Sweenith

Would the question be different if the person wasn't "speaking spiritually"? Just curious.

Suppose human beings all had a "conception consent sensor" (perhaps a product of future technology, or an evolutionary adaption) such that a child is conceived during intercourse only when one desires to become pregnant, and if one doesn't, then conception won't occur. Furthermore suppose that this sensor is 100% effective, and that conception doesn't occur while one is under the influence of judgement-altering substances. In that case, unwanted pregnancy would not exist, and people could have all the sexual relations they wanted without having to worry about accidental conception.

In such a world, would (and/or should) abortion still be legal?

You've got a mind. You think about things, have beliefs about this or that, experience sensations and feelings and so on, right? Well what makes you think that other people have minds too? How do you know that the person isn't a zombie or a robot without any thoughts or feelings or anything, but just acts as if they did?

If you know that other people have minds, do you think you can (or should be expected to) provide convincing evidence to someone who doesn't believe in other minds? If so, what evidence would you give?

By free will I mean this: suppose I steal some chewing gum from the drug store, and I get caught by the store owner who says "You shouldn't have done that." Now, I am free with respect to my act of stealing the gum if and only if it would have been possible for me to choose not to steal it (i.e., the preceding events and physical laws do not permit just one possible outcome).

So the question is, can an atheist rationally believe that he has free will, or must he believe that there is only one possible series of choices for him to make throughout his life? And if you think free will is a genuine possibility, on what grounds?

Atheists often say that people invented religious beliefs about an afterlife because they didn't want to face the terrible fact that they would cease to exist upon death. So, they say religions like Christianity were created as a way to escape death.

Yet, Buddhists teach that we are all stuck in a terrible cycle of death and rebirth which goes on and on until one learns to free the mind and finally cease to exist. So, Buddhism is a religion that was created as a way to escape life *after* death.

I wonder if atheists would say Buddhists also suffer from wish-fulfillment? If so, then they will need a different explanation for their belief in afterlife.

"Atheism" used to be (and still is in the field of philosophy) understood as the belief or view that "God does not exist" (call it D1) As such, atheism was a position that was either true or false, for which supporting arguments could be given.

But among most people who prefess to be atheists today, atheism is understood as a lack of belief that God exists. On this definition, atheism is not a position that is either true or false. Rather it's a property, such that a person S is an atheist IFF S does not affirm the proposition that "God exists" (call it D2).

One implication of this shift in definition is that the number of people who would be classified as an atheist is much lower given D1 than D2. This is because D2 applies not only to D1-atheists, but to every person who is not a theist as well (e.g. agnostics, practitioners of non-theistic religions, and so on). So if atheism is indeed on the rise these days, I think we would attribute that, at least in part, to the way people have come to define it.

So there's a quick way to increase the number of people who share your view: just broaden the term. Perhaps theists should consider redefining "theist," such that x is a theist IFF x does not affirm the proposition that 'God does not exist'"? That would even things back out again I think. And like atheists today, the theists would no longer need any evidence or justification for theism, since it would no longer be a belief.

This is a question about knowledge in general, not just religion & spirituality. Is there any proposition about anything whatsoever, which you know to be true, but of which you couldn't persuade someone who didn't know it to be true?

Or alternatively, "spirituality"?

A good person does what? believes what? How does he or she think about the world, and about people? What does he or she value? What does he or she see as bad, harmful? What sort of world would this person aim to bring about?

And (as always) WHY? i.e., how do you know? what make you say that, as opposed to something else?

Would you say your belief that "evolution is a fact" is based on empirical evidence? Or would it be more accurate to say that your belief is held on the basis of authority, i.e. scientific consensus? That is to say, the expert opinions of scientists who have acess to the pertinent empirical evidence, and who all regard that evidence as proof that evolution is a fact.

I'm not suggesting that it makes any significant epistemic difference either way; I just want to point out that those are two entirely different modes of belief-justification; yet they are frequently conflated.

People often speak of belief as a matter of personal choice. Can we in fact choose what we do and don't believe? (in all cases? in some cases? in no cases?). Just to clarify, by "belief" I only mean the ones that are either true or false, and are about something (e.g. the belief that the cat is on the mat, or that the earth is round). And if that is not what people mean by the term 'belief' when they say "we believe what we want to believe", what then are they saying?

If so, under what circumstances? If not, how do you know? What about religious beliefs - are they of the sort that can or cannot be justifiably held without evidential support? (and why?)