Interbane wrote:

The idea that it is possible to understand reality and organise society without depending on any supernatural belief is a positive uniting factor for all atheist thought.

How would you classify the person who does not think it is possible to organize society without supernatural belief, but also does not believe in a god or the supernatural? There are many such nihilists(?), and my own views come very close. You have to either create a new word(malatheist?), or stop trying to force meaning into the term that simply isn’t there.

Another example is the person who has supernatural beliefs yet doesn’t believe in a god. How would you classify such a belief? Supernatheist? Again, you’re trying to force meaning into the word that simply isn’t there.

There is a vast culture of positivist science and explicitly political atheism that is atheist in method and belief. Science, when practiced honestly, is intrinsically materialist and sees supernatural hypotheses as false, distracting and deluded.

That does not mean that science equals atheism. Atheism may be a component of methodological naturalism, but methodological naturalism includes much more than that single component. I’ll draw a Venn diagram if needed.

The claim that atheism is merely a negation of positive religious belief is false, disingenuous and ignorant.

You still haven’t shown this to be the case.

While we figure out what new words are needed, let's continue to mock and denounce other people's beliefs. Particularly if it's a personal God that's believed to exist, like those nasty Christians who want to stir up nothing but trouble.

Hell, we can't figure anything out with certainty, but neither can they.

While we figure out what new words are needed, let's continue to mock and denounce other people's beliefs. Particularly if it's a personal God that's believed to exist, like those nasty Christians who want to stir up nothing but trouble.

Let's not mock each other's beliefs ant. I could fill a book with your mockery of ignorant atheists, but can you find a single quote where I mock religious people?

Search and see what you find.

Mockery isn't the answer. That's all it does is polarize people, which both you and Dawkins fail to understand.

Hell, we can't figure anything out with certainty, but neither can they.

Try standing behind your sarcasm with substance. Give me an example of something you've figured out for certain. Analytic beliefs not included, since they express certainty by definition(2+2=4). Give an example of a Synthetic belief that you're certain is true. Please, show me that I'm wrong.

Let's not mock each other's beliefs ant. I could fill a book with your mockery of ignorant atheists, but can you find a single quote where I mock religious people?

Mockery is when you claim that a religious person's faith (FAITH) in monontheism is the same thing as belief in unicorns and fairies.

It's been done many times here before.

Let's not cry about how I mock new atheists because a mockery of religion has taken place here many times before.
It's hasnt been fundamentalism that's been mocked here, it's been religion (the atheists strawman) and the caricatures that have been made of religious people and their faith in their worldview.

Don't act dumb now.

You are collapsing like a mountain of bricks.

Hold on a second, I take some of this back.

You only throw ideas around. You don't own them, and 50% of the time you discard them.

You are accountable for nothing.

Let's talk about what it is to "own" something you say even though it's actually only an idea.
And at the same time, let's compare a theists idea of God to belief in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.

That'll get er' done!

Hi ant, How are you? Still swimming against the tide here.It can only be that a particularly powerful "meme" hijacked your brain and a God one got me! Help!

I'm doing great! Thanks for asking

These atheists are a crafty lot! In some posts they're atheists, and in other posts theyre agnostic/ quasi deists!

And lets not forget that the universe is an ordinary place - exactly what youd expect when nothing makes a whole lot of something!

Mockery is when you claim that a religious person's faith (FAITH) in monontheism is the same thing as belief in unicorns and fairies.

Taken at face value, I almost thought you were mocking the idea of belief in unicorns and fairies.

You are collapsing like a mountain of bricks.

Some would call that a pyramid, and if I'm not mistaken they haven't collapsed in thousands of years. Good metaphor!

You only throw ideas around. You don't own them, and 50% of the time you discard them.

You are accountable for nothing.

Don't confuse accountability and ownership. I'm accountable for what I say. You can hold me to task, and you have before. That doesn't mean I own the ideas any more than you do. I'll discard them if they make no sense or don't stand up to scrutiny.

