Reviewing Atheist 'Lack Belief' in Deities theory. <<MOD WARNING ISSUED>>

You just cannot remain honest can you? The above is actually not the next paragraph! The above is taken from

4. An Argument for Agnosticism
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/

As I have shown over and over you simply quote mine, falsify and ignore all arguments that are not in agreement with your own. You actually miss the point of philosophy completely which is a discussion not a proof or conclusion. You have a POLITICAL agenda against what you consider to be an Atheist government. Swensson took your logic apart, others have shown the paucity of your argument.

I am an atheist I lack belief.

 

Imagine that, LACKERS DO BE LACKIN!

FALSE, its the next applicable paragraph. Please read for comprehension. Please refrain from blaming me for what you are doing, .....again.

This thread is nothing about government, its about LACKING LACKERS!

No quote mining what so ever, proving you dont even know what quote mining is! MORE LACKING!

Agnosticism is true: neither theism nor atheism is known to be true.

I address every argument now for the umpteenth time, your God swensson got his ass handed to him and continues to get his ass handed to him.

Smith just handed your god his ass again in the above post, that you totally ignored.

• Academic sources unanimously answer “NO”
  • 
    • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2011): “‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God.” [Atheism and Agnosticism, Online]
    
    • Encyclopedia of Unbelief (2007), p. 88: “In its broadest sense atheism, from the Greek a (‘without’) and theos (‘deity’), standardly refers to the denial of the existence of any god or gods.”
    
    • Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2nd ed. (2006), p.358 [in vol. 1 of 10]: “According to the most usual definition, an atheist is a person who maintains that there is no God, that is, that the sentence ‘God exists’ expresses a false proposition.
    
    In contrast, an agnostic maintains that it is not known or cannot be known whether there is a God”
    
    
    • Oxford Companion to Philosophy, New Ed. (2005), p. 65: “Atheism is ostensibly the doctrine that there is no God. Some atheists support this claim by arguments. But these arguments are usually directed against the Christian concept of God, ... Agnosticism may be strictly personal and confessional—‘I have no firm belief about God’—or it may be the more ambitious claim that no one ought to have a positive belief for or against the divine existence.”
    
    • Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy (2004), p. 530: “The belief that God – especially a personal, omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent God – does not exist.”
    
    • Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (199, entry by William Rowe: “As commonly understood, atheism is the position that affirms the nonexistence of God. So an atheist is someone who disbelieves in God, whereas a theist is someone who believes in God. … the common use of ‘atheism’ to mean disbelief in God is so thoroughly entrenched, we will follow it. We may use the term ‘non-theist’ to characterize the position of the negative atheist.”

In academic settings (peer review etc.), atheism is consistently understood as the belief that God does not exist.

For example, in specifically contrasting it with the “lack of belief,”


LOL

• The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy: “[Atheism] denotes a belief that there is no God; this use has become the standard one.”

Yes we all believe you, you are a LACKER no doubt!

 

Again rather than making outrageous claims of victory I just leave the article and people can read for themselves.

Swensson is not my god, however I do admire his ability to stay calm and destroy yours and castlemans logic without biting at your obvious provocation, it is actually an example to us all.

 

Nice quote mining!

In academic settings (peer review etc.), atheism is consistently understood as the belief that God does not exist.

For example, in specifically contrasting it with the “lack of belief,”


Swensson is your hero and your god.

LACKERS IGNORE and HANDWAVE away everything that is contrary and disproves the LACKING!

LIKE ALL THIS:

• Academic sources unanimously answer “NO”
  • 
    • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2011): “‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God.” [Atheism and Agnosticism, Online]
    
    • Encyclopedia of Unbelief (2007), p. 88: “In its broadest sense atheism, from the Greek a (‘without’) and theos (‘deity’), standardly refers to the denial of the existence of any god or gods.”
    
    • Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2nd ed. (2006), p.358 [in vol. 1 of 10]: “According to the most usual definition, an atheist is a person who maintains that there is no God, that is, that the sentence ‘God exists’ expresses a false proposition.
    
