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  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    Scientific evidence depends entirely on repetition in controlled environments where particular experiences composed of beliefs, desires, motivations and various subjective phenomena are neutralized.JuanZu

    When science is used to study something other than those subjective phenomena, but not when it is studying the subjective phenomena themselves. And by “neutralized” I assume you mean “controlled”. Science cannot remove such confounding factors from the picture entirely.

    Subjective experiences and scientific evidence are not the same thing.JuanZu

    Of course they aren't, but the two are intertwined.

    In subjective experience that which validates a belief does not escape the particular subjective experience.JuanZu

    It does, validation is a part of logic and logic is the very system that provides any invariant relationship between subjective experience and an external referent.

    In scientific evidence that which validates theory necessarily escapes particular subjective experience.JuanZu

    The method of validation does, but scientific evidence itself doesn't, because scientific evidence always consists of subjectively experienced data. All observations involve subjective experience.

    When we compare both types of validation we realize how poor is the validation of beliefs on the religious planeJuanZu

    There's only one means of validation. The difference between validating religious and scientific claims is the rarity and predictability of the data types.
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    It is your job to say what you are talking about.I like sushi

    And the OP does this. I can't answer your question unless I know how broadly you're using the term phenomena -- are you using it the same way I did in some of my replies later in the thread? Those should answer your question.
    What I claim to have presented is an argument for Christianity.

    There is no argument.I like sushi

    The OP fits the definition of an argument.
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    When I look outside my house I experience seeing my car for "biological reasons," but this doesn't undermine my claim that my car is "really there."Count Timothy von Icarus

    The inference is meant to be about prayer specifically, it's not meant to hold under generalization. It's intended to clarify where prayer-induced experiences might come from. A critic of prayer-induced experiences isn't going to think I'm disputing that cars have a non-hallucinatory reality.
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    There is a phenomenon referred to as Christianity.
    Are you saying anything else other than this?
    I like sushi

    I can't answer that question without knowing how broadly you mean "phenomenon".
    The argument discerns between observations and hallucinations, and concludes there is evidence for Christianity consisting of the former.
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    You said address what bert1 was responding to (180proof's post), not bert1's reply to 180proof.Lionino

    Yes, your comment would have to support what 180proof was arguing, for it to be an effective reply to bert1. Like I said, agreeing with 180proof isn't enough for this. What I'm trying to draw your attention to is that the comments by 180proof and bert1 copied the pattern of argument I presented, while yours deviated from it. So it failed to either support what 180proof was saying or to address my side of the argument.

    Anyhow, not only that but bert1 himself said he agreed, not just 180proof.Lionino

    This doesn't mean that what you said addresses the argument, even though theirs did. Simply agreeing with them doesn't add up to that.

    And it is not like what I said has any room for disagreement, it is something obvious.Lionino

    You could point out a wide range of obvious things that don't address the argument.
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    The fact that you and 180proof are on the same side doesn't mean your reply to bert1 addresses bert1's reply to 180proof.
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    The Bible says the Sun sets on the West. We see the sun sets on the West. Is that evidence of Christianity? Of course not.Lionino

    This isn't a response to what bert1 was responding to, though.
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    Well, this is like saying

    'If some observation corresponds to some Star Wars-specific proposition, then it is evidence that Jediism is true.'
    180 Proof

    I don't see a problem with this. If we observed midichlorions, it would indicate Jediism is true.
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    Too subjective, you need some objective way to verify that the experience is veridical.Sam26

    This would be the fact that many people have them, along with a logical model (theology) that provides rational support for any given claim.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Attacks are restarting now that there is more dry weather. In 2023 Russia took 1000 sq km of territory while Ukraine only 500 sq km. In 2024 Ukraine hasn't taken anything except an island near Kherson, meanwhile Russia has taken Avdiivka and Bakhmut. So far this year Russia has taken about 450 sq km, which is almost as much as its net gains in the whole of last year. This can't continue for Ukraine. But it's actually going to get worse. Russia can mobilise far more soldiers, but Ukraine already has mobilised everything it can, with no reserves. Almost all the men over 18 who would fight already are fighting. Ukraine's strategy is heavily reliant on drones, which you can't win a war with as they don't have offensive capabilities. Russia is fighting with a sustainable strategy, deploying troops with tank, artillery and missile support, enabled by its ability to replace this equipment. Russia is now making a lot of precise missile strikes, which it wasn't before 2024. Before 2024, Ukraine's interception rate was about 90%, but now that has dropped to 50%. I think the slow downward spiral has begun for Ukraine. By the end of the year, Russia might have taken another 700 sq km, possibly more if Ukraine gets pushed past a tipping point.
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    You first need to distinguish evidence of Christianity from interpretations of "Christianity"sime

