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Forums - General Discussion - Do you believe in God? Why/Why not?

 

Do you believe in any god?

Yes 63 36.21%
 
No 111 63.79%
 
Total:174
Pemalite said:
Zoombael said:

To the first quote: Atheism in the widest (and seldomly used) sense, but that isnt the position the atheists participating in this debate are representing, or is it? You want it to be looked at as the natural, unaltered, untainted state of mind, therefore superior to any kind of god-belief. That is why wrote: everything is "indoctrinated", and this does include your kind of atheism.

That is the position I am taking as an Atheist... In this thread.

My position is not indoctrinated, all I ask for is evidence for Theists to backup their claims, that is it, that is rational, that is logical.


Zoombael said:

Nevertheless, even in the widest sence i dont deem Atheism the same as a "blank slate".

I think you are making it out to be something it's not.
Atheism isn't a belief or disbelief in God, it is the default position.

 

Zoombael said:

Secondly: You completely missed the point. Exclude in the sense of having eliminated the possibility of existence of "divine power". Followed by an example of how incapable we actually still are... not being to figure out if there is life on the other side of Milkyway... or the moon Europa...

None of which results in proving/disproving God exists.

Just because there is/isn't life on another planet doesn't mean that life on THIS planet was created by your God, you need to judge each claim on it's own basis.

 

Hum. VG Users have the tendency to completely disregard what is written and respond to something the other side has never said. Strange, strange indeed. And you claim not being indoctrinated. ^^

 

Who is my god? Do you know? I dont think you even know the vague idea i drifft to.

 

Lets go back a little. Some user wrote: "no, i dont believe, because science"

 

Einstein was jewish and he was a strong believer.

 

Now i would like you to explain to me why one should expell the other from the human mind. I hope i dont have to point out that this isnt about flat earth 4000 years old and the world on the back of a giant turtle.



Hunting Season is done...

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Zoombael said:

Hum. VG Users have the tendency to completely disregard what is written and respond to something the other side has never said. Strange, strange indeed. And you claim not being indoctrinated. ^^

Or maybe, just maybe... Text has an ability to be interpreted in very many different ways and thus have your position misconstrued.

Zoombael said:

Who is my god? Do you know? I dont think you even know the vague idea i drifft to.

I don't care who or what your God is.

 

Zoombael said:

Lets go back a little. Some user wrote: "no, i dont believe, because science"

I am one those people.

 

Zoombael said:

Einstein was jewish and he was a strong believer.

And Einstein was wrong on many things, even in Physics. - What's your point?

Zoombael said:

Now i would like you to explain to me why one should expell the other from the human mind. I hope i dont have to point out that this isnt about flat earth 4000 years old and the world on the back of a giant turtle.

Because after millennia of time, billions of followers... There is still not a single shred of evidence to support their position. None.
Don't you think their time has run out?

Science isn't standing still, it's already proven many God's and Religions to be completely erroneous in the past, is yours next?



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

Zoombael said:
Pemalite said:

That is the position I am taking as an Atheist... In this thread.

My position is not indoctrinated, all I ask for is evidence for Theists to backup their claims, that is it, that is rational, that is logical.


I think you are making it out to be something it's not.
Atheism isn't a belief or disbelief in God, it is the default position.

 

None of which results in proving/disproving God exists.

Just because there is/isn't life on another planet doesn't mean that life on THIS planet was created by your God, you need to judge each claim on it's own basis.

 

Hum. VG Users have the tendency to completely disregard what is written and respond to something the other side has never said. Strange, strange indeed. And you claim not being indoctrinated. ^^

 

Who is my god? Do you know? I dont think you even know the vague idea i drifft to.

 

Lets go back a little. Some user wrote: "no, i dont believe, because science"

 

Einstein was jewish and he was a strong believer.

 

Now i would like you to explain to me why one should expell the other from the human mind. I hope i dont have to point out that this isnt about flat earth 4000 years old and the world on the back of a giant turtle.

Einstein was not Jewish in a religious sense.  He did not believe in a personal God such as the Jewish god. 

So far, anyone claiming that there is a god had been unable to demonstrate it.  If you think you can, go for it. 

