Positive vs. Negative Atheism

[Lithrael]

As it stands now, I don't think no-God is as sexy as God. More salesmanship please. We could make God an extraordinary, uncommon idea. Other countries have.

Well, sure, but that's a completely different discussion.

Again - you are confusing atheism as something to do with things which are not god(s). (...) This is not about vampires. I see no connection between the idea of vampires and the idea of god(s). (...) The idea of god(s) are so much more than the idea of vampires. that is not 'special pleading' that is just the way it is.

Because I arrive at atheism for the exact same reasons I arrive at a-vampirism. At the end of the day they're all popular stories from damn near whole cloth, whether they're invented to explain something or to comfort (and/or control) someone. You might as well say that the genre of classical music is so much more than the genre of punk. They're both music and if I'm gonna trash music I'm gonna trash classical and punk for the exact same reasons.

 

[marplots]

So in essence you are saying the majority of people are children and to let them have their imaginary friends or comfort blankets or teddy bears if it helps them psychologically.

In other words you are saying that YOU KNOW BETTER as an adult atheist but those childish theists need their imaginary things to stay happy and so why not let these childish cuties just keep their imaginary soothers.

Oh, I'm not immune. Psychology is like that. One can be well versed in it and still not escape the process.

A good escape for me is in books. I'll immerse myself in some fictional series, lose a bunch of what could be productive time, and dwell in fantasy. And sleep. I love sleeping.

 

[Leumas]

So when it was declared that God was in the same category as elves and whatnot, without justification, that was special pleading?

I'm lost.

But that's part of the problem. It is a sales presentation.

There's this idea in the air that Truth, with a capital T, triumphs. Not only that, but it's valuable for its own sake. And, to make the case, we point to the scientific method and modern technological advances.

Simultaneously, we live in a world that's largely fiction, or, if not fiction, certainly not constantly verified to be as we believe it to be. We cut corners, accept without checking, lie to ourselves and each other. On and on.
So we pick our battles and push for those few things we deem most important to get right. God's a tough nut to crack in this landscape. And it does no good to decry the stupidity of our fellow men, for they remain our fellow men despite our baying.

As it stands now, I don't think no-God is as sexy as God. More salesmanship please. We could make God an extraordinary, uncommon idea. Other countries have.

My my... for an atheist you are certainly defending the god delusion with unremitting and sedulous zealotry.

 

[Beth]

Because I arrive at atheism for the exact same reasons I arrive at a-vampirism. At the end of the day they're all popular stories from damn near whole cloth, whether they're invented to explain something or to comfort someone. You might as well say that the genre of classical music is so much more than the genre of punk. They're both music and if I'm gonna trash music I'm gonna trash classical and punk for the exact same reasons.

First, before you trash all music, would you please prove that music exists by defining what constitutes music and what is only sound in a scientific (i.e. objective) manner?

Because unless you can prove that music actually exists, that it isn't just a subjective experience occurring inside the minds of humans, why should I believe that it exists?

 

[Pup]

But that's part of the problem. It is a sales presentation.

Only if you interpret it that way I guess. If a theist says to another theist, "Prayer works," is it a sales presentation? If an atheist overhears, is that enough to make it a sales presentation? Seems all of human interaction could be interpreted as nothing but sales presentations, if one wanted to take it that far, but it broadens the definition so far as to make it meaningless.

 

[marplots]

My my... for an atheist you are certainly defending the god delusion with unremitting and sedulous zealotry.

The god delusion doesn't exist without people. I am unwilling to toss out people in service of idealism. Others are perfectly willing to do so. This too may be a distinguishing feature between the positive atheist, with a kind of rigid adherence to dogma, and the negative atheist, which has no such demand upon them.

And here, I'll help move the dialogue along a bit:
Scientific Method
Argumentum ad populum
Burden of Proof
Special pleading

Sir, may I have another?

 

[marplots]

First, before you trash all music, would you please prove that music exists by defining what constitutes music and what is only sound in a scientific (i.e. objective) manner?

Because unless you can prove that music actually exists, that it isn't just a subjective experience occurring inside the minds of humans, why should I believe that it exists?

Very good. Existence is a rather more subtle argument than belief about classification.