    Evidence is a true interpretation.

    Do you really wish to argue that mystical visions are externally related to Christian concepts and present inferential evidence that those Christian concepts denote 'facts'?sime

    Yes, they're rare subjective occurrences for which religions propose models. They offer a means of true interpretation.
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    If you can't figure out what's wrong with #2, you are not thinking or engaging in good faith.Lionino

    You should state what's wrong with it.

    It is comical that God intentionally bothers to mysteriously appear to random people at random timesLionino

    Well, you made this up. God is appearing to all people at all times. The universe He's thinking up is in your face; this can't be avoided.

    yet stays quiet when a little Nepali child is being ripped to shreds by a Bengali tiger.Lionino

    This doesn't support anything you've said.

    Curing children from cancer is somehow a violation of free willLionino

    Another statement that wasn't agreed on -- God does this often.

    You are scurrying through abstracts like a politician to find convenient statementsLionino

    What convenient statements?
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    “Prayer induced experiences” - what is that to you?Fire Ologist

    A person sees an image, such as an apparition, or experiences their body in another location during prayer.

    I’d like to see how you distinguish “prayer induced experiences” from “experiences of observations”.Fire Ologist

    For something to reach the status of an observation, the referent in the observation must have some degree of replicability across observers. Prayer induced experiences of certain descriptions can meet this.

    “Bible-specific propositions” - probably just need an example, one that cashes out with the other terms using an example would help.Fire Ologist

    That Jesus was crucified/resurrected, that there are angels composed of a winged cow, lion, eagle and man.

    “Christianity is true”. Do you mean objectively, verifiably true, like the earth revolves around the sun type truth?Fire Ologist

    I don't acknowledge any other type.

    I think I need to see an example that shows how a person’s prayers are answered so to speak in a way that verifies a connection between the prayer and the observable experiences of that personFire Ologist

    The experience and its correspondence to a proposition in the Bible itself is sufficient, we don't need to know what the prayer was "answering".
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    Someone giving a specific account of a prayer leading to proof of a Christian proposition in themselves, that is evidence of faith at work.Fire Ologist

    Yes, because a logical argument has to show something multiple third parties can use to see the same thing, to see whatever is the conclusion of the argumentFire Ologist

    That is what the argument does, it shows that an observation specific to Christianity is consistent with reality. Evidence as defined premise (1) is acceptable to multiple third parties.

    I’m saying to the third party scientists running tests on believers and taking as objects things like Christian propositions, and prayer-induced experiences, all the scientists are left with (if they believe in the honesty of the test subject) is someone who is demonstrating faith.Fire Ologist

    I'm not seeing how this follows. Do you mean to contrast faith with evidence? If not, then OK.

    They don’t see the reason that test subject sees a reason to connect the Christian proposition to the prayer. You don’t see the reasons as a third party, you just see their reasons (that the scientific observer didn’t directly access)Fire Ologist

    But this is to deny that scientists have reliable means of testing subjective self-reported phenomena. They do, and it produces replicable results. In the case of prayer-induced visions, that should even be clear to a non-scientist who merely looks at a significant number of cases. There are clear patterns in people's subjective experiences.

    and would be better to call this evidence of what faith is, namely, someone in the act of believing something) rather than any proof about Truth of the thing they believe (how the christian proposition relates to their own prayer.)Fire Ologist

    This just insists that the claim isn't based on evidence without argument, but only by referring to it as faith and not truth. You cannot refute the argument by simply calling it faith, and faith in turn not constituting evidence by definition.
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    All of your premises are wrong except for number 1.Lionino

    Well, you're free to explain if you want to.

