Which dictionary is that version from?

That's a polite way of saying you are indeed sure that he does not have a good grasp of what he's saying, nor I of understanding. If you feel that way about him, there's nothing more to say. You are convinced you know better, and that's the end of it.

What you responded to with that question: The scientific method, as espoused by Neon. I would have thought that was obvious.

You're the one who said it was a probablility. It's not. Now you say it's an opinion, but what is it based on? Nothing but belief.

That may be true, but Neon started by explaining why he doesn't like Richard Dawkins, and all you've done is argue.

Actually it was from Neons original quote from the Webster Online, definition 2a. To elaborate a little further, from wikipedia;

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.

Actually, no that is not the end of it, unless Neon declines to reply. I am not convinced I know better, rather I have a sneaking suspicion I have totally misunderstood what he has said, but on this particular point I can not simply take yours or his word for it. Show me where what I have stated contradicts the scientific method. If Neon is talking about falsifiability then we are simply using different terminology for the same thing, and I agree with most of what he has said.

OK let me put it another way, what is the difference between conventional logic and logic as employed by the scientific method?

Besides, as you have both pointed out, when we are dealing with claims regarding metaphysics, then why even bring up the scientific method, as it is irrelevant, in point of case it has absolutely nothing to say. Logic and reason however are critical.

Stop misrepresenting what I have said :O: - a belief implies a certainty I have never expressed. I said it was a value judgement, or an assumption of likelihood about a non certain non zero conclusion, that does not appear to be in contradiction with the world around me.

Here I have a direct question for you, What would be the difference in behaviour/outlook be between someone who was unconvinced by metaphysical ideas and someone who believes that metaphysical ideas are unknowable?

Quite. If you will start off by shifting the burden of proof then I am going to argue. I liked his books 'The Ancestors Tale' and lately 'The Magic of Reality' but I am not so keen on him as a presenter or speaker. His science is more impressive than his religion bashing, however he did expose some worrying truths about the quality, particularly of biology and science education within the UKs 1/3rd faith based schools. Not that it changed anything mind you.

If a deity had any intelligent effect that differed from natural processes on natural reality there would be physical evidence of it. There is no evidence of supernatural effects on natural reality. No evidence that the laws of physics have been bent or broken, at least on a local scale. Therefore, if there is a deity, it has no effect on natural reality at this scale. This leads me to assign a closer to zero likelihood of all deities that are believed to have any effect on natural reality, and since this includes all deities ever worshiped by humans that have been claimed as real, especially the big three, I have no problem placing a value of unlikely next to the question of their existence.

Of course absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and we may yet find or interpret some more or less convincing evidence but since I am not concerned with proving but rather highlighting why I think one reality is more likely; until someone does, I have no reason to think otherwise.

If you were to suggest a deity that effected natural reality on the scale of the superstructure of the observable universe or bigger who was not either aware nor concerned about humans on little earth, striving for its own ends, then I have much less reason to assign a value either way, likewise a deity that simply set the universe in motion without any forethought, is similarly reasonable as far as I know, but no-one worships gods like these, so such hypotheses do not pose a real question.

Link, please. I've looked at Webster's online, Miriam-Webster online and several others, and they all say the same thing: Someone who disbelieves or denies the existence of a God, or of a supreme intellegent being.

An encyclopedia's job is to examine all parameters of a question. You cited a specific definition. I consider this to be changing the subject.

That is more than fair. I read his words and see two totally different subjects, even different concepts. Explaining it isn't quite as easy for me, because I as I said to him I think I'm only getting a glimmer of understanding myself. I'm no scientist.

I can't, since I'm not an expert in the scientific method. I'm only taking his explanations as I understand them, which is likely not fully or well. It just looked to me like every time he explained it you wanted to argue some more. That's fine, but it looked to me like you were arguing about two different things.

Conventional logic is based on a single premise: If this, then that. There is nothing more. Whole books on the subject are devoted to nothing more than showing and explaining all the possible fallacies. Philosophers over several millenia have debated and discussed how logic should work.

The Scientific Method, as Neon explained it, requires that the premise be disprovable. If it can't be disproved then it is accepted. That is a methodology, and has nothing to do with logic, either conventional or mathematical.

Because the topic of the thread was on proving or disproving Evolution and Biblical Creation as scientific hypotheses, not on proving or disproving the existence of God. Neon said right off the bat that neither Theism nor Atheism can be disproved, hence science is not involved.


Again I have to ask: Based on what? How can there be an assumption of likelihood where there is no evidence at all?

In behaviour? None that I can think of. The only difference would be in what they claimed to believe. To me this is like asking what would be the difference in the behaviour between a sixteenth-century English Catholic or Anglican, something I do know somethng about. The difference would be who they claimed was the earthly head of the church. The Anglican might or might not say mass in English rather than Latin, depending on the period. Other than that, their behaviour would be identical.

I consider myself neither Atheist nor Agnostic, yet my behavior is probably indistinguishable from either of theirs in everyday life. In fact, my behaviour is probably indistinguishable from most people who call themselves Christians when it comes to actions in the workplace or the shopping mall.

Fair enough. I can't argue with that.

That is a fair assessment and explanation, and one I can understand. I'm leaving my earlier challenge in that regard in place, but this does explain your position a lot better. It follows reason and doesn't break any of the rules of logic, at least as far as I can see.

Of course Theistic belief is based largely on the word of someone who lived long ago, and those someones make the claim that in their time these supernatural interventions did indeed take place. I can't disprove them, but I too don't see that as a reason to believe them. I've never seen one myself, and haven't heard of one that couldn't be shown to have happened by natural means.

I've always like the words of Thomas Paine: "If God talks to me, it's a revelation. If I tell you about it, it's hearsay."

