this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
81 points (88.6% liked)

Asklemmy

43947 readers
460 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Believing in nothing is still believing

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not collecting stamps is still collecting something.

[โ€“] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Completely unrelated. Obviously if you replace words by other random words, it will make no sense

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It was an analogy.

I am an a-stamp-collector. I do not collect stamps. This does not necessarily mean I still collect something.

I am also an atheist. I do not believe any claim I have heard about a god. This does not necessarily mean I still believe something (about a deity, or indeed about anything else).

[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You (we) believe there is no god, which you cannot prove. Come on

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You can of course believe whatever you want, but please don't tell me what I believe, because you're clearly confused.

I will make this as clear as I can: I absolutely do not make the claim that there is no god. For each of the positive claims for a particular god that I've heard, I don't believe the claims meet their burden of proof. Think of it like a jury in a courtroom: for each god claim I've heard presented, thus far I have found that deity "not guilty" of existing. This is not at all the same as asserting that no gods exist.

There are plenty of specific gods that are claimed to exist (Zeus, for example) where I do assert that particular god doesn't exist. But there are other god claims (a deistic god, for example) where I don't feel the proposition presented is falsifiable. For that reason, while I do not believe those claims meet their burden of proof, I also feel I cannot honestly assert that the deity doesn't exist.

The presence of even one deity in the "unfalsifiable" category, IMHO, prevents me from making the claim "no gods exist." But I am still an atheist, because I hold no theistic beliefs.

Hope this makes sense.

[โ€“] BakedGoods 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

That's what you believe...