Do they believe in deities?

I’m not invested in atheism, I’m invested in correcting people when they say wrong and stupid things. Am I deeply ideological and invested in the definition of “spam,” because I put 10 times as much effort into that one comment thread as I did this one? Nah, it just annoys me when people are wrong about things, and the more steadfastly you adhere to your stupid ideas, the more it annoys me

Especially when I continue to think of new and unique ways to explain my position, and instead of saying “I never thought of it like that, but that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying!” You fuckin people continue to give me notifications saying inane shit like “the fact that you still think I’m wrong actually means I’m right”

What would it even mean for me to be “heavily invested in atheism as a philosophy” when I’ve made it absolutely crystal clear that my definition of atheism involves no claims of knowledge one way or another?

You want to get into colloquial application? Here’s some colloquial application

Here’s some more. If you know who Rationality Rules is and don’t like him, then it’s worth noting that this came out before his controversy

Here’s some more

Here’s Wiktionary’s take. That page lists both definitions.

Colloquially, I call myself an atheist. That’s not an ideology, it’s just an answer to the question of whether or not I accept the claim that there is at least one deity.

I’m glad we finally agree. Not accepting either claim means you’re an agnostic atheist. Have a good day

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There’s no third options here. You can’t simultaneously accept the claim that there’s at least one deity and not accept the claim that there’s at least one deity. If you’re doing the former, that rules out the latter. If you’re doing the latter, that rules out the former. This shit is Boolean bro

I’m about to flip a coin.

Can we make sure we’re on the same page regarding the definition of belief? As I understand it, belief means accepting a claim. Disbelief means not accepting a claim.

Do you accept the claim that this coin will land heads? This is a yes or no question. If you withhold judgment, that means you do not accept that claim. You do not believe it will land heads. This is notably different from accepting the claim that it will land tails. Not believing that it will land heads is not the same as believing that it will land tails.

The most reasonable position is to not accept either claim. It’s a 50/50 chance.

Theism means accepting the claim that there is at least one deity. You either do that or you don’t. Any option you take that involves not accepting the claim that there is at least one deity means that you aren’t theist. You are without theism. There’s a word for that.

I really don’t know how many other ways I can put it. Theism is defined as accepting the claim that there is at least one deity. You either do that or you don’t. You’re either theist or you’re not. If you’re some third option, that means you’re not theist. if you’re not theist, you’re without theism. The word for when you’re without theism is atheist.

Disbelief just means not believing something. Not believing that a claim is true is not the same as believing that that claim is false. A lack of belief in any deities is not the same as a belief in a lack of any deities.

The prefix a- means without. If one is without theism, then they are a-theist. There is no third option. You have theism or you don’t. Having no belief one way or the other means you don’t have it.

I’m going to push back a little bit. For one thing, have you ever gone hunting? Some would say that taking life (specifically deers and rabbits and stuff) is a practical application. For two, sport shooting is a thing. Being good at using a weapon can be rewarding in and of itself, whether you’re talking about guns, bows, slingshots, or throwing knives.

I was about to compare it to telescopes. Most people don’t have one, most people who have one only have one, but a few of us have upwards of five

Unironically, the average person doesn’t actually own a gun, but the average gun owner owns several

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/the-demographics-of-gun-ownership/

Who says that atheism involves being convinced of the negative? I’m an atheist because I’m not a theist. I’m agnostic because I’m neither convinced of the negative nor the affirmative. Both labels apply to me.

I think we largely agree. Your comment is essentially a restatement of my point. Theism is a belief that they are gods, and atheism is a lack of belief that there are gods. That lack of belief can either come from a positive belief that there are no gods, or a withholding of belief one way or the other.

Speaking about myself specifically, it is equally untrue to say that I believe there are gods as it is to say that I believe there are no gods. The former means I am an atheist, and the latter means I am an agnostic. Both labels apply to me.

Walmart’s digital labels have earned my local Kroger (Dillons for my Kansas comrades) several hundred dollars a month

My concern isn’t that the price of an item will go up between my grabbing it and checking out, my concern is that they’ll update the price before I ever see it, and I’ll pay 50 cents more for this box of graham crackers than everyone else. After all, Walmart knows that I buy graham crackers every time I go there, and they know that I’ve put up with price increases in the past. They know who and where I am from the moment I enter the store to the moment I leave.

There is nothing stopping them from bumping up the price of those graham crackers while nobody is in the aisle. I grab them while they say $8.59, and I pay $8.59 at the register. Someone else who tends to buy them when they’re on sale grabs them while they say $7.59, and we pay different amounts at the same time, because Walmart also knows what register I’m using and which list of prices to charge me.

My favorite podcast was a spoof on that concept. l wish they’d kept it up, it was a fun listen

The Adventure Zone is what got me into D&D. Balance is surprisingly easy to run as a home campaign

Re: radio shows… Back when I listened to podcasts, there were so many. I can’t speak to their current quality (I largely stopped listening to podcasts in 2020), but there was Wolf 359, The Far Meridian, The Magnus Archives, The Bright Sessions, Ars Paradoxica, Hello from The Magic Tavern, and a ton more that I never even heard of. Then there’s the literal fictional radio shows like WIDK and Welcome to Nightvale

Yay Liam!

If you make a claim, you should provide the proof to support that claim.

If your claim is that “there’s no gods,” then you’re making a claim. The assertion that there are affirmatively no gods at all is in fact just as empirically unfalsifiable as the assertion that there is definitely at least one god. In my opinion, the only reasonable position is to not make any claims about the presence or nonpresence of deities in the first place.

Russel’s Teapot is fun, but I prefer Starman’s copy of Treasure Planet on DVD. Do you believe that I have a copy of Treasure Planet in my DVD collection? More importantly, if you answer no, is that the same as believing that I don’t have a copy of Treasure Planet on DVD? I think it would be equally silly to affirmatively assert that I do in fact have a physical copy of my favorite Disney movie, as it would be to assert that I do not in fact have a copy of it. You would have to come to my house and look at my DVD collection before reasonably making such a claim.