H'm. Surely what your diagram means is not just a detail? — Ludwig V

The diagram is for didatic purposes. The distinction between strongly, mid-ly, weakly believing is only for communication. If we want to be accurate, we would use something like percentages.

Do you have a background in logic, specifically the truth-functional calculus? — Ludwig V

Not my case.

You can say that it is not a sentence or a malformed sentence (not a wff) and hence no truth-value can be assigned or that it belongs in some third class (truth-value). But you cannot say or believe that it is true and you cannot say or believe that it is false. The same applies to the contradictory - "Colourless green ideas do not sleep furiously" in this case. — Ludwig V

Another issue is self-reference: "This sentence is false". It requires a truth-value other than true or untrue. I don't have an issue with that. I don't think the law of excluded middle always applies.
You may bring up that third-values are troublesome for my view of [0,1] or 0º→180º, but that is another issue that touches on another detail of my view.

I don't think philosophers are comfortable with irrational belief. But many beliefs have emotions attached to them. We're not machines. — Ludwig V

Right. My concern is more whether it is possible to separate emotion from belief when it is attached, or whether it is indissociable.

Something that sometimes happens is a bad basis for generalizing about the concept. — Ludwig V

Right, it is more that, besides wishful thinking, I can't think of another explanation for how the mechanism of emotional commitment works, maybe you can provide one.

What do you mean "discarded"? If I come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that my spouse is cheating, the emotion doesn't disappear. Most likely, it will be reinforced. — Ludwig V

Because whether I believe p and how I wish that it was not the case that p are different matters. I can come to believe that my wife is cheating, and that belief is the same whether I wish it was not the case or not. It would be the same matter if my wish modified the belief, but the belief seems to remain the same regardless of the wish.

I've no problem with you unfolding the fan. But it wasn't clear to me that you think that the strength or weakness of belief is proportional to the evidence, - or perhaps you mean "should be" proportional to the evidence? — Ludwig V

There we have another element. Like most philosophers (Alix Cohen 2013), I don't think direct doxastic voluntarism is possible. As in, we don't choose our beliefs, or will to believe something. So it is not that we proportion the belief to the evidence, but that the evidence pulls our mind in a particular direction of whether p or not-p — of course, to quote Matthew McGrath again, there is also the issue of "Whether you know or appreciate how strongly or weakly your evidence supports p (or not-p)."
Maybe the epistemic-declarative distinction now is more clear. Even if my mind is pulled towards the direction of p, I perhaps still do not take the stance of affirming p for different non-epistemic and/or epistemic reasons.

One factor that hasn't been mentioned is the idea that some propositions have a special status in that they are foundational and more or less immune to refutation. This is the category of what used to be called a priori or "analytic". — Ludwig V

It was briefly mentioned here:

I would say "A bachelor is a single man" is very close to 180º degrees (belief with certainty), while "A bachelor is a married man" to 0º degrees (disbelief). If we wish to talk about synthetic propositions, we could use "A square has four inner angles", very close to 180º also. The law of identity could be said to be 180º degrees, as it is the basal rock that every other belief depends on. — Lionino

I will also say that some beliefs X are more certain than others W exactly because W depends on X. Perhaps when we talk about the strenght of belief we don't have something in absolute terms, like "X is 95% sure" and "Y is 15% sure", but a hierarcy or relation, where the surest propositions (if there are such things) are defined as 100% and the most evidently false (a bachelor is a married man) as 0%, and every other belief is measured in reference to those two. I prefer the latter.

Opposition shouldn't be read to mean "denial of" — Hallucinogen

Well, you said it yourself:

Antitheism means opposition to the existence of a God — Hallucinogen

No, to me you either believe it or you know it. Knowing is stronger than believing. — mentos987

This entails that saying you know something means you don't believe it, which is absurd.

Not to me, uncertainty indicates that you are not certain. — mentos987

You said the opposite of this in your previous comment.