    Meanwhile children dying from cancer:Lionino

    This doesn't seem to be relevant to the argument.
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    You are not saying any of this is about what's true, it's merely evidence for the person having the experience.Tom Storm

    Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.

    People believe all kinds of absurdities based on bad evidence.Tom Storm

    What an absurdity is and what bad evidence would be is what is under contention.
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    Is this intended to be an argument?bert1

    Yes.

    Is (4) an assumption?bert1

    No, there's no evolutionary or brain-physiological reason why praying would cause an immersive experience.

    Granting (4), doesn't this apply to other religions as well?bert1

    Yes.

    Are you as happy for this line of thinking to support other religions than Christianity?bert1

    Up to their degree of logical and model-theoretic consistency.

    Perhaps you think that all religions are culture-specific approaches to one spiritual reality?bert1

    Yes.
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    Conversely, the Christian vison confirms that Islam is not true and Jesus is God. How do you resolve this psycho-cultural conundrum?Tom Storm

    The first thing to be determined would be whether Muslims do have visions of Muhammad, or that they have any that would contradict other religions. I've heard of several cases of Muslims having visions of Jesus and becoming Christian, but never Muslims having visions of Muhammad, although that may be due to language barriers.

    In any such case, contradictions between observations are interpreted within a model. A model can establish the underlying explanation through having criteria for what kind of theology each observation is consistent with. It could be that a given observation is consistent with a theology that doesn't have certain moral characteristics established within the model. This would allocate any observation that would be Islam-specific to having a different explanation, for example, not coming from God but some other metaphysical source, but observations Muslims make that are consistent with the model at the global level would be accepted.

    In other words, you need a model to interpret observations, and the most invariant features of that model are established first. Apparent contradictions at more specific levels are interpreted afterward.

    I am wondering if you are arguing that all religions are equally proven true if followers have specific religious experiences?Tom Storm

    Those that are consistent with the model can be proven true. The model is necessary to interpret what they mean, be they in different languages as they may. Any that have a convergent meaning with other observations consistent with the model can be accepted.

    It would be far more convincing if those people had visons or experiences of a god outside of their cultural expectationsTom Storm

    This happens to Muslims and Buddhists.

    like Kali or an Australian Aboriginal creator spirit.Tom Storm

    These theologies may lack important qualities that God might want us to understand. They might have been adequate for guiding the destiny of their native populations before converging with the rest of humanity, but it could be the case that God uses visions to point a person in the direction of a more sophisticated religion when their free will can be relied on to get them to the correct destination.

    The fact that someone in a Christian country sees Christian vision just taps into expectations. Hallucinations or psychological experiences tend to be tied to the culture you know.Tom Storm

    But this doesn't prove that they are a product of culture. Consequently, it doesn't prove point (4) false.

    Can you cite reputable studies?Tom Storm

    Such scientific studies are not difficult to find. Examples; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31162335/ , https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20472012/ , https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00070/full
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    “because I experienced God, I know God is true.”Fire Ologist
    My argument is about gathering evidence for a religion, not proving God.

    That argument only works for that one person.Fire Ologist
    Yes, it's just evidence. It provides that person with an individual basis to interpret the spiritual world.

    but without firsthand experience of this prayer induced evidence, the praying one is asking the other scientist/logicians to take his word on it.Fire Ologist
    For those of us who haven't had such experiences, one could build a model from the internally-consistent religious experiences other people have had. All of them seem to involve a metaphysical basis of life, certain metaphysical operations such as prayer, a distinction between good and evil, and so on. This permits us to build a global model.

    Someone giving a specific account of a prayer leading to proof of a Christian proposition in themselves, that is evidence of faith at work.Fire Ologist
    I'm not sure what you mean, do you mean to contradict the argument?

    But the link between Christianity and prayer-induced experiences is as invisible to the scientistFire Ologist
    Scientists have established methods for investigating subjective phenomena, such as hallucinations, out of body experiences, neuropathic pain and other private experiences that lack an adequate scientific model.
  • An Argument for Christianity from Prayer-Induced Experiences
    We can meet people who have had direct experiences (during prayer) of Mohammad and Allah. Are they true too?Tom Storm

    It wouldn't contradict the argument if it were.

