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

neither do they deny the existence iow accept "there is no God" as true.

admission they (lackers) are not atheists at all, but a bastardized version of agnostics

 

You cant use lacker as a negation to theist, so you need to show me alacker as a negation to lacker. Its impossible for lacker to negate theist. (rationally anyway) I am not the one inserting meaningless words into the vocabulary lackers are. It has everything to do with everything you are failing to do (or trying to do illegally) but I wont let you get away with it.

Therefore in order to be an athe[ist] you have to process data and draw the conclusion there is no God. Hence DENY the existence of God.

Necessary because there is no alternative to obtain a correct conclusion. If you have a better choice of words I am all ears.

There is only one way to lack belief in the God/God not proposition which is to be dead, in a coma. I suppose you could argue lackers are in a coma. A newborn would be classified as agnost because a newborn does not know, exactly like an agnostic.

 

Dogmatists hit a mental brick wall when their religious views are challenged. Thats whats going on here. It wont matter how well its explained, how many times its proven, how many red faces they get, they are going to preach and believe what they are going to believe, just as relentlessly as any other religious fanatic.

If you look at willie rays video clip the host is making he same logical error swensson does and he knows it because every time the kid edged closer to identifying it he went into a rant and switched horses, same as we see here. Both these guys are destroying the propositions by parsing out each word effectively attempting to do an end run around the proposition itself. Not that I need mention that to you since we pointed that out to them a few hundred pages ago and in good dogmatist style was all handwaved away and forgotten two posts later.

 

Everyone with subject matter knowledge calls you out and wins.

There you go! Empty gas tank! grovel on lacker soldier.

There you go, more empty gas tank I do love watching all the groveling.

NOT TRUE, FALSE a FABRICATION, your making **** up again I counter every argument that serves to advance the topic and/or point out lackers glaring errors.

NOT TRUE, FALSE another FABRICATION, your making **** up again repetitive arguments, prove it in your next post.

NOT TRUE, FALSE a FABRICATION, your making **** up again, I sometimes do not source, there is no material difference in the sections I present in posts and the articles. Feel free to prove it in your next post.

Thankfully yes it is.

NOT TRUE, FALSE another FABRICATION, your making **** up again says the king of straw, prove it in your next post!

NOT TRUE, FALSE another FABRICATION your making **** up again from the king of straw, prove it in your next post!
there is no material difference in the sections I present in posts and the articles.

Philosophers sort out the mess the illiterate ***** make out of words.

Swensson got his ass handed to him. Atheist is the negation of theist, not lacker.

I am not the one who spams the threads with the same 'I am an atheist, I lack belief'.

I have philosophical motive, cant even get that right, and I have no need to prove atheist is a religion, the US Supreme court already did all that, and got it right to my surprise.

Author of the Christian bible does not represent all Christians either, see how I respond to even completely pointless foolish arguments.

Sure but people living in glass houses should be very careful throwing rocks at a rubber wall

Yes, especially the part where real atheists are talk about how embarrassed they are by the internet lackers.

Case in point

I am not the one who accused anyone of making up the word lacker only to have the dictionary definition posted proving you in fact made it all up, ......you are.

 

Modern atheists are easy to fool, I'll go along with that analogy.

Babies obviously cannot be atheists (I'll even disagree with Koko here and say they can't be agnostics, either) because they cannot make any kind of rational decision on the subject. Are babies Democrats, Republicans, or Independents? It's irrational even to think they can be any of those things. They don't have any understanding to make a decision. By the same token, if your definition of atheist (lack belief) includes babies in the definition, then your definition is irrational.

I like this analogy. Let's say you have someone who identifies with the Democrats but being a Democrat is too much of a hassle trying to support your position, since there are no logical arguments in support of being a Democrat, so instead s/he redefines him/herself as "not a Republican". S/he refuses to offer any arguments in support of Democratic positions, instead demanding that anyone who disagrees with Democrats offer all the arguments and proof for their own position. But his/her position isn't "exclusive" in that it ropes in all manner of other people, like Greens, Socialists, Independents, Libertarians, and even constitutional conservatives, all of whom also identify as "not Republican". But when you point this out to this person, all s/he can do is repeat ad nauseum, "I am not a Republican." S/he is still a Democrat, votes for all Democratic candidates, supports all or most of the Democratic positions, but refuses to identify as a Democrat so as to avoid having to make any arguments in support of Democratic policies. The position is untenable and irrational in that it's denying reality in order to avoid having to think. (Being a Democrat means you never think anyway, but that's another discussion.) The same could be said of babies, that they "are not Republicans," but that doesn't mean they support Democratic causes. Likewise, babies cannot be atheists because they do not support atheism. They cannot be theists because they do not have any concept of God to believe in. And they cannot be agnostics because they cannot think about the question and answer, "I don't know."

