Are atheists being more illogical than agnostics?

@Frank Apisa,

I play with family, friends, and occasionally at the casino (I live in Las Vegas).

And we can play online chess if you want to play an online game with me.

1 Reply

@JimmyJ,

JimmyJ wrote:

Quote:
You may think you are...but you are not.

I was inquiring about an assertion you made.

What assertion of mine are you inspecting?

The assertion that you do not believe unicorns exist.

Huh???

I never said that I do not believe unicorns exist...ever.

Are you forgetting the "on Earth" part again...or trying clumsily to set a trap?

Get with it, Jimmy. Be careful...and specific.

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And I don't. I do not do "believing." There may be some people who do believe unicorns exist. I am not one of them. I truly do not believe they exist.

I also do not believe they do not exist.

Don't cop out. Take a stance. For the sake of your own intellectual pride you need to take a stance on whether unicorns exist or not.

Really. And what would happen to me if I don't?

I do not do believing...so I do not believe unicorns exist...and I do not believe there are no unicorns.

Straight forward to me.

If you want me to guess...I am willing to do that.

Just ask...but do it nicely. Wink

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I never said any such thing. Are you ready to acknowledge that you are just making stuff up?

I told you that I don't believe it's likely that gods exist.

If you did...I would have just passed over it. I'm sorry if I missed it.

The thing I am taking issue with is your assertion that it is more likely that there are no gods than that there are gods.

Quote:

You claimed that not believing and believing are both belief and by extension that disbelief and belief are the same thing. You then said you do not believe unicorns exist (directly before saying you don't believe anything). So if belief and disbelief are the same, and not believing and believing are the same, and you do not do beliefs, but you believe unicorns do not exist, you have contradicted yourself.
I laughed a bit while writing that.

The way I've turned you against your own argument without you even knowing is very funny

You are so confused it is almost hysterical.

Let's take this in small pieces so you can keep up.

I do not believe unicorns exist...and I do not believe that unicorns do not exist.

They may exist...or they may not.

What problem do you have with that.

1 Reply

@JimmyJ,

JimmyJ wrote:

I play with family, friends, and occasionally at the casino (I live in Las Vegas).

And we can play online chess if you want to play an online game with me.

I suck at chess. Actually, I suck at poker also...but I can usually keep my head above water, because there are so many people who suck more.

I want to play at Party Poker...which is one of the NJ alternatives, but they are having massive trouble with their geo-location equipment. (Gotta be located in New Jersey to play.)

I play a live game once in a while with the cops and firemen in a couple of towns around me, but that they are few and far between. And I prefer tournaments...because I do not have a lot of dough...and you can manage losses better in tourneys than at the cash tables.

I'm an Omaha fan...although I play a lot of Hold 'em.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Huh???

I never said that I do not believe unicorns exist...ever.

Are you forgetting the "on Earth" part again...or trying clumsily to set a trap?

Get with it, Jimmy. Be careful...and specific.

Earth is implied. Don't avoid the demand for evidence.

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Really. And what would happen to me if I don't?

I do not do believing...so I do not believe unicorns exist...and I do not believe there are no unicorns.

Straight forward to me.

If you want me to guess...I am willing to do that.

Just ask...but do it nicely.

The trap has already been sprung. You assert that you do not believe they do or do not exist. Please provide evidence for one or the other (since you claim all assertions require evidence).

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If you did...I would have just passed over it. I'm sorry if I missed it.

The thing I am taking issue with is your assertion that it is more likely that there are no gods than that there are gods.

Scroll back to the beginning of all this. You did indeed, miss it.

And I provided you with my reasons for why. It's fine if you don't accept them. Don't just dismiss them, though.

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You are so confused it is almost hysterical.

Let's take this in small pieces so you can keep up.

I do not believe unicorns exist...and I do not believe that unicorns do not exist.

They may exist...or they may not.

What problem do you have with that.

My problem is with your self-contradiction. You claim you don't do beliefs. You claim you don't believe they exist or do not exist. You also claim that belief and disbelief are the same.

You can't see the problem here?

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

You should learn chess. It's a more fun game than poker because there is no element of luck involved.

0 Replies

@JimmyJ,

JimmyJ wrote:

Quote:
Huh???

I never said that I do not believe unicorns exist...ever.

Are you forgetting the "on Earth" part again...or trying clumsily to set a trap?

Get with it, Jimmy. Be careful...and specific.

Earth is implied. Don't avoid the demand for evidence.[/quoe]

Stop expecting the implication. If it is too much for you to include the words "on Earth" you will continue to get the same answer.

1 Reply

@JimmyJ,

JimmyJ wrote:

Quote:
What evidence do I have to have?

Some people apparently "believe" in the flying noodle monster. I am not one of them.

I do not do "believing."

You're asserting that you believe he does not exist.

Technically he's not. All he's asserting is that he doesn't "believe" it exists. But that still leaves the possibility of "I don't know" (which, pedantically, can always be used to fill the void).

1 Reply

Returning to this threads title- "Are atheists being more illogical than agnostics?", the answer is obviously yes.. Smile

OXFORD DICTIONARY:
Atheist: A person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods
Agnostic: A person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/

In other words (if I interpret it correctly) an atheist is just making a wild guess that there's no god, but an agnostic takes the more logical view that wild guesses aren't worth a damn.. Smile

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@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

JimmyJ wrote:

Quote:
What evidence do I have to have?

