Do you believe in God?

[Lydiot]

Are you saying you don't know if you believe in god?

[KL-666]

Not specifically, but i do not object if that is a consequence.

Kind regards, Vincent

[Lydiot]

Well, you did start in this thread by saying "I do not believe period."

Since Theism is belief, that can't apply to you.

To people whom Theism does not apply, the term Atheist is applicable.

You see?

[KL-666]

No, i do not believe AND i do not not believe.

How hard is that? Maybe it helps you if you think of quantum theory.

Kind regards, Vincent

[Lydiot]

No, i do not believe AND i do not not believe.

That doesn't make any sense. It just seems like you're saying "I haven't decided yet what to believe", which in turn means you do not yet (or maybe never) believe. And, again, by definition, if you do not believe then you are an Atheist.

[jwocky]

Tosay "I don't know and I don't care" is never an option for a fanatic who wants to convert you. For a simple believer on the other hand it's more like "okay, lets have a beer". I think, it will take a while till Lydiot gets the difference.

[Lydiot]

I don't want to convert Vincent to Atheism. I'm merely pointing out that he already is one based on what he does not believe (theism).

I seem to have forgotten "fanatic" as one of your new OCD favorites.

[KL-666]

I do not know anymore how to explain, Lydiot. You are so fixated in the binary mode, theist - atheist, that you can not imagine any option of living with probabilities. Not true, not false, but probably.

One last try with quantum theory. Normal binary people can try to understand the theory from their binary perspective. They will be able to say things about it, but not really understand it, because inherently they reduce everything to true or false. On the other hand there are people that do not use true or false, but live on a principle of probability. They do not need to learn quantum theory from the outside, translate it to binary. They live quantum theory. They are quantum. (Good next nickname for me )

I guess binary people can inherently not understand quantum people. Only reducing them to binary makes any sense for the binaries. As you do with saying: If you are not theist, then you are atheist. Something which is totally illogical to a quantum person.

Kind regards, Vincent

[jwocky]

I think, it's more the problem that Lydiot doesn't understand the words he uses. Which is the inevitable consequence of subscribing to a belief without even reading the source material. Unfortunately a, lot of people do that, some even write Wiki articles without understanding the roots ... duh!
Atheism comes from the Greek word "atheos". "Atheos" means "without Gods" in the sense of "godless" and was originally a derogative term for those not worshipping the Gods the larger society around them worshipped. The term was picked up by scholars in 18th and early 18th century as part of a political movement that led into the French Revolution and was in many aspects also a propaganda vehicle against royalty who ruled "by the mercy of God". So, back in time, it had a very concrete meaning. Of course, the whole thing fired back totally when Napoleon made himself emperor and used to just for a new royal dynasty (so he hoped, but it didn't last long enough). The main source of thought at first actually was the school of empirism. Now, one would of course need to read the source material to understand where it comes from, not just claim "I am an Atheist and none of my Atheist friend has read those books".
Bottom line is there is no digital thing because Lydiot translates "theism" wrong. "Theism" is the belief in God's existence. Which makes "Atheism" the belief in God's non-existence. One has to be pretty fanatic to belief, there is nothing in between. 'Those who say "I don't know", those who says, "I don't care". That is an agnostic position and therefore those people are called correctly Agnostics, not Atheists. And since nobody gets away without getting some books thrown after him here, the modern view of Agnosticism was mainly defined by the American philosopher William L. Rowe. He said

agnosticism is the view that human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist.

By that, Agnosticism is not a religion but a doctrine. Now, already like 60-70 years earlier, Thomas Huxley, a British biologist, used the term "Agnostic" in a very similar meaning and earlier scholars back to 5th century BCS (namely Sanjaya Belatthaputta) expressed agnostic views about an afterlife in the sense of they didn't really care. So, while Rowe put it nicely in words, the doctrine of Agnosticism is older than Christianity and a lot older than Atheism. Of course, we can't expect from Lydiot to have read for example Thomas Huxley, he refuses to educate himself about the history of his religion, but actually, there we find an interesting statement that illuminates the relation between Agnosticism and Atheism:

Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern. 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. Consequently Agnosticism puts aside not only the greater part of popular theology, but also the greater part of anti-theology. On the whole, the "bosh" of heterodoxy is more offensive to me than that of orthodoxy, because heterodoxy professes to be guided by reason and science, and orthodoxy does not.

This was written in 1884, Huxley wrote it for the "Agnostic Annual" (yep Agnostics had back then their own magazine ...
This is clearly the statement that Agnosticism puts away both, Orthodoy (religious belief based on doctrine), and Heterodoxy (anti-belief based on doctrine). He seems also a little bit upset about Heterodoxy (a term of his time used for Atheism in a scientific sense) because Heterodoxyclaims wrongfully to be based on reason while in fact, it is based on an unprovable doctrine.

Soooo ... after we know, what the words mena, after we know what some of the greatest thinkers in human history thought about the whole subject, after we know, that Lydiot refuses to read any of the great thinkers and feels he knows better than them ... I think, we can and this thread, there is just nothing left to be said.

[Lydiot]

I think, it's more the problem that Lydiot doesn't understand the words he uses. Which is the inevitable consequence of subscribing to a belief without even reading the source material. Unfortunately a, lot of people do that, some even write Wiki articles without understanding the roots ... duh!
Atheism comes from the Greek word "atheos". "Atheos" means "without Gods" in the sense of "godless" and was originally a derogative term for those not worshipping the Gods the larger society around them worshipped.

That's right. Look at the key words above:

"without"
"not worshipping"

In other words, Theism affirms something, Atheism does not affirm that something. It is without that affirmation. And since Theism is about worshiping, Atheism is not.

It is thus not the polar opposite affirmation.

Thanks for affirming what I've been saying all along.




Now, here's a question for you:

To what degree can a Christian call himself a Christian while ignoring large important parts of either one or both of the testaments of the bible that were previously and originally adhered to by early Christians?

Please answer honestly, because the question will solve our 'dispute'.