[XogGyux]

It is God we are discussing in this thread.



No we aren't. If you want to make a topic on popcorn eating unicorns you should do that.

No, we are discussing about whether atheists are less civilized than "normal members of society". You know... because we are some kind of inferior scum, some kind of second class citizen.
My argument is that what differentiates us is faith, which is the belief in something without evidence, and that having a belief in something without evidence is inferior to having a belief with evidence and thus pertinent to the question of whether atheists are less civilized than "normal members of society".

Which brings me back to my question regarding faith, that as I predicted you been dancing around for quite some time already. Expected really.

No. By unicorn, I mean just that. Magic horse with a single horn that burps rainbows and farts universes. This is not an unicorn that can transform into other shapes and his farting of universes is not a concious act, he just likes to eat celestial popcorn and when he farts, an universe comes into existence. Faith on that creature, how is it different from faith in your pilot.
I do understand your hesitancy responding to this question. It is a signal that your frontal cortex is identifying this as a trick question. Which it is. I am just waiting for you to fall into it so I can do the finishing move. Offcourse you will dance and dance around it and try to make "ifs and buts". Your subconscious realizes that they are obviously not equal, you use evidence and facts for one, but not for the other. But your concious has a stronger will to simply just be wrong.
So again. How is your "faith" in a pilot, any different from the "faith" on a magic unicorn?

I am not sure what the picture of its meaning is meant to convey? Is it supposed to imbue you with some sort of legitimacy?

I just wish to be transparent to avoid confusion that's all. Besides, it makes it easier for me to just go back and grab the picture than to read the whole thing to find my statements when I inevitably have to repeat myself.
Are pictures not agreeable for you?

According to your technical and formal definition a false dichotomy is exactly what you have done.

I have not done a false dichotomy because I have not done a dichotomy at all.
It's like me claiming that you made a "false dichotomy" because you mentioned technical and formal and thats not a real dichotomy, thus a false dichotomy. Again, I did not claim any dichotomy. You brought this BS about dichotomies and I have spent 3 pages telling you that I neither intended to make a dichotomy between belief and knowledge, and it is non-sensical. More strawmaning.

You have tried to make agnosticism and atheism mutually exclusive by ascribing one strictly only to knowledge and the other one strictly only to belief, when in fact they are not mutually exclusive since agnosticism deals with belief and atheism with knowledge as I keep repeating to you and you screaming incoherencies.

The definitions of the actual words make it so. Theism refers to belief. Gnosticism refers to knowledge. Go complain to whoever invented words and terms. Thats not my problem.

I have been telling you for several posts that they are not mutually exclusive indeed and hence why your dichotomy is false.

That's not the reason why "the dichotomy is false". Simply, there is no dichotomy, there never was and I certainly did not attempt to bring one, you are arguing a strawman that you have created yourself. You are arguing against your own invention. Refer back to this chart.

Furthermore, you can read an in-depth explanation here:
https://nargaque.com/2014/03/27/atheist ... -of-terms/
This guy also managed to make the same graph, with a representation of the percentage of people that identify in each of the 4 categories according to this study:
http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/none ... -religion/

Notice that the proportion of gnostic atheist is tiny in comparison with all other groups, specially the gnostic theist (which are the ones that claim they belief and claim to be absolutely certain that they are right).
So again, you are figthing a strawman against a position that I do not hold, but that hardly many people hold at all. This is silly and embarrasing at this point.

The creator of the term is telling you that agnosticism includes belief and not just knowledge.

Keep drowning in your own delution. First of all, meaning of words change overtime. This is what we use but as if this was not enough, I actually took the time to explain the terms, so we could have a discussion using the same terms. So even in the remote chance that 200000 years ago this term meant "red chicken", I am not talking about "red chicken" anymore. I explained the term days ago and you keep going back and forth discussing your own delutions.

Where is your evidence that while you are in the airplane the pilot is actually checking the altimeter and not being aloof?

I told you already. You don't need to have a real-time feed of evidence for you to be rational. It is perfectly reasonable to tentatively provide a certain degree of confidence to professionals that are accredited in their specific fields and that have maintained a degree of reliability. It is reasonable to have confidence in an experienced surgeon that has over 500 by-pass surgery with an estimated complication rate of less than 10% (for this type of surgery 20% is the norm) that was trained in a very respectable cardiothoracic fellowship, a very respectable surgical residency and a very respectable medical school. It is reasonable to lower your confidence level if the prospective surgeon is recently graduated but surgeon with perhaps 50 or so of those surgeries and otherwise similar stats, and it is reasonable to have no confidence what so ever on a first year surgical resident. It is reasonable also to have confidence in the oposite direction (e.i AVOID) if the prospective surgeon has a bad track record, hx of alcohol, drug abuse and marital problems or suspended license.
Again. Thats just the way I see evidence but obviously this is not how you see it. You do it on faith, and I am still waiting how is it that you can distinguish between the belief that a surgeon will take good care of you vs the belief on a magical unicorn that eats popcorn, burps rainbows and farts universes.

You are putting your faith that someone has checked or is checking everything, but once again you cannot be certain at all.

