what do y'all think? (the atheism thread)

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by Andrea

Oh no, not at all. Believe it or not, my father was a dental technician

Being a dental technician probably involves a certain amount of creativity - certainly here in the UK, with our teeth.

Originally Posted by Andrea

Is "I believe X does not exist" grammatically correct? However I try to translate the two, "I believe X does not exist" and "I do not believe X exists", to Swedish or Hungarian I get the same sentence. In both cases it starts with "I do not believe..."

I should think it's exactly the kind of subtlety that can be lost in translation very easily. If you're translating, probably the best starting point is to decide which object you want to be taken in the negative: I, or X (shown in bold below) then work from there.

"I do not believe x exists"

"I believe X does not exist"

[bas_I_am]

Originally Posted by Deckard

"I do not believe x exists"

"I believe X does not exist"

Um they are the same thing. . . if one does not believe x exists, what, then, do they believe? They believe that x does not exist.

Furthermore. . . 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???

Back to your original contention. . ."I have no belief in God" is different from "I believe there is no God".

Consider the statements "I have no belief in God, yet I believe there is a God" and "I have belief in God, but I believe there is no God" . . . again both are foolish statements.

[Andrea]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Being a dental technician probably involves a certain amount of creativity - certainly here in the UK, with our teeth.

Originally Posted by Deckard

I should think it's exactly the kind of subtlety that can be lost in translation very easily. If you're translating, probably the best starting point is to decide which object you want to be taken in the negative: I, or X (shown in bold below) then work from there.

"I do not believe x exists"

"I believe X does not exist"

So now you understand why this thing "being an Underworld fan" is actually running in my blood.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Underwor.../4/jUemgrazg-U

Language...
I don´t know if I ever gonna understand the difference you describe since the languages I speak on a decent level doesn´t have this subtlety in this case.
It´s just not my mindset. Here is another, less subtile example so you understand what I mean:
In Hungarian if you talk about a third person (she or he) it´s called "ö" ("ö" funnily enough means island in Swedish btw. ) so whenever I get going and talking fast in Swedish about a third person I easily mix the "she said so and so…" or "hi said so and so…" even though I´m totally aware about the difference between the two. It´s just not my mindset to distinguish a male from a female when I´m talking about them in third person.

If you are talking about a third person who is unknown the Swedish s say "X and Y" and the Hungarians say "Y". Does "X" mean the same in English? …just curious.

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by bas_I_am

Um they are the same thing. . .

No they're not. . .

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???

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...

Originally Posted by bas_I_am

"I have no belief in God, yet I believe there is a God"

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.

Originally Posted by bas_I_am

"I have belief in God, but I believe there is no God".

Ditto, just in reverse.

Originally Posted by bas_I_am

if one does not believe x exists, what, then, do they believe?

They can believe anything they like, as long as it's not that 'x exists'.

Originally Posted by bas_I_am

...They believe that x does not exist.

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.

[bas_I_am]

Let's first use proper english,

The clause "I have a belief that..." is considered poor grammar. This usage indicates the verb is "to have" and is called "passive construct" as it corrupts the conveyance of the subject's action-"to believe". Other common examples include statements of the sort "I made/took a decision" (I decided), "they took a vacation" (they vacationed) etc...

Using your example of an infant, it doesn't apply... has the infant considered the God concept? No... but you have... do you believe or do you not believe? Two states... you are in one or the other. Now that I think about it... the infant does not believe in God.

I believe in God... am I without doubt? At times, no. As a matter of fact, sometimes I have great doubt.

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by bas_I_am

The clause "I have a belief that..." is considered poor grammar. This usage indicates the verb is "to have" and is called "passive construct" as it corrupts the conveyance of the subject's action-"to believe". Other common examples include statements of the sort "I made/took a decision" (I decided), "they took a vacation" (they vacationed) etc...

The grammatical difference between "believing in" and "having a belief in" is not what's at dispute here.

Originally Posted by bas_I_am

Using your example of an infant, it doesn't apply...

Then that alone proves the two statements do not mean the same thing. You are now forced to accept the axiom that not believing a claim does not mean making an alternate claim. And it's not only the infant to which this applies...

Originally Posted by bas_I_am

has the infant considered the God concept? No... but you have... do you believe or do you not believe?

I remain unconvinced by the theists' hypothesis that God exists, so to answer your question directly, I do not believe. But that is not the same as declaring that "I believe God does not exist". It might mean that I assume or live my life 'as if' God does not exist, but that is different to a firm belief or assertion that 'God does not exist'. If you doubt that, go back to where I covered at length why I refuse to posit a lack of God despite lacking a belief in God.

