Ryedo40 Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 If you have no awareness of something,whether it exists or not you neither believe or disbelieve, what i am asking is, if a person has been brought up a good Christian but does not believe in Christ, do he/she have a stronger belief to the contrary, other wise its just dismissive. That wasn't what you originally asked. Your original statement was "Am i correct in saying if you dont believe in god you must have a stronger belief to the contrary?" - to which I answered no. Edit: Also, what do you mean by a strong belief to the contrary? Do you mean a strong belief in god? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjw47 Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 I know that. I'm not disputing that. Your reply contained a fallacious sentence. That is what I responded to. For the 3rd time, "In my view it takes as much 'faith' to not believe in a creator, as it does to believe in one.", is fallacious because it takes no faith/belief to 'not believe in a creator', or anything else for that matter. 'It takes no faith/belief to not believe in a creator. Yes it does. The poster said 'There is no God' a statement that cannot be proved, that takes a belief. To not believe in something requires you to have given it some thought and decided that on the balance of probability you believe it doesn't exist. To hold that view requires confidence in the truth of your opinion, which you cannot prove and so only believe. Unless of course you are trying to maintain that there are people that have never given a single thought to 'what's it all about', and have never come across a religion or an atheist. Other than the mentally handicapped I don't believe that is true, all races have some form of belief ,it is endemic in the species. Even an agnostic has a belief, the belief that no one will ever know, and that therefore the exercise is somewhat pointless. They could of course be wrong in that belief, which is why that's all it is, a belief. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redwhine Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 If you have no awareness of something,whether it exists or not you neither believe or disbelieve, what i am asking is, if a person has been brought up a good Christian but does not believe in Christ, do he/she have a stronger belief to the contrary, other wise its just dismissive. Good Christian. Isn't that an oxymoron? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryedo40 Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 To not believe in something requires you to have given it some thought No it doesn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjw47 Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 No it doesn't. Yes it does. To hold a view that you 'don't believe in something' requires you to be aware of it's existence. You can't 'not believe in something' that you don't have an awareness of, you are simply ignorant of it existence. To believe or not to believe requires some measure of knowledge. Someone who decides that they lack belief, and have an absence of it, has reached a conscious decision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryedo40 Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 Yes it does. To hold a view that you 'don't believe in something' requires you to be aware of it's existence. That wasn't what you said. Your statement was "To not believe in something requires you to have given it some thought" Again, very different to "To hold a view that you 'don't believe in something' " To not believe in something, doesn't require thought. If you have no knowledge or awareness of an actual god, an actual god doesn't exist to you - thought isn't required. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjw47 Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 That wasn't what you said. Your statement was "To not believe in something requires you to have given it some thought" Again, very different to "To hold a view that you 'don't believe in something' " To not believe in something, doesn't require thought. If you have no knowledge or awareness of an actual god, an actual god doesn't exist to you - thought isn't required. And I stand by that quote. Believing or not believing in something requires a conscious decision. Therefore, not believing in something means that firstly you have had to have been aware of the subject in question, and secondly you have reached a decision that you don't believe in it. Unless of course your mind works in a different way to other peoples, where you don't give any thought to things but are somehow aware that you don't believe in them anyway. If you substitute 'completely unaware of' for 'not believing' fair enough. But you can't hold a belief of any kind, positive or negative, without conscious knowledge and awareness - however scant - of the thing you hold no belief in, or believe in totally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dutch Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 Believe means "I don't really know therefore I shall substitute my ignorance with a believe in it and that way pretend as if I know" When you know the truth there is no need to believe because now you know. As several others have mentioned here there is no thought required to know the truth, it is rather distracting and creates fantasies. The truth is rather clean and free from thought and religious activities. You can believe in anything you want it does not matter what it is and you have created some fantasy false substitute around it. Personally I believe in a banana, it is the most holiest and divine god in the universe, anyone who disagrees with that will be executed tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryedo40 Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 And I stand by that quote. Believing or not believing in something requires a conscious decision. So all those multitudes of things you do not believe in - because you have no knowledge or awareness of them - requires a conscious belief in them? Your logic fails mate. Edit: If you have no knowledge or awareness of X, you have no reason to hold a belief in X. Therefore, you do not believe in X. No conscious decision required. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjw47 Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 So all those multitudes of things you do not believe in - because you have no knowledge or awareness of them - requires a conscious belief in them? Your logic fails mate. Edit: If you have no knowledge or awareness of X, you have no reason to hold a belief in X. Therefore, you do not believe in X. No conscious decision required. The word belief is incorrect in the manner you are using it. Belief = A feeling that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. A firmly held opinion. Believe = Accept that something is true. Think or suppose. If I am unaware of something I simply do not know of it's existence, belief or the lack of it doesn't come into it. In order for it to be described as belief or lack of belief I would have had to have thought about whatever it is that I believe/disbelieve in. Belief or disbelief are thoughts, conscious decisions made after consideration. Unawareness is just that, a lack of knowledge as to the existence of something. Supposing in a years time a currently unknown Galaxy is discovered. No one is going to say ' Well that's terrific, I didn't believe in it's existence'. They are going to say ' Well that's terrific, I had no idea that that existed'. No one goes around not believing in stuff they know nothing about - because they would have to think about it before deciding not to - they go around completely unaware of stuff. ---------- Post added 17-08-2014 at 19:04 ---------- When you know the truth there is no need to believe because now you know. As several others have mentioned here there is no thought required to know the truth, i Thought is required to know anything, without thought you would be the same as your God, a banana. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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