I registered to address this. If someone proposes that Y is true and I reject their proposition based on lack of evidence it does not mean I assert that Y is untrue. In other words if someone asserts a god exists and I say I don't believe them because they haven't demonstrated it to be true, it does not mean I am saying they are wrong. it just means there, to me, is no way of knowing if they are right. Withholding belief on something is the default position when a claim is made which is not backed by anything. I am an atheist, but I have no idea whether there is a god or not. I actually think it is entirely possible that there is some "higher power" or an afterlife or something, I just see no evidence for it. So I hold no god beliefs, which makes me an atheist. I am an agnostic as well because I do not claim knowledge of there being no god. Gnostic/Agnostic is about knowledge, theist/atheist is about belief. A "gnostic atheist" asserts that there are definitely no gods, I have yet to meet someone who does that. The vast majority of atheists are agnostic. Bare in mind that the word "agnostic" doesn't necessarily refer to god beliefs, someone can be gnostic/agnostic in regards to anything. I am an agnostic atheist, some people are agnostic theists.

It's not a way to drag agnostics, it's the definition of the word plain and simple. Only reason weak atheists rarely subscribe to the term atheist is because they think there's a distinction between agnosticism and atheist when in reality agnosticism is just a sub category.

I lived under the label "atheist" for years and gave no care in the world if god did or didn't exist. But only because I was familiar with the term. I agree with you that most people don't use it that way, but I think that's a result of the negative connotation religious people give it. When you want to blend into a world of spiritual folk agnosticism just seems so much more pacifist.

Also, you keep confusing "not believing in god" with "believing there is no god." they simply just aren't the same. They're rectangles and squares. Like I said, if not believing something is a belief, then not playing golf is an activity.

This is the same semantic contortion that rears its head in all of these discussions.

Let's pretend like there is a difference between these two statements (which, for the sake of transparency, I will state right now, I don't believe to be the case, at least not in any meaningful sense)...

Then, in your opinion:

"not believing in god" ≠ "believing there is no god"

Ok...so let's drop the "believing there is no god" and set:

"not believing in god" = "not believing in god"
or
"not believing in god" = "disbelief in god"

Then, we factor out disbelief to get its definition:

disbelief = mental rejection of something as untrue

so:
"not believing in god" = "mental rejection of the concept of god" = "the concept of god is untrue"

Which can be simplified to:
"god = false"

Now, unless you are saying that you have proof that the concept of god is false...this is a belief, not (as so many would claim) the absence of belief.

I agree with the above equation^....nice deductive reasoning skills there Snozz

It's not just a semantic game. It is a legitimate difference. Recently on youtube someone asserted to me that the US supreme court had made a ruling that atheism was a religion. I asked him to show me the ruling, he did not, I googled and could find no such ruling although I did find a ruling along similar lines by a federal appeals court, it related to allowing atheists to congregate in the same manner as religious people in prison. His refusal to show me the ruling, coupled with my inability to find it caused me to reject it. I did not accept his assertion. That *does not* mean I am convinced he is wrong. There could easily have been such a ruling and perhaps he couldn't remember where he seen it or it is in some obscure place online or something... but in the absense of evidence I reject his assertion. That is analogous to how I reject god claims. I do not reject the notion of god, I reject the claims made by theists because they have not met their burden of proof.

This thing seems to cause much confusion... and it always seems to be non-atheists telling atheists that the we are essentially asserting that there is no god. I'm really not sure how many times atheists can respond explaining that we are asserting nothing, we are simply not accepting the assertions of others. Some atheists of course do assert that there are no gods, but these atheists have a burden of proof... and they cannot meet it. I reject their assertion as well.

I understand this to be the point behind your example...yes?


However, immediately prior to the above quote, you stated

Meaning...you believed him to be wrong. You rejected it based on the belief that it was not correct. This belief stemmed from his refusal to give evidence coupled with your own inability to locate the ruling in question. This belief is implicit in your words, even if you don't explicitly state it.

More semantic contortionism.

Imo, agnosticism is the only rational foundation, but due to its relatively boring stance...I find possibilianism significantly more alluring

Garyp88



Why does the proof have to extend beyond each individual observer? For me personally God has proven his existence to me NOT ONLY VISUALLY but also by manifesting a ridiculous amount of unbelievably constistent synchonistic occurences and sybolisms that go far beyond anything that could fall under the definition of coincedence. The idea that the existence of God could be proven to ALL defies his very essence. IMO.. God is actively HIDING from those who do not choose to seek the real truth of the matter...

Reality is what you make it, if a Godless reality is a reality that you enjoy then God is understanding enough to not interfere with that identity you have chosen...

If one is truly open minded to the idea of God existing it seems only logical that natural curiosity would lead that person to investigate all possible avenues, especially psychedelic avenues to find out first hand... whether or not it's a tangible phenomena...

---

I personally believe that many people are afraid that believing there is a God means that they will have to trust in BLIND FAITH and the guidance of others creating an unhealthy state of mind where one is contantly unsure of the actual reality of the situation.