    All religions contain people convinced they have had direct and personal experiences of gods, angels, demons, spirits, etc. All religions also have their miracle stories.Tom Storm

    Yes, so since religions have certain aspects in common, there doesn't seem to be anything stopping those personal experiences having subjective qualitiies specific to the experiencer, so long as universal features aren't contradicted.

    , from such disparate and contradictory sourcesTom Storm

    Where was the contradiction?

    How exactly do we determine which of these stories (...) are true and which are hallucinations, mistakes, or fabrications?Tom Storm

    Using a model that establishes the criteria for each category.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    This is equivalent to saying what I was saying before: according to you, to rationally believe X, one must know X (saying it is a fact is redundant).Bob Ross

    So what is your response to my claim that to rationally believe X, one has to know X?

    I don’t think one needs to know X to believe XBob Ross

    I said to rationally believe X. Do you think one needs to know X to rationally believe X?

    "To rationally believe X, I have to know what X means"
    This is perfectly compatible with agnostic atheism. An agnostic atheist knows what it means for god(s) not to exist, so they can “rationally” believe that god(s) don’t exist without knowing god(s) don’t exist.
    Bob Ross
    I was giving you an example of atemporal dependency, not telling you what is sufficient for rational belief. Knowing what X means is required for rational belief in X, but it is obviously not sufficient. It doesn't establish that an agnostic atheist can rationally believe that God doesn’t exist without knowing God doesn’t exist, only that they can't without knowing what it means. The connection between rational belief and knowledge is just the connection between mental representation and informational content. For some kinds of information, there's a temporal dependency, but there are always atemporal dependencies (rationality itself, semantics etc).
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    Your OP was attacking agnostic atheist in the sense that one needs knowledge of X to believe XBob Ross

    Under rationality*

    To have a belief about presidents, you need to know what "presidents" means.
    To have a belief about who will become president in the future, I have to know what "becoming president in the future" means.
    These are both examples of "To rationally believe X, I have to know what X means".
    Another such relationship: "To rationally believe X, I have to know X is a fact"

    I don’t see how any of that is atemporal. In order to know what “becoming president in the future” means to believe Bob is going to be the next president, I need to know the former before the latter.Bob Ross

    As soon as you know what X means, you're mentally representing it, so you believe what it means. There isn't a delay. The atemporality is between the two.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    Is believing a ridged state for you? Are you equally sure about all your beliefs?mentos987

    No, I have different degrees of certainty in my beliefs. Some are based on more knowledge than others.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    how do I non-temporally acquire knowledge of X and then a belief in X without that inevitably being a temporal process?Bob Ross

    I didn't say this. I gave an example of a kind of belief that can turn out to be irrational or rational on some temporal dependency.

    "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 not what you implied thought with:

    "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."
    Bob Ross

    Why is it necessary for one of those two statements of mine to imply the other?
    Of course the former doesn't imply the latter. The latter is a much simpler claim about rational beliefs than what the former says about rational beliefs that have some temporal dependency. They are not in contradiction, either.

    This implies that one only needs some knowledge which is not the thing about to be beleived for that belief to be rationalBob Ross

    Because you insisted on talking about beliefs with temporal dependency for rationality.
    So I gave you an example of those, and now you're writing as if you're undermining the general depency of rational belief in X on knowledge of X.

    To have a belief about presidents, you need to know what "presidents" means.
    To have a belief about who will become president in the future, I have to know what "becoming president in the future" means.
    Those are both examples of atemporal logical/semantic dependency of rational belief on knowledge that beliefs possessing temporal dependency also have.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    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 pointsLionino

    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 definitionsLionino

    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.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    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.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    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.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    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.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    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.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    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?
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    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.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    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.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    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
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    "I am opposed to the pilot-wave", everybody understands that as thinking that pilot-wave is a bad theoryLionino

    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-
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    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.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    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
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    And what do you call someone who does, other than "atheist"? — Hallucinogen
    Antitheist.
    Lionino

    Antitheism means opposition to the existence of a God. Other definitions even say opposition to religion. Opposition shouldn't be read to mean "denial of". If I deny the existence of unicorns, we don't say I'm opposed to them. Although there are definitions of it the way you mean it. Whichever definition one gives the word, it's defined as such based on what the position purports to know, which underlines that that's how these words should be defined.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    . If you see any logical fallacies in the way I use my definitions, feel free to point them out.mentos987
    Not to me.mentos987
    Certainty in X cannot coincide with uncertainty in X, so suggesting that they're not disjoint is a fallacy.

