Is Atheism based on Logic or Faith?

[Dissolution]

Interesting.


"Word salad"
This could be a metaphor for "I cannot permit my brain to think like that."

No, it couldn't. What you've written is baseless gibberish, I'm afraid.
You seem to be pushing for the extremely annoying and ill-informed Agnosticism Is Best And Everything Else Is Absolute And Therefore Wrong argument, despite being repeatedly informed of the errors in that conclusion.
Your false equivalence between atheism and ignorance is just pointless.
Sorry.

 

[Navigator]

No. Atheism is the default setting until such time as substantiated evidence of the existence of deities is produced. Same applies to the many other products of human imagination such as unicorns, wizards, hobbits and elves. It is not “ignorance” to reject fantasy as real. OTOH: It is gullibility to accept it without credible evidence.

So...then your particular atheist position is not that it is the default setting a human being. It requires something which replaces ignorance with data of experience.

Within the context of that experience the focus is upon theism, all things theist. Such concepts are deemed surplus to the requirement of knowledge in relation to all things physical.

This is your position?

My position looks like an atheist one except that my focus is not upon theism and I also acknowledge that anything which comes or can be sourced to theism is not the last word on the subject.

Since that is my position, while I appear to be an atheist, I am not.

I have been mistaken by atheists as being an atheist because I am not a theist.

My default position in relation to yours is that the physical universe proves itself but does not prove its source or provide account of its existence one way or any other particular way.

Death is the certain advent which promotes subjective rule as more a priority over objective reality and is observed as a physical end, and depending on subjective bias can altogether be regarded as the end of the matter as far as the subject believes of their self.
Atheists apparently think so and theists say 'death is not the end' and 'run you fools!' and other such expressions.

Such things are actually unknown and by default should be seen as pointless to argue about from positions of belief and assumption one way or the other.

My position ensures that I do not block out possibilities but neither do I take them on as beliefs. I can think about the universe in the context of possible preexisting consciousness involved, and go where the fractal nature of such thinking processes led me.

All while remaining quite inside the reality of the physical universe.

And not at all interested in the possibility of invisible fairies, unicorns, spaghetti monsters or magical beings existing.

 

[Navigator]

No, it couldn't. What you've written is baseless gibberish, I'm afraid.
You seem to be pushing for the extremely annoying and ill-informed Agnosticism Is Best And Everything Else Is Absolute And Therefore Wrong argument, despite being repeatedly informed of the errors in that conclusion.
Your false equivalence between atheism and ignorance is just pointless.
Sorry.

I agree. It is not really anyone's fault because atheism has certain confusing distinctions which help distort any attempt at clarity as to what exactly an atheist is, and some have said the default setting is as a human being newly born, which is different from being knowledgeable.

 

[bruto]

I agree. It is not really anyone's fault because atheism has certain confusing distinctions which help distort any attempt at clarity as to what exactly an atheist is, and some have said the default setting is as a human being newly born, which is different from being knowledgeable.

It still does not make any sense unless you count atheism as a faith or a positive act, rather than the simple state of not having faith for any of a number of reasons. If atheism is true, or even if certain people conclude that it is true, then it can be both the default position of the newborn and the considered conclusion of the mature. The two are not incompatible.

 

[fuelair]

Yes I see it, the problem is in the human mind, which by the way invented the concept of infinity. However we are not discussing realities shaped by or determined by the human mind. But rather realities that may or may not be the case outside the human mind, or in other words the reality of existence.

Philosophy can tell us that due to our obvious limitations, we cannot determine the reality beyond what we can detect physically or rationally deduce. Also that the degree to which we are ignorant of that reality cannot be determined.

As such any speculation as to what may or may not exist beyond these limits is irrelevant to the reality that would be found there.

Now in the light of this realisation any atheist asserting that X is not out there, is making a positive claim.

Yep, as an atheist I am indeed making the positive claim that there is no god or something very like it out there. I am making that claim based on the complete absence of any evidence for such a god AND the clear evidence that many people believe in many gods. The secondary form takes that latter point that at best there are a lot of gods out there but most contradict immediately since their followers claim the are either the only one OR the only cohesive group of them. As that is clearly and absolutely impossible then there must logically be no gods, just people who for some reason claim there are - out of ignorance, insanity, a need to believe in something greater/to blame their failings on, or for a backup power behind the ways they want others to act. I am perfectly happy to change if any real evidence arrives...
Keep me posted.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

Because "science" has not as yet explained existence, it has only described what we can detect with the evolutionary attributes we have inherited.

...

I have evidence, namely the lack of a current explanation of the existence of our known existence, in terms of its origin and mechanism by which it is maintained(and before you explain the current scientific explanation, which I am aware of. I mean the explanation of the fact of existence itself).

