormous and overwhelming precedent for people to strongly and even fanatically believe in such things for a vast array of reasons that have little to do with veracity. Science tells us such entities and events are more likley to be a case of myth, embellishment, delusion, hoax, wishful thinking, Chinese whispers and all sorts of other deeply evidenced human proclivities and failings rather than real evidence-defying-phenomena.Edited by Straggler, : Spelling

Well yes, of course there is.Did you forget that "atheism" is the opposite of "theism"?There certainly is a lot of fluidity in "theism" now, isn't there?
I mean, we have all the major religions... all the minor religions... all the different sects of each, plus anyone's personal view of a "higher power"...Yes, a lot of fluidity when the only requirement is "a belief in God."Wouldn't you then expect the same level of fluidity when the only requirement is "no belief in God"?How many different descriptions of "theism" do you think there are? Naming all the sects of all the religions... hundreds of thousands?
And then you're expecting one single, specific definition of "atheism"? That "nails down" everyone? It's just not going to happen, in the same way that there isn't one single, specific definition for all theists.The only thing that can be said for "all atheists" is that they do not believe in God. We're simply trying to tell you what that phrase means. No one is attempting to give you a specific definition that you can group all atheists under. That is as impossible as trying to give a specific description for all theists.

As a theist I certainly don't feel that way. I also don't believe that the burden of proof falls on theists either. I accept the fact that there is no proof. We all come to our own conclusions. We observe the existence of intelligence, morality, beauty, good and evil, sadness and joy, life and death, love and hate, the complexity of life, the fine balance in the universe that makes life possible, morality and immorality along with the myriad of other things that make each and every life unique and we come to our conclusions about whether there is an intelligent agent responsible for it all or are we the result of a chance combination of mindless elements.We observe natural processes taking place all the time with new life being born through natural processes. We have evidence of that. We have evidence that life has developed to what it is today through an evolutionary process. There is no evidence for anything beyond that so then we form our own conclusions in regard to whether or not we are the result of an intelligent prime mover. I have faith that we are and you have no faith in anything beyond what we can observe naturally and/or scientifically.Can you agree with that?

But you still try to rationalise your belief, like this: Which is not proof - or even evidence - for a God. It's just set of observations about reality. 200 years ago you would have included lightening, disease, witchcraft, earthquakes and a host of other things in that list that you think have supernatural explanation. (Not that anything in your list can be thought of as supernatural - in fact they are all very natural.) You form your own conclusion for sure, but it's not as a result of considering any evidence, as you say - you just look in awe at what you see around you, don't understand it, so you invoke a god to explain it to you. It's what humanity has been doing for tens of thousands of years - only the Gods they believe in change. No, not really. You've again put it in a way that is active and inverted. I don't lack faith - faith in the religious sense is just irrelevant to me. You say I lack faith in your God, I say that faith in your god is as daft as faith in hobgoblins. It's not faith I lack, what I lack is a reason to have faith to begin with.I have faith that there are tornados because although I have never seen one and don't know how they work, there are other reasons why I should believe in them. I could irrationally deny the existence of tornados, in which case you could fairly accuse me of having no faith in meteorology.It's the 'not collecting stamps is a hobby' thing.I have faith in other things of course - I have faith that my wife will call in for milk on her way home and the sun will rise tomorrow because I have experience that justifies my faith that these things will occur.You say that I lack faith because I don't believe what you believe. I just look at you puzzled because I don't accept that what you believe in exists so have no need to have a faith one way or the other.Belief, faith in the religious sense are inventions that explains away what you can't explain. My lack of it, is a lack of nothing. It's a lack of my not believing in your invention. Which is just nonsense isn't it?

With reasoning like yours, which ignores everything we have for evidence, one could prove quite easily that you don't exist, that EvC forum doesn't exist but is a figment of Percy's imagination, or anything one wants to prove. Amazing.

Go ahead, prove it.

What do you call a person who holds the belief that god does not exist?Atheism used to be a belief, Atheist Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster , but now y'all are changing the definition. 15 years ago, the first self-proclaimed atheist I met was using the word for shock and awe... but he was a bit of a troll.It seems that as people have realized the irrationality of taking this positive stance on a negative claim like that, they began retreating to the whole "its just a lack of belief" claim. I figured they might as well just use a different word, but apparently they don't want to.What's so appealing about that word in particular?

That's right. So for those who have read the Bible, and with all of our personal biases we make a decision of what to believe and what not to believe about them. If we believe in them we have varying degrees of faith in them. There is no empirical evidence.

