Definition of Atheist

by ZeusRocks 116 Replies latest jw friends

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  Deputy Dog

  bohm

  I point out to you that that is not how any atheists use the term, you point me to the dictionary and say that if its in the dictionary, thats what it mean no matter what.

  That's an interesting statment. So you claim most Atheist use a word to discribe themselves, that doesn't discribe them themselves? I'm confused!

  Scientists only deal in probabilities...

  So it is not possible to "know" anything (except math) 100%? How about natural laws?

  Lets sum up. Dawkins devote a whole chapter in the God delusion (titled: "why there is allmost certainly no God") to describe how far-fetched he find the idea of an God. He likes it to believing in the tooth-fairy...

  Dawkins wants to call himself an "Atheist". OK that's fine with me, that's his decision.

  Can you admit the title you quoted "why there is allmost certainly no God" proves his bias? His world view is based on the ideal, that there is no God.

  Then...Dawkins wants to sound "rational"... so he knows he has to open the door a little, and say: (even though, deep down, he bases everything on the ideal, that there is no God) it's possible that I'm wrong, there's no way to know 100%.

  You're confused? I think he's fooling himself. He's not being honest. I really don't care what he calls himself, he wants it both ways.

  Bottom line: He wants to live his life as an Atheist, he even talks like an Atheist. He simply can't be 100% sure and according to him there is no way to know.
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  THE GLADIATOR

  Just wading into the battle at the ninth hour to confuse things even more.

  I am assumed to be an atheist because I do not believe in the personal gods that major religions present to the world. I have questioned what I see as major contradictions among Christians and biblical interpretation.

  That does not mean that I have exclude the possibility that there is an intelligence that pervades the universe; or that I do not commune with nature. I don't mean the word driven type of intelligence that humans use. Rather a connectedness throughout the universe making it aware of its own development and existence. This is not a new idea and was in vogue long before today's major religions were invented.

  I am just a tiny carbon unit on the surface of one of billions of planets. I am in awe of galaxies that are hundreds of millions of light years away. What do I really know? I have no fixed view. No belief that I identify with. I hide behind my gladiator avatar but remain open-minded.
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  transhuman68

  Dawkins didn't rule out the possibility of there being a god, but his concept of god definitely isn't anything you would find in the Bible or the Koran!

  Certainly not an entity that hears prayers or is going to bring about Armageddon.
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  bohm

  DD: 1) "That's an interesting statment. So you claim most Atheist use a word to discribe themselves, that doesn't discribe them themselves? I'm confused!" - no i claim one of the common definitions is unworkable, and does not adaquately describe the belief of atheists. Let me examplify it with a small play:

  "I had a jolly gay time with my family this christmas!"
  "oh my god, you and your entire family engaged in homosexual activities?"
  "No, gay - you know, merry, happy"
  "No, it mean homosexual! you said your family was homosexual!"
  "I did no such thing!"
  "Its in the dictionary! thats what you mean! you cant just redefine words in the dictionary to suit your purpose! noone who say they had a gay christmas actually have it! OMG i win!"

  2) "So it is not possible to "know" anything (except math) 100%? How about natural laws?"

  Bingo. the 100% does not exist in science. Did you really think so?. Dont quote-mine scientists to refute me - you have to quote a scientist who explicitly address the question if we can know a law is valid with probability 1, or if we can only know it with probability < 0.99999..99999.

  3) Can you admit the title you quoted "why there is allmost certainly no God" proves his bias? His world view is based on the ideal, that there is no God.

  The problem is you havent taken your time to understand dawkins or modern science, so you keep repeating your false impression of how science work as a "problem". Lets restate your sentence using a physical example: "eather theory". Then it would be: "why there is allmost certainly no eather". Let me clarify: noone believe there is an eather; it was introduced to solve a problem that did not exist after Einstein discovered relativity, and it didnt quite solve the problem in the first place and created a lot of other problems. It was an ugly hypothesis Einstein did away with. Said in another way: if there is an eather Einstein is wrong. Noone believe in the eather. yet we cannot know for certain there is no eather. Thus "why there is allmost certainly no eather" is about as good as it gets from a scientific perspective.

  Yet all textbook operate from the "ideal" the eather does not exist, and relativity is the way to go, simply because writing "it is allmost certainly true that ..." in front of everything is to cumbersome.

  According to you thats wanting it both ways and confusing, but you miss the point that its the way science work.

  you can bash science and say it should deal with certainty like theology. i cant see how that would work, but your free to do that. But you cant blame dawkins for being inconsistent like you do; and i think you should at least inform yourself a little about science before you try to do so.
• 

  Deputy Dog

  bohm

  The problem is you havent taken your time to understand dawkins or modern science, so you keep repeating your false impression of how science work as a "problem"

  No, the problem is, you just want to talk about science, when the term "Atheist" isn't even a scientific term, but a theological one.

  Maybe you could spend a little time learning about theology, and philosophy so you don't keep making a fool of yourself.
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  bohm

  DD: "the problem is, you just want to talk about science, when the term "Atheist" isn't even a scientific term, but a theological one.
  Maybe you could spend a little time learning about theology, and philosophy so you don't keep making a fool of yourself."

  In the previous post it became clear your critisism of Dawkins was based on a fundamental ignorance with respect to what certainty mean in science. Instead of reflecting upon that, you now seem to argue that I (and by extension dawkins) are wrong because only theology can dictate what atheist mean (goalpost move!) and top it up by an add-hominem that I am the ignorant one, apparently to hide the fact you was so hopelessly wrong before.

  Its a very interesting position atheists dont have a say in what it mean to be atheist because they are not theologicans. In perticular in the light that your own definition of what you believe Dawkins are; an agnostic; fall so short in actually describing what he believe.

  So your position is that theologicans are the only people who can define the word "atheist". Therefore Dawkins should either comply to the theological definition of the term, or use another term to describe what he believe, for example "Btheist"?
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  wobble

  The theists often like to try to reduce the question to "Either there is a God or there isn't, which do you believe ?"

  The problem is that life ain't that simple.

  First of all.what do you mean by "God" ???

  As soon as we "Atheists" (and I put that in quotes because this thread has shown it covers quite a spectrum that word !) say we do not believe in Thor, Woden, Zeus or Khali etc etc the theists then start on the "Original Cause" argument.You must believe in an " Intelligent Designer ".

  They then think if they win that argument (doubtful in the extreme) they will be able to convince us that their god is the "True" God.

  I do not believe in a personal God, the Gods of all the religions of the world are a preposterous invention of men. Especially the Yahweh/Jehovah of the Christian Churches.

  That does not mean that I throw away the centuries of thought, study and meditation that the divines of the past have done, most of the great thinkers amongst them transcended the childlike view that there was a sky-daddy, most of them said that it was impossible to talk of God in human language, he is greater than that.

  Most of them, from the Buddah to the Jewish Kabbalists and beyond feel that there is something that a good person can, not just tap in to, but become, that proves there is a "God". An En Sof to steal a name from our Jewish friends.

  To reduce the argument to mere semantics is to lose the point of centuries of thought, and to lose a clear way to access the spiritual.