Ah, the same fallback line of woo-slingers everywhere. "Science can't explain everything, therefore I can just make stuff up and have it be taken as evidence."

Yeah, call me when you've got something other than the Appeal to Ignorance fallacy.

 

[Tassman]

Because "science" has not as yet explained existence, it has only described what we can detect with the evolutionary attributes we have inherited.

Furthermore philosophy suggests that there is no reason to presume that what we can detect is all there is.

Science has never said that “what we can detect is all there is” and philosophy is simply not in a position to know.

I have evidence, namely the lack of a current explanation of the existence of our known existence, in terms of its origin and mechanism by which it is maintained(and before you explain the current scientific explanation, which I am aware of. I mean the explanation of the fact of existence itself).

“The lack of a current explanation” is not evidence for anything except that we don’t know as yet – if ever. This doesn't give us free reign to fill the gaps with any imaginative notion that takes our fancy.

I am not making a positive claim. I make an observation that something exists and conclude that something else might exist, that things exist, on this basis.

Almost certainly something else “might exist” and scientific methodology is in the best position to hypothesize what this “something else might” be. And, unlike philosophy, science can test its hypotheses.

But your assertion that this “something else” might consist of more than just the material universe is positive speculation and therefore up to you to defend. It is not up to me to prove something that “might” exist doesn't in fact exist.

 

[tsig]

Ah, the same fallback line of woo-slingers everywhere. "Science can't explain everything, therefore I can just make stuff up and have it be taken as evidence."

Yeah, call me when you've got something other than the Appeal to Ignorance fallacy.

The way his Appeal to Ignorance works he has to denigrate all of mankind's intellectual progress while simultaneously claiming that his theory, a product of his all to human intellect, is the true answer.

If humans know nothing how does he know anything?

 

[Tassman]

So...then your particular atheist position is not that it is the default setting a human being. It requires something which replaces ignorance with data of experience.

Within the context of that experience the focus is upon theism, all things theist. Such concepts are deemed surplus to the requirement of knowledge in relation to all things physical.

This is your position?

Not "ignorance". My position, as I've frequently made clear, is that it is reasonable to reject unsupported fantasy notions such as gods (or elves) due to lack of credible evidence.

My position looks like an atheist one except that my focus is not upon theism and I also acknowledge that anything which comes or can be sourced to theism is not the last word on the subject.

Since that is my position, while I appear to be an atheist, I am not.
I have been mistaken by atheists as being an atheist because I am not a theist.

Frankly, your “position” looks like a confused mess - “I mean that in the nicest possible way”, as Edna Everage would say.

My default position in relation to yours is that the physical universe proves itself but does not prove its source or provide account of its existence one way or any other particular way.

I doesn't have to. This can be investigated by science. Science is a work in progress it doesn't claim to know all that there is to know.

Death is the certain advent which promotes subjective rule as more a priority over objective reality and is observed as a physical end, and depending on subjective bias can altogether be regarded as the end of the matter as far as the subject believes of their self.
Atheists apparently think so

This is a rather pompous way of saying that at death we cease to exist. Indeed! There is no credible evidence to suggest otherwise.

and theists say 'death is not the end' and 'run you fools!' and other such expressions.

Such things are actually unknown and by default should be seen as pointless to argue about from positions of belief and assumption one way or the other.

My position ensures that I do not block out possibilities but neither do I take them on as beliefs. I can think about the universe in the context of possible preexisting consciousness involved, and go where the fractal nature of such thinking processes led me.

But why would you “think about the universe in the context of possible preexisting consciousness involved”? There is no evidence that it was.

All while remaining quite inside the reality of the physical universe.

You are hardly remaining “quite inside the reality of the physical universe” if, as you say above, you think of the universe in terms of a “possible preexisting consciousness” being involved.

And not at all interested in the possibility of invisible fairies, unicorns, spaghetti monsters or magical beings existing.

Why not? Once you start imagining the possibility of fanciful entities existing, when there is no evidence to substantiate them, why draw the line at any of the above possibilities? What have you got against "invisible fairies"?

 

[punshhh]

The way his Appeal to Ignorance works he has to denigrate all of mankind's intellectual progress while simultaneously claiming that his theory, a product of his all to human intellect, is the true answer.

If humans know nothing how does he know anything?

Did I say I know anything?

You have not been paying attention.

I have only ever said that I know one thing, apart, that is, from what I have been told by human knowledge and teaching, which I take on faith.

 

[punshhh]

Ah, the same fallback line of woo-slingers everywhere. "Science can't explain everything, therefore I can just make stuff up and have it be taken as evidence."

All I am doing is drawing from introductory philosophical thinking.

Yeah, call me when you've got something other than the Appeal to Ignorance fallacy.

