Posts by EdenOne

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

EdenOne

Simply put, a belief defines an idea or principle which we judge to be true.

To a theist, "belief" in a deity means that he judges his thoughts and images and stories about God to be true. The lack of belief of the atheist comes from the fact that the doesn't share the same judgement as the theist. But his lack of belief isn't the direct result of the lack of evidence. That lack of evidence results in lack of knowledge. Only then, based on the lack of knowledge, he judges that absence of knowledge as grounds to not share the belief of the theist. But that judgement he makes is in itself a belief.

What I'm trying to say is that there seems to be an illogical proposition to say that lack of belief is a direct consequence of lack of evidence. The logical consequence of lack of evidence is lack of knowledge. The direct consequence of lack of evidence about the existence of God is agnosticism.

First, please refrain from commenting on things you cannot possibly know, such as how "most" atheists feel when someone makes a bag argument.

Ok, I'll rephrase: Most atheists that I have come in contact with ....

Eden

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

EdenOne

Viviane:

Precisely, the claims that most theists make about their deities - and lets now use the most common sense of the word deity - is that they are ultimately immaterial in nature. That makes it impossible to acquire evidence about them. Of course, common sense tells us that it's easy to fabricate "evidence", and built a system of belief based on deception. But in any case, even if we can call BS on these religious systems, and be pretty confident that no god is going to send us to hell for it, it's still a "belief" and not "knowledge". Now most atheists get very offended when theists say that atheism is a "belief" and argue that atheism is simply a lack of belief based on the lack of evidence. But what I see here is that the lack of belief in this case is in itself a form of belief. Because what you get from lack of evidence is lack of knowledge. And those who claim lack of knowledge are agnostics, not atheists.

Eden

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

EdenOne

Ruby:

edenOne, help me out, what didn't you understand?

The part about cognitive behavioral therapy of an ex-jw. The phrasing is confusing to me, and I din't get what you were trying to convey.

Eden

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

EdenOne

Cofty: You just did.

Ruby: I didn't understand what you were trying to say.

Eden

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

EdenOne

My initial question is what exactly is "belief", especially when used in the context of the definition of atheism - "lack of belief in the existence of God or deities".

Since the lack of belief is said to be supported on the lack of evidence, my perplexity is this: Lack of evidence leads to lack of knowledge. [You may call this a "major unfounded assertion", but you haven't proven me wrong.] I can only know something because I have evidence about it. If I don't have evidence about it, best I can do is to say that I don't know, or make an educated guess. Ergo, lack of evidence leads to lack of knowledge.

What is more logically sound, then:

"There's no evidence, therefore, I don't know"; or

"There's no evidence, therefore, I lack belief?"

Eden

87

Why people don't believe in God

by pressman in

do you want to know why i think people don't believe in god?

well i believe people don't want to believe in god because they are scared.

they know that if they finally do gorge the confidence to believe in him, he might discipline them for their skepticism.

EdenOne

you just need to believe

If God is at least half all-powerful, for sure he could find a way to provide unequivocal EVIDENCE of his existence, so that we don't have to rely on belief, but in true knowledge. Why would God require us to believe, when it would be so easy to let us know? There's no virtue of faith over knowledge that I can think of.

Alas, we're still waiting.

Eden

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

EdenOne

From Merriam-Webster:

"Belief"
a feeling of being sure that someone or something exists or that something is true
a feeling that something is good, right, or valuable
a feeling of trust in the worth or ability of someone
a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing
something believed; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group
conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence

Notice that "belief" is characterized as a feeling, state of mind, conviction. Never as knowledge.

My question is: If lack of evidence cannot produce positive knowledge, on what grounds is the lack of belief of an atheist more sound than the belief of a theist?

That's a ridiculous platitude that makes a major unfounded assumption.

I stand corrected if you can prove me that lack of evidence can produce positive knowledge.

Eden

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

EdenOne

Viviane: I lack belief due to lack of evidence.

Lack of evidence leads to lack of knowledge.

In turn, lack of knowledge may lead to lack of belief, but not necessarily. Some people believe - or don't believe - irrespective of knowledge to justify such beliefs.

Eden

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

EdenOne

I'm asking. It usually means I don't know, but I'm interested in knowing.

Eden

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

EdenOne

Stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

What exactly is "belief"?

Is it the same to ask: "Do you believe in God?" or "Do you believe in the pope?" or "Do you believe in this report on the news?" The word is the same, but I think it has different value in the three situations above.

To question if someone believes in God, it has implicit that what is being questioned is the existence of God. However, to question if one believes the pope, it's not the existence of the pope that's implicit in the question, but rather, if you agree that he or the church he leads represents Jesus or God on earth. To ask if you believe a certain information questions if you hold it as credible as truth or fact.

In ancient greek, two terms dealt with concepts akin to belief: Pistis and Doxa. The first dealt with trust and confidence, the latter with opinion and acceptance. But since no distinction exists in English, when we're dealing with how atheism asserts the non-belief in deities, what belief exactly are we talking about?

Eden