I did not say I was certain. In fact, I explicitly stated that it is impossible to be 100% certain due to otherwise unpredictable events. That does not mean you are not being reasonable to have confidence based on evidence (such as track records, credential of professional, regulatory laws, etc).
Again. What differentiates between a phobia and a fear is evidence. Phobia is irrational because it is not based on evidence, fear can be rational when it is based on evidence.
You can have fear and phobia of spiders. I personally do not have a phobia of spiders and I can have spiders crawling over me without feeling weird. This, however, does not mean I am not afraid of poisonous spiders. Since I am not afraid of touching or handling such animals, every time I go to a different state or country I make some time to read about their endemic insect/arachnoid fauna so I don't make the mistake of handling venomous animals. Other people cannot see an image or even read the text without crumbling in dishabilitating fear, this is irrational, a picture of a spider or a tiny non-venomous spider is completely incapable of harming an adult person, yet they are crying and trembling in the fetal position below their desk. In this example, the phobia is the equivalent of faith (belief in something without evidence or in spite of evidence, aka-> guy knows it is harmless to have a non-venomous spider, but he is still afraid of it).

[colliric]

Your charts are idiotic. Just saying it.

Gnosticism traditionally refers to the religious belief system we today call New Age religion.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosis

Unlike Agnostic, which has retained its textual religious ambiguity, it's meaning has in usage become entirely associated with the specific religious system of Gnosticism.

So your charts are stupid.

[noemon]

No, we are discussing about whether atheists are less civilized than "normal members of society". You know... because we are some kind of inferior scum, some kind of second class citizen.
My argument is that what differentiates us is faith, which is the belief in something without evidence, and that having a belief in something without evidence is inferior to having a belief with evidence and thus pertinent to the question of whether atheists are less civilized than "normal members of society".

Which brings me back to my question regarding faith, that as I predicted you been dancing around for quite some time already. Expected really.

a) I take this is you giving up entirely on your silly question.
b) We have already established that you are an agnostic and not atheist. And before you start highlighting broad definitions of atheism, note that this broad definition of atheism is exactly identical to the agnostic definition and substantially identical too as lack of belief necessarily implies lack of knowledge too, for without belief there can be no knowledge.
c) You have explicitly stated that atheism is irrational.
d) You have ignored my statement that for certain social demographics, religion is a civilising force while for others it can be the opposite.

Are pictures not agreeable for you?

Why did you post the picture of a definition that I linked?

I have not done a false dichotomy because I have not done a dichotomy at all.
It's like me claiming that you made a "false dichotomy" because you mentioned technical and formal and thats not a real dichotomy, thus a false dichotomy. Again, I did not claim any dichotomy. You brought this BS about dichotomies and I have spent 3 pages telling you that I neither intended to make a dichotomy between belief and knowledge, and it is non-sensical. More strawmaning.

Look mate, it is impossible discussing with someone who everytime that gets caught doing something wrong simply denies it as if it never existed. I will leave it here for others to determine if you are using them as mutually exclusive:

gnosticism/agnosticism => Claims of knowledge. Theism/Atheism, claims of belief.

You call your dichotomy however you like. But the fact remains that a) agnosticism makes a claim on belief and b) that without belief there can be no knowledge.

Call your dichotomy a vasectomy if that makes you feel any better, it still does not make your statement correct.

The definitions of the actual words make it so [mutually exclusive].

Brackets added by me as in fact you are quoting the terms "mutually exclusive" when making this statement. No dear the definitions of the terms do not make them mutually exclusive(neither the proposition you have provided nor the definitions of knowledge and belief either) and as I suspected you admit that it was your intention to make them mutually exclusive, while 2 paragraphs above you are claiming that you never did such a thing at all. which means that you were in fact drawing a dichotomy, a false one at that. I do not expect you to be proficient in Greek but at least try not to be so cocky about it. That just makes it cringeworthy.

Go complain to whoever invented words and terms. Thats not my problem.

I have brought you the guy who invented the term agnosticism and you are still ignoring it:

The English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word agnostic in 1869, and said "It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe."

It is perfectly reasonable to tentatively provide a certain degree of confidence

surgery with an estimated complication rate of less than 10%

What about surgery that has an estimated complication rate of 50% or more?

With "certain degree of confidence", you are already sailing in deep waters.

[Pants-of-dog]

Your charts are idiotic. Just saying it.

Gnosticism traditionally refers to the religious belief system we today call New Age religion.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosis

Unlike Agnostic, which has retained its textual religious ambiguity, it's meaning has in usage become entirely associated with the specific religious system of Gnosticism.

So your charts are stupid.

No, most religious scholars differentiate between the two by capitalising the esoteric Christian belief (i.e. Gnostics), and using the lower case g for those of us who claim to know that god exists (i.e. gnostics).

I also further subdivide atheism into weak and strong atheism.

[XogGyux]

a) I take this is you giving up entirely on your silly question.

If by giving up you mean asking for the n(th) time without having an anwer from you because you just realized you are in a big predicament that you have to either admit that you think all beliefs, regardless of how stupid they are (such as a universe farting unicorn) are equally valid, or that you don't really have a real reason for a belief in god. But sure... I guess this equate to giving up as I don't expect you to be honest in this discussion, after all, indoctrination is tough to break.

b) We have already established that you are an agnostic and not atheist.

You can believe whatever you want. I have told you this before many many times. YOu are free to believe in gods, unicorns, vampires, etc. You are also free to believe im an agnostic but not atheist or a rapist or a murderer or director of an orchestra of crickets.
I am an atheist (don't have a belief in god) and an agnostic (don't claim to know about gods existence). These are what the terms mean as found in the dictionary and I am content with those definitions and agree they describe my belief/knowledge on the topic.
Your assertion that I am an agnostic and not an atheist is not a magic conjuration ad much as you would want it to be so. You cannot conjure me into being something I am not anymore that I can conjure you to be a frog (let me try, did it work? I thought so, nvm).

c) You have explicitly stated that atheism is irrational.

