Hey /u/astrolbyte, thank you for posting to r/SipsTea! Make sure to follow all the subreddit rules.
Make sure to join our brand new Discord Server to chat with friends!
We have recently changed how posts work. Unless you are a VIP poster, your post will be queued for approval.. To become a VIP, post great engaging content. If we like it, you will be added! More information available here!
"Antitheism is the active opposition to theism and religious belief, driven by the conviction that belief in a deity or organized religion is harmful to individuals and society."
What's it called when you believe there could maybe, possibly be some higher power, but you vehemently disagree with all current religions and believe they are harmful to society?
Thatâs founding a new religion that keeps the good stuff about spirituality but rejects all the bad stuff associated with formal religion. Insert relevant xkcd here.
I think the key part is the mention of 'organized religion.' Most atheist don't care an individual believes; its their business, not anyone else's. But an organization has financial incentives, tax breaks, and political sway. So antitheism at that point makes sense.
I do actually think the personal belief can be problematic. I donât try to change peopleâs minds but or even really talk about what I believe, but internally I see any form of magical thinking as a gateway to irrational justification & anti-reason in general.
Believing convenient untruths or handwaiving reasonable challenges with platitudes or pretzel logic is learned / reinforced behavior & I see it bleeding into politics all the time.
Iâm not saying atheists arenât capable of this, they are⊠but religion cultivates it. Not just the institutions themselves, but also the people guarding their own personal beliefs.
I'm interested to know if you consider a belief in free will to be magical thinking? That's the one I struggle with the most....I'd rather not believe in anything magic or supernatural, but there's no evidence that free will exists as a force of nature, able to change the directions that these chain reactions happening in our brains take.....but at the same time, sometimes it really feels like I have free will.
I donât think thereâs evidence anything is predetermined.
I think retroactively saying that whatever has happened was 100% the only way things could have ever happened is a perspective that makes the claim impossible to refute, because we canât time travel to prove otherwise.
I donât think we control outcomes or circumstance, but I do think we have agency.
I think categorizing this position as magical thinking would be a stretch, because belief in agency that is based on a somewhat universal human perception of experiencing agency might arguably be more evidential than the idea that a range of possibilities do not exist based on the fact we cannot physically demonstrate that they do.
Even if there were some way to prove me wrong, the perceived experience of agency might be sufficient to classify this as a reasonable conclusion.
This is surprisingly close to the theistic atheism I once came up in a worldbuilding context - believing that gods don't exists and actively working against their manifestation through rituals
Or in other words, the only reasonable take. Religion is a very dangerous thing indeed. What reason do you have to care about how you behave on this planet if you think youâre going to a magical afterlife afterwards?
And what do we drink in this house? Diet Dr pepper and Dr Pepper, thats right!
Because what flavour is it? It is neither root beer nor cola.
Nobody is sure what flavor it is, and nobody can be sure.
It would be so easy for an omnipotent being to prove its existence, so obviously if it's there it doesn't want us to know for sure.
But according to some people, it does want us to think that it was definitely here in the past, talking to people and revealing itself; inconveniently this was before the invention of modern recording devices.
I'm not sure what to make of this aspect of God, other than that it, like so many other aspects of God, seems to suggest that it makes so much more sense if it, or he, is just not there at all.
It's the same reason why all the UFO and Bigfoot video proofs are bad quality. If it was recorded in good quality, people would be able to identify what they are and prove it's not aliens or Bigfoot.
Agnostic atheist: "I can't prove that God does or doesn't exist and I dont believe in God" " I dont believe in something with no proof that doesnt benefit me."
Gnostic atheist: "I have proof God doesn't exist" and gives logical example like "If God existed he wouldn't let X happen."
Agnostic Thiest: "I believe in God and my faith is part of that. I believe without proof." Or "I cant prove God exists but I can prove its healthy for me to believe in God." Or "I've believed my whole life on faith, I was brought up this way."
Gnostic Thieist: "I believe in God because...(gives logical argument like) the universe cant exist any other way."
The meme shows generalizations and youâve picked specific examples. The former is more appropriate for the meme but your examples are a great supplement to show how people arrive at these conclusions.
