there seem to have been a strong increase in entymological arguments lately, more precisely regarding the term atheist.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/198111/1/lets-settle-this-for-once-and-for-all-is-atheism-a-belief-a-non-belief-or-an-anti-belief.
i have reread the thread and i think i see where it goes very wrong.
Does that mean that the only true theists are those who believe they can prove the existence of their god?
Faith-based theists, like Burns said above, do not believe they can prove it - they believe it on faith. There probably is no truer form of theism than that.
Athiests, however, often seem to deny that they use faith to pronounce something they cannot prove - i.e. - that there is definately no god.
there seem to have been a strong increase in entymological arguments lately, more precisely regarding the term atheist.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/198111/1/lets-settle-this-for-once-and-for-all-is-atheism-a-belief-a-non-belief-or-an-anti-belief.
i have reread the thread and i think i see where it goes very wrong.
Well, I do not believe you can prove the existence of God empirically, and your statement would therefore make me an agnostic. But I am not an agnostic.
Somewhere in your statement there seems to be a flaw, and that flaw resides in the bolded part.
No Burns - that makes you (in my view) a faith-based theist who acknowledges that he has no proof but relies on faith.
I think it should be modified to this:
....in principle unknowable....
This is different from unprovable.
Knowable, to me, without proof - implies a measure of faith. Provable, to me, implies demonstrated evidence to back up the belief. An adherent to strictly scientific method would almost certainly never claim to "know" something he could not "prove". A religious thinker almost always claims to "know" things that he cannot "prove".
there seem to have been a strong increase in entymological arguments lately, more precisely regarding the term atheist.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/198111/1/lets-settle-this-for-once-and-for-all-is-atheism-a-belief-a-non-belief-or-an-anti-belief.
i have reread the thread and i think i see where it goes very wrong.
I believe there is a God, and I cannot prove it. If I could prove it, I would not need to believe.
Many believers in God think that they actually can prove it, although that "proof" may not amount to much of anything to anyone else.
I have a friend who claims to be an atheist (used to be a 7th day adventist, then a Scientologist) - and he claims he has proved there is no God.
Asked him how, and he said he stood on a hill and called out to the sky - "God, I do not believe in you. So, if you exist, then strike me dead right here and now". As he survived it, he congratulated himself on "proving" there is no God. He was serious. I did not comment, as I could not think of anything nice to say about this idiocy.
One of the definitions of agnosticism is that this person believes that the existence of God is in principle unprovable - either positively or negatively.
there seem to have been a strong increase in entymological arguments lately, more precisely regarding the term atheist.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/198111/1/lets-settle-this-for-once-and-for-all-is-atheism-a-belief-a-non-belief-or-an-anti-belief.
i have reread the thread and i think i see where it goes very wrong.
Atheists do not believe there is no God, they simply are not in a position to believe there is a God because of the absence of proof.
That is what Essen and I (and a dictionary, for that matter) would call an agnostic. There are many in this category, like myself.
A true Atheist actually believes there is no God, and that they can prove it. There are many in this category as well. They are almost always much more evangalistic about this belief than the agnostic.
my opinion is that atheism is not a belief.
it is a belief in no belief..
It is faith to conclude that God does not exist, which is why Agnostics refrain from making that judgement.
Theists do have basis for their belief, it just isn't conclusive. They bridge the gap with faith.
Atheists do have basis for their belief, it just is not conclusive. They bridge the gap with faith.
A negative claim must also meet the burden of proof. Atheists cannot prove that God does not exist any more than Theists can prove he does. Therefore for the claim to be accepted it requires............ faith.
This is exactly my view on the subject, Essan. It is fascinating to me how many self-proclaimed atheists want to define themselves (and the word atheist) otherwise.
my wife & i are conscious-class faders.
she still likes to read the daily text, just for different reasons now.
today's text mentioned "serious sins" and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
The most serious sin in JWland is to question the authenticity of the Governing Body and their appointed representatives.
The most serious sin in the Garden of Eden was eating a pomegranite. This was an automatic death penalty without the possibility of appeal.
recently, i was sent the following information and asked--was i aware of the 1952 overlapping concept regarding the "generation" teaching?
did the watch tower return to "old light" ?
see below link from a jw website and article from watchtower, sept. 1, 1952. what do you think?http://jehovahswitnessnews.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/the-overlap-jehovahs-witness-consistency/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=feed%3a+jehovahswitnessnews+%28jehovah%27s+witness+news%29.
Wasblind - sorry, had a company issue to do for about 30 minutes.
To the Watchtower, saying "the generation of 1914" is no longer the same thing as saying "people alive in 1914" due to the new light in which they redefined the word generation.
That old Watchtower of 1952 plainly said "some people living in 1914".
recently, i was sent the following information and asked--was i aware of the 1952 overlapping concept regarding the "generation" teaching?
did the watch tower return to "old light" ?
see below link from a jw website and article from watchtower, sept. 1, 1952. what do you think?http://jehovahswitnessnews.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/the-overlap-jehovahs-witness-consistency/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=feed%3a+jehovahswitnessnews+%28jehovah%27s+witness+news%29.
So, Undercover - you agree with me that NO - this new generation teaching is not OLD LIGHT per se - but it is just the latest in a constant history of revisions to cover the fact that nothing happened in 1914, and nothing happened for years after?
Certainly, nobody in the WTBTS today would be caught dead proclaiming that quotation that some people alive in 1914 would see Armageddon, right?
recently, i was sent the following information and asked--was i aware of the 1952 overlapping concept regarding the "generation" teaching?
did the watch tower return to "old light" ?
see below link from a jw website and article from watchtower, sept. 1, 1952. what do you think?http://jehovahswitnessnews.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/the-overlap-jehovahs-witness-consistency/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=feed%3a+jehovahswitnessnews+%28jehovah%27s+witness+news%29.
Some persons living A.D. 1914 when the series of foretold events began will also be living when the series ends with Armageddon.
I take it that the witnesses no longer believe this quote - taken from that 1952 article?
my opinion is that atheism is not a belief.
it is a belief in no belief..
We live in a world where THEISTIC beliefs affect your everyday life, there are laws that have roots in religion and we just take it. Why?
I contend that even if certain laws had a root in early religion, they have been upheld in many religions (not just one) and by non-religious general ethics for human society. For example, the U.S. has laws against murder and theft, but not laws about tithing or when and where to worship.
A lot of this has to do with simple reasonableness. I would strongly oppose sharia law, because I believe that stoning people to death and oppression of women's rights is immoral and prehistoric in today's society. Yet, I do not care about traditions like the slogans "one nation under god" or "in god we trust" so long as they are historic, benign as to specific religion, and do not create some factual oppression of anyone.