 

I lack belief, I am an atheist.

 

I am an atheist, I lack belief.

 

According to the biblical criteria not one person in human history has ever believed in Jesus.

 

Well, the definition I have provided of atheism does not require an atheist to have made a "rational decision", so I don't see why that is a problem. I would agree that babies are not democrats or republicans, I think your idea of "I am not a republican" in the next bit is a better analogue, so I will continue that point there.

The problem here seems not to be someone identifying as "not being a Republican", but their refusal to identify as Democrat. If someone holds the opinion that makes one a Democrat, that makes one a Democrat (or at least, so I assume, I'm not sure if there are more precise definitions around). However, that doesn't make "not being a Republican" an incorrect description.

I too like the party analogy. Let's map out which words correspond to what:
Republican corresponds to Believes there is a God
Democrat corresponds to Believes there is no God
non-Republican corresponds to Does not believe there is a God (this is what my definition calls atheist)
Libertarians corresponds to agnostics (not a perfect analogue, but close enough)

Imagine that the Republican party presented a policy which everyone who was not in that party disagreed with (obviously very simplified). The criticism against such a policy would not be Democratic per se, since many who are not Democrats would have the same criticism. The most accurate description of such criticism would be non-Republican (or some variation on that theme) rather than Democratic. This example shows that a word which effectively means non-Republican can be a useful word.

If we were discussing the policy above, and someone was asked a Democrat which side they were on, "I am a non-Republican" includes the information that you want, and is thus a full answer to the question.

One has to justify the positions that one holds. Identifying as a non-Republican doesn't do anything to alleviate the burden of proof on someone who holds Democratic opinions, but that doesn't mean that non-Republican is an incorrect description.

Libertarians and Democrats can both be correctly identified as non-Republicans, they are both subsets to non-Republicans. Similarly, agnostics and people who believe there are no gods are subsets to "people who don't believe there is a god", i.e. atheists.

Babies are not Democrats or Republicans, they are non-Democrats and non-Republicans. By the latter of those statements, they are non-Republicans. Similarly, babies do not hold a belief in god, or a belief that there is no god. They don't believe there is a god, and they don't believe there is no god. By the latter of those statements, they are atheists.

I'm not 100% on what would be meant by "support atheism", but it seems that you have introduced some aspect of the idea of "supporting" something, which I think implies belief. That "support" is not included in the definition I have provided, so it seems incorrect to use that as a criterion for being an atheist.

 

I don't see why I would have to do that (and I'm not saying that just to say "I don't have to do what you tell me", I'm saying that I don't see why my logic requires such a thing to be possible, or rather, why doing so would add anything to the discussion). Sure, you could produce a negation to a lacker, whatever that means. I'm not 100% sure on if by "lacker" you mean someone who lacks belief or someone who argues that atheism is a lack of belief, but either way, you could produce a negation by simply taking everything that isn't a lacker.

Naively, I would expect the negation to be
alacker =
!lacker =
!!(has belief in god) =
has belief in god

but that's subject to my understanding of what you mean by a lacker, so it might not be correct.

What do you mean "therefore"? How does that follow from the previous bit of the post?

A logical necessity is something which must logically be so. Given that it is not logically impossible to be illiterate, literacy is not a logical necessity.

"God/God not" is not one proposition, those are two propositions. The way you phrase it here makes it again sound like you're talking about any belief about the existence of God, rather than the particular belief that god exists.

 

So? The criteria for being an atheist, as I have supplied them, mention nothing about denying the existence "there is no God" as true.

Some of those who lack belief in the existence of God will be agnostics, others will believe there is no god. I'm sure there are further options as well. The lack definition is a pretty broad umbrella, including but not limited to agnostics.

 

I defy you to find one agnostic who believes s/he is a subset of atheists. A different analogy: The Irish step dancers of Riverdance were appalled when they discovered that the Mexicans refer to all white people as "Anglos". Who is right, the Mexicans or the Irish?