    In contrast, an agnostic maintains that it is not known or cannot be known whether there is a God”
    
    
    • Oxford Companion to Philosophy, New Ed. (2005), p. 65: “Atheism is ostensibly the doctrine that there is no God. Some atheists support this claim by arguments. But these arguments are usually directed against the Christian concept of God, ... Agnosticism may be strictly personal and confessional—‘I have no firm belief about God’—or it may be the more ambitious claim that no one ought to have a positive belief for or against the divine existence.”
    
    • Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy (2004), p. 530: “The belief that God – especially a personal, omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent God – does not exist.”
    
    • Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (199, entry by William Rowe: “As commonly understood, atheism is the position that affirms the nonexistence of God. So an atheist is someone who disbelieves in God, whereas a theist is someone who believes in God. … the common use of ‘atheism’ to mean disbelief in God is so thoroughly entrenched, we will follow it. We may use the term ‘non-theist’ to characterize the position of the negative atheist.”

In academic settings (peer review etc.), atheism is consistently understood as the belief that God does not exist.

For example, in specifically contrasting it with the “lack of belief,”


LOL

• The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy: “[Atheism] denotes a belief that there is no God; this use has become the standard one.”


Therefore I am forced to agree with Marvin!



since its obvious academic settings are NOT on earth!

 

His points are sound if your a theist you cannot demonstrate the existence of your respective divine beings and atheists can't prove they don't exist so ... being a Skeptic of both is the proper and normal position to take barring actual evidence to the contrary.

 

In academic circles they discuss the many different definitions of Atheism, they acknowledge the differing uses of the term over time and they discuss the varying definitions of gods. Similarly with philosophy. What they do not do is use memes,piles of excreta, falsify and generally try to shout down opinions others than their own. They always quote their sources and they never result to the infantile rubbish you have.

Most of all they consider and think!

 

There is no reason for an atheist to prove anything exists, the onus is on the one making the claim for existence, I make no claims for the existence of gods, why would I it is a meaningless concept.

 

Excuse me, I know how monumentally difficult this is for LACKERS, but atheists dont claim God exists theists do! Atheists prove God does not exist.

Internet LACKERS cop out by insisting they are special because they are the only people in the universe that are exempt from proving their claims while the rest of the world laughs their asses off.

 

Well, if atheism is the same thing as lacking belief, they should be no less confused by atheism. It seems to me avoiding that term avoids confusion, and just leaves people not having understood the problem, nor understood that they don't understand the problem.

What people automatically assume does not make it true. The problem here is that your statement is arguably misleading, not that it is incorrect. Indeed, you yourself say "I am not a Republican", which I would say is a correct statement. The fact that third parties may make incorrect assumptions about it might mean that you should be careful how you phrase it, but it does not make the statement wrong.

Statements have different usefulness in different contexts. If someone asked you "would you like some fries?" and you answered "I am a constitutional conservative", then that would be a useless statement. It is not the statements themselves that decide whether they are useful.

So this begs the question what is what information needs to be conveyed. You seem to want to convey a full description of everything theological one might want to stand for, and certainly, there is nothing wrong with taking such an approach. However, the arguments Kokomojojo addressed were not trying to make a point in which that made a difference. They were making the point that the arguments which theists have produced have been unconvincing. If that is the central issue on the table, then it doesn't really matter whether one has come across arguments for there being no god, or for agnosticism, and the lack of belief is the only important information to convey.

Then maybe you can tell me, what does it mean for someone to believe something to a certain percentage? Believing is to accept it as true, not to conclude that there is a literal 100% probability of it being true.

Let's take the gumball example. There is a 50% chance of there being an odd number, and a 50% chance of there being an even number. Let's consider one of the options, "there is an even number of gumballs". It has a 50% chance of being true and 50% chance of being false. Do I believe the statement? Do I accept that it is true? No. I acknowledge that it might be, but I don't just accept it outright when it has a 50% chance of being false. Given that I don't accept it, I do not have a belief in it. I can still acknowledge the possibility, but it does not constitute a belief. (At least not in itself. of course, you can believe the statement that there is a 50% chance, but that's another statement altogether.)

It's true that there is a practical issue here as well, at what likelihood would I say I believe something, and that's a highly subjective issue. For an apple in my fridge, I'd probably need a ~60% likelihood, for something I care more about, I might set the bar higher. That's not really important for this discussion though.

