The negative connotations of Atheism and popular assumptions about atheists.

Once you talk of degrees of belief you imply there being a continuity between belief and non-belief. Beliefs near the 'belief/non-belief' boundary can be difficult to place. So there's a grey area where people aren't really sure whether they believe or not, because they know where their clear beliefs lie and their clear non-beliefs lie and this is in neither camp.

Why? Has it been proved by 'evidence'?
Evidentialism causes circularity.
There has to be something before it.
A more general theory of knowledge and metaphysics to justify it.

Right. Although what do you mean by 'self evident'?
That it needs no justification?
That's not strictly true as there are still disagreements in the foundations of logic. My point is elsewhere though. Even if the foundations of logic are settled (after all, we all accept the law of non-contradiction) results that follow are not. Mathematical theorems/proofs are tautologies yet they take pages and years of hard work to establish.
Metaphysical pictures also.

There was a particular point in my last post that I wanted you to address.

So it's not the case for God belief as it is for scientific beliefs.
In science it all depends on evidence.
God belief comes from a priori metaphysical thought that is irrelevent to empirical evidence.

This can still just mean that their knowledge/techniques isn't perfect.
A lack of rationality doesn't follow from this.
Theistic arguments are based on flawed logic/metaphysics but it's not obvious that they are flawed.

I think you'll find we've all come out with crap arguments.
Everyone starts with poor arguments when they first approach a subject. What makes the difference between a rational and irrational person is whether they are ready to recognise and ammend flaws. Yes, a lot of theists are extremely irrational. Your conclusion is that God belief is necessarily irrational. It does not follow.

My point was, when you say "ignorant" you don't make it clear what you mean.
If you mean, "there was something they didn't know" then I agree that theism is ignorance in the same was Einstein was ignorant in the QM case.
If you mean "ignorant" as in not grasping basics then your "theism relies on ignorance" is wrong.

(1) is irrelevent until we already have reason to doubt
(2) is a good reason to be suspicious of ghost claims. However, it doesn't give reason to doubt personal experience.
I think (3) does it for me. It would be enough to stop me jumping to conclusions until I had seen further evidence.

When say 'metaphysical beliefs' I mean a person's underlying theory of reality.
Your epistemology will be tied to such beliefs.
Propositions that cause a red flag in a naturalist won't necessarily do so for other metaphysical positions. Although I think naturalism is correct it shouldn't be assumed. You and I are justified in our naturalism because we've done the necessary philosophising but I also believe I was justified in landing in the various other positions I found myself in on the way. You have to work with what you have and fine-tuning yourself to the truth is a slow process.

I wasn't irrational when I believed in God.
According to my reasoning of the time it was the right position.
The rational process continued and I inevitably got led away.
However, that's only because I chose to keep devoting my rationality to that particular area rather than other issues in life. Therefore, I see it perfectly plausible that there are plenty of rational theists who would eventually reject theism if presented with the right arguments but are still rational in the meantime.

I don't disagree. It's just irrelevent to our debate as we are talking about distinguishing rational from irrational people. All people do subconscious analysis, rational or irrational.

Right. And theism doesn't always bring up such problems in people.
Especially with moderates. Where the problems do arise they can be so small and insignificant that they are justified in allowing them in favour of concentrating in more important problems.

I know. The 'associated with goodness' was an agreement with you.
The 'it is also more credible than the beliefs we mock' was the argument against you. Bearing in mind that I'm talking about God belief in general. I think some forms of theism are just as crazy, if not crazier, than the 'mockable' beliefs you talk of.

 

There is no such implication. Accepting the degrees of belief within the two positions does not require you to accept degrees of belief between the two.

You’re either a theist (a believer) or an atheist (a non-believer). There no other logical choice!

You have different degrees within each position.

But…

All theists, weak and strong, those certain and those not certain – are believers.

All atheists, weak and strong, those certain and those not certain – are non-believers.

They still fall in either side. It is logically impossible for it to be any other way. If you believe, you believe, EVERYTHING ELSE is disbelief!

If your unclear, not sure if you believe in god, are undecided, then you obviously, BY DEFINTION, lack belief in god. You clearly don’t hold a positive belief in god.

For the 10th time… if you believe, you believe, EVERYTHING ELSE is disbelief.

