ok, quantify the real implications on your life, if god does exist.
and maybe more importantly, quantify the real implications on your life, if god does exist, and you dont believe that he exists

So far it looks like you are saying "If you walk down this path, the path of living as if god exists, then you will get to heaven, even if you dont believe god exists"
Which would mean it doesnt matter whether you believe or not, as long as your acts are consistent with "living as if god exists"

Jib why didn't you address this?

I see what you mean, I think. Not to be living in a manner consistent with a belief in a god is largely indistinguishable from living in a manner consistent with a belief that there is no god - presumably, the only difference will be the response to the question 'Is there a god?'.

I think the category 'living as though a god exists' is too vague to be useful, though. Suppose we divide the world into people who vote and people who don't vote. This neither creates true common ground between committed Republicans and Democrats, nor says anything meaningful about people who don't vote, other than simply that - they don't vote. Maybe they don't vote because they don't care, or maybe because they feel their vote will make no difference, or because they reject parliamentary democracy altogether.

So let's say for the sake of argument that your dichotomy is valid. What about it? What does that tell us?

Keep in mind that Jib doesn't think "believe/belief" in the bible means what you or I (or 99% of christians) think it means.

There was a big thread about this before you started posting here.

Good.
Right, this is the easy part. You claim that there is a way to live as if god exists. Let's say that you are correct. You then, correctly, point out that everyone not living in this way is not living as if god exists. However, your claim doesn't imply anything about the other life plans available to people. And it is very possible that someone might decide on the basis of a strong agnosticism to develop a life plan on the basis of not knowing whether god exists.

For instance, let's say that Fred is a weak atheist about the Christian god. So he decides that it might be prudent to do certain things, such as be baptized, say a few prayers, act consistently with the moral commands in the Bible and so on. When you ask him why he does these things, he says that it is because while he doesn't believe that the Christian God exists, he also doesn't believe that it doesn't exist and so he performs certain actions on the basis of this uncertainty.

Now, it seems to me pretty fair to say that Fred is living his life as if he didn't know whether the Christian God exists. Obviously there are other ways of living his life with this uncertainty, but this is just as true of living your life as if the Christian god did exist.

I would disagree. It seems to me that Fred, even though he holds the intellectual position of "I don't know" with regards to the God of the bible, lives his life as if the God of the bible exists.

Fred is taking into consideration the God of the bible when making decisions. The way he lives his life is actually no different then the way that I live my life. The only difference between us is that we hold slightly different intellectual positions with regards to Gods existence.

You and I have have a very different definition of "weak atheist"

Okay. This is useful. I think a lot of people have been taking you to be saying, "living as if you believe that god exists" or "living as if you don't believe that god exists." But here you are explicitly taking out the belief as an element to this life. So as per my story, I would say that Fred is living as if he didn't believe that god exists (or doesn't exist). However, I can acknowledge that he is living as if god exists (as you've defined it).

Basically, what you are describing as living as if god exists doesn't have any implications about our doxastic states.

The only difference is his answer to the question, "does God exist." Here, you say that this isn't enough to change how we label how he lives his life. But earlier, you said the opposite:

So which is it? Do we define whether one is living their life as if God exists or not based on their actions or their beliefs?

If it's actions, then your position is untenable, and if it's beliefs, then your position has no point or value. Hopefully I'm just missing something.

How so? I'm using the standard 2+2 definition of a weak atheist as someone for whom it is true that she doesn't believe that god exists and doesn't believe that god doesn't exist.

So then what do you call someone who believes the christian god doesn't exist, but doesn't believe that a deist type god doesn't exist?

Well, I would personally just call that person an atheist, because I think most people either misuse or misunderstand the weak/strong atheist distinction. But I think standard practice on this forum is to call that person a weak atheist and I abide by that practice.

However, notice that I specified in my example that Fred is a weak atheist about the Christian god.

This makes sense but seems an unnecessarily qualified sentence. As I understand it, you are saying an atheist can live in a way consistent with living as if god exists.

Assuming "living as if god exists" means solely that one is basing one's decisions partly on the presumed existence of god, why not just say the atheist is living consistent with god's existence?

