Atheist is a label for people who do not believe in God. You don’t believe in a system of atheism, you apply the label because you don’t believe in God. If a person suddenly doesn’t apply the term atheist to themselves it doesn’t automatically make them a Christian.
You’re changing the subject. While the OP is about christianity, this little subthread is about whether someone can lose their belief in atheism. Nobody in this subthread mentioned christianity until you did, and nobody in this subthread is a christian. I would appreciate some good faith engagement instead of changing the subject to those other guys over there we both hate. You hate em, I hate em, let’s get over it and actually have a fruitful discussion.
You’re saying you don’t believe in a system of atheism. I’m taking this to mean you don’t have any beliefs asserting your atheism. So if I accused you of not being an atheist, you wouldn’t deny it, right? Cause you don’t believe anything about you being an atheist. There are no beliefs you possess for me to challenge if I call you a theist, correct? You’d go along with it or hold a neutral view?
Atheism, by definition, is an absence of belief in deities. If you “accused” an atheist of “not being an atheist,” they would think you were confused about what atheism is. They would likely not be personally offended by your ignorance.
I don’t know why anyone would “go along with it” were you to incorrectly assert they held beliefs which they did not, but if they did, it would likely be in pity for or exasperation with the person impotently trying to “gotcha” their “beliefs.”
So, you’re playing a trick here. You’re saying you don’t have any beliefs, but you’re also saying you think I’m wrong. That’s not an absence of belief. That’s a negative belief. Belief in the absence of something, not absence of beliefs. You’re mixing the two up.
Here, I’ll explain with a hypothetical. Imagine you’re on a space ship with someone who doesn’t believe in vacuums. They think there’s air everywhere. They say the air in the ship is stuffy, and they want to open the window to get some fresh air in. You tell them that you’re all going to die if you do that, because there’s no air. It’s not that you have no beliefs, it’s that you specifically believe there is no air. It’s a belief in absence, not an absence of belief. Your belief in there being no air informs all sorts of other beliefs, like the belief that opening the window will kill you.
Do you have a belief in the absence of theism regarding yourself, or do you have an absence of belief regarding your religious status? You can only pick one, they’re mutually exclusive. You cannot have both.
Unfortunately for your ego, you have nothing relevant or novel to “explain” to me; you did not arrive at this discussion with an adequate understanding of “belief” or “atheism.”
And to your further misfortune, you haven’t developed the necessary reverence for growth which typically fosters the humility to recognize one’s own ignorance and error.
But the most salient bad luck you’ve wrought here has been the pain and loss of those who have chosen to read and engage with your blithering comments made in bad faith.
While you accuse me of not following the logic of your argument, you didn’t follow mine. I never said I was an atheist, you just assumed it. Actually, I’m agnostic. The reality is I don’t give a shit if you think I’m an atheist or not. Calling an atheist a theist is inaccurate, so is calling me one, but it doesn’t personally offend me, it’s just an inaccurate statement because it assigns a belief that I don’t hold.
Maybe respond in good faith if you want good faith back
You’re confusing belief, knowledge, and conviction, it’s a common issue with common, imprecise, language.
A sceptic would proportion their conviction of a position according to the available evidence. As there is no evidence to support any specific god, and some evidence against several gods, it is rational to be tentatively convinced there is no god. That position is atheist.
There are of course also other ways at arriving to an atheist position, not all of them reasonable.
You are however also engaging in either dishonest argumentation or esoteric sophistry horribly misreading the current discussion. It is reasonable, and polite, to assume a person knows their own mind better than any external person, and if prompted, has right of interpretation to their own beliefs, knowledge and convictions.
It’s unreasonable, and unproductive, for me to assert you’re secretly a Russian propagandist, and even more so when you say you aren’t. I cannot know this better than you, and either I trust you to engage this conversation honestly, accurately describing your propagandist status, or I don’t, and we have nothing more to gain from a discussion.
To adress your argument: the person is convinced they take an atheist position. You accusing them of unknowingly being a theist is thus absurd and/or dishonest.
It is reasonable, and polite, to assume a person knows their own mind better than any external person, and if prompted, has right of interpretation to their own beliefs, knowledge and convictions.
No, I disagree. I agree with you that we have the right to interpret our own intentions freely, because intentions cannot reliably be externally sensed. But let me give an example as to our beliefs and biases.
Suppose I’m a scientist conducting trials on a new drug. I gather a group of volunteer test subjects, and begin trials to compare the drug to a placebo. However, after they take the drug (and placebo), some of the test subjects come to me and say “You don’t have to test me, doc. I’m immune to placebos. I can feel this working, so I know I’m in the experimental group and I know the drug works great.”
If I were to apply your idea that you can’t mistrust someone else’s biases and beliefs about themself, then I would have to take their word and my science would be garbage.
To adress your argument: the person is convinced they take an atheist position
Yes, my question proved that very neatly, didn’t it? They didn’t think they had any belief in being an atheist, and that the final line of the original meme was therefore nonsense. But I used a very elegant question to prove that they do have belief in being an atheist.
You seem fundamentally confused about this topic, unwilling to listen, and unequipped to further your understanding of neither crux, domain nor dialogue. We will not get further in this discussion.
It’s impossible to lose something I don’t have. Belief in atheism makes no sense whatsoever as a concept.
So you don’t believe you’re an atheist? If I accused you of unknowingly believing in a god, you wouldn’t deny it?
Atheist is a label for people who do not believe in God. You don’t believe in a system of atheism, you apply the label because you don’t believe in God. If a person suddenly doesn’t apply the term atheist to themselves it doesn’t automatically make them a Christian.
