On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 1:51 PM, Johnathan Corgan <[email protected]>wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 8:50 AM, Jason Resch <[email protected]> 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 [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