 

Its not 'IF'. Academics have told us there is no 'IF' in this matter. Both myself and Smith have said the same and gone over this countless times.

The lackers lacking belief is is misleading for reasons given countless times.

Sounds pretty agnostic to me, since you have belief in a 3rd condition being the truth.

As TK explained above, neither theists nor atheists have valid material proof by evidence to substantiate their beliefs.

 

Lol, recycling stuff from Frank Apisa huh, that figures.

 

No, you and castleman in koko world are the only ones who do not understand.So appealing to academic circles or philosophical ideas are worthless for you, since you understand neither.

 

a) It isn't. Atheism is the disbelief in God.
b) Avoiding that term is what creates confusion, it doesn't avoid confusion.
c) The only "problem" that exists is when "lack belief" atheists muddle the issue of what atheism means. The average "man on the street" knows what it means to be an atheist, and in general, recoils from it. "Lack belief" atheists' attempts to rope in agnostics under the same umbrella doesn't work for agnostics, since they reject the attempt, or theists, since they don't care about the subtleties of the difference the "lack belief" atheists are trying to make. I have several theist friends (and all of my family) who know I am an atheist and are appalled by it. Not once have they tried to find out what specifically it is I believe.

Exactly. Atheists saying they lack belief is misleading, since that's not what they do, they believe there is no God or gods. Going back to the earlier example of the child asking his father if he can have some candy and the father asking, "What did your mother say?", and the child says, "She didn't say no." That is misleading, and therefore false. It's a half-truth, which is no better than a lie. Saying, "I am not a Republican," would be similarly misleading since I am more conservative than most Republicans. And saying, "I lack belief," is misleading since the atheist actually does have a belief, the belief that God does not exist, and since a belief is anything you hold to be true, simply ask them if they hold the statement, "God does not exist," to be true. If they do, that is a belief. Clarity is a wonderful thing. Ambiguity sucks. I trust my view on ambiguity is clear enough. (I knew I was in trouble the first day of law school when one of the professors told the incoming class, "You have to get comfortable with ambiguity.")

The only time ambiguity is acceptable is when your or someone else's life or safety is at stake. Same thing goes for lying. When the Nazis ask if you have any Jews in your house, you can say, "No," without penalty, or if you refuse to lie, you can say, "Don't be crazy!" or "What do you think? Do you think I'm going to starve myself to keep half a dozen illegal Jews in my basement? Would I do that?", when in fact you ARE starving yourself to keep half a dozen illegal Jews in your basement. You haven't lied, but you have been misleading.

So the question is, "Do you believe in God?", and the posters on this and other forums are answering, "I am an atheist, I lack belief," which is a useless statement since it doesn't answer the question any more than yours answers the question about wanting fries.

I don't think taking a clear stand on being a theist, atheist, or agnostic conveys a full theological description of one's views. One could be an Ahura Mazda theist (Zoroastrian), an Allah theist (Muslim), or God theist (Christian or Jew), but stating you believe in God doesn't indicate which one you are. Anti-theists, to throw another term into the mix, don't make any distinction between religions, finding them all to be evil and repressive, but theists, agnostics, and atheists like myself are able to distinguish among different religions. Similarly, one can be theistic and irreligious, religious and atheistic (Unitarians and some forms of Buddhism, for example), superstitious and agnostic (belief in omens but not sure about God), etc. Simply knowing one's view on the triangle, theist - atheist - agnostic, doesn't really tell you all that much about one's theological views.

Does that mean that the arguments that atheists have made have been unconvincing? Because it seems to me, as an atheist and a former theist, that "lack belief" atheists are trying to dodge the issue, they are trying to avoid having to support their atheism with actual arguments. But if they found Dawkins' arguments and other atheistic philosophers' arguments convincing, they would use those arguments themselves to support their position that God does not exist. The fact that they don't want to or are unwilling to suggests to me that they don't find those arguments all that compelling themselves.

Oh, no, not the gumballs again. *insert eye-roll here* The problem with your gumball example is that it confuses the issues with statistical probabilities. Having an opaque gumball jar and asking whether there's any gumballs in the gumball jar makes more sense as far as the theist/atheist/agnostic question goes.