Has what been proven?

The statement is clearly saying one should proposition their beliefs to the available evidence.

So don’t be certain of something when evidence is lacking.

And don’t reject something when the evidence for it is unanimous.

In short, keep your belief in proportion to the evidence.

Right. Logic supports itself. It’s based on axioms which are self evident:

Law of Identity
Law of Excluded Middle
Law of Non-contradiction
Modus Ponens
Modus Tollens

Logic itself does not need to be subjected to ‘proof’, rather, it is the standard by which proofs are possible.

What disagreements?

What do you even mean by this?

The problem is argument for god is almost always poor and fallacious.

Declaring that god exists a priori begs the question.

What’s your position on metaphysics? I’m a materialist - the view that everything that exists is made out of something.

Unless you’re a materialist.

Really? Why?

What do you mean, isn’t perfect?

If they lack knowledge, they should just be honest. Don’t say, “well I can’t possible understand this, therefore it must be god”.

You’re either applying reason, or you are not. A large amount, if not majority of theists simply don’t apply valid reason in their argument, otherwise they would not reach the conclusion they are at. This could be down to not wanting to accept anything other than their belief, or sheer ignorance of rationality, logic and critical thinking.

Actually, it’s quite obvious to any with basic moderate of logic.

I disagree. Sure, we’ve all probably done this a few time, yet you imply it is the rule rather than the exception. Really, we should study and research before presenting and argument.

If someone is ignorant of something a particular topic, and yet tries to argue for or against it, all they’ll end up doing is advertising their ignorance.

Where did I say or imply this?

But now it has been raised… There is absolutely no reason what so ever to accept the rationally existence of a god.

I mean thinking you know something when you clearly don’t. Being certain about things you clearly have no knowledge about. We see this all the time when people are utterly ignorant of evolution, yet try to argue against it. Or when they argue from ignorance… “I don’t know what caused life, so it must have been god” or “I don’t understand evolution, so it must be wrong”, or “science can’t explain X, that’s evidence of god”
I also mean when ones is ignorant of the tools required for proper rational discourse… critical thinking, logic, rationality etc etc.

No, it isn’t. It is ones of the reasons to doubt. If someone claims X is a ghost, but we have no reasons to believe them, we doubt them.

Personal experience is not evidence. It doesn’t prove anything. People can and do have hallucinations, false experience, we know people misperceive stimuli etc so subjective experience really isn’t valid.

Just because a person believe ghosts exists, it doesn’t mean they do, it doesn’t mean they’ve seen ghosts, and it their belief doesn’t validate their claim.

So what. Just because a person doesn’t see any red flags, doesn’t mean the proposition is now true or valid. It just means they do not have the sufficient skills and knowledge required to make an adequate analysis. Basing their conclusion(s) on their preconceived beliefs, rather than objectively examining the phenomena or claim is not good practice. If someone who presents a claim of ghosts is also a believer in ghosts it’s time to raise the scepticism!

We don’t have to assume naturalism. We have no reason not to assume naturalism is false. Our experience and knowledge tells us that naturalism is correct. The burden of proof is not on naturalists.

I disagree. Plus, they are rarely small and insignificant. They often flat out refute the belief and/or claim, yet they still believe. Religion is simply so elastic it can hide many of the non fundamental problems, rather than deal with them.

Sure, you can prioritize, but never allow issues to pass.

 

And it's an over-simplification.
Some types of knowledge rely on evidence but pure empiricism is false.

More or less...

Yes. I know that. It is still subject to dispute.
The Law of Excluded Middle is disputed by constructivists.
The Law of Non-contradiction is disputed by dialethiests.

Even if you consider the rules of logic to be self evident, the results that follow from them aren't. All mathematical proofs are just using the rules of logic. Some of them end up being thousands of pages long.
So that A follows logically from B or that A contradicts B isn't always self evident.

I've come across some shockingly bad arguments in my time too.
Many of them are very intuitive though and it can take quite a thorough analysis to expose their flaws. The argument from design, for example, I intuitively feel that it's flawed but I'm not at the moment able to suss out exactly what the flaw is. Maybe when I've studied probability...

No the don't. They start with something we know to be true and say that God is necessary for it to be true. They all have flaws but don't necessarily beg the question.

