Religion in School

CabbageCat

lloyd said:

CabbageCat said:

Drew_TNBD said:

CabbageCat said:

Sporky said:

CabbageCat said:

You did say that believing that there is no God is not a belief. That was the only thing I had a problem with. 

I think quite often it turns into a question of wording.

From one atheist's point of view, it's not a positive belief in the non-existence of a god (because that presupposes that existence). It's a rejection of the claims for the existence of a god.

Yes. I was not arguing against atheism or what people choose to believe. I was arguing a very specific point. Much of what has been said since appears to assume that I was arguing a wider one as well - which I wasn't and am not.

You're just flat out incorrect on that point CC. Atheism is not a belief. It's an absence of belief. The two states of mind are totally different. One is 0, the other is 1.

And Atheism is the default position of the human brain. Just as no child is born a racist, no child is born religious either.

Did you just say that as an illustration of someone assuming that I'm arguing a wider point as a sort of joke?

In case you didn't: I was not arguing against atheism. Not. Not. Not.

The absence of belief is absolutely not a belief. 100% agree. Never questioned it. The belief of an absence, however, is a belief. You agree with that, right? It's not the same sort of belief as believing in God, sure, but it's still taking a position when the true position is actually unknown.

This is semantics again, you seem to always want to get down to the minutiae of language and word play, the argument here is that atheism is not a belief or a belief system, taking god and atheism out of it belief in an absence can be called a belief yes.

Write it off as semantics if you like but I read something that I disagreed with. I don't think I've done anything wrong by specifically addressing that one point. If that one point was something you didn't really mean to write then I have pointed that out. You're welcome. If it was something you did mean to write then I've pointed out the fallacy as I see it and you appear to have accepted it. Again, you're welcome.

And I think I have addressed the "Is atheism a belief?" question. As Sporky has pointed out, atheism can mean lack of belief in God or it can mean the belief of a lack of God. One of these is a belief, the other is not. As far as I'm concerned, I've answered the question for you. Umm. You're welcome.

lloyd

CabbageCat said:

lloyd said:

CabbageCat said:

Drew_TNBD said:

CabbageCat said:

Sporky said:

CabbageCat said:

You did say that believing that there is no God is not a belief. That was the only thing I had a problem with. 

I think quite often it turns into a question of wording.

From one atheist's point of view, it's not a positive belief in the non-existence of a god (because that presupposes that existence). It's a rejection of the claims for the existence of a god.

Yes. I was not arguing against atheism or what people choose to believe. I was arguing a very specific point. Much of what has been said since appears to assume that I was arguing a wider one as well - which I wasn't and am not.

You're just flat out incorrect on that point CC. Atheism is not a belief. It's an absence of belief. The two states of mind are totally different. One is 0, the other is 1.

And Atheism is the default position of the human brain. Just as no child is born a racist, no child is born religious either.

Did you just say that as an illustration of someone assuming that I'm arguing a wider point as a sort of joke?

In case you didn't: I was not arguing against atheism. Not. Not. Not.

The absence of belief is absolutely not a belief. 100% agree. Never questioned it. The belief of an absence, however, is a belief. You agree with that, right? It's not the same sort of belief as believing in God, sure, but it's still taking a position when the true position is actually unknown.

This is semantics again, you seem to always want to get down to the minutiae of language and word play, the argument here is that atheism is not a belief or a belief system, taking god and atheism out of it belief in an absence can be called a belief yes.

Write it off as semantics if you like but I read something that I disagreed with. I don't think I've done anything wrong by specifically addressing that one point. If that one point was something you didn't really mean to write then I have pointed that out. You're welcome. If it was something you did mean to write then I've pointed out the fallacy as I see it and you appear to have accepted it. Again, you're welcome.

And I think I have addressed the "Is atheism a belief?" question. As Sporky has pointed out, atheism can mean lack of belief in God or it can mean the belief of a lack of God. One of these is a belief, the other is not. As far as I'm concerned, I've answered the question for you. Umm. You're welcome.

I dunno, you just seem to nit pick for nit pickings sake, that's the way you are, fair enough.

What you're doing is verging on straw-manning, I think we can all realise what Drew's saying, yet you're taking his Atheism and ascribing your own narrow meaning of it to prove that it's meaning can be a belief.

To clarify, Atheism is not a belief or a belief system, believing there is no god can be a belief system yet you can't just let that go, you need to present yourself being right as somebody has worded something in a certain way.