As for belief and probabilities, everything is on a sliding scale, isn't it? You can be 100% sure that 2+2=4, 98% sure that 6 cubed is 216, 95% sure that Thoreau wrote On Walden Pond, 75% sure that Maya Angelou wrote I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 50% sure that "pneumonia" is spelled with the e before the u, 35% sure that you're going to the store tomorrow, 15% sure that it's going to rain, and 0% sure that it's going to rain frogs. If it actually rains frogs, it just means you were wrong, it doesn't mean you weren't 100% sure that it wasn't going to rain frogs.

It is important if you're going to define atheism as a lack of belief, because then the question becomes who lacks belief, and by how much. Which of the above statements becomes a disbelief rather than a lack of belief? 50%? 35%? 15%? If you only have a 60% belief that you have an apple in your fridge, you lack 40% belief. Does that make you a "lack belief" apple in the fridge person? For me personally, I would choose somewhere in the 40-60% range to put me in the agnostic camp, with either end of the scale leaning toward belief or disbelief. "Do you have an apple?" (40%) "I don't think so, but I'm not sure, let me check."

 

Possibly the problem is a cultural one, backward countries like the US might well have an issue with someone being an atheist, here in the UK no one would recoil.If you have been brought up in a backward society with deeply religious family the idea that gods are meaningless must be very difficult to comprehend.A bit like you castles in Europe idea, you simply do not understand.

Edit, I imagine only parts of he USA are so backward as to recoil from an atheist, perhaps you can confirm.

 

they as we sunk your titantic in LACKER world.

 

Who else but brit loonytuneville!

Who else but the brits and their ilk would claim their monarchy is godlike!


Divine right of kings
political doctrine
Written By:

• The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica

See Article History

Divine right of kings, political doctrine in defense of monarchical absolutism, which asserted that kings derived their authority from God and could not therefore be held accountable for their actions by any earthly authority such as a parliament. Originating in Europe, the divine-right theory can be traced to the medieval conception of God’s award of temporal power to the political ruler, paralleling the award of spiritual power to the church. By the 16th and 17th centuries, however, the new national monarchs were asserting their authority in matters of both church and state. King James I of England (reigned 1603–25) was the foremost exponent of the divine right of kings, but the doctrine virtually disappeared from English politics after the Glorious Revolution (1688–89). In the late 17th and the 18th centuries, kings such as Louis XIV (1643–1715) of France continued to profit from the divine-right theory, even though many of them no longer had any truly religious belief in it. The American Revolution (1775–83), the French Revolution (1789), and the Napoleonic wars deprived the doctrine of most of its remaining credibility.

The bishop Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704), one of the principal French theorists of divine right, asserted that the king’s person and authority were sacred; that his power was modeled on that of a father’s and was absolute, deriving from God; and that he was governed by reason (i.e., custom and precedent). In the middle of the 17th century, the English Royalist squire Sir Robert Filmer likewise held that the state was a family and that the king was a father, but he claimed, in an interpretation of Scripture, that Adam was the first king and that Charles I (reigned 1625–49) ruled England as Adam’s eldest heir. The antiabsolutist philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) wrote his First Treatise of Civil Government (1689) in order to refute such arguments.


Now they want to impose that same lunacy on the US.

Lackers obviously have divine authority as well since they believe they do not have to account for their claims, only the heathen believers have to account for their claims!

The backwards US has freedom of religion, we dont have to and never did worship our gvmnts as gods.

British loonarcy the gift that keeps on giving!!

Execution by burning, by decapitation, or by hanging, drawing and quartering were used to provide a public spectacle of the consequences of disobedience.

The main way of instilling obedience, however, was propaganda. Through teaching, preaching and writing, the message was sent that sedition was morally wrong, un-Christian, and would result in divine retribution. Even those who escaped punishment in this life would burn in hell fire.

The theory of the Divine Right of Kings aimed at instilling obedience by explaining why all social ranks were religiously and morally obliged to obey their government.

Divine Right basics.


Definition

1. 
   In every kingdom, the king's power comes directly from God, to whom the ruler is accountable; power does not come to the king from the people and he is not accountable to them. [They dont have to prove anything!]
   
