| JWeinCom said: You gave me the definition of atheism, but what we're really discussing is the definition of atheist, and that one letter change makes a big difference. |
An Atheist is someone who adheres to the principles of Atheism.
Just like a Theist adheres to the principles of Theism.
They are part and parcel of the same construct.
| JWeinCom said: Pretty much any definition of atheist I've seen either explicitly or implicitly limits it to people. If you'd like to suggest we expand the definition to include animals like pigs, I would challenge you to find a way to identify what pigs think about the proposition of a god. I would agree that intuitively it seems almost certain that pigs do not believe in a god, but I don't think you'd be able to demonstrate that. |
Atheism is the position. Atheist is the individual that adheres to said position.
Anyone who doesn't believe in a deity, be it for lack of cognitive capability, lack of evidence to convince them otherwise, or they just lack the care factor... Falls under that heading.
Thus we do not need to demonstrate what pigs think, they don't tend to have the ability to think like we do about philosophical issues. (Not to mention brain activity scans can tell us allot anyway about what the brain is doing anyway.)
| JWeinCom said: As for the second part, while you're right that an argument could be valid in structure, but have false premises, in this case the argument presented (look at page 55 I think) is not only unsound (premises are not true) but is also invalid. For this argument, I wouldn't even bother assessing the truth of the premises, because even if the premises were all true, the conclusion would not be. |
Don't get me wrong, I agree.
But if someone is presenting an argument, then they need to present empirical evidence to go with said argument, otherwise we can just label it as "fake news" essentially, regardless of how compelling their argument is.
www.youtube.com/@Pemalite
