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Forums - Politics Discussion - The thread about mysticism and meta-physics. Today's topic homosexuality

Barkley on 27 February 2015
Ka-pi96 said:
reggin_bolas said:

From Merriam Webster Atheism is defined as:

a :  a disbelief in the existence of deity 

b :  the doctrine that there is no deity

The latter is the most damaging to your thesis. Even if we accept the former, you still have the onus probandi because you demand the same from theists. The only difference is that a theist can prove god. You can't prove a negative so your epistemology is severely crippled. 

Most laughable thing I've heard all day!

He means it's impossible to prove god or another deity doesn't exist. You can't find evidence that there is no god as said god could just be ignoring the entire universe and doing crossword puzzles in another dimension pretending Justin Bieber wasn't a result of his works. Whereas there's a possibility to prove that a deity exists, maybe not currently but if some point said deity ever decided to do something providing proof of it's existence.

Basically if there's no evidence to support a god that's still not proof that there isn't one, it's literally impossible to disprove the existence of an entity like that. Religious teachings however can be disproven but let's not go there.

 

For the record i'm not supporting anything this guy's said other than the bolded text quoted above as I haven't bothered to read any of it.



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Aura7541 on 27 February 2015
reggin_bolas said:

That's wrong. You're confusing epistemology with ontology. The latter is the theory of reality. Atheism is an ontology. It posits there are no Gods or Intelligent Agency. 

No, it is not. Do not make things up just to fit your argument.



setsunatenshi on 27 February 2015
Aura7541 said:
setsunatenshi said:

that's an apt definition for atheism for a:

as for b: it's not exactly correct, it sounds a bit like strong or positive atheism, not atheism itself.

the key fallacy in his argument is considering atheism a positive claim. it is not, it's the default position. the positive claim is 'there is a god/gods', atheism is merely a 'i don't believe it until you demonstrate it'

A common mistake reggin_bolas did was generalizing all atheists as people who absolutely do not believe in deities. However, atheism has many different shades of grey and a bunch of atheists are skeptical until proven otherwise with empirical evidence.


i agree with your general sentiment, but i think defining an atheist as someone who does not believe in deities is correct though. that doesn't mean an atheist will refuse to believe even if presented with compeling evidence, which is what he does seem to imply. i'm an atheist, i don't believe in any deity that i ever heard about as no one was able to demonstrate to me any validity to those claims. so i remain unconvinced, thus an atheist



Neodegenerate on 27 February 2015
Aura7541 said:
reggin_bolas said:

That's wrong. You're confusing epistemology with ontology. The latter is the theory of reality. Atheism is an ontology. It posits there are no Gods or Intelligent Agency. 

No, it is not. Do not make things up just to fit your argument.


His whole argument is made up.  You are basically asking him not to post anymore.



Aura7541 on 27 February 2015
setsunatenshi said:
Aura7541 said:

A common mistake reggin_bolas did was generalizing all atheists as people who absolutely do not believe in deities. However, atheism has many different shades of grey and a bunch of atheists are skeptical until proven otherwise with empirical evidence.

i agree with your general sentiment, but i think defining an atheist as someone who does not believe in deities is correct though. that doesn't mean an atheist will refuse to believe even if presented with compeling evidence, which is what he does seem to imply. i'm an atheist, i don't believe in any deity that i ever heard about as no one was able to demonstrate to me any validity to those claims. so i remain unconvinced, thus an atheist

I'm on the same boat as you are. Also, have you seen DarkMatter's "If Atheists went to Heaven" video? It's really entertaining and your comment strongly reminds me of that vid xD



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setsunatenshi on 27 February 2015
reggin_bolas said:
setsunatenshi said:


that's an apt definition for atheism for a:

as for b: it's not exactly correct, it sounds a bit like strong or positive atheism, not atheism itself.

the key fallacy in his argument is considering atheism a positive claim. it is not, it's the default position. the positive claim is 'there is a god/gods', atheism is merely a 'i don't believe it until you demonstrate it'

That's wrong. You're confusing epistemology with ontology. The latter is the theory of reality. Atheism is an ontology. It posits there are no Gods or Intelligent Agency. 

it seems you do not know exactly what you're disagreeing with. it has been explained to you what atheism is, if you will only strawman it to more easily refute it then go ahead, but you won't convince anyone with that tactic



reggin_bolas on 27 February 2015

You guys are confusing atheism with skepticism. Ontology and epistemology and so forth.



setsunatenshi on 27 February 2015
Aura7541 said:
setsunatenshi said:

i agree with your general sentiment, but i think defining an atheist as someone who does not believe in deities is correct though. that doesn't mean an atheist will refuse to believe even if presented with compeling evidence, which is what he does seem to imply. i'm an atheist, i don't believe in any deity that i ever heard about as no one was able to demonstrate to me any validity to those claims. so i remain unconvinced, thus an atheist

I'm on the same boat as you are. Also, have you seen DarkMatter's "If Atheists went to Heaven" video? It's really entertaining and your comment strongly reminds me of that vid xD


i haven't seen darkmatter's videos for several years, he did have some funny ass cartoons :D

i think i'll check him out again, maybe go through some of his backlog to spend some time at work ;)



setsunatenshi on 27 February 2015
reggin_bolas said:
You guys are confusing atheism with skepticism. Ontology and epistemology and so forth.


atheism is a position that is derived of applied skepticism to one specific claim.

if no one in the world was claiming the existence of what they call gods, there would be no atheists.



Neodegenerate on 27 February 2015
Ka-pi96 said:
setsunatenshi said:
reggin_bolas said:
You guys are confusing atheism with skepticism. Ontology and epistemology and so forth.


atheism is a position that is derived of applied skepticism to one specific claim.

if no one in the world was claiming the existence of what they call gods, there would be no atheists.

I disagree. Athiesm is the default position that people are born with. If there were no people following religion then everyone would still be an athiest.

Nah, if there were no people following religion everyone would be agnostic.