Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucificate  Lack of any belief at all is the base state, it is from that point that you introduce beliefs. Any introduced belief should be based on reason, therefore you need to start with a clean slate and introduce the notion of "god" through reason. If you can do that, you will win me over into your religion. |
I skipped everything else as well (this is, btw, exactly the same argument made by Trinial above).
Prove it. Prove to me that the lack of belief is a base state. Prove to me that such a thing as a "base state" exists. Prove to me that "any introduced belief should be based on reason." Prove to me that your definition of "reason" is the right one. Prove to me that I need to start with a clean slate and introduce the notion of God through reason. Prove to me that your definition of "clean slate" is correct.
(and btw when we are talking about God as a diety His name is spelled with a capital G not a lower case g -- just like any proper name or noun such as Dawkins of Christian is spelled with a capital letter -- it is only when we are talking about someone who is really, really good at videogames where we might say he's quite a god at EQ and use a little g-- if you expect me to take you seriously, I expect you to be polite)
Lets just look at the first one: lack of belief is a base state. You said it, I didn't -- I am not misquoting you, correct? This is an "existentially positive propositions" correct? And as you note "the maker of an existentially positive proposition bears the burden of proof." Yet you impose this burden on me and not upon your own propositions.
I would think that since your "existentially positive proposition" comes before mine in your logic -- it is only fair that you prove that lack of belief is a base state, before I am required to prove that God exists.
And that's why I cry bullshit. I don't give a flying fuck that you, or anyone else is an atheist -- seriously go burn bibles with your atheist buddies in your home or wear t-shirts that say "Fuck God" if that gives you jollies -- doesn't affect me -- but I do give a fuck and I find it hypocritical and it does affect me that everytime I have one of this discussion here or in RL atheists (such as you) take the logical scalpel to religion in an attempt to convert the unwashed masses (such as myself) but refuse to use the same instrument on their own belief structure.
Take for an example the canard that atheism isn't a belief it is a "lack of belief" cop-out. You can shout to the mountain tops that atheism isn't a positive statment of belief -- but the only folks who accept that are other atheists -- its part of your scripture. The rest of us know that atheism is a positive statement of belief: it is a statement, in the absence of proof, that there is no God.
You try to "prove" that atheism isn't a belief by stating that it isn't a belief. Way to use circular logic. You try to prove that atheism needs no proof by stating that "because atheism is a lack of belief. A lack of belief does not require support, it is the base state from which we develop propositions."
You are resting your entire argument right back on the unprovable assumption about "base states" and the lack of support and/or proof required from them. Do you see that that's simply a cop-out? That you are inserting the axiom that atheism doesn't need to be proven right there out in the open? Do you see why I think this argument is full of shit? You're using the same "existentially positive proposition" multiple times to state that you don't need to prove the self-same EPP.
As an aside I think you might be able to sell the "atheism isn't a belief" to more people if every atheist on the Interweb didn't seem to be trying to convert every non-atheist all the time.
And you, of course, are a prime example of such. You need to understand that your beliefs that there is no God are based on foundations as flimsy as the religous beliefs you ridicule. The writings of Dawkins notwithstanding.
Now I can and will go a little further since you seem to think you're some kind of genuis. There is a legal philosopher by the name of Arthur Allen Leff. Leff was an agnostic law professor who wrote a series of papers on the nature of logic -- stating much more forcefully and much more cleverly what I've tried to discuss above: to whit -- that no system of logic can prove the existence or nonexistence of God or whether one behavior is to preferred over another or whether one thing is good and another thing bad.
He stated it thusly: "There is no system of logic that can prove that napalming babies is bad." So when you talk to me about "base states" I know that you -- or whoever you're parroting (Dawkins? I don't know) doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about. There is no logical base state from which propositions spring forth like flowers on a barren meadow.
Finally let me say I pity you.
I pity you because of your attempt to make fun of my belief systems using little quotation marks around "sins" and "moral wrongs and "God"--
it shows how poor a lens atheism is of the world.
We are what we believe, and what we believe reveals (and obscures) the world around us -- our beliefs are a grid -- a secret decoder ring if you will -- that we use to bring order to the chaos of the universe. We put our secret decoder grid over the chaos and some things become clear and understandable while other things are hidden by the grid lines.
Your atheism is so narrow that is has obscured your vision of the universe and you can no longer distinguish between a real religon and a fake one. Between what is right and what is wrong. Between sanity and insanity.
I doubt you will understand what I'm trying to say because of your atheism (none are so blind as those who will not see & etc.) but I thought I'd make the effort to say it anyway.