The Militant Tendency Within Atheism/Secular Rationalism

[MrFungus420]

Ding to the New Scientist, there are a billion confirmed atheists in the world, plus 1.5 billion apatheists. The latter do not really believe or disbelieve. They just don't give a damn.

On any given proposition you must either believe it or disbelieve it. It is binary.

If you don't believe, then you disbelieve. If you don't disbelieve, then you believe.

Whether or not you care about the proposition doesn't change that.

A person could also be ambivalent or conflicted. It doesn't have to be a binary.

Yes, it does. It is a logical necessity.

If you believe something, you cannot simultaneously not-believe that thing.
If you do not-believe something, then you cannot simultaneously believe that thing.

If you are ignorant about something, then you do not have a belief about it. That is called "not believing".

Your position can change, but at any time it is one or the other.

I disagree. While mostly unusual, it's entirely possible to remain ambivalent about something. It's definitely not a binary.

Okay, what is a third position about a proposition that is neither believing it or not believing it? "I don't know" doesn't fit because it does not address belief.

[MrFungus420]

Ding to the New Scientist, there are a billion confirmed atheists in the world, plus 1.5 billion apatheists. The latter do not really believe or disbelieve. They just don't give a damn.

On any given proposition you must either believe it or disbelieve it. It is binary.

If you don't believe, then you disbelieve. If you don't disbelieve, then you believe.

Whether or not you care about the proposition doesn't change that.

I care about the proposition regarding a god-thingy's existence a lot. After close to two decades of catholic upbringing I briefly became a deist, then even more briefly an atheist. Now I am an increasingly militant anti-religionist agnostic. Which one of your two pigeon holes would you slot me into?

What is complicated about this?

Answer one question:

Do you believe that a god DOES exist?

If "yes", then you are a theist (considering deism and polytheism as subsets of theism).
If "no", then you are not a theist. And the word for "not theist" is "atheist".

Saying that you are agnostic does not answer the question because agnosticism is not about belief a god.
Saying that you are an anti-religionist (militant or otherwise) does not answer the question because that is not about belief in a god.

The two "pigeon holes" are the two possible positions on this ONE TOPIC. Neither theism not atheism say anything else except whether or not you have the belief that a god does exist. Everything else is something else.

Allright then. There are 10 types of people about - those who reduce everything to binary and those who do not.

So what?

That's not what I'm doing.

Enjoy your glorious monochrome world. I prefer this:

There's nothing monochromatic about it.

Atheism only describes one facet of a person, whether or not that person believes in a god.

To say that you are agnostic does NOT provide that information, so it is NOT applicable if belief in a god is what is being discussed.
To say that you are anti-religious does NOT provide that information, so it is NOT applicable if belief in a god is what is being discussed.

[pErvinalia]

Do you believe in Godels Incompleteness Theorem?

[Hermit]

Fark. Who would have thunk that it is possible for anyone to be an even more dogmatic and blinkered exemplar of the Dunning-Kruger variety than our most radical resident lolbertardian?

[cronus]

Fark. Who would have thunk that it is possible for anyone to be an even more dogmatic and blinkered exemplar of the Dunning-Kruger variety than our most radical resident lolbertardian?

Don't use the Dunning-Kruger thing as a cognitive mallet. You are part of the problem whenever you do that.

[JimC]

Belief in god is not a clear-cut proposition in logic. There are many people who think that god is a possibility, but they are not certain whether he/she/it exists or not. Their logical status cannot be shoehorned into either "belief" or "disbelief". Within that category, there will be a continuous spectrum, from fairly certain there is one, but without the absolute certainty "belief" implies, all the way to fairly certain there is no god, but unable to completely dismiss the possibility.

Then take the case of a child in China who has never heard any mention of gods or religions. He currently has no definite belief in god, but that is a very different state of mind to someone who has been brought up in a society where belief is the default option, and has come to a definite position of disbelief.

[piscator]

The two "pigeon holes" are the two possible positions on this ONE TOPIC. Neither theism not atheism say anything else except whether or not you have the belief that a god does exist. Everything else is something else.

So do you believe that fire burns? Or does your degree of empirical and theoretical knowledge of fire go beyond the scope of the word belief? Are you saying that knowledge and belief are the same?

