The reason why we tend to get annoyed with theists arguing from the dictionary is that we are first assigned a one-size-fits-all label and then told which position we are supposed to hold.

The dictionary definition of theist is not substantively different. I don’t believe in multiple gods, yet those who do are also defined as theists. Whether one believes in one god or an infinite number of gods is not relevant to whether one is a theist. Simply believing in any number of gods defines one as a theist.

I don’t see how the dictionary definition of atheist tells anyone which positions to hold, either. You define yourself as an atheist the moment you disbelieve that there is such a thing as one or more deities. Nobody is telling anyone what positions to hold.

Interestingly enough, “faith” is a synonym of “belief.”

Anyway… this seems pointless. We’re apparently not going to agree. Blame it all on my ignorance if that’s what helps you get thru another day. I don’t much mind either way.

I have poked around some and notice that many of you regulars here (and Les) aren’t very far from me politically. My political compass is very close to Les’ - (-5.6, -4).

So, at least we have some common ground.

KPatrick said: I always find it disturbing when a fundy turns up with my name. People keep saying “Kevin said this or that�? and I want to scream “I did not!�?

Yeah, I know that feeling.  Just wait until there’s two of them pissing people off.  That’s why I don’t use my first name on boards/blogs.

Kevin said: “faith�? is a synonym of “belief.�?

Because of how people use it.  That’s why atheism is defined the way it is, by the way it’s used.  In a country that’s mostly Christian, that’s what the Christians will say an atheist is - someone who does not believe in God.  So guess what’s going in the book.  Most atheists use the word differently, as you have found.  My dictionary (Websters II) says “Disbelief or denial in the existence of god” and “The quality or state of being godless”.  That definition is the definition of strong atheism.  Weak atheism is considered the lack of belief in a god unless provided with objective evidence.  Weak atheism is sometimes considered agnosticism, but some consider agnosticism to mean that the existence of a god is something we CANNOT know.  My own stance (as described by others) will vary from agnostic to weak atheism, depending on which view/definition you take. 

The dictionary is not an absolute rulebook, but a picture at the time of printing of current word usage in our culture, all subject to change by popular usage.

You seem to be upset that we don’t fit in your descriptive little box…

My dictionary (Websters II) says “Disbelief or denial in the existence of god�? and “The quality or state of being godless�?.  That definition is the definition of strong atheism.

Crap.  Shoulda preveiwed.

The strong atheism definition I was refering to was from Kevin’s dictionary.  Belief that god does not exist.

The dictionary is not an absolute rulebook

It is to a dictionary fundamentalist.

Anyway… this seems pointless. We’re apparently not going to agree. Blame it all on my ignorance if that’s what helps you get thru another day. I don’t much mind either way.

Let’s agree to disagree. God I’m suprised that no one has made a Kindergarten Cop joke out of you yet. Sheesh.

You seem to be upset that we don’t fit in your descriptive little box…

Actually, what’s been bothering me is the wildly fluctuating (from my POV) definitions of simple words. If I can define words the way I want willy nilly fashion, how can anyone hope to carry on an intelligent conversation with me if we can’t even agree on what the words mean? I suppose that’s not all that different from what you said. Except that I would argue that it’s not my box that some of you aren’t fitting in… which seems to be the root issue.

LOL needless to say I’ve got a bit of a control freak streak. The shades of grey vis-a-vis the definitions instead of my desired black and white bugs me. But, that’s my cross to bear, so to speak.

That said, your reply actually made the most sense to me out of all of them in terms of what you were saying jiving with what I understand the words to mean.

elwedriddsche: It is to a dictionary fundamentalist.

Touche.

Nice word play, too. It cracked me up when I first saw it. 

So anyway, how ‘bout teachin’ them kids about a-theism an’ all that?

Being different is really hard for kids.  When the difference is something culturally associated with evil (and the kids are too young to get a cache of “cool” from it) it’s a real burden for them.  What to do?

What strikes me as really ironic about this whole discussion is that the first reaction you’ll get from Christians when you point out one of their numbers that’s acting very un-Christ-like is that he’s not a “true” Christian. At which point they will proceed to redefine what a Christian is to exclude the example given.

The other point that seems to be lost on Kevin is that dictionaries are not meant to be the final arbiter on what a word means. Dictionaries attempt to provide a basic definition for words that are in common use and they change the definitions in response to the changes in language. In other words, language defines what’s in the dictionary. This is why differing dictionaries can have significant variations on what a definition for a word happens to be. There are plenty of theists who disagree just as much with definitions in various dictionaries.

