No, your mistaken. At least in the situation we are talking about. Disbelief in God(for an atheist) is the complete refusal to believe(in God). Your saying that for an atheist, disbelief in God is only a partial refusal to believe in God...which is just silly.

Its always been my position that if you partially believe in God, at a level that is enough to influence your behavior in this world, then you are a theist.

Again, the way I think about this is a persons words should be consistent with their behavior. Your basically insisting that a persons words need not be consistent with thier behavior and I don't think I can convince you otherwise.

Agree?

Make your own statement and ask me if I agree with it or not. I don't like it when you change what I say to mean something else and then continue to attribute it to me.

I've said several times a theist need not have perfect belief in God.

If I see a glass and it has some water in it, I do not believe the glass is empty(even it it only has a little bit of water in it). If I see a glass and observe that it is not containing anything(other than air), then I consider it empty.

Water is absent from an empty glass. Belief in God is absent from an atheist.

You and others would have that substantial belief need not be absent from an atheist....which again is just silly.

Sorry, you loose.

And I will continue to point out that an atheist need not have a perfect disbelief in God.

What is it that you don't understand?


Actually, I'm quite tight.

Its like saying an empty glass contains something. Its nonsensical.

I stopped at this. So bad, if I knew nothing else about the thieist/atheist debate but what I've read in the OP and the above quoted response, I'd have to be atheist.

But if the theist was the empty glass, that contained some disbelief, that would make sense to you?

Still nonsensical.

When one is talking about belief or disbelief. One is talking about how much confidence one has that a particular statement or thing is true. If you have some confidence you have some belief. "Disbelief" is a word that means "I have so little confidence it might as well be none at all." In the glass analogy what is really being measure is that confidence. You either have a significant amount of it(i.e. you believe) or you have so little confidence it might as well be none at all(i.e. you disbelieve).

My position is, and has always been, if that level of confidence is enough to influence your behavior in this world you've passed the tipping point from disbelief(having no confidence) to belief(having confidence).

Your error is you essentially treat "belief" and "disbelief" as a ratio. That is as you believe more, you disbelieve less or as you disbelieve less, you believe more. Thats sort or true, but you you need some objective point that determines when one tips from the realm of disbeleif to belief(thats the part you conveintly ignore). I maintain a persons actions are a better indicator than their words.

Your error is that you hold disbelief to a different standard than belief. I have been pointing this out to you again, and again, and again.

You say disbelief must be total (in order to be an atheist), yet belief can have degrees (in order to be a theist).

Your logic is flawed.

he can define them in any way that he likes (even if it is's neat and tidy)...he just can't act as though that's how most people use them

unfortunately he is, in fact, doing just that though some subtle equivocation

Not total, but enough that it might as well be total.

.

So it is, indeed, some ratio. What is your ratio, Stu? What is the tipping point that makes you not a theist, but a closet atheist?

Also, as pertains to the second quote, do you hold theists to this same standard? What is the tipping point that makes the difference?

Obviously Stu is defining atheism in a way that is completely unique to him, and him alone. We all know that, which is why he's essentially ignored.

I'm patronizing him because I've got some free time between poker hands....

For a long time I did think of myself as a closet atheist. Then my father went to the ICU. He was dieing but not in a particularly horrible way. I made a very sincere prayer. I prayed that he would recover. I also prayed that he would die right then if a recovery meant he would die a long drawn out painful death 6 months later.

Obviously I have enough belief in God that it influenced my behavior in that real life moment. If I sincerely act as if God exists then I am a theist, even though I admit the probability of the God I worship actually existing is quite low.

To answer your question, behavior is the tipping point.

So in an act of desperation during a very stressful episode, you found yourself praying to an invisible being that you previously were fairly certain did not exist...and this changed your label forever from a "closet atheist" to a theist?

What if your father had died a horrible, painful death weeks after you had made your prayers, causing you to become even more certain that god does not exist? Would your label revert to being an atheist? Or does that one prayer during a moment of extreme stress and desperation make you a theist forever?

The probability approach intrigues me. I wonder how many people in the world would name a probability other than 0, 1 or "undefined".

What do you somehow who thinks there is a 10% chance of a God? 40%? 60%? 90%?

I don't even think belief is based on probability, so who really cares? Besides this is a system of unknowns so one doesn't even KNOW the probabilities compared to say a simple game.

I've said this before but it bears repeating. Stu's logic is perfectly analogous to this:

A: "Do you believe you are going to die tomorrow?"
B: "No."
A: Do you concede that there is a chance however slim that you might die tomorrow?"
B: "Yes."
A: "Congratulations, you are a secretly suicidal".

I would change the last one to "A: Congratulations you secretly believe you are going to die tomorrow"

again, person B is using the word "believe" as it is commonly used and Stu is using it in a way that he thinks is more valuable

it may in fact be more valuable (I don't think it is and the many problems brought up in these threads support this)...

but the important point is what I have been trying to drill into his head...that he can't take people's statements, assume different meanings of the words they use, then claim they are incorrect (well he can, but it's useless)

by Stu's use of the word "believe," I believe that I will die tomorrow

but if someone asked me if I believe that I will die tomorrow and I said, "Yes," it would give the wrong impression because they use the word "believe" in a different way than I would have to in order to say "Yes."

I think the typical use of the word is much more valuable than Stu's use...

It is very convenient to be able to guage a person's estimation of the likelihood of something being true by asking if they "believe" it to be true. If they answer yes, they probably think it very likely to be true, if they answer no, they probably don't think it very likely to be true.

in most instances, I don't really care whether or not a person thinks there is no chance that something is true or there is a 0.01% chance (enough to possibly influence some specific behavior) that it is true

Tame_dueces the reason your analogy is misrepresents my position is because it only includes statements and completely omits behavior(which is central to my position)

A better analogy of my position:
A: "Are you suicidal?"
B: "No"
A: "What are you writting down on that piece of paper?"
B: "Oh this, I'm just finishing up a suicide note...can you hand me that loaded pistol?"

Now Tame_dueces would take the persons word that he is not suicidal and hand B the loaded pistol. Stu Pidasso would keep the gun away from him.

I don't think the motivation for the prayer is important. All that matters is I committed the act of my own free will and for my own motivations. I would not say I changed my label, more I re-affirmed the label of theist I have previously given myself. There was a time I considered calling myself atheist, but I realize now that to do that, at this point in my life, would be dellusional.

Suppose that happens and suppose a couple years after that my Mom is in the same situation. If that comes to pass and I don't pray for her because I think its so unlikely a God exists to hear that prayer, that praying would be a waste of time, then it might very well be the time I take the label of atheist. I mean I might as well call myself an atheist if I'm going to act like one.

I don't think you people are really honest with yourselfs. If your belief in God is so strong you act like a theist, stop being dellusional and just call yourself a theist.

What we call an "empty" glass is just a glass filled with air.

Nonsense, you are the person who would give him the gun back if he said he wouldn't pull a lever that would make him die.

It's not me who are operating with standards for true scotsmen.

We should label ourselves as theists even if we act like atheists 99.999% of the time, and only act like theists .001% of the time -- perhaps as a result of a moment of weakness or desperation? Really?