Can anybody explain what this means?

Question

This is a direct quote from one answerer, but it's been said several times before too:

"Since you do not believe in God, you are acknowledging the existence of God and then denying it. Therefore you are not a true atheist."

Would anybody like to fill me in on just what this thought-process means? Does this mean that we must believe in absolutely everything that the mind is capable of conceiving of?

evanderzsov: Ah, so _that's_ what it means! It's all much clearer now. I'll try comparing myself to the sky of a full moon and report back to you on how it went.

Answer 1

I also asked this as a matter of fact...

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AhocEeX8Ea5IMEkLA0WPuL_sy6IX?qid=20060713144228AAQtoPw

Hilarious. I don't even know where to start to correct such thinking. It's like trying to clean up a house that hasn't been cleaned in years... do you begin by just throwing everything away? Do you move stuff from one room to another as you clean? Or do you just stare at it dumbfounded?

Impossible... bewildering idiocy. I mean, how does one do this?

I don't believe in pink polka dotted leprechauns living in my tummy... therefore, they must exist. After all, in order to deny their existence, I must first admit they exist... I don't know why I must, but I must and that's all there is to it.

Answer 2

I wish I would know more about the answer or if this is it all.

This is kind of a mind blower. I think that you are believing in God, you just do not know it yet. How about that? You do a lot of good things, and you live "Christlike" life, but you have hard time surrendering to something you cannot see with your eyes. You do not accept all the concepts of following Christ because your love for other people is so strong that if it would be your choice you would want to save all the people.But all the people do not want to be saved...so it would make just sense that there is a free will after all.

Jesus will knock on your heart's door, and that door has the handle inside...you need to open the door. I am pretty confident that Ed, God is doing everything so you could believe, everything under the umbrella of free will. So keep doing your good deeds, and in the mean time give some consideration to the point that God loves you no matter how you feel about Him, and He can take your disbelieve...He just wishes that His word would penetrate to your heart. Because if you could get it...what a testimonial you would have...He is waiting for you to become friends with Him, He is already a friend with you...

Maybe this person you quoted has hard time seeing you as an atheist. I have. You are more Christ like than many Christians. Ed, we Christians NEED Christ for our Salvation, we could not make it without His mercy.

Ooh no, spellcheck is having problems again...maybe I should use the button for keeping the subject...We Christians seem to be so good about seeing things that others are not...well, that button does not work either...nite nite...

Answer 3

Of course you don't have to believe everything that the mind can conceive, even if this believer thinks you should. I am a Christian, and I don't believe in Harvey the Rabbit, and I DO NOT acknowledge the existence of Harvey the Rabbit, and I am really, truly, yeah verily, even, a true NON-BELIEVER in Harvey the Rabbit.

Visit my question page, EdSawyer, and see the motto (under my avatar) by which I evaluate statements such as the one you quoted. (By the way, please don't take offense, whoever made that statement. One jackass statement does not a jackass make.)
_______
BAH! I just changed the text under my avatar. I think it was scaring people away. It USED to say:
Q: What do you get when a jackass gets redeemed?

A: A redeemed jackass, who will probably still be a jackass for some time to come

Answer 4

That's as stupid as a mother telling their child "There are no Monsters under your bed!" And you saying "Oh there must be Monsters, or why would she have said it!" Dumb, Dumb, Dumb.

I'm an Atheist: I don't deny God, I just know that there's no such thing.
You see some clever blokes in the middle-east thousands of years ago realised they didn't have a clue how things worked, why we were here or what our purpose was. They also realised that no one else did either so they "Made Up" a God. It was a convenient cover-all answer to all the big questions and it helped them control their growing civilisation with a Mixture of some common sense rules and the OH SO NASTY stick and carrot of the Afterlife.
So it was "Made Up" I.E. IT NEVER EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Humans are just Apes; death IS the end; the world is unfair.
Get used to it. It all just makes more sense.

Answer 5

If they would change the argument to "since you do not believe in God, you are acknowledging the possible existence of God and then denying it. Therefore, you are not a true atheist." I may possibly consider agreeing with them because it would make me a philosopher.

I hope I didn't just give them a stronger argument.

Answer 6

I think they mean that if you don't believe in god being all powerful, yada yada yada, then you are acknowledging an existence of god, but not having belief in that god's power. Where they are confused is that they don't realize that being an Atheist means you don't believe that a god exists, thus the not believing in one. If they knew what they were talking about, their weak hypothesis would be that you were Agnostic, rather than Atheist.

Answer 7

the basic rule of making sense is: when you turn everything around, it should still make sense.

So, let's try that:
Since you do believe in God, you are acknowledging the non-existence of God and then refuting it. Therefore you are a true christian.

See? this makes perfect sense.

Answer 8

In a few words, this would mean that if you can talk about it, then it exists. So, if you say God doesn't exist, you talk about God. Therefore it exists.

The fault in this is that you can talk about imaginary things, or about concepts (as detached from actual beings). I mean, you can talk a lot about Santa, or dragons, or Sherlock Holmes, because all three entities exist as fictional characters, who are made to do things in fairy tales, or novels. So, they don't exist physically, but they do exist as an idea, as a concept. And I would say that so does God.

Answer 9

I believe that unless you are of a specific religion or belief system the word,name,identifier"god"is nothing more than a generic term to identify the unknown enitity or catalyst that put into motion the events that led to our creation .when one says they do not believe in "god"they are generally discounting someone elses belief thus resulting in the endless arguements of that persons faith.And generally a no win situation untill more intelligence thru education on the believers behafl takes place.To be .......ahhh let me take another hit ,..wow where the hell did all that come from ????

Answer 10

Well, Logically then if we say :

(a) I don't believe in aliens.
(b) I don't believe in cold-fusion technology.
(c) I don't believe in my next door neighbour.

All must be true...

I agree with your logic here, you can't say "Since you don't believe in [fill in the blank] you acknowledge the existence of [fill in the blank]" without it being true for everything...

Answer 11

From a non-denominational/ non-conformist Christian perspective, I believe it means that by choosing to not believe in GOD is to believe that He exists, yet you choose not to believe in Him. Yet a true athiest believes that he does not exist. This is where the terms agnostic, athiest, and others separate. I will not contribute further into a non-confirming discussion that will lead into unresolved argument, but I hope this helps.