1.) Arguments *are* evidence. They are reason-giving with respect to claims (they offer support for claims).
2.) Weak or poor evidence is still evidence. Evidence isn't defined as being necessarily strong.
3.) Positions that are false can still have evidence in their favor.
You're so fractally wrong on the definition of socialism that you're at level potato.
Socialism is the socio-economic ideology in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are socially owned and democratically controlled by the working class.
Far from fascism.
@herosnvrdie69
@EricDJuly
Socialism: dictatorial power, suppression of opposition and regimentation of society and economy
Fascism: dictatorial power, suppression of opposition and regimentation of society and economy
Wikipedia readers: these are opposites
@RFupdates
You'd think a Ph.D. philosopher with the rigor of Dr. Craig would know that a proposition doesn't need to be proven to be more probably true than not, or to be accepted as true.
In fact, Dr. Craig makes *this exact* point when defending many of his own arguments.
Holy fuck can atheists PLEASE open up an epistemology book and read the words with your eyes and understand them with your brain EVERYONE HAS BELIEFS THAT'S NOT A DIRTY WORD.
With every day of this week that passes, I grow more and more disconcerted over how uncharitable, unintellectual, and unlearned most online atheists actually are.
I'm frightened.
This makes no sense.
Empathy is a particular feeling. It tells us nothing about what we ought or ought not do.
The reduction of morality to simple biological traits doesn't work, and it's starting to get annoying seeing people do it.
Like, is metaethics really that hard?
Attacking the fact that these are complex and difficult-to-understand subjects and we're doing our best to wade through it all to find truth isn't the own you think it is.
Consciousness is physical.
Morality is a socio-cultural construct.
Universals are concepts.
Mental causation doesn't exist.
Abstract objects don't exist.
Everything is physical or consists in the physical.
It's fascinating to me how many so-called “skeptics” have no idea what evidence is, or apparently what it means to be a theist or an atheist.
Being considerate to theism does not a theist make.
A lacktheist went to university, studied philosophy, and abandoned lacktheism.
I'm using this as support for my contention that atheists versed in philosophy overwhelmingly reject lacktheism.
WHY do we divide by n-1 when computing the sample variance?
I've never seen this way of explaining this concept anywhere else.
Read on if you want a completely new way of looking at this.
Many theists I know are critical thinkers.
Being religious or theistic does not require some suspension of reason or rationality.
Atheists and non-theists, stop assuming yourselves intellectually superior to theists.
Do you religious people think differently and therefore do not understand critical thinking; or is it all basic parental indoctrination and wilful ignorance?
“Atheism” and “agnosticism” deal with two different doxastic attitudes. They're not–and have never been–synonymous. Atheists disbelieve the proposition “gods exist”. Agnostics merely suspend judgement about the proposition.
If atheists took atheism as a position and presented rigorous philosophical argumentation in favor of its truth, along the lines of Oppy, Draper, or Mackie.
Instead we get “YoU aIn't GoT nO evIdEnCe, reLiGiOn iS PoIsoN”.
Naturalism simpliciter may not, but I would contend that naturalism & evolution does.
-Predation.
-Extinction.
-Natural disasters.
All would predict suffering in living organisms.
Science shows that all humans came from one man and one woman. Yet, the world calls Christians crazy when we say that God has given them a name; Adam and Eve.
It blows my mind the number of individuals who hold a Ph.D in physics thinking this qualifies them as an expert in all topics everywhere, ever.
Stop. You should know when to recognize the limits of your expertise, and when you need to defer to people smarter than you.
This is what it looks like when you don't understand categorical logic or the concept of contrariety.
All transwomen are women, but not all women are transwomen.
Compare:
All black women are women, but not all women are black women.
“All A's are P, but not all P's are A”.
My controversial physics and astronomy opinion is that if you have a PhD in either of these subjects and haven’t taken both general relativity and quantum mechanics, your education is incomplete. They’re literally the fundamental theories of the universe. You should know them.
This is me. I've hurt myself, I've hurt others; I've often thought myself unattractive, unintelligent, lazy, worthless, annoying, and unbearable.
I've tried to take my own life thrice. Failed twice.
But I'm starting to like me.
I do like me, I like what I am becoming.
Yes. Consent is the sole determiner of one's freedom to sex with another.
There is no situation or scenario under which any human is owed sex, or owes somebody else sex.
Marriage does not obligate you to somebody else's body for your own pleasure, under any circumstances.
@realjeremycubas
@SecularOutpost
My issue with the modern definition is that it propagates the idea that a right to sex is based solely on consent.
So, unmarried people can have a right to sex, and a spouse can remove the right to sex.
I never in my life thought I'd hear somebody actually claim that a peer-reviewed journal is “opinion”.
I was further surprised when they doubled down on it.
Some people's understanding of the history of science is very, very poor.
I gave my response to one such instance from “Mr. B” of Red Pen Logic on FaceBook.
@BenefactrChurch
@TheTweetOfRhea
I don’t think I’ve ever met an atheist who positively believes there are no gods & I know hundreds of them. If I’m remembering right, he just didn’t like the label or the connotations, as if his desires are somehow relevant to what is or isn’t true. I know he knows better.
Atheists and conspiracy theorists are similar in that their egos can really get tied up with the ideology. They think of themselves as being uniquely intelligent for having separated from the rest of the “sheeple.”
@sygarte
I like how you're conflating these men's conservatism with their atheism.
Also, neither Boghossian nor Silverman are even remotely close to philosophers. You're looking for people like Paul Draper or Graham Oppy, or even Alex Malpass.
