Atheists can't hold office in the USA?

I think it's a great example of how pitiful atheists really are. They need to claim even those who deny being atheists as members.But fundies are always fun to watch whether it is theistic fundies or atheist fundies.

Incorrect. In order to convict, a juror must be convinced 'beyond reasonable doubt' of guilt. If they don't know, they are not convinced beyond reasonable doubt and the person must therefore be found not guilty.An alternative form of words is "such that you are sure." No room for don't know. If you are not sure, the verdict is not guilty.

Don't fool yourself - I couldn't give a hoot who's an atheist or not. It's just amusing to hear people deny it to themselves.

That's fine. You keep us entertained.

Then we're all happy.

You are correct that this does reflect common usage. Without embarking on some long winded back and forth I am simply going to try and explain why non-believers might object to this usage for reasons that are not those being suggested (i.e. sad idiots playing semantics so that it looks like more people agree with them than actually do). You can reply safe in the knowledge that you can have the last word as I shan't reply back.It's about expressing the attitude one takes to un-evidenced entities, taking a consistent approach to such entities, and the effective special pleading that god/God/GOD/whatever gets as a result of common language use.Earlier we talked about axe murderers and the fact that I am an a-axemurdererinmyhouse-ist. I.e. I do not believe that when I go home tonight I will find an axe murderer waiting for me. Now unless I have upset the mafia or somesuch this non-belief in the presence of an axe murderer in my house is probably considered perfectly reasonable. So reasonable that making any sort of an issue about it (i.e. expressing my non-belief in said axe murderer) is frankly a bit weird. In fact belief in the absence of an axe murderer in my house is considered so reasonable that not even giving the possibility any particular consideration is a perfectly legitimate approach. I can wander through life not being confronted with any need to describe myself as an a-axemurdererinmyhouse-ist or do anything else that singles out my non-belief for this particular phenomenon for comment.And it's not just axe murderers. Unicorns under my bed. Leprechauns in my wardrobe. The usual raft of unevidenced entities that get theists in a huge Tiz whenever mentioned as comparable. The number of things I am silently atheistic about is practically infinite. Yet all of these things go unmentioned and there is no 'a-ist' word to describe them.Then we come to god/God/GOD/whatever. Alas whilst I honestly and genuinely think such a thing should be treated identically to all those other things about which I am equally atheistic the world around me doesn't agree. Instead it becomes necessary to justify the "positive position" (your phrase) that such a thing doesn't exist and to declare myself as a theist, an agnostic or an atheist towards that particular thing. So, with axe murderers and leprechauns and unicorns etc. in mind I say that "I am an atheist" towards gods because I have exactly the same non-belief in any gods as I do those other things.But then I am accused of being a fundamentalist, lacking evidence for my belief, being equally but oppositely as irrational as any theist and so on and so forth. All for taking the same consistent approach to gods that I do all those other things I am silently and largely unthinkingly atheistic towards.The prevalence of god concepts in society means that there is a form of special pleading going on that makes atheism towards such concepts somehow be a "positive position" where being equally atheistic towards other things is just the obvious default.I wish we could treat gods like all the other things we are all atheistic about. But that isn't the way things are and the language commonly used reflects that.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : Typos

Exactly. Well said sir.

Two different axii ...Do you AGREE or DISAGREE with me that there is a gray area between know and not-know, where information is incomplete and possibly contradictory?Such as the knowledge jurors have in deciding which evidence to believe and which evidence to disbelieve ... where the criteria is "beyond reasonable doubt" not beyond all doubt ... and if the jury cannot decide, some believing guilty and some believing innocent, then the jury cannot decide and it is a hung jury with no verdict. But we KNOW that the Flat Earth believers are delusional because we KNOW that the earth is round.We KNOW that it is a falsified belief and so we can rationally and logically discard it.Curiously, I have before said that the rationality of a world view is inversely related to the number of beliefs contradicted by evidence that must be denied to maintain that world view. You can winnow your beliefs based on knowledge, but that does not make the remainder of what you believe knowledge based.When it comes to other beliefs, ones that are not contradicted by objective empirical evidence there is only an irrationality when they are also not supported by objective empirical evidence ... because you do not have a basis to decide if the belief is possible or not possible.Not irrational so much as non-rational: all beliefs are non-rational because they are not based on evidence. And I could also equally honestly call them a passive theist if they don't know whether they disbelieve in god/s or not.Or I could simply use a word that means that they don't disbelieve god/s exist AND don't disbelieve that god/s don't exist ... like agnostic. Words are not always perfect descriptors, which is one of the reasons I have had some concerns about the term agnostic and prefer the phrase open-minded skeptic -- a person open minded enough to entertain the possibility either side of a question could be correct AND skeptical that each side could be correct. To my mind this is a better descriptor of the situation, and it is more universally applicable.However, in this regard the term agnostic -- used to denote open-minded skeptic -- is useful in that it neither implies belief nor implies disbelief, where theist implies belief and atheist implies disbelief.It is the implications of words that matter in communication. Forcing a perfectly good word and usage to mean something different does not improve communication. It is a silly exercise in pedantic self-delusion. Or you don't understand the coin analogy. And you miss the point on how you can best constrain your beliefs with what knowledge you do have and with rational choices ... Now I submit to you that (a) and (c) are rational decision paths, while (b) and (d) are non-rational. Would you agree?EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : impossibleEdited by RAZD, : replaced tan graphic with flowchart

