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Originally Posted by bas_I_am
Um they are the same thing. . .
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No they're not. . .
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Originally Posted by bas_I_am
. . . if they were not equivalent, then the following would be reasonable. . .
"I do not believe x exists, yet I believe x exists."
You must admit that is foolish, no???
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What's foolish is your if/then statement. It doesn't in any way follow.
Once again, two hypotheses, which can each be accepted or rejected:
1)
God exists
[ACCEPT] I believe God exists.
[REJECT] I do not believe God exists.
2)
God does not exist
[ACCEPT] I believe God does not exist.
[REJECT] I do not believe God does not exist.
Whereas when you say...
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Originally Posted by bas_I_am
"I have no belief in God, yet I believe there is a God"
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That's a contradiction because you're accepting - then immediately rejecting - the same hypothesis ('God exists'), though you're confusing it unnecessarily by wrapping it around a mere semantic difference - to believe, and to have a belief. (I've not claimed any meaningful difference between 'believing' and 'having a belief'.) So all you've really done is applied one negative to the subject without changing the hypothesis. And the result, inevitably, is a contradiction.
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Originally Posted by bas_I_am
"I have belief in God, but I believe there is no God".
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Ditto, just in reverse.
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Originally Posted by bas_I_am
if one does not believe x exists, what, then, do they believe?
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They can believe anything they like, as long as it's not that 'x exists'.
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Originally Posted by bas_I_am
...They believe that x does not exist.
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No they don't. That would be a different hypothesis. Does a person completely unfamiliar with the concept of x somehow "have a belief" that x does not exist? No of course not. Does a newborn baby believe that God does not exist? Or does s/he simply lack that particular belief? The same applies to anyone who is either undecided about God's existence or feels that, because the posited concept of God lies beyond human reach, then so presumably does the answer. Such people don't have a belief that God exists. But if they're undecided or they think the answer inherently unknowable, then they won't have a belief that God does NOT exist either.