On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 1:51 PM, Johnathan Corgan <jcor...@aeinet.com>wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 8:50 AM, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> My point is that if one takes atheism to be the rejection of all >> conceptions of god, then because those ideas are conceptions of god from >> various religions, then someone who remains atheist after exposure to those >> ideas (rather than agnostic) has rejected them, and worse, has done so >> without any justification. This is anti-scientific because there is some >> evidence for these propositions. Even if that evidence does not convince >> you, there is no reason to reject them until evidence comes out against the >> theories on which they are based. >> > > This thread has devolved somewhat into arguing definitions, but I'll bite > anyway. > > Anyone can posit theories or claims; it is up to those persons to present > credible evidence supporting those claims. > > If the claims themselves are incoherent or not logically possible, no > evidence can be presented. > > If the evidence presented in support of those claims is not actually > supportive, or is not possible to evaluate, then no further action need be > taken. > > If the evidence presented is simply that a proposition is possible, well, > many things that are possible are still not true; this is not evidence. > > If the evidence presented is "I would like/feel happier/be less scared in > a world where this is true", this is of course not evidence. > > If the evidence presented is "If this were true, it would be consistent > with these other things that I believe are true", it is not evidence. > > If the evidence presented is "I can't make sense of the world unless this > is true", it is not evidence. > > If the evidence presented is "Everyone believes this, you should too", it > is not evidence. > > If the evidence presented is "Believe this or we will kill you", it is not > evidence. > > In all these cases, there is no burden on anyone else to reject these > assertions, as no evidence has been presented in support of them. > > In the realm of theistic beliefs, we were all born lacking any; we were > all born atheists. Some people have come to believe various religious > claims as true, and thus have become theists of different varieties. > > For some of us, these claims have never risen beyond any of the categories > above, and hence we remain atheists, without the need to "reject" anything, > having not taken any action whatsoever. We simply remain in our state of > lacking any theistic beliefs. > I would say such a stance is more properly called agnosticism than atheism, but as you said, this just devolves into an argument over definitions. > We do not need to encounter specific evidence against these sorts of > claims. > > So if you have a specific claim to make, and actual evidence to support > it, we'll listen. > I'm not making any specific claims at this time. > But we don't start out as "rejecting all conceptions of God"; we're just > happily living our lives and not spending much time worrying about these > matters, except perhaps recently on this mailing list. > That position (following the semicolon) is perfectly reasonable to me, and I have no issues with it. Jason > > Johnathan Corgan > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