I’ve upset a lot of Christians in my time, but for some reason defining atheism as “a lack in the belief of God” has them all reading dictionaries and studying semantics and I’m pretty proud of that.
You were corrected by two professional historians on the matter.
You made an erroneous claim which was corrected and have refused to correct yourself this far.
Why do atheists–who scream about intellectuality–refuse to ever correct their dubious understandings of Christianity?
@thesaviorweneed
That's not an objection, though.
And the force of the logical argument from evil is certainly logical, not emotional. The problem isn't an emotional problem in the argument, it's a logical problem.
@michaeljknowles
You think this is as intellectual as atheism gets?
Would you be willing to defend theism versus atheism in a formal debate?
I'll challenge
@michaeljknowles
to a debate on the topic “Does God Exist?” or “Is Atheism Intellectual?”
I don't expect a response.
New Atheists don't know how to successfully run the argument from evil or the argument from hiddenness.
This is where part of the desire to redefine “atheism” comes from; their inability to rationally defend the belief that gods do not exist.
“Lack-theism” suggests there aren’t good arguments for atheism; proponents seem hesitant to take a stand & try to discharge the burden of proof. A better idea: say you don’t believe in God because of the problem of evil or hiddenness. This is a much more respectable position.
Nancy Pelosi is a corporate neoliberal in the model of Hillary Clinton.
She will not work to end Citizens United, she will not work toward meaningful campaign finance reform, and she will not work toward a single-payer, universal healthcare system.
Leader Pelosi understands the value of uplifting and advancing all the voices with our caucus.
That’s why, I am excited to vote to return the gavel to her in January & get to work on behalf of the American people 💪🏽
#Newmajority
Here's some online atheists engaging discharitably....
....on the post that I made about online atheists engaging discharitably.
You can't make this shit up. Doing the meme in the meme is peak moron.
Often times I say "atheism is not an assertion," and believers think they've cornered me when they say "Your name is GOD IS NOT REAL!"
My response is that I claim a specific God (capital G) does not exist, and have no claim for all gods (lower case g).
This graphic explains.
There's no such thing as “the founder of transgenderism”. “Transgenderism” isn't a thing. There's been transgender people for thousands of years.
This is like saying there's a “founder of the Jews”, or a “founder of blacks”.
The lack of literally any meaningful understanding of even basic concepts in philosophy by new atheists is really starting to make it very difficult to have meaningful, charitable, and honest discussions with them.
It's actually really, really bad.
Like REALLY bad.
In reading the comments to this solid question by Jackson, a common response is “it's easier to defend”, or “I want to keep the burden of proof on the theist”.
This is very revealing as to the reasons they misuse the term “atheism” as “lack of belief”:
Intellectual laziness.
I don’t know why so many atheists want to say they simply “lack belief in the existence of gods.” I think there is a good case to be made for strong atheism, and that we should be forward in saying “I believe gods do not exist.”
“I'm mad that people don't like my barbaric, antiquated, and highly traditionalistic beliefs that lead to the authoritative regimentation of society in ways that opress other demographics, so now I need to bitch about those people to my followers to stroke my fragile ego”.
I really wanted to plug my stream from earlier today, where we discussed teleological arguments, and I think we covered quite a bit of ground on the subject, in terms of defenses and objections.
I highly encourage all those interested to check it out.
I don't know how one suspends judgement on the proposition “God exists” whilst also believing (a judgement) the proposition “God exists”.
Do people think at all anymore?
LIVE, TONIGHT on
@ModernDayDebate
at 8PM CST, I will be debating young-Earth creationist NephilimFree on creationism vs. evolutionary theory. BE THERE!
If this were the case, natural theology should be able to reproduce all of sciences advances without needing to turn to science.
Natural theology cannot do that.
My debate on
@Agree2disagre11
with
@CatzConspiracy
was... interesting, if anything.
Found out that I was debating a flat-Earther who didn't believe in space but argued that space is expanding.
Overall 10/10 would go back on.
1.) Atheism fits better with my priors and background beliefs.
2.) Atheism fits better with the world we observe.
3. God concepts are ill-defined and largely culturally based.
@SocStonks
@TIA_Lucas20520
That's literally what it means to believe something. To believe something is to accept it as true.
I don't know why people act like belief is a dirty word; it's almost as if people don't know anything about epistemology.
Remember, New Atheists™ have to share a single brain cell between them, so it all depends on who's day it is to have it.
Yes, I know I'm being mean.
Yes, it's facetious.
No, I don't care if it hurts feelings.
Did part of the online atheist community collectively decide to start this month off with an avalanche of trash memes and takes or something? What is going onnnn?!?
This is why atheists seriously need to read on epistemology.
I *am* certain that Elvis Presley is not the current President of the United States.
Certitude is a measure of an agent's confidence in some proposition; it isn't a measure of the truth of said proposition.
About the Tour vs. Farina debate:
James Tour did what James Tour does. Incessant caterwauling about how WE'RE CLUELESS AND YOU DONT UNDERSTAND IT without providing argumentation. He also consistently interrupted Dave.
Dave, however, saw fit to verbally attack the audience.
I think it's time to make the announcement.
THIS FRIDAY I will be debating none other than Kent Hovind on Big Bang cosmology vs. Biblical cosmology, on
@truth_standing
's channel. Show up and give me some love in the chat!
Forgive any ignorance in this question, but it's been bugging me for a few days and I can't find any answers by Googling.
So,
@WKCosmo
,
@StartsWithABang
,
@seanmcarroll
,
@skdh
,
@NickLucid
- Is the Higgs mechanism a fundamental interaction, or can it be considered one?