Originally Posted by bas_I_am

Now that I think about it... the infant does not believe in God.

Correct. But notice how you chose not to word it as: "the infant believes that God does not exist". Ask yourself why you chose not to word it that way...

[Sean]

Originally Posted by bas_I_am

Using your example of an infant, it doesn't apply... has the infant considered the God concept? No... but you have... do you believe or do you not believe? Two states... you are in one or the other. Now that I think about it... the infant does not believe in God.

The infant example most certainly does apply in that it starkly highlights the differences being discussed. You are right that the infant "does not believe in God". And that statement is far different from saying that the infant "believes there is no God". The infant holds no active beliefs on the subject at all since, as you pointed out, it has no knowledge of the concept.

Where you get off track is in assuming that simply because an adult is aware of the concept of "God", these clear differences no longer apply. Using myself as an example, I "do not believe in God". I've simply discarded the concept as statistically unlikely to the point of irrelevance based on the history of human knowledge as I understand it, and a complete lack of anything that could be considered scientific evidence to support it. Nothing in my reasoning requires an active "belief" on my part in the common, practical sense of the word. So to say that I "believe there is no God" is simply inaccurate, just as it is in the case of the infant example. I don't actively "believe there is no God" any more than I actively "believe there is no Easter Bunny", and yet I don't believe in either.

Now if I went beyond simply reaching a conclusion of unlikelihood based on history, statistics and evidence and started insisting that "I know for a fact that there is no God", then that would require belief on my part, and it would be accurate to say that "I believe there is no God". The leap from "exceedingly unlikely" to "definitive assertion" in this case is not based on any factual knowledge, so it inherently requires belief to make it.

In the words of Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that.

[Deckard]

Originally Posted by Sean

Where you get off track is in assuming that simply because an adult is aware of the concept of "God", these clear differences no longer apply.

Precisely. Being unfamiliar with the concept of God is only one reason why someone may lack a belief in God, though it's sufficient to debunk the argument that not believing a claim necessitates making an alternate claim.

Originally Posted by Sean

Using myself as an example, I "do not believe in God". I've simply discarded the concept as statistically unlikely to the point of irrelevance based on the history of human knowledge as I understand it, and a complete lack of anything that could be considered scientific evidence to support it.

Just a small point on this. The reason I don't believe in God is not just because of an absence of scientific evidence, but also (perhaps moreso) the likelihood that scientific evidence for such a Being might be fundamentally impossible. After all, if the commonly held notion of God is correct - that He/it is beyond human comprehension - then we should probably not be too surprised at the lack of scientific evidence available to humans!

Contrast this with, say, astrology. I don't believe in the claims of astrologers, not because there can be no evidence of astrology, but because there is no evidence. Unlike the notion of God, if there is truth to the claims of astrology, we would expect to be able to observe the evidence, to comprehend it, to measure it. The cause and the effect are safely within our observable Universe. With the posited concept of God however, that's not necessarily the case.

This isn't to say I disagree with you in the main point you're making, which is that you can simply "not believe" without necessarily positing anything more. It's just to pre-empt the possible counterargument to your reference to a lack of scientific evidence. When it comes to the concept of God, it's not (just) that there is no evidence, but that there probably can be no evidence (therefore no solid basis for positive belief either way, whether in something's presence or absence).

[froopy seal]

Originally Posted by Deckard

When it comes to the concept of God, it's not (just) that there is no evidence, but that there probably can be no evidence [...].

Which is, of course, one of the most brilliant components in the invention of the concept of god-like beings.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Deckard

Just a small point on this. The reason I don't believe in God is not just because of an absence of scientific evidence, but also (perhaps moreso) the likelihood that scientific evidence for such a Being might be fundamentally impossible. After all, if the commonly held notion of God is correct - that He/it is beyond human comprehension - then we should probably not be too surprised at the lack of scientific evidence available to humans!

Absolutely. In fact, the "unknowable" aspect of "God" is exactly why I maintain that there is a chance that he exists - albeit a minuscule chance from a reason-based outlook. And just to be clear, the absence of scientific evidence is only one part of what motivates my disbelief. More active in my disbelief is a modest understanding of how religion developed and evolved throughout human history. When you take the time to understand that, it becomes exceedingly apparent that deities and religions are man-made concepts meant to help us deal with the questions we can't yet answer - particularly in regards to death.