He is the one who started making ridiculous, overly general, and most of all OFF-TOPIC statements about theism and theists. If he wants to pick a fight, I’m happy to oblige.
Atheists claim there is no God. That is an actual claim. The statement that there is no God is tantamount to saying the universe exists without god, that natural processes were capable of producing it. Prove it.
If you don’t have a belief as to the existence of God, you’re agnostic. A-theism = no-godism.
If you compare social structures to religon, anarchists are agnostics, if anything.
Sorry, I hadn’t read the previous posts. My post may have been overly inflammatory, and I apologize.
Let’s agree to disagree. This is neither the time nor the place for this argument. Minor philosophical issues pale in importance to the educational and dialectical roles that these forums play.
Well, maybe you are (I’m not convinced), but I would say that most anarchists hold at least two positions that must be defended:
Maybe a bit clumsy in my wording there, but I hope the point gets across. Anarchists, by advocating for anarchy, make explicit and/or implicit assertions about the nature of humans and human relationships and societies.
Yes, most “unfortunately” for both theists and statists, the existential burden of proof is on them. Now, it may be incumbent upon an atheist to prove the absolute non-existence of god, but then again not all atheists aim towards this. Maybe you’re right though, maybe agnostic is the more pertinent word, if one takes atheism to exclude any and all higher powers (not just deities.)
-Jon
The first one can simply be proven with ethics. The second one I don’t see as mattering much. Preference is subjective. The problem with the consequentialist attitude is that it’s foolhardy to try and make an absolute statement about the future wellbeing of people. It cannot be proven, only supposed.
If the statist reasons that theft, murder, rape, extortion, and all other forms of initiative force are not immoral, they don’t have the burden of proof in this discussion. But if the statist does believe these things to be immoral, their argument is for a state to prevent these things. But in so doing, they are arguing for the violation of morality by the state. The only deemed explination for this is that they believe human beings cannot prevent these acts from happening on their own. That is what they need to prove using a logical analysis of human nature and human action. They also need to prove why a government made up of flawed creatures who can’t prevent atrocities is exempt from their analysis of human nature and action.
The state can only be supported via nihilism. I’m not well read enough to prove the non-aggression principle, but I’ve been working out an essay on it. However, I don’t believe the statists here have conceded to nihilism.
I also arrived at “statism can only be supported via nihilism” earlier today when I was thinking about the effects of T.V. and mainstream culture on humans, and the observation deeply disturbed me. On a slightly more humours note, I also realized what an utter nightmare this would be for Rand 8D.
It seems to me that the orchestration of a de-sensitized culture would eventually drive more & more humans within said culture (in this case, U.S. citizens) to perceive existience (or more commonly, life) as meaningless, and subsequently pursue seemingly meaningful things, such as celebrity, consumption, etc., but the void of meainglessness never being fufilled and only growing by those that would profit and/or reap benefits from such.
Essentially, nihilism being marketed (subtley, obviously) as a ‘solution’ to one’s rightfully grounded conflicts with Statism, hirearchy, coercion, a static society; the whole nine yards.
Admitelly, the above is a little vauge & incomplete (I was at work when I made this observation, so I was a bit distracted), but I think the observation “statism can only be supported via nihilism” should definitley be elaborated upon if it hasn’t already. It would be interesting to hear other’s thoughts on this (albiet, at the risk of a further tangent in the thread).
Apologetics = god is self-evident + soybean sentences.
How about you get some thicker skin. There is no such thing as the right to not be offended. If you don’t like that I think god-belief is just so much silly superstition: your problem. Not mine.
Right. It’s called “burden of proof”, and it’s on the existentially positive claimant. If I say I have the cure for AIDS here, I have to show that I have it. You don’t have to show that I don’t.
Unless you want to prove that you don’t owe me a million dollars.
Yeah, thought so.
One more thing: ad hominem fallacies are still fallacies. Get over yourself, and get over your hurt because I don’t believe your superstition.
Trust me: you do not want that to happen. You will not like it. You will find that I know every argument forward and backward. You will find that I know every fallacy used in them.
And it was on-topic in the sense of an analogy. You decided to get all offended. Tough. Get over it. Suck it up.
So you have to always have someone looking over your shoulder to make sure that you’re good? That’s an indictment of YOU, not everyone.
And anarchists aren’t saying that coercive power can never be used; merely that it should not be monopolized and not used initiatorily.
You really should learn to not construct strawmen.
Since your second “position” relies on the first, and the first is a strawman…
From your three posts in a row, looks like maybe you’ve gotten a bit pissy yourself.
I am shaking in my boots. I actually just pissed myself. 
Coercion rather implies initiation. I would not call self-defense coercion. Land ownership is a territorial monopoly on force. I am unconvinced that the anarcho-capitalist model actually eliminates coercive force. It might just distribute it better, for a time.
