Believing that The Force isn’t real doesn’t make me a Star Wars fan, or even a Sci-Fi fan, even though that’s a Star Wars belief. People can have strong opinions about something without that belief indicating that they are devout zealots about that topic.
People can have strong opinions about something without that belief indicating that they are devout zealots about that topic.
Of course they can! I not only never said otherwise, I explicitly affirmed it myself:
Meanwhile, scientific skepticism/disbelief in god(s) due to lack of positive evidence is more like agnosticism/weak atheism.
Weak atheism is not a weaker opinion than strong atheism! “Weak” and “strong” are just categorical labels, not value judgements. Moreover, I didn’t make up the terms; if you don’t like them, blame the philosophers, not me.
The difference between weak and strong atheism is not of magnitude, but kind: they have different philosophical underpinnings. Strong atheism is a belief based on faith, while weak atheism is motivated by skepticism and confidence in the utility of the Scientific Method as a framework.
My guess is this is why you’re being downvoted, because everything else seems to be accurate.
Saying strong atheism is based on faith is the same as saying that believing dragons definitely do not exist is based on faith. In such a scenario, we all have infinite faith because we all firmly disbelieve in the existence of infinite things. We are so faithful in that scenario that the word faith becomes meaningless.
I’m honestly not sure what your point is in firmly asserting that strong atheism is a faith based belief. At best it seems like dying on a hill of split hairs.
Believing that The Force isn’t real doesn’t make me a Star Wars fan, or even a Sci-Fi fan, even though that’s a Star Wars belief. People can have strong opinions about something without that belief indicating that they are devout zealots about that topic.
Of course they can! I not only never said otherwise, I explicitly affirmed it myself:
Weak atheism is not a weaker opinion than strong atheism! “Weak” and “strong” are just categorical labels, not value judgements. Moreover, I didn’t make up the terms; if you don’t like them, blame the philosophers, not me.
The difference between weak and strong atheism is not of magnitude, but kind: they have different philosophical underpinnings. Strong atheism is a belief based on faith, while weak atheism is motivated by skepticism and confidence in the utility of the Scientific Method as a framework.
My guess is this is why you’re being downvoted, because everything else seems to be accurate.
Saying strong atheism is based on faith is the same as saying that believing dragons definitely do not exist is based on faith. In such a scenario, we all have infinite faith because we all firmly disbelieve in the existence of infinite things. We are so faithful in that scenario that the word faith becomes meaningless.
I’m honestly not sure what your point is in firmly asserting that strong atheism is a faith based belief. At best it seems like dying on a hill of split hairs.
Also for anybody else who is interested, here’s some relevant reading material https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Atheism#Weak_vs._strong_atheism