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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2015 20:05:16 GMT -6
Many people I know don't believe in god(s), but they reject the label 'atheist'. The rather call themselves agnostic. This is fine, but realize that in any practical sense, you're really just an atheist because you don't hold any belief that god(s) exist. Some people think agnosticism is the middle-ground between theism and atheism. This is false too. There really is no middle-ground between the two. Either you believe god(s) exist, or you don't. This is not correct. Speaking very roughly, there are three attitudes you can take towards any proposition: You can believe that it's true, believe that it's false, or suspend judgment about the truth or falsehood of the proposition. Stop you right there. You're already making a mistake here. Judging something to be true or false is not the same thing as believing something is true or false. This is a common mistake many philosophers and people in general make. Judgement is the ability to form an opinion objectively. Judgement is the conviction based on rigorous proof. Belief is an subjective opinion. Belief is the conviction without rigorous proof. They're not the same. You either believe something, or you don't. There really is no middle ground there. Even people who say "I'm not sure" (which is what belief is in the first place, something you're not sure about) almost always lean one way or the other. In the first category would be statements like "2+2=4," "Oslo is the capital of Norway," etc. In the second category would be statements like "2+2=69" or "Christopher Columbus sailed to Disneyland in 1942." In the third category would be statements like "The total number of spiders on Earth is an even number," or "The Riemann hypothesis is true." If you think belief in God belongs in the first category, you're a theist. If you think it belongs in the second, you're an atheist. If you think it belongs in the third category, you're an agnostic. That's how it was taught to me, anyways. Except this is a false dichotomy. Most people don't have a belief on whether the amount of spiders on earth is even or uneven. It's irrelevant. There is no reason to take a stance on that. Your analogy would only make sense if there are tons of people who believe the amount of spiders on earth is even, to such a degree that people write a book about it and preach it as gospel and form entire religions around it. If the belief on the amount of spiders on earth had as much of a cultural impact as the belief in god does, then you'd see that more people would take a stand on it and say "I believe the amount of spiders on earth is even" or "I believe the amount of spiders on earth is uneven". In fact, I'd dare say that almost every single person on earth would then fall in one camp or the other. On the subject of my own beliefs, I'm an atheist of the most straight-ahead kind. While I my not be able to rule out that God exists with 100% certainty, there are plenty of beliefs that I can't rule out with 100% certainty that it would nonetheless be obtuse to say I'm 'agnostic' on: The existence of ghosts, ESP, conspiracy theories, etc. I think I was actually in church of all places when I became convinced that there was no solution to the problem of evil (i.e. If God exists, why does so much bad shit happen?). Yeah I agree and I hold that stance as well. Except that I was never a theist to begin with. I was privileged to be raised by parents who decided to teach their son about religion and belief, but not preach it to him as the gospel of truth. My father is an atheist. My mother is a theist. Instead of trying to sway me one way or the other, they simply both told me what they believed in and they encouraged me to do my own research, and let me decide on my own. Ultimately I never found any solid convincing reason to believe god exists, so I became an atheist. |
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... sure, what's he like? 