I have explicitly said that gnostic atheism is irrational, I have also explicitly stated that theism both gnostic and agnostic are also irrational.

d) You have ignored my statement that for certain social demographics, religion is a civilising force while for others it is the opposite.

I do not ignore such a statement. The statement is meaningless. "Sometimes killing is good, sometimes it is the opposite" "Sometimes breaking a bone is good, sometimes it is the opposite". If you wish to expand upon your thought, go ahead and do so but as it stands It is not worth much discussion.

Why did you post the picture of a definition that I linked?

I told you already. Because you are making me repeat myself (as in this case, incidentally) and I find it easier to just pull the picture next time you ask the same question.

Look mate, it is impossible discussing with someone who everytime that gets caught doing something wrong simply denies it as if it never existed.

Truer words were never spoken. Stop doing it to see if we can stop going in circles.

You call your dichotomy however you like. But the fact remains that a) agnosticism makes a claim on belief and b) that without belief there can be no knowledge.

I think you believe you are making some grand discovery but you are really not.
Knowledge is a subset of belief. I have said this many times, and I am sure this is also mentioned in one of the many clips that I linked that you have not watched (obviously). Here some evidence:

You are incorrect. Agnosticism is only concerned by knowledge as your own quote states. Knowledge is a subset of belief and thus your statement is incorrect.
Furthermore, you can be an agnostic theist. Meaning you have the belief in god, but you don't claim you have the knowledge. The least unreasonable theists will fall in this category, they might tell you "well I sure believe in a god, but I am not 100% sure it exists".

Again, the one that started talking about dichotomies is you. I did not bring this, you did. I was talking about two different terms that are used to describe different claims (claim of belief, the claim of knowledge).

You call your dichotomy however you like. But the fact remains that a) agnosticism makes a claim on belief and b) that without belief there can be no knowledge.

a) Agnosticism does not make a claim on belief, agnosticism is the claim of not knowing that a god does not exist.
b) but you can have belief without having the knowledge or claiming knowledge. You might think that the distinction is trivial but it is not. You can believe aliens exist without having knowledge (e.i observing an alien or receiving a communication) or without claiming knowledge (e.i. I believe aliens exist but I don't know for sure). Again, pretty basic stuff that it is quite obvious and that I have explained for days but admitting that you are wrong is obviously hard for you so I'll just state the facts for any other reader that do care.

The definitions of the actual words make it so [mutually exclusive].


Brackets added by me as in fact you are quoting the terms "mutually exclusive" when making this statement. No dear the definitions of the terms do not make them mutually exclusive(neither the proposition you have provided nor the definitions of knowledge and belief either) and as I suspected you admit that it was your intention to make them mutually exclusive, while 2 paragraphs above you are claiming that you never did such a thing at all.

How can you be so transparent and think you can get away with it? You add words to my statements that I did not say, nor intended to say and then you fight the use of these words as if I had said them. A more evident case of strawmaning couldn't be made. For the records i said:

I have not done a false dichotomy because I have not done a dichotomy at all.
It's like me claiming that you made a "false dichotomy" because you mentioned technical and formal and thats not a real dichotomy, thus a false dichotomy. Again, I did not claim any dichotomy. You brought this BS about dichotomies and I have spent 3 pages telling you that I neither intended to make a dichotomy between belief and knowledge, and it is non-sensical. More strawmaning.

The definitions of the actual words make it so. Theism refers to belief. Gnosticism refers to knowledge. Go complain to whoever invented words and terms. Thats not my problem.

First quote, cleary stating that it has never been my intention to make a dichotomy at all. The second part clearly states that theism refers to belief and gnosticism refers to knowledge. These are two different categories and you don't make a dichotomy in this manner.
You have been trying to insert this silly point for a very long time, in fact since wed 23 when you said:

It's a false dichotomy because the absence of religion does not imbue one with the ability to deal with reality. In fact, religion, meditation and self-awareness is all about training yourself to deal with reality in an orderly fashion. It's absence has had detrimental effects to social order with divorce rates, mental health issues, excessive medication reaching epidemic levels. An atheist declaration is not a passport to reality.

Again. Clearly, you had no idea what a dichotomy is, as what you are saying does not even make sense. Same when you used strawmaning before when you said:

Playing with semantics is a straw-man.

When straw-man actually means to create a similar argument but weaker so you can attack the weaker argument.
Clearly, you have no idea how any of these terms are used in discussion or debate. You just call "strawman this" "dichotomy that" "agnostic that" "atheist this". But hey, keep complaining about the non-existing dichotomy invasion ^_^.

I suspected you admit that it was your intention to make them mutually exclusive, while 2 paragraphs above you are claiming that you never did such a thing at all.

Explain to me, how do you think I can claim they are mutually exclusive when I had previously stated that knowledge is a subset of belief... Seriously I even quoted my own statements from before. This is, btw a proper strawman (you just made a claim I did not make, and attacked it)https://www.politicsforum.org/forum/images/smilies/moron.gif:

which means that you were in fact drawing a dichotomy

Which means nothing. You been obsessed with dichotomies for almost a week, pointing to different statements as dichotomies when at no point what so ever I have claimed such thing and I have in fact denied it.

