Consider your argument voided by the belief in superposition argument. Really can’t be bothered debating you anymore. — Mark Dennis

First, how about we don't debate and we try to talk in a friendly manner instead of like antagonistic assholes?

So, again, I wasn't really arguing anything. I was pointing out that the term "atheist" doesn't conventionally refer to views about evidence, or evolution, or anything like that. It only refers to one simple thing--a lack of a belief in gods.

Mark, I hope it's clear from our private conversations that I generally like you, so I hope you take this from a friendly place: it seems to me like you're being needlessly antagonistic in this conversation, seeming to take Terrapin to be saying things he doesn't mean. You mentioned earlier that you're autistic, and I don't want to make this all about that, but I am seeing shades of some arguments another autistic friend of mine has had with a mutual friend of ours, so I suspect that that might be a common factor here.

Probably specifically the defining autistic cognitive difficulty with (as you've put it) cognitive empathy making it difficult to accurately tell what another person is thinking and meaning when they say something, which in turn makes it difficult to properly extend the principle of charity to other people. That's what that other friend has suggested is his difficulty that prompts such arguments so frequently; and one of the first conversations I had on these forums was encouraging someone to employ that principle more, and them countering that their autism made that very difficult. I don't think that was you, but please remind me if it was.

In any case I just wanted to share my observation on this conversation and hopefully help you be more aware of some of your own blind spots that might be making it more difficult for you.

it seems to me like you're being needlessly antagonistic in this conversation, seeming to take Terrapin to be saying things he doesn't mean. — Pfhorrest

I’m not the one being needlessly antagonistic here. TS being purposely obtuse is the antagonising factor. I answered your question here and I stand by my argument that this poll should have had an option for agnostic.

Typical though, moment I tell or trust anyone with the diagnosis the genetic fallacies come out and standing up for myself is taken as a meltdown and people read whatever tone they want in my writing to paint me the way they want to see me.

You can’t even begin to imagine what autism is and I’m in no mind to correct you, but if you believe any deficit in myself isn’t something I can overcome by myself and I’m going to be deflecting a genetic fallacy every day on here then I don’t know if we should continue our conversations.

Thanks and for your observations.

At least Pfhorrest cleared his thinking when leaving out agnosticism:

Agnosticism isn’t listed as an option because that’s an answer to a different question. Agnosticism is orthogonal to theism/atheism. — Pfhorrest

Well, you did ask "So I'm just curious, among the theists and atheists here both, how central or important is that to the rest of your philosophy?", so basically as you note this question does reflect on the whole philosophy of a person. But I guess you are only interested in the dogmatic people here.

You see, Bertrand Russell doesn't eviscerate agnosticism with his famous 'Teapot in space' argument. The exist-not exist question is in my view far more subtle and complex as it typically is represented. It pops up in questions like "Do numbers exist?" Unicorns surely don't exist, yet at least for my seven year old daughter unicorns are very important.

which in turn makes it difficult to properly extend the principle of charity to other people. — Pfhorrest

I actually extend the principle of charity. How about you take it up with the people that aren’t, instead of targeting me specifically for some paternalistic scolding because you think my diagnosis makes it easy to declare that you have any authority over me.

Mark, I didn't take you to be having a meltdown. I have meltdowns of my own (that's what I meant about work yesterday), and suspect I might be somewhere on the spectrum myself, so I'm not trying to be judgemental at all. And I'm definitely not saying you can't overcome anything.

It just looked to me like there was misunderstanding happening in the conversation, a misunderstanding related to dialectical charity, and I was just going to comment on that, but as I said, I've had at least two other autistic people (one of them here) tell me that their autism makes specifically that difficult for them, so since you had just mentioned your autism before I could even comment on the charity thing, rather than just suggesting you could stand to be more charitable, I thought perhaps that difficulty might be the case with you too, so I mentioned those other friends.

I'm sorry I upset you, I really didn't mean to.

But I guess you are only interested in the dogmatic people here. — ssu

No, I'm interested to hear from "weak" or "negative" atheists too; people who simply don't hold a belief in God, rather than holding positive disbelief in God.

I expected the results to be mostly weak atheists mostly saying that it's just an incidental consequence of their philosophy, and mostly theists saying that it's a core principle of their philosophy, and the results have borne that expectation out. (Though I guess I can't tell how many of the atheists are weak or strong, but the incidentality of their non-belief suggests probable weakness to me, even though I'm my own counterexample being a strong atheist to whom that's an incidental belief).