The trouble I'm having is in (still) not understanding this "living as if..." description. Other such phrases refer to people's actions. In this case you say the actions aren't the important thing - yet your examples are all about "doing XYZ". I think the whole "living as if god exists" concept is being used inconsistently because you haven't nailed down exactly what that entails. Until you do that, I can't even begin to move on to your actual point about living as if you don't know.

EDIT: could you also confirm that you think the strong atheist may be living in a way consistent with living as if god exists, yet is not living as if god exists. Is that a correct formulation?

Jib, you say that people can't live as if they "don't know." To demonstrate this, you define it such that everyone falls into two categories: "live as though God exists" and not "live as though God exists."

Based on this, I will agree that people can't live as if they "don't know." However, this is meaningless. You're not actually forcing people to make a choice based on your argument. People can easily claim to "not know" while also "living as though God exists" or not doing that. This should render your entire argument meaningless and nonsensical since all you've done is define things such that people can't live as though they "don't know."

Now, if your claim is that people must knowingly choose one of these two options, then I will emphatically disagree and say that your entire argument is nonsense, and you should be able to see why.

So, in conclusion, I'm pretty sure I understand your argument and I'm also pretty sure I've demonstrated why it is not compelling, even if it is logically sound.

If I'm mistaken about anything, please let me know.

@Brokedonk,

I am about to leave work, but wanted to ask a quick question. Explain to me (create your own definitions if you would like) how someone can live as if "they don't know" that is different from either living as if God does exist and/or living as if God does not exist.

In other words, prove to me that living as if "I don't know" is not vacuous.

I can't. It's meaningless any way you define it. And that's not a problem. Your OP doesn't point out that it's a problem and it doesn't make it a problem. You're just playing meaningless word games as far as I can tell.

No one is living as if they don't know. They either live the way God wants them to or they don't (regardless of their beliefs or whether or not they are doing it consciously).

So yeah, "living as though you don't know" is vacuous, but you have yet to actually show why that's a problem.

If you ask someone if they think God exists, and they reply "I don't know," they are not "living as if they don't know." They are just answering your different, unrelated question. They are still either "living as though God exists" or not "living as though God exists." And "living as if they don't know" is still centered around their belief, while the other 2 categories are based on their actions, so they're not even comparable things. They're separate topics entirely. So in your OP, you are conflating two completely different topics into one idea while pretending that they are the same thing. This is why your OP is nonsensical.

As for your nonsense about having to make a choice and defending it: if you come to your beliefs on morality based on reason and logic, I find that infinitely more compelling and sound than coming to your beliefs on morality because an authority figure told you so, so I don't even see why that's a problem. I personally think God-based morality is indefensible (but that's for a different thread, I guess).

Basically, I actually like your empty terms of "living as though God exists" and not "living as though God exists." If a God exists, then obviously all people fall into one of these two categories (actually, all people fit into both of these categories, and no one fits precisely into one of them, which probably causes more problems for your argument, so I guess I actually don't like those terms).

However, this does not cause a problem for agnostics and atheists. It simply doesn't. So this entire thought exercise is meaningless.

I dont know if the universe had a creator or not and i live. So im an example of someone living their life with indecision on that question.

But how do you live your life in a manner different from those who live as if God does exist and those who live as if God does not exist?

I dont even know what you mean by living as if God does or doesn't exist. All i know is i dont know and i live my life.

I guess because I really didn't see what it had to do with what I was talking about and another poster kinda cleared up why his scenario was not the same as my scenario.

If you have a specific question you want to ask go ahead, I am not really how his post is meaningful so I don't really know how to respond.

If one believes that God exists they (in theory) make decisions with said God in mind. Someone that does not believe that any Gods exist would not take any Gods into consideration when making decisions.

Now how does someone make decision consistent with "I don't know" that is different from the above two scenarios?

So it seems like we are in agreement with everything. So where does that leave us?

At the risk of falling into a non-civil discussion; why? Why is the Christian God the same as the teapot floating? I don't see how these could possibly be the same.

I have said three different things here.

1. Living as if God exists
2. Not Living as if God exists
3. Living consistently with living as if God exists while not living as if God exists.

None of which are contradictory. So I am not sure I understand your point.

What it tells us that not only do we have to act on the current information available to us. So if the current information available to us says God exists, it would be irrational for us to live as if no gods exist. So saying that we have incomplete information and cannot come to a conclusion is an empty statement because where it matters, how we live our lives, we have already come to a conclusion.