Feel free to wear the rose tinted glasses of atheism. I'm not asking you to remove them, but I'm not interested in trying them out either.

 

[AdMan]

Feel free to wear the rose tinted glasses of atheism. I'm not asking you to remove them, but I'm not interested in trying them out either.

Pointing out your logical fallacies is not asking you to "wear the rose tinted glasses of atheism". It is asking you to look at your statements logically and understand why they are wrong.

 

[devnull]

I have only ever said that I know one thing, apart, that is, from what I have been told by human knowledge and teaching, which I take on faith.

One of these things is not like the other.

 

[tsig]

Did I say I know anything? You have not been paying attention.

I have only ever said that I know one thing, apart, that is, from what I have been told by human knowledge and teaching, which I take on faith.

One thing is anything.

 

[tsig]

All I am doing is drawing from introductory philosophical thinking.
Feel free to wear the rose tinted glasses of atheism. I'm not asking you to remove them, but I'm not interested in trying them out either.

Then you need to retake both drawing and philosophy.

 

[punshhh]

One thing is anything.

And how many things do you know?

 

[tsig]

And how many things do you know?

More things than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

 

[Navigator]

Not "ignorance". My position, as I've frequently made clear, is that it is reasonable to reject unsupported fantasy notions such as gods (or elves) due to lack of credible evidence.

Sure I understand your position Tassman. It is one shared by many calling themselves atheists. It is a position rather than the default position of atheism, as far as I can tell.

Frankly, your “position” looks like a confused mess - “I mean that in the nicest possible way”, as Edna Everage would say.

Some people look at a galaxy and see what looks like "a confused mess" - an I appreciate that for you as an individual to be in my position it would have that effect upon you.
However, I am not you. The 'mess' is just what ignorance often sees first - sometimes it is called 'chaos'.
I don't see a mess. But I understand the reasons why people do see a mess.

I doesn't have to. This can be investigated by science. Science is a work in progress it doesn't claim to know all that there is to know.

'It doesn't have to' is neither here nor there. It is something for consciousness to investigate and I did not say science claims to know all there is to know or that the method itself is not a work in progress.
Why did you mention that?

This is a rather pompous way of saying that at death we cease to exist. Indeed! There is no credible evidence to suggest otherwise.

What? It is not saying anything of the sort.

But why would you “think about the universe in the context of possible preexisting consciousness involved”? There is no evidence that it was.

Because I am consciousness.
You complain 'there is no evidence' but what of that? What evidence would you expect there to be Tassman?

You are hardly remaining “quite inside the reality of the physical universe” if, as you say above, you think of the universe in terms of a “possible preexisting consciousness” being involved.

How so?

Why not? Once you start imagining the possibility of fanciful entities existing, when there is no evidence to substantiate them, why draw the line at any of the above possibilities?

Because I don't have to entertain every conceivable possibility even if I could.
I am interested in consciousness more than the forms it takes.

What have you got against "invisible fairies"?

Nothing. I am neutral in regard to them.

 

[Navigator]

It still does not make any sense unless you count atheism as a faith or a positive act, rather than the simple state of not having faith for any of a number of reasons. If atheism is true, or even if certain people conclude that it is true, then it can be both the default position of the newborn and the considered conclusion of the mature. The two are not incompatible.

If atheism was simply a 'simple state' it would not be correct to use it as self identifier in relation to ones personal beliefs/opinions.

The simple state of a new born human being is one of ignorance. This state does not last very long because data is everywhere and human brains love data.

I do not completely understand the phrase you used... "if atheism is true."

Is it in relation to it being 'the default position' ?

 

[tsig]

Sure I understand your position Tassman. It is one shared by many calling themselves atheists. It is a position rather than the default position of atheism, as far as I can tell.




Some people look at a galaxy and see what looks like "a confused mess" - an I appreciate that for you as an individual to be in my position it would have that effect upon you.
However, I am not you. The 'mess' is just what ignorance often sees first - sometimes it is called 'chaos'.
I don't see a mess. But I understand the reasons why people do see a mess.





'It doesn't have to' is neither here nor there. It is something for consciousness to investigate and I did not say science claims to know all there is to know or that the method itself is not a work in progress.
Why did you mention that?



What? It is not saying anything of the sort.



Because I am consciousness.
You complain 'there is no evidence' but what of that? What evidence would you expect there to be Tassman?



How so?



Because I don't have to entertain every conceivable possibility even if I could.
I am interested in consciousness more than the forms it takes.



Nothing. I am neutral in regard to them.

The IPU still loves you, even though your disbelief pains her so, she cries large pink tears and her heart is torn with love for you so you should be ashamed, when you die you will be doomed to muck out her stable forever while the favored get to groom her lovely hide.