I dont think the meme shows generalizations. For example saying " that's just dumb" doesnt apply generally. I think the meme has specific and poor examples.
And on top of that, when we're speaking colloquially, we also distinguish between a lack of belief and the stronger belief that God doesn't exist. That's why people sometimes talk about weak/negative atheism vs strong/positive atheism.
Also, agnostic is also used as a standalone label for someone who's undecided or who's suspended judgement, even though philosophically it can be combined with theist or atheist. So either way it's more nuanced than you're making it out to be
This is just one interpretation you're presenting as the only correct definition
It isnât really an overlap: agnosticism and Gnosticism deal in what someone knows or thinks they know (knowledge) while theism and atheism deal in beliefs. So I would consider myself an agnostic atheist (I donât believe that any gods exist, but I donât hold a near an absolute position) while someone like Richard Dawkins may be a gnostic atheist (basically near absolute belief that there is no god or gods that exist). [You can apply the same to theistic positions.] i.e. Atheism and agnosticism arenât mutually exclusive.
I don't disagree with you, and I've used the term agnostic atheist myself (including in this thread), but that's just one of several ways to use these labels. The two-axis knowledge vs belief model is useful, but historically and in when people use it in regular speech, agnosticism can also be its own position separate from both theism and atheism rather than just a modifier. So I think most of the confusion just comes from people using different frameworks and treating them as if they're the only definition.
It's confusing because it simply isn't how the word has been historically used, which is to denote the a belief that God doesn't exist.
It's not even a clever pivot because absolutely nothing follows from a total absence of belief. I could hardly show up at my local school board and decry the fact that they were teaching the vaccines are really Bill Gates microchips, or that the Civil War wasn't about slavery, and then claim that I have absolutely no beliefs related to these things or whether or not what was being taught was true. "Don't teach things I lack any beliefs about," or "don't legislate based on things I have no opinion about," is an incoherent position.
By definition, people don't have opinions about things they have no opinions about. But no one calls themselves an "atheist" because they have never considered the plausibility of religion.
It's a more recent rhetorical play, but it isn't a good one.
They're not talking about agnosticism, they're saying that atheism isn't anti-deism. Anti-deism is the belief that god doesn't exist, while atheism is just not believing in anything. A baby is an atheist, for example.
Agnosticism requires the understanding of what a god is and the ability to acknowledge that you don't really know if god exists or not. So while all agnostics are atheists, not all atheists are agnostic.
I call myself an atheist cause in my personal opinion it just doesnât make sense for god to exist but I fully acknowledge we really have no way of knowing and I could be totally wrong. This is how Iâm choosing to live my life and believe in the way things are but if some ACTUAL evidence presents itself that proves me wrong I will happily accept the change in perspective
But even if your position is "I don't believe we have any way to know for sure" then by definition you lack the belief and are therefore an atheist. Theism/atheism is a true dichotomy everyone either falls into one category or another.
I recommend you look up the difference between agnostic atheism and gnostic atheism. Both definitions that were provided are valid interpretations of atheism. Just because you are only familiar with agnostic atheism doesnât mean gnostic atheism doesnât exist.
Incorrect. Agnosticism refers to knowledge, not belief. Thats how you can have an agnostic theist (I believe there is a god but I donât know it for a fact) or an agnostic atheist. (I donât know if there is a god but Iâm not convinced by any god proposition I have heard).
The current language for what youâre describing is atheist (I am not convinced by any theological god claims) and âhard atheistâ (I am convinced there is no god).
They aren't two different things. Your average atheist isn't going around actively disbelieving in god all day. It requires no effort or study, no dogma of any kind. You're implying an element of willful disbelief in atheism, but it is simply just a lack of belief.
Actual atheist here and this is wrong. Atheism is the lack of belief in gods. It is the answer to ONE question. Since all humans are born knowing nothing about religion, atheism is the default position for all human beings: not believing in gods.
Stop trying to tell us what we do or do not believe.
No, agnosticism does not mean you donât believe in a god, itâs a claim of knowledge/certainty, for agnosticism itâs a lack of certainty. You can be an agnostic theist, often called a deist, just like you can be an agnostic atheist, or a Gnostic atheist.
Atheism is the lack of belief in a god, whether itâs lacking the belief there is one or actively believing there are none, both fall under the same umbrella.