TS being purposely obtuse — Mark Dennis

There's nothing obtuse about simply pointing out that "atheism" doesn't refer to views about evidence, evolution, or sundry other things.

Warning: Idle hands are the devil's onanistic badwrongfunthings (or some such) ... :halo:

Agnosticism isn’t listed as an option because that’s an answer to a different question. Agnosticism is orthogonal to theism/atheism. Whether or not you think you do or don’t or can or can’t know whether God exists, either you do think he exists, or not. [ ... ] — Pfhorrest

I more or less agree with this (and the taxonomic axes laid out with respect to the poll). My understanding, though similiar, is more restrictive on the 'g/G question' and more expansive on the cognitivity of a/theism. I think the cognitive space schemes-out like this:

g/G agnostic

• I do not know whether or not g/G.
•• I cannot know whether or not g/G.^

g/G gnostic

• I know whether or not g/G.
•• I cannot not know whether or not g/G.^

^Yeah, but how do you know you cannot know ... in the first instance? :roll:

[1st order] object statements

theism (T)

• I do not believe ~g/G.
•• I believe g/G.

[2nd order] meta-statements

atheism (A)

• I do not believe 'T is a true belief'.
•• I claim ~'T is a true belief'.

[3rd order] meta-meta-statements

ignosticism (I)a

•  I do not believe ~'T is incoherent'.
•• I claim 'T is incoherent'.

ignosticism (I)b

• I do not believe ~'T or g/G agnosticism or g/G gnosticism are incoherent'.
•• I claim 'Both g/G agnosticism & g/G gnosticism are incoherent; therefore T is incoherent'.
••• I claim 'Both g/G agnosticism & g/G gnosticism are incoherent; therefore T is incoherent; and therefore A is incoherent'.

doxic modalities:

(1) g/G agnostic T• ... "spiritual"
(2) g/G agnostic T•• ... fideist
(3) g/G gnostic T• ... mystic
(4) g/G gnostic T•• ... fundamentalist
(5) A• ... weak/negative atheist
(6) Ia• ... apatheist
(7) Ib• ... noncognitivist

My positions [A•• & Ib•••] bolded above fall within this cognitive space of possible ways to be or not to be an atheist, though I prefer to describe myself as "a secular free thinker who claims '1. theism is false, 2. theology is unsound (& theodicy incoherent), and therefore 3. religion is, at minimum, immoral for selling demonstrable falsity & nonsense 'as truths' (i.e. medicating false fears with false hopes)" rather than just using bumpersticker labels like "positive atheist" & "atheological noncognitivist" which suffice as apt shorthand but otherwise are not very informative or nuanced.

Another reason for excluding agnosticism from the poll is, other than it being, at best, orthogonal to the topic question, it's inherently incoherent: given that g/G is so underdetermined as to be objectively indistinguishable from a fantasy or hallucination or rorschach blob, how can the question of finding explaining or justifying - modes of knowledge - even be raised without begging the question? To say "I don't know whether or not g/G exists" says nothing but "I don't know whether or not z$&p@ exists" - just an evasively articulate grunt, or babytalk.

I expected the results to be mostly weak atheists mostly saying that it's just an incidental consequence of their philosophy, and mostly theists saying that it's a core principle of their philosophy, and the results have borne that expectation out. — Pfhorrest

Yeah, not surprising at all. Mine was once "an incidental consequence" which has only grown stronger over decades of positively feedbacking into my philosophical studies and practice. I wonder: have other 'atheists' here undergone a similiar process or development?

So agnosticism is inherently incoherent, an evasively articulate grunt, babytalk.

Ah, the haughty atheist.

Makes always me feel even better about agnosticism.

Checking up on this thread months later, I am surprised to see that atheists for whom that's a core part of their philosophy are now the second-largest group of voters in this poll. I really expected the first and last options to be the biggest ones. I wonder if it's just because most people here are atheists? (I sure don't get that impression from the topics that get posted, but maybe theists are just more prolific topic-creators).

@DoppyTheElv This is the poll I was taking about. Bumping for your reference and to get more current data.

Looks like it’s almost exactly 3/4 atheists here, 3/4 of whom are only incidentally so; while about 5/8 of the 1/4 of people here who are theists take it as a core part of their philosophy.