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well lets keep our current conversation going, you can't just move the goal posts when it gets hard, and talk about issues we desire to talk about, please reply to my last posts.Alright, but I hope we won't lose any important points...
First of all, a quote from two dictionaries in the seventeenth century saying that atheists believed something does not necessarily mean that they did believe that. Dictionaries were nothing like as reliable as they are now.
Second, remember that at that time atheists were a despised and misunderstood minority, and so very little was known about what they thought at all.
Third, even if we take what you say at face value about trusting a dictionary, my own definition of an atheist is in accordance to the current dictionary definition, so why not call myself an atheist?What the dictionary describes is a good approximation of what I believe.
Fourthly, you say "atheists don't believe what original atheists believed". Even if that were true, so what? Christians don't believe what early Christians believed, as I'm sure you are aware - Christian beliefs have gone through major revisions over the many centuries.
Fifth and final point (for now): the word atheist is perfectly constructed and descriptive: a person lacking belief in a God or gods. a-theism.
No, we don't know that. We do not know how many options there are. We have no real knowledge at all. You have a character in your religion called God, and you wish us to believe that this character is real, and your evidence is "If He was real, then all of our questions about the origins of the universe would be answered".
Yes, they would. IF He was real.
Have you considered that maybe "God fits perfectly" because you have imagined a character who answers the problem perfectly?
Ultimately the original atheists answered the question of "is there a God?"
they said "no." Because there is evil, and because there is no evidence of God.
Well now, that's an enormous simplification, probably an oversimplification, and possibly erroneous. But it's not completely unreasonable, so we can go with it for now...
later atheists Got smarter and realized they could not defend such a position, so in the late 1800's "agnostic" became a thing.
"Agnostic" became a thing because Thomas Huxley coined the word in 1869.
which is basically saying "I don't know."
I'm sure you've considered, certainly in areas other than religion, that saying "I don't know" when you do not, in fact, know, is a very sensible thing to do.
which is not really a statement of meaning.
The "meaning" is that I do not know something.
A statement that is void of any factual statement, is really not worth living for.....yes?
You're conflating different things here. Who ever said that people think agnosticism (or atheism) is what makes life worth living for them?
so then there was the new atheist, who simply negates theism.
we are "non theists, atheists."
we don't see evidence of God, and thus we are non theists.
Well, that makes sense. How exactly do you go about believing in a thing when you have no reason to think that it exists?
but they don't realize that in going negative, they are actually answering the question of if there is a God or not.
they are assuming no.
Yes. We can all see, Christians and atheists alike, that the world exists, and we all agree on the fact. But then Christians say "There isn't just the world. There are other worlds, and when you die, you still live on and go to them, with a being called God. Do you believe that?"
And the atheists say: "No".
so again the new atheist falls into the same error as the old atheist.
so again, if an atheist believes there is no God, they are a strict atheist. If they believe there is no evidence for God but do not know. Then that is no longer atheist but agnostic. So yes the atheist typically rejects the belief in a God, as per the meaning of the word atheism. Anti theist.
Did you not read earlier, gradyll, when I explained the difference between atheist (a lack of belief) and how it could be caused by agnosticism (a lack of knowledge)? To say it briefly, I lack knowledge of God (I am agnostic) and therefore I lack belief in God (I am an atheist).
You are an atheist too, in a way. Because the way you feel about Apollo, or Baldur, or Tefnut ("Well, I suppose it's not completely impossible for the legends about them to be true, but there's no evidence that they are, and it's much more likely that they're simply stories invented by the Ancient Greeks, Norse and Egyptians, so I certainly don't believe that they're real!") - that's how atheists feel about the God of the Bible.
And you know how we feel, and why we feel that way, because you think the same as me about every one of the thousands of gods who have ever existed, with one exception.
I just think about God the same way you and I think about gods. See?
Ahh, so it's just part of a philosophical theory, not an accepted axiom like the law of non-contradiction. Calling it a "law" is misleading. To be more honest, you should say something like, "According to Aristotelian Philosophy...". When I Google "Law of Causality" I get a bunch of junk from Ayn Rand.It is a law of logic, like the law of non-contradiction. Read any good book on Aristotle to learn more.
No, agnostic is without knowledge, you can hold a belief that you don't know is true. Do you believe my shirt is gray?
Then you're an agnostic a-shirt-ist. You don't know the color of my shirt because I haven't shown it to you, but you don't hold a belief about its color either way.It doesn't matter to me, if your shirt is grey.
Getting hard? I didn't realise I was experiencing any difficulties in this conversation. As far as I can tell, I answered or responded to everything you said. What would you like to talk about?well lets keep our current conversation going, you can't just move the goal posts when it gets hard, and talk about issues we desire to talk about, please reply to my last posts.
