• edible_funk@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    That picture is reductive to the point of misleading. Atheism makes no claims or beliefs. Atheism simply says that claims made without evidence can be dismissed without consideration. Theists claim god(s) exist. Atheism says without evidence I can disregard that claim as nonsense.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      Atheism makes no claims or beliefs. Atheism simply says that claims made without evidence can be dismissed without consideration.

      You’re thinking empiricism. Atheism is most fundamentally the belief that there is not a god. There are atheist positions that are consistent with empiricism, but not all of them are, nor do they need to be.
      There are gradients to it, but atheism is fundamentally about belief. The rational for that belief is a different set of philosophy.

      • edible_funk@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Requiring evidence of a thing before acknowledging its existence isn’t about belief in any way, belief isn’t relevant to facts or evidence. Atheism is not believing in something that has no evidence. Lack of belief isn’t belief. Theological philosophy asserts atheism is as you say, but that’s in the context of theological philosophy. I’m an atheist and I do not believe there are no gods, I do not believe in anything. There’s either evidence of a thing or there isn’t. Theists: there’s a god! Atheists: pics or it didn’t happen.

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          20 hours ago

          You’re conflating “belief” with “faith”. One is about what you accept as true without evidence, and the other is about what you simply hold to be true.
          If someone said “there is no god”, I would take that as a true statement. I believe it to be a true statement because the positive assertion that there is has not met the burden of proof.

          The usage of evidence to guide belief is empiricism, and that’s not a theological philosophy, it’s the basis of the scientific method. Empiricism isn’t a prerequisite for atheism because they’re different topics. It’s entirely possible to be an atheist for reasons that have nothing to do with a lack of evidence. Asserting that atheism is about not believing things without evidence is fundamentally misrepresenting the broad meaning of the word and substituting your specific philosophy as the main interpretation.

          I do not believe in anything

          Okay.

          There’s either evidence of a thing or there isn’t.

          Can you provide me with evidence that that statement is true? Without tying a logical knot?

          Empiricism is itself a belief in the sense that you meant it. You cannot have evidence for the validity of evidence without first accepting that evidence lends credence to a notion.

          That being said: rewind and reread what I said but take the word belief as “agreeing with the truth of the statement”. The existence of a deity is a binary. Ignoring questions of “why” one accepts a statement, one either accepts a statement, accepts it’s opposite, or rejects the premise entirely. The conventional empirical agnostic atheist stance is to believe there is no deity because the question is not really knowable, and a claim should be disbelieved without proportional evidence. Belief that there is no god is not the blind assertion that there isn’t one. It just means that’s the state of affairs of reality as far as you know.

    • ikt@aussie.zone
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      1 day ago

      What are you confused about in particular?

      Atheism makes no claims or beliefs

      It depends on your definition of atheist, I mean the picture is right there and right above it is someone explaining the concept further, I don’t know what you gained from vomiting out something directly addressed in my own post and right above it

      • edible_funk@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        It’s the only definition of atheist. Atheism makes no claims. Theists and anti-theists make claims. Atheism consists entirely and completely of the position that claims made without evidence can be dismissed without consideration. That’s it. That’s all. It’s basic logic.