Pemalite said:
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.

 notice the words you're using.  Anyone, someone, individual.  These are words we typically reserve for humans. And our understanding of animal cognition is actually relatively weak.  For instance a simple fish recently passed a test for self awareness we previously thought could only be passed by animals like elephants, dolphins, and great apes. 

To qualify as an atheist would have to require more than simply lacking a belief in god.  I just ordered a sandwich.  Is the sandwich an atheist? I'm sure we'd agree that the sandwich completely lacked any belief in god.

Last edited by JWeinCom - on 12 September 2018

You know what my believes are? I believe this thread will never end. And even if it does, nobody changed his/her opinion about this.



No I don't because I thankfully was not brainwashed as a child!



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JWeinCom said:

To qualify as an atheist would have to require more than simply lacking a belief in god.  I just ordered a sandwich.  Is the sandwich an atheist? I'm sure we'd agree that the sandwich completely lacked any belief in god.

Sure. However... A Sandwich is an inanimate object, you are conflating the issue now to be something it's not.

A Theist is someone who has strong beliefs in a particular something, I.E. God.
An Atheist is someone who lacks belief in that same something. I.E. God.

Ergo... Everyone that isn't a Theist is essentially an Atheist. That means a new born baby is an Atheist, it is the default position.
Doesn't matter if they lack the cognitive capability to think along those lines either... Because I have worked and looked after allot of people with debilitating disabilities who would never be capable of grasping Theistic principles, they still fall under the Atheist descriptor.

Squall_Leonhart said:
No I don't because I thankfully was not brainwashed as a child!

When I was younger, I was forced to go to the Church every week, was even baptized, probably did that for a good 10+ years.
So it's not my first Rodeo.

Thankfully, I was always more interested in Science and Technology, you know... Concepts with tangible evidence so the Theistic view point never really stuck.
But it does allow me to debate about the topic in a much more comprehensive manner as I have been on both sides of the fence, so that's a plus.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

Pemalite said:
JWeinCom said:

To qualify as an atheist would have to require more than simply lacking a belief in god.  I just ordered a sandwich.  Is the sandwich an atheist? I'm sure we'd agree that the sandwich completely lacked any belief in god.

Sure. However... A Sandwich is an inanimate object, you are conflating the issue now to be something it's not.

A Theist is someone who has strong beliefs in a particular something, I.E. God.
An Atheist is someone who lacks belief in that same something. I.E. God.

Ergo... Everyone that isn't a Theist is essentially an Atheist. That means a new born baby is an Atheist, it is the default position.
Doesn't matter if they lack the cognitive capability to think along those lines either... Because I have worked and looked after allot of people with debilitating disabilities who would never be capable of grasping Theistic principles, they still fall under the Atheist descriptor.

Well, I'm not trying to conflate anything, I'm trying to clarify

You said you'd consider a pig an atheist, but your current definition seems to exclude that.  Is a pig an atheist, or does it have to be a person?



JWeinCom said:

Well, I'm not trying to conflate anything, I'm trying to clarify

You said you'd consider a pig an atheist, but your current definition seems to exclude that.  Is a pig an atheist, or does it have to be a person?

I have answered that prior.
That I would consider an animal to be an Atheist as it lacks belief in the theistic position.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

Pemalite said:
JWeinCom said:

Well, I'm not trying to conflate anything, I'm trying to clarify

You said you'd consider a pig an atheist, but your current definition seems to exclude that.  Is a pig an atheist, or does it have to be a person?

I have answered that prior.
That I would consider an animal to be an Atheist as it lacks belief in the theistic position.

Then I don't understand the distinction between this and my sandwich. Or if you prefer an animate example, a cactus. 

A cactus, by this definition, is an atheist as it lacks belief in the theistic position.  So your definition is not specific enough and you need to add to it. 



JWeinCom said:
Pemalite said:

I have answered that prior.
That I would consider an animal to be an Atheist as it lacks belief in the theistic position.

Then I don't understand the distinction between this and my sandwich. Or if you prefer an animate example, a cactus. 

A cactus, by this definition, is an atheist as it lacks belief in the theistic position.  So your definition is not specific enough and you need to add to it. 

A cactus is also not a gamer if you understand where this is coming from. You can invent a label like atheist for this if you want to and call everyone who doesn't play games this label. 

Atheist is just a label for describing a certain theological position. 



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