Some people apparently "believe" in the flying noodle monster. I am not one of them.

I do not do "believing."

You're asserting that you believe he does not exist.

Technically he's not. All he's asserting is that he doesn't "believe" it exists. But that still leaves the possibility of "I don't know" (which, pedantically, can always be used to fill the void).

Thanks you, Ros.

Jimmy is very comfortable suggesting that atheists do not believe in gods...but he also says they do not believe there are no gods.

He has no problem with that at all...but he seems to be having some difficulty with me taking that sort of direction on other issues.

In any case, I think I mentioned that I do not do "believing"...which should answer Jimmy's question.

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@Romeo Fabulini,

Romeo Fabulini wrote:

Returning to this threads title- "Are atheists being more illogical than agnostics?", the answer is obviously yes..

OXFORD DICTIONARY:
Atheist: A person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods
Agnostic: A person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/

In other words (if I interpret it correctly) an atheist is just making a wild guess that there's no god, but an agnostic takes the more logical view that wild guesses aren't worth a damn..

You are wrong, but I get your meaning...an atheist needs not make any guess about God existing as he needs not make any guess pink elephants exist...an atheist simple has no good reason to be agnostic about it...it is a slightly stronger statement than the hypocritical agnostic, but not that far ahead as you might think...you would be right if saying many simple minded folk which are atheists are the kind of atheists you speak of, but the definition is something different and more subtle.

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@JimmyJ,

JimmyJ wrote:

Burden of proof does not fall on me any more than it would fall on me if I said that the flying noodle monster doesn't exist.

If you say that "the flying noodle monster doesn't exist", then you are making an assertion that something doesn't exist, and the burden of proof would indeed fall on you to support that assertion. It doesn't matter if it's positive or negative, it's an assertion.

Just because the object of the assertion is non-existence doesn't mean that the assertion you are making is somehow "negative". It's still an assertion of a state of being (which just happens to be non-existence).

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@rosborne979,

Yes...the correction is minimalistic but needed. His wording should have been I have no good reason to believe in the flying noodle monster. Instead he opt for asserting it doesn't exist...by the way he made a positive claim.
Atheism means without God, not against it...

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

Yes...the correction is minimalistic but needed. His wording should have been I have no good reason to believe in the flying noodle monster. Instead he opt for asserting it doesn't exist...by the way he made a positive claim. Atheism means without God, not against it...

Agreed. People need to be very careful with their wording or they end up talking past each other. That type of thing frustrates me, although I sometimes get the feeling that others enjoy it. Smile

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@Romeo Fabulini,

I think an agnostic is open to the possibility if proof is provided that's all

1 Reply

@Germlat,

That is the common sense version of agnostic and in the case common sense is right...but technically an agnostic asserts there is no possibility of knowing. Not knowing ultimately speaking is a positive claim. You establish Knowledge is not possible by definition. Again as in all forms of absolute nihilism you end up asserting something for sure, in the case, you know you cannot know, which is paradoxical nonsense. Passive agnosticism frames the problem of not knowing with contextual circumstances but never in the sense of an impossibility.
What one ought to mean with not knowing would be about dissonant perspectivism when referring to non local events...
Some people work like singularities they eat to much information with a small radius brain and distort the structure of information folding space onto themselves...I wouldn't say they do not know but rather that their inner perspective is singular and non local...the information somehow is there and is valid according to the chain of events and the history of the Universe at large itself.

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What modern pseudo illuminated atheism fails to understand is that people don't fight for Religion per se...people fight to the right of having non local perspectives about the world...Science has fallen into the illusion Knowledge has a linear non relativistic ordering like Newton thought about space and time (careful there is an ordering but it is complex)...modern atheism is doomed to fail and it is a perfect sign of the decadence of the western world.

If you want to connect with "non local" people, entangle with them, share who you really are, and they will accept you for what you are and you accept them as they are. That is the true meaning of civilization !

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@Frank Apisa,

That's just laziness, Frank.

1 Reply

@Romeo Fabulini,

Quote:

In other words (if I interpret it correctly) an atheist is just making a wild guess that there's no god, but an agnostic takes the more logical view that wild guesses aren't worth a damn..

Agnostics are just cowardly atheists.
It isn't a "wild guess" that god does not exist. I will start a thread about this subject for which we can debate which is more likely (that way it doesn't keep leaking into here and having us go off topic).

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

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If you say that "the flying noodle monster doesn't exist", then you are making an assertion that something doesn't exist, and the burden of proof would indeed fall on you to support that assertion. It doesn't matter if it's positive or negative, it's an assertion.

Just because the object of the assertion is non-existence doesn't mean that the assertion you are making is somehow "negative". It's still an assertion of a state of being (which just happens to be non-existence).

You are incorrect.
I don't have to prove that the flying noodle monster does not exist. It's obvious to any simpleton that he doesn't exist. I can't prove that flying bunny rabbits don't exist either.

I'm starting to get a bit flabbergasted by you and Frank's logic here and how you can't see how silly it can be when being used with other (albeit silly) examples.

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Fil Albuquerque said re definition of atheist: the definition is something different and more subtle.

I tried being an atheist in my late teens but it only lasted a few days because i felt so stupid! No matter how I tried, I couldn't dismiss all the close encounters that people have had with offworld beings listed in the Bible and covering thousands of years of human history.. Smile

2 Replies

Are atheists being more illogical than agnostics?

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