Good points. I'll finish with what I stated many posts ago, that our concepts and philosophies seem very close to each other. My only argument was over my understanding of Scientific Method vs Conventional Logic. Feel free to reply again, but I'm not sure I have anything more that would add to the understanding.

I certainly don't take the OP serious. I understand the fundy movement, I was a part of it for years in my teens and 20's. I took the bible literal and simply believed. Sure, questions arosed, but the church basically taught don't question God, backed by tools of fear and guilt.

I guess things fell apart for me in bible college. I learned the bible wasn't literal, for the most part just gave up on religion. Later, I wanted to figure God out, so I spent years of hard study. It wasn't so much lack of belief, but more...who was God. The bible mostly fell apart and for numerous other reasons I became skeptic, certainly became hateful of fundy religions.

I can't wrap my brain around science, for me it ends with cause and effect. Science tends to agree a first cause must exist, you know, the old question "what came first the chicken or the egg" Still, science demands a first cause "origin of life", but it's really an impossible concept...unless God exist or science figures it out down the road.

My isssue is, if you really study the issue, I can't figure God out. I would think if he did exist, we could have a reasonable agreed point of belief, not 100's of religions killing each other, each right and of course the mass of humanity ends up tortured by God. That all smells human to me....

I searched with an open heart, I couldn't figure it out. I simply don't know.
I would like to believe God exist, but I see nothing from religion to prove it.

You spin me right round, baby
right round like a record, baby
Right round round round

Yeah the meatspin song...Same thing kinda. Just a huge trolling.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f2...ps8e379512.jpg

Right, I am slightly baffled by the resistance to this generally accepted definition. So first of all, from Neons original post:

Is that clearer now?
How about:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/atheism

or:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheism

I think the point that is not being addressed is that disbelief does not necessarily mean denial, nor belief in non-existence, as evidenced by the dictionaries separation of these concepts. I honestly don't know how to explain it better than that.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/disbelief

Anyway, I can say nothing more of value here I think.


:salute:

Note the bolded section.

"I believe there is no god."
vs.
"I do not believe there is a god."

The first is denying. The second is disbelief. Disbelief says "I have not been convinced that the claim 'A god exists.' is true." It does not say that the possibility of a god existing has been ruled out. This is my personal state. I, as an atheist, have not been convinced that any of the claims that a god or gods exist are true, but I am not saying that a god or gods do not exist.

razark here sums up my point of wiew quite nicely :up:

so "i believe there is no god" is still the act of believing, actively.
and since atheists aint beliebers at all, the expression "i beleiebe in God" can not come from an atheist.

Oh come on, guys! you wasting ym time with this hairsplitting.
aint nobody got time for dat! :O:

I stated in the past I believe in god.

It is the human interpretation of gods will and intentions that disturbs me, and turns me off in general to religion.

Blasphemy! burn him at the stake!

so...
God has intentions, Huh.
and we Humans interpret them and act accordingly, huh.

ah yea.
ummmm...
Like... yea.
:haha:

Thanks man, that saved my day!:rock::har:

The study of Gestalt psychology as well as perception psychology, as well as findings from neurological research, show us to what degree we construct contexts and structures that are not there, fall for the results of our own imagination that we mistake for reality, and organize elements of thinking and perceptions always in structures that seem to sort them in a higher order of complexity. We would be overburdened with the input from out senses if we wouldn't not function like this. That would be like paying a total bill of ten thousand dollars in cent coins only - starting new every single moment.

It's a necessary self-deception, but still a self-deception.

like, "we can not handle reality with the tools available" and therefor have to make things up
sounds complex to me...

More like "a part of it all" cannot handle all of it. Probably everthing existing and having any kind of an awareness (or pendant of that that man cannot imagine) and having any form of ability to decide, always only touches upon a small part of "reality".

You cannot deal with all transactions going on every single second on the stockmarket, its too man y and too fast. You form models to create a scheme by which you act. If the schemes serves your purpose of dealing with it - fine. Problem comes when your artificially created scheme is mistaken for the absolute reality, or you stick to a scheme that functions not good enough. All theory on stockmarket functioning, and why, is pure fiction. - Yesterday I read about a scientific experiment where they used complex computer simulations of chimps' brains to decide on transcactions, sales and buys on a record of historic stockmarket, and then compared that to the real way the indices developed as a result from those digital chimp'S decisions (random-based, since they were niot knowing what they are doing), and model-based (historic records, basing in stockmakert decisions by humans that acted according to their economic theories.

They had a database finally of I think 10 million runs per stockmarket history, mostly from wallstreet, I think. Imagine 1 run representing how a real stockmarket record of indices developed over a historic period of time that is documented, and 9 million 999 thousand 999 runs of digital chimps replacing the historic decisions with their own.

What was the outcome? It is no compliment for homo sapiens' claim to be oh so intelligent and clever. In all 10 million runs, the random-based decisons led to these fictional stockmarket indices int he end beating the historic ones. Not one exception.

In other words: human theories and models on these issues are a total and complete failure, and event decisions based on pure random chance lead to better results, than human decision making. If all players on the stockmarkets today would no longer decide by their reason and their models and theories and present situational needs, but would throw a coin for every decision that must be made on sales, chances would be 10's of million to 1 that the stockmarket in general would become more valuable and indices would be higher in the end than with all that clever smarta$$ing done by our socalled "financial experts".

Reality is bigger than our model of it. That'S what it all is about, religious model construction as well as economic theory-building. And because it is bigger than what we can understand, we must cut it to scales and sizes that we actually can deal with it, somehow, even if we are dealing with it on grounds of false presumptions. Because deciding we must - always. The illusion is not hurting my self-esteem as long as I do not get it that I fall for an illusion.