When an initial premise has no supporting evidence,

on his/her own beliefs, the argument fails?

Agreed, if by failure you mean being unprovable.

I don't "believe that there is no deity," I do not accept your claim that a deity exists.

You keep trying to push that phony definition of atheism because it's a straw man position and much easier for you to deal with. In your mind, at least.

Does an atheist believe that there is/are no deity/ies?

As much as you wish to avoid it, the end result is the same whether you say:

I do not accept you claim that a deity exists, or,
no deities exist.

I'm not going to defend the straw man that you prefer fighting.

Put up a real argument, gil. Even though I know you can't, because this is the putrid weak shit that you constantly fling in hopes that someday it will stick.

Pathetic.

I understand your position, and your agenda.

And no, you don't.

Saying "I don't believe you" is not, and never will be, the same as saying "I assert this instead."

You really, really, WISH it was the same, but no, it's not.

It probably won't last, but at least for now the nonsense is ending.

any evidence that your gods exist to be highly convincing. In all likelihood your gods do not exist.

You sir, on the other hand, appear to view the same complete lack of evidence for the existence of your loathsome gods to be a confirmation of their existence.

LOL

See your name in the replied to section.

Laughing indeed.

Yes, he clicked "Reply" on my post.

But he was CLEARLY replying to you. Why would he refer to "your gods" replying to me, when he knows I'm an atheist?

Laughing even more now... at you.

The poster responded to me. If that was an error, admit it. Or you can fabricate a scenario to avoid the admission that I was correct.

Your choice.

Here it is, to make it extra super easy for you:



At no point in this thread, anywhere in this forum, or anywhere on DU have I *ever* advocated for the existence of gods. Voltaire2 knows this. His reply was meant for you. He cleared up the confusion in post #33, re-asserting that the claim of confirmation bias was directed at YOU.

If this is the hill you've chosen to die on, so be it. This is probably one of your most humiliating defeats, and that's saying something.

I was right.

You were wrong.

And you've humiliated yourself once again.

And I am making that assumption for your benefit.

If he were to reply to me, why would he address it to you?

It has happened to pretty much anyone who's been on DU for at least a little while, I imagine. Why, it's probably even happened to YOU. He clicked on the wrong post to Reply to. His reply was for YOU, not for ME, as he admitted in post #41. Read it.

Now do I need to explain this again? Do you really want to humiliate yourself further? I am not so stupid as to expect any kind of apology or contrition for your error and subsequent harassment of me, but we can draw this out as long as you like. You know how much I love to see you make a fool of yourself, so please, decide what you want to do.

But nice attempt at defending a fellow member.

And, a nice demonstration of your own character.

How long do you want to keep the humiliation going, gil? I'll go as long as you want to.

"commenting on" and "replying to"?


Voltaire was commenting to you about my post, not replying to me.

There is no doubt he posted his reply to me. I have never disputed that. He clicked "Reply" on the wrong post.

But his REPLY is TO YOU. Read the reply, gil. He's addressing YOU because he talks about the god(s) that YOU believe in. I know this might be difficult to recall, but I don't believe in any gods.

Here's his reply again:



Exactly what sense does it make to assume his reply was to me? Keep in mind, I don't believe in any gods, and Voltaire2 knows that.

Please continue.

Lacking evidence, atheists do not believe that deities exist. All you need do is produce some real evidence that they do exist. But, lacking that, the belief does not exist, either.

In the first, "No. An atheist believes nothing with regard to deities.", you claim that belief is not involved.

In the second, "Lacking evidence, atheists do not believe that deities exist.", you frame a belief in the non-existence of deities as being somehow different from a belief.

Goodbye.

And bad faith arguments.

It's the smell of complex theology.

This probably wouldn't be so funny were you capable of being more wrong.

I accept that you convinced yourself.

I don't "believe" there is no deity. It is not based on belief.
I see no evidence for it. I don't accept one exists based on facts.
I see no evidence for bigfoot or UFOs or ghost or ESP or Touch Therapy or many other things for which there is no proof.

These are not matters of belief or faith.

What i see is a Universe that is explained more accurately without any of the deities of any religion.

is a common thing among religionists. No amount of explanation seems to help them understand. That's why I think it is a deliberate claim on their parts.

