Possibilianism

[sandorski]

someone did come down to tell it like it is. He got murdered for it. The world is not willing to accept it.

Incorrect. He's in Prison and considered to be a Lunatic. If Manson is anything like the "Father", no one is interested.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Atheism declares the existence of a god or gods to be impossible.

Nope.

One of the most outspoken atheist and scientist, Dawkins, said a supernatural creator is possible. He leans more towards science that religious belief obviously.

It's mind-boggling that you do not see the disconnect between your first second and your second.

 

[epidemis]

This is silly. The distinction between agnoticism (that the neuro-guy insist on) and atheism is academic. Atheism is simply having no god, and rejecting supernatural explanations to natural phenomenons.

 

[Malak]

My first thought is that evidence should precede concrete belief. Belief without evidence is merely faith, and belief can cloud judgment. These people believed that they felt gravity changing substantially, just by the power of suggestion. Belief doesn't dictate reality, nor does reality care about belief.

It is a fundamental property of the human psyche that you must want to believe in order to believe. Most things that you believe are things that you have accepted, rather than have been proven to you. A war goes on in another country and you accept this is actually happening because you believe the source to be credible. Conspiracy theorists don't want to believe, so they find reasons to not believe.

A leap of faith is absolutely necessary to believe anything. Only until you do believe something can "evidence" be found to justify the belief. The primary issue in these discussions is that people admit they don't care enough about the topic to put any effort into finding evidence, because they don't want to believe. Yet those same people put every bit of effort into telling everyone else they are wrong, and for no actual legitimate reason. It's a self-defense mechanism, justifying their own beliefs to avoid being challenged. It is completely transparent and obvious.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

So those who claim that there is no god or gods are what then? Idiots?

They are also atheists. Please take some time to ruminate on necessary and sufficient conditions.

 

[Malak]

"my" definition of atheism is the correct definition. Unless you can show me otherwise, you're just an idiot trying to sound smart. The attempt is futile, it just makes you look like you're trying too hard, and your silly writing style is laughable

Pick up a dictionary sometime. Evaluate the root words and meanings. Apply same principle to all other forms of 'ism. THE BELIEF THERE IS NO GOD is the actual and accepted definition. It is not the "lack of belief".

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

It is a fundamental property of the human psyche that you must want to believe in order to believe.

[citation needed]

I think the above betrays the source of your credulity, frankly. I cannot choose to believe the Pythagorean theorem is false, not matter how much I want to. It doesn't matter what I want to believe, I believe that there are infinitely many primes because I have been convinced by the evidence. Belief is cognitive, not volitional.

It comes as no surprise that a Christian would think one can believe what he wants to believe, because that's the only reason they hold their beliefs to begin with.

 

[Jeff7]

It is a fundamental property of the human psyche that you must want to believe in order to believe. Most things that you believe are things that you have accepted, rather than have been proven to you. A war goes on in another country and you accept this is actually happening because you believe the source to be credible. Conspiracy theorists don't want to believe, so they find reasons to not believe.

As I said though, reality doesn't really care what I believe. If I don't believe that there's a wall in front of me, well, reality will provide an abundance of contrary evidence if I try to run into it, or look through it. My belief won't influence reality, and in that respect, retaining such a belief, which contradicts the readily-available evidence, is either foolish, or a sign of psychological problems.

A leap of faith is absolutely necessary to believe anything. Only until you do believe something can "evidence" be found to justify the belief. The primary issue in these discussions is that people admit they don't care enough about the topic to put any effort into finding evidence, because they don't want to believe. Yet those same people put every bit of effort into telling everyone else they are wrong, and for no actual legitimate reason. It's a self-defense mechanism, justifying their own beliefs to avoid being challenged. It is completely transparent and obvious.

