Display posts from previous
Sort by

Word: "Nontheist"

Crap
Total votes: 14 (93%)
Not Crap
Total votes: 1 (7%)
Total votes: 15

Word: Nontheist

11 by Linus Van Pelt_Archive
I'm an atheist. I'm also a non-theist. As far as I can tell, the two mean exactly the same thing. I think non-theist has some value in that people ascribe beliefs and values to atheists that they don't necessarily have. Atheists share no values and only one belief, but ignorant folks sometimes assume more than that. The term non-theist might be better in that sense - it's harder for people to assume things about you based on your not being something (a theist) than on your being something (an atheist).

But, that's kind of the lazy way. Say atheist. If people think that means something, so be it. I'll vote crap for "non-theist."

Ty Webb wrote:Total crap. I think agnostic is a cop-out. Nontheist is even worse.


This reflects a misunderstanding of agnosticism and its relation to atheism and theism. There is not a spectrum like:

Theism ----- Agnosticism ----- Atheism

There are theists, and there are atheists. Some theists are agnostics, and some are not. Some atheists are agnostics, and some are not. All agnostics are either theists or atheists, as are all non-agnostics.

Consider these statements:
1. I believe a god exists.
2. I do not believe a god exists.
3. I believe no god exists.
4. I do not know whether a god exists.

Everyone can say either 1 or 2. Some who say 2 can also say 3; all who say 3 can say 2. And anyone could say 4, whether they say 1, 2 only, or 2 and 3. Those who say 1 are theists, those who say 2 are atheists (whether or not they say 3), and those who say 4 are agnostics.

I can say 2, 3, and 4. I am an agnostic atheist.
Why do you make it so scary to post here.

Word: Nontheist

12 by NerblyBear_Archive
Linus Van Pelt wrote: I think non-theist has some value in that people ascribe beliefs and values to atheists that they don't necessarily have. Atheists share no values and only one belief, but ignorant folks sometimes assume more than that. The term non-theist might be better in that sense - it's harder for people to assume things about you based on your not being something (a theist) than on your being something (an atheist).


It's funny, you've hit on exactly the sort of behavior that defines many theists. They take one piece of information -- in this case, the fact that someone doesn't believe in God -- and they extrapolate from that an entire set of prejudicial assumptions.

If you bend to that ignorance and arrogance, you're defeating your own purpose, which is to -- however quietly and inoffensively you may choose to render it -- mount a protest against prejudice. Tailoring your comments to be more polite to theists is to play their game for them, and we atheists can't win at that game because the power of prejudice is infinitely stronger than is the power of skeptical self-effacement.

I do think that atheists share a set of values, but those values conceal themselves because they are largely negative: not jumping to conclusions, not appealing to authority, not losing ourselves in miasmatic sentimentalism, etc. A muted and secretly shared set of values, perhaps, but an auspicious one, nonetheless.

An atheist like me can never say "I believe that God doesn't exist". That is to don the mantle of the theist's way of thinking. We don't believe in anything of which we haven't had experience, so the necessary corollary of that is that we cannot disbelieve in the existence of anything of which we've had no experience. God may very well exist, for all I know. I think it's likely that he doesn't, but that hunch is not a "belief". It is a skeptical attempt to refrain from falling into one.
Last edited by NerblyBear_Archive on Sat Mar 08, 2008 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Gay People Rock

Word: Nontheist

13 by NerblyBear_Archive
Rick Reuben wrote:
NerblyBear wrote:God may very well exist, for all I know.
'for all I can guess or assume or believe', but not 'know'.


Yes, I'm admitting that my knowledge fails me here. I don't know.

Rick Reuben wrote:
nerbly bear wrote: I think it's likely that he doesn't, but that hunch is not a "belief". .
Your hunch is a belief. Any statement that resorts to chance or likelihood to be true falls into the category of belief, not knowledge. *Everything* is either belief or knowledge. There is no other category, nothing in between.


