On why Atheism is a Shite BELIEF System

[pErvinalia]

What's classic about this is that Seth's and James' argument can be turned back against themselves. Anyone who claims anything other than "I don't know" to the question of "what is the underlying reality?", is not a rationalist. I wonder if they are even able to grasp this irony...

[JimC]

When I hear the phrase "metaphysical evidence", I reach for my Luger...

[Svartalf]

Personally, I don't think this 'metaphysical evidence' is evidence of anything but itself. And it's not like the definition or idea of 'evidence' itself is ambiguous is it?

does anything 'metaphysical' actually exist?
much less exist enough to be able to be evidence for anything.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I've never metaphysical. But I've met a man that has.

[Svartalf]

I'm waiting of you to introduce that specimen to me

[Brian Peacock]

Personally, I don't think this 'metaphysical evidence' is evidence of anything but itself. And it's not like the definition or idea of 'evidence' itself is ambiguous is it?

does anything 'metaphysical' actually exist?
much less exist enough to be able to be evidence for anything.

Well, I guess you could say that a thought is a kind of metaphysical thing, but it's not as if an abstract thing like a thought is without a basis in reality is it, so a thought is still basically a physical thing regardless of its content. I suppose we could allow that a thought is evidence of itself, but that doesn't mean its content reflects reality even if has a kind of existence in its own terms.

A "Metaphysical evidence for God" usually means a argument by reasoning without referring to (inconvenient) things like empirical or observable facts, and even though we all probably play the game of asserting that what goes on in our heads is really real to us, most of us don't go about insisting that what we think is really real should be and is the real really real for everybody else.

As far as I can tell jamest's challenging the basis of naturalism and empiricism, which he disavows as being a valid or reliable way to understand, well, anything and everything. Basically he's telling us that we can't know anything about anything other than our own thoughts, so we don't have any real basis on which to tell him that he's wrong to believe in his mythical peeping Tom or to say that we're quite comfortable with dismissing the celestial pervert. Seems to me that his whole shtick is about immunising his ideas from due criticism while reserving the right to criticise the ideas of others, but I guess there's a long tradition in that sort of thing. It's a position I usually think of as, "The loneliness of always being right about everything even when I'm wrong."

[rachelbean]

I was a very devout Christian for the first twenty-something years of my life. Then when the doubts started getting bigger and bigger as my world expanded, I started calling myself agnostic. Eventually when I realized that I could no longer in any honesty say I believed, I admitted I was an atheist. Someone without a belief in a god. That's what I am. It doesn't matter how you choose to define it or what rules you say have to apply, it just is

[Seth]

So, Seth, I imagine you would say that the only rational statement that can be made about the existence of fairies at the bottom of the garden is "I don't know"...

Well, one can rationally say "I don't believe there are fairies at the bottom of the garden, but I have no objective scientific evidence pointing either way" which is the long version of "I don't know.

[Seth]

One cannot say that "There is no evidence for God" without implicating oneself in having a biased criterion for what counts as metaphysical evidence (scientific/empirical evidence = metaphysical evidence).

This FACT - given that the aforementioned criterion is utterly unjustifiable via reason (in fact, it's utterly irrational to think that an observed/experienced world and a world itself are not distinct) - means that 'atheism' is no more a rational [metaphysical] perspective to hold than [say] being a Christian [or suchlike]. Which, in turn, means that being an atheist turns out to be yet another shite belief system.

That's the shortest and sharpest undermining of atheism you'll ever witness. You are now agnostics. If not, then there's something fundamentally wrong with your ability to reason.

Dude, I've been telling them for two decades now that the only rational statement that can be made about the existence or non-existence of God is "I don't know."

And that's why I call them big-A Atheists, because it's a belief system that absolutely qualifies as "religion." And yes, it's shite.

I knew you'd turn up sooner or later, mate. With your inevitable "My definition of Atheism is the only correct one and the only one that matters" stuck record.

Of course. It's the objective truth, as I've explained in painful detail using thousands and thousands of words over more than two decades of debate on that particular subject. And not once has you or anyone else formed a credible rebuttal. The best you can do is "No it's not!" with inevitable resort to obfuscation, pettifoggery and evasion, sometimes combined with various ad hom attacks. But the truth is seen in Atheist writings. Ream after ream after ream of absolute proof that the religion of Atheism both exists and has a very large membership.

What amuses me is the fervor with which Atheists deny being part of a religion. There's nothing wrong with being part of a religion, you see. All it means is that you have beliefs and faith in those beliefs in common with others of like mind. It's not like being a pedophile after all.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

So, Seth, I imagine you would say that the only rational statement that can be made about the existence of fairies at the bottom of the garden is "I don't know"...

Well, one can rationally say "I don't believe there are fairies at the bottom of the garden, but I have no objective scientific evidence pointing either way" which is the long version of "I don't know.

So, when an atheist says the same thing about god, why do you start screaming about capital A atheists and calling us all fucking liars?

I've said exactly that in every conversation we've had on the subject since you joined here!

[Seth]

so please don't belittle yourself by stating that you JUST don't believe in God. Please analyse the reasons underpinning that BELIEF. You'll find that those reasons condense around the unjustified belief that empirical/scientific evidence = metaphysical evidence.

The reasons centre around the fact that there is no reason to believe in God, just as there is no reason to believe in ghosts.

Then again, there's no reason not to. And that's why Atheism is a religion.

And what the fuck is "metapysical evidence"?? It's about time one of you mystics explain what the fuck that is supposed to be.

It's evidence that you cannot at this time quantify or reproduce using scientific methods.

When/if you understand this, you will have no choice other than to accept that agnosticism is the only sound foundation from which all fruitful metaphysical arguments must hence emerge.

