On May 21, 2:11 am, "James Whitehead"
overtherainbow.com>
wrote:>> On May 20, 12:59 pm, "James Whitehead"
overtherainbow.com>
>> wrote:>>> "aversiveness"
gmail.com> wrote in message>
>
>>>> On May 18, 4:35 am, "James Whitehead"
overtherainbow.com>
>>>> wrote:>>>>> "aversiveness"
gmail.com> wrote in message>
>
>>>>>>> Religions - atheism included are a powerful source of bad
> faith -
>>>>> typified
>>>>>>> by a belief in essences - i.e. gods concepts rules which are
>>>>> pre-existent.
>
>>>>>> Stop lying. Athiesm posits no such belief in any 'essences'.
>
>>>>> Well some here argue its a ground state of the universe - according
> to
>>> them
>>>>> atheism existed before the big bang.
>
>>>> To say that is merely to say that theism did not exist before the big
>>>> bang. Neither did a lot of other things. For the zillionth freakin'
>>>> time: Athiesm is just a word that means that theism is not present.
>>>> It is not a belief system. It is not a set of anything. It is not a
>>>> thing. It is not a philosophy. It is not a thing. It is an abstract
>>>> expression of quality.
>
>>> And allowing it to be not contingent you fall into a fallacy!
>
>> Allowing 'what' to be not contingent on 'what'? Your statement makes
>> no sense. Please learn to write in clear sentences.
>
> The possibility of being otherwise.... as elsewhere here in full...
>
> Predicate logic. The thread has been interesting and I don't know why I
> didn't get round to this before. Proof perhaps that I'm not clever and with
> the proviso I could be wrong...
>
> Michael wants to assert that null predicates exist independently - as a
> default or ground state. Hence he can assert that atheism is a passive and
> not active act (of believing something to be the case) "Atheism is a lack
> of theism. Period" was its most concise expression. I'm now going to show
> why I think this is not true. It leads to fallacy, which is due to
> asserting that null predicates are not determined on anything else. Take
> the sentence-
>
> "The King of France is Bald".
>
> According to Michael's and others idea of null predicates being independent
> of what is predicated - this sentence is meaningful and true. Its clear I
> hope that its not. To go around asserting it to be true would be wrong.
>
> But neither is it false! Its meaningless, and the reason it is, is that we
> did not make null predication contingent. Baldness can only be predicated
> on an existing King of France. We need not only existence however but
> Kingship and the possibility of having hair or not. The reason we make
> predication contingent on existence is to supply something which can or
> cannot be bald - and is the King of France. The sentence is nonsense - not
> true - not false - because of this.
>
> "This tree is an atheist" commits the same fallacy. Not so obviously. Take
> then
>
> "The King of France is an atheist"
>
> Here the error is obvious. We need not just existence but a specific one of
> the King of France. Likewise the application of atheism needs a subject
> which is capable of holding theism. The reason the sentence "This rice
> pudding is an atheist" sounds wrong - is that it is wrong, its wrong because
> of the idea of null predicates existing beforehand, without contingency.
>
> So "Atheism is a lack of theism. Period." leads to error, it must to avoid
> this be re-phrased as something like "Atheism is a lack of theism, in a
> subject capable of theism." Of course you are free to maintain "Atheism is
> a lack of theism. Period." and in order to be consistent & rational -
> which you are again free not to be, you would have to accept "The King of
> France is an atheist" as being meaningful and true.
My goodness. It is like arguing with a child, or septic. You think
you just said something clever, but you just wasted bandwith with what
really reduces to stating that the subject of a predicate must be
defined in order for the statement to make sense. But a tree is
defined sufficiently (the definition of trees does not include
capability to believe anything) to support the statement "A tree lacks
belief in god(s)". The 'King of France' is ill-defined (the
definition doesn't preclude hair or baldness) and cannot by itself
support the statement "The King of France is Bald'.
Once again, your logic fails.
