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[MaximumZero]

The thing that The Mechanical Man seems to be overlooking is that Agnostic Atheists are still Atheists. Atheism merely implies the rejection of belief of gods (usually based on empirical evidence), not the hard and absolute rejection of all gods forever and ever. The position of Atheism is merely a stance, often earnestly, saying "Prove it." It doesn't matter if you'd like it proven, or think other positions are full of shit. You still hold the position of needing proof.

If this isn't your stance, you're not an Atheist, you're a Hollywood Atheist, or a Nay-theist.

[The Mechanical Man]

Why does it matter?

Intellectual Honest forbids me form stating there is a 100% chance of no gods, but I'm stil l pretty damn confident there isn't.

But why is the wiggle room important? The important part is acceptance of the claim. Either yes or no. Possibly more important if it effects and/or impacts your life.

And also this whole 'true XXX' just smells of the true scott's man fallacy for some reason.

I'm not quite sure what point you are arguing about/trying to prove. Could you rephrase your argument? Why does what matter?

Intellectual Honest forbids me form stating there is a 100% chance of no gods, but I'm still l pretty damn confident there isn't.

Maybe the world just doesn't accept my definitions of atheism, agnosticism, and theism, because under my definitions the majority of peoples would be agnostic atheists/theists and only those of irrational nature would be true atheists/theists. But I believe that my way of defining the terms is most accurate.

Let me put it this way: for me, admitting that you don't know for sure one way or the other means you are some type of agnostic.

[TCM]

@ The Mechanical Man

I want to point out one principle, the Heisenberg Priniciple. The movement and position of an atom can never be measured Simultainiously. Therefor, the distances between two atoms can never be absolutely measured. This means any numerical distance will never be absolutely accurate, because even if there is an error on even an atomic level, it is not absolute. If you take the distance of any objects, there will be an error to some degree no matter what you do.

Because of this, I do not believe in anything 100%, because that is a numerical position applied to reality.

I'll conclude: I do not have a 100% belief in God because I do not believe that there can be a 100% in anything.

[Karlito]

See, you shouldn't call them "true atheists" or "true theists". The more appropriate term in this case would be "gnostic atheists" or "gnostic theists". Gnostic meaning knowledge and being the opposite of agnostic.

[alway]

And what if I say I'm completely Athiest, nothing else like Agnostic, but I don't have a 100% certainty in the non-existence of a deity(ies)?

Then you are not truly an atheist. You are an agnostic atheist. A true atheist must believe that a God does absolutely, with 100% certainty, not exist. Anything less than that is agnostic atheism.

In which can there are no atheists. It's a sliding scale; and not even an ardent atheist would be daft enough to claim THE ONE TRUE ANSWER. It's just relegated to the status of a theory stating there is a teapot which is too small to detect in orbit around the sun. Also akin to beliefs about logic and reasoning; which are themselves based in the entirely unprovable inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is necessary for proving statements like '1 + n = n + 1' as it effectively allows us to assume a no-boundary condition surrounding logic; that no matter how high 'n' gets, the laws governing the numbers do not change. There is no way to prove this sort of assertion; any attempt leads to circular reasoning. Thus when you talk about 'believing something 100%,' there should be no person who believes something like that 100%. Our very logic itself is based in an unproven assumption; a highly successful assumption, but an assumption nonetheless. Again; it all comes down to the doubt surrounding a certain teapot.

[Leafsnail]

Request to PoH: Define atheist in the OP (preferably as "Somebody who does not believe in any gods").  We sorted it out last thread, it'd be a shame to move backwards there.  A few dictionaries take a narrower definition but common usage is that one.

And in this case, lack of belief is belief in the opposite direction.

To simplify this, let's distill this to the question "Is A true or false?". If you do not believe A is true, you automatically believe A is false. This is because of the binary nature of the question- it only has 2 possible answers with no in-between. So naturally, if you think one answer is incorrect then the only remaining answer must be correct in conclusion. "A is not true" is logically equivalent to "A is false".

You are wrong.  Can you not see there is a middle ground where you don't believe that A is true and you don't believe that A false?  Let's say there are two doors, A and B.  One of them has a coin behind it.

Do you believe that the coin is behind door A?
Do you believe that there is no coin behind door A?

I've given you no information either way, so unless you take a gut feeling you can't hold either belief.

Maybe the world just doesn't accept my definitions of atheism, agnosticism, and theism, because under my definitions the majority of peoples would be agnostic atheists/theists and only those of irrational nature would be true atheists/theists. But I believe that my way of defining the terms is most accurate.

How can a definition be more or less "accurate"?  It's only a matter of whether the word as you're using it fits what people understand it to mean (unless you're talking about the actual roots of the word, in which case I don't see how your definitions fit any better).  You've just made up arbitrary definitions for three words (and also twisted the idea of belief a lot - it doesn't in any way imply certainty) and decided that everyone else is wrong for not using them.

