[MP-Ryan]

How can you permanently have faith in something and not have faith in it? I can see how someone can start to lose their faith in god but sooner or later you have to pick a side. Even if at the end you only have a little bit of faith in god, you still have faith. So you're still not an atheist.

You can permanently not make a decision.  If you don't think that's possible, then I see where the trouble is coming from, because I do.

As I pointed out in my last post, most atheists agree with the most inclusive definition. Lack of belief/faith in god makes you an atheist. You have continually used the narrower version that states an atheist is someone who has rejected belief/faith in god.

Actually, I've tended toward lack of belief in gods make you an atheist, belief in gods make you theist, and accepting that both/neither are equally valid makes you agnostic.

Because that belief is not connected to atheism. Atheism is the y-axis. Whether there aren't deities is the x-axis.

I thought I had your graph visualized but obviously not.  I think you need to draw it.

Do you have faith in a higher power?

...and unlike the others you named, my answer is "maybe."  I haven't decided, which means that I both do and don't at exactly the same time.  This is why I keep invoking fences, cats, coins, indecisiveness, etc.  I cannot answer that question in a scientifically valid manner, so I don't even attempt to.  Does that make more sense to you now?

EDIT:  It is now 1:06 AM and I am going to bed, which is an empirically-testable object that I plan to empirically test about 30 seconds from now.  Goodnight! =)

[Bobboau]

so, "not yes" would constitute a subset of your position?

[Scotty]

so, "not yes" would constitute a subset of your position?

We went over this at great length last night.  So great a length, in fact, that the thread got locked.

No, it does not

Or, more accurately, yes it does, but simultaneously co-exists with the "not no", making your attempt to fish at a way to put MP-Ryan in a nice little label box to make you feel better doomed to fail.

[AtomicClucker]

...and unlike the others you named, my answer is "maybe."  I haven't decided, which means that I both do and don't at exactly the same time.  This is why I keep invoking fences, cats, coins, indecisiveness, etc.  I cannot answer that question in a scientifically valid manner, so I don't even attempt to.  Does that make more sense to you now?

And these are things that go squarely with philosophical inquiries: science is not the appropriate tool to examine such problems. Science was in many ways, not really meant to do so.

Edit: I'll rephrase that. He'll decide when, where, and how what sort of hat for a label he wants.

[Bobboau]

simultaneously co-exists with the "not no"

irrelevant.
once you understand why that is irrelevant, then at least you will have understood our position, if not accepted it.

let me give you a chart
answers to the following questions may be true or false, if the statement is not perfectly accurate then it is false, otherwise true.
A) I believe in the existence of god(s)
B) I believe in the non-existence of god(s)

		A
		T	F
	T	Contradiction	Atheist
B	F	Theist	Atheist

the agnostic position is A=F,B=F, the atheist position is A=F (the atheist position is not B=T). agnostic is a subset of atheist.

your efforts to escape my comfy box of doom have failed.

[BloodEagle]

Someone should attach a generator to Francis Bacon.  It'd solve all of our energy problems.

[Scotty]

simultaneously co-exists with the "not no"

let me give you a chart
answers to the following questions may be true or false, if the statement is not perfectly accurate then it is false, otherwise true.
A) I believe in the existence of god(s)
B) I believe in the non-existence of god(s)

And right here is where you fail to grasp the problem, and why MP-Ryan (and to no small extent, myself) refuses to be classified as such.  At this point I obviously can't say I speak for MP-Ryan and his personal set of beliefs, but I can see a likely point of disconnect.

You have termed these two entires for the binary option for your own classification.  I'm going to offer a minor edit, and I want to see if you understand the implications behind it.  The options, as I understand MP-Ryan sees it:

A) I believe in the existence of god(s)
B) I do not believe in the existence of god(s)

Do you see it?  Just in case, lemme give you a hint: one of these sets of options presents a null hypothesis, that one believes in the explicit non-existence of god(s) rather than the implicit disbelief in the existence of god(s).

The biggest difference between these two sets of options is that the second set is not mutually exclusive, and is not designed to be.  Anything else is not MP-Ryan's position, it is your own that you are trying to project and classify, for reasons that I can't begin to fathom except "You either agree with me or don't" in the worst kind of petty displays of baser human argumentative instinct.

[karajorma]

Kara: A two axis implies two continuous variables, but you're saying that the horizontal (atheist-theist) is discrete.

I have no idea what to call a graph where an axis only has two possible values. The problem is that there isn't really a continuum. Atheism is the absence of faith. And you either have or don't have faith. That's why I compared it to pregnancy on the other thread. You're either pregnant or not pregnant.

But I don't see the point in arguing semantics as long as everyone understands that atheism/theism is orthogonal to agnosticism, there isn't much of an issue. My point can still be understood.

Still leaves the cult loophole, though it may eliminate the one for Confucians.

I tend to believe cults usually have more to do with theists than atheists anyway. But aliens or cult leaders do not really count as god / a higher power unless the cult believe they do have divine powers. In which case they really are theists.

You can permanently not make a decision.  If you don't think that's possible, then I see where the trouble is coming from, because I do.

Shall I go out today? I won't make a decision yet. It's 2 O'clock. I'll prevaricate some more. It's 9pm. Nope still not going to make a decision. Oh! It's midnight! While you're deciding the decision is being made for you.