Fine, call it a belief, whatever. Most of what leads me to that hunch is the fact that all of the world's religious traditions are built on tissues of fabrications. I think that justifies me in reserving a hunch.

But I would be comfortable in saying that I just don't know, which is all it really comes down to. If you want me to get rid of that hunch, I will, and it won't make much difference, because not considering a question and having a hunch that it carries a negative answer are not two radically dissimilar things. Their effects are the same: living my life as though God doesn't exist. For the believer, on the other hand, they are radically different, because he cannot simultaneously refuse to consider the question *and* have an unshakeable faith in God, with all of the consequent baggage following upon it.

That's why my negative hunch is indeed different from his positive faith. The burden's not on me to prove a negative.
Gay People Rock

Word: Nontheist

14 by Colonel Panic_Archive
I believe this word is grammatically incorrect. Its morphology is wrong, so I'm voting crap for that reason alone, though I do feel that making up new adjectives to replace already-stigmatized ones is also crap.

For chrissakes, just say what you mean and if somebody is going to pre-judge you because of it, then fuck 'em.

Word: Nontheist

16 by Rotten Tanx_Archive
Crap and crap on agnostic too.

If it turned out there were a god he's not gonna go easier on you because you didn't completely deny his existence.

Either you're an athiest or you're a mental. No inbetween.



I'm kinda drunk so that may come across as a little blunt.

Let me try to be clearer. Maybe electricity or gravity or some other kind of physics/chemistry/science will be proved wrong some day. But for now we claim they're true because we base science on what we know, with the option (if we ignore religious nuts with an agenda) to change those facts as new information comes in. As there is not a single shred of evidence for a god (just hearsay (or is that heresy?) then you should feel confident enough to say there is no god. And if any evidence ever shows up to prove that there is you can just alter your opinions accordingly.

What I'm trying to say is that no one is recording and judging your opinions for all of eternity so you musn't worry about hedging your bets. Stick to what is true as of right now and if the truth is ever altered (unlikely) we athiests can just say "Well I'll be damned!"

Once again, I'm drunk.
simmo wrote:Someone make my carrot and grapefruits smoke. Please.

Word: Nontheist

17 by lemur68_Archive
Rotten Tanx wrote:Crap and crap on agnostic too.

If it turned out there were a god he's not gonna go easier on you because you didn't completely deny his existence.

Either you're an athiest or you're a mental. No inbetween.


"Yer either fer us or agin' us."

Image


Yeah, you can eat my Jenkem if you think I'm an agnostic instead of an atheist just in case of holy death raining down on me. I'm just not so arrogant as to state with certainty that I know everything that does and doesn't exist.

That may come off a little blunt. Not drunk, just overworked and snowed in.
tocharian wrote:Cheese fries vs nonexistence. Duh.

Word: Nontheist

18 by Rotten Tanx_Archive
As I said (or tried to) you might as well say it with certainty or else never say anything with certainty since in an infinite universe anything can change.

I say with certainty that I'll wake up tomorrow. But I might not. Doesn't mean I shouldn't live as if I won't because of uncertainty. The facts as we know them say there's no god so lets take that as a fact and if anything changes we'll adaprt.

I think the majority of the argument for agnosticism is about language and not god (or the laxck thereof).
simmo wrote:Someone make my carrot and grapefruits smoke. Please.

Word: Nontheist

20 by 242sumner
Rick Reuben wrote: Any statement that resorts to chance or likelihood to be true falls into the category of belief, not knowledge. *Everything* is either belief or knowledge. There is no other category, nothing in between.



There are plausible beliefs/hypothesis that may later be proved by evidence and become accepted as part of knowledge and less-plausible beliefs which have proven (or may later be proved) to be misconceptions.
Last edited by 242sumner on Sat Mar 08, 2008 9:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Post Reply

Return to “Crap / Not Crap”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 34 guests