[TCM]

@always:

Awwwww, you basically said what I did, except better.

Damn, the limitations of debating via mobile device.

[_DivideByZero_]

Frankly MechanicalMan is getting swarmed here, which is exactly why I don't usually get into debates about this except on sites like ReasonableFaith where there's roughly equal numbers of active Christians and atheists. The fact that people support each other's comments just makes it a pain to deal with since it doesn't add to anyone's argument... give him a break.

I actually managed to reach a point of agreement with an atheist, and that was that atheism itself is just a belief, and so is theism, but both are often accompanied by a belief system of sorts.

I usually go with WLC's view that the default position is agnosticism (I don't know if p is true) and once you gain evidence for the truth or negation of the proposition, you can make a positive claim (p is true/untrue). It sounds more reasonable to me than concluding everything is false by default since one cannot make a conclusion without sufficient evidence. So in other words, atheists need evidence against there being an omniscient, omnipotent being to which the creation of the universe can be attributed to, and theists need evidence for it. That's what philosophers like WLC do though.

[The Mechanical Man]

And in this case, lack of belief is belief in the opposite direction.

To simplify this, let's distill this to the question "Is A true or false?". If you do not believe A is true, you automatically believe A is false. This is because of the binary nature of the question- it only has 2 possible answers with no in-between. So naturally, if you think one answer is incorrect then the only remaining answer must be correct in conclusion. "A is not true" is logically equivalent to "A is false".

You are wrong.  Can you not see there is a middle ground where you don't believe that A is true and you don't believe that A false?  Let's say there are two doors, A and B.  One of them has a coin behind it.

Do you believe that the coin is behind door A?
Do you believe that there is no coin behind door A?

I've given you no information either way, so unless you take a gut feeling you can't hold either belief.

My argument is not about that. My argument is that if I believe the coin is behind door A, I can not believe that the coin is behind door B. Or if I believe there is no coin behind door A, I must then believe the coin is behind door B. Thus, lack of belief is belief in the opposite direction due to the binary nature of the circumstances. Only 2 answers and 1 is right, so not believing one answer is right automatically means you believe the other is.

Quick edit: I think I understand better what you are talking about. From what I gather, you believe that the middle ground is agnosticism, correct? But I think agnosticism is a middle ground in certainty rather than belief. See below.

Maybe the world just doesn't accept my definitions of atheism, agnosticism, and theism, because under my definitions the majority of peoples would be agnostic atheists/theists and only those of irrational nature would be true atheists/theists. But I believe that my way of defining the terms is most accurate.

How can a definition be more or less "accurate"?  It's only a matter of whether the word as you're using it fits what people understand it to mean (unless you're talking about the actual roots of the word, in which case I don't see how your definitions fit any better).  You've just made up arbitrary definitions for three words (and also twisted the idea of belief a lot - it doesn't in any way imply certainty) and decided that everyone else is wrong for not using them.

Maybe not so much "accurate" as "precise". It is more precise in that it is easier to identify which category a person would belong to. Mostly this is because there is some overlap and confusion with agnosticism and how it is related to atheism and theism. But I think that in my definitions, I have included both belief and certainty into them. My definitions (as on page 10) were based on answering these two questions: "Do you believe in god?" and "Does god exist?"

I defined the terms in this manner:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A theist by definition would answer "yes" to both of those questions.
An atheist would answer "no" to both of those questions.
An agnostic would either answer "yes" or "no" to the first, and "I don't know" to the second.

In this way, you see I have mixed belief and certainty, but I do not think I confused them.

An atheist and theist both have belief and certainty. Their belief causes their certainty, and their certainty is part of their belief. When an atheist says "God does not exist" it is their belief, but they are certain it is true.
An agnostic then has belief but not certainty. An agnostic can believe gods exist or not, but is not certain that their belief is correct.


I'm seriously tired (I've been up for a few hours in this thread trying to reply to too many posts). Either I suck at logic, am too tired to comprehend logic logically, or a mix of both. I give up and go to sleep! No more posts for me!

[TCM]

@The Mechanical Man

I see where you come from, it's just that your statements of 100% proof don't have any bearings on my religious views, but your system is in opposite of my beliefs in probability and uncertainty based science and philsopohy.

[Leafsnail]

The problem is that you've come to your own definitions of words that are completely different to the actual accepted definitions (atheist being someone who does not believe in god, theist being someone who believes in god).  I could decide that a Christian is someone who believes the Bible to be literally true, but that would cause confusion (even if it's "precise" in that I could tell you exactly who I think is a Christian), especially if I turn it around and decide that anyone who calls themselves a Christian must fit my definition.

[Supercharazad]

Now personally I'm agnostic, I believe there may or may not be a god(s) and that if they exist they may or may not care, and so on. Not to bash anyone in particular, but I do think that anyone who thinks they have all the answers and then tries to shove them down my or someone else's throat is a bit of an arrogant bastard.
Also, one interesting thing to note, since matter can't be created or destroyed then the universe (or whatever is was, the singularity or something) must therefore be eternal, and could be considered a "god" depending on your criteria.