Interestingly enough, “faith�? is a synonym of “belief.�?

And by the same token the antonyms of “faith” are “disbelief” and “unbelief.” Let’s look ‘em up, shall we? And we’ll use the Merriam-Webster dictionary for this seeing as you seem to hold it as some sort of final authority:

Main Entry: dis·be·lief
Function: noun
: the act of disbelieving : mental rejection of something as untrue

Main Entry: un·be·lief
Function: noun
: incredulity or skepticism especially in matters of religious faith

Please explain how the above does not support my previous explanations in any way.

I enter the discussion for the sole purpose of pointing out that this is inaccurate.

The suggestion that one can have faith in one’s absence of faith is absurd and illogical.

Your position is that you do not believe God exists, and you have found no compelling evidence to move you to such a belief.  Given the absence of certainty, and acknowledgement that compelling evidence could move you towards such a belief, you have faith in your current assessment that there is not a God.  You in fact do have faith in your absence of faith. 

Regards,

Consi,

Do you grant that there is a difference from not having any particular belief in or about God from active disbelief of God?  It strikes me that such a distinction is the basis of our position that atheism isn’t necessarily a matter of faith.  It seems that if one actively disbelieves in God for no reason, such a stance would require a leap of faith to some degree.  However, if one simply says “I don’t have enough evidence to make any judgment regarding the existence of God, so I won’t take any particular position other than to admit that I don’t have sufficient evidence to make a decision,” it doesn’t seem that one requires faith in anything.  If you disagree, then you have to explain to me your grounds, because I just don’t see how the second position requires faith.

We’ve had all kinds of fundamentalists here, but as far as I know, Kevin is our first Merriam-Webster supremacist.

Actually, what’s been bothering me is the wildly fluctuating (from my POV) definitions of simple words.

No, Kevin, “theist” and “atheist are not simple words.  “Antidisestablishmentarianism” is a simple word.

The shades of grey vis-a-vis the definitions instead of my desired black and white bugs me. But, that’s my cross to bear, so to speak.

Precisely.  If you’re looking for black and white definitions, try mathematics.  Or fundamental Christianity, for that matter- thinking that complex phenomena can be neatly pigeonholed is symptomatic of the religious view of the world, and part of my problem with religion.  Such sharp distinctions can’t always usefully be applied to living languages- meanings of many words are more like clouds, with fuzzy edges that often overlap each other.

Take “belief” and “faith”.  Some use them synonymously: “I believe in the Easter Bunny.  I have faith in the Easter Bunny”.  Others don’t: “I believe the sun will rise tomorrow.  I find faith in God dangerous”.  Who is using the words “correctly”?  This is an apposite point, because atheists often use “faith” to mean “belief without evidence” and equate “faith” with “not thinking logically”.  Theists, who usually want to be considered logical too, retort that atheists have “faith” in this sense too: faith in evolution, or faith that God doesn’t exist.  The different axes being ground here lead their wielders to chop up the language differently, which can be amusing to watch, but often frustrates communication.

Language is created and used by people, and for slippery words such as “faith” and “atheist”, the people who use them must decide what they mean for themselves, as best they can.  Appealing to a dictionary for the “true” meaning of such words is like appealling to the Bible for the “true” account of the Creation: both will only give you what one particular group of people at one particular time felt to be true: often useful, but not definitive for all times and circumstances.

I will close with a few words of wisdom from a real expert in language:

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,’ it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master - that’s all.’

Your position is that you do not believe God exists, and you have found no compelling evidence to move you to such a belief.

You can not find compelling evidence that anything doesn’t exist. It is the lack of compelling evidence in support of it’s existence that leads one to conclude it doesn’t exist.

How do you decide that anything doesn’t exist with the logic you’re using? Or are you suggesting that you go around saying things like, “Well, I don’t know for certain that Diminutive Underwear Trolls don’t exist someplace out there and seeing as I’m not omniscient and I have no compelling evidence that shows they don’t exist I guess I’ll just have faith that they don’t.”

Given the absence of certainty, and acknowledgement that compelling evidence could move you towards such a belief, you have faith in your current assessment that there is not a God.  You in fact do have faith in your absence of faith.

That’s a patently ridiculous statement to make. It turns all negative decisions about reality into articles of faith because you can never know for certain that tomorrow some form of compelling evidence in support of something won’t show up. Again, from the alt.atheism FAQ in regards to proving a negative:

“But isn’t it impossible to prove the non-existence of something?”