    But not between belief and knowledge (they can coincide, — Hallucinogen
    Not to me, knowledge is a step above believing.
    mentos987

    Belief and knowledge don't coincide to you? One cannot believe in something and have knowledge of it?

    I think that knowledge can contain a small degree of uncertainty.mentos987

    I explained in my previous comment that it couldn't.

    Likewise, if we only have uncertainty at our disposal, then we don't have belief in it. We would just have lack of belief. — Hallucinogen
    I don't follow.
    mentos987

    If you only have uncertainty in something, then you don't have belief to any degree in it, only lack of belief.

    Lack of belief can come from contradictions, no?mentos987

    Understanding that there's a contradiction in something is a form of knowledge.

    5-50% certainty would indicate disbelief.
    0-5% certainty would indicate knowing that something is not true.
    The term “uncertain” would indicate 5-95% certainty.
    mentos987

    Already debunked all of this.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    you have the relation backwards between beliefs and knowledge. Knowledge, traditionally, is a true, justified, belief. A belief is not determined after one recognizes they have knowledgeBob Ross

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

    The etymological schema is going to say that we formulate beliefs, which are not yet knowledgeBob Ross

    But those are irrational beliefs. Beliefs that we formulate without knowledge are usually predictions or estimations. The knowledge involved is what the predicted entity is, what it means, as well as all the wheres and whats involved. The knowledge that might be missing could be the hows. If this is missing, the belief would still be irrational, i.e., not based on knowledge. It's based on knowledge of some details, but the knowledge detailing the hows, and therefore the full proposition in which one believes, is still lacking. That's what makes it irrational.

    e.g., I believe that the tree I walked passed 3 days ago is still there even though I have little justificatory support for it, etcBob Ross

    Your justificatory support is the knowledge that there's a tree there, and the knowledge that trees don't typically disappear over a period of 3 days.

    then there is a meaningful difference between those who claim to only believe something and those who believe it and know.Bob Ross

    It's rationality.
  • Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
    Knowing something indicates a certainty of 95-100%

    Believing something indicates a certainty of 50-95%
    mentos987

    There's a binary distinction between certainty and uncertainty. But not between belief and knowledge (they can coincide, and they do if we're rational). If you try to impose a boundary between belief and knowledge at 95% certainty, not only do you disrupt the fact that they often coincide, but you also create a category (in knowledge) where certainty and uncertainty are paradoxically included. This contradicts the fact that they're disjoint from each other. Knowledge about something only comes from certainty about some detail, not uncertainty. Likewise, if we only have uncertainty at our disposal, then we don't have belief in it. We would just have lack of belief. We can have degrees of belief about something if we know (and therefore have certainty) about some of the details, but not all of them.

    The same fallacy arises on the other side of the spectrum. Lack of belief can't mean less than 50% certainty, because lack of belief only (rationally) comes from lack of certainty/knowledge. If you have 0% certainty about something, then you don't have any knowledge regarding it. If you then become 1% certain in it, it means you now know some detail about it. But that means you believe something about it. So trying to push 0% certainty and 1 - 49% certainty into the same category is going to be paradoxical.

    This is based on my previous comment that it's rational to believe in something that you know and to not believe in something you lack knowledge of. The same applies to any model of belief and knowledge in terms of certainty and uncertainty that we try to create.

    Having faith in something is when you simply choose to add a percentage of certainty. E.g. 55% belief + 41% faith = knowing that God exist.

    How do you feel about this?
    mentos987

    I just wouldn't agree that definition of faith.