This argument (sorry, 'conversation') is spiraling toward the land of agree-to-disagree. Unfortunate but inevitable. Let's move it along.
First: "I have no complete logical path to belief in God. If that makes me a hypocrite, then oh, well." But you expect me to have one? That is a little hypocritical. Second: "Atheists BELIEVE that there IS NO GOD." Arrogant. I'm an atheist, and you don't get to tell me what I believe. Understand?
What you're doing is asking me to add something to my beliefs that I regard as unnecessary and irrelevant. "You won't explain your belief...except to say that nobody has proven any other belief yet." This is a pretty loose reading but it'll do: if nobody has proven any other belief, why should I change my mind?
The truth is we both regard our views as 'default,' that's why we can't see eye to eye. That's why we're both insisting that the other provide an explanation. You say "there is plenty of reason not to rule it out," but are you willing to 'not rule out' that I might have a point too?
You want me to lay out a 'logical path' to atheism? Here it is: there is not one single solitary reason for me to believe in god (just as important, for me to believe in a specific god). Not good enough for you? Tough, that's all there is. You wrote that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." That's true, but meaningless in this context. Nothing follows from that.
This is likely to be my last contribution to this thread, as we're starting to talk in circles.
4 comments:
As one philosopher/blogger I've been reading wrote, "We are playing for a tie."
I don't rule out that you have a point. I just don't see what your point is. We were raised on critical thinking. I'm trying to apply it.
I take part of that back - I do see what your point is, because I made the same arguments several years ago. The thing is, my attempts to use logic on the question of God led me nowhere - couldn't prove it either way. So isn't agnosticism the logical choice? If we can't know for sure, which we apparently can't?
Yes, I know this is tedious, but I have to comment one more time. I'm not telling you what you believe, Todd. If you call yourself an atheist, then you're telling me what you believe. Believing that there is no such thing as God is what atheism is. That's the definition of the word. If you're changing that definition, you should fill the rest of us in.
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