There's a binary distinction between certainty and uncertainty — Hallucinogen
Not to me. The term “uncertain” would indicate 5-95% certainty. — mentos987

Opposition shouldn't be read to mean "denial of" — Hallucinogen
Well, you said it yourself:
Antitheism means opposition to the existence of a God — Hallucinogen — Lionino

Yes, so "opposition to something" doesn't mean "to deny". It means moral opposition.

Yes, so "opposition to something" doesn't mean "to deny". It means moral opposition. — Hallucinogen

"Opposition does not mean to deny, it means moral opposition". You put an adverb next to the verb and pretended that is its default meaning. Opposition to the existence of something is clearly denial of existence. Moral opposition to something's existence is a very weird stance. If I say "I am opposed to the pilot-wave", everybody understands that as thinking that pilot-wave is a bad theory, not that I think the pilot-wave itself is a prick.

This entails that saying you know something means you don't believe it, which is absurd. — Hallucinogen

"absurd" why? Knowing is simply a degree higher on the scale of certainty . If my certainty drops from having known something then I may start believing it instead.

If someone asks me "Do you believe you need oxygen to survive?" then I answer, "No, I know I need oxygen to survive".

If they ask me, "Do you know what the weather will be like tomorrow? I answer, "I believe it will snow".

You said the opposite of this in your previous comment. — Hallucinogen

Uncertainty and certainty are both scales 0-100%, inversions of each other.
Being certain is a step on the certainty scale: 95-100%
Being uncertain is a step on the certainty scale: 5-95%

You can't be certain and uncertain about the same thing. But being certain does include a small degree of uncertainty (0-5%).

"I am opposed to the pilot-wave", everybody understands that as thinking that pilot-wave is a bad theory — Lionino

Because you're talking about an object in that case, not a being.

Opposition to the existence of something is clearly denial of existence. — Lionino

The kind of opposition indicated by the "anti-" prefix is moral. See: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/anti-

Because you're talking about an object in that case, not a being. — Hallucinogen

Every object is a being.

The kind of opposition indicated by the "anti-" prefix is moral. See: — Hallucinogen

'Anti-' means opposition, that is what the dictionary says. You ascribe this "morally" adverb to the word opposition when it is not there. There are countless examples of 'anti-' prefixed words without moral meaning.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/anti-ageing
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/anti-id
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/anti-romantic
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/anti-aircraft
The word anti-matter itself indicates reverse, instead of moral stance or counter-action.

If someone asks me "Do you believe you need oxygen to survive?" then I answer, "No, I know I need oxygen to survive". — mentos987

But this isn't a case of you not believing that oxygen is needed to survive. You believe it because of what you know.

"I believe it will snow". — mentos987

And you believe it because you know something.

Being certain is a step on the Certainty scale: 95-100% — mentos987

You said earlier that knowledge is 95 - 100% certainty.
Your new comment means that you can be both uncertain and certain, in contradiction to your last comment.

Not to me, uncertainty indicates that you are not certain. — mentos987

But this isn't a case of you not believing that oxygen is needed to survive. You believe it because of what you know. — Hallucinogen

I do not believe it because I know it. I am above the threshold of certainty that is indicated by the word "believing". If you suggest that I merely believe something when I think I know it, I may take that as an insult.

And you believe it because you know something. — Hallucinogen

Not necessarily, I can be unsure about it. However I probably have some experience that suggests that it will snow. But yes, I can know some things and use that to form beliefs about something else. The belief is weaker than the knowledge though.

Not to me, uncertainty indicates that you are not certain. — Hallucinogen

My bad, it is supposed to read "Being uncertain indicates that you are not certain".

:up:

I got involved in this because I'm interested in the debate about religion. We've ended up with the connection to epistemology, probability theory and so on. In a way, there's nothing wrong with that, and we could pursue our differences (which are many and radical) even on this thread. But I don't want to get absorbed in those subjects just now, and you clearly have a thoroughly thought through system in place, so that debate would be quite demanding. I expect you will get more out of a discussion with people who appear to be more on the same page, or at least the same book, as you.

