[Neo] Atheists: How Much Lack of Belief is Required to be an Atheist?

Substitute God for your elephant and you have incontrovertible proof by your own "logic."

 

Good, that is indeed your right to do so.

Nonetheless, I will answer the question since you have posted an extreme false statement.

I have never met any Democrat or even Liberal who wants to eliminate religion, in fact, many are religious themselves. What most Democrats want is to keep the two separate. Unfortunately, Evangelical Christians have been whipped up starting in the 70's to unite and make a political front to inject their religious beliefs into our politics. It is the one of the primary reasons Trump got elected, because this particular voting block is more than willing to be hypocrites in order to further their religious ideals.

 

Do you deny Hitler was made in the image of God?

 

I'm not as philosophically inclined as you are (that's a compliment, by the way), so I searched for the definition of belief in scientific circles. Here are some results:

Belief can be defined as the mental acceptance or conviction in the truth or actuality of some idea (Schwitzgebel, 2010).
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01588/full

Simply, a belief defines an idea or principle which we judge to be true.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/happiness-in-world/201104/the-two-kinds-belief

Belief is introduced as the cognitive act or state in which a proposition is taken to be true
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4615-6453-9_23

Beliefs, or what is held to be true or real by an individual, refer to a person’s subjective judgments concerning some aspect of self or of the world.
http://www.eolss.net/sample-chapters/c11/E6-60-03-07.pdf

Can we quantify belief, or lack thereof? It's not a rhetorical question.

I have to mention that I don't like the philosophical "belief is a propositional attitude" approach, because I don't see attitudes as part of beliefs, rather consequences of beliefs.

Let me explain. "The bird is chirping" is a belief (suppose a bird is indeed chirping on a tree branch near the observer). The attitude might change according to the observer's mood. If awakened by the chirping, the observer might decide he doesn't like it (attitude). If in a romantic mood, the observer might decide he likes it (another attitude). Same belief, two different attitudes.

I know the above is off topic (not entirely, as it pertains to the definition of belief), but I'd like to know your opinion.

 

Pure hogwash!
CONS only pretend to be Christians for political purposes only, whereas Libs actually practice the teachings of Christ's love of their fellow men.

 

Democrats are openly hostile to Christianity. You dont even need to read beyond this very forum, to see the obvious.

 

Oh sure, I "feel the love" just gushing from liberals, every day, as long as you believe as they do, if not look out!. *extreme sarcasm alert

 

Evangelicals like Republicans only believe in the God Almighty Dollar!

 

Dems are hostile to Christians who pretend to be Christians for political purposes only. Hitler claimed to be Christian, are you hostile to him or do you worship his being made in the image of God?

 

Sure just as Homos, Libs, Leftists, Dems, etc., feel that Christian love for their fellow human beings all made in the image of God.
You are basically accusing Libs of acting like CONS!!!

 

Hello fellow atheist. Atheisms can range from a complete back of belief to a complete belief God doesn't exist. So it can range from 0% to 100%. This is why agnostics are a very mild form of atheist.

 

Here you are smearing an entire political group, complete with some Hitler reference, is this some of that ''practicing the teachings of Christ's love of their fellow men'' you said liberals do? Because I dont think the teachings of Christ promote such ridicule and judgement (might want to read up on what he taught about judging others)

 

WOW 87 posts and the first one that actually addresses the OP and its a total disappointment.

Just when I thought I heard it all, now we have atheists claiming everyone is an atheist regardless of their beliefs.

agnostics, that is real agnostics do not take a position, either way, so now atheists are claiming people who dont respond to the question and throw them in their atheist basket.

WOW!

Everytime I think I heard the height of ridiculous someone surprises!

 

If anyone has a sane response I am still waiting to know:

how much LoB is enough to hold the label of atheist, very simple question?

anyone?