There are many counter-examples to such a statement. For example, it is quite simple to prove that there does not exist a prime number larger than all other prime numbers. Of course, this deals with well-defined objects obeying well-defined rules. Whether Gods or universes are similarly well-defined is a matter for debate.

However, assuming for the moment that the existence of a God is not provably impossible, there are still subtle reasons for assuming the non-existence of God. If we assume that something does not exist, it is always possible to show that this assumption is invalid by finding a single counter-example.

If on the other hand we assume that something does exist, and if the thing in question is not provably impossible, showing that the assumption is invalid may require an exhaustive search of all possible places where such a thing might be found, to show that it isn’t there. Such an exhaustive search is often impractical or impossible. There is no such problem with largest primes, because we can prove that they don’t exist.

Therefore it is generally accepted that we must assume things do not exist unless we have evidence that they do. Even theists follow this rule most of the time; they don’t believe in unicorns, even though they can’t conclusively prove that no unicorns exist anywhere.

To assume that God exists is to make an assumption which probably cannot be tested. We cannot make an exhaustive search of everywhere God might be to prove that he doesn’t exist anywhere. So the sceptical atheist assumes by default that God does not exist, since that is an assumption we can test.

Those who profess strong atheism usually do not claim that no sort of God exists; instead, they generally restrict their claims so as to cover varieties of God described by followers of various religions. So whilst it may be impossible to prove conclusively that no God exists, it may be possible to prove that (say) a God as described by a particular religious book does not exist. It may even be possible to prove that no God described by any present-day religion exists.

In practice, believing that no God described by any religion exists is very close to believing that no God exists. However, it is sufficiently different that counter-arguments based on the impossibility of disproving every kind of God are not really applicable.

Consi, what zilch said. Faith is always good for a nice, juicy equivocation.

Kevin is our first Merriam-Webster supremacist.

You have to watch out for those activist dictionary compilers.

You can not find compelling evidence that anything doesn’t exist.

Sure you can.  Let’s use zilch’s toothfairy, which I presume takes on the common mythos that if one loses a tooth, they tuck it under the pillow and they get a quarter or dollar or whatever the toothfairy deems appropriate.

We can test this.  In every case, unless there is human intervention, the toothfairy fails to show.  There is no bad or good requirement in the toothfairy mythos that I’m aware of, so the toothfairy is required to show.  The failure to show, can be explained as a lack of existence of a toothfairy.  That is compelling evidence that the toothfairy does not exist.  Couple that with the collective wisdom in society that the toothfairy is a myth and it becomes even more compelling.

Now, we can’t do the same with God.  We can’t test His existence by praying for a specific thing to occur or not occur.  Most folks have an understanding of God that God gets to decide what prayers He is going to answer based on His superior knowledge. 

That said, there is anectdotal evidence amongst a vast portion of the population that there is a God, and that He answers prayers.  In most instances, the answer to the prayer is something to the effect of God granted me the strength I requested to get through a particular situation.  There are certainly alternative explanations for this, and the atheist may opt to believe in the alternative explanation.  However, that is a far cry from what we can test with respect to the toothfairy.

The belief in God is further distanced from a claim that the toothfairy exists by simply distinguishing between those individuals who are making the claim.  90% of the American public believes in God.  Of that group, there will of course be those that are loony tunes.  Accounting for that, I’ve yet to meet anybody above the age of 18 that said they believe in the toothfairy.  Not one person have I met.  Yet, I have met many that articulate a belief in God.  Of those folks, by and large the vast majority are intelligent, comptent, reasonable members of society.  They are part of humanity that you stand in awe of, if I may incorporate your comments from another thread.

In addition, there are such anomolies that have been studied such as remote prayer, that seem to indicate there are better outcomes for patients that receive remote prayer.  http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/323/7327/1450
It’s difficult to explain these away, although there may be alternative explanations.

Unlike the dismissal of the mythos of the toothfairy, which we can test and dismiss, the choice not to believe in God, does require an article of faith in the assessment made by that person.

Regards,

The belief in God is further distanced from a claim that the toothfairy exists by simply distinguishing between those individuals who are making the claim.  90% of the American public believes in God.  Of that group, there will of course be those that are loony tunes.  Accounting for that, I’ve yet to meet anybody above the age of 18 that said they believe in the toothfairy.  Not one person have I met.  Yet, I have met many that articulate a belief in God.