The relationship is not temporal but one of dependency. If we're rational, belief depends on knowledge.

This doesn’t make sense to me. You seem to be saying that we must have knowledge of X before we can believe X; but then you say it is atemporal: can you give an example?

Beliefs that we formulate without knowledge are usually predictions or estimations

Isn’t this a temporal dependency?

This also seems like you are saying that we just need to have knowledge of Y (as opposed to X) to believe X, which is compatible with the etymological schema.

I got involved in this because I'm interested in the debate about religion. We've ended up with the connection to epistemology, probability theory and so on. In a way, there's nothing wrong with that, and we could pursue our differences (which are many and radical) even on this thread. But I don't want to get absorbed in those subjects just now, and you clearly have a thoroughly thought through system in place, so that debate would be quite demanding. I expect you will get more out of a discussion with people who appear to be more on the same page, or at least the same book, as you. — Ludwig V

Agreed. Good weekend, Herr Ludwig.

I should have said that I learnt a lot and enjoyed the debate. Perhaps we'll meet again. SIgnor (Senor?) Lionino.

Not necessarily, I can be unsure about it. — mentos987

You're misrepresenting what I said. I said: "And you believe it because you know something". The thing you are unsure about is the thing you believe, which you believe because of some other fact that you know.

However I probably have some experience that suggests that it will snow. — mentos987

And the experience is what you know.

But yes, I can know some things and use that to form beliefs about something else. The belief is weaker than the knowledge though. — mentos987

So this agrees with my original point, meaning you shouldn't have written "not necessarily". What you're now doing is acknowledging that belief coincides with knowledge, which undermines the continuous scale between the two you were advocating for. Since belief is based on knowledge, I can believe in something in which I know.

I think that what you are doing is using belief as a synonym for uncertainty and knowledge as a synonym for certainty, but incorrectly representing this on a continuum in which certainty and uncertainty get mixed together, but not belief and knowledge, each of which you're representing as an admixture of certainty and uncertainty. It is in fact certainty and uncertainty that do not mix, being binary opposites, and belief and knowledge which can mix, shown by the fact that we base belief on knowledge and lack of belief on lack of knowledge.

My bad, it is supposed to read "Being uncertain indicates that you are not certain". — mentos987

But that means the same thing. What you wrote was that "Being certain is a step on the Certainty scale: 95-100%" so I pointed out that you earlier that this is what knowledge is, not what certainty is. "You said earlier that knowledge is 95 - 100% certainty." Saying that certainty is a step on the certainty scale means you're mixing uncertainty together with certainty, which is a contradiction that I earlier pointed out.

This doesn’t make sense to me. You seem to be saying that we must have knowledge of X before we can believe X; but then you say it is atemporal: can you give an example? — Bob Ross

By dependency, I mean logical dependency. So believing X requires having knowledge about the concept of X. Our beliefs have a structure, so in order to believe, we have to have knowledge in that structure as well as knowledge of how the thing believed in fits into that structure.

"Beliefs that we formulate without knowledge are usually predictions or estimations"
Isn’t this a temporal dependency? — Bob Ross

Validating a belief as rational (as knowledge) can depend on information we don't currently have access to, yes.

This also seems like you are saying that we just need to have knowledge of Y (as opposed to X) to believe X, which is compatible with the etymological schema. — Bob Ross

I have to know what the president of the United States is in order to have a belief about who will become president in the future.

some other fact that you know. — Hallucinogen

Nah, I can believe something based on other beliefs.

I believe it will snow because I believe someone said so to me earlier. Knowing is not a requirement for believing.

And the experience is what you know. — Hallucinogen

Experience is not the same as knowing. In my experience, the earth is flat.

What you're now doing is acknowledging that belief coincides with knowledge, — Hallucinogen

No, in this case, the beliefs derived from knowledge does not refer to the same thing. I know it snows now so I believe it will snow tomorrow.

uncertainty together with certainty, which is a contradiction that I earlier pointed out. — Hallucinogen

Uncertainty and certainty are the scales themselves. Being certain and being uncertain, those are the actual levels of certainty, and they are separate. However, being certain can still contain a degree of uncertainty (0-5%).

