I want to go into detail about Stu's crusade to out supposed atheists as "closet theists"..I feel some rambling, disconnected thoughts coming on, but hopefully the problems with his tests will be clear

What Stu's tests actually do is test whether a persons action in one particular case is consistent with believing that the existence of God is POSSIBLE or consistent with believing that the existence of God is NOT POSSIBLE.

unfortunately, this is not the difference between an atheist and theist. atheism vs theism is about whether or not a person hold a belief in the existence of God, not whether or not a person holds a belief that the existence of God is POSSIBLE.

The debate isn't really over what his tests actually test for...

Stu is essentially claiming that if a person believes there is even a 1% chance that God exists and this is strong enough to have them act in a way which is consistent with that, then the person is a theist

this should be apparent when considering the circimstances by which a person would be labeled a theist by Stu's test. a person could believe there is a 1% chance that God exists (or even MUCH lower) and be labeled a theist (do we all see this?)

so here's why he's wrong

he intended to show that some members (most maybe) of SMP that claim to be atheists are in fact, theists. He claims that he is using these terms by their common definitions.

here's the definitions he gave

"Atheist: 1)A person who denies the existence of God/gods. 2)A person who has no belief in God/gods. "

these are fine for our purposes...I'll take the second simply because the first is more of the "strong atheist" definition, which not many atheists on this forum claim to fit.

The second definition's specific wording betrays how sneaky Stu is trying to be imo.

"has no belief" will not show up in any definitions of "atheist" (link if you have it)

it will usually say "does not believe," "lack of belief," "disblieves," "absence of belief" etc. (links toward the bottom)

I think he chooses to use "has no belief" because it fits what he intends to twist the word "belief" into so he can claim that his tests for belief in the POSSIBILITY of God existing actually test for atheism vs theism by their common definition.

what he doesn't seem to get is that if we take the remarks
1)"I believe there is a 1% chance that God exists" and
2)"I have no belief in the existence of God"

although it is a little less clear because "have no belief" is there instead of "lack of belief," "do not believe," etc...thetwo remarks are entirely consistent because of both the common definitions of the words "belief" and "believe" and how they are commonly used.

when we use the word "believe" in a sentence such as "I believe that God exists"...what we typically mean is that we believe that there is a strong probability that God exists...although there is no exact percentage where something becomes a belief, ie at 70% certainty we "believe" it, what is clear is that we don't say that we believe something when we would also say that there is a very low probability that it is true.

for instance, a person who says they believe in God would not also say that there is only a 1% chance that God exists.

that simply is not how we use the word "believe"...

but that is how we would HAVE TO use in in order for Stu's tests to test for the believe vs lack of belief in the existence of God.

the definitions of "belief" and "believe" echo my previous statements about what we mean when we use the words (see definitions below)...they are defined as "a strong conviction" "confidence" etc.

stu tried to twist "strong conviction" as well in the other thread, but even if he succeeded, it wouldn't matter because what he is trying to twist these definitions into is not how they are commonly used and it is certainly not what we mean in this forum when we use the words or call ourselves atheists or theists.

his tests may tell us something meaningful, but they do not tell us whether the person is an atheist or theists by the common definitions.

***damn, just as I am finishing this I see Stu's response to my statement in another thread that I would start a new thread

if he really believes that his tests test whether or not a person acts as if God exists, then I don't know what to say

Isn't it clear that a person could take his test, be labeled a theist by it, simply by believing that there is a 1% chance that God exists??? and isn't it clear that this does not mean that the person is acting as if God exists???

for reference

atheist/atheism
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheist

theist/theism
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theist
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theist

belief
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/belief
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/belief

believe
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/believe
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/believe

conviction
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conviction
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conviction

confidence
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/confidence
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/confidence

links to previous threads with discussion about his tests

I argue, probably more clearly, these points in this first thread

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/47...ve-god-384965/

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/47...d-test-386801/

If you want to throw a huge monkey wrench into his campaign, ask him to classify a deist.

tldr

fwiw I don't think anybody besides Stu thinks that it makes sense, and he's not going to change his mind.

Lol StuPid Asso

Prodigy,

I'm using 'believe' or 'belief' they same way you do. The difference is in the confidence or conviction part. To you they are just words which you can assign it any value that suits you. I try to put a real logical meaning behind those concepts. Let me point out how silly you're being.

