Talk:Atheism/Archive 23

message: I am an atheist, myself. And I agree that the charge of POV simply for the lack of links is missplaced. However, I do agree with a general complaint about the links having been actively removed. Whether I find the arguments in Plantinga's article particularly convincing does not detract from the fact that he holds a chair in philosophy at Notre Dame -- by no stretch of the imagination an insubstantial credit. The McGrath article I found fascinating for a number of it's comments in credit of atheism. I, personally, think the article is improved with the McGrath link, and is in no way harmed by the Plantinga link. Rather than disputing the POV complaint, I'd rather like to hear the strong reasons that the links should have been removed. Parker Whittle 05:31, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: POV complaint might be misdirected, but...

message: The sentence "According to logical positivism, "Does god exist?" has the same status as "What colour is Saturday?"; they are both nonsensical, and thus have no answers." is rather misleading. The Positivists' explanation of the two sentences would be very different: the latter is, as it were, analytically nonsensical — if one understands the words and the syntax, one can see that the question involves a category mistake (days of the week aren't the sorts of things that can be coloured), and so one cannot say that relevant experience is impossible, because there is none; someone who argued that the question was meaningful wouldn't merely be philosophicall mistaken but cracked. The former, on the other hand, makes enough sense that one can meaningfully say that no relevant experience is possible; it is, as it were, sythetically nonsensical.  On this view, believers aren't cracked, just philosophically mistaken.
Note also that most of the positivists accepted that statements can have meaning aside from cognitive (or factual, or descriptive) meaning; they can have emotive meaning, for example.  "God exists" and "god doesn't exist" can both have emotive meaning, whereas "Saturday is yellow" is simple nonsense. --Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 22:00, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Positivists 

message: The numbers are valid (though the methodology of the census could be questioned). It has been discussed before here and it would likely deserve article of its own. Pavel Vozenilek 13:53, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What like an article on religion in the Czech Republic or perhaps even atheism in the Czech Republic?  Go for it!. Dunc|☺ 14:13, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Laziness and lack of time. Pavel Vozenilek 19:23, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Czech Republic statistics 

message: I [removed] the word "reified" from the section on mysticism/esoteric interpretations of god. Mystics and esoterists would maintain that it is the exoteric, normative theists who are reifying (making into an object or thing) the Absolute into a personal god. Thus the claim that esotericists are reifying when they think of the divine as the Absolute is POV. --goethean ॐ 15:42, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "reified" 

message: Much as I hate to dredge up the whole pantheistic thing again, but honestly, I don't think that section is really appropriate in the greater context of the article. It seems utterly tangential and unimportant, and doesn't really mesh with the rest of it. It seems kind of choppy as well. Essentially, I think its unimportant because if you define God to be the Universe, then you aren't speaking of the same meaning or word; as such, I think it would be appropriate to remove the paragraph. It is a supernatural belief (maybe), but it doesn't strictly fall under the definition of atheism. Also, I'm fairly certain that mostly its just farcical; if it isn't pantheism, then its simply an exercise in trying to heighten their God above other gods by using different terminology, which is a moot distinction to atheists who reject gods in general. I think we should nix the section.
Also, as a more general comment, in the US most of the time when it is used by laymen atheist not only implies not believing in a god, but that the person is an irreligous atheist. This should probably be pointed out in the article as well; it currently points out that atheism is not synonymous with irreligion, but in common usage it often is. Titanium Dragon 08:26, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Pantheism and irreligion

message: There is NO Christian view on athiesm in the article, don't you think it's a good idea to put it there?
:There should always be a balance to maintain NPOV, but what do you mean by "Christian view" of atheism? Anything you can add that is factual would be helpful, just keep in mind that commentary and rhetoric would be out of place here. MFNickster 19:26, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  More views on Athiesm