[cerapa]

My argument is not about that. My argument is that if I believe the coin is behind door A, I can not believe that the coin is behind door B. Or if I believe there is no coin behind door A, I must then believe the coin is behind door B. Thus, lack of belief is belief in the opposite direction due to the binary nature of the circumstances. Only 2 answers and 1 is right, so not believing one answer is right automatically means you believe the other is.

Quick edit: I think I understand better what you are talking about. From what I gather, you believe that the middle ground is agnosticism, correct? But I think agnosticism is a middle ground in certainty rather than belief. See below.

I what what. What, what.
Yes, that is called "mutually exclusive options", and works in just the way you described. If you replace "lack of belief" with "belief in a lack". Might seem like stupid wordplay, but its a very, very, very important distinction. The two are completely seperate, and I think peoples brains work differently somehow that they dont catch the distinction, its a common enough sight for that. Do you honestly think people have an opinion about and belief in(or against) everything?

Lets play by your terms too, since you threw agnosticism/gnosticism and atheism/theism into the same pile, then pure agnosticism is in fact the middle of both. By your own definitions, not mine.

[Vattic]

The problem is that you've come to your own definitions of words that are completely different to the actual accepted definitions (atheist being someone who does not believe in god, theist being someone who believes in god).  I could decide that a Christian is someone who believes the Bible to be literally true, but that would cause confusion (even if it's "precise" in that I could tell you exactly who I think is a Christian), especially if I turn it around and decide that anyone who calls themselves a Christian must fit my definition.

I see where The Mechanical Man is coming from and think you guys are getting hung up on the words.

Gnostic Theists believe in God and claim to know it's true. (A term I've read but isn't largely used to be fair.)
Agnostic Theists believe in God but claim to not know for certain.
Gnostic Atheists believe in no God and claim to know it's false.
Agnostic Atheists believe in no God but claim to not know for certain.

These are all recognised terms. Usually Gnostic Atheism would be allied with Strong Atheism and Agnostic Atheism with Weak Atheism. You also have Ignosticism to consider. In terms of debate the claim to knowledge is an important distinction. Without it and definite claims about the nature of God there is no debate.

[The Mechanical Man]

I said I wouldn't post anymore, but I'm back! I can't help it, I apologize.

Yes, that is called "mutually exclusive options", and works in just the way you described. If you replace "lack of belief" with "belief in a lack". Might seem like stupid wordplay, but its a very, very, very important distinction. The two are completely seperate, and I think peoples brains work differently somehow that they dont catch the distinction, its a common enough sight for that. Do you honestly think people have an opinion about and belief in(or against) everything?

Lets play by your terms too, since you threw agnosticism/gnosticism and atheism/theism into the same pile, then pure agnosticism is in fact the middle of both. By your own definitions, not mine.

Yes, perhaps I do have a failing to understand the concept you describe. Because I do think everyone has a belief in or against everything. I do not believe pure agnosticism is a middle ground of belief. I have never met a person who, when asked "Do you believe in God?" says "I don't know". Wouldn't that mean that they still do or don't, but just don't know it? You could argue they still have an opinion on it, but don't know what it is yet. I suppose it depends on the wording of the question, for example, the question "Do I look fat in this dress?" is different than "Do you think I look fat in this dress?". Of course, those are exactly like the questions "Does god exist?" and "Do you believe god exists?".

From Wikipedia:

Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—are unknown and (so far as can be judged) unknowable.

Atheism/theism is about belief.
Agnosticism/gnosticism is about certainty in knowledge.

So I've been under the impression so far that an "atheist" is really a gnostic atheist, and a "theist" is a gnostic theist. This is because they believe one thing, and have certainty of it/believe it to be knowable. An agnostic atheist/theist, then, would believe one thing, and have uncertainty/believe it to be unknowable. For me, agnostic/gnostic are more or less modifiers to the way in which someone believes- they cannot be independent of the atheist and theist terms. I don't think a person can be just a gnostic or just an agnostic- they must also be either an atheist or theist. You won't find a theist who is neither agnostic nor gnostic.

So, just to recap:
- Answering the question "Does god exist?" makes you either a gnostic or agnostic. The gnostic would say "yes" or "no", the agnostic would say "I don't know". This question is about knowledge and certainty. Gnostics would claim certainty, agnostics would claim uncertainty.
- Answering the question "Do you believe god exists?" makes you either a theist or atheist. The theist would say yes, the atheist would say no. (agnosticism has nothing to do with this question. Saying "I don't know" to this question does not make you agnostic, because agnosticism has to do with certainty in knowledge rather than belief)

Maybe my views are a personal failing of mine to understand certain concepts of logic, but I believe what I describe is correct.
And now that I feel I have finally come up with a clear way for you to see how I understand things, I officially declare myself done with this thread.