And at the same time, let's compare a theists idea of God to belief in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.

The comparison is a valid one depending on your definition of god, but that doesn't mean there is mockery involved. Not always at least. Some of the things people believe... some of the demoninations of Christianity even, are absurd. From what I've gathered about your beliefs, they aren't so ridiculous that they can be mocked. What are you, a deist?

Hi ant, How are you? Still swimming against the tide here.It can only be that a particularly powerful "meme" hijacked your brain and a God one got me! Help!

I'm pretty sure ant is responsible for more activity on Booktalk than everyone other than Chris. I'm glad both of you participate.

Interbane wrote:

The idea that it is possible to understand reality and organise society without depending on any supernatural belief is a positive uniting factor for all atheist thought.

How would you classify the person who does not think it is possible to organize society without supernatural belief, but also does not believe in a god or the supernatural? There are many such nihilists(?), and my own views come very close. You have to either create a new word(malatheist?), or stop trying to force meaning into the term that simply isn’t there.

Everyone recognises that supernatural belief is deeply and widely entrenched. But if you read atheist literature, such as the Four Horsemen of the Atheocalypse, Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett, they all set as a long term ambition the complete removal of literal theistic delusion from human culture.

Dawkins recognises that religious traditions can be beneficial in terms of cultural identity and heritage, but only as long as their magical epistemic content is removed. The usual atheist ideal of a liberal secular society is one where reason and evidence are the basis of opinion, so religious traditions just become quaint and obsolete museum pieces.

Another dimension here is the sort of philosopher-king elitism as seen in Orwell’s 1984, whereby an elite recognises that religious belief among the masses is socially useful, and see merit in propagating false myths for popular consumption. Stalin did this in the Second World War when he revoked his earlier ban on the celebration of Christmas. For example belief in an afterlife can be a personal comfort, and can serve the political objective of social stability, so it is possible for atheist rulers to cynically encourage untrue memes.

This sort of Machiavellian scheming does not have much traction outside of totalitarian circles. The background question is that most atheists see a world without religion, as John Lennon imagined, as a desirable and feasible goal. My own view is that humanity cannot live without religion, but that religion can and should evolve to become compatible with science.

Maybe I should restate my point as referring to all sensible atheists.

Interbane wrote: Another example is the person who has supernatural beliefs yet doesn’t believe in a god. How would you classify such a belief? Supernatheist? Again, you’re trying to force meaning into the word that simply isn’t there.

I am struggling with your hypothetical example of someone who believes in supernatural things like ghosts but claims to be an atheist. This seems such an incoherent attitude that it should be ignored. The basis of atheism is generally the logical argument that reality is explained coherently by science, and that anything that conflicts with scientific observation deserves maximal suspicion. So your example is just marginal.

Interbane wrote:

The claim that atheism is merely a negation of positive religious belief is false, disingenuous and ignorant.

You still haven’t shown this to be the case.

The claim that atheism only makes statements about what is not the case (negation) and makes no statements of position about what is the case is a new form of the ‘via negativa’the old negative theology that held that we can say what God is not, but not what God is. But the double negative here in this negative atheism produces a hypothetical attitude that bears no relation to what anyone actually thinks, except maybe Sam Harris and his acolytes.

Atheism is intimately bound up with a natural world view as a positive attitude towards life. Denying that is ahistorical, incoherent, timid and wrong.

There are a lot of people who don't believe in gods, yet believe all kinds of silly superstitious things. New agey people. Ancestor worshipers. And just plain old Buddists, as many of them do not accept divinity.

The positive belief aspects you keep mentioning are really down to philosophies like methodological naturalism, humanism, uniformitarianism etc...

They are all well and good, but are not identical, nor should they be considered identical to atheism.

The shared trait among many of these philosophies may be a common disbelief in god, but that is not a diagnostic trait for categorizing in this case. It is about as useful as grouping all things which are yellow. You will get all the ripe bananas, but also fish and birds.