If it be the nature of man that he aggress against his neigbor from time to time, how, first, can we overcome that, and what is the justification for that when natural law is our justification for liberty in the first place? With fully free will, human nature can be described by no more than that. With no or a mix of free will and determinism (this last is probably correct), whether anarchy is attainable is dependent upon whether or not it is within the realm of our free will. This must first be established. Even beyond this, if it is attainable, despite the protests against consequentialism (which I sympathize with greatly), if it renders all or the bulk of humanity more miserable than we are now, we should not pursue it. Would you really damn the world so you could be right?
In the end, the burden of proof is on anyone who takes a position other than agnosticism on anything. You can try to obfuscate it, but falsifiable elements will remain, and you must defend them. You are a COWARD for refusing to.
No, it looks like that’s when I had time to post. But let’s not let your insecurities ruin this thread, ok?
I believe that, actually.
No, it does not. If you steal something from me, and I coerce you into giving it back, have I initated force or have I used retaliatory force? Answer: retaliatory.
Learn the difference.
It is; it is retaliatory coercion.
Then you need to not play a redefinition game.
Overcome? We simply deal with it by instituting penalties. You sound like the statists who strawman anarchism by saying that anarchists believe that humans will always be good all the time. Please don’t do that.
Wrong. The burden of proof is on the person making the existentially positive claim or the claim in the face of the evidence. And no, anarchists aren’t making claims in the face of evidence; they are saying “Your claims and reality aren’t matching.”
You can call me a coward if you like, but I’ll just chuckle at you for not understanding how burden of proof works. Please do not drag this thread down with your pettiness.
Coercion may have many faces. The difference between coercive action and non-coercive action may be of a gradual and not a concise nature.
At the moment the state/government has the territorial monopoly on force vested in it. But I agree that the territorial monopoly on force may vest in the land owner. There will be coercive force under a anarcho-capitalist model as well.
My question would still be where (initiation) of coercive force starts and which actions are actually NOT (initiated) coercive force.
If we use your argument here then the statist points out that they in fact have the cure for aids and can demonstrate that people have been cured. That is to say that the state exists and does provide what we would agree are some essential functions. So they have demonstrated that their alternative is in fact real and working on some level. The statist will agree that the system is not perfect and has flaws but still functions.
Now you come along and tell the statist that they have to prove to you that this method of organization is the only possible organization for a society. How could the statist possibly rule out that there could never be an alternative possibility? The statist merely argues the obvious that there is no other apparent organization method that has been demonstrated to work.
Equally, you can not rule out that whatever society you created could not be improved upon in some way.
Again, the vast majority of statists do not claim that there is no possible alternative, just that there is no viable alternative. If there is no viable alternative then they in fact are correct. One reasonable measure of viability is to see if a society organized under freedom can function. As of now that does not exist. Until we in the freedom movement can demonstrate that our ideas are in fact superior and can create a society superior to one organized by a state then the burden will continue to be on us.
All positions other than agnosticism have existentially positive claims inherent. These might be difficult to discern or define, but they are present.
On a side note, what bad touch in your childhood made you into such a dick? You clearly have a lot of rage. It’s sad, really.
No, that would be called a “strawman”, since anarchism isn’t about saying the state doesn’t exist. Also, are you stating that the state has essential functions, or that the state provides “essential” functions? And what is “essential”?
Which is horribly irrelevant, since that’s not the issue. The issue is if it is proper for a coercive territorial monopoly to be. If it is proper for one group to expropriate the property of the group supposedly protected by the former group.
They’re the ones claiming that it is. They need to show it. Period.
End of discussion.
Wrong. I would entreat you to take a course in basic logic, and understand the passive concept of disbelief qua disbelief. And I would especially entreat you to learn what agnosticism really is.
Until such time as you do, you’re just not worth my bother. I’m not going to play your little sandbox game.
A strong atheist belief, i.e., “There is no god.”, might be a positive claim, but the weak atheist belief, “I don’t believe in a god” is not a positive claim, or it’s only positive from the subjective, personal viewpoint, and thus easily proven or justified. The person who says that they don’t believe in god only has to prove that he doesn’t believe, he doesn’t have to prove that god doesn’t exist. As such, the statement itself is usually (but not always) sufficient proof.
People are born as atheists–how can you believe in something that you’ve never heard of? It’s only once they grow older and learn about gods and religion that they can become a believer or agnostic, although I agree that agnostic is not a positive claim.
Funny, I don’t see infants going around and turning up their nose at “those foolish superstitious primitive believers”, than back down the minute they’re confronted on it and say, “I don’t disbelieve, I just don’t believe. The burden of proof is on you, as to why I shouldn’t be a rooster sucking prick.” If you don’t have an opinion one way or another, why aren’t you just as distainful of “strong atheists”? I don’t see people making analogies to how believing in the nonexistence of God is like believing in the tooth fairy.
That’s because believing in the nonexistence of God is like believing in the nonexistence of the tooth fairy.