   
2. In every kingdom, the king makes the final decisions on all aspects of government (including the church). Other people and institutions that exercise political power do so as delegates of the king, and are subordinate to him.
   
   
3. However tyrannically kings act, they are never to be actively resisted. (The doctrine of non-resistance).
   
   If the king orders an act directly against God's commands, the subject should disobey but must submissively accept any penalty of disobedience. (The doctrine of "passive obedience" ).
   The doctrine was neatly encapsulated in the satirical song, The Vicar of Bray, which insisted that "Kings are by God appointed, /And damned are they that dare resist, / Or touch the Lord's anointed".
   
   
   We now enter an era of the Divine right of LACKERS!
   
   Now I understand where these loony lacker theories originated from, thanks!

 

They merely tried to create a black hole to suck up everything including what is already glued down by different definitions as you said agnostics.

The take away point here is that real atheists stand up for what they believe and defend it with proofs, lackers, hide under their nonaccountability rules!

That does not answer the question, instead evades it.

I disagree, that is a direct lie! (by omission)

which is why its clear lackers are a political movement to target those with less than necessary education to see their way clear of the deception.

Not only does it have zero substance, its not a valid argument and cannot be set up in a true false arrangement against theist. People with some 'real' philosophical background recognize this immediately.

This is their attempt to fence in the argument with frivolity to create the appearance of a legitimate exception. Its not, just more of the same sophistry.

Sure the beliefs between them have high contrast.

dawkins is actually an admitted agnostic who sent out his lacker troops to spread and evangelise the word.

dayitis there are an infinite amount of positions using lacker theory none of which can be used as a negation of theist, hence theist and belief in God would stand also beyond reproach and discussion within those terms.

 

Good point. If a theist objected to having to prove God's existence, he could merely say he "only' believed 80%, thereby shrugging off the necessity of having to support his belief. It's like how Catholic are you if you don't eat meat on Fridays but you support abortion rights. Does that make you 75% Catholic?

"Sure the beliefs between them have high contrast."

To you and me, anyway.

 

I mean, I disagree, of course, but this seems like just a less mature reiteration of the same discussion, so I will leave it, unless you want to focus on some specific aspect.

Misleading does not mean false, misleading is when the listener is forced/encouraged to make false assumptions, that doesn't make the statement false, just misleading. You saying "I am not a Republican" is arguably misleading, but not false. As previously established, according to the law of the excluded middle, if a statement is not true, then its negation is, and given that "you are a Republican" is false, "you are not a Republican" must be true. Whether it is misleading is at the moment beside the point, although even its misleadingness is subject to context. If you were in a situation where everyone knew there were only Republicans and constitutional conservatives, then saying "I am not a Republican" is not misleading.

Well, that depends. The definition I have provided people like Kokomojojo, and while he does lack belief in the existence of god, he does not hold the belief that there is no god. Sure, you can ask someone whether they believe there is no god, and assuming that they don't lie, you will now know what they believe.

Not sure if you're going off in another direction here, but obviously, when they say "I lack belief", they don't mean "I lack any and all belief, including that in the non-existence of god", they simply say that they lack the belief in the existence of god. They have not stated whether they hold the belief "God does not exist" (unless you ask them).

That's not really the question these arguments have been created in response to. The context which these arguments have spawned from have been particular religious claims, let's say for the sake of argument "Jonah lived in a fish" (obviously, it's a little more complicated, but in order to not get bogged down in other issues, let's stick with the simplified version). The most relevant response to such a statement is not necessarily "I believe there is no God" so much as "that's not persuasive", and that response is better captured by "I don't believe" than "I believe there is no God".

I mean, I would agree, so why is whether one believes there is no god important, when it is said in the context of a particular religious claim? It seems to me a red herring for someone who has been challenged on "Jonah lived in a fish" to try to save face by attacking some unrelated aspect of the challenger's beliefs.

