Channel: Education
Uploaded: July 25, 2008 at 5:10 am
Author: TheProdigy00
Length: 03:40
Rating: 4.13
Views: 287
This video will be offered as a response to any video which I feel shows a lack of understanding of the significance of the weak/strong atheist distinction.*If you are curious about where agnosticism fits into all of this, please see my video, "Atheist or Agnsotic? You may be BOTH! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... this video, I will provide an analogy which is intended to...1) Show that the distinction between weak and strong atheism is significant.2) Show the consequences the weak and strong positions regarding the burden of providing evidence.* To make things easier, whenever I say "a god" in this video, I really mean, more precisely, "a god or gods."Theist = believes that a god existsWeak (or Negative) Atheist = lacks a belief that a god existsStrong (or Positive) Atheist = believes that a god does not existTheist: http://www.websters-online-dic... http://dictionary.reference.co... http://dictionary.reference.co... http://www.websters-online-dic... This video focuses on an analogy. I tend to stay away from analogies because people seem to pick apart analogies, pointing out every last difference between the supposed analogous issue and the issue we're actually trying to explain, without ever considering whether or not their criticism is relevant to the validity of the analogy. Of course analogies are not exactly like the issue they try to explain. What is important is only that they are the same in the respects necessary to make the specific point being argued valid in both contexts, and for the same reasons. Feel free to criticize my analogy. However, please take a moment to consider whether or not your criticism is relevant to the validity of the analogy.*The terms "negative atheism" and "positive atheism" mean the same thing as "weak atheism" and "strong atheism" respectively. The former terms have been around longer than the latter, but "weak" and "strong" seem to be more common today, so I use them rather than "negative" and "positive."* I use the phrase "burden of providing evidence" rather than "burden of proof." I do this because absolute proof is not necessary in order to believe something, nor does one have to believe something with absolute certainty in order to say that the believe it (this is made apparent in popular definitions of the word "believe," which are provided below).Believe: http://dictionary.reference.co... THE VIDEO BEFORE READING THESE NOTES (until I mention the note, that is): * For this analogy, it was necessary for me to use, as the affirmative claim of the theist, an incorrect answer (actually a specific category of incorrect answer, one which is not a multiple of 5). This is not intended to make any comment concerning whether or not the actual theist position that a god exists is correct or not. In fact, such a thing is irrelevant to my argument. I used this incorrect answer because, when I get to the part about the strong atheist position, I want to explain the burden of providing evidence and give evidence that the theist's claim is incorrect. Because of the nature of mathematics, this would be impossible if the theist's answer was indeed correct. The analogy would still be valid if I had used a correct answer; however, I could not clearly make this point concerning the strong atheist position, had I used the correct answer.* Concerning the actual strong atheist position that a god does not exist. You may be wondering whether or not there is evidence to support such a claim or even whether it is possible. The only reason that such evidence may not be possible is the slipperiness of "the God hypothesis" made so by the fact that the concept of a god is so ill-defined. Whether or not such a slippery entity's existence is falsifiable is a topic for another video. Whether or not there is evidence against a god's existence is also a topic for another video, I will just comment that some prominent atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, have submitted what they believe to be evidence that a god does not exist. For example, in Dawkins' book, The God Delusion, he attempts to explain that a universe with a god would look much different than the one we live in.I speak in a "matter of fact" tone, but this is simply for the sake of efficiency. I have been wrong many times before and expect to be wrong many times in the future. I think that part of being a reasonable person is inviting people to correct you if you are wrong and even taking satisfaction in it, so please feel free to comment on anything you think I may be incorrect about.Thank you,ChrisThis video was filmed on 25 July 2008The content was written from 24 July 2008 to 25 July 2008