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Define disbelief.

You are still avoiding the question. There was a typo last last time - it should have read atheism. Not sure if you realised.

Are you merely arguing that atheism (according to the common and philosophical definitions) is irrational. Or are you arguing that it is impossible? Or are you arguing the ignositic viewpoint? You are having remarkable difficulty explaining yourself.

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So wikipedia, and all those philosophy textbooks, are being deceitful? How is it deceitful to define a word a certain way?

Soren is absolutely right to say that atheism is a reaction, if the first theist had not said, "the volcano erupting is because an invisible man in the sky is angry, I call him god, and he told me a human sacrifice has to be thrown into the volcano", then the first atheist would not have reacted, and responded with, "you must be off your flippin' rocker, you are as bent as a three dollar note".

freediver wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2010 at 7:16pm:

Oh I realised... There's been a lot of it about today.

Thought maybe it was a Freudian slip.

freediver wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2010 at 7:16pm:

I am arguing that interpreting "believing in the non-existence of gods" as believing in nothing(ness) such that nothingness has substance in order to claim that atheism is irrational is the exploitation of a linguistic semantic structure. That structure is not intended to infer that atheism is irrational.

Atheism is a disbelieving the proposition that god exists. Nothing more.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2010 at 8:38pm:


There are very few people who describe themselves as 'theists'. It's a collective term.

Some neopagans come close to the concept that it's all in the mind - a social phenomenon. Your ideas of theism seem to be  corrupted by Christianity. Neopagans tend to celebrate the forces of nature rather than pray to divinities.

Not all gods are omnipotent either. Some were capable of 'intercession' while others were specialised.

Some gods were highly functional. For example, Pluto the Roman god of the underworld,  Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine. If you want more contemporary examples, there is the later Daoist pantheon, which mirrored the Chinese Emperor's court in the afterlife.  

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If you want a real mish-mash, you need only look at Christianity, or Islam. I find it difficult to criticise neopagans, because all they are doing really is celebrating nature.  They don't have the same leaps of faith that other mainstream religions have. Who cares if they take it seriously or not?  I think half of the problems in religion come about because people take it far too seriously.

Then again, Hinduism is the most confusing mesh of tradition and widely varying worldviews that you are likely to find. Within Hinduism you'll find a huge continuum of belief. As long as you don't take it too seriously, it's a lot of fun, and most educated Hindus that I've met don't take the word belief too literally.

Anyway, I'm starting to get bored reading about people taking dictionary definitions too literally. I think I'll go walkabout, eat a few Easter eggs and maybe go and see a few yachts crossing the finish line.    

muso wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2010 at 9:30pm:

Well, I guess they're just having a bit of fun burning jossticks, getting naked and banging drums at the moon... I never get the feeling that they're serious about it all... When they're talking about gods (those who pretend to believe in them) its usually with a wry smile on their face... They're probably thinking of the next full moon when they can get to see a bit of dancing naked flesh in the bush.

freediver wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2010 at 9:09am:



I think that you may be reading too much into simple conversational discussion, and confusing that with what would be somebody's considered opinion, if ever they needed to expand or explain their views.

We do have examples where people reject wholely, specific notions of god referred to in conversations, and they may say something like, "he doesn't exist", or, "there is no such thing as god", and in such examples you would jump in with the claim that they are being irrational.
At that point they would need to backtrack and be more detailed in explaining their possition as not actually definitively declaring the god the person claims to belive in does not exist, but just that they find the evidence given to support the claim that he may exist, be so totally unsatisfactory, and by such a huge margin, that for all intent and purpose, they are more than happy to accept the probability that he does not, and absolutely refuse to believe he does unless some new evidence can be shown which would make them want to reconsider their position.

Or more simply, "I don't believe in god".

So finally I think I see where you are coming from FD, and it does bring me back to my original contention that the proponents of the theist argument are less than honest in how they approach this argument, for they are demanding that atheist exactly define every aspect of their opinion in all exchanges, while theists need offer no defining staements at all to theirs, and may merely supply the vague and general god concept, which is never a point of contention with any atheists anyway.

The points of contention for atheists are always the specific god concepts they face in dealing with theists, and the applied conditions those god concepts have attached.