Stu: Are you suicidal?
Me: No.
Stu: Can you imagine yourself becoming suicidal at some point in the future?
Me: Yeah, I suppose. I mean, if I was terminally ill and in an incredible amount of pain with absolutely no hope of recovery. Yeah, I *might* become suicidal under those circumstances. I'm not going to sit here and lie to you and tell you that there's absolutely no possibility of me becoming suicidal at some point in the future. However, the likelihood of me killing myself are so remote that it's really not worth discussing.

Stu: ZOMG! YOU'RE SUICIDAL. STAY THERE WHILE I CALL 911!!!

This pretty much sums it up. Bye Stu.

Stu, you can ignore me all you like, but my points remain

what you have said here is only true if we use the word "belief" in the way you would prefer

We may be theists by your definition, but we are atheists by almost everyone else's.

so forgive us if we describe ourselves as atheists, not concerning outselves with Stu Pidasso's personal preferences

I pretty much consider I have won an argument when my opponets have to make stuff up(Hopey)/or completely omit central themes about my position(Tame_dueces) in order to attack it.

Hopey, when have I ever said, "if you *might* do this in the future...than you must be this"? I've always always always maintained that actual present day behavior determines what you actually are. I've even made the point that your real world actions and not some hypothetical situation determine wether you are an atheist or a theist. Your counter arguments are really pathetic Hopey. Your intellectual arsenal consists of smoke bombs and straw soldiers.

And here I was thinking that the lever you keep talking about was a hypothetical construct. You mean there's really a God lever? Where is it? Can you send me directions to it so that I can go there and *not* pull it to prove my level of non-belief to you?

I'm not praying, going to church, beating up homosexuals, blowing up abortion clinics, or doing any of the other things that religious folks normally do. And yet you still label me as a closet theist and claim victory in these threads. You're delusional, Stu.

You conviently ignored this point Hopey. This isn't the only time I made this point.

Keep ignoring and twisting Hopey, if that makes you feel better. Be aware though, it makes you look foolish.

Sorry, you keep changing your argument that it's impossible to keep up with your nonsense.

So your argument is now "if he walks like a theist, and talks like a theist...he is a theist -- even if he doesn't believe in god"?

Yeah, just ignoring the other person works good too.

LOLZ I WIN!!

If a person sincerely behaves as if God exists then that person is a theist...and I've never changed my argument. You're confusing my argument with your strawman ones.

Prodigy, I'm not ignoring you. Its that we already covered this more times than I can count. For the last time I'm not using "belief" differently than you. What is different is I put more stock in a persons actions than their words. You, on the other hand, completely ignore a persons actions...at least in when determining whether a person is an atheist or theist.

FWIW I agree with Stu about the supposed analogous conversations...I don't think they really capture his argument

still, I obviously think it's a flawed argument for reasons I gave as well as a few that I'm too lazy to go into (because I think the points I made are by far the most important and I find that a lot of arguments are basically grounded in problems relating to language)

you really are

when people say they believe something or let's consider if they ask if someone believes something, they mean "believe" in a very unspecific sense...they basically mean...do you think there is a very good chance that X is true (this can be seen as such that it impacts your life in a SIGNIFICANT way...not just in some odd scenarios)

if someone asked me if I believe in God, I should say yes by your system, but that would clearly give the wrong impression to the person asking me (and I DO mean as it relates to my actions).

it doesn't matter one bit if you (or I) think this way of using it is pointless (although I would argue that, even being so vague, it has much more value than your way)

If we use it in the common way I talked about above, then I am probably accurate in calling myself an atheist (I don't believe in God)

and if we use it your way, then I am more than fine saying that I am a theist by your system

what you cannot do is take a person's statement, "I do not belive that God exists"and take that to mean what you would prefer it to mean rather than what they intend it to mean

If Person A says to me, "I do not believe that God exists", absent any other relevant information I will take Person A to be an atheist. Now you're saying I am using my own definition of the word "believe". I don't think so. All the available evidence is consistent with Person A not having strong confidence in the truth of the statement that God exists.