 

Beliefs are characterized as "true" or "false" in virtue of the truth or falsity of the propositions that are believed. People can believe propositions with varying degrees of conviction, but believing something does not make it so, no matter how hard you believe. Furthermore, the truth (or falsity) of a proposition isn't determined by how many people believe it or by who believes it.
https://home.sandiego.edu/~baber/logic/truthbeliefjustification.html

It boils down to, regardless if the proposition itself is true or false, your mind will hold as 'truth' whatever you determine the proposition to be.

If correct your mind holds the proposition as true.
If incorrect your mind holds the proposition as false.

In both cases your mind accepts a false or a true condition for the 'proposition' and holds that determination, regardless of its result, as 'truth', belief.

 

...so you believe it to be...

Yes.

...so you believe it to be...

Yes.

Bless yours too.

 

The divide is so great because fundamentalists are a sizable part of any religion, and also because MANY people do not even realize the logical framework behind religion. The logical framework behind all religion (yes, that includes atheism) is exactly the same.

 

Perhaps you don't seem crazy about America,. I would attribute our great success from the attitude of our Founders which was very prevelant among our leaders at the Nations Founding. ....We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, that we are endowed, by our Creator, with certain, unalienable rights""".of course you'll want to chime in about slavery but that too has been resolved, largely because it had large Christian opposition by those who followed the Kingdom of God's teachings.

 

I believe when God made the heavens and the earth, it was very cataclysmic. It was dynamic. Maybe Big Bang is a good description of that. No matter how ...God did it.

Interesting. I live in Canyon country. I see strata making curved bends with no fractures. These strata were laid down by water sediment deposits. Even though they are claimed to be "millions of years apart, there is no fracture from bending a dry strata. Funny, a lot of the strata is found all over the world.

 

Hitler was created in the" image" of God just as you were. God makes choices. His choices are ALWAYS perfect by His design. You , me and Hitler do not make perfect choices. Some less perfect than others. God designed one perfect choice to override our not so perfect choices. By His Grace, I have made that choice. It's available to all.

 

Agnostics neither believe nor disbelieve in God. They can't tell you whether God exists or not and don't take a position. This means they lack a positive belief that God exists. Atheists also lack a belief in God, or in other words, they don't believe in God. Therefore agnostics are atheists and you are a fellow atheist. Wecome to the club! What I'm saying sounds ridiculous, I will admit that. But it makes sense when you think about it really hard.

 

Yeah, most definitions I find are similar to that. It seems to me to be binary, you either have it or you don't. If you believe "A" has a 50% likelihood of being true, that is not enough to accept is as true, so it is not a belief in A. It does not constitute half a belief, a belief is whether you hold something as true, not the extent to which you think it is true.

I don't think "belief is a propositional attitude" implies that attitudes are part of beliefs, but that beliefs are part of attitudes. I'd agree that there are attitudes that are not beliefs (like "grumpy"). Also, neither attitudes or beliefs tend to come alone, we can have attitudes pertaining to attitudes and attitudes pertaining to beliefs (and beliefs pertaining to attitudes). I don't really mind whether you consider beliefs to be a type of attitude, as long as it's clear (if it is important). It seems to me to be semantics without any distinction, but I'm happy enough to consider a distinction if one is spelled out.

 

Wrong again.

Belief is the conviction that a thing held in the mind is true. It doesn't matter if the thing held in the mind is true or false, what matters is the conviction that it's true. Knowing (or thinking) that a proposition is false will result in its rejection, an act baptized "disbelief".

The quote in red only says that some of the propositions we believe might be false ("leaves are green" is one of the most common false propositions people believe in), not that we are aware that some of the propositions are indeed false. Someone who believes in a false proposition is convinced that the proposition is true. An objective observer knows that the proposition is false, the believer does not.

 

When I wrote my post I was thinking about statistics, to be honest. I wondered if probability might be construed as a quantification of belief. From your reply I infer that it's not the case. Belief in likelihood in not quantifiable.

Some posters seem to conflate attitudes with beliefs, which prompted my observation about attitudes.

 

wow!
that was nothing short of brilliant
next time I post I'll make sure its in english

ah that explains why neoatheists are always talking about weak and strong belief. Thanks again