Most people have been told by their parents by the time they’re 10 that the Tooth Fairy doesn’t exist; there’s no need to apply the scientific method to the problem of the Tooth Fairy’s existence.  I’d venture to guess your asserted 90% of believers were not only NOT told by their parents (authority) that God - like the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny - doesn’t exist, but in fact have been taught from the time they were old enough to understand the spoken word that God absolutely DOES exist despite the absence of a single shred of testable evidence in support of his existence.

The problem is that the weight of an entire belief system does not rest on the question of whether the Tooth Fairy exists.  Not so the existence of God.  Comparing one to the other is held by Christians to be “apples to oranges,” whereas to an atheist the comparison is valid, because both are the stuff of myth, and the testable evidence in support of the existence of either entity is exactly nil.

So, the more apt analogy is that a belief in God is akin to a belief in quarks, rather than that of the toothfairy.

Regards,

In light of my abysmal ignorance (due to a complete lack of interest) of particle physics (which I’m guessing is where quarks come into play), I can’t really offer an opinion as to whether the analogy is more apt or not.  I can only guess, but I’d think there’s some evidence for the existence of quarks since in my experience, scientists don’t generally pull theories out of their asses (or directly from mythology).

However, having been both a child of parents and a parent of a child, I can draw an analogy between what children learn and HOW they learn about “supernatural” entities such as the Tooth Fairy and God and assert that the analogy is valid.

And to get back to the subject of the initial post, as an atheist parent raising an atheist child, I simply told her that the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and God are not real; they’re just silly superstitions.

What’s infinitely more difficult to explain, however, is why so many people are willing to hurt, kill and deny the rights of their fellow humans based upon whether they reject only THREE of those superstitions or all FOUR.

Strangely enough, I tend to stay away from exchanges about what the belief in god actually is.

From my perspective, nothing in my life experience even leads me to suspect that a god might exist - or if there is one, it’s at best apathetic to our existence and I feel well justified to return the favor. What makes me feel that way is not something I can convey to another person.

Likewise, whoever believes in some god or other does it for at least partially personal reasons, which are not amenable to be communicated in full.

I have said it before and I will keep saying it - it’s not important what somebody believes in or not, but what that belief leads somebody to do.

Having said that, while I don’t take issue with blind faith, when somebody says “I believe in god, because...” I tend to groan. What follows is too often some alleged proof of god’s existence that was designed to reinforce an existing belief. I’ll never know how many versions of Pascal’s Wager there are…

Now Consi, to answer some of your points…

Anecdotal evidence is not compelling. People lie, exaggerate, misinterpret, and otherwise invalidate whatever it was that actually happened.

A prayer “answered”, particularly of the “please give me the strength” type is not compelling. As likely as not, that person had the strength to begin with, but needed the act of prayer to actually use it. I doubt that prayers are answered at a rate that exceeds chance; once in a while studies pop up that say otherwise, but those that review them find critical flaws of some type or other, if not outright fraud (like the prayer helps to conceive scandal from a couple of months ago).

The argumentum ad numerum is not compelling. If 90% of the US population would truely independently discover the exact same god-belief, you might be on to something. As it is, all this figure demonstrates that no other religion rivals Christianity in the US.

The bottom line is, if you believe, then believe. Just don’t try to convert people that have declared up front that they are not open to conversion attempts.

Consi, did you even read the remote prayer article you cite?  It’s an example of remote retroactive intercessory prayer: the author took a group of bloodstream infection patients, divided them randomly into two groups, and had one group prayed over, four to ten years after they’d left the hospital, to see if the prayer helped them backwards in time.  A small positive effect was found, but not a statistically significant one.  Speculation is divided on the motivation of Leonard Leibovici, the author, but most conclude that it was intended as a joke, a demonstration of how easy it is to find any result one likes if you only look through a sufficiently large database.  Of course, lots of fundies (and quantum mechanifreaks) have embraced the “study”.

Lots of defenestrations of this study out there; this one’s got more analysis than most:
http://www.cmh.edu/stats/weblog2004/temporality.asp
The conclusion reached here:

The Leibovici article was clearly an effort to show the limitations of research methods by an example where a randomized controlled trial (RCT) shows a result that is truly bizarre.

...although fraud is also mentioned as a possibility.

Unlike the dismissal of the mythos of the toothfairy, which we can test and dismiss, the choice not to believe in God, does require an article of faith in the assessment made by that person.

Stuff and nonsense.  What OB said.  Either you can test and dismiss (or not) supernatural beings, or you require faith to believe (or not believe) in supernatural beings.  God has no special privileges over his fellow wraiths as far as logic goes, even if he’s bigger and more popular than the Tooth Fairy and the Diminutive Underwear Trolls.