Suppose Person A next tells me he is getting his newborn son baptized because he loves his son and wants to cover all his bases just in case God exists. I would say Person A's actions are inconsistent with his stated "beliefs". I explain that inconsistency by coming to the conclusion that Person A really believes that God exists, at least with enough confidence he sees the need to cover all his bases.

In the end we both are using "believe" to mean "having strong confidence something is true." Prodigy, you just conviently pretend the inconsistency doesn't exist. I wonder why?

your use of "strong confidence" hits the same problems I talked about regarding "belief"

people take strong confidence to mean that they think something is very likely to be true

not as you take it...that some amount of confidence is strong enough to influence some specific action

and even if you could prove that "strong confidence" means what you take it to mean, it wouldn't matter, because that is not how people use it (***see my edit below)

same problem as before

they are not inconsistent if baptizing his son is consistent with a small chance that God exists and baptism confers an advantage

it may be...

maybe he thinks there is a 1% chance God exists and baptism confers an advantage and considering all factors, baptizing his son is worthwhile.

in that case, he does not believe that God exists (again, by the common use of the word)...but takes an action which you would say is indicative of a belief that God exists

EDIT: he may have a strong confidence that there is a 1% chance that God exists, but he does not have a strong confidence that God exists. The latter is the one that indicates whether you are a theist or atheists, not the former

again, same problem that I have already layed out

Stu if we are to rely on actions in determining one's beliefs then there would not be many Christians left in the world.

This is actually the best point of all. If any theist, at any time, in any hypothetical scenario, ever behaved in a way inconsistent with belief in a god (ie, "sinned"), then they are potentially an atheist by Stu's standard.

Which is why Stu's argument is completely moronic.

You error by thinking that the standards for theism and atheism are the same.

Atheism requires no belief in God.
Theism requires some belief in God.

You can't apply my standard for an atheist to a theist. My whole point is if a person has so little belief(in God) that its not even enough to influence his behavior then he is an atheist. A lot of people who like calling themselves "atheist" think this standard is too high. They can't admit that so they resort to the only options they have left...Ridicule and obsfuscation.

...

When a persons belief in God is so little that it no longer influences his/her actions in this world, for all practical purposes that person is an atheists.

Thats my point. Now if I presented my point without the hypothetical you all would have agreed with it. The hypothetical just shows the standard is higher than they thought. Many are upset because they realize they don't meet it.

And, unbelieveably, you still don't respond! Have it again:

So which is it, Stu? It's not going away. Am I a theist for imagining that I might pull an imaginary lever, or for invoking the vengeful wrath of a deity when I hit my thumb with a hammer? And if not both, why not both?

So how is belief measured? Because I have to say I don't think of belief as something that can be chopped into grades the way you require it to be. I don't "believe/100" in this or that god... belief is more digital, on/off.

Let me put it like this: You are in a room with two exits, which you must leave for some compelling reason unrelated to what follows. It's explained to you that both exits will take you to your destination, but that one of the exits (on the left, we'll say) might contain a leprechaun, and if it does contain a leprechaun, the leprechaun will give you 500 billion dollars*. If it doesn't contain a leprechaun, you will just continue on your way.

So which exit do you take? Me, I take the one on the left, every time. Doing that does not mean I have 'a degree of belief' in leprechauns. If you disagree, please do say why.

*Feel free to substitute whatever thing in the world you'd like most.

I would say you have some belief in leprechauns. Now remember I also said this:

So I would say your hypothetical still doesn't prove you believe in leprechauns for practical purposes(but it does prove you have some belief in them). Now if you said you would still take either exit, that does prove you have no belief in leprechauns.

Saying "God Damit" when you hit your thumb with a hammer is not an impossible hypothetical situation. I've done it myself. Now if someone does that and seriously wants to call down God to damm the hammer, that person is a theist, regardless of whatever label he gives himself.

A lot of people claim I'm changing definitions, etc. They are wrong. They are afraid of the notion that your actions rather than your position statements define you.

My belief is so little that it no longer influences my actions in this world. Yet you've referred to me as "closet theist" on more than one occasion.

Nobody is "afraid" of anything of the sort. You just keep repeating the same thing over and over again because you think you're making some grand point.

The reason people are getting frustrated with you is not because they think you're right, it's because they know you're wrong yet you refuse to admit it no matter how much evidence is piled up in front of you.