I have brought you the guy who invented the term agnosticism and you are still ignoring it:

I did not ignore it. You linked the own definitions. The very same definitions that you linked were the same definitions that I had used. I even made the letters big, bold and highlighted and I know you saw them because you were complaining about it. On top of that, I have taken the trouble of clarifying the actual positions so that there should not be further confusion and despite all of this you keep making the same mistake over, and over, and over and over. I told you. What that guy said in a quote is irrelevant if the term is understood to mean something else now. Furthermore, if I on top of everything take the time to clarify it, you are completely unjustified to keep acting confused. So what is your excuse for acting in this way?

What about surgery that has an estimated complication rate of 50% or more?

I don't know what you are trying to say. Usually, procedures do not have a complication rate this high. CABG (open heart surgery) has ~20% and like everything, the most benign "complications" are more common (e.i bleeding or small pneumothorax might be complications but these are managed relatively easy). When the complication rate is that high ( > 50%) chances are that we are talking about a very serious condition or a medical emergency or both. A type A aortic dissection would definitely fit this category. As a general rule, despite the high complication rate, any condition that has this high of complication rate also carriers a very high mortality without said intervention. In this case, assuming that you want to maximize your chances of living, usually going for the procedure is the rational decision. The question might be whether or not you have the luxury of choosing the surgeon (or doctor) that will be making the procedure as such case might be an emergency/urgency and you might be unable to give concent. This is a discussion on its own.

With "certain degree of confidence", you are already sailing in deep waters.

Hey. This is how I make decisions. Apparently you make them on faith but you have not been able to answer me the question how do you distinguish between the belief that you are safe in a plane vs the belief in that farting unicorn at the begining of this post. You thought I forgot? I'll be waiting for your answer.
Here is my take. I think you also have a rational belief base on evidence for this sort of stuff. You might have not realized until now, or you might willingly denied this, but obviously you are not an irrational person because irrational people don't grow to adulthood and live independently (either they are killed off by a random car/accident due to irrational behavior, or they are in some sort of mental facility or medicated to the point they cannot function very well indepently) So rhetoric aside, I do realize you are overall a rational person. But you do have irrational beliefs (faith). YOu are not the only one. Many people have irrational beliefs (phobias are irrational beliefs). If you can show me otherwise (how is it that your faith in a pilot differes from the faith on a universe farting unicorn) or you can show me evidence for god (aka, you don't believe on faith, you believe based on evidence) then might be able to say this belief is justified vs unjustified. In the meantime, I'll be awaiting your next dance to answer either one of this questions.

[noemon]

If by giving up you mean asking for the n(th) time without having an anwer from you

You have indeed received an answer from my me. You just have no argument to carry on. Link: viewtopic.php?p=14983940#p14983940

Your assertion that I am an agnostic and not an atheist is not a magic conjuration ad much as you would want it to be so. You cannot conjure me into being something I am not anymore that I can conjure you to be a frog (let me try, did it work? I thought so, nvm).

As long as you comprehend the statement that knowledge cannot exist without belief, you can call yourself however you wish.

As far as I am concerned, the position you have adopted is the agnostic one instead of the atheist one which I understand you have only done so because it is convenient and because you are not confident enough to adopt the proper atheist proposition, but in fact for the purposes of the OP(as she has described atheists) you are in fact an atheist, because at the end of the day you are just an angry slanderer of religion. Your own invented term of "agnostic atheist" is simply overkill as belief is already included in knowledge, meaning you are just repeating the same thing twice for no reason whatsoever.

I do not ignore such a statement. The statement is meaningless. "Sometimes killing is good, sometimes it is the opposite" "Sometimes breaking a bone is good, sometimes it is the opposite". If you wish to expand upon your thought, go ahead and do so but as it stands It is not worth much discussion.

Are you saying that the only statements you concern yourself with are absolute, mutually exclusive statements? Why?

Again, the one that started talking about dichotomies is you. I did not bring this, you did. I was talking about two different terms that are used to describe different claims (claim of belief, the claim of knowledge).

As if they are mutually exclusive, which they are not and hence you made a false dichotomy as per the precise definition of a false dichotomy that even you brought forward.

a) Agnosticism does not make a claim on belief, agnosticism is the claim of not knowing that a god does not exist.

You wrote:

Knowledge is a subset of belief.

a)How can a claim on knowledge be made without making a claim on belief?
b) What is the term believe, doing in its very definition:

The English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word agnostic in 1869, and said "It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or [believe."

b) but you can have belief without having the knowledge or claiming knowledge.

But you cannot have knowledge without belief which makes your statements above that agnosticism does not make a claim on belief but only on knowledge, as absolutely false.

How can you be so transparent and think you can get away with it? You add words to my statements that I did not say, nor intended to say and then you fight the use of these words as if I had said them. A more evident case of strawmaning couldn't be made. For the records i said:

You said:

The definitions of the actual words make it so.

While quoting this:

You have tried to make agnosticism and atheism mutually exclusive by ascribing one strictly only to knowledge and the other one strictly only to belief, when in fact they are not mutually exclusive since agnosticism deals with belief and atheism with knowledge as I keep repeating to you and you screaming incoherencies.

So, when you say the definitions make it so? What is the "so" you are referring to, if not mutually exclusive?

