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Strong or Weak a-fairiest? Which am I?

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JayMeh

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Jan 22, 1995, 3:02:25 AM1/22/95
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hahn...@gold.tc.umn.edu (J J Hahn) writes
>In article <3fklpb$7...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, JayMeh <jay...@aol.com>
wrote:
>>hahn...@gold.tc.umn.edu (J J Hahn) writes
[snip]

>OK, I'm definitely a weak athiest the way you look at it. But I still
>want a strong atheist to verify your definitions. No, my agnostic point
>was far different. Realizing that one cannot know does not prohibit
>rational beliefs. I wasn't talking about emotions. You can't prove much

>of anything, but you can rationally believe lots of things.

Strong agnostics reject the use of evidence and most logic when
applied to god, leaving only emtional basis. That said, I can't
really disagree with our point either.

>>>>I'm of the opinion that a truly universal disproof of gods existance
>>>>doesn't exist, so holding such beliefs is irrational to some degree
>>>>or another. There is nothing wrong with that though, every belief
>>>>system I've ever seen contains some irrational elements.
[snip]
>I'm disagreeing in that I never saw strong atheism as requiring actual
proof.
>But then, you take a much stronger view of it than I do. The position
>(dare I say strawman?) that you give the strong atheist would require
>such impossible things. I thought I'd noticed many strong atheists (many

>who were as weak as myself), but since few have stepped in here to defend

>themselves, perhaps I was deluded.

Feel free to disagree, you'll note that I marked my comment as an
opinion, which refers to holding such beliefs as irrational. I believe
that no universal disproof can exist.

>>> I still think Occam's Razor is a license to neglect things
>>>without evidence (even if you've never heard of the thing). Why
>>>complicate your worldview with such things?
>>
>>As I said before, Occam's Razor leads only to lack of belief,
>>not disbelief.

>Yes, think is true if you define "belief" as you do. It could lead to a
>dis-opinion though, mightn't it?

I'm not sure what you mean by dis-opinion here. If you mean that
we would have the opinion that god does not exists, then you
are correct. Unlike mathmatical formula, we can not simply
eradicate outdated concepts from our working set, we're stuck
with them.

[snip]
>>>Also, if you're talking about what you believe in terms of your view of

>>>reality rather than in terms of which statements you can make, what
>>>difference is there between disbelief and non-belief? If you look at
>>>your best guess (call it belief or opinion; I don't care) of what the
>>>Universe is made of, is there a god involved? If not, then you're just

>>>as strong an atheist as I am, and all of this is just linguistic
>>nonsense.
>>
>>If that's all you hold to then I am just as strong an atheist as you
>>are because your a weak atheist.:)

>Yes, perhaps. But if your view of the world includes no gods, what's
>the difference between non-belief and disbelief?

I suspect we might mean something different by world view
(seems to be a trend here :) but I can't disblieve something
that isn't in my world view somewere. It would fall under
untrue or invalid concepts, but they are part of my world
view also.

>>To be a strong atheist, best guess isn't good enough. You have
>>to hold very strongly that god does not exist. I don't think you'll
>>find any weak atheist here that thinks the existance of god is
>>likely, only that it is possible.

>Well, maybe I've been arguing the wrong way around, but I'm still not
>sure. I've been thinking that believing that gods most likely don't
>exists is strong atheism, so most weak atheists would be stronger than
>they claim. Well, I don't know. It does seem that you are making the
>difference in terms of degree of disbelief rather than in non-belief vs
>disbelief.

To a large extent it's a result of the argument we were
(are?) having about using the words belief and opinion.
What you might consider a belief wouldn't make it in
most peoples minds, so what was belief/no-belief
becomes degree of belief. This is probably a better
reflection of the real world than the view used here,
but becomes to complex when having a discussion.

>JJ Hahn
>----------------------------------------------------------------
>Philosophy is questions that may never be answered.
>Religion is answers that may never be questioned.
Jay Mehaffey
jay...@aol.com

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