Ffs RAZ of course I agree, are you not reading or not understanding? Can I suggest you put aside all you predonceptions and think anew about this. No. A hung jury is where a majority decision can not be made. In the UK is means that less than 10 say guilty or not guilty. Each juror has voted guilty or not guilty. They simply disagree. None of them say 'don't know' - or if they do, that becomes a not guilty verdict. Instead of admiring your own writing, you could read mine and try to understand what I'm saying. If you did that, you'd see that I am saying precisely the same thing. I'm happy for you. Let me know when you stop sucking the eggs. No. belief is active not passive. If you do not know, you can not believe. if you don't know whether the guy is guilty or not, he's not guilty. To my mind it's simply someone who is understands that knowledge of god is impossible. Agnostic was specifically devised to apply to knowledge of gods - to get out of the theist/atheist problem. You can reinvent meanings if you like, but it doesn't resolve the problem of belief. I agree. Please stop doing it Do stop the egg sucking. Of course I know all this rational stuff and practice it day in day out. Try to get beyond the machine idea of people and understand that the irrational (no-rational) is a large part of us and very, very useful. But it's a postive state - 'I'm not sure but I believe there's an axe murderer behind that door so I'm not going to go in'.

What you believe is irrelevant.The fact remains that there are people who don't have a clue in hell what they believe. They decline to consider themselves theists or atheists.It's as wrong to claim they are 'atheists in hiding' as it is to claim they are 'theists in hiding'.People believe, don't believe, or don't know whether they believe whatever it is they say they believe, don't believe, or don't know whether it is they believe.It is no one else's place to make up other people's minds.

Yes, those people don't believe. If you asked them 'do you believe in god?' They'd say 'I don't know'. Your ancestors would have burnt them at the stake for herasy Nobody is trying to make up anybody's mind. Just pointing out the obvious.Methinks someone doth protest too much. I wonder why?

Precisely. Yet I am relentlessly informed that my non-belief in gods/God/GOD/whatever is a "positive position" despite the fact my stance on gods is identical to my stance on axe murderers in my house, leprechauns in my closet, unicorns under my bed, griffins in the garden shed and so on and so forth ad infinitum.I don't really see why this stance as applied to gods is a "positive position" while it isn't with regard to all the other things I equally don't believe in. But people keep telling me that atheism is a "positive position" anyway.They seem to take it upon themselves to tell me my mind. I am glad you agree that this is uncalled for.....

They have to believe beyond a reasonable doubt. There is no reasonable doubt about what you know. There is no reasonable doubt that 1 plus 1 equals 2. Exactly. The possibility of not guilty is there for two reasons: either the jury is reasonably sure that he is not guilty or they are not reasonably sure that he is guilty. In either case, they don't know.