Explain to me, how do you think I can claim they are mutually exclusive when I had previously stated that knowledge is a subset of belief... Seriously I even quoted my own statements from before. This is, btw a proper strawman (you just made a claim I did not make, and attacked it.

You have been making contradictory statements consistently without caring at all, making contradictory statements has never prevented you assuming both positions. If you agree that they are not mutually exclusive then your whole stick that the one deals strictly only with belief and the other strictly only with knowledge is false regardless if you call it a false dichotomy(which it is) or not.

I told you. What that guy said in a quote is irrelevant if the term is understood to mean something else now.

more contradictory statements without a worry in the world. You:
"I said knowledge is a subset of belief, I also said that I take issue with agnosticism dealing with belief according to its definition because the definition is old and has changed now and it does not include belief but belief is included in knowledge".



What am I or anyone really supposed to make of this?

In this case, assuming that you want to maximize your chances of living, usually going for the procedure is the rational decision.

Am I to assume that you are calling faith rational? And if not explain, without making contradictory statements.

[XogGyux]

You have indeed received an answer from my me. You just have no argument to carry on. Link: viewtopic.php?p=14983940#p14983940

I do not consider that an answer because you left it ambiguously by changing the terms. Just to be clear, you believe that:
"it is equally rational to believe a pilot can safely fly you in a plane as it is to believe that there is a magical unicorn that is a unicorn and nothing else, unable to shapeshift, that does not have any higher cognitive functions than a regular horse, eats popcorn, burps rainbows and farts universes"
Since you ambiguously answered my previous question and did not answer the follow-up question that I required in case you answered in the negative, my default position would be that you accept this proposition in the positive unless you explicitly say so (and provide your reasoning why you think it is not equally reasonable).
Think very carefully of your answer, as I have demonstrated here, BS stuff that you say can come to haunt you in a future statement.

As long as you comprehend the statement that knowledge cannot exist without belief, you can call yourself however you wish.

Your allusion that at some point in time during this debate or even prior I was not aware of this is laughable at best, misguided at worse. I already quoted my own words from days ago stating that knowledge is a subset of belief. What you fail to understand, and apparently completely and willingly fail to admit is the important distinction between the terms as I shall demonstrate through this very post.
This distinction between a term and a sub-set of such term is the difference between saying "organisms fly planes" which is obviously false, (bacterium cannot do that) and "humans fly planes". Even though the human category is a subset within the larger organism category, you cannot use these terms interchangeably or you will have people seriously questioning your sanity. So I propose you stop acting childish and subscribe to a sincere discussion or you shall keep having your embarrassing logical insufficiencies being pointed to you. Up to you, either way I find this entertaining.

As far as I am concerned

That alone is worrisome... but lets continue.

As far as I am concerned, the position you have adopted is the agnostic one instead of the atheist one which I understand you have only done so because it is convenient and because you are not confident enough to adopt the proper atheist proposition, but in fact for the purposes of the OP(as she has described atheists) you are in fact an atheist, because at the end of the day you are just an angry slanderer of religion. Your own invented term of "agnostic atheist" is simply overkill as belief is already included in knowledge, meaning you are just repeating the same thing twice for no reason whatsoever.

Like I said. Everything you said, will come to haunt you. YOu say the OP described atheists... I went back to the original post and he/she makes absolutely no description of what he/she thinks an atheist is. However, she points out a very specific TV personality, Penn Jillete.
Now lets see what Penn Jillete has to say about agnosticism and atheism:
You can either watch the whole short clip, or jump to second 25 when he explicitly makes the difference "but agnostic answers a different question...." and goes to explain the exact same bullshit that I have been saying for days now. One term is used for belief, another term is used for knowledge. This is how he uses it for himself and since you want to use the OP's definition and the OP definition is just to say "atheism like Penn Jillete" this is the disctinction that we need to use for our discussion.

I am plenty confident. In my knowledge and understanding. I am also reasonable confident that you are aware of all of this but you think by muddying the waters you can move the spotlight away from religion and put the burn on me . Your problem is, that because you are holding irrational beliefs, and whatever understanding of logic you have is very rudimentary and flawed you are unable to form valid and sound arguments and degrade yourself into a ball of fallacies covered my misrepresentation and lies.

Are you saying that the only statements you concern yourself with are absolute, mutually exclusive statements? Why?

I am not saying that. I am simply pointing out that you did not make an argument you simply made a statement that does not really say anything. "Some people are good, some people are bad", what did you learn from that?

Are you saying that the only statements you concern yourself with are absolute, mutually exclusive statements? Why?

Again, the one that started talking about dichotomies is you. I did not bring this, you did. I was talking about two different terms that are used to describe different claims (claim of belief, the claim of knowledge).


As if they are mutually exclusive, which they are not and hence you made a false dichotomy as per the precise definition of a false dichotomy that even you brought forward.

You have absolutely no excuse to pretend to being confused. If you had those two quotes in the air devoid of further context, maybe you could have made the case that it was confusing and maybe you should have asked for clarification of my statment before jumping to conclusions. However, the fact that you have been falsely pointing to supposed dichotomies which I have been rejecting for nearly a week, multiple times, including the very post preceding your quote and the very next post following and including every other post that has come since is more than enough evidence to show that you are indeed grasping straws and making a huge, pointless strawman for you to attack. It is crystal clear.
Here is a quote when I rejected the idea that I was using a dichotomy:

IDK what you talking about. There is no dichotomy nor did I try to set one forth. What do you mean with "meditation"? if you talking about "THINKING" say thinking, if you trying to slip something "spiritual" good luck with that, first you would have to prove that it exists before trying to use terms that make reference to the spiritual.

and

Where is the dichotomy I supposedly try to sneak in? Please point towards it, quote it, please.

and

You are wrong.
For one, you are addressing gnosticism and not theism in that question. The actual dichotomy is

a) I believe god exists
b) I do not have a belief that god exists.