Here is an imaginary conversation between Stu and Prodigy:

Stu: "Prodigy are you a lottery player?"

Prodigy: "No I am not"

Stu: "Prodigy why arn't you a lottery player?"

Prodigy: "Because I have no confidence or conviction that I will win, the odds are like 150 million to 1"

Stu: "Whats that piece of paper in your hand Prodigy"

Prodigy: "Oh this? Its a lottery ticket I bought. But just because I bought the lottery ticket doesn't make me a lottery player"

Stu: "Oh yeah, why not?"

Prodigy: "Because I told you, I don't believe I will ever win"

Stu: "but you bought the ticket"

Prodigy: "Well yeah, the jackpot is like a million dollars and its possible I might win"

Stu: "So your confidence in winning was strong enough to compel you to buy at a ticket?"

Prodigy: "Now you changing the definitions....some confidence doesn't equal strong confidence"



My contention is if the possibility of something is strong enough to influence your actions, then you have a strong confidence in that something.

Prodigy's contention is that stong confidence is what ever he arbitrarily decides it is.

In any probability there is always a tipping point. The point at which one moves from not believing to believing. I say you actions determine what that tipping point is more than your words.

Every village has its idiot.

It would be far better for this forum if Stu would leave the atheists alone, and start talking about what he believes...

Lets imagine 2 levers and one declares you as an atheist and the other declares you as a theist. You can only pull one lever and if you get it right you live and if you get wrong you die.

This system would be a much more accurate determination of beliefs.

If you disagree, why not?

Dominic would just sit there and stare at the levers.



I like it though, I might use it or a variation.

What would you do -- and why?

You know I don't have a lot of confidence that the God of my religion actually exist. I probably have a better chance at winning the lotto than seeing my God when I die.

When my father was in the ICU a couple of weeks ago on deaths door, I prayed for him. It was a sincere prayer. Probably my first sincere prayer in a long time. Apparently I still have enough confidence that it is strong enough to influence my behavior. Clearly I am a theist.

Oh and my father made a recovery.

umm....

lol at having no confidence or conviction meaning that I think it has a probability of 0...you're still just making up definitions and pretending no one notices

the point at which a my estimation of the likelihood of God's existence would influence my action depends on the "wager"

I would take a bet at 1000:1...putting up $10 to win $10,000 if I judged the likelihood of God existing to be better than that...say 1%

but believing there is a 1% chance that God exists does not mean that I believe that God exists

this is how almost everyone uses these words, yet you still want to use your own strange definitions so that you can call atheists theists like some childish insult

For some reason, I used to think you were a somewhat reasonable theist...probably mixing you up with NotReady

it seems apparent now to me and almost everyone else that you go to great lengths to fool yourself, no matter how clear it is that you are wrong

it's really disturbing to me that you won't admit it

this is much better although super easy [for me]. I'm pulling the atheist lever, playing probability alone and even if there was a God and I did pull the God lever, all I did was find out that there is a God, I still don't know where to start religion-wise and have relatively 0% chance of ever finding out which religion's God is the real God.

Awesome. I'm am truly happy for you, and your father.

So, which lever do you pull -- knowing your very life depends on it?

rofl

I would pull the atheist level after long, deliberate consideration. And by long, considerate deliberation I'm talking .000000005 seconds.

I'm very happy your Dad is fine! That's awesome.

But about the part of your statement I bolded:

There is no difference between you praying to God for your father and Early Man praying to the "Great Deer God" in the hopes He would let some food wander by so he wouldn't stave to death.

None whatsoever.

Dominic,

Whats the difference between my prayer or wishing on a star or pulling a lever?

well, wishing on a star or a prayer both get me absolutely bupkus. But it might make me fell better.

Pulling your lever gets me bupkus, too.

that is, if you're a person with a small modicum of intelligence who really doesn't believe in magic levers, shooting stars, or asking a sky demon for help.

okay, this is it...Stu, if you can't clearly see what is going on here after this post, you either lack the intelligence to see it or you've really managed to delude yourself

/well poisoned

Stu,

let us take the definition of atheist as...

one who lacks belief in the existence of God

good so far?

you take this to mean that an atheist must lack ALL belief, that is hold NO belief that God exists...

what you actually must take it mean though it that atheist must be 100% certain that God does not exist

you have not explicitly claimed this, but your tests make this clear...

given the scenarios, if a person estimated the possibility of God existing at even 0.0001%, they would not pull the lever, flip the switch, etc.

