Feel free to ignore this thread if you think that's what this thread is about. We certainly don't need your posts here, unless you can bring something of value to discuss about (be it positive or negative, both are welcome as long as it isn't conplete horseshit, because if it is then I'm just going to ignore it).

This thread is about discussing atheism and maybe poking some fun at religion while we're at it.

Many atheists do give a crap about religion, as long as it's still being slammed down our troats, as long as our children are still indoctrinated by religous dogma, as long as American atheists still have to swear on the Bible in court, as long as evolution is still denied and attacked by religious fundamentalists, as long as we still have terrorism in the name of religion, as long as women's rights and gay rights are still undermined by religious fundamentalists, we care.

Fuck Atheism+. I don't get how you could even consider that I would be part of that movement, considering I've been quite vocal about my anti-feminism in other threads. But I'm glad you yourself came to the realization that I'm not part of A+.

And yeah, feel free to discuss A+ if that's what you want to talk about. I don't think you'll get much opposition on that front though, as I can't think of anyone on this forum being in favor of A+. Maybe Geth or Puddi? Dunno if they involve themselves with A+, but they are the only ones on here who I think could be in favor of A+.

Whoever decided a belief system that's all about objectivity should be saddled with a belief in an unobservable, immeasurable, and obviously flawed subjected concept such as privilege really deserves to have a bad time. Also, have you checked out atheism plus' s entry on rationwiki? Stuff made me burst out laughing.

A couple of quick points (I haven't figured out how to split quotes here yet, mostly because I'm lazy):

1. Pretty much every philosopher out there defines 'belief' as follows: To believe a proposition is to regard it as true. This definition implies nothing whatsoever about how confident you are in the belief, how much evidence you have, etc. Anything you think is true counts as a belief: That the sky is blue, that Dallas is a city in Texas, that God does not exist, etc. 

2. The point of the spider analogy is not that beliefs about the number of spiders in the world are as culturally significant as beliefs about God. Obviously, they aren't. It was simply an example of how it's possible to consider a proposition and then neither believe it nor believe that it is false. Of course, most people probably lean one way or the other but that may or may not suffice for belief. If you flip a coin, I'll lean towards saying that it will land on the side it started out on when you flipped it (the odds are something like 0.51/0.49 in favor of this outcome) but I wouldn't exactly say I believe that the coin is going to land that way.

3. Saying that you either believe in God or don't believe in God is misleading, because "not believing in God" is an ambiguous expression. It could be that you don't believe in God because you're confident that God does not exist, or it could be that you don't believe in God because you think the evidential probability of such a being existing is close to 50/50, or it could be that you've just never considered the proposition.

I'm a what now?

Avdol Plus?



Sure.

1. I find that a very poor and shoddy definition of 'belief'. I don't believe the sky is blue, I KNOW the sky is blue. I KNOW Dallas is a city in Texas.

2. But cultural significance is important, because it makes the middle-ground narrower to the point of non-existence. When the stakes grow higher, the fence grows smaller.
For example: Say I'd kidnap an agnostic, I'd put him in a room with 3 doors. Either door A or door B has 1 million bucks behind it and the other has nothing behind it. Door C is the way out.
Both door A and door B have their own advocate standing in front of it, trying to convince the agnostic that the money is behind their door, but neither advocate has indefinite proof. Would ANYONE in such a situation refuse to pick either door A or door B, and instead just walk away through door C? Could ANYONE be truly "agonistic" in that situation?

3. That's irrelevant though. In all 3 cases you mentioned, you're by definition an (agnostic-)atheist.

1. Then apparently you know better than pretty much every epistemologist, philosopher of mind and philosopher of religion that has worked on this subject. It's just not true that knowledge entails a lack of belief; in fact just the opposite is true: Knowledge involves having a true belief for which one has good evidence. It used to be thought that this is all knowledge amounted to, until Gettier's 1963 paper demonstrated that this definition is incomplete. Even now, no one thinks that knowledge and belief are mutually exclusive.

The source of this common error is the neglect of H.P. Grice's Maxim of Quantity, which says roughly that one ought to make one's utterances as informative as is relevant to the situation. For example, if I write a letter of recommendation for a student in which I talk about nothing but his great handwriting, then that will be taken to imply that the student is not a good researcher. Nothing I said logically entails this, but readers of my letter will generally assume that I'm following the Maxim of Quantity: If it were the case that the student was a good researcher, then I would have said included that information. Since I didn't, he must not be.

Things are similar with knowledge and belief: If Bob knows proposition p but I only say "Bob believes proposition p," then what I say is true but violates the Maxim of Quantity. So if I'm following the maxim, I'll always say "Bob knows p" rather than "Bob believes p," even though Bob knowing p does not entail that he does not believe p.

2. First, there is a high degree of controversy about whether or not pragmatic factors having to do with what's in one's interests having anything at all to do with epistemic questions about what's rational for you to believe based on the evidence. But secondly, sometimes high stakes are precisely a reason to be more agnostic than one would otherwise be, especially if one has a great deal to lose by being wrong. Let's say that if you choose A and you're wrong, you lose an arm, while if you choose B and you're wrong, then you lose a leg. Probably, most would choose door C.

3. Again, this is just not how these terms are used by anyone who studies the philosophy of religion. You want different terms to encompass those categories, and "atheist=believes God does not exist," "agonistc=withholds belief regarding the existence of God" is the most natural and common way of doing this.

Does ignosticism and/or theological noncognitivism ring some bells for you?

If it doesn't, you really should read up on those. I presume their points would resonate well with you.

On a serious note. For me, I don't know what to believe in. There is simply the known and the unknown.