For just as soon as God exists, He is part of the universe and science. If God exists, science must come to heel. Not the other way around.

 

[tsig]

Yeah. I'm waiting to get a second opinion on that.

I second Leumas.

 

[marplots]

I second Leumas.

Please dilate, it's a teachable moment.

Here's the paragraph again and the list of fallacies it is supposed to embody:

All I was getting at was that the existence of God is a claim so prevalent that the "that's just nuts" burden falls on atheists, not theists. We have a minority opinion on the matter. No amount of yelling at each other is going to change that.

If we truly are in the "the world is round" camp, while our fellow men are in the "the world is flat" camp, then the duty is on us to show why/how they are mistaken. It's silly to expect them to spontaneously agree with us.

And, in light of that, the negative atheist has an advantage over the positive atheist.

Argumentum ad populum
Burden of Proof
Special pleading

And to help, I'll point out that "majority opinion" doesn't mean correct opinion - it's just a matter of counting noses.

 

[tsig]

Very good. Existence is a rather more subtle argument than belief about classification.

For just as soon as God exists, He is part of the universe and science. If God exists, science must come to heel. Not the other way around.

Things that exist do not have to have their existence proven.

 

[tsig]

Please dilate, it's a teachable moment.

Here's the paragraph again and the list of fallacies it is supposed to embody:

All I was getting at was that the existence of God is a claim so prevalent that the "that's just nuts" burden falls on atheists, not theists. We have a minority opinion on the matter. No amount of yelling at each other is going to change that.

If we truly are in the "the world is round" camp, while our fellow men are in the "the world is flat" camp, then the duty is on us to show why/how they are mistaken. It's silly to expect them to spontaneously agree with us.

And, in light of that, the negative atheist has an advantage over the positive atheist.

Argumentum ad populum
Burden of Proof
Special pleading

And to help, I'll point out that "majority opinion" doesn't mean correct opinion - it's just a matter of counting noses.

In order to teach there must be a wiliness to learn.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

It kind of a natural thing. Nature isn't really about disconnected variables. Everything is connected with everything else.

Like that old saying about how a butterfly has something to do with a hurricane.

In the case of trees, what they do naturally has an effect on the environment and in relation to air movement involving localized pressure, trees play their part. Thus they have something to do with the wind. It may not be obviously as direct as planet rotation and warm and cold currents but air flow direction (which has to do with branches too) is also influenced by trees as well as transpiration. Water is a big influence. Trees and water and air.

"Everything is connected with everything". OK . That was particularly helpful. I suppose that, say, the use of lead batteries is connected to the speed of deep sea ocean currents. Is this a sort of game we could play? Sort of like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?

 

[Lithrael]

For just as soon as God exists, He is part of the universe and science. If God exists, science must come to heel. Not the other way around.

Well no kidding. The heck is this supposed to add to the discussion? I object to the phrasing as if anyone at all proposes it to be 'the other way around.' The moment science has any godly things to poke, it will be on the table as a sensible option. The whole point is that as long as god/s are unpokeable there's no reason to bother with believing in them.

The issue here, I thought, was whether the fact that god/s are currently scientifically unpokeable and that all popular ideas of gods have pretty common and relatively traceable anthropological histories and roles, is a good reason to provisionally declare that there doesn't seem to be anything there to poke and that all the ideas seem pretty clearly made up for pretty clear reasons. I think it is.

 

[I Am The Scum]

But that's part of the problem. It is a sales presentation.

There's this idea in the air that Truth, with a capital T, triumphs. Not only that, but it's valuable for its own sake. And, to make the case, we point to the scientific method and modern technological advances.

Simultaneously, we live in a world that's largely fiction, or, if not fiction, certainly not constantly verified to be as we believe it to be. We cut corners, accept without checking, lie to ourselves and each other. On and on.

So we pick our battles and push for those few things we deem most important to get right. God's a tough nut to crack in this landscape. And it does no good to decry the stupidity of our fellow men, for they remain our fellow men despite our baying.

As it stands now, I don't think no-God is as sexy as God. More salesmanship please. We could make God an extraordinary, uncommon idea. Other countries have.

This thread is not about addressing the beliefs of theists.

