Originally posted by FreakyKBH
[b]I already explained to you, several times now, that I think atheism is at its roots just an absence of theism. No, I do not consider that a 'position'.
Is that your position on what atheism is, or is even that not a position? Are you starting to see how silly your [insert word which can inoffensively substitute for 'position' here] is? If athei . [/b]
Coming from he-who-cannot-be-challenged, I take that as a supreme compliment.[/b]
Name names. Not including someone without self-consciousness, name one person who would consider themselves an atheist while at the same time not in possession of a god-related concept.
That would be rather irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I didn't claim that there are persons who consider themselves atheist while at the same time holding no god related concepts. My claim, again, was "an atheist need not even hold any god related concepts at all". Now you should be able to see that my claim has nothing to do with anyone's considering himself to be anything.
If you had some person who held no god related concepts at all, then surely that person represents an instance of one who lacks theistic belief. The person would be an implicit atheist. Of course this particular person would not consider himself an atheist; but that is completely irrelevant to my point.
My only point with all this is what I already tried to make clear multiple times: in your arguments you obviously have in mind only a certain type of (explicit or active or strong) atheist; so, as I recommended to you in the other thread, you may want to consider clarifying your arguments to reflect that.
And I both respect and appreciate your thinking here. I would hope that everyone who holds anything with conviction would do so on the basis of open consideration, as opposed to sloppy sentimentalism or inherited laziness. Obviously, I don't agree with your conclusions, but I salute the basic idea.
Great. Finally, I think we are on some common ground. It is refreshing to say that I share your attitude here.
The purpose of my thought experiment here was an attempt to get those who have passed the point of consideration of the issue to consider the issue from another angle: a way to check themselves, as it were. If a person unconvinced (or, in some cases, convinced otherwise) could set that aside to simply consider the gift and their attitude toward that, perhaps they would see something otherwise missed. For instance, am I rejecting that gift only on the basis of rejecting the given? Or, is it possible that my rejection comes from not liking some aspect of who I view God to be? Or maybe even I am rejecting it on the basis of not wanting anyone's help? Or... ?
I'm afraid I still don't understand. If you just want to know my attitude toward your 'gift', I would only reply that I have a propositional attitude that is relevant to the subject of it: I believe that your 'gift' has no actual referent and is not a live option. Sorry, but that's about all I got for you.
And, sorry, but I still think the whole premise of this inquiry of yours is deeply confused. You are asking me questions like "Perhaps are you rejecting the gift on the basis of blah, blah, blah?" So, then, are you just not listening to what I have been telling you? I have no attitude of rejection toward the 'gift'. That would imply that I am somehow committed to the idea that it has an actual referent toward which I stand in rejection. But, as I keep telling you, I do not think it has an actual referent. If there is anything here I "reject" it would be the claim that the 'gift' has a referent, on the basis of my understanding of the evidence for such a claim. So this brings me round to my suggestion: if you want to actually influence me on this subject, you should present evidential reasons for the claim that the 'gift' has a referent in the first place.
Or, is it possible that my rejection comes from not liking some aspect of who I view God to be?
I will tell you straight out that there are aspects of your god concept that I find ugly and aspects that I think pervert notions like love and justice, etc. That is a separate matter from whether or not I think your god concept is in fact instantiated. Affective or conative attitudes I may have toward some property attached to a concept are separable from the issue of what the evidence recommends concerning whether or not the concept is instantiated. I dislike the thought of a killer hiding underneath my desk; but, of course, I can see clearly that there is no killer hiding underneath my desk. I dislike the thought of my body being cancer-ridden; but of course I know I am healthy on the basis of objective evidence (like the testimony of health professionals, medical tests, etc). So, just because I dislike aspects of such things, that has nothing to do with what actually informs my stance that such things are not actual. Relatedly, I would like the thought of a million dollars stuffed underneath my desk, but I can clearly see no such money exists. Again, I recommend you simply present some actual evidence for your theism. If you were to present what I took to be strong evidence for his existence, couldn't you bring me into theistic belief regardless of whether I "like" particular aspects about the concept?
Flip it and apply it to me. Do you see me as willfully accepting or is my belief something that passively came about as a result of my studies and interpretation of the evidence?
I think this kind of belief in general arises passively in the agent. I do not think persons go around (or even have the effective ability to go around) willfully picking out their beliefs. So, yes, I think your belief came about passively in you and I am confident it is based on your studies and interpretation of the evidence. Obviously, we differ quite a bit in our interpretation of the evidence and in its degree of truth-indication, but like you already basically mentioned, that is all fair enough. That is why there is real value in the practices of justification and in the give and take of evidential reasons for and against our views. But, of course, that involves actual evidential considerations; which is why I continue to recommend you abandon this current approach you have taken and simply start presenting evidential considerations that actually bear on the truth/falsity of theism.