Atheism and agnosticism aren't mutually exclusive. More fail.

But agnosticism and Atheism are, because Atheists go beyond merely having "a lack of belief," they have very positive and strongly defended beliefs in the non-existence of God.

We've discussed this many times before. One cannot self-profess to being an "atheist" without necessarily being a card-carrying member of the Atheist religion. The two conditions (self-professed "lack of belief") and actual lack of belief are mutually exclusive conditions because in order to self-profess as being an atheist one must have been informed of theistic claims, given consideration to those claims, and actively rejected those claims as being false, which, in the absence of any objective scientific evidence of the falsity of the theistic claims qualifies as a belief in which you have faith, which makes you a person of religion by definition.

[Seth]

So, Seth, I imagine you would say that the only rational statement that can be made about the existence of fairies at the bottom of the garden is "I don't know"...

Well, one can rationally say "I don't believe there are fairies at the bottom of the garden, but I have no objective scientific evidence pointing either way" which is the long version of "I don't know.

So, when an atheist says the same thing about god, why do you start screaming about capital A atheists and calling us all fucking liars?

I've said exactly that in every conversation we've had on the subject since you joined here!

If you consistently said that, I wouldn't criticize, but no Atheist here actually says that consistently. You only qualify your disbelief by admitting it's a belief when I challenge your positively-asserted statements of the non-existence of God.

What Atheists commonly say is "There is no objective scientific evidence pointing towards the existence of God, therefore there is no God." There are several logical failures in that (synthesized) claim: First, it is not objectively true that there is no scientific evidence pointing towards the existence of God. At best there is no objective scientific evidence that you have knowledge and understanding of to that effect. Since you are not all-knowing, there may well be objective scientific evidence out there of which you (or all Atheists for that matter) may be unaware of.

Second, You (or all Atheists) may reject objective evidence of the existence of God improperly simply because it does not meet your entirely subjective and arbitrary definition of "scientific."

Third, any conclusion that implies or infers that there is no God is inherently flawed because you do not actually know that, you are merely inferring it from the absence of evidence to the contrary. Because the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, such conclusions are therefore logically inconsistent.

Typically you Atheists will wiggle, evade and temporize all over the place when I present this analysis, the most common evasion being "I never said 'therefore there is no God'", but that's a pettifogging evasion because everything you write makes it perfectly clear that this is exactly what you believe, even if you have not said so in so many words. Such semantic sophistry is quite common among Atheists, who simply cannot bring themselves to say "I don't know" because doing so removes the dais from which they excoriate and insult theists and reveals their feet of clay.

[Seth]

What's classic about this is that Seth's and James' argument can be turned back against themselves. Anyone who claims anything other than "I don't know" to the question of "what is the underlying reality?", is not a rationalist. I wonder if they are even able to grasp this irony...

It's not ironic, it's true. There are many things I do not know about the nature of reality and I'm fine with saying that. I'm also fine with saying that I hold religious beliefs about certain things. It's not as if holding a religious belief is a form of moral turpitude after all, it just means one has faith in the truth or existence of something not subject to immediate rigorous proof.

Certainty, about anything, is inherently irrational because certainty depends on complete knowledge and understanding of every aspect of the thing one is certain about, and at this moment in human evolution, only God is purported to have such perfect knowledge and understanding. Human beings most certainly do not.

[Seth]

Personally, I don't think this 'metaphysical evidence' is evidence of anything but itself. And it's not like the definition or idea of 'evidence' itself is ambiguous is it?

does anything 'metaphysical' actually exist?
much less exist enough to be able to be evidence for anything.

The rational question is actually "does anything metaphysical NOT exist?"

"Metaphysical" is merely a complex word for "I don't understand it." Communicating with someone on the other side of the planet through the "aether" was "metaphysical" a thousand years ago, but today we're doing it right now, this very moment, only because our understanding of the physical nature of the universe we inhabit is greater than it was then. But that cannot be read to imply that something which we do not today understand or accept because we do not understand it is "metaphysical" in the sense that it is "beyond" or "outside" of physics. It just means we don't understand it...yet.

[Seth]

Personally, I don't think this 'metaphysical evidence' is evidence of anything but itself. And it's not like the definition or idea of 'evidence' itself is ambiguous is it?

does anything 'metaphysical' actually exist?
much less exist enough to be able to be evidence for anything.

Well, I guess you could say that a thought is a kind of metaphysical thing, but it's not as if an abstract thing like a thought is without a basis in reality is it, so a thought is still basically a physical thing regardless of its content. I suppose we could allow that a thought is evidence of itself, but that doesn't mean its content reflects reality even if has a kind of existence in its own terms.

A "Metaphysical evidence for God" usually means a argument by reasoning without referring to (inconvenient) things like empirical or observable facts, and even though we all probably play the game of asserting that what goes on in our heads is really real to us, most of us don't go about insisting that what we think is really real should be and is the real really real for everybody else.

As far as I can tell jamest's challenging the basis of naturalism and empiricism, which he disavows as being a valid or reliable way to understand, well, anything and everything. Basically he's telling us that we can't know anything about anything other than our own thoughts, so we don't have any real basis on which to tell him that he's wrong to believe in his mythical peeping Tom or to say that we're quite comfortable with dismissing the celestial pervert. Seems to me that his whole shtick is about immunising his ideas from due criticism while reserving the right to criticise the ideas of others, but I guess there's a long tradition in that sort of thing. It's a position I usually think of as, "The loneliness of always being right about everything even when I'm wrong."

I think his idea is much the same as mine, which is to challenge the certainty of Atheists and take them down a peg or two because of their overweening arrogance and disrespect for things they neither understand nor care to understand that 80 percent of the people on the planet find to be of importance to their lives.