andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2009-07-10 02:08 pm
andrewducker) wrote2009-07-10 02:08 pm
Belief - repost
Question three was borked. Rewritten to actually cover all the bases, and not be internally contradictory. Apologies to the 7 people who already filled it in!
[Poll #1427776]
[Poll #1427776]
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A supernatural belief system is illogical, but not impossible.
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An atheist belief system is illogical, but not impossible.
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I believe that it is possible that some being outside of all we understand (and possibly all we can understand) created our universe and interferes with it as they wish.
But without proof I find it unreasonable to actively believe this.
And without proof I find it unreasonable to declare it impossible.
Therefore I stay strongly agnostic - but generally act (day-to-day) as if I were atheistic.
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That do you?
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The problem being a need for a definition of "God"...
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I like "culturally postulated supernatural being", myself. It lets you include anima and the Buddha without including psychics and UFOs, which conveniently matches up with the most-common definition of "religion".
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Just found that.
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You don't believe that the answer is impossible, and you don't believe that we *don't* know. You find it unreasonable to believe in the supernatural: that makes you not an agnostic.
At the same time, unless I've missed something, you do not believe in any god(s). Or in fairies or in psychics or in alien abductions or the tooth fairy or any other religious-but-too-unpopular-to-get-protection belief.
This makes you "not a theist".
Which is to say, "an atheist".
You're not a "God cannot exist" atheist, but that doesn't matter. Nothing about your beliefs in the possibility of gods changes your current lack of belief in any of them.
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Your second clause doesn't really follow from your first. Most atheists and a great many theists are also agnostic.
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And whichever one I use to mean "atheist" one of the other types will pop up and contradict me. So I prefer to use agnostic, so that I am describing my state of knowledge (unknown) rather than the universe.
And I don't just find it unreasonable to believe in the supernatural - I find it unreasonable to believe in anything that lacks proof. Which includes, say, various conspiracy theories.
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And, reall,y I'm not saying you can't call this position agnostic. I'm simply saying, I'd call it atheistic:
Since you don't actively believe that one or more of the postulated supernatural things are affirmatively true, you're not a theist. To not be a theist is to be an atheist. Full stop.
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But as long as you're incorrectly conceding the rhetorical possibility of "believe in a negative", I'd call that an atheist.
"What do you call someone who likes football?"
"A fan"
"But what if they like football AND really like Man U"
"They're a fan."
"But those things are different!"
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I cannot disprove the existence of God, and I would find it insulting and inapprorpriate for someone to think I was insisting that God definitely did not exist. And so I do not use the word atheist about myself, because that it how people seem to use it.
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I can understand why it would not be scientifically verifiable, but in a world where it's acceptable to claim existence of a being based on the evidence of select texts, I don't see why it should be insulting to strongly argue that God definitely doesn't exist.
That is to say, I cannot prove my assertion that God doesn't exist, but I am more than happy to go toe to toe with those who are willing to insist that he does and to argue with equal fervour.
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I'm happy to argue that there's no reason to think God exists, and that assertions that he does are without grounds. Just not to assert that God is impossible.
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I say that believing that none of the "culturally postulated supernatural beings" are real is as irrational as believing that one is.
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You can say this all you want. You will still be wrong.
(Hint: the underpants gnomes, the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, and God all have exactly the same evidence in favour of them and the exact same track record on influencing the real world.)
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the underpants gnomes: Culturally understood to be responsible for theft of underwear. Large scale inexplicable underwear theft not reported. I'm happy to believe in non-existence.
The tooth fairy, Santa Claus: Culturally understood to be responsible swapping teeth placed under pillow for rewards, and providing stockings full of presents. Others have since made plausible claims for personal responsibility. I'm happy to believe in non-existence.
God: Culturally understood to be outside the universe as is and laws of physics . Responsible for many things such as maintenance of an afterlife, creation of the universe, and possibly small scale tinkering with the day to day running of the universe. There is no real argument that can be made using my day to day experiences that contradicts these. I'm not happy to believe in non-existence.
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1) "lack of belief" is not a positive statement. Attempting to mischaracterise "a lack of belief" as a positive assertion in nonexistence is, in and of itself, either intellectually incompetent or intellectually dishonest. Bald is not a hair colour. "Not collecting stamps" is not a hobby. Lacking assertive belief is not assertive belief.
2) You, like them, have forgotten about the gravity gremlins, the flying spaghetti monster, the invisible pink unicorn, the tooth fairy, and an infinite number of other, evidenceless, undetectable, meaningless, purporseless constructs, who have identical support to your assertion of God. As long as you're going to alter the culturally postulated God into a meaningless, irrelevant, untestable state, you have to accept that belief in it is a utterly irrational as belief in *anything else anyone can make up that's equally as untestable*.
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