Well, it makes no statement on how persuasive the arguments against the belief in god have been. In a sense, I would agree that they are trying to dodge the question, in particular, they are trying to dodge it because it is not important in practice. If someone makes a political point based on "Jonah lived in a fish", then you don't have to prove there is no god in order to challenge the statement "Jonah lived in a fish", so dodging such a red herring seems sensible to me. It is true that many believe that no god exists, but in practice, that's not really the core of the position, the core of the position is an opposition to religious claims.

I see no problem with it, the argument is specifically designed to remove any special favour that the trivial answer might enjoy. Some argue that non-existence is automatically favoured, this argument is designed so as to remove that aspect. The arguments I'm presenting has to do with beliefs in claims, not non-existence per se, so I have removed that aspect, so I'm not accused of giving special favour to non-existence.

Probabilities (or more to the point, likelihoods) are sliding, but belief means to accept something as true, and that seems boolean to me. I don't suggest that we couldn't say that we believe something unless we're 100% sure, but if you're unsure enough that you're not using it as effectively your working hypothesis, then you're not really believing it. What would it mean to believe something to 1%? I assume (although it is not entirely clear from the context), that by believing something to 1% would mean you think that it has a 1% likelihood of being true. I would say in that case, I would not at all use it as a working hypothesis of it being true, so I would not accept it as true, and the word belief applies not at all (0% if you have to have it as percent, but I'm not convinced that's a particularly meaningful way of putting it).

I'm still not convinced that I would phrase that which you speak of as partial beliefs. Belief is whether you accept something as true, and that really only comes in yeses or nos, there is nothing in there which can really be described as a percentage.

 

I think most academics have been pretty consistent with showing that both versions exist, and I have shown that in the past as well.

I mean, obviously, I think I have presented good arguments. Just stating that we think we have given persuasive reasons doesn't really do anything.

That doesn't sound right, there are only two options, an even or an odd number, and one of them has to be true. Agnosticism is not a third option to how reality is.

That's not really what we're discussing though, is it? I have a large set of probably unpopular opinions on that subject too, but I will save them for an appropriate discussion.

 

and in your hard core aristotlean world both answers are wrong and do not reflect reality. Agnosticism in fact does reflect reality. Which is why dawkins and everyone else (other than lackers) is agnostic or having beliefs pro or con and NOT lacking.

Its part and party to it however since it precisely matches your marble example..

You assume people are persuadable when presented with an over ruling argument, they arent. Lacker religious theory (theology) proves exactly that point.

Anyone can propose any nutty claim and it can catch on in tardville however as you have seen most academics from the better institutions reject lackerism for the same reasons you have been given here.

But there is!

lack
noun: lack; plural noun: lacks
1.
the state of being without or not having enough of something.

therefore how MUCH is enough?.......10%? 20? 89.6?

and you reject agnosticism for what it is, truthful account of the matter, theist v atheist and ignore the fact that lacking can be any percentage from .0001% to 99.9999%.

On the othjer hand as I said the better institutions have agreed that atheist is the negation of theist and is not lackerism and is not absence and is not without. Its straight up denial which is an exact counter position to straight up affirmation.

lackers use low probability to incorrectly claim a proposition is false.

fish have air bladders you know, if he had a knife that fish had one hell of a belly ache by the time he carved his way out.

 

Misleading does not mean false, but something that is misleading is false, in that it conveys incorrect information, the same as a falsehood would.

Koko does not "lack belief in the existence of god", he does not take a stand on the issue, and he has said that repeatedly. And you pretty much know what people believe by the terms "atheist", "theist", and "agnostic". No further questions are necessary unless you want to know what specific religion that person is.

No, they do indeed state that they do not hold a belief, which is contrary to reality and the way the brain functions. But if they believe that God does not exist, then they in fact hold a belief.

I disagree. The context from which these arguments originated is the idea that both sides have to present a case in support of their thesis, either "God exists" or "God does not exist". The atheists have come up with this way of skirting the problem of presenting a case in support of the thesis, "God does not exist," by claiming a lack of belief and then demanding the theists present their case without having to present any at all for their side. It's a way to claim the high ground without having to do any work, and it's bogus. It's also a convenient way to rope in agnostics into the atheist side, since 90% of the population is theist, agnostics are 8%, and atheists a measly 2% of the entire population. Liberals like to boast that 25% of the population is irreligious now, but that doesn't really help the atheists' cause any.