The great benifit of psychedelics and the reason I believe they are the originators of spirituality in mankind is this......

I strogly believe that psychedelics have the UNIQUE power to facilitate a person with a genuine, firsthand and direct mystical experience. There is no other thing that can offer this with such consistent results...not meditation, not prayer, not years of Yoga, not a healthy diet. Not occult practices.....not religion.... None of those things on their own without psychedelics can constitently deliver a genuine mystical and/or spiritual experience the way proper respectful usage of psychedelics can do..........

IMO no human has anything to lose by seeking the Creator... Seeking the Creator does not mean you are a gullible person it means you want to know the truth. Buying into the idea that OTHER PEOPLE are your only access to spirituality,(e.g late nite T.V preachers) is gullibility in it's purest form however....I believe a person must take responsibility for finding out the truth on their own.....

God is a being that wants humans to absolutely have the ability to question everything. God desires to have logical people to be on his team and to speak on his behalf. When a Human being has the ability to rationalize in a flexible way then they are then ready to accept whatever curve ball reality throws at them, including the existence of a Creator who actively conceals himself.

I didn't believe him to be wrong. I think it is completely possible that he was telling the truth and was correct... I just didn't accept his claim. I really don't get how you don't understand that. His argument was basically "atheism must be a religion because the supreme court says so" (which is of course a fallacy in itself, but nevermind) and my response was that I was not going to just accept that what he was saying is true without him demonstrating the truth of the claim by showing me the ruling.

So not only are you telling me I am asserting that there is no god when I am not, you are also telling me that I am saying there was never a supreme court ruling on atheism, which I am not. Can't you see the difference between me saying "you are wrong" and saying "I'm not convinced you are right"? You are creating a false dichotomy. Giving me the option of either agreeing that it is true or asserting that it is wrong... I don't need to do either.

Proof for yourself doesn't, you can be convinced of whatever you are convinced of without having to prove it. But if you want me to believe it, the evidence has to extend beyond your own subjective experience. Subjective experience isn't always what it appears to be. This is a DMT forum, so I am sure many of us have had incredibly interesting experiences with drugs that could be interpreted in a million different ways. I have had several experiences that if I chose to I could say confirm to me that there is a god, I have also had at least one that I could choose to interpret as confirming that there is in fact no god. I have had nothing that would even come close to confirming the biblical god. But none of that matters to me. I have no way of knowing if what I experienced was real or if it was just a complex hallucination. I have had many complex hallucinations and I assume at least some of them were not veridical.

In fact, that is yet another example of how someone does not need to either accept something as true or assert it as wrong. My experiences, I don't believe them to be veridical, but I don't believe them to be mere hallucinations either. I have no idea one way or the other so I withhold belief, and that is not a choice I am making... it is just a product of my not having any way of distinguishing between them as truth or hallucination.

I understand what you are asserting (although I feel that you may have misunderstood the point of my last post), but I don't accept what you are saying.

I do not believe/think/feel/conjecture/etc. that the human mind ever exists as a blank slate (certainly not once 'knowledge' has been inserted into it) and therefore do not think that it is possible for a human to function without belief/conjecture as there are far too many unknowns in reality for this to be the case.

That is to say, the claim that you merely reject a given position, yet have no belief (or whatever synonym you desire) strikes me as untenable. Even agnostics have a belief...they believe that they do not have enough information, etc. to make a concrete statement one way or the other. This is why it is all, imo, semantic contortion.

I guess you could say that I'm just "atheist" with regards to your claim

Fair enough. Agree to disagree I guess

I think you are right about one thing. This is an issue of semantics. You have a different definition of "atheist" from what the dictionary does and from what atheists themselves do, the issue would be resolved if you decided to just view atheists as agnostics, since that is what most of them are. Deal with the issue of gnostic atheism if you ever meet a gnostic atheist, i don't think anyone in this convo is one of them.

Garyp88 said:


I would agree that the idea of a traditional biblical "God" is quite unbelievable, that is why the word "God" exists in my opinion, in order to perpetuate confusion..

While I won't get into the multi fuaceted meaning of the Hebrew gliph YHWH on this thread I will say that my psychedelic experiences have shown me that the typical idea of God as a santa claus type figure is in fact false.

...A more accurate description for the Creator is YHWH or at the very least Abba, (father).

In my opinion the shining benifits of having the most ancient being in the universe as your friend and ally go way beyond the inconveniences surrounding having to seriously investigate such phenomena...


EDIT: I would like to add that the expectations of Athiests to have other people PROVE the existence of God to them before they will even consider such a thing is flawed because God himself does not allow his existence to be proven to all at this time for a number of what I percieve to be obvious reasons.

You are welcome to that position Eliyahu. I am not saying you are wrong. As it goes I am inclined to think you in fact probably are wrong (if for no other reason than simple statistical probability, there are hundreds of similar but contradictory claims made by others, and they can't all be right) but I have no way of really knowing, so I make no assertion one way or the other. I certainly have no interest in trying to talk you out of your beliefs, and if you are not trying to talk me into yours then really it doesn't matter what I think

Garyp88 wrote:




I'm not trying to go round and round with you but I do want to point out that this statement is highly inaccurate in my opinion. I personally believe this is how human beings short change their own perceptual abilities. From my view everyone is capable of knowing for sure in spite of the fact that we cannot prove it to one another.....