Most people call them atheists - but you're simply playing with syntax to attempt to change a meaning. An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God. He doesn't hold a belief that god doesn't exist, that's just word mangling. Atheism was never a belief. It has always been a lack of belief. Obviously.Again - I do not believe in hobgoblins. Does that statement mean that I believe in something? If so, what exactly is it that I believe about non-existant hobgoblins? Well, that they don't exist of course! How clever. It's not our bloody word - it's a word invented by believers for those that don't hold their beliefs. There should be no word at all - that's the point. The word only exists because for some reason we think that religious belief requires special treatment. Unlike a non-belief in anything else at all from fairies to alien crop circle engineers.

No, it can't possibly have ever been a belief. You religious types like to claim as such, but it never was.So you choose the one definition that suits your agenda? Yes, that is precisely why. It is just as irrational as proclaiming "I know there to be a god". It's not really that hard ot grasp. I'm not saying there are no atheists that profess this, but the "rest of us" think them to be just as irrational as fundies. It really is no different than how you view fundie christians. unless, of course, you have the same ideals as those in WBC and they represent YOUR views?"15 years ago, the first self-proclaimed christian I met was using the word for shock and awe... but he was a bit of a troll."What good does that do? What does it matter? Who gives a shit what ONE person said to you? You aren't that ignorant to let one person's actions color how you view their representative group. As Tangle has pointed out, it's a word we rather didn't exist at all or even need. But, the majority of people are theists of some sort or another, so this is a word that describes those that are not. Why do you care? What is so negative about it? Why do you feel the need to determine what other people call themselves? What makes you the arbiter of how people classify themselves in a group?As it stands now with the number of people that profess a belief in some sort of god, there IS a way for those of us that do not to identify with one another.

I find it funny that "we" can manage to reach the same conclusion, yet there are no two christians that can do the same and they even have a fucking book to follow.How does that work?

No, atheism was the belief that gods don't exist. You're the on playing with syntax and mangling words. Obviously, with a click of that link, you could have seen that atheism was a belief. I believe that hobgoblins do not exist. That's a stronger statement than saying that I do not believe that they do. The former is committed, the latter isn't. You can be without a belief that they do, and also without a belief that they don't.In fact, it is that exact waffling that we see the non-believers engaging in: "No, I don't believe that god does not exist, I'm just not convinced into a belief that it does" It comes from the greek word atheos, which meant godlessness. Its a word for people who think there aren't any gods.If it isn't your word and you don't think it should be used, then stop using it. These days, non-believers use it more than believers.What's so appealing about it that you keep using it?Edited by Catholic Scientist, : typo

Why not?I know people who hold the belief that god does not exist. Are they not atheists?ABE: Here's a link to the etymology:Atheism - Wikipedia Sure it was, it still can be. Why not? No, I chose Merriam-Webster because they've been the "dictionary people" since I can remember. Right, so rather than seperating yourself from "them", you go on to adjust the meaning of the word to make it more palatable. I'm just curious why you choose that route over using a different word? Except that I berate the fundies. Well, he was a leader. You're just a follower. He liked that people were offeneded by his claims. He didn't obfuscate it with obscurity like you do.That's why I can understand why he used the word but I cannot understand why you do. Yet you continue to use it, and in greater volume than the theists. What's up with that? But not the only one. Why that word in particular? I know why my friend from 15 years ago used it - for the lulz... is that all you are doing? I guess I don't, really. Its just curious.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : ABE

Is not collecting stamps a hobby?Does the following describe accurately your belief set?

quote:

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belief in the existence of a god or gods; specifically : belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of the human race and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world

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No one but you is adjusting any meaning of a word. You found the one single dictionary that defined it that way and you glom on to it as if people who associate with that are beholden to that one dictionary definition rather than seeing how 99% of atheists themselves actually use the word to describe themselves.Nope. You use one dictionary definition and one guy to form your opinion. Ok. I use it here (and really only here since the topic of belief rarely comes up outside of here) because it accurately describes my stance on the question of god belief. What do you mean by this? I gladly accept the atheist label if that is what is necessary and I will gladly correct those of you who wish to use it incorrectly.I could very easily turn this around on you and say that since you are a christian, you believe in the flood and a young earth because well, at one time (perhaps) that was what it meant to be christian and then be curious why you still adhere to that label.But I don't. I realize that words are fluid and we have so called labels for this sort of thing that answer large questions succinctly and provide enough detail about a persons worldview. I realize that in order to have a particular conversation with you in enough detail, I will have to learn what it is you believe instead of being ignorant enough to stop at whatever label best suits you. What other word answers "no" to the question of god belief that is widely enough used so as to associate with other perhaps like minded individuals?If Sam Harris can't get B.R.I.G.H.T. to take off, I doubt you or I will do any better. So you are ignorant enough to base your entire experience of a particular group of people on how ONE person acted. I can't say I am surprised that I should have known better. Sure, CS, I'm not actually an atheist. I just call myself that to rile you idiots up. Except.....it's only the religious types that have a problem with the word ATHEIST. Do godless heathens scare you or something? Funny way of showing you don't care by taking the time to make quote brackets for two fairly lengthy messages.