Again, the lack of belief in something does not equate to the belief in the opposite.

and

You think that by answering No you are denying the existance of god, but really what you are denying is the statement of belief. The dichotomy here is belief vs non-belief. The dichotomy is not belief vs belief of non-existance. And here is the colossal mistake of logic that you could have avoided by watching a 10mins clip instead of spending 3 days arguing a point that I never made (AKA strawmaning).

and

I did not put a dichotomy of knowledge and belief. In fact I specifically said they are different categories. One category is knowledge, the second category is belief. You cannot make dichotomies like that. This is a strawman (claiming I made an argument I have not made). Pitiful

and

One deals with knowledge, the other deals with belief. You cannot make a dichotomy of these two terms any more than you could make a dichotomy between temperature and distance.

You cannot make a dichotomy between knowledge and belief because they are not partitions that are opposite of each other. They are also not mutually exclusive either.

and (I knew that image was going to be handy)

https://i.imgur.com/4knKIwQ.png

and

That's not the reason why "the dichotomy is false". Simply, there is no dichotomy, there never was and I certainly did not attempt to bring one, you are arguing a strawman that you have created yourself. You are arguing against your own invention. Refer back to this chart.

I have not done a false dichotomy because I have not done a dichotomy at all.
It's like me claiming that you made a "false dichotomy" because you mentioned technical and formal and thats not a real dichotomy, thus a false dichotomy. Again, I did not claim any dichotomy. You brought this BS about dichotomies and I have spent 3 pages telling you that I neither intended to make a dichotomy between belief and knowledge, and it is non-sensical. More strawmaning.

and

When straw-man actually means to create a similar argument but weaker so you can attack the weaker argument.
Clearly, you have no idea how any of these terms are used in discussion or debate. You just call "strawman this" "dichotomy that" "agnostic that" "atheist this". But hey, keep complaining about the non-existing dichotomy invasion ^_^.

and

First quote, cleary stating that it has never been my intention to make a dichotomy at all. The second part clearly states that theism refers to belief and gnosticism refers to knowledge. These are two different categories and you don't make a dichotomy in this manner.
You have been trying to insert this silly point for a very long time, in fact since wed 23 when you said:

Have you had enough dichotomies yet? See... you are not justified to pretend that you were confused by an statement out of context. Because of all the context, all my replies have explicitly stated that at no point what so ever I have tried, nor does it make sense, to put forth a dichotomy between theism and gnosticism or a dichotomy between knowledge and belief.
There are dichotomies between atheism and theism and between gnosticism and agnosticism but this was only pointed out to you to dispell your erroneous and misguided claims.

Are we clear now or are you going to keep pretending that you are confused?

But you cannot have knowledge without belief which makes your statements above that agnosticism does not make a claim on belief but only on knowledge, as absolutely false.

It does not matter. The distinction is still important and useful because it describes the way people think about stuff. Belief is important because people don't wait until they have the knowledge to act upon beliefs. For instance, a person with a phobia might act on his/hers irrational beliefs that lead him to have fear towards a particular animal/object/event/etc, a person that believes in horoscopes might act by buying a lottery ticket after hearing his/hers lucky numbers. The claim of knowledge is equally important because it demarcates a stronger position compared to belief. Thus this distinction is useful and important for this discussion.

So, when you say the definitions make it so? What is the "so" you are referring to, if not mutually exclusive?

Like I just said above. You are not justified to pretend you are confused by this out of context quote. Specially when I explicitly said PRIOR the following:

You cannot make a dichotomy between knowledge and belief because they are not partitions that are opposite of each other. They are also not mutually exclusive either. You can believe something but not know it.

I was pretty clear right?
So again, your pretend is just that, pretend. If you had genuinly thought this was an ambiguos statment, all you had to do is clarify, rather than senseless accusations. The evidence does not support your claim, in fact, it refutes it.

You have been making contradictory statements consistently without caring at all, making contradictory statements has never prevented you assuming both positions. If you agree that they are not mutually exclusive then your whole stick that the one deals strictly only with belief and the other strictly only with knowledge is false regardless if you call it a false dichotomy(which it is) or not.

I don't know what to say. Your obsession with non-existing dichotomies is worrisome. Did a dichotomy touch you in your private areas when you were a child? Please go see a psychologist, this is borderline pathologic now.

:lol: more contradictory statements without a worry in the world. You:
"I said knowledge is a subset of belief, I also said that I take issue with agnosticism dealing with belief according to its definition because the definition is old and has changed now and it does not include belief but belief is included in knowledge".



What am I or anyone really supposed to make of this?

There is nothing contradictory about this. This is how words are used.
Are you implying that there is no use for the narrower meaning of terms? Please. think before you answer.

Am I to assume that you are calling faith rational? And if not explain, without making contradictory statements.

My position is, has always been that faith is irrational. I have explained it before but... faith is not based on evidence or facts thus believing based on faith is unjustified and irrational.

