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Author | Topic: Atheists can't hold office in the USA? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tangle Member Posts: 9504 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Faith writes:
It means that people can't be agnostic about belief.
I'm not sure what it means to be "agnostic about belief." 'Do you believe in god? 'Yes' =yes (e.g. Faith) 'Do you believe in god? 'No' =no (e.g. Tangle) 'Do you belive in god? 'Don't know' =no (e.g. nobody) Belief is positive. If you can't say you believe, then you don't.
But you surely can be agnostic about the existence of God. Of course. But: 'Does god exist?' 'Yes' =Deluded theist (e.g. Faith)'Does god exist?' 'No' =Deluded atheist (e.g. never met one) 'Does god exist?' 'Don't know' =agnostic (e.g. Tangle) Edited by Tangle, : No reason given. Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Anyone who is required to justify their atheism but not their a-axemurdererinmyhouse-ism may care for reasons of pure logical consistency.
Anyone who wants to hold public office in the US who fears that being branded an atheist will be a barrier to that. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.
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Jon Inactive Member |
No one is required to do anything of the sort.
And changing terminology isn't going to have any effect on anything.Love your enemies!
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
EvC is full of instances where exactly that is requested.
And a more logical use of terminology, devoid of innate fallacies, may well lead to better logical arguments on the subject. One can only hope....
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Tangle Member Posts: 9504 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
Jon writes: That's what I thought. There's not much point debating with people who refuse to read what's written. But heyho - post 241 is a summary.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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Jon Inactive Member |
EvC is full of instances where exactly that is requested. That's not a case of being required. If you dislike the style of the forum, you are free to leave without consequence.
And a more logical use of terminology, devoid of innate fallacies, may well lead to better logical arguments on the subject. There's no fallacy. It's a word to describe a thing that people often discuss.Love your enemies!
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1426 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined:
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Theres's no fooling you is there?! That's why they are two different words to describe two different things. Indeed, and that is why agnostic and atheist are two different words to describe two different things, one is about the status of knowledge and the other is a statement of opion\belief and generally a useless distinction that cannot affect reality.
beliefers" (those that act based on beliefs ) -- and "not-beliefers" (those that do not act based on beliefs) ... I wonder what I could call them ... The first type are called people. The second we call machines. That's your belief\opinion. Not acting on the basis of beliefs would be skeptics in my world. Last time I checked skeptics were people. People willing to consider beliefs I would call open-minded. Those that are willing to consider one kind of belief and not willing to consider a contrary belief I would call biased, cherry picking and employing special pleading. Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1426 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Exactly. The first believes in god and is therefore a theist and the second doesn't and is therefore an atheist. As neither has the knowledge of the existence or non-existence of a god, it can be removed from both sides of the equation without changing the outcome. In reality, there is no such thing as agnostic. And yet you now agree that you are agnostic and have said so several times. So you made a mistake here. check. Now you have also been given several cases that explored the boundaries and you came up with rather silly wiggling around the issue of whether or not a person could know whether or not they believe. The funniest was your response to an hypothetical person who believed sometimes, some days yes and some days no -- you divided that person into two different people to fit your argument. There are psychological conditions that have this kind of quandary. Your claim that someone who does not know is someone who does not believe, is special pleading. Perhaps another example will clear your eyes: A person has been a devout, committed, fundamental believer, but they have a crisis of faith as several tenets that they once held to be true are no longer accepted as true. They are in agony as they wonder whether they still believe in the remaining tenets, or whether they have lost all of their faith ... they do ... not ... know. Cue the special pleading dance to make a pointless point. Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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Minnemooseus Member Posts: 3945 From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior) Joined: Member Rating: 10.0 |
Someday the grand summary message, but for now...
Perhaps another example will clear your eyes: A person has been a devout, committed, fundamental believer, but they have a crisis of faith as several tenets that they once held to be true are no longer accepted as true. They are in agony as they wonder whether they still believe in the remaining tenets, or whether they have lost all of their faith ... they do ... not ... know. In past messages you've invoked both considerations of belief by evidence and knowledge agnosticism ("god is not and can not be known") AND belief by religious faith agnosticism ("I don't know what I believe"). The above quoted is the second usage. The Moose/Tangle position is for the above example person to ask him/herself a question, and give an honest answer: Do I have any belief in any way to any supernatural influence (aka god)? Yes - Theist Not yes (which includes "no") - Atheist If one can not honestly tell oneself "Yes", then one is no longer a theist, and not a theist = atheist. One may be confused and madly flipping between theist and atheist, but one is still one or the other. Which in the Moose/Tangle perspective of the type 2 agnostic is that agnostic mean "confused flip/flopping between theist and atheist". I and I presume Tangle will grant you that definition of a type 2 agnostic. Moose Edited by Minnemooseus, : Minor tweek.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1426 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
If one can not honestly tell oneself "Yes", then one is no longer a theist, and not a theist = atheist. And there is the special pleading dancing that just can't admit that said person does not know whether they believe or not. Enjoyby our ability to understand Rebel☮American☆Zen☯Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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Minnemooseus Member Posts: 3945 From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior) Joined: Member Rating: 10.0 |
Added by edit: A more specific reply to your message:
RAZD writes: If one can not honestly tell oneself "Yes", then one is no longer a theist, and not a theist = atheist. And there is the special pleading dancing that just can't admit that said person does not know whether they believe or not. I see your example as "the special pleading dancing that said (ex-fundie) person does when they can't be honest to themselves, that they've just slipped into being an atheist".* End of added by edit.