I am not saying atheists are blind per say... but I believe a good analogy here is that there would be no way to proprly describe color to someone who was born blind. This fact does not however mean color does not exist it just means there are those who are incapable of percieving that colors do infact exist..

I don't think we'll come to any kind of agreement on this. I just don't see things the same as you. For me personally, even if I were to have the most profound experience where I met and spoke with jesus/god/thor/zeus/wotan or whatever I still don't think I would be convinced and it boils down to something very simple. I know that I could be in error, I could be hallucinating or having a mental breakdown. I could be one of the thousands and thousands of people who have experiences of all manner of things that are wrong. How do you reconcile your beliefs with the fact that other people have deeply held beliefs, based on their own experience, that would completely contradict what you have experienced?

TBH I kinda feel that you being so absolutely positive about your position is not a good trait. I am not absolutely positive about anything. I am of the opinion that we can't know anything for sure, not even that we are living in a reality that is as it appears (it could be a simulation for all we know, or maybe solipsism is correct). And although you danced around it a little, your analogy does seem to indicate that you think people in my position are being wilfully ignorant/blind to something that has been revealed to you, that we are somehow just not willing to see it. How do you distinguish between your experience of god and other people's experiences of aliens?

Wow.

That whole not believing in something is the same as disbelieving it is totally a semantic logic game and very flawed.

Consider that any person has things they do not know, or believe. Snozz for example does not know of a total stranger somewhere far away, because he has no knowledge of that person, he has no belief in the existence of that person, but that does not mean he disbelieves in that person or believes that person does not exist.

I know he is smarter than that, why would he waste his time speculating that a stranger does or does not exist? His not having belief in a specific stranger does not mean he has a belief that the stranger does not exist. Nor does it mean the stranger does not exist, which in my case is a random real person.

God is little different, only so much more abstract.
Not having a belief that there is a god is not a claim that there is no god, anymore than not knowing some random real person across the world means that you claim that person does not exist. I have a young daughter who has not formed many beliefs, thus she has an absence of belief, by no means does this mean she disbelieves in those things she has no belief in.

A rock has no belief, it is not capable of it, that does not mean the rock disbelieves...

The flaw in the logic BTW is the conflation of the absence of belief with a disbelief, which is silly because disbelief is a form of belief and thus cannot equate to an absence of belief. Another way to put this is that not having a belief in X (no belief) is not the same as a belief that X does not exist (disbelief)

If belief is 1, then disbelief is -1 and no belief is 0.
Snozz is essentially claiming that 0 = -1.

If you read my other post I already cited the definition of disbelief from the dictionary and while it includes rejection of belief it's not exclusively that. Disbelief is also the absence of belief. If I say I don't believe In god that can be an active or passive stance on the matter. Saying I believe god doesn't exist is purely active.

We have already gone over this.

There are basically broad and narrow versions of the term (and the subtly different strong/weak, implicit/explicit etc.)... but there is no gnostic atheism. Gnosticism is a branch of Christianity.

I think the point here is that you CAN stick to your guns and cling to your weak broad version of atheism. But if you simply have no beliefs about deities, you would be better off using a more specific term like agnostic or apatheist. There is no point in expanding the definition of a word so much that it includes a slew of very divergent positions.

You may like the word and identify with it as you use it. But your definition is clearly not the one that most serious scholars use. I will say this for the last time. Nearly everyone who has ever written a book about atheism uses the narrow definition.

This is because in order to call oneself an atheist, one must have considered the issue and come down on the side that there are no gods. The infant is not a self-identifying atheist. Someone who uses a very broad definition of the term could label an infant an atheist... but that is kind of sad... and just as unprovable as narrow atheism itself. How the hell do you know that infants don't have a direct sense of divinity?

If you really just reject the claims of theists, you have to reject about 1,000,000 very different claims. You are not saying that you only reject the Christian god, but also the god of a peculiar oak tree in Ireland, the aliens who experimented on proto-hominids, the Gaia Hypothesis, morphogenetic fields, superheroes, Vishnu dreaming the world, Brahman, Manitou, Ahura Mazda and a billion other conceptions of deity. The likelihood that you have even heard all the claims to then reject is basically nil.

Again, atheism is not simply rejecting claims other people are making to you. It is a claim you yourself are making as to the nonexistence of deities. If you can't stand behind that... then you probably should find another term for yourself.

Garyp88 wrote:



I don't.... from what I have observed God the creator of the Multiverse is an "alien" for lack of a better term. That is the God and The "angels" I have seen are extra terrestial beings.

Personally I see nothing wrong with having confidence in my ability to discern what I observe as being either real or not real..

If your more comfortable taking the position that humans don't have an ability to discern real from illusion then I understand.