Faith requires a concious decision to have it. This seems to be the major issue you and I differ on.

Yes you can make a decision to leave it as an open question whether or not you will have faith, but until you actually do make that decision, you don't have faith. You can't permanently make a decision not to have faith and stay in the middle. Faith isn't analogous to Schroedinger's cat. Every second you wait is one more second the decision is being made for you.

I think you'll find that the religious actually agree with me on this point. You can't say "I can permanently not make a decision whether I'm a Christian or not." If you don't have faith in Christ, you're not a Christian. You can't both be a Christian and not be a Christian. Maybe one day you'll become one. But at this point in time, you are not one. If on top of that, if you also don't have faith in Allah, you're also not a Muslim. And so on. Until we've gone through every single religion in existence and you've said you don't have faith in that particular religion. At which point you're an atheist. Because you don't have faith. There is no middle ground.

I thought I had your graph visualized but obviously not.  I think you need to draw it.

I'll attach it. Excuse the crudity. I only have MS Paint here.

...and unlike the others you named, my answer is "maybe."  I haven't decided, which means that I both do and don't at exactly the same time.  This is why I keep invoking fences, cats, coins, indecisiveness, etc.  I cannot answer that question in a scientifically valid manner, so I don't even attempt to.  Does that make more sense to you now?

See above. I can't decide = no. Maybe I will one day but at the moment, no.

[attachment deleted by ninja]

[Bobboau]

You have termed these two entires for the binary option for your own classification.  I'm going to offer a minor edit, and I want to see if you understand the implications behind it.  The options, as I understand MP-Ryan sees it:

A) I believe in the existence of god(s)
B) I do not believe in the existence of god(s)

Do you see it?  Just in case, lemme give you a hint: one of these sets of options presents a null hypothesis, that one believes in the explicit non-existence of god(s) rather than the implicit disbelief in the existence of god(s).

The biggest difference between these two sets of options is that the second set is not mutually exclusive, and is not designed to be.

yes, I do understand the implications and that is why I very carefully and explicitly chose not to word it that way because that distinction is obvious and not a point of contention.
and, how is that not mutually exclusive? one of those is the logical negation of the other, it's both mutually exclusive and mutually exhaustive.
if you want the full list of options it's.

A) I believe in the existence of god(s)
B) I believe in the non-existence of god(s)
C) I do not believe in the existence of god(s)
D) I do not believe in the non-existence of god(s)

but A = -C and B = -D so they are basically redundant, but there is no direct mapping between A and B other than they are mutually exclusive.
it is important to note that -A != B

and MP's position is he doesn't believe either, both A and B basically make knowledge claims and are therefore to him false.

[Killer Whale]

[karajorma]

Not sure I like any of those better than mine. Quite a few of them make the mistake of placing Agnostic between Atheist and Theist. I've been saying that's wrong since my first post.

[Bobboau]

mostly like, the "certainty of evidence" part I think is a bit unintuitively laid out, but I get it.
It sort of looks like you might have theist as a subset of atheist, but I think that is supposed to show the binary relationship between them with the rectangle being the universe of discourse.
It is sort of inconsistent with some figures showing (a)gnosticism as orthogonal to theism/atheism, and others showing it as a third pole/middle ground.

is this your position or a summary of the argument so far?

[Killer Whale]

Some examples of what people may think/have thought.

My position? That changes as the topic progresses.

[Mikes]

So where is option C? I really do not care as long as people are not d*** about their own belief?

Or the long version: I really don't care one way or the other as long as no one tries to push their beliefs on me - but yes if the existence of a higher being could be rationally and factually proven without doubt of course I would accept it, although I believe that to be highly unlikely. In short: Just let me live my own life and stop bothering me with your stories of imaginary beings unless you can actually prove anything. Thank you very very much. lol.

Go ahead. Put me in a box as well

[karajorma]

So where is option C? I really do not care as long as people are not d*** about their own belief?

That's the "I'm not posting on this thread option"

[Mikes]

That's the "I'm not posting on this thread option"

In that case you would be discussing a false dichotomy.

[Flipside]

Here's a question:

Does a God require a Religion in order to be considered as such?

That's the part that confuses me, Gods are always defined from a very human viewpoint, and it's got to the point that, even if there is some kind of 'Creator entity', I'm pretty sure the religions that have formed around the concept are not representations of It in any way.

[Mars]

Here's a question:

Does a God require a Religion in order to be considered as such?

That's the part that confuses me, Gods are always defined from a very human viewpoint, and it's got to the point that, even if there is some kind of 'Creator entity', I'm pretty sure the religions that have formed around the concept are not representations of It in any way.

Even if there was a creator entity, would it be one that humans would recognize as an entity? We're rather limited as to what we can perceive as being an intelligent actor, so that even relatively intelligent mammals other than ourselves seem to be non-sentient actors, could we really look at - say, for example - the hyper-intelligent black hole that spawned the universe and recognize it as such? If a 'god' object wasn't anthropomorphic, could it be a god object?

[Killer Whale]

... even if there is some kind of 'Creator entity', I'm pretty sure the religions that have formed around the concept are not representations of It in any way.

Being a christian, that is hilarious.

[NGTM-1R]

If a 'god' object wasn't anthropomorphic, could it be a god object?

If you can interact with it in a way that produces consistent responses, probably.