As an atheist (or at least agnostic) myself, I can respect that. Making a theistic argument that gets the theism wrong is as silly as most memes against, say, evolution that don’t even begin to understand it.
Evolution is not a straight line, but random changes that accumulate. These small changes eventually give rise to a different species. Natural selection aid this by removing trait that doesn't organism that doesn't pair well to the environment
The story has changed through the centuries. But, it is not ‘why are there still’ it’s… why are we still. Young earthers simply have a pedantic understanding of something that is very much allegorical.
My Philosophy class spent almost a whole week arguing about the exact definition of “atheist” because most definitions given don’t actually make a ton of sense unless you assume that you have the correct premise. They read as though they were written by an atheist that had to go to Catholic school.
A dictionary would define a theist as someone that believes there is a god, and an atheist as someone who does not believe there is a god focusing solely on the aspect of whether or not they believe.
It was argued that the real crux of the difference was not in belief but was indeed in god. The argument was that a theist believes there is a god, and an atheist believes there is not a god. Reasoning being that an atheist would say that a theist has no proof for their point, but an atheist is equally devoid of proof. They are both arguing points based on belief.
As an atheist/agnostic I found that I actually agreed with the premise. I believe that I am correct, but I’m no better than a bible beater to pretend like my answer is any cleverer than the next person.
Do you believe that there is an invisible unicorn standing beside you right now? No? Would you say your disbelief is the same as my belief that there is an invisible unicorn standing beside you? Atheists dont believe there is no god, they dont believe that there is a god. That's the difference. Theists claim god exists, the burden of proof is on them. atheists do not claim god doesnt exists, they refute the claim that god does exist.
“I DO believe x exists” // “I DO NOT believe x exists” // “I believe x DOES NOT exist” // “I do not know if x exists”
The first is the theist.
The second is the atheist.
The third is ALSO the atheist, with a hard stance.
The fourth is the agnostic.
The only reasonable opinion to come to is to DISBELIEVE unfalsifiable claims, and WITHHOLD belief with unproven claims.
The Abrahamic religions are incredibly easy to dismiss as they are all unfalsifiable; cannot ever be falsified. The number of unfalsifiable claims is infinity, so one should have the confidence of 1/infinity when considering unfalsifiable claims.
Basically just be a good person and when you die you’ll either find out or there is nothing after death and you won’t be around to care you don’t know.
My only gripe are the extreme sides you try to force their beliefs down your throat.
That’s true in your class, but I think where people object to that comes in the form of “the difference between what you’re saying and what people hear.”
They take that to mean “Christianity is as likely as atheism”, as though it’s a 50/50 coin flip.
I can’t prove Haruhi isn’t manipulating the universe as we speak. I can’t prove I’m not a Boltzmann brain floating about to die in the cosmos. I can’t prove the universe isn’t a simulation. I can’t prove an infinite set of things.
That’s what makes the difference between an atheist and agnostic more a technicality. Either way, it doesn’t really make sense to spend time worrying about keeping Haruhi entertained.
Theism is the belief in god or gods. A- is a negation prefix in Greek, it just means "not" whatever follows. An atheist is someone who is not a theist. It doesn't describe an active belief system in the same way that atypical doesn't describe some specific way of being, it just means not typical. Asymmetrical doesn't reveal anything about a shape other than one thing that it's not. Being amoral does not mean being immoral.
The word means what it means, if you personally are arguing that the absence of belief in something is a belief in the opposite, then that seems very philosophically shallow to me and I'd be curious why you had a professor that didn't take the opportunity to correct that.
I have some coins in my hand. Do you actively believe that I have an odd number? If the answer is no, then that means you actively believe that I have an even number. According to your philosophy.
Yeah. I was probably a little bitter in this comment. I'm a Catholic, and people say a lot of things about our faith that just isn't true. We also believe that evolution is compatible with Catholicism, heh.
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u/Essenes_ 4h ago
He’s not punishing anyone, the separation from God is the punishment. He’s just trying to take you down with him.