The Glade 4.0

OMGINORITE?

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Heh, you need to keep looking. Here's a tip, look at your comments immediately after you posted those definitions and how they are in conflict with the actual definitions.

Really? A general "you" and a comment on the philosophical difference between "unbelief" and "disbelief" owns me how? There are distinct differences in terms of philosophy, especially in terms of canon philosophy when it comes to the Catholic Church. So, how does this own me? Because you say it does? Or because your conflations change from post to post?

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Tease!

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Heh, yup. I honestly really don't understand why I have a desire to continue to post here. 10 years of habit are hard to break I guess.

Disbelief in something that is not precluded by the known existance of something else, or shown by sufficient evidence that refusal to accept it is simple obstinacy, is an act of faith. Your example simply does not work because, disregarding silly exercises where we reassign the common meanings of "fish" and "spoon", the existance of a spoon (a simple object made of a single uniform metal) as the thing the person is presenting you precludes it being a fish (a complex biological organism).

This is even more true when there is some evidence, even if insufficient for proof, for a belief, and there is evidence to varying degrees for quite a few faiths. Attempts to claim that there is no evidence inevitably rely on the assumption of the conclusion that the precepts of the faith are wrong, and therefore the evidence cannot be evidence. It is simple circular argument, usually relying on misuse of Occam's razor, on subtly changing the nature of what is trying to be demonstrated so that it falls within the realm of science, or both.

This makes Atheism an act of faith, essentially saying "despite varying degrees of evidence for a number of faiths I have decided not to have faith that any one of them is true, but rather, to have faith that all of them are wrong." Agnosticism is mutually exclusive with them; it is saying "I cannot make up my mind to have faith in any of these ideas; I am uncertain if all of them are wrong or if one is right."

The reason people get so upset that Atheism is an act of faith is that they don't like religion; they wish Atheism to be completely rational and based solely on logic so as to portray faith or religion of any kind as intellectually inferior as irrational, emotional, and primitive. It's simply a desire to sieze an imagined moral high ground, and getting upset when it turns out not to work.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You are using Monte as a source?

Thread over due to recursive use of a source that refuses to cite source.

"Lindsay Lohan: Just say No" has more credibility.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Heheh, we've all been there, I'd bet.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

English says otherwise. Are you refuting English?

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Dis-belief still has belief. Like, there's no "I" in team, but there is a "me." But there is a "no" in agnostic, as in "no, I don't dis-believe in god, I just don't no."

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

In the context of this conversation, 1 and 2 apply. And really, 4 applies as well. It takes neither Ardor or Faith to say "there is insufficient evidence that a deity exists". It is a simple observation of fact.





Note that the definition of Atheist says nothing about ardor or faith. The Atheist believes there is no deity because the Atheist has seen no evidence of such a deity. This is a rational belief to carry. Much like it's rational to believe that what goes up must come down, or that the moon's gravitation is involved with the tides. Or the belief that heat transfers.

You believe it is true because you see evidence and that evidence is credible.

edit - and please do not construe the use of rational to be pejorative when it comes to people who have faith in a deity. Religious faith is irrational - it is the ardent belief in something that is unprovable. That does not make it non-valuable.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

I think your having to pull out the dictionary indicates that you're stretching.

In all seriousness though, it does say in that definition that atheism is faith. Why? Because anything you "believe" in is faith, at least in my eyes.

That entry on atheism doesn't even say it is considering it unknowable. It just says they believe negatively.

I don't disbelieve, but I say it's unknowable. Am I an atheist or agnostic or both. I say I can't be both, but what do you say?

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

That's how I see it too.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Neither of the definitions I posted said anything about faith, but they did mention positive unbelief; mental rejection; and action; that is to say, the definition of atheism indicates a choice to believe the negative in the absence of evidence for either the positive or negative state of God. It is irrational and an act of faith to believe when there is no compelling reason to do so.

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To do what?

Then what is the difference between faith and (un)belief?

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I think people need to stop thinking of the word faith in terms on Christianity.

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I'm not? Do you intentionally obfuscate everything or is that a Latveria thing? I have no idea what you're talking about...

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

It's like this, Wwen...Is there a difference between "not believing in something" and "believing in not-something"?

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The problem with this is that the Atheist has seen evidence of a diety, and depending on how wordly they are, possibly more than one. The Atheist does not believe because he is not convinced by the evidence. An Atheist that claims he has not seen any evidence either does not understand what the term "evidence" means or is simply unwilling to admit that he has.

In the presence of evidence that is not sufficient to constitute proof (which is the case for most major world religions), selecting any one set of evidence as the most personally convincing and having faith that the remaining unproven assertions are true is no less rational than rejecting all sets of evidence or being unable to make up one's mind.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

DING! We have a winner!!

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Well, no.


What it means is one thing. What it means to you is subjective, and irrelevant to the conversation at hand.






Belief != Faith. Faith is a very particular brand of belief. It is the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. Or, the belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion. Or, something that is believed especially with strong convictions *especially* a system of of religious beliefs.

A synonym might be belief, but belief does not have the same requirements as faith, and thus while the words may be similar, they really are *not* the same thing.



If you believe it is unknowable, then you are an agnostic. You believe the existence of god cannot be known.

I say that there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of a deity, and that there is a great deal of evidence that shows our current crop of deities (and every single god we as a species has worshiped in the past) are a bunch of malarkey. Until objective evidence presents itself to the contrary I feel comfortable concluding that no such being exists. I am an atheist.

Mostly.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

....

Since the rest of the definition was getting in the way, I'll quote this gem from your post.Then I will note that you have sufficiently demonstrated faith in your belief there are no deities and that the "current crop of deities ... are a bunch of malarkey."

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By that logic, no believer has ever become an atheist.

Ok, I try not to invest myself in Hellfire threads, but I was bored here, and this one had me literally laughing out loud...