[Rancid]

This is why I don't like to call myself atheist. Anyway, I guess I'm technically more of an agnostic than an Atheist.

I'm starting to realize that atheist have some sort of inferiority complex or something. This is why they feel the need to be so militant about their atheism.

@XogGyux,

Do you believe that no good comes from religion?

[One Degree]

I just opened a case of beer and found one of those 2” by 4” religious pamphlets. I guess this is what @XogGyux finds so frightening about religion. I was simply devastated. I couldn’t sleep after this vicious proselytizing. Lol

[XogGyux]

@Rancid
Good can come from religion.
Do you believe no good can come from war, killing, stealing?

You can believe or do something good for the wrong reasons. It is better to believe and do something good for the right reasons than it is to do so for the wrong reasons. When you do stuff for wrong reasons you cannot always guarantee that it is the right thing to do. When you do things for the right reasons, you can reliably guarantee it is the right thing to do. That is why having some good come out of religion does not justify having such a position.

It is better to be a good person because you have good reasons to be a good person than being a good person because you are afraid of hell for instance. If the second person, one day decides to stop believing, but never developed the ability to evaluate the situations, you can potentially create a monster.

I just opened a case of beer and found one of those 2” by 4” religious pamphlets. I guess this is what @XogGyux finds so frightening about religion. I was simply devastated. I couldn’t sleep after this vicious proselytizing. Lol

What I find frightening about religion is the willful detachment from rationality, facts, and reality.

I just opened a case of beer and found one of those 2” by 4” religious pamphlets.

And the Irony is that in that huge pamphlet that you are seeing, 90% is not even religion but actual discussions about a non-existing dichotomy invasion

[Rancid]

Do you believe no good can come from war, killing, stealing?

@Rancid
Good can come from religion.
Do you believe no good can come from war, killing, stealing?

You can believe or do something good for the wrong reasons. It is better to believe and do something good for the right reasons than it is to do so for the wrong reasons. When you do stuff for wrong reasons you cannot always guarantee that it is the right thing to do. When you do things for the right reasons, you can reliably guarantee it is the right thing to do. That is why having some good come out of religion does not justify having such a position.

It is better to be a good person because you have good reasons to be a good person than being a good person because you are afraid of hell for instance. If the second person, one day decides to stop believing, but never developed the ability to evaluate the situations, you can potentially create a monster.

Why is religion the wrong reason?

For me, I think we will naturally evolve away from religion. Further, in our current global culture, I think it does more good than bad. Many people simply cannot cope with the idea that maybe this entire universe is a fluke, and has not real purpose or explanation.

Religion is part of human evolution/development/history. It took a long time to develop it, and it will take a long time to make it obsolete. We needed religion to get us this far. I don't see how it's "wrong."

I guess for me, the question right/wrong is irrelevant.

[noemon]

I do not consider that an answer because you left it ambiguously by changing the terms. Just to be clear, you believe that:

That is not what you asked me:

Explain to me then, how your "faith" that you are relatively safe inside a plane being flown by a pilot is in any way different to my hypothetical faith in the existence of a magical unicorn that farted the universe into existence.

I replied:

If by unicorn you mean God, then it's not, it's the same kind of faith.

This distinction between a term and a sub-set of such term is the difference between saying "organisms fly planes" which is obviously false, (bacterium cannot do that) and "humans fly planes". Even though the human category is a subset within the larger organism category, you cannot use these terms interchangeably or you will have people seriously questioning your sanity.

Darling you are confused. When you say that agnosticism does not claim belief but only knowledge, you are making the equivalent statement that the baker baked a bake without any ingredients. Belief is a requisite for knowledge not merely an irrelevant "subset". Organisms do not require humans you see.

Something about false equivocation again!

Like I said. Everything you said, will come to haunt you. YOu say the OP described atheists... I went back to the original post and he/she makes absolutely no description of what he/she thinks an atheist is. However, she points out a very specific TV personality, Penn Jillete.

You see the atheist screaming down his screen at religious people, that person is you. Your ridiculous statements have all been trashed beyond repair.

I am plenty confident.

Not at all, I can only see weakness and fear to adopt the fence-sitting position of agnosticism because you are scared to adopt the proper atheist proposition despite of all your insults, shouting and screaming on the religious. Agnostics are not you, they are fence-sitters, you are just an angry teenager screaming at the religious and twisting yourself into knots in the process.l

I am not saying that. I am simply pointing out that you did not make an argument you simply made a statement that does not really say anything.

The statement says that for certain social demographics religion is a civilising force. I was not aware that I am obliged to take the position for all or no social demographics.

Here is a quote when I rejected the idea that I was using a dichotomy

Just because you are merely stating that you are not making a dichotomy, it does not mean that you are in fact not making a dichotomy.

nor does it make sense, to put forth a dichotomy between theism and gnosticism or a dichotomy between knowledge and belief.Are we clear now or are you going to keep pretending that you are confused?

of course it does not make any sense as I have repeatedly told you.

You said:

It does not matter. The distinction

Quoting this:

But you cannot have knowledge without belief which makes your statements above that agnosticism does not make a claim on belief but only on knowledge, as absolutely false.

The argument that proves your dichotomy false beyond any doubt does matter indeed, because you are trying to dichotomise(=separate, slash, cut, incise) agnosticism from belief when that is simply not possible. You can be screaming for days "I did not do a false dichotomy" till your hearts desire and repeating yourself ad nauseum, it won't change the fact that your argument remains false.

