Not particularly, no.
If you do not believe in alien abductions, then you do not believe in alien abductions. You do not simply "lack a belief" about alien abductions.
False.
"not believe", "disbelief", "lack of belief" = all the exact same thing.
And "i don't believe x" is NOT THE SAME as saying "I believe 'not' X".
You have even said in this post that you disbelieve, not that you lack belief.
It's the same thing. The "dis-" part, means "not" or "without".
You do not have to be able to disprove the existence of aliens to say you do not believe in them.
Exactly. But you DO need to be able to disprove there existence to say that you
believe that they do not exist!
Do you understand the difference between these 2 statements:
"I do not believe alien abductions are true"
and
"I believe that alien abductions are false"
Because they are not the same!
You are making statements about your beliefs, not about reality as it objectively is.
Nope. I'm making statements about my
disbeliefs.
Stating what I do NOT believe, is not the same as stating what I DO believe.
I am actually agnostic about alien abductions.
Me to. Why?
Because you can't prove either way if they happen or not.
But, I don't believe the claim that they in fact happen.
Neither do you, I bet. Right?
As in: when somebody asks you "do you believe that alien abductions take place?" then you can not honestly answer "yes" to that question, can you?
Which means that no, you do not believe such claims. That is to say, you do not accept those claims as correct / accurate. So you
disbelieve them. You
lack belief.
Which, again, does not mean that you'll believe the opposite claim!
I'm intrigued by the alternative theory that alien abductions are just the modern update of fairy abductions, and that there really is something going on there, filtered through a cultural context. I find it unreasonable to either accept or reject this possibility, but again, that is agnosticism. It isn't a lack of belief.
Agnosticism pertains to knowledge, not to belief.
You DO have a lack of belief, since you find it unreasonable to accept it. So you don't consider the claim accurate / correct. So you don't believe the claim.
And since you have no
demonstrable knowledge either way, I qualify that disbelieving position with "agnosticism".
Just like I qualify my atheism with the same. I'm an agnostic atheist.
I'm agnostic about any and all things that are unfalsifiable, unsupportable, etc.
You can. But agnostic atheism is disbelief in God coupled with the admission that you do not know.
Have you been reading what atheists on this side have been writing for endless threads?
Because that is exactly how atheists tend to define their atheism.
I don't know a SINGLE atheist who claims to be able to know that no gods exist.
And if I would meet one, I'ld call him out on it. Because it is by definition impossible to disprove unfalsifiable claims. On count of being unfalsifiable.
It's not a lack of belief in God.
It is. Either you have belief or you lack belief.
I can't answer "yes" to the question "do you believe in god". So I don't have a positive belief in the claims of theism.
If I don't have a certain thing, then I lack that certain thing.
You can't use arguments from agnosticism to defend atheism, as if it is somehow the default stance for an agnostic.
I never said it was the default stance of an agnostic.
If anything, I'm saying that "agnosticism" is not some "third postion" on the theist/atheist issue. It is, instead, a qualifier of both.
You can be an agnostic atheist and you can be an agnostic theist.
(A)gnosticism pertains to knowledge and (a)theism pertains to beliefs.
And you can't heap abuse upon real agnostics for fence sitting, as atheists tend to do, and then turn around and start championing agnosticism whenever it's convenient for you.
Again, I don't see "agnosticism" and "atheism" as 2 seperate positions. One is a qualifier of the other. They are different answers, to different questions.
(a)gnosticism is an answer to the question of knowledge.
(a)theism is an answer to the question of belief.
And they aren't mutually exclusive. Instead, they complement/qualify eachother.
And again this deteriorated into semantic babble about a label. It's getting annoying... what use does this have? Why can't you people just accept what we atheists tell you about what we believe and how we define our atheism? Why must you insist that we are "wrong" about "what we believe and claim"?
When someone tells you "here is what I believe and don't believe and here is what I claim and don't claim", the only thing you can do is accept it. It makes no sense to come around and tell that person that he's wrong and "here's what you
really believe and claim".
I mean, seriously.....
I think I know better what I believe, don't believe, claim and don't claim, then all you folks put together.