I'm not quite sure what name mine comes under.
I'm probably a naturalist - I think that's more or less synonymous with materialism.

Um... in metaphysics, materialism is a conclusion rather than a starting assumption.

Well, you have to start somewhere and initially you have no reason to pick one position over another. Metaphysics works purely on internal coherence so it's a matter of making a first guess and then gradually fixing problems as they show up.

I mean that no one has perfect knowledge/logic.
We just have our "best idea yet"
It's not a case of people going "well, my reason isn't perfect so I'll make a blind guess."
It's people doing their best and sometimes going wrong.

I agree that theism wouldn't have lasted this long if the only motivations were rational. However, I think you overstate the case against God. It's not obvious and requires some counter intuitive ideas and a strong philosophical background, especially in metaphysics.

It's not. I think you've taken more for granted than you realise.

I disagree. I often find that presenting a half-baked argument and getting stuck in and arguing for it is the best way to learn and devellop your position. What makes the difference is whether you properly listen to your opponent or whether you just repeat dead slogans.

It depends. At first it will advertise their ignorance, yes.
If we want to learn then we have to shed our pride and take that first step.
However, they'll soon start to learn. What really distinguishes the bright from the ignorant is those who are able to recognise the flaws in their argument and adapt accordingly rather than just repeating bad arguments.

I thought it was your position?

And I was right!

Creationism is a different kettle of fish.
It outright defies science in a very obvious way.
Normal theism doesn't do this. Most theists accepts science and their disagreement with atheists is purely metaphysical.

We went over this before, remember?
We don't justify every belief upfront, we question it if we have a reason to doubt, if our intuition rings an alarm.

Really? I think you trust your personal experience 99% of the time.

Argh! You misunderstood me again.
When I say "someone's metaphysical beliefs" I'm talking about their ultimate theory of reality. Read this Wiki page.
If someone's metaphysical position allows for ghosts then seeing a ghost won't be extra-ordinary to them, it won't raise a red flag, they won't have reason to be sceptical. (except maybe because of the track record of ghost sightings - that there's yet to be one with substance to it)

Or there's no need to analyse it because there appears to be nothing wrong with it... remember, you're only saying this because we're talking about something that raises your flags. If someone's flags raised when I told them I went to the shops today, you'd surely think that they were nuts!

Do objectively examine the phenomena or claim for every proposition you come across? That would be absurd. Are you ad hoc against God and ghosts? Or maybe these happen to propositions that set alarm bells off in your intuition. However, although these alarm bells reflect some analysis, they also reflect your prejudices and assumptions. As it happens, I'm the same as you when it comes to God and ghosts. The difference is that I recognise how much I have assumed myself so I think twice before accusing someone of not thinking properly, just because they've come to a different conclusion.

So why do naturalists get this priviledge in metaphysics?
Is it because you assume them to be right so it's up to the world to prove you wrong?
There is no default metaphysical position.
There is no method for constructing one.
You start with your first guess and then gradually ammend it as you iron out inconsistencies and problems. Almost every question is open. Every answer relies on a number of assumption. (for example, all my arguments against theism depend on my conception of cause - a conception that I've assumed rather than studied)

You're justified in holding to your naturalism until someone shows you a problem with it. Then you either have to solve the problem or accept an alternative. I can't forsee such a problem with naturalism (after all, I'm a naturalist too) but the point is to illustrate the nature of metaphysics.

I think you're thinking of fundy theism here.
Most theism is a lot more sophisticated and a lot more modest. (they don't claim to be so certain and admit that whatever theory they have is just the best they have rather than claim to have God's absolute truth.)

Really? I bet you wouldn't say that to an apathetic atheist?

 

I know that things are different depending on where you live. But where I live (in the Northeast) being an atheist is seen as a plus by many people. I am Catholic and notice that people think I am a little foolish for believing in God. I lived in Southern California for many years, and there atheists are seen as bad people (Of course they thought Catholics and Jews were bad in that area as well). Here being an atheist is a sign you are educated. I don't personally care what other people believe or dont believe. My sister is an atheist, and she is much better person than I am. I think if you are around people who have been exposed to the world, then you wont have a problem. Its people who have not left their own back yard that are affraid of atheism.