I am running out of ways to explain this to you.

 

[Leumas]

The god delusion doesn't exist without people. I am unwilling to toss out people in service of idealism. Others are perfectly willing to do so. This too may be a distinguishing feature between the positive atheist, with a kind of rigid adherence to dogma, and the negative atheist, which has no such demand upon them.

And here, I'll help move the dialogue along a bit:
Scientific Method
Argumentum ad populum
Burden of Proof
Special pleading

Sir, may I have another?

Yes....the bolded+highlighted bit is two fallacies in two sentences.... a record.

• Slippery Slope
• Straw Man

Also you made a mistake in listing some that do not apply to the quoted paragraph.... so I crossed them out for you.

 

[psionl0]

If we define atheism as "a" + "theism", then atheism simply means "without theism".

From that perspective, the neutral position is atheism.
Although, that doesn't mean that all atheism is the neutral position.

(For the same reason that the fact that all dogs are mammals doesn't mean that all mammals are dogs.)

People who truly don't have a belief one way or the other don't normally identify as atheist. OTOH people who have a disbelief in god(s) may include the neutral position as atheist in order to make it seem that they are taking a default but reasonable position.

In any dictionary I have seen, the operative words are generally "doubt", "dispute" or "disbelieve" (although some may include the "lack of belief" option).

 

[ynot]

It's getting hard to know if some posters here are atheists in denial or theists in denial. Regardless, being in denial isn't a position between theism and atheism.

Any self proclaimed atheist that claims a belief in a magical, invisible sky-daddy isn't a paranormal belief is either a theist in denial, or an atheist that's more interested in not offending theists than speaking the truth.

 

[Lithrael]

The god delusion doesn't exist without people. I am unwilling to toss out people in service of idealism. Others are perfectly willing to do so. This too may be a distinguishing feature between the positive atheist, with a kind of rigid adherence to dogma, and the negative atheist, which has no such demand upon them.

What in the what?

OK I am trying to figure out where you're coming from on this. It sounds like you are saying that "as far as I can tell, there are no gods" is rigid adherence to a dogma. I don't see how it is. It seems to me more like what you are calling a 'rigid adherence to dogma' is the idea that anyone would want to stick to such an unpopular gun in the face of everybody who would disagree with/be offended by it.

It sounds like your position is "nobody should tell theists that anyone thinks they believe in a ton of hooey" and Navigator's position is "are you really sure what planet you are on anyway"

 

[Butter!]

It's getting hard to know if some posters here are atheists in denial or theists in denial. Regardless, being in denial isn't a position between theism and atheism.

Any self proclaimed atheist that claims a belief in a magical, invisible sky-daddy isn't a paranormal belief is either a theist in denial, or an atheist that's more interested in not offending theists than speaking the truth.

I honestly don't think about religion much at all. I think it's nonsense, and it mostly just annoys me if anything. In its worst incarnations, it's very damaging. In its "best," it's still infantilizing and somewhat contrary to logic.

Beyond that, I don't care if there's a creator. I really don't think there is. If it turned out I was wrong, I still wouldn't pray to him/her/it. I can't personally imagine a scenario in which he/she/it would want me to. (I've heard that called an "apatheist," don't know how widely-used the term is.)

Now, here's the rub. I wouldn't say all that to a theist unless they really probed me. I don't like being rude to people or upsetting them or crapping on their life-statutes unnecessarily. I also don't think theists are stupid. I think religion is stupid, but I think I probably believe a lot of stupid things too. So I try to avoid high-horsing about the subject. In general, I prefer to just avoid it.

So am I a True Atheist^TM? I don't know. I don't particularly care.

ETA - Plus it's all subjective, and as unlikely as it seems to my mind, I could be totally wrong about all my beliefs.

 

[psionl0]

No at all. It isn't totally neutral. Something called 'positive atheism' takes the belief based non neutral ground'.

Of course we are dealing with ancient labels and accompanying prejudice. The fathers handing down to the children their 'this is how it is' propaganda. Arise and think for yourself.

I probably misunderstood your post then.

It still puzzles me why people who clearly disbelieve in god(s) argue themselves blue in the face that it is merely "lack of belief".