EdenOne

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Posts by EdenOne

• 
  233

  What is BELIEF ?

  by EdenOne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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?

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  EdenOne

  Finkelstein:

  In that case, atheism is a result of "acquired evidence" as opposed to "lack of evidence"? is that your claim?

  Seems to me that what you're saying describes the loss of theist belief, not the same thing as atheism.

  Eden
• 
  233

  What is BELIEF ?

  by EdenOne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  EdenOne

  Cofty: An agnostic is just an atheist who has some more thinking to do.

  On the basis of every soft atheist is an agnostic. What he chooses to do with that lack of evidence is a matter of belief.

  -------

  "We now know that our intellectual value judgments—that is, the degree to which we believe or disbelieve an idea—are powerfully influenced by our brains' proclivity for attachment. Our brains are attachment machines, attaching not just to people and places, but to ideas. And not just in a coldly rational manner. Our brains become intimately emotionally entangled with ideas we come to believe are true (however we came to that conclusion) and emotionally allergic to ideas we believe to be false. This emotional dimension to our rational judgment explains a gamut of measurable biases that show just how unlike computers our minds are:

  1. Confirmation bias, which causes us to pay more attention and assign greater credence to ideas that support our current beliefs. That is, we cherry pick the evidence that supports a contention we already believe and ignore evidence that argues against it.
  2. Disconfirmation bias, which causes us to expend disproportionate energy trying to disprove ideas that contradict our current beliefs.

  Accuracy of belief isn't our only cognitive goal. Our other goal is to validate our pre-existing beliefs, beliefs that we've been building block by block into a cohesive whole our entire lives. In the fight to accomplish the latter, confirmation bias and disconfirmation bias represent two of the most powerful weapons at our disposal, but simultaneously compromise our ability to judge ideas on their merits and the evidence for or against them."

  - Alex Likerman, M.D. in Psychology Today

  
  
• 
  233

  What is BELIEF ?

  by EdenOne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  EdenOne

  Village Idiot
  

  What is BELIEF ?
  Intellectual desire.

  If I desire to win the lottery tomorrow, does that make me a believer?

  Eden
• 
  233

  What is BELIEF ?

  by EdenOne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  EdenOne

  Deities are undefined

  I see you're also perfectly capable of bag arguments. No they're not. They're often vaguely defined, that's entirely different. Several common traits of deities: Superhuman, immaterial, intelligent, powerful beings who somehow take interest in human affairs and are capable of influence them. That's certainly vague, but not "undefined".

  So now you're going to try to tell me what I believe or don't and why? Really?

  The fact that you identify yourself as atheist and you think it is because it meets certain criteria doesn't automatically makes the definition of atheism logically sound. What you believe or don't believe isn't in discussion here.

  It's like saying "you don't have any money, therefore you have money!"

  False analogy. I meant nothing like that.

  Rational people SHOULD be offended when people make bad arguments about others feelings and ideas and assert knowledge they cannot possibly have.

  You're contradicting your own statement. You said that, in spite of not having evidence that I wasn't a zebra, you could confidently know that I wasn't a zebra. By the same logic, I could assert knowledge about others feelings and ideas. You are making yourself a spokesperson for the entire atheist group, something you cannot possibly do. Your logic is flawed here. In any case, it's besides the point. I'm just questioning the logical soundness of the definition of atheism as a "lack of belief due to the lack of evidence for the existence of god". That lack of evidence is grounds for agnosticism. The lack of belief is in itself a belief that grounds itself on the lack of knowledge. What you define yourself as being, is irrelevant to this discussion.

  Eden
• 
  233

  What is BELIEF ?

  by EdenOne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  EdenOne

  Outlaw:

  Richard Dawkins made more money out of god than I ever did ... that's a fact.

  Eden
• 
  233

  What is BELIEF ?

  by EdenOne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  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

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  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

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  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

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  EdenOne

  Cofty: You just did.

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

  Eden
• 
  233

  What is BELIEF ?

  by EdenOne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  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