 

Sure, they mostly call themselves agnostic atheists, and have been popping up every now and then, including, I seem to recall, in this thread. Besides, as with the "idiot" example, people being able to identify themselves as something has nothing to do with whether they actually are that something.

Not sure what the Riverdance example is meant to show, or how it corresponds to our setup. I would prefer if we'd stick to one analogy at a time. There was a lot more in my post than what you quoted.

 

Most of it was irrational. No one goes around calling him/herself a non-Republican, and it would no more be right to call a baby a non-Republican than it would to call it a Republican, because it can't decide. You're trying to nail jelly to a tree, and insisting you have succeeded. Instead of understanding that being "not a Republican" is not a tenable position, just like "lacking belief", you have embraced it as being a thing. It isn't. The Riverdance example goes to show that just because you label someone else something doesn't mean you are right. The Mexicans label all white people "Anglos" but the Irish are decidedly not Anglo-Saxon, and are not happy if you call them that, since they had to fight for centuries to be free of the Anglo-Saxons. As for "agnostic atheists", those are simply atheists who aren't 100% sure, those aren't actual agnostics. I'm sure you could find theists who aren't 100% sure, but I don't think it would be fair to call them agnostic theists.

 

what they are trying to do is use existing labels and reassigning their identity according their strength of conviction and that is not how humpty dumpty falls off the wall.

If you want to have fun since lack is not restricted to absence ask what percentage of lacking is required to be an atheist......its right back to the mental block because they never figured that one into their minimalist equation.

They can legitimately claim they are 60% believer therefore a thiest, or 60% disbeliever therefore atheist but they can toss in agnostic because agnostic is dont know and cannot legitimately take either position.

Below is support for them, not intended to educate you in what you already know since you have said it plenty enough times.

Definitions of “Atheism”

“Atheism” is typically defined in terms of “theism”. Theism, in turn, is best understood as a proposition—something that is either true or false. It is often defined as “the belief that God exists”, but here “belief” means “something believed”. It refers to the propositional content of belief, not to the attitude or psychological state of believing. This is why it makes sense to say that theism is true or false and to argue for or against theism. If, however, “atheism” is defined in terms of theism and theism is the proposition that God exists and not the psychological condition of believing that there is a God, then it follows that atheism is not the absence of the psychological condition of believing that God exists (more on this below). The “a-” in “atheism” must be understood as negation instead of absence, as “not” instead of “without”. Therefore, in philosophy at least, atheism should be construed as the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, the proposition that there are no gods).


This definition has the added virtue of making atheism a direct answer to one of the most important metaphysical questions in philosophy of religion, namely, “Is there a God?” There are only two possible direct answers to this question: “yes”, which is theism, and “no”, which is atheism. Answers like “I don’t know”, “no one knows”, “I don’t care”, “an affirmative answer has never been established”, or “the question is meaningless” are not direct answers to this question.

Otherwise as you said they can cal themselve whatever they want does not mean they are meaningful much less rationally constructed labels.

 

Anybody wishing to read the full article and the various definitions in Koko's un sourced quote mine above should read it here,

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/

Ps, thanks for proving my points about quote mining and not sourcing, I need not bother answering your last post directed at me, you just proved it yourself!

 

Another failure! changes nothing!

By all means read every word since it proves lackers are irrational, delusional, and pissing against the wind!


Definitions of “Atheism”

“Atheism” is typically defined in terms of “theism”. Theism, in turn, is best understood as a proposition—something that is either true or false. It is often defined as “the belief that God exists”, but here “belief” means “something believed”. It refers to the propositional content of belief, not to the attitude or psychological state of believing. This is why it makes sense to say that theism is true or false and to argue for or against theism. If, however, “atheism” is defined in terms of theism and theism is the proposition that God exists and not the psychological condition of believing that there is a God, then it follows that atheism is not the absence of the psychological condition of believing that God exists (more on this below). The “a-” in “atheism” must be understood as negation instead of absence, as “not” instead of “without”. Therefore, in philosophy at least, atheism should be construed as the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, the proposition that there are no gods). <--Just like the all the REAL philosophers possessing the gift of comprehension have been saying all along.

This definition has the added virtue of making atheism a direct answer to one of the most important metaphysical questions in philosophy of religion, namely, “Is there a God?” There are only two possible direct answers to this question: “yes”, which is theism, and “no”, which is atheism. Answers like “I don’t know”, “no one knows”, “I don’t care”, “an affirmative answer has never been established”, or “the question is meaningless” are not direct answers to this question.