All a guy can do is shrug and move on.

It's too ambiguous so it acts as a cover for fuzzy thinking. Unfortunately, we are stuck with it, so people will continue to take advantage of its ambiguity.

you are right.

Should be substituted with "accepted without evidence" because that's what it means. Also strips out the religious overtones.

I would say, instead, "No evidence exists showing that any deity or deities exist."

A negative statement requires no proof and cannot be proven. If you have evidence of the existence of a deity, you can simply present it, and my statement will be false.

It is the same as if I said, "There is no such real animal as a unicorn." Unless you can produce evidence of a unicorn, the negative statement is true. However, if you state that Unicorns exist and live in deep dark forests, the burden of demonstrating the truth of your statement is on you. Negative statements have no such burden of proof.

Here's the thing: I would not base a logical argument on a negative premise. If I say there are no deities, nothing about deities follows from that, because no deities exist. There is no substance on which to base a logical argument. If you wish to have an argument about deities, you must first produce evidence of them. Otherwise there is no substance to your argument, either, since you begin with a different premise.

In science whatever statement of "belief" you make is always based on evidence or lack of it. It's usually implicit because there is usually a lot of evidence to look at. If someone with a scientific mindset says, "I believe in the theory of general relativity," he is make an implicit reference to the 100 years worth of evidence behind it. Likewise, "I do not believe in any deities," refers to the lack of evidence. In both cases, the evidence comes first.

In a non-scientific mind, belief comes first. "I believe in God" is a statement without reference to evidence. Supporting evidence, is either not required or comes afterward. Such people have a hard time understanding the scientific mindset that requires evidence first, they just assume everyone believes first. Their "belief in belief" is itself without evidence, and so they can't be convinced there is another way to handle beliefs and evidence.

This is not to say that all scientists use their scientific minds in religion. Many just leave it at the laboratory and are no more scientific in their religious life than non-scientists.

I know that's inconvenient, but oh, well...

I tried to believe that Trump is the greatest president ever, but the darned evidence kept getting in the way.

languages about those sets, being remarkably difficult to define. In practical terms it means, for most of us, something like: beliefs about the real world that other people we respect have confirmed.

But "Truth" is a perception I find...
As long as there are two or more people I don't think there will be one "Truth"

A perception more than folks want to believe. Your eyes and brains don't take perfect pictures of reality there's a lot of stitching and filling in going on. We don't even agree on what color something is.

I don’t think anyone here is going to disagree - although there is a philosophical position that claims it is.

There is a shared physical universe we are all imperfectly perceiving, right?

maybe. Our reality is built on our perception. That's it, full stop.

We can't see past our perception so for each individual, perception is literally reality in the sense of incoming stimuli being "processed" by our brains. Our reality comes from what, our senses...and our senses are heavily processed by our brains. We see patterns that aren't there, we hear sounds that aren't there, everything we sense is technically a tiny bit in the past by the time we sense it, we literally don't see our nose in front of our face because our brain edits it out of our sight.

Now, I personally think there's at least some version of objective reality...the ground is always beneath, fire is always hot, I will always fall towards the ground...basic stuff. But quantum physics throws a lot of basic stuff into the trash bin...effect preceding cause, things interacting with themselves, things being in two places at once, reality depending on observation (double slit experiment)...maybe Einstein is wrong, maybe the moon isn't there until it's observed.

I mean it probably is.

And I can't be sure that my brain isn't in a vat, and some experiment is just feeding me sensory information, and I'm either interacting with other vat brains or I'm the only vat brain interacting with computer generated people...or that I'm really a complicated program that thinks it's a human. I mean, I feel pretty sure neither of those things are true, but I also probably can't rule them out either.

So all that is to say, yes reality is probably reality...but there's a fuzziness there folks shouldn't forget either.

"What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence"

Latin proverb quod grātīs asseritur, grātīs negātur ("What is freely asserted is freely dismissed",

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor

When someone says, "First, assume God," one can answer, "I do not accept your assumption. Present your God for examination. What? you cannot? This discussion is over."

And not just relating to discussions about religion.

It's like a Get Out Jail Free card for terrible ideas.