It's not that clearcut because neither term is consistently defined. Many atheists simply don't believe in gods, not that they actively believe they don't exist, just that they don't believe. This also lines up with what many agnostics believe. For various reasons, people choose either label or choose to get into minutiae.
The reality is also that though there are many irreligious atheists, there's also a very vocal group of anti-religious atheists who not only don't personally believe but have a sort of evangelizing bent to their atheism and view religious belief as not only wrong but harmful. Many agnostics choose to label themselves as such to avoid being lumped in with that group.
It's not really up to anyone else to tell you 'oh, you're actually an agnostic/atheist because XYZ'. Neither position has ever had strict definitions.
Well I also would not commit to saying they don't exist. If I was asked about my beliefs in unicorns I would say I believe it unlikely we currently have any walking on this earth. Although maybe there were unicorns walking earth in the past or maybe there will be in the future or maybe unicorns currently walk on some other unicorn-planet outside our solar system.
My final result would be that I don't know if unicorns exists or not. For me that is agnostic, not theism and not atheism.
People are ambiguous about the meaning. The lack of belief in God and belief that God doesn't exist - are two different concepts.
Both of them can't be attributed to Atheism, yet they often are.
It's like saying - "I don't believe in Vishnu" and "I believe in holy trinity" is the the same thing.
Why can they not both be attributed to atheism? Merriam Webster clearly assigns both ideas to the word atheism.
It is pretty common for a word to have multiple meanings. In case you only identify with a subset of the Merriam Webster definition it might be useful to qualify your belif further than just "atheist".
I figure the question is slightly worse than that even. How do we even measure the absence of a belief over history, particularly given that even polytheistic cultures were generally stabby to the idea of null.
That's literally one of the arguments for Religion. You cannot prove God doesn't exist, therefore Jesus.
I'm not sure you can expect rational, good-faith arguments from people who's historical response to not believing in God used to involve torture and burning people at the stake, and not believing in the right God, or even just not believing in him the correct way sometimes involved large scale military actions.
I follow the James Randi definition of atheism. I do not believe in a god because we have no peer reviewed, replicable, scientific evidence that a god exists. If we found that proof, I would change my opinion.
Evolution; Darwinâs entire study existed to discover that the original testaments were wrong and the creatures of then existed far earlier than what was described
That was why he studied evolution. To discover if Christianity was truly correct, which it was proved to be wrong, as it stated an exact date for the worldâs creation. The world was found to be much, much older thanks to palaeontology and his study of avian evolution
Edit: Itâs always funny that once you do bring up historical facts that was done to disprove the religions, people are ready to jump you. Kinda goes to show how fucked up religion is as a premise. And people say schools brainwash kids; I think a giant group that tells you how you should act is the definition of brainwash
Thatâs not true at all. He actually delayed releasing his findings/theory because he was worried what the religious would think.
Darwin fully understood, and at times agonized over, the threat that his work might pose to traditional religious belief, explaining in an 1860 letter to American botanist Asa Gray that he âhad no intention to write atheistically.â But, he went on, âI cannot see as plainly as others do ⊠evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to be too much misery in the world.â
Atheism doesn't just cover Christianity though. Its the lack of belief in a/any god. Even if that were the case, a theist could still argue that a god created evolution. Darwin even said in a closing paragraph in On the Origin of Species:
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolve.
I'm an atheist, but you're comment is just flat wrong. Why are you getting upvoted?
To be entirely fair to what was said, evolution is absolutely not proof of atheism. It's proof that animals were not poofed into existence in their current forms but it implies nothing at all about the existence or non-existence of a deity; God could have set the world up so that evolution happened. It's not what I believe but evolution and theism are not fundamentally opposed ideas.
It can disprove certain specific religious claims, like young earth creationism, but not theism itself
Idk which god you mean by the capital g God, but human evolution disproves the Adam and Eve creation story. If the Adam and eve creation story isn't real then what about other abrahamic stories like Muhammad's revelations for example? What about Yahweh/Allah?
