Scenario laid out in previous post

There are two levers. If you pull lever A, and God exists, you will die. If you pull lever B, and God does not exist, you will die. You must pull one of the levers. Which do you pull?

I want to test my hypothesis regarding the outcome of this poll. I do not want to state my hypothesis (yet) out of fears that it might taint the results.

That's fine. Do you feel stating what a "god" is (or everything the definition could possibly entail) would skew the results too?

I'm scared to death to pull either lever, mainly because of how easy it is to lose on a technicality.

Also, false dichotomy about religious orientation. I'm definitely not a theist, but I'm also not an atheist.

Now the new forum will have to go through sorting out what all the words mean again. Personally, I think it's a shame the levers made an appearance before we all agreed on what atheist and theist mean..

Here, I'll help...

Theist: Person who subscribes to a religion.
Atheist: dslkgfhtrSfeyt8guiSFDhgufioahfifrhifhlol.

Both options you die no matter what?

I don't understand the question.

If I pull lever A and god is imaginary do I get to live?

The proof that levers actually exist is circular.

Ok that's a new one to me. Are you saying atheist doesnt mean anything?
(Also theist isnt a believer of any religion, it's a belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent creator of the universe - not something all religions have).

That was my question. Both options as written seem to say you die either way?

Pretty much.

As long as you define God as "any specific God humans have thought of so far, or any being not of this universe that intervenes in the universe," then it's an easy pull of lever A.

If you define God as "anything existing outside of this universe," then I flip a coin or something.

I'd pull both levers just to make sure.

I think the intent is this:

Either God exists, or God does not exist.

If God exists, then lever A will kill you and lever B will not.

If God doesn't exist, then lever B will kill you and lever A will not.

I thought as much but sometimes people surprise me on here.

Peculiar. What's wrong with 'Not a theist'?

It's just awkward to have to have a label for something you're not. This doesn't happen in any other aspect of life. The word is stupid in general, but that's probably a whole different topic.

I pulled lever A.

I suspect the OP's hypothesis is that amoung theists, most believe its more likely God doesn't exists than that God does exists.

Have you ever described someone as:

illogical, irrational, unfeeling, unpatriotic, unintelligible, nonsensical, irresponsible...?

I think it makes perfect sense to define a word as "not something else" when the concept comes up a lot in discussion. When talking about theists and people-who-arent-theists - why not have a label? The language will be clunky otherwise.

Not in a positive way.

"Atheist" is no different. There's ZERO reason to view atheists negatively because there are ZERO attributes to assign to them. The word is silly and carries a negative connotation that it shouldn't.

Also, those words are adjectives describing a person's actions, which is very different from describing something like a work field, hobby, or belief system...such as a-astronomer, a-hindu, a-bowler, a-truckdriver, a-homeopath, etc. etc.

We don't need a word to describe someone who doesn't believe in Santa, or astrology, or pink unicorns, or ghosts. Why is this any less silly?

You didn't respond to Bunny's examples. Why is calling someone illogical not silly?

Please reconcile this with what you've said in your other thread.

Did you skip the other two paragraphs?

Atheist in the way I'm suggesting it be used doesnt have a negative connotation. Using the label does allow people to switch definitions (or to rely on negative connotations) and this is a bad thing. It's pretty easy to address when it comes up though, imo.
Because we're talking about belief in God a lot, together with all those people who hold that belief - given that, it's useful to talk about all-the-people-who-dont-hold-a-belief-in-god. If we were going to go on and on about who believes in santa claus it would make sense to label those who dont a-santists or whatever - it just makes things easier. The reason we dont is because we very rarely have cause to refer to the group of people who dont believe in santa - so a word for that concept is unhelpful.

I would also suggest that non-bowler, non-truck driver, etcetera are all uncontentious words which exist and would be used in the appropriate circumstance. The A- prefix just means non-. Would you have an objection to non-theist? If not, why is that any more meaningful than atheist?

It seems to me it's not the lack of meaning you object to, but a desire to avoid arguments like: "Oh you're an atheist. So you see nothing wrong with murdering babies." I agree these are less likely to happen if you ban the word - seems an extreme solution to address a silly argument though.

Gotta side with bunny, that would make things much simpler.