and ALSO, if the person believed there to be a 0% chance that God exists but acknowledged the possibility that they were wrong, the would not pull the lever.

given no upside, the only person who should pull the lever is the person who has fooled himself into thinking that he can be and is 100% certain that God exists

the problem is that almost no one takes the phrase "lack belief" to mean "lack ALL belief," "hold NO belief" in the sense that a person who says there is a low chance of God existing would also say that they hold a belief in God.

it doesn't even matter if you thinki this is a faulty interpretation fo the word "belief"...because people who call themselves atheists use this "faulty interpretation" and therefore don't mean what you think they should mean by it.

so let's consider taking each of the two defintions.

1: (our definion of belief...by which we would not say that we hold a belief in something if we judged the probability of it being true to be low):

in this case we call ourselves atheists and are correct

2: (you definition of belief...by which you we should say that we hold a belief in something if we judge the probability of it being to to be >0%)

in this case, we call ourselves atheists, but are incorrect by your definition

but in this case, what have you shown??? nothing of value. because now, we would not call ourselves atheists by your definition.

still though, there is a truth concerning our positions, that is, we lack a belief that the probability of God existing is high

this is what almost everyone except for you means when they talk about belief in God, and it is a valuable distinction to us...

so even if the whole world accepts your defintion, we would just make up a new word to replace the word atheist and define it as what we had all perviously meant when we used the word atheist.

--------------------------------------------------------

you say that if your belief regarding the probability of god existing influences your actions, then you are a theist...

and this amounts to precisely what I said above...

there are possible one sided (pascal's wager type) scenarios (you've offered a couple) by which if you judge the probability of God existing to be >0% or admit ANY uncertainty regading that judgement, you should take the action that labels you a theist

again, these tests may in fact tell us whether or not a person judges the probability of God to be 0% and is certain of it (and by changing the tests a bit, they can tell us roughly how likely they think Gods existence is)

but here's what they do not tell us..

I previously said that they do not tell us whether a person is an atheist or theist...but since you interpret these words differently from how we use them on this forum (and how almost everyone uses them)...it didn't work

so here's my new statement...

your test DO NOT tell us whether our (the supposed atheists on this board) claims regarding our beliefs are true of false (that is, our claim of atheism)

because either we use our defintion of atheist (and belief, etc) and are correct

or we use you definitions and are actually not even claiming what you think we are claiming when we call ourselves atheists

EDIT: by "your definitions" and "our definitions" I really mean "your/our interpretations of the definition. (surely you can see that this is the issue? specifically how we use the words belief and believe?)

I like when people admit they are wrong

I do it all the time and one of the things I like most about these forums (SMP and event he forums in general) is that people seem to admit they are wrong (when shown to be) more often than I see in the general population. maybe because this comes as advantage for students of poker...there's little room for being stubborn and playing one way when you see good arguments that it isn't best.

maybe Stu would admit he's wrong if it not doing so was consting him money

as of now, he just loses a bit of pride if he admits it

It won't work. He just ignores anything that's not convenient. Personally I define 'theist' as 'someone who has personally met an entity they are convinced is God'. So Stu's actually a closet atheist in my view.

Yeah, but he's just so stubborn. I should tell you about the time he went on a picnic with Dom and vhawk.

Also, I must concede. An atheist is someone who believes God doesn't exist. And a theist is someone who has no belief that God doesn't exist.

I admit when I am wrong. For isntance I changed the test in this thread as opposed to how I had it in SMP because Tame_Dueces pointed out a flaw.

Now if you don't understand these next statements you must not be that intelligent.

1. I don't believe a peson has to have absolutely 0 belief in God to be an atheist.
2. If a person has enough belief in God that it changes thier behavior then they are theist.

There is a good counter argument to the lever test. Since you haven't come out with it yet, I'll assume you just not smart enough to come up with it on your own. I'm going to help you out.

The problem with the lever test is that you will never come across a test like that in the real world. Suppose you have an atheist who goes his whole life behaving like an atheist wouldn't it be fair to call him an atheist even if he pulls that silly hypothetical lever? If you had presented that counter argument and asked that question I would respond, "Yes that person is an atheist"

Your problem Prodigy, and your not the only one others have it as well, is you completely ignore a persons behavior. You throw it out the window and pretend it doesn't exist.

Thats not true, See my jar full of infinite marbles analogy in SMP.