So yeah, it is semantics and nit picky.

I'm not sure why you need the "you're welcomes"? I've not disagreed with anything you've said nor been educated by them.

lloyd

english_bob said:

lloyd said:

No, the point I'm making is that teaching your children to question everything and to put faith in the scientific method is not foisting your belief system on it. It's not even a belief system.

That's it.

Actually it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepticism

A wiser man than me said not to argue with idiots as they'd drag you down to their level and beat you with experience, you miss the point at every turn and fail to understand basic concepts.

slacker

Are we there yet?

fields5069

slacker said:

Are we there yet?

Not while there is organised religion in the world. :-)

Heartfeltdawn

english_bob said:

Personally, I think the Church lost the right to any special influence on legislation, or on the nation's moral character a long time ago. Christians are a minority in this country, and should be considered alongside every other special interest group.

It hasn't lost some very important rights. Funding for religious broadcasting on the BBC, predominantly Christian, is well protected as public spiritual programming is considered essential by our government. This is why Christian prayers before full council meetings exist and why people are asked to swear on the good book. This is why we have the Lords Spiritual and Temporal. 

Bidley

I was going to post the MJ popcorn gif, but this 'debate' is about as interesting as reading a napkin.

Sporky

CabbageCat said:

As Sporky has pointed out, atheism can mean lack of belief in God or it can mean the belief of a lack of God. 

That's not what I said or meant.

lloyd

Sporky said:

CabbageCat said:

As Sporky has pointed out, atheism can mean lack of belief in God or it can mean the belief of a lack of God. 

That's not what I said or meant.

We all know, it's just CC twisting things for his own agenda.

I'm not sure we all need to point out all the shit we don't believe in-I'm not sure that I need to point out to people that in my belief system I'm not accepting the existence of unicorns, goblins or sentient flying toasters.

fields5069

Heartfeltdawn said:

english_bob said:

Personally, I think the Church lost the right to any special influence on legislation, or on the nation's moral character a long time ago. Christians are a minority in this country, and should be considered alongside every other special interest group.

It hasn't lost some very important rights. Funding for religious broadcasting on the BBC, predominantly Christian, is well protected as public spiritual programming is considered essential by our government. This is why Christian prayers before full council meetings exist and why people are asked to swear on the good book. This is why we have the Lords Spiritual and Temporal. 

Wow. I agree, very important, but also very worrying.

fields5069

I started to have a conversation with a co-worker about religion and he piped up with the "moral compass" viewpoint, so it's ingrained in most people that religion helps us to be better people. He mentioned the 10 commandments, I asked him if he thought murder was OK before Moses.

octatonic

I am so not getting involved in this one.

lloyd

octatonic said:

I am so not getting involved in this one.

Clapton/God?

Jalapeno

lloyd said:

 I'm not accepting the existence of ... toasters.

don't let the Cylon sleeper agents hear you !!!!!!

Heartfeltdawn

lloyd said:

octatonic said:

I am so not getting involved in this one.

Clapton/God?

Pffff. God is black for a start. And looks like Luther Vandross. 

lloyd

Heartfeltdawn said:

lloyd said:

octatonic said:

I am so not getting involved in this one.

Clapton/God?

Pffff. God is black for a start. And looks like Luther Vandross. 

And had his son crucified rather than flung off a balcony.

CabbageCat

Sporky said:

CabbageCat said:

As Sporky has pointed out, atheism can mean lack of belief in God or it can mean the belief of a lack of God. 

That's not what I said or meant.

Oh yeah. Just re-read it. I initially read it as "From one atheist's point of view <blah>, from another <other blah>". My bad.

I'm not saying my point is wrong (30 seconds of googling will show both definitions) but I did wrongly ascribe that to you.

jonnyburgo

If God does exist why didn't he send a giant ape up the twin towers to swat the planes away? After all he knew the intentions of the hijackers because he hears our every thought right? My head hurts.

Sporky

No significant harm done.

My understanding is that I am a soft/weak atheist; a hard atheist would say that they believe in the non-existence of any god(s), but again that's still a rejection of the claims rather than spending all day walking around fervently denying it at every waking moment.

It gets trickier when some theists insist that all atheists have a strong, constant and articulated belief in the non-existence of god(s), which they then twist it into "Ha! You have faith too! Who's the deranged lunatic now, huh?". Some agnostics seem very keen on that too - or on telling atheists that they're actually agnostic. Weird.

fields5069

It's probably safer to just be antitheist.