I think linguists have done a good job showing that atheism in the ordinary sense means more than a mere lack or absence of belief. — Leontiskos

Linguists don't decide the meaning of words, there is no prescriptive tradition today in the English language.

I believe it will snow because I believe someone said so to me earlier. Knowing is not a requirement for believing. — mentos987

You couldn't rationally believe what they said if you had no knowledge it was possible, e.g., if you don't know what snow is or don't know that it can snow.

Experience is not the same as knowing. In my experience, the earth is flat. — mentos987

But you know what the Earth is because you experience standing on it. What you directly experience is what leads to knowledge, and you don't experience the roundness of the Earth, so it's not an appropriate example to prove your point.

No, in this case, the beliefs derived from knowledge does not refer to the same thing. — mentos987

It still refers to knowledge.

Uncertainty and certainty are the scales themselves. Being certain and being uncertain, those are the actual levels of certainty, and they are separate. However, being certain can still contain a degree of uncertainty (0-5%). — mentos987

This just doesn't make sense. They're separate but they overlap?

Every object is a being. — Lionino

By being I meant something with a mind.

'Anti-' means opposition, that is what the dictionary says. You ascribe this "morally" adverb to the word opposition when it is not there. There are countless examples of 'anti-' prefixed words without moral meaning.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/anti-ageing
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/anti-id
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/anti-romantic
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/anti-aircraft
The word anti-matter itself indicates reverse, instead of moral stance or counter-action. — Lionino

You're right. Anti-theist can mean asserting God doesn't exist.

don't experience the roundness of the Earth, so it's not an appropriate example to prove your point. — Hallucinogen

But I can experience that it is flat. I think it is a great case for experience not being knowledge.

It still refers to knowledge. — Hallucinogen

Maybe to your definition of knowledge. If everything was based on what I call knowledge, there would be less mistakes all around.

This just doesn't make sense. They're separate but they overlap? — Hallucinogen

“Uncertain” and “certain” does not overlap. “Uncertainty” and “certainty” are scales, they can overlap, they have no thresholds. A degree of uncertainty will always contain the inversed degree of certainty.

By dependency, I mean logical dependency

This sort of “logical dependency” you described is not atemporal.

I have to know what the president of the United States is in order to have a belief about who will become president in the future.

Exactly, so you could believe that the next president will be Bob without knowing it: that’s exactly how agnostic atheism works.

You have now conflated the knowledge used to formulate the belief in X with the need for knowledge of X to formulate the belief in X.

This sort of “logical dependency” you described is not atemporal. — Bob Ross

Then I don't know what your criteria for atemporality is or how you're reaching any conclusion about what is temporal and what isn't.

Exactly, so you could believe that the next president will be Bob without knowing it: — Bob Ross

No, I can have an irrational belief that turns out to be incorrect, based on fallacy or just lack of knoweldge, or I can have a rational belief that turns out to be correct based on knowledge.

that’s exactly how agnostic atheism works. — Bob Ross

It doesn't work at all, it pushes together agnosticism, defined as lack of knowledge, together with atheism, a knowledge claim regarding the same thing.

You have now conflated the knowledge used to formulate the belief in X with the need for knowledge of X to formulate the belief in X. — Bob Ross

The "need" is rationality, it's not being conflated with knowledge itself. One arrives at belief from knowledge through rationality.

atheism -- The theory or belief that God does not exist. — Oxford Reference

You conveniently chose the reference that supports your argument, from the "The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable".
Let's see what the relevant dictionaries say:

• A Dictionary of Atheism Stephen Bullivant and Lois Lee: "A belief in the non-existence of a God or gods, or (more broadly) an absence of belief in their existence".
• A Dictionary of Philosophy (3 ed.) Simon Blackburn: "Either the lack of belief that there exists a god, or the belief that there exists none."
• A Dictionary of Psychology (4 ed.) Andrew M. Colman: "Rejection of belief in God. atheist n. One who rejects belief in God."
• The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World: "The Greek for atheism is ‘not to recognize the gods’ or ‘deny that the gods exist’ or, later, ‘to remove the gods’."

