Are you a Theist?Right, so some agnostics have been smug to you, so now you are going to twist language to set us all straight!
This is hilarious.
Atheists are sure there is no god or gods or spiritual world. I'm not. I think it's definitely possible. We are not the same. Sorry some agnostics have been smug to you though.
nope. do you believe there are no god or gods or spiritual level?Are you a Theist?
I think he's trying to argue that he's:Are you a Theist?
Awesome. I'm not a Theist either, which makes me an Atheist.nope. do you believe there are no god or gods or spiritual level?
it is quite unsurprising you are unable to see that there is a third choice between the quite strict atheist and theists.
The third choice between those would be 'relaxed, easy-going atheists'.
And, though it's an impossible counter-factual, I suspect I'd have ended up more on the 'quite strict' side had I been born in the US. Seems as if till fairly recently you had to be rather strident to be a non-believer over there.
I think that stems from the fact that atheism was heavily frowned upon in the US until relatively recently. I remember a survey from the 2000's that asked parents what attributes they would most dislike in a partner their kid brought home for the first time and atheists scored lower than black people. Considering how racist America is towards black people that's saying something. So, if you were going to be someone who would identify as an atheist you probably felt very strongly about it - there was a sort of selection bias towards outspoken, dickish people.The third choice between those would be 'relaxed, easy-going atheists'.
And, though it's an impossible counter-factual, I suspect I'd have ended up more on the 'quite strict' side had I been born in the US. Seems as if till fairly recently you had to be rather strident to be a non-believer over there.
I've spoken to many atheists who are pretty firm there is no god and they know that for sure, this is the case all over the place, and this is how language evolves. This is why agnostic is now an accepted language term for a place between atheism and theism and why it warrants its own definition.
Trump has already won 39592 Electoral votes to 0 for Biden and 10384% of the popular vote.In other, more important news...Biden continuing to trail badly in battleground states.
At this point, will it even be close?
Trump leads Biden in 7 swing states: Survey
Former President Trump is leading President Biden in seven swing states, dealing the latest blow to Biden’s reelection campaign just weeks ahead of the start of primary voting season, accordi…thehill.com
no system is perfect, but that is why academic books, such as dictionaries and others, they are living documents. words get added, definitions evolve. of course it's going to be very difficult for that to be a perfect seamless way to model all language across billions of people.That is just a function of the particular language-community you mix in, which in turns is a consequence of sociology and politics. Which is why this is not a resolvable argument. Your language-community is not the same as mine, is all. Dictionaries don't really solve the problem.
Saying 'language evolves' ignores the question of how it evolves and who gets the power to determine the course of its evolution. (When you say "an accepted language term", accepted by who? By your community? Why do they get the final word?)
Odd how you didn't run in here citing this poll:In other, more important news...Biden continuing to trail badly in battleground states.
At this point, will it even be close?
Trump leads Biden in 7 swing states: Survey
Former President Trump is leading President Biden in seven swing states, dealing the latest blow to Biden’s reelection campaign just weeks ahead of the start of primary voting season, accordi…thehill.com
In other, more important news...Biden continuing to trail badly in battleground states.
At this point, will it even be close?
Trump leads Biden in 7 swing states: Survey
Former President Trump is leading President Biden in seven swing states, dealing the latest blow to Biden’s reelection campaign just weeks ahead of the start of primary voting season, accordi…thehill.com
I'm agnostic over who is likely to win in 2024. Still a very long way to go. Shocking that so many can bring themselves to endorse Trump even in an opinion poll, though. (I mean, anyone other than the racist, wanna-be-democracy-toppling nutter, it wouldn't be a big deal, when it's just a poll, probably being answered in a demonstrative way, but there have to be limits, even if it's just an expression of anger or frustration).
Agnostic or atheist?
Language doesn't evolve, it develops. It's not a living organism. It is not trying to reproduce. It's not subject to selection pressure. Language can be altered more quickly, say, if a nation is conquered and the language of the new overlords becomes the official language of governance and business, etc. Of course, sometimes people are attached to maintaining older languages, but that's a different story.Saying 'language evolves' ignores the question of how it evolves and who gets the power to determine the course of its evolution. (When you say "an accepted language term", accepted by who? By your community? Why do they get the final word?)
Well, if we accept that everything does not have to be infinite.Well I don't believe in Trump, but I can't be sure there isn't some sort of lurid-orange-coloured force of evil and malevolence 'out there' somewhere.
This, of course, ignores that colloquial English often features the usage of the word "evolution" being applied to things other than living organisms. I'm not sure if you're trying to play into the whole bit here of people talking past each other regarding language usage and how we don't all have a 100% agreement on how terms are defined/used, if you are, then well-played, if not, then... well, welcome to the party, I supposeLanguage doesn't evolve, it develops. It's not a living organism. It is not trying to reproduce. It's not subject to selection pressure. Language can be altered more quickly, say, if a nation is conquered and the language of the new overlords becomes the official language of governance and business, etc. Of course, sometimes people are attached to maintaining older languages, but that's a different story.
Have you considered the existence of a teapot in orbit between the Earth and Mars?For all the hard atheists believing the metaphysical cannot exist I think it is entertaining if you ask yourself the following question:
Have you considered the possibility of deities that are not infinite? Christianity is what your used to, toss that idea all together.
We live in a relativistic universe. Atoms decay in a probabilistic manner. It is impossible to predict the exact moment decay will occur, just the probability.
Are you willing to fully commit to the idea their are no metaphysical entities that can apply limited influence on seemingly random events?
We are dealing with probabilistic functions rather then deterministic functions after all. In reality, the bell curve does not describe the world very well at all, but rather extreme events occur far to frequently then they should. This is typically referred to as Extremistan:
which is contrary to expectation of averages and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
Even more ironically, many consider it to operate on nothing more then "dumb luck". Yet it doesn't conform to modeled probability.
"Metaphysical entity" trumps "god" as the mother of sloppy definitions. If entities can be shown to interact and influence decay events, that would necessarily remove them from the metaphysical realm and make them amenable to science. Until some sort of evidence is found that suggests that such entities are influencing random events, the hypothesis of their existence is unnecessary.For all the hard atheists believing the metaphysical cannot exist I think it is entertaining if you ask yourself the following question:
Have you considered the possibility of deities that are not infinite? Christianity is what your used to, toss that idea all together.
We live in a relativistic universe. Atoms decay in a probabilistic manner. It is impossible to predict the exact moment decay will occur, just the probability.
Are you willing to fully commit to the idea their are no metaphysical entities that can apply limited influence on seemingly random events?
We are dealing with probabilistic functions rather then deterministic functions after all. In reality, the bell curve does not describe the world very well at all, but rather extreme events occur far to frequently then they should. This is typically referred to as Extremistan:
which is contrary to expectation of averages and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
Even more ironically, many consider it to operate on nothing more then "dumb luck". Yet it doesn't conform to modeled probability.
How do you feel about dark matter?"Metaphysical entity" trumps "god" as the mother of sloppy definitions. If entities can be shown to interact and influence decay events, that would necessarily remove them from the metaphysical realm and make them amenable to science. Until some sort of evidence is found that suggests that such entities are influencing random events, the hypothesis of their existence is unnecessary.