I was pretty clear right?

Not at all, because you cannot know something without believing it, and thus your distinction is false.

[XogGyux]

Why is religion the wrong reason?

Religion is the wrong reason because it relies on faith. Believing something on faith does not require any evidence, or facts and sometimes even go against evidence or fact. There is no position that you cannot believe on faith.
You can believe on faith on Yahweh (the christian god), Allah (The muslim god), Zeus (Greek god), Osiris (Egyptian god), Thor (Nordic God), Horoscopes.
You can believe on faith that we should all love each other, but you can also believe on faith that whites are better than blacks, that gays are an abomination and that slavery is OK.
Since you can take any position on faith, and we understand that some positions are are better than others, clearly, faith is not a reliable way to make good decisions. Thus, actions and decisions based on religion, which are based on faith, are not based on good reason.

Do you disagree with this?

[One Degree]

What I find frightening about religion is the willful detachment from rationality, facts, and reality.


And the Irony is that in that huge pamphlet that you are seeing, 90% is not even religion but actual discussions about a non-existing dichotomy invasion

What I find frightening about sole reliance on science is the exclusion of the needs of the individual. Our needs are seldom ‘factual’ today, but emotional. Alcoholics Anonymous is a great example of combining the two to meet the needs of the ‘whole person’. You can’t just disregard a large part of what we are and claim you are being rational. That is irrational. A rational person would understand we are not totally rational.

[Drlee]

.....and that having a belief in something without evidence is inferior to having a belief with evidence

You have some proof for this?

Do not ever become a doctor. You will fail your patients miserably. Or if you do, become a pathologist or radiologist. You won't be able to hurt them very badly.

[XogGyux]

That is not what you asked me:



I replied:

"If by unicorn you mean God, then it's not, it's the same kind of faith."

You inserted god. I never asked for god. I asked for a unicorn I don't care for god, in my town people are unicornists they only care about unicorns so I need to know if they are being reasonable according to your understanding. .
Again do you think it is equally reasonable to believe that a pilot will safely fly and land a plane as it is to believe in a magical unicorn?
In this case, Magical unicorn refers to a horse with a horn, cannot shapeshift of do higher congnitive functions, can become undetectable and eats popcorn, burps rainbows and farts universes.

:lol: Darling you are confused. When you say that agnosticism does not claim belief but only knowledge, you are making the equivalent statement that the baker baked a bake without any ingredients. Belief is a requisite for knowledge not merely an irrelevant "subset". Organisms do not require humans you see.

Darling, you linked the definitions of both words and their meaning was brought to your attention multiple times. Your stubbornness is only surpassed by your inability to conduct reason.

You see the atheist screaming down his screen at religious people, that person is you. Your ridiculous statements have all been trashed beyond repair.

Yes, conveniently trying to dismiss the fact that the very person the OP referenced as the model for this thread has exactly the same position about the meaning of the words than I do. ROFL

Not at all, I can only see weakness and fear to adopt the fence-sitting position of agnosticism because you are scared to adopt the proper atheist proposition despite of all your insults, shouting and screaming on the religious. Agnostics are not you, they are fence-sitters, you are just an angry teenager screaming at the religious and twisting yourself into knots in the process.

I have been clear about my stance.

The statement says that for certain social demographics religion is a civilising force. I was not aware that I am obliged to take the position for all or no social demographics.

OK fair enough. My counter argument is then "religion for certain social demographics has been and uncivilising force".

Just because you are merely stating that you are not making a dichotomy, it does not mean that you are in fact not making a dichotomy.

I am done enabling your fetish for dichotomies.

Not at all, because you cannot know something without believing it, and thus your distinction is false.

What are you trying to say? What is your point here?

You have some proof for this?

Do you care about what is real, true and verifiable?

Do not ever become a doctor. You will fail your patients miserably. Or if you do, become a pathologist or radiologist. You won't be able to hurt them very badly.

Yes. I wonder, how often do you seek medical help from a priest?
How often do you ask your doctor for "faith" treatment instead of blood pressure medication?

[Drlee]

Yes. I wonder, how often do you seek medical help from a priest?
How often do you ask your doctor for "faith" treatment instead of blood pressure medication?

And this is proof of my assertion.

Ask old doctors if the priest is their ally or their enemy.

You may be a passable scientist. You have a great deal to learn about the human condition and life in general.

[XogGyux]

And this is proof of my assertion.

Ask old doctors if the priest is their ally or their enemy.

You may be a passable scientist. You have a great deal to learn about the human condition and life in general.

Yes, ask old doctors if they rather use insulin or pray to control blood sugar .

While you might claim that perhaps the "spiritual" support that a priest can give can help on some mental illness. And I do agree that social support is important, it is very often that you see psychiatric and mental illness diagnosis delayed because priests are not trained to deal with these problems.

You can have social support from a group of friends that get together to talk about books, that play chess/cards or talk about politics. You do not need to add a belief on a magical being in order to have that support. This addition is irrelevant at best, harmful at worse.

[Drlee]

Your ignorance of medicine is startling. There is a reason they call it the healing arts.

Go be a chemist. You will love that.

[XogGyux]

Your ignorance of medicine is startling. There is a reason they call it the healing arts.

Go be a chemist. You will love that.

USMLE, ACP, And the state all disagree with that.

Calling it "healing arts" is an embellishment. Medicine is science (or at least good medicine is).