Lackers be lackin!

 

I am an atheist, I lack belief.

 

Lackers do, they lack republican!

 

That's very good, where did that one come from?

 

I lack belief, I am an atheist.

 

I don't go around telling people I am human either, but that doesn't mean I'm not a human. In this case, it's a bit unclear what makes one a Republican, babies don't vote or pay party membership, and I don't know what their default stance would be, but I would assume that there is some criteria, and if you don't fill it, then you are a non-Republican. Not being able to decide doesn't excuse you from the law of the excluded middle, it just means that the answer, if taken out of context, might confuse people.

Why? What's wrong with being not a Republican? In what sense is it not tenable? It seems tenable to me. You talk about "being a thing", I'm not quite certain what you mean. It seems to me anything you can put meaningful words to are a thing, and that includes not being a Republican. Given that there are lots of people who are not Republicans: Democrats, greens, independents and so on, I don't see the logic by which it's not a "thing" or "untenable".

Yeah, that would be equivocation, which is what I'm trying to avoid here.

 

And on to the next paragraph Koko!

While identifying atheism with the metaphysical claim that there is no God (or that there are no gods) is particularly useful for doing philosophy, it is important to recognize that the term “atheism” is polysemous—i.e., it has more than one related meaning—even within philosophy. For example, many writers at least implicitly identify atheism with a positive metaphysical theory like naturalism or even materialism. Given this sense of the word, the meaning of “atheism” is not straightforwardly derived from the meaning of “theism”.

Let me guess, you did not think the above important! Or the other definitions of Atheism, again you used an un sourced quote and left out anything not agreeing with you!

There must be one definition only, because koko says so!

 

and after throwing all that **** at the wall we read the next paragraph:

• (1)There is no firm basis upon which to judge that theism or atheism is intrinsically more probable than the other.

• (2)There is no firm basis upon which to judge that the total evidence favors theism or atheism over the other.

It follows from (1) and (2) that

• (3)There is no firm basis upon which to judge that theism or atheism is more probable than the other.

It follows from (3) that

• (4)Agnosticism is true: neither theism nor atheism is known to be true.

 

Fine, "lacking belief" is taking things out of context and confusing people. "Atheist" is clear and concise and doesn't confuse anyone.

Because I am not a Republican, but if I went around saying that, people would automatically assume I was a Democrat, Socialist, Green, Libertarian, etc., but I'm not, I'm a constitutional conservative and belong to a much more conservative party than the Republicans. So being "not a Republican" doesn't convey useful, accurate, or meaningful information, it is vague and indefinite. If you want to let people know where you stand, you must use useful, accurate, and meaningful terminology. "Lacking belief" is not useful, accurate, or meaningful terminology, since you haven't differentiated yourself (and you have said you are not a lacker, so consider this a generic "you") from babies, dogs, or rocks. Being able to put a name to something usually makes it concrete and meaningful, but in this case, we're not putting a name to something, we're putting a lack of a name to something, i.e. a lack of Republicanism. If I say, "Guess what I have in my hand... it's not a rock," I haven't made what I have in my hand concrete and meaningful, I've only made it 1% less vague than it could possibly be. It's still 99% vague, and only the fact that I have it in my hand limits it to the realm of the small and material rather than anything and everything in the universe.

You're not succeeding.

I think I finally understand what Koko is getting at with his percentage question, which I will rephrase in the following way: How much belief must you lack before you are an atheist? If someone believes in God 99%, he lacks 1% belief in God. Does that make him an atheist since he "lacks belief"? If an agnostic is absolutely right on the fence and therefore believes in God 50% and doesn't believe in God 50%, he lacks 50% belief in God. Does that make him an atheist? Dawkins said he was 99% sure that God does not exist, so he had 1% belief in God, does that make him a theist? Where's the dividing line for "lack belief" atheism? If you want to include agnostics in your definition so that the 50% people are also lackers, how much more belief can someone have before they cease to be atheists and become theists? 75%? (25% lack) 60%? (40% lack) 50.000001%? (49.999999% lack) It's generally said that anyone who is 100% certain of anything is a fool, so all rational people "lack belief" to one degree or another. How much do they have to lack belief in God before they are atheists?