Seriously Consi, get busy! It seems that you fervently believe in your god’s existence and you certainly offer enough words here to leave little doubt of your belief but what have you really said to us? - Words with next to no value - Suppositions with no proofs to back them up - Facts with no factual foundations. Prove this god construct real to us!

You often string together a great deal of words yet I have learned nothing from you.

Just tell us plain and simply why we should believe in your god’s existence and, for once, leave out the bullshit. Stop trying to impress us with words and give us solid information.

It’s easy to understand why so many others say they believe in this god. If they’re instructed almost from birth in the myths of the society eventually those myths will become accepted as fact, or appear to be accepted. Most won’t even realize they are continuously giving up choice in the matter of whether to believe or not. It becomes next to impossible to discount Heaven unless you make an honest effort to reckon critically. Many surrender to belief - or pretend to believe in “God”. I suspect your club is not half as peopled as you assume it is.

I feel that, deep down inside, many currently don’t believe in Christianity’s god but are reluctant to reveal it. The majority don’t have the integrity and courage to be honest, even with themselves. Most of the rest, well they don’t really understand the subject matter but desperately want to live forever and they’ll embrace any creed that allows them that hope.

Why do you believe in a god and why does this god want to keep you forever and ever?

the more apt analogy is that a belief in God is akin to a belief in quarks

Quarks may turn out to be as fictional as Faraday’s electrical field lines, serving only as a construct to help our understanding of a phenomenom. 

why does this god want to keep you forever and ever?

No offense there consigliere but your comparison between the tooth fairy and God does work and it’s an very good comparison.

Now, we can’t do the same with God

I think you can. The fact that God does not obey to our command to appear shows only that God is just not there.
The fact that we are thaught to not really expect
to see God just closes a circle of lies.

-You are not suppose to see God because HE doesn’t show himself that way.

How many times Have I heard that.

Anyway, what do I know?

Well I know that at least I got a few dollars under my pillow in between the age of 5 and 10.

So technically, The tooth fairy is more true to me than God. The rest is detail.

Is there anybody in the world who has videotaped an act of God?

What makes me feel that way is not something I can convey to another person.

Likewise, whoever believes in some god or other does it for at least partially personal reasons, which are not amenable to be communicated in full.

Agreed.

The bottom line is, if you believe, then believe. Just don’t try to convert people that have declared up front that they are not open to conversion attempts.

You are being hypersenstive to my post Elwed.  I’m not trying to convert you.  What I am doing is taking issue with the comparison that believing in God is like believing in the tooth fairy.  It is clearly not.

The issue I have with the comparison is that it is used by those who proffer it to say in a somewhat snide manner “You have but the mind of a child, you poor delusional soul.” Now, in many instances when the group here pistol whips a believer with that, the sentiment is justified.  There are many idiots that troll through the grounds here, and they should be hit over the head with the stupid things that they say.  There are so many more ways to do that though, rather than use a false analogy.

Anecdotal evidence is not compelling. People lie, exaggerate, misinterpret, and otherwise invalidate whatever it was that actually happened.

I agree with you in general. It is easy to dismiss anectdotal evidence generally.  In many cases, OB’s explanation of how and why one believes is accurate.  (Although, obviously it doesn’t hold for all believers)

It is when you actually know the person, that it becomes more difficult to discount.  From what you have shared here and elsewhere, it is my impression that you know others who believe in God, and these individuals that you know are not inclined to lie or exaggerate about their belief or their prayer life. 

In light of that, you explain the anectdotal evidence of answered prayers as a misinterpretation.  That is clearly, and without a doubt, a possible explanation.  Obviously, another possibility is that the prayer was in fact answered.

To not believe that the prayer was answered by a higher power requires you to have faith in your assessment that the anectdotal evidence from people that you know who do not lie and are not prone to exaggeration is a misinterpretation on their part.  That point was worth making. It distinguishes the dismissal of a belief in God from the dismissal of a belief in the toothfairy. One requires faith, the other does not. To your credit, I don’t recall you utilizing such an analogy.

why does this god want to keep you forever and ever?

and hug you and pet you and name you “George�?

LOL!!!  Ragman, it is humor like this that attracts me to this site.

You often string together a great deal of words yet I have learned nothing from you.

Brock, to my credit, at least I don’t wear those awful shirts.  Surely good taste in clothing partly makes up for this doesn’t it?

Regards,