*Your "agnostic" is not so much a rational alternative position, as it is a slipping into (extra?) irrationality. Hopefully such doesn't last long, or the person will have gone from "theist" to "insane". ----- Another perspective from AronRa (Nonreligious Questions ):
quote: Much more there, both above and below what I quoted. Although I don't think I'm buying his claim of being a gnostic atheist. Agnostic ("there is no way of knowing god") is the only available scientific position. That "agnostic" is disprovable, but only by "knowing god", which to me means having extracted god from the supernatural into the natural. To know god is to fundamentally redefine what a god is. As such, any supernatural god is still unknowable. A person of science can be a theist, but the science itself must be agnostic. And since considerations of (a supernatural) god is outside the realm of science, that would also make science not theistic (in the other word, atheistic). Which is NOT to say that science is also no-god-istic. Not theistic and "there is no god" is not the same thing. Moose Edited by Minnemooseus, : Added by edit at top of message, 1.5 hours after posting original message. Original message content is unedited. Edited by Minnemooseus, : * Footnote added to previous added by edit.
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Minnemooseus Member Posts: 3945 From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior) Joined: Member Rating: 10.0 |
RAZD writes: Perhaps another example will clear your eyes: A person has been a devout, committed, fundamental believer, but they have a crisis of faith as several tenets that they once held to be true are no longer accepted as true. They are in agony as they wonder whether they still believe in the remaining tenets, or whether they have lost all of their faith ... they do ... not ... know. My variation:
Moose variation writes: A person has been a devout, committed, fundamental YEC believer, but they have a crisis of faith as the find that they can no longer believe in a God creating the universe et all in a way that contradicts massive physical evidence. Ding - they've gone atheist.
Moose variation continues writes: They are in agony as they wonder whether they still believe in the remaining tenets, or whether they have lost all of their faith ... they do ... not ... know. Still atheist.
Moose adds to the scenario writes: They decide that YEC is not important, and become a theistic evolutionist. Ding - back to being theist. Moose
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Phat Member Posts: 18300 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
I think im the last one...not a Biblical Creationist yet I am a Cosmological Creationist and am a Theistic Evolutionist in regards to this planet
Saying, "I don't know," is the same as saying, "Maybe."~ZombieRingo It's easy to see the speck in somebody else's ideas - unless it's blocked by the beam in your own.~Ringo If a savage stops believing in his wooden god, it does not mean that there is no God only that God is not wooden.(Leo Tolstoy)
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Tangle Member Posts: 9504 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
RAZD writes: Indeed, and that is why agnostic and atheist are two different words to describe two different things, one is about the status of knowledge and the other is a statement of opion\belief Progress of sorts. You could add that one is about the scientific method and the other is about human feelings and emotions. But then you spoil it with.....
and generally a useless distinction that cannot affect reality. Without this distinction you can not explain the vast tranches of human history and motivations that affect everyday realities in massive ways. The church(es) in your town where built with knowledge but motivated by belief. It doesn't get realer.
That's your belief\opinion. Not acting on the basis of beliefs would be skeptics in my world. Last time I checked skeptics were people. People willing to consider beliefs I would call open-minded. Those that are willing to consider one kind of belief and not willing to consider a contrary belief I would call biased, cherry picking and employing special pleading. No-one - literally no-one - acts only on knowledge. We are not machines, and we lack perfect knowledge. We act emotionally and irrationally all the time but also balance this with knowledge. I would suggest that this more rational side of us has grown over the centuries, particularly following the Enlightenment. Skeptics are not excluded from this mechanism - they fall in love, mourne the dead, pray, make rash bets, hope for improbable outcomes and try to make them happen - and so on. Spock is not real, RAZD.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9504 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.8 |
RAZD writes: And yet you now agree that you are agnostic and have said so several times. So you made a mistake here. check. Humph. I wonder why this really simple and hardly original idea is proving so difficult for otherwise sensible and thoughtful people to grasp? I have not just *now* agreed that I'm an agnostic. From the beginning of this discussion and repeated ad nausium all through it. I've disginguished between belief and knowledge. I am an atheist, because I do not believe in god. Additionally, I am an agnostic regarding knowledge, because I recognise that I can not prove the non-existence of god; I recognise that there is a probability, no matter how small, that god exists. However I claim that this agnostic position is merely a requirement of rational thought - every rational person must be agnostic about knowledge of god. This does not prevent people having beliefs in the absence of knowledge. That's why there is a word called faith (and belief) - which, is what we have when we think something is true in the absence of perfect knowledge. We know this situation to be, your words 'reality' because we have both atheists and theists who claim their beliefs regardless of their full acceptance of this principle. Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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