If I'm going to spend my time typing this up, I expect a reply back.I understand what you said, I don't disagree with the main point of your post, but I do see some thing that I do disagree with.Let me preface this by saying that if you take the position that gods do not exist, then I have no problem with calling you an atheist. Let's call that strong atheism.Its the people that respond to if they believe in god with: "I'm an atheist!" and then when people go: "What, how do you know there is not a god?" To which they reply: "Oh, I don't claim that god doesn't exist, I just don't have enough evidence to believe that he does." Let's call that weak atheism.Those are the people that I don't want to call atheists. For one, now when someone says that they're an atheist, I don't know what they're talking about: Do they deny god or just fail to believe? i.e. are they strong or weak?Second, I think the word agnosticism, as coined by Huxley, is a better word to describe the weak atheism position.That way, when the response to if they believe in god is: "I'm an agnostic". The people can just go: "Oh, okay, they don't believe in god but don't care to take the position that god does not exist"There's no need to equivocate on the understanding of the word atheism as being strong atheism, and then have to go into an explanation of how you really mean weak atheism, when there's a perfectly good word that you can use instead.Plus, it just seems dishonest. As if you're using the term "atheist" for shock value, but then your too big of a pussy to take it to fruition.If you can't stand strong in your position, and instead have to back down into a non-position, then you should call yourself agnostic, like the fence-sitter that you are. Okay, so what is wrong with the word "agnosticism", as coined by Huxley?:

quote:

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Doctrine that one cannot know the existence of anything beyond the phenomena of experience. It is popularly equated with religious skepticism, and especially with the rejection of traditional Christian beliefs under the impact of modern scientific thought. T.H. Huxley popularized philosophical agnosticism after coining the term agnostic (as opposed to gnostic) in 1869, to designate one who repudiated traditional Judeo-Christian theism but was not a doctrinaire atheist (see atheism). Agnosticism may mean no more than the suspension of judgment on ultimate questions because of insufficient evidence, or it may constitute a rejection of traditional Christian tenets.

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Isn't that exactly what weak atheism is? Its even contrasted with "doctrinaire" atheism which is what I'm referring to as strong atheism. So what's the problem?(again, if you are a strong atheist then that's fine, you're an atheist) First off, the apparent special pleading stems from the god-concept being a particular issue that isn't reflected in other entities.Most people do believe in god, so atheism deviates from the default - that's partly why people expect an explanation.Also, most people have believed in god since a young age, so its taken for granted that god exists and that any random person will agree. So again - when you deviate from that people expect an explanation.It'd be like a bunch of 2nd graders discussing Santa Claus and one kid saying he doesn't exist - the others would expect to hear reasons why the kid thinks Santa doesn't exist. Understood, but to make that comparison you have to have specific information about the thing you are denying.If you were just talking about a non-specific "danger" in your house, I doubt you could easily jump into being an a-danger-ist.Of if instead of leprechauns you were just talking about a "small creature", then the same goes.Its only when you have enough information about the concept that we can easily dismiss it that you don't need to add any qualifiers or specifications to you claims of non-existence.Otherwise, people are going to want an explanation for how you got there. Notice that you don't have to specify; axe/Axe/AXE-murderer, as we all know what you are talking about.If you just write 'god', we don't really know - is it the small polytheistic god like Thor, or is the one true almighty god like Allah?. That those qualifiers and specifications are needed to be clearer of what you are talking about is how disbelief in god/God/GOD/whatever looks like special pleading.There's so many different kinds of gods out there, and the ones that individuals actually believe in are mostly personal anyways - so the word god, alone, doesn't really tell us that much at all.From a later message: That's because when you say: "I'm an atheist", people think you mean strong atheistm as opposed to weak atheism.If, instead, you said that you were agnostic then that stuff wouldn't happen to you any more. And this is what I don't understand:Why go against the grain and try to change the commonly used language? Especially if you're just a weak atheist - what's the big deal?Why do people take the weak atheism position and then declare themselves an atheist when their listeners are going to think they are talking about strong atheism?Why don't the weak atheists just throw us all a bone and use the word agnosticism instead?

Because if people think I'm an atheist, then it'll be a lot harder for me to run for office. Earlier you were saying that believe is active and that if you don't know if you believe or not, then you don't. I don't think that's necessarily true, so I'm going to try to explain to you how it could be otherwise.Let's say I offer you 'Concept X', and you don't know what I'm referring to with it. Do you believe in it or not? Well, since you don't know, you say that you don't believe in it. Well, concept X is cheese. Now that you know, did you go from not believing to believing?What did that change feel like? What was the "activity" that you went through to go from non-belief to belief? Was it like a light-switch, or something?Or was it nothing? Like, you believed in cheese the whole time and you just didn't know if you believed in Concept X or not because you didn't know what it was. Just because you don't know what it is doesn't mean that you don't believe in the thing that it is representing - you just don't know yet.Or what about things that people just take for granted and don't think about? There's no "activity" in believing those things, its just the default state. Its more like a passive belief and for those you'd need an active disbelief. That's different that everything being active belief and the default being passive disbelief.