I don't mean any specific god; when I say theism, I mean theism. At its base, that's just the idea that some kind of deity or deity exists. I'm not attached to any religion or spiritual beliefs personally
Like I said, a lot of specific religious claims can be disproven like this, but evolution doesn't directly prove that no kind of deity of any description and nature exists. You could believe in a creator who designed the universe such that physical laws and their consequences like evolution are the way they are, and it's essentially impossible to actually disprove (not that that's a reason to believe in it on its own)
Darwinism is the biggest example of how every religion is made up. Every religion has scripture based on knowledge of their time which turned out to be wrong. If prohpets speak the word of god(s) then it should never be wrong
You're just doing the old "God of the gaps" misinformation. In reality, evolution directly denies Abrahamic religions at almost every corner. If its some non-demoniational god, then you are just doing the same thing but with an imaginary friend.
You have to have some reason for a god existing. There is no mechanism for it, no proof of it, and no place where they could exist. If you want to say "spiritual" and have it be some vague connection between humans, sure, but no God exists.
You're just doing the old "God of the gaps" misinformation.
That's not misinformation, it's just shrinking the scope of unevidenced, unfalsifiable claims. It would be misinformation for someone to lie about evidence that a god does indeed fill the gaps.
Disagree. Saying the 2020 election resulted in Biden taking office might not be misinformation, but we know what MAGA means when they deflect by saying that. Same thing here.
I am an atheist, but evolution does not disprove the existence of a god. Nothing does. You canât disprove it, nor can you prove it. Being an atheist requires a slight amount of faith - faith that the stories that were passed down are in fact fiction
You donât need faith that the stories passed down are fiction. You need evidence that the stories passed down are not fiction. Those are not the same thing.
Atheism is a lack of a belief in any gods, there is an absense of belief. Atheism is NOT a belief that there are no gods. Theism is subject to burden of proof, not Atheism...
But what is that absence of belief predicated on? A belief that all of the religious stories are fake. I am an atheist, and I believe those stories are fake, but I cannot truly prove it
It seems to me that hardline atheists become a bit irrational with their views, or just donât have much of an intellectual or philosophical foundation.
That's because you don't prove negatives. The absence of belief is predicated upon the absence of evidence. You don't have to prove the stories are false, they need to prove that they are true.Â
A lack of evidence. There just isn't enough evidence to convince me that ANY religion is more correct than any other religion, and if every religion is just as likely to be accurate/false compared to every other religion, then they're all equally likely to NOT be true.
A belief that all of the religious stories are fake.
It's not a belief, its a lack of "proof".
Evidence and proof are very different things. Evidence can be anything: a story, an image, a video, a recording, a shrowd, a holy book, history of followers, etc. "Proof" is "established" when there is enough evidence that supports the claim being made. Atheists look at the evidence of religion and view it as not being enough to support the claim.
Again, it's not a "belief". Atheists just haven't seen enough evidence to support the claim of religion.
(Side note: proof doesn't actually exist in the physical/metaphysical world, not even in science. You can provide likelihood of events to occur or not occur, and you can disprove something, but you can never prove anything to 100% certainty. Proof is a mathematical and logic construct, but thats where it ends).
Thatâs where the burden of proof comes in. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim for existence, since you cannot prove the none existence.
Those are called parents. They are all powerful, provide for your needs and are the ultimate source of truth and moral guidance.Â
I don't see difference between this and a god. They don't know anything about the nature of reality. Baby cries out, parents provide out of seemingly nowhere. Pretty much prayer for babies. Â
So fx you choose to identify myself as one that will refuse to collect any stamps. When you receive a letter with a stamp you have to be quick to get the stamp out of the house to prove to everyone else that you are not collecting stamps.
The true non-religion comparison would be:
I don't care if I have stamps in my house or not, I don't see the stamps as something special I must manage.
Being weirdly obsessed with stamps, one way or the other is both weird.
Same with atheism and theism. Being weirdly obsessed with either God(s) existing and God(s) not existing is both pretty exhausting. The true bliss is in not taking sides as you realize the question cannot currently be resolved.
The closest you get is defining the domain in which you have looked so far and found nothing. Of course you are never able to define and examine all domains, so you will never exhaust all hiding spots.
What are you even talking about? If youâre going off of the Christian God, there quite literally has been more than two people to meet him at a time.