[piscator]

Fark. Who would have thunk that it is possible for anyone to be an even more dogmatic and blinkered exemplar of the Dunning-Kruger variety than our most radical resident lolbertardian?

Don't use the Dunning-Kruger thing as a cognitive mallet. You are part of the problem whenever you do that.

The serial posterdouche for D-K he's likely referring to deserves a lot worse than he gets around here. And what does it matter in geological time? The eventual heat death of the universe will subsume even tone trollery. So don't try to forestall the inevitable, just shut the fuck up.

[Hermit]

Fark. Who would have thunk that it is possible for anyone to be an even more dogmatic and blinkered exemplar of the Dunning-Kruger variety than our most radical resident lolbertardian?

Don't use the Dunning-Kruger thing as a cognitive mallet. You are part of the problem whenever you do that.

The serial posterdouche for D-K he's likely referring to deserves a lot worse than he gets around here. And what does it matter in geological time? The eventual heat death of the universe will subsume even tone trollery. So don't try to forestall the inevitable, just shut the fuck up.

I certainly didn't mean rEvolutionist. Unfortunately my habit of quoting what I was replying to was absent for some unknown reason, and he got in between. It wasn't at all meant as a cognitive mallet either. It was an expression of exasperation at people who reduce entire spectra to monochrome and, suffering from tunnel vision of such insuperable strength only possible by the dogma bacterium, insist that a spectrum does not even exist. But yes, you are right: Our D-K posterdouche has not smeared this thread with his dreck yet.

[MrFungus420]

Belief in god is not a clear-cut proposition in logic.

I don't see how it isn't.

There are many people who think that god is a possibility,

Irrelevant.

but they are not certain whether he/she/it exists or not.

Nor am I.

But, we aren't talking about certainty (even ignoring that certainty is a worthless concept), but about belief.

Their logical status cannot be shoehorned into either "belief" or "disbelief". Within that category, there will be a continuous spectrum, from fairly certain there is one, but without the absolute certainty "belief" implies, all the way to fairly certain there is no god, but unable to completely dismiss the possibility.

Well, first off, belief does not imply absolutely certainty. I believe that there is non-terrestrial life, but I am in no way certain about that. Certainty is just a red herring. It's nothing more than saying that you really, really, really believe something a whole lot.

And there is no point along that spectrum where one does not either believe that a god exist or not believe that a god exists.

Then take the case of a child in China who has never heard any mention of gods or religions. He currently has no definite belief in god, but that is a very different state of mind to someone who has been brought up in a society where belief is the default option, and has come to a definite position of disbelief.

Again, irrelevant.

If you are unaware of something, you do not believe in it.

Atheism says nothing about how you came to the position of not having belief in a god, only that you do not have that belief.

[MrFungus420]

The two "pigeon holes" are the two possible positions on this ONE TOPIC. Neither theism not atheism say anything else except whether or not you have the belief that a god does exist. Everything else is something else.

So do you believe that fire burns?

Yes.

Or does your degree of empirical and theoretical knowledge of fire go beyond the scope of the word belief?

No.

Are you saying that knowledge and belief are the same?

No, knowledge is a subset of belief.

If you claim to know something, that means that you also believe it. However, you can believe things without claiming to know them.

The question is whether or not you believe that a god does exist. "I don't know" isn't an answer to that question. That is an answer to the question of whether or not a god exists, not whether or not you believe it.

[Jason]

Are you a Dalek?

[piscator]

No, knowledge is a subset of belief.

Sorry, I forgot. The MrFungus420bot doesn't justify answers, it simply believes (presupposes) itself to be correct and replies with the fewest letters possible.


I never was a fan of "Justified True Belief'. Knowledge and belief can't occupy the same space at the same time. One has to be suspended to allow the other.

[JimC]

MrFungus420 thinks belief is an operator in logical calculus.

Instead, it is a word struggling to express a very complex human mental state, that may have some elements pertaining to a logical proposition, but also has elements of powerful emotions. This is particularly true when examining the phenomena associated with religious belief.

Personally, I can say that I no longer possess the vague religious beliefs I had as a child. However, I doubt it would be possible to assign a point in time where that transition was clear cut.

[Seth]