Let's see what the relevant dictionaries say: — Lionino

How are you deciding "relevant", other than as a way of describing the reference that supports your own view?

I should point out that appealing to dictionaries is going to be completely fruitless for your side of the argument, since dictionaries aren't reason-giving.

Hence, the OP.

Let's see what the relevant dictionaries say:

A Dictionary of Atheism Stephen Bullivant and Lois Lee: "A belief in the non-existence of a God or gods, or (more broadly) an absence of belief in their existence".
A Dictionary of Philosophy (3 ed.) Simon Blackburn: "Either the lack of belief that there exists a god, or the belief that there exists none."
A Dictionary of Psychology (4 ed.) Andrew M. Colman: "Rejection of belief in God. atheist n. One who rejects belief in God."
The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World: "The Greek for atheism is ‘not to recognize the gods’ or ‘deny that the gods exist’ or, later, ‘to remove the gods’." — Lionino

And they aren't even incompatible with the definition I gave or the OP either. So you aren't even proving me wrong by pointing these out.

How are you deciding "relevant", other than as a way of describing the reference that supports your own view? — Hallucinogen

Let's see the description for your one source:

This authoritative dictionary draws on Oxford's unrivalled bank of reference and language resources in order to explore the stories behind names and sayings that can be found in classic literature or today's news. Questions it seeks to answer include: What are Anglo-Saxon attitudes? Who first tried to nail jelly to the wall? When was the Dreamtime? Would you want the Midas touch? Should you worry about grey goo? Answers cover a range of topics, such as classical and other mythologies, history, religion, folk customs, superstitions, science and technology, philosophy, and popular culture.

And one of my sources:

This bestselling dictionary is written by one of the leading philosophers of our time, and it is widely recognized as the best dictionary of its kind. Comprehensive and authoritative, it covers every aspect of philosophy from Aristotle to Zen. With clear and concise definitions, it provides lively and accessible coverage of not only Western philosophical traditions, but also themes from Chinese, Indian, Islamic, and Jewish philosophy. New entries on philosophy of economics, social theory, neuroscience, philosophy of the mind, and moral conceptions, bring this authoritative third edition up to date. It is the ideal introduction to philosophy for anyone with an interest in the subject, and it is an indispensable work of reference for students and teachers.

Which one seems more relevant to philosophy of religion's terminology?

I should point out that appealing to dictionaries is going to be completely fruitless for your side of the argument, since dictionaries aren't reason-giving. — Hallucinogen

Correct me if I am wrong, but the OP mentions dictionaries and definitions at many points, and some arguments seem to be based on these definitions. The Oxford definition from the Fables book is followed by this:

Therefore what should define atheists is claiming to know that God does not exist (or synonymous phrases such as denying God exists), and this goes together with believing that God does not exist, since belief and knowledge are coupled. — Hallucinogen

But putting agnosticism together with atheism is contradictory, despite their shared lack of belief, because of what they know differently. Agnostics don't know whether God exists, while atheists know God doesn't exist. You can't be in two states about knowledge. — Hallucinogen

This whole argument references the sourced definition of atheism you used. I am saying your source for that definition is not a good source.

Which one seems more relevant to philosophy of religion's terminology? — Lionino

It's you that said one is more relevant than the other, not me. I'd say "relevance" of a definition comes down to popularity and history.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the OP mentions dictionaries and definitions at many points — Lionino

As a way of debunking what the OP is aimed at debunking - the idea that definitions prove what things are.

and some arguments seem to be based on these definitions — Lionino

They aren't.

This whole argument references the sourced definition of atheism you used. — Lionino

The argument doesn't depend on the definition, it mentions it as an example of how atheism should be defined based on the argument.

@Hallucinogen
Is believing a ridged state for you? Are you equally sure about all your beliefs?