What is philosophy and what is metaphysics? Can you be neutral?

I am talking about how he Galileo believed/felt the planet EA*RTH revolved around the Sun with his scientific understanding of the Cosmos.
a reply to: Pinocchio

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb


Your concept of atheism/atheist is incorrect.

It is a noun. It has only one meaning: lack of believe in a god/deity. It is not anti-god or any other descriptive beyond: Lack of belief in a god/deity.

A "true" atheist will tell you - -" you prove God and I will believe".

Do not use the term "most" - - use the term "many". There is no way you can speak for most.

Now - - each atheist is an individual (there is no atheist dogma). Each individual atheist has their own "belief". This is their individual "atheist philosophy".

originally posted by: midicon
a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

I don't speak for all atheists, that is true, but you say that atheism proposes that God doesn't exist and I made a point that that statement isn't quite as you propose.

Atheism is also a noun. Athiest/Atheism are both nouns and have the same meaning.

"Lack of believe in a god/deity"

a reply to: Annee

The concept is not incorrect. You seem to be under the delusion that you are the arbiter of how words are used, and that is simply not the case. The author of the text is. Words don't have objective meanings they have usages, and atheist seem incredulous to what I am saying.

“Atheism” is typically defined in terms of “theism”. Theism, in turn, is best understood as a proposition—something that is either true or false. It is often defined as “the belief that God exists”, but here “belief” means “something believed”. It refers to the propositional content of belief, not to the attitude or psychological state of believing. This is why it makes sense to say that theism is true or false and to argue for or against theism. If, however, “atheism” is defined in terms of theism and theism is the proposition that God exists and not the psychological condition of believing that there is a God, then it follows that atheism is not the absence of the psychological condition of believing that God exists (more on this below). The “a-” in “atheism” must be understood as negation instead of absence, as “not” instead of “without”. Therefore, in philosophy at least, atheism should be construed as the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, the proposition that there are no gods).

This definition has the added virtue of making atheism a direct answer to one of the most important metaphysical questions in philosophy of religion, namely, “Is there a God?” There are only two possible direct answers to this question: “yes”, which is theism, and “no”, which is atheism. Answers like “I don’t know”, “no one knows”, “I don’t care”, “an affirmative answer has never been established”, or “the question is meaningless” are not direct answers to this question.

While identifying atheism with the metaphysical claim that there is no God (or that there are no gods) is particularly useful for doing philosophy, it is important to recognize that the term “atheism” is polysemous—i.e., it has more than one related meaning—even within philosophy.

As you can see from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy the definition of atheism I am using is one that is pragmatic with respect to doing philosophy. God's existence is a metaphysical question in the broad sense and an ontological question if we are to get more nuanced. Your definition isn't a useful one, unless I am interested in your psychological state.

a reply to: FinallyAwake

“Atheism” is typically defined in terms of “theism”. Theism, in turn, is best understood as a proposition—something that is either true or false. It is often defined as “the belief that God exists”, but here “belief” means “something believed”. It refers to the propositional content of belief, not to the attitude or psychological state of believing. This is why it makes sense to say that theism is true or false and to argue for or against theism. If, however, “atheism” is defined in terms of theism and theism is the proposition that God exists and not the psychological condition of believing that there is a God, then it follows that atheism is not the absence of the psychological condition of believing that God exists (more on this below). The “a-” in “atheism” must be understood as negation instead of absence, as “not” instead of “without”. Therefore, in philosophy at least, atheism should be construed as the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, the proposition that there are no gods).

This definition has the added virtue of making atheism a direct answer to one of the most important metaphysical questions in philosophy of religion, namely, “Is there a God?” There are only two possible direct answers to this question: “yes”, which is theism, and “no”, which is atheism. Answers like “I don’t know”, “no one knows”, “I don’t care”, “an affirmative answer has never been established”, or “the question is meaningless” are not direct answers to this question.

While identifying atheism with the metaphysical claim that there is no God (or that there are no gods) is particularly useful for doing philosophy, it is important to recognize that the term “atheism” is polysemous—i.e., it has more than one related meaning—even within philosophy.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosphy explains exactly what I did in our last post. It's a metaphysical position, not an epistemic one. If you define atheism in relation to an the beliefs they hold or don't hold confidence in then you're more in the realm of epistemology than metaphysics. Atheist don't tend to realize that they are not given their metaphysic by default any more than a theist is. They often make what is called a category mistake when referring to God equating him with things like fairies or goblins.

a reply to: Annee

This is common among atheists, the assumption that words can only have a limited rigid set of meanings in intellectual settings. It rules out the possibility of expanding one's own understanding of the more spiritual or theological meanings of words.