That's kind of delving into the philosophical realm, if I'm interpreting it right - as in, how do you know that your senses are giving you a reasonably accurate view of the world around you? If you want to get right down to it, you don't. And there's plenty of evidence to say that our senses don't give us the complete picture, and that they can easily be fooled. Yet there is still evidence of other things going on. If you enjoy playing with certain glowing rocks, you might eventually learn about the effects of radiation sickness. You can't see it, but there's evidence of its effects, so you build a tool to detect it. (Belief is still irrelevant here, the radiation sickness is quite evidently real.)

And I guess if you want me to say it, no, I wouldn't want most of humanity's deities to exist. A lot of them are petty, sadistic, chaotic, egocentric, uncompassionate, and childish. But belief isn't really the issue here. I also wouldn't want a crazed axe murderer to be sharing my apartment. Belief has no bearing on whether or not he's actually here. If I convince myself to believe he's not here when he actually is, reality (surprise beheading!) may say otherwise. If I convince myself to believe that he is here when there's no sign of anyone else here, then I might just be going a little bit nuts. (And yet believing in a horse that pulls the Sun along the sky....er, I mean, believing in God, is considered by many to be perfectly rational.)

 

[Mike Gayner]

Wow this is exactly like every other religiotard v others discussion I've ever seen on ATOT.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Pick up a dictionary sometime. Evaluate the root words and meanings. Apply same principle to all other forms of 'ism. THE BELIEF THERE IS NO GOD is the actual and accepted definition. It is not the "lack of belief".

That's complete bullshit. Atheism is "not theism." Where theism is a belief in at least one god, atheism is NOT belief in at least one god, which is wholly distinct from a belief that there are exactly zero gods.

I've explained this to you before. You are either ignorant, dishonest or both for continuing to perpetuate this falsehood.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

A genuine atheist, one who would truly hold to their self-professed definition of atheism as, and here I quote sandorski, "a lack of Belief, not 100% certainty that there are no gods" would have ZERO problem with Possibilianism!

I don't disagree that atheism is congruent with "Possibilianism," but I don't see what need is filled by inventing a new word for something which is already well-defined.

 

[Perknose]

I don't disagree that atheism is congruent with "Possibilianism," but I don't see what need is filled by inventing a new word for something which is already well-defined.

Then you don't understand the full scope of Possibilianism. Atheism is just a sideshow here, one I feared would be the crux of an emotional circus here, which has proved to be the case.

 

[Mike Gayner]

What's the word for someone who doesn't believe in ghosts? Or Santa Claus? Why do we need to invent new words for such an obvious position - "I don't believe in god". Let's not get complex about it.

 

[mjrpes3]

Possibilianism.

Nice idea; terrible word.

Come back with something less than 5 syllables and you might be onto something.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

They are also atheists. Please take some time to ruminate on necessary and sufficient conditions.

Consider sarcasm and category mistakes as well as the marital status of the number 5.

 

[SilentRavens]

Then you don't understand the full scope of Possibilianism. Atheism is just a sideshow here, one I feared would be the crux of an emotional circus here, which has proved to be the case.

I think your criticism of, uh, critics in this thread may be misguided. Regardless of the dictionary definition, socially (around these internet parts anyway) atheism appears to have more to do with the rejection of currently established religious dogmas. In particular "atheists" here tend to be very anti-Judo/Christian beliefs. Since at least some of those beliefs have over time come into conflict with research science (evolution, age of the universe, resurrection, etc.), in these areas I simply won't accept alternative explanations, save for those which carry equivalently strong evidence.

Both sides appear to be missing the point that possibilianism (at least as far as I understand it) doesn't have a role in the discussion of unequally supported ideas. In fact given that, I don't think it's worth discussing the two in the same breath. Since one is about it being philosophically correct to accept many theories when we have no observations and the other is about choosing tested scientific facts over ideas that require religious belief.

 

[BudAshes]

The oper seems to really get off on labeling people as stupid. That seems very counter to the op.

 

[jjzelinski]

No, doesn't work for me. While I agree we can't know with absolute certainty that a flying spaghetti monster isn't meticulously directing every molecule of our being at every point in time to suit his strangely human whimsy, there's absolutely NO compelling evidence that would lead me to think this scenario was the most likely. The more I think about this possibilianism horse shit, the more it pisses me off. We should not be encouraging people to place superstitious fairy tales on the same level of consideration as observable, measurable phenomena.