You’re changing the subject. While the OP is about christianity, this little subthread is about whether someone can lose their belief in atheism. Nobody in this subthread mentioned christianity until you did, and nobody in this subthread is a christian. I would appreciate some good faith engagement instead of changing the subject to those other guys over there we both hate. You hate em, I hate em, let’s get over it and actually have a fruitful discussion.
You’re saying you don’t believe in a system of atheism. I’m taking this to mean you don’t have any beliefs asserting your atheism. So if I accused you of not being an atheist, you wouldn’t deny it, right? Cause you don’t believe anything about you being an atheist. There are no beliefs you possess for me to challenge if I call you a theist, correct? You’d go along with it or hold a neutral view?
God damn, Lemmy’s got some dumb fuckin’ users.
Atheism, by definition, is an absence of belief in deities. If you “accused” an atheist of “not being an atheist,” they would think you were confused about what atheism is. They would likely not be personally offended by your ignorance.
I don’t know why anyone would “go along with it” were you to incorrectly assert they held beliefs which they did not, but if they did, it would likely be in pity for or exasperation with the person impotently trying to “gotcha” their “beliefs.”
So, you’re playing a trick here. You’re saying you don’t have any beliefs, but you’re also saying you think I’m wrong. That’s not an absence of belief. That’s a negative belief. Belief in the absence of something, not absence of beliefs. You’re mixing the two up.
Here, I’ll explain with a hypothetical. Imagine you’re on a space ship with someone who doesn’t believe in vacuums. They think there’s air everywhere. They say the air in the ship is stuffy, and they want to open the window to get some fresh air in. You tell them that you’re all going to die if you do that, because there’s no air. It’s not that you have no beliefs, it’s that you specifically believe there is no air. It’s a belief in absence, not an absence of belief. Your belief in there being no air informs all sorts of other beliefs, like the belief that opening the window will kill you.
Do you have a belief in the absence of theism regarding yourself, or do you have an absence of belief regarding your religious status? You can only pick one, they’re mutually exclusive. You cannot have both.
Unfortunately for your ego, you have nothing relevant or novel to “explain” to me; you did not arrive at this discussion with an adequate understanding of “belief” or “atheism.”
And to your further misfortune, you haven’t developed the necessary reverence for growth which typically fosters the humility to recognize one’s own ignorance and error.
But the most salient bad luck you’ve wrought here has been the pain and loss of those who have chosen to read and engage with your blithering comments made in bad faith.
My ego? I don’t have much of an ego, I’m just a regular drone. If you think I’m important though thanks
They believe the absence of theism; the deity or religion is not relevant. It’s really that simple.
While you accuse me of not following the logic of your argument, you didn’t follow mine. I never said I was an atheist, you just assumed it. Actually, I’m agnostic. The reality is I don’t give a shit if you think I’m an atheist or not. Calling an atheist a theist is inaccurate, so is calling me one, but it doesn’t personally offend me, it’s just an inaccurate statement because it assigns a belief that I don’t hold.
Maybe respond in good faith if you want good faith back
If you accused me of unknowingly believing in anything, I would think you’re fucking stupid.
Are you unknowingly believing in Krampus?
Yes. I believe in all gods and myths, and I hadn’t consciously thought that I believe in Krampus before, but now thanks to you, I realise I do.
You’re confusing belief, knowledge, and conviction, it’s a common issue with common, imprecise, language.
A sceptic would proportion their conviction of a position according to the available evidence. As there is no evidence to support any specific god, and some evidence against several gods, it is rational to be tentatively convinced there is no god. That position is atheist.
There are of course also other ways at arriving to an atheist position, not all of them reasonable.
You are however also engaging in either dishonest argumentation or esoteric sophistry horribly misreading the current discussion. It is reasonable, and polite, to assume a person knows their own mind better than any external person, and if prompted, has right of interpretation to their own beliefs, knowledge and convictions.
It’s unreasonable, and unproductive, for me to assert you’re secretly a Russian propagandist, and even more so when you say you aren’t. I cannot know this better than you, and either I trust you to engage this conversation honestly, accurately describing your propagandist status, or I don’t, and we have nothing more to gain from a discussion.
To adress your argument: the person is convinced they take an atheist position. You accusing them of unknowingly being a theist is thus absurd and/or dishonest.
No, I disagree. I agree with you that we have the right to interpret our own intentions freely, because intentions cannot reliably be externally sensed. But let me give an example as to our beliefs and biases.
Suppose I’m a scientist conducting trials on a new drug. I gather a group of volunteer test subjects, and begin trials to compare the drug to a placebo. However, after they take the drug (and placebo), some of the test subjects come to me and say “You don’t have to test me, doc. I’m immune to placebos. I can feel this working, so I know I’m in the experimental group and I know the drug works great.”
If I were to apply your idea that you can’t mistrust someone else’s biases and beliefs about themself, then I would have to take their word and my science would be garbage.
Yes, my question proved that very neatly, didn’t it? They didn’t think they had any belief in being an atheist, and that the final line of the original meme was therefore nonsense. But I used a very elegant question to prove that they do have belief in being an atheist.
You seem fundamentally confused about this topic, unwilling to listen, and unequipped to further your understanding of neither crux, domain nor dialogue. We will not get further in this discussion.
Best of luck in your endeavours.
You think you can talk to me that way? Do you? Well have a lovely day too! I hope you find peace and enlightenment!
Love this actually, very funny <3