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Andrew66 wrote
This is incorrect. Being an Atheist is not the same as being Agnostic. Moreover you are the first person I have ever heard to say the two are not mutually exclusive.
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You really need to do something about your reading comprehension skills.
I NEVER said that atheism and agnosticism are the same. In fact, I specifically stated that "atheism and agnosticism are NOT mutually exclusive positions".
Maybe you do not understand the difference between "knowledge" and "belief"? Maybe you should start there.
As I stated before, I do not claim to KNOW, with absolute certainty, that gods do not exist. This is agnosticism. I am an agnostic.
I also happen to disbelieve that gods exist. This is atheism. I am an atheist.
See? I am an agnostic-atheist. I have no contradictory positions.
Here are the dictionary definitions of atheism and agnosticism:
Atheism -disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
Agnosticism - a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
What do you know! Both those describe my position on the god claim.
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Atheists say - I believe there is no god, or I'm not convinced there is a God and hold no significant hope there is a God unless more (new) evidence is introduced.
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If you only stopped at the part I bolded. You had a good definition there.
When it comes to my disbelief in the existence of gods, "hope" does not enter into it. My position is, that theists have failed to met their burden of proof, so I am unconvinced by their claims. I do not hope that a god exists, or does not exist.
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Agnostics say - I don't know if there is a God - there may or may not be - I don't lean either way.
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Again, if only you stopped at the bolded part, you had a pretty good definition of agnosticism.
Agnosticism is not some sort of 'middle ground' between theism and atheism. Agnosticism and atheism are answers to different questions. One pertaining to knowledge, the other pertaining to belief.
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You cannot say that your disbelief in God is not a belief in itself, it actually is.
When you say you're not convinced that a God exists, the statement is inextricably linked to the statement that you belief there is no God. Arguments that there is no God all have fallacies.
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Yes, my atheism is the belief that theists have not met their burden of proof.
But you larger problem here, is that you are trying to tackle both horns of a dilemma simultaneously. Which is a failure of logic 101.
It is true that there are only 2 truth claims with regards to the existence of gods, either a god exists.
Here is a simple example that may explain:
Imagine there is a jar with an unknown number of gumballs in it. It is true that there is either an even number, or an odd number of gumballs in it.
If someone, with no prior knowledge of the number of gumballs, claims that there is an odd number, I am rationally justified to disbelieve their claim.
Now, here is the tricky part. Since I disbelieve their claim that there is an odd number of gumballs in the jar, does this now mean I believe there is an even number?
The answer is, of course no.
I am rationally justified to withhold belief in either claim, until which time, one of the claims is proven.
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Arguments that there is no God all have fallacies
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Well, first of all. I do not have to make any arguments that gods do not exist. I am not claiming that gods do not exist.
I am just claiming, that the case for the existence of gods has not met its burden of proof, to convince me.
But please, by all means, list a few arguments for the none existence of gods that you think are fallacious.
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I disagree. A logical proof with a fallacy ceases to be a logical proof - I give you that. But to say just because an argument has a fallacy that it has absolutely no merit is untrue. There a weak arguments and strong ones, no??
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If a logical argument is either invalid and/or unsound (fallacious), it can not, by definition, be anything other than a failed argument. An argument, to even be categorized as weak, has to at least pass some basic hurdles, like not being fallacious.
I know you want to continue to try to rehabilitate all your flawed arguments, by trying to pass them off as anything other than flawed, but it does not work that way.