You'll have to show me this argument based on Jonah and the whale. I agree that you can challenge a story like Noah's Ark by pointing out any number of difficulties without ever getting into the debate about God's existence, but that's not what I see happening, what I see happening is the complete dismissal of the story of Noah's ark because "God doesn't exist," but when challenged on that claim, the dismissive person falls back on, "I lack belief, you have to prove God exists." So now it's no longer a red herring but the crux of the issue, either you believe God doesn't exist and that's why you dismiss the story of Noah's Ark, or you have nothing to go on and your snide condescension is unwarranted.

The presence or absence of gumballs in an opaque container works just as well, with the only change being that you can find out by opening the container. To make a real-world example that fits the God problem (i.e., we can't find out), take the question, "Is there life on a planet orbiting Polaris?" There may or may not be a planet orbiting Polaris, it may or may not be a terrestrial planet rather than a gas giant, and it may or may not contain life, but since it is 434 light years away, we're not going to find out in our lifetimes, barring the possibility of making alien contact. So then one could be a theist (life exists on a planet orbiting Polaris), an atheist (life does NOT exist on a planet orbiting Polaris), or an agnostic (I don't know or I'm not willing to guess).

So use certainty of belief. How certain are you of your belief? 100%? 1%? And what I have tried to show is that if you have 1% certainty of belief, you have a 99% certainty of belief in the opposite, that if you have a 1% certainty of belief that it's going to rain tomorrow, it's equally true that you have a 99% certainty of belief that it's not going to rain tomorrow. So then no one lacks a belief in anything that doesn't correspond to a belief in its opposite. If you have a 50% certainty of belief, it means you really don't know, such as whether it's eu or ue in "pneumonia". "Believe" and "not believe" are certainly the ends of the scale and opposites, but that doesn't mean there aren't people who fall somewhere in between. Your "agnostic atheists", for example, would fall somewhere inside of the "not believe" end of the scale. They don't believe but they aren't 100% certain.

I didn't really use the expression, "partial belief", but I think I can give you an example of a question of belief that cannot be answered yes or no: Do you believe that children believe in Santa Claus? Since the answer to the question, "Do children believe in Santa Claus?" is, "Some do and some don't," your belief is also split, you partially believe that children believe in Santa Claus and you partially disbelieve that children believe in Santa Claus. No percentage comes up, but we're not talking about certainty in this case, only partial belief.

I haven't seen/heard/read any academic respond to the points made by the academics refuting the "lack belief" theory. What's most interesting to me is that it hasn't been theists refuting it, either, it's been other atheist philosophers.

Just saying that you have presented good arguments is not a refutation of the arguments already presented in response.

But in the example of the gumballs, it's the only rational position to take. Insisting there are an even or an odd number of gumballs is irrational because there's no way to know short of counting them or asking the person who put them in. The only rational position is, "I don't know." (Theoretically, if one could calculate the exact internal dimensions of the jar and the exact external volume of gumballs, one could mathematically determine the maximum number of gumballs the jar could hold, which would necessarily be either odd or even, but even such mathematician could not know in advance whether or not the jar did or did not hold the maximum number possible. So he'd still only have a 50/50 shot at being right. The same would apply to some bright bulb who decided to buy an identical jar and fill it with gumballs and then count them.) In the case of God's existence, however, all three positions are arguably rational. God exists: Well, there have been millions of people over the years who say that not only does God exist but that he has made a difference in their own personal lives. God does not exist: We can explain most natural phenomena in terms of scientific cause and effect, so there's no reason to believe that we won't eventually be able to explain them all, without recourse to God's intervention. We don't know or we can't tell: Both sides have evidence and arguments with varying levels of persuasiveness, but since there's no way of testing God's existence to know for certain, it only makes sense to be neutral on the question.

Now you have piqued my curiosity. What are your unpopular opinions on the proof of beliefs?

 

Just to let you know Koko, we have not had a divine right of kings for a few hundred years, I realise there maybe parts of the US unaware of that!

 

sure and it the same backwards inbreeds running the show that avoid all accountability at any cost, inventors of lacker heritage/philosophy.

 

In koko world again!