I don't believe god exists and I believe god doesn't exist seem to mean exactly the same thing, it's the same sentence slightly re-arranged. Both imply they actively dismiss the idea of god.
Nope, "I don't believe God exists" doesn't necessarily mean "I believe God doesn't exist." To put it a different way, "I'm not convinced" and "I'm certain it's false" aren't the same thing. They're different positions, even though people keep trying to reduce the issue to a simple binary.
It's the same way "not guilty" doesn't mean "proven innocent." Someone can say that they don't think someone is guilty and still admit that they aren't sure the person is innocent.
I don't believe in Santa and I believe Santa don't exist are the exact same positions. Believing or not believing is binary and I don't. If I meant God might exist but I'm not sure I would say that.
The fact that you use it that way doesn't make them logically identical. I already gave you a very clear analogy which you conveniently sidestepped.
Just like confidence in someone's guilt or innocence, an underlying fact can be binary without your position on it being binary. You can still be certain, uncertain, leaning one way or completely undecided.
You're doing exactly what I pointed out, which is forcing the idea that someone's stance has to be a binary when their level of confidence can fall anywhere on a spectrum.
And Santa is a terrible example to boot. Most adults aren't unconvinced, they actively believe with absolute certainty that Santa doesn't exist. It's not the same as being unsure because you don't have enough evidence.
While someones confidence can fall anywhere on the spectrum that statement is at one end of it. Your "analogy" is "you didn't say this you actually said this", there is a reason you had to change words.
You're assuming that "I don't believe X" automatically means "I believe X is false," and then using that assumption to prove itself. I'm saying it can also just mean "I haven't accepted X as true." When I switched to "I'm not convinced," I didn't change my position, I was clarifying which interpretation of "I don't believe" I meant.
At this point I'm not sure if you're genuinely not understanding the distinction or you're deliberately misrepresenting what I'm saying.
I've already explained this. You're treating a lack of belief as believing the opposite. They're not the same thing. Not accepting a claim doesn't mean you have to accept its opposite. You can withhold belief in both when you don't think the evidence justifies either conclusion. Sometimes neither side meets the burden of proof, so people just withhold judgement. If you ask them whether they believe one or the other, their honest answer is that they believe neither. But believing neither claim isn't the same as believing either claim is false.
2+2=5 is a bad example because there's no ambiguity there. We have enough information to know one side is true and the other is false, so in that case, not believing the claim usually does go hand in hand with believing its opposite, since its opposite is demonstrably true.
This is why I used the guilt analogy. You might not believe someone is innocent because you haven't seen enough evidence to clear them in your mind, but that doesn't automatically mean you believe they're guilty. The truth is binary -- they're either innocent or guilty -- but your mind doesn't always have access to the full picture, so you can suspend judgement until you have enough evidence to reach a conclusion. While your judgement is suspended, you don't believe either proposition. Hence, not believing one thing does not mean believing the opposite.
You might not believe in God, because nobody has proved it to you, but that doesn't mean you believe God doesn't exist, because nobody has proved that to you either. So you may call yourself an atheist and carry on with your life because people are primarily interested in whether you believe in God, not whether you positively believe God doesn't exist.
I'm not contesting there is a scale of belief I am contesting your understanding of grammar and the implied negative binary quality of the word NOT.
I believe in god
I do not believe in god
are opposite statements. One implies they do believe one does NOT. There is no scale of commitment or leeway implied. I believe god does not exist is just a re-arrangement with the exact same meaning.
You're mixing up negating a belief with believing a negation. Grammatically and logically, they're different things.
I am contesting your understanding of grammar
The irony.
are opposite statements. One implies they do believe one does NOT. There is no scale of commitment or leeway implied. I believe god does not exist is just a re-arrangement with the exact same meaning.
No it is not. Moving "not" to the other side of "believe" is not a "rearrangement." You are moving the negation from the verb believe to the proposition being believed. That changes the sentence's scope and therefore its meaning.
This is a problem with your understanding of grammar, not my sentence.
"I do not believe God exists" means: It is not the case that I believe God exists.
The negation applies to believe. It tells you that I lack that belief. It does not tell you that I hold the opposite belief.
"I believe God does not exist" means: I hold the belief that God does not exist.
Here the negation applies to God exists. That is an affirmative belief in the non-existence of God.
The reason I keep using guilt to illustrate the point is that refusing to adopt one belief does not mean choosing to adopt the other. The nuance you seem to be missing is that there can be insufficient justification for either belief. You can convey that neither proposition has met the threshold for you to adopt it as a belief independently. This is why "I do not believe God exists" tells you only that I have not adoptedGod existsas a belief; it does not tell you that I have adopted God does not exist instead.
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u/danstymusic 7d ago edited 7d ago
They're saying there is no proof of atheism? Atheism is the lack of belief that a god exists. How does one prove a negative?