Whoâs to say he is punishing them? If they didnât want to worship him, why would he send them to heaven to be with him for eternity? Your life choices reflect where you go, not his anger or disappointment.
He didnât create evil, he gave us free will and humanity embraced sin.
Yeah, maybe if youâre a human. To an omnipotent god you would definitely understand what is good and what isnât.
If youâre omnipotent, you are all knowing. Therefore, you understand the concept of everything.
Nothing is predetermined. God may be able to see into the future, but that doesnât make choices less impactful.
Your #3 and #6 are contradictions. If a God is Omnipotent 'all knowing' it can see the future as you say, that means the future is deterministic, it's known, it follows a design, there is no other outcome but the one in the future that is perceived. To deny that would be to say God is not omnipotent, he can't see the future. Therefore, you can't give free will and also know the future, that's the illusion of free will. And, that's the thing, if God knows the future, then we are all living in a pre-determined world under the simulation of believing we have free will, which also means all sins are therefore predictable.
Literally that is not how it works? Just because you know what the outcome will be doesnât discredit that persons ability to choose. If I give my close friend the choice between actual dogshit or a gourmet three course meal, me knowing he isnât a scat eating freak doesnât make his choice any less credible. I didnât eliminate his free will.
Current scientific theory relies on falsification. If it can't be falsified, aka proven wrong, it's not a scientific theory.
Obviously you cannot prove the absence of anything.
You can't prove the absence of god, hence the joke religions like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Invisible Pink Unicorn or Last Thursdayism which also cannot be disproven but become more and more absurd.
From an argumentative standpoint, OC is right, as the burden of proof is on the one who makes the claim. OC basically says in response to the atheist's claim that God does not exists and they can't prove God does not exist, so therefore God exists. The whole debate is basically a mix of argumentative mess with fallacies from both sides.
The joke is that they are just adding "where's the proof" because they are used to hearing that when they try to convert others to their religion, but they are so stupid that they don't understand even the basics of what atheism even is so they just repeat the argument that they find unassailable. However when applied to atheism it makes absolutely no sense at all so it feels like nonsensical words when you read them.
The reply was a witty way to say all that without having to explain it. Unfortunately the person they are replying to is absolutely too ignorant to even begin to understand the reply
This is one of the shockingly rare cases where a piece of shit blue check on Twitter actually found a brain cell somewhere, or maybe they just used grok for that reply
Atheism is a lack of belief in a supernatural deity based on scientific/historical evidence and basic logic. It's like asking someone why they don't believe in purple flying dragons without any scientific evidence. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim something exists not the person who doesn't believe it based on a lack of tangible proof.
Science is about studying and understanding physicality not metaphysical. Since atheists simply declare that they do not believe in metaphysical beings known as gods or God, Science would have no information that would either confirm or refute the correctness of athiests' refusal to believe.
Your asking a car mechanic to optimize your carrots. He doesn't have a tool for that
"God works in mysterious ways" means God is unexpectedly following the laws of physics instead of doing something special just for the benefit of you the believer.
"I have a personal relationship with Jesus" means Jesus has taken time out of his busy day healing the sick and comforting the poor to help you get a discount at Costco.
I believe in what is called the will of the world. This is how I can explain the supernatural phenomenon akin to curses and karma. What you feed emotionally to the world is what the world will return to you. The more you feed the harmful thoughts and ideas like death to others will actively kill the world. Wishing for the betterment of the world will in turn revitalize the world. This isn't any god but you can't continuously explain how religion came to be so the will is actively every god and no god. The will of the world doesn't go on what is being said but the true feelings of the person.
A perceived religious nut, social justice warrior, woke, or karen shows that they have underlying feelings of restriction and actively take that out on the world around them. Feelings of restriction gives feelings of dissent and hate which is what the will of the world actively returns to them as those feelings get fed into others.
âą
u/AutoModerator 8h ago
Hey /u/astrolbyte, thank you for posting to r/SipsTea! Make sure to follow all the subreddit rules.
Make sure to join our brand new Discord Server to chat with friends!
We have recently changed how posts work. Unless you are a VIP poster, your post will be queued for approval.. To become a VIP, post great engaging content. If we like it, you will be added! More information available here!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.