And you simply can't refute theism. Nothing is impossible with God. Try debating a Christian and you'll see what I mean.
And you simply can't refute theism. Nothing is impossible with God. Try debating a Christian and you'll see what I mean.
Most atheists are those who find no reason to believe in God. When they argue against theists its not so much that they are saying "God cannot possibly exist," but more like "you have no good reason to believe that He exists."
Again, you can't disprove the existence of unicorns. Is it therefore reasonable to believe in them? It seems that you think it is.
You are welcome to reread my comments. I don't speak vaguely.
I will give you a new argument to pick apart, since you did not find the previous one to your liking. I can live and love without dogmas. As long as theists try to belittle or hinder love and kindness that happens without dogmas, I will defend free life and love. As long as people are divided I will hope for unity, and oppose clubs that support servitude to "higher" beings and individuals at the expense of club members and non-members.
Now, what is your argument? What is your motivation? Do you understand mine? If not, I will move on to talking to people who don't find such difficulty in parsing through my sentences.
I was using a logical formula called modus ponens: if p then q; p, therefore q. I left the final "q" for the reader to draw. But it looks like I should've spelt it all out. And you've missed the point of the ad absurdum argument. The whole idea is that it's absurd to call inanimate things atheists. But given that definition, we would have to. Therefore, that definition is false.
No, the point doesn't stand. An atheist is someone who makes the following knowledge-claim: "God doesn't exist." However, I'm happy to concede your point for conversation's sake. If we want to re-defing atheism for conversation's sake, I'll go along with that.The point made that any people who were around before belief systems including God came about would be atheists stands, and would be evidence that "lack of belief" needn't be the result of the rejection of something.
Of course they can.(because they can't be sure he doesn't)
Maybe, maybe not. We're dealing with counterfactuals. New generations would be the problem. Some philosophers think theism is what they call "properly basic." And some evolutionary psychologists think that theism is "wired" into us.. . . atheists could pretty much drop the topic altogether if there weren't any more theists.
Yes, Darcy, you can. Prove it to be as incoherent as a four-sided triangle and you'll have done just that. Granted you'll never conquer someone who says that God can even do logically impossible things. But those people are loonies, anyway. And, yes, I've debated Christians before.
I'll grant you all of this. Unicorns certainly are logically possible. But the analogy you're drawing is false, a category error. Moreover, not only are there no good arguments for unicorns, there are good arguments against unicorns. (For instance, we know that their supposed horns were narwhal tusks, etc.)
Last edited by Climacus; 12-18-2011 at 06:03 PM.
A flying soda can is not logically contradictory. I'd say a flying soda can is no less likely than an all-powerful passive and undetectable being.
Its not about logic. Its about what is reasonable. Make absolute certainty the standard which all assertions must satisfy and we enter into a world where almost anything is possible. Possible does not equal likely and likelihood ought to be a condition for belief.
Last edited by Darcy88; 12-18-2011 at 06:13 PM.
There are no formal arguments here. You seem to be having trouble understanding what a logical argument is, and that's OK. Again, most people haven't studied logic. Arguments, either deductive or inductive, move step by step, from propositions called premises, to a proposition called a conclusion. Here's an example of a syllogistic argument against God: "All that which exists is empirically verifiable. But God is not empirically verifiable. Therefore God doesn't exist." The conclusion follows deductively from the premises, so that if the premises are true then the conclusion must be true as well. This is the sort of thing I'm asking for. If you're having trouble articulating it, post it anyway and I'll formulate it to your satisfaction, if I can.
That's a topic for another discussion. You said that you're an atheist. I've made no such metaphysical truth-claims. You don't know what I am.Now, what is your argument? What is your motivation?
Last edited by Climacus; 12-18-2011 at 06:17 PM.
It may be. We'd would have to unpack what sort of properties a flying soda can has. There may be an implicit contradiction there. Same thing with the unicorn, if it comes to that.
Well, again that's not an argument. Just a question-begging premise.I'd say a flying soda can is no less likely than an all-powerful passive and undetectable being.
Logic defines what is reasonable.Its not about logic. Its about what is reasonable.
No it doesn't. Belief in unicorns is not logically contradictory but is nonetheless unreasonable. I'd take Varenne's instinctive shyte-detector over your formal logic any day. Its about hard and proven facts, not abstract exercises. The ptolemaic model is not logically contradictory.
Last edited by Darcy88; 12-18-2011 at 06:26 PM.
Originally, you said:
What did you mean by "one"? You use the word "who" directly after it...The traditional, historical definition of an atheist is one who ascribes to the proposition, "There is no God."
If you want to use modus ponens, you can't just go changing what the p's and q's stand for. Your "reductio ad absurdum" was a mis-direction, ignoring that the discussion is about belief, and would rightly include only those with the capacity for belief. Varenne was, of course, saying that atheists are people who have no belief in god(s).
I, in the past, have been just as frustrated about this as you seem to be. But, in the end, it isn't just for conversation's sake. It is also for discussion's sake. In the end, if atheists and theists are going to debate/discuss/converse, then it is fair to not get confused about who is taking what position. The "traditional definition" might lead to arguments that interest some of us more, but it isn't the definition that people run up against too often these days, at least on LitNet.
Should I have said they "aren't" sure? No, really, their point in being agnostic-atheists/negative-atheists is that they "can't" be sure, though...
Yes, good points. Practically speaking, only the John Lennons might think that sort of result possible. I'm just trying to show their "angle" on this, and how it is different from the situation theists are in--and how these (now common) sorts of atheist might not want their position to be strictly about the existence of something, or the negation of it.
Last edited by billl; 12-18-2011 at 06:31 PM.