Yes. Here's a good illustration.Without knowledge within, respect to God. So a Gnostic would be with knowledge, within respect to God.
Really? Prove it.What matters is the primary source of knowledge, which is God.
You've been accummulating it since you first opened your eyes.So where does knowledge come from?
maybe you didn't see that I posted twice, here I will post it again:Getting hard? I didn't realise I was experiencing any difficulties in this conversation. As far as I can tell, I answered or responded to everything you said. What would you like to talk about?
Yes. Here's a good illustration.
Really? Prove it.
You've been accummulating it since you first opened your eyes.
Yes. Here's a good illustration.
Really? Prove it.
You've been accummulating it since you first opened your eyes.
Good, then you can be an agnostic a-shirt-ist, and I can be an agnostic atheist.
Experience.So where does knowledge come from?
I think that, through no fault of yours, you missed my response. Red text, post 1035.maybe you didn't see that I posted twice, here I will post it again:
Regarding the definition of atheist:
I was reading the work of a brilliant former atheist, Jinn Bo. And he really inspired this next comment. It's in my own words and not a quotation but hear me out.
ultimately the original atheists answered the question of "is there a God?"
they said "no." Because there is evil, and because there is no evidence of God.
later atheists Got smarter and realized they could not defend such a position, so in the late 1800's "agnostic"
became a thing.
which is basically saying "I don't know."
which is not really a statement of meaning.
A statement that is void of any factual statement, is really not worth living for.....yes?
so then there was the new atheist, who simply negates theism.
we are "non theists, atheists."
we don't see evidence of God, and thus we are non theists.
but they don't realize that in going negative, they are actually answering the question of if there is a God or not.
they are assuming no.
so again the new atheist falls into the same error as the old atheist.
so again, if an atheist believes there is no God, they are a strict atheist. If they believe there is no evidence for God but do not know. Then that is no longer atheist but agnostic. So yes the atheist typically rejects the belief in a God, as per the meaning of the word atheism. Anti theist.
And why would you say that?I would say that perception depends on logic, and can not proceed it. Therefore any knowledge accumulated through perception must share a common reality which is God to be valid.
Really? Well, I'm not an expert on logic, but I think your argument will need a bit more explaining than that. Are you saying that if God did not exist, logic would not work? And if so, why not?@InterestedAtheist Otherwise there would be no universality to Logic. No medium to communicate.
In other words, "logic requires God to work" is nothing but a baseless claim?Since gods do not exist and logic works, the argument fails.
See the problem. The problem with my first statement is the problem with the requirement of god for logic to work.
Agreed.In other words, "logic requires God to work" is nothing but a baseless claim?
Yes, but my question was "Have you observed this "Cause but not an effect" for yourself? Or, point to anything observably uncaused?" You answered with "dark matter"No, I have not observed it myself, but recently astrophysicists have. I did not say dark matter is uncaused. It is just a part of the universe which as an effect was caused by a Cause basically identical to the Christian God.
No, scientists look at effects every day and study their characteristics and determine from those characteristics what caused those effects. And you can do the same thing with the universe and come to the rational conclusion that it most likely was the Christian God because the characteristics of it fit best with Him. I am not saying the process of how those purposes came to be, it could have been evolution or creation, I am just saying that if there are things in the universe with purposes, like eyes and ears, then whatever originally caused them to come into existence either by evolution or creation has to be a personal being because only persons can produce purposes for things. A diversity within a unity is where the name UNI - VERSE comes from. So plainly the universe has the basic characteristic of the Christian God, so it is rational to believe that that is His "fingerprint" on the universe. Nothing else could have made the universe have that characteristic.It gets you to questions. Where did the universe come from? That’s a question. You want to answer it with God, but there’s no reason to make that leap except personal preference.
Why do some things have functions? There are perfectly good evolutionary answers for that, but you’ll likely reject them in favor of saying it’s God. But there’s no reason to do that except personal preference.
The universe as many things united isn’t even a mystery, it’s a matter of definition. Obviously there’s no need to leap to God.
No. The only reason scientists are able to determine the causes of certain effects is because they already know those causes exist. Scientists do not identify causes merely due to the need for a cause of a singular effect.No, scientists look at effects every day and study their characteristics and determine from those characteristics what caused those effects. And you can do the same thing with the universe and come to the rational conclusion that it most likely was the Christian God because the characteristics of it fit best with Him. I am not saying the process of how those purposes came to be, it could have been evolution or creation, I am just saying that if there are things in the universe with purposes, like eyes and ears, then whatever originally caused them to come into existence either by evolution or creation has to be a personal being because only persons can produce purposes for things. A diversity within a unity is where the name UNI - VERSE comes from. So plainly the universe has the basic characteristic of the Christian God, so it is rational to believe that that is His "fingerprint" on the universe. Nothing else could have made the universe have that characteristic.
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