I propose my own theory entitled "don't allow your scared, lazy ass the luxury of being a superstitious moron and think for yourself."

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Then you don't understand the full scope of Possibilianism.

Illuminate me. I've read the article and my point still remains.

Atheism is just a sideshow here, one I feared would be the crux of an emotional circus here, which has proved to be the case.

Please do not confuse the befuddled responses of certain atheists for actual shortcomings of atheism.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Consider sarcasm and category mistakes as well as the marital status of the number 5.

I have. They still do not make my response to your question false, so I have to wonder why you would suggest they have any bearing in rebuttal to it.

 

[lxskllr]

The more I think about this possibilianism horse shit, the more it pisses me off. We should not be encouraging people to place superstitious fairy tales on the same level of consideration as observable, measurable phenomena.

That's not what it's about at all. Possibilianism is closely aligned with atheism, but has some subtle differences(mainly due to imprecise language imo). It's not saying that superstition is as valid as science, but that it has a value >0 until proven wrong.

I finally watched the talk, and it was pretty good, but it hasn't swayed me from apatheism. I agree with him in principle, but still don't think it's worth talking about until someone brings evidence to the table, or at least some kind of working experiment. In the end, it's what everyone should believe, but it doesn't require a new term, or any term as far as that goes. Just keep your eyes, and head open, and the truth will follow.

 

[SphinxnihpS]

Too many syllables. Can't be right. Possiblism. Now there's something to hang your hat on.

Edit: Awww, late to the party...

 

[jjzelinski]

The term "value" should be given more scrutiny. The effects of people believing in superstition aren't benign or neutral. Think stem cell research, or teaching christian intelligent design in classrooms, or any kind of militant theism. It does not at ALL seem valid to me to extend the blanket of scientific open mindedness to a realm of thought that is inherently non-rational or meta-physical.

Basically, religion is a "bad" thing to me any way you slice it and I find it annoying when intelligent people try to accommodate irrational paradigms with constructs like "possibilism." Maybe you can help me think of a single religion that seeks to *prove* itself wrong so that it may better refine it's concepts or beliefs because I can only think of ones that are resistant to scrutiny and totally reliant on baseless word of mouth.

Again, I dont like possibilism for trying to extend intellectual legitimacy to dangerously irrational faith systems.

 

[Malak]

I think your criticism of, uh, critics in this thread may be misguided. Regardless of the dictionary definition, socially (around these internet parts anyway) atheism appears to have more to do with the rejection of currently established religious dogmas.

The "social" definition is nonsense. I reject established religious dogma but I am clearly not an atheist. Just because the biggest trolls that enter every discussion they claim to be disinterested in say it is defined differently doesn't mean it is. For the sake of reasonable communication everyone must adhere to the same definitions, which is why we have a dictionary.

 

[slayer202]

Wow, more red-faced emotionalism on your part, you calling me a clown.

It's truly pathetic that you keep blindly saying -- 10 times by your own red-faced count -- that I don't accept your defintion of atheism when I have subsequently said several times that I'm willing to stipulate your definition of atheism and that, given it, atheism and possiblilianism are entirely congruent.

Post #67 and you're still hopping up and down and calling me names in the process. Don't you fucking read before you respond? It's astounding that you don't.

Post #40:


Post # 53:


Post # 58:


It's absolutely mind-boggling pathetic that you keep attacking me despite these facts right in your face.

Who's the clown NOW, slayer? :awe:

how are people so fucking stupid? moonbeam? this is insanity

possibilianism does not clash with atheism. loving pizza doesn't clash with atheism either. but possibilianism is just FUCKING STUPID

I'm gonna start a new idea called yumism. It's for people who like to eat things that taste good. And they also are open to the idea that they may find new things in the future they like to eat! This is not to be confused or mixed up with alcoholism or claustrophobia though, I think it's a separate but much needed distinction