LGBTQ+

2776 readers

156 users here now

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

112

Richard Dawkins quits atheism foundation for backing transgender ‘religion’ (www.telegraph.co.uk)

submitted 6 days ago by return2ozma to c/[email protected]

34 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Lemminary 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Certainly. The two don’t even refer to the same thing - “unproven” is a measure of the extent of evidence for a proposition, while “reasonably impossible” is a specific position taken. A proposition can be reasonably improbable or even reasonably likely to be impossible, but it can only be impossible in fact.

Those are distinctions without difference for what I mean. It can't be proven if it's not physically possible, and both qualifiers apply to the argument of god. One can confidently step into a position and be assertive about it if it literally can't happen. I argue that you're imposing faith onto this by merely entertaining the idea of a gap, which would be a false dichotomy. And that's where my second point is where you try to insert faith into disbelief. That only works if there's any hint or suggestion of a reality where that exists. But the world doesn't work that way and we've known this for generations meaning there are no god variables in physics.

And any gap between what can be proven to be true and what is nonetheless asserted to be true is and can only be filled by faith.

But the gap does not exist because it can't be disproved and we have no evidence and nothing major in our understanding has room for it. That's the sole reason we invented Russell's teapot, the Pink Invisible Unicorn and the Flying Spaghetti monster. They all point out this glaring incompatibility.

If I asked you if you believe in the Pink Invisible Unicorn's omnipotent and omnipresent existence, would you have faith answering no?

(PD: Sorry about the abuse of atheist tropes. I'm painfully aware. It just seems like it's such an old and fundamental issue that has been argued for ages when people say that Atheism is a religion because it's allegedly a position of faith--even though we're not the ones reminding ourselves of our dis-belief everyday via prayer, but I digress.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

that has been argued for ages when people say that Atheism is a religion because it's allegedly a position of faith.

And there's the straw man, right on schedule...

If you go back and read what i actually said, I never made that broad and obviously inaccurate claim.

My point, literally from the very first sentence that I wrote, concerned only those atheists, like Dawkins, who don't stop at disbelief, but instead hold to an affirmative belief that God does not exist.

Like it or not, that belief does not have sufficient evidence to prove its truth, and therefore to hold nonetheless that it is in fact true is an act of faith. That has nothing at all to do with religion either way - it's just simple epistemology. A claim of likelihood can be supported with incomplete evidence, but a claim of certain truth must and can only be supported by incontrovertible proof, and there is not incontrovertible proof for the assertion "God does not exist."

I fully recognize that that's not the position held by all atheists, and I sincerely doubt that it's even the position held by most - it's likely that most simply content themselves with disbelief in the assertion that God does exist. It is, exactly as I said, a position held by some, and most notably by Dawkins.

And more broadly, that's exactly why I never claim that it's a universal position and I never make claims about atheism broadly, and in fact, every single damned time that I try to address this topic, I go out of my way to make it clear that I'm referring only to the specific subset of atheists who do in fact hold to that belief.

And yet, just like clockwork, every single time I bring the subject up, someone like you shows up and slaps that damned strawman on me and proceeds to tediously recite all of the same tired and entirely irrelevant cant you've now recited.

So honestly, if you have some issue with having to cover all that same ground again, that's entirely and completely your problem, since none of it's relevant to what I actually said in the first place.

[–] Lemminary 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

And there’s the straw man, right on schedule…

If you go back and read what i actually said, I never made that broad and obviously inaccurate claim.

What strawman, what are you on about? Your argument that disbelief requires faith is adjacent to another common but tangentially related accusation against atheism that is clearly wrong. I'm pointing out the parallel as the reason why I'm using those same tropes to refute it because they were popularized online in the early 00s when the religious right was was spreading their bullshit--that's it. It has nothing to do with anything else that we're arguing about. It was filler.

My point, literally from the very first sentence that I wrote, concerned only those atheists, like Dawkins, who don’t stop at disbelief, but instead hold to an affirmative belief that God does not exist.

And that's what I've been arguing about, no? I'm saying he's justified and that his position is completely valid and devoid of faith. I'm not ignoring your argument. In fact, I already explained why I think it's a pointless distinction to make. Are you sure you're not ignoring my argument instead?

that belief does not have sufficient evidence to prove its truth

And I'm telling you it doesn't need evidence because of its very premise. At the scientific level of rigor, yes, I fully agree with you that it cannot be disproved, that it needs a rigorous theoretical framework, and yada yada yada, to take a definitive position however ridiculous that is to onlookers who aren't obsessive. But at the engineering level of everyday life that requires rounding the numbers so we can live our lives, it's perfectly valid and sensible as it would be with any other baseless idea of that nature, hence why I brought up the Unicorn. So I ask again, would you have faith answering no if I ask you if you believe in the PIU's omnipresent & omnipotent existence? The answer is obviously no because such a thing can't exist for many, many reasons. So why are popular gods the sole exception that requires faith to reject?

and therefore to hold nonetheless that it is in fact true is an act of faith

I already said it's only an act of faith if we had any shred of evidence of the possibilities of deities. The possibility does not exist in the first place to require faith. It's a mere rejection of a baseless idea and you're saying otherwise by applying a strict epistemological rule arbitrarily.

(And by applying that epistemological rule arbitrarily is precisely what makes people think atheism is a position of faith when it's not, hence why I brought that up at all. But it's not related. It had nothing to do with what you were saying directly! It's just a parallel of this other fundamental line of argument, which is why I'm using those same devices to refute it.)

And more broadly, that’s exactly why I never claim that it’s a universal position and I never make claims about atheism broadly, and in fact, every single damned time that I try to address this topic, I go out of my way to make it clear that I’m referring only to the specific subset of atheists who do in fact hold to that belief.

Sure, but I'm not accusing you of any of that. I'm only arguing for what Dawkins is doing which is squarely within the subject matter. If I seem to bleed outside the lines with my argument it's only because of the fundamental nature of this line of thinking. (And am I really bleeding outside the lines, though? I was very conscious of that going in and I thought I was being precise.)

someone like you shows up and slaps that damned strawman on me and proceeds to tediously recite all of the same tired and entirely irrelevant cant you’ve now recited.

Nah, you need to reread carefully what I'm saying and stop assuming.