(Continued from last post)

Now, this is just rubbish, “A definition should define what people believe, not what evidence there is for their belief.”

There is no evidence for your particular god yet you define it and give it characteristics. Contradictory ones at that. But that’s another story.

Here is your take on things, “My proposal is one that most atheists don't accept- I believe the clearest method of defining people's beliefs is as follows- God exists (theism), God might exist (agnosticism) and God doesn't exist (atheism).”

Atheism is derived from the Greek ‘a’ ‘theos’ meaning without a deity. Atheists do not say a god does not exist just that there is no evidence to suggest one of the 3 or 4,000 purported to have existed does indeed exist.

Your attempt at a definition of Atheism is from a theist viewpoint, "lacking a belief in God",

Atheists do not lack belief in a god. Belief implies there is something to believe in, in the first place. Ridiculous of course. And you still haven’t supplied a definitive definition that all Atheists would accept. It wasn’t easy as you thought, now, was it.

Just to let other folk know what is going on here, Trav has been shaken by the Atheist Foundation of Australia’s definition of Atheism as it has brought the reasons why he is religious out in the open for inspection and those ideas don’t stand up to scrutiny. He therefore has to attack it from his emotional side, not from any rational evaluation, which is patently obvious.

Trav, because you can write words does not automatically give them credence. You seem to have a very weak hold on concepts, which threaten your induced view. Maybe some thought in that area would be wise.

David

crabsy,

At some stage, apples and oranges cannot communicate with each other. We are at that stage. I really do not care what you believe or how you come to believe it. It is your life and you can use it how you wish. But I would add, you do not have enough evidence to indoctrinate children with it and be very careful about making political decision that do not have a bases in empirical evidence.

Peace

David

Hello mac,

“I'm a member of the AFA -- I'm simply expressing a personal opinion.”

Good to see you are a member of the AFA. Those very simple words are the protectionism offered society by those who are Atheists. Atheists do not follow any strict doctrinal rules but rather they are people with individual views with the only real commonality that they are Atheists.

David

Hi again David,

I’m glad you’ve stuck around! It seems we disagree about a lot, and we probably don’t even adequately understand each other’s views- which makes it impossible to respond in a fruitful way. Hopefully we can move past the lack of understanding and actually engage each other’s ideas.

<This is a disingenuous statement, “Developmental psychologists have interpreted this as evidence that supernatural belief is in some way innate and that it's been a part of our evolution.”

A small minority of religious developmental phycologist if you don’t mind. It’s to be expected.>

Actually, no, most child psychologists and evolutionary psychologists are not religious. They use this as evidence against religions being true, because they argue that supernatural beliefs are only the result of billions of years of evolution.

<“Such ideas are logical and are not the result of indoctrination as is religion >

<Explain to me how people arrive at the idea of Yahweh/Jesus, Allah, Krishna, Zeus, Ra and so on and so forth, without indoctrination using holy books and culture. If you don’t answer this satisfactorily, I am not going to waste anymore time on you.... >

Are you arguing that because people arrive at the idea of Christianity through their parents or their surrounding culture that this implies that Christianity is not true? How do people arrive at ANY idea without hearing them from somewhere first? If we take your argument to its logical conclusion then we wouldn’t be able to believe anything!

And regarding indoctrination- what about all the very highly intelligent people who have come to the conclusion that Christianity is true at a late age? How about Vox Day, Christian video game designer, and member of Mensa? Or the great author CS Lewis? Or the geneticist Francis Collins? Or the philosophers Mortimer Adler and Peter Van Ingawen? Or Astronomer Allan Sandage?

All of those people are extremely well educated and intelligent, and all became Christians later in life. So how do you explain those cases with indoctrination? You can’t.

(to be continued).

The bottom line is that we can attribute beliefs to anything we want to, and we can psycho analyse each other all day every day, and we can talk about indoctrination and culture and whatever else. But if that’s all we do then we’ll miss the point of whether or not a belief is actually true. I understand that the majority of religious people were brought up in religious backgrounds and that many people believe things without truly considering what they actually believe, but at the end of the day all anyone can do is try to be fair minded and unbiased when considering their own views and everyone else’s.

I also would like to point out that plenty of atheists are influenced by non-rational factors, as are many theists, simply because humans in general are not totally rational creatures all the time- that’s been proven beyond any doubt in my view.

So, why do you believe that naturalism is “logical”?

Now, onto our ongoing argument about the definition of atheism!

<Now, this is just rubbish, “A definition should define what people believe, not what evidence there is for their belief.”

There is no evidence for your particular god yet you define it and give it characteristics>

Perhaps I’m not making myself clear so I apologise, because you don’t seem to be confronting the point I’m making. Evidence has nothing to do with it. Theism and atheism are terms that describe people’s beliefs, not what evidence there is for those beliefs.

<Atheists do not say a god does not exist just that there is no evidence to suggest one of the 3 or 4,000 purported to have existed does indeed exist>

Incorrect- the vast majority of confirmed atheists would agree with the statement that “God does not exist”. Are you really going to deny that?

Plenty of agnostics totally disagree with you about the nature of evidence, and whether we can know God exists, etc, and yet under your definition they are simply atheists. It would be much clearer to utilise the three tier system

<Belief implies there is something to believe in, in the first place>

Belief implies that someone thinks that something exists.

<And you still haven’t supplied a definitive definition that all Atheists would accept >

Neither have you, David.....

<Trav has been shaken by the Atheist Foundation of Australia’s definition of Atheism>

I’m trying to help you by providing some clarity. If the Atheist foundation doesn’t understand what an atheist is, why would anyone listen to anything else they say? But that’s fine- if you don’t want my help you can continue along your jolly way in your muddled confusion.

<He therefore has to attack it from his emotional side, not from any rational evaluation, which is patently obvious.>

I’ve explained the flaws with your definition. You haven’t confronted my arguments, much less successfully refuted them.

To summarise 1. Your definition involves a category mistake- a describing word for someone’s belief and the level of evidence for one’s belief are two different things, and 2. Under your definition it is possible to be both a theist and an atheist. This is impossible and absurd, thus your definition is incorrect.

Mac has asked what credible evidence exists. Before discussing that further I want someone to answer these two questions together: 1. What credible evidence actually is and 2. Follow it up by arguing that their definition is the definition of evidence that we would expect to see if God exists, or some religion were true. Until someone answers both of those questions, we will get nowhere as those foundational ideas inform everything else in the discussion.

Cheers.

In his last post David, representing the Atheist Foundation of Australia, has declared that he and I are each a piece of fruit and cannot communicate with each other.

<<At some stage, apples and oranges cannot communicate with each other. We are at that stage.>>

Fascinatingly, inter-fruit communication has not always been impossible; it apparently fails only at a certain “stage”.

That is eminently logical and no doubt based on a lot of careful empirical research. Furthermore, he is extraordinarily generous too boot: he has granted me leave to use my life as I wish. His membership has obviously chosen their spokesperson wisely.

And I deeply appreciate that stern warning he issued: “You do not have enough evidence to indoctrinate children with it (sic) and be very careful about making political decision that do not have a bases in empirical evidence.”

In the light of that admonishment, perhaps I should campaign for all governments to withdraw from any agreements about human rights. After all, there is no evidence that such rights are real; belief in human rights must be the result of indoctrination.