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Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Untangling the debate

I'm fucking tired of the confusion around all the positions in the debate, so I'm going to settle this for good. Spread this list far and wide.


1. Belief positions
Christian/Islamist/Jew/etc (I believe in a specific god and set of doctrines)
Theist (I believe in God)
Personal-relationship Christian (I believe in having a personal relationship with Jesus)
New Age beliefs
Buddhism/Paganism/Satanism
Atheism (I don't believe in God)

2. Epistemic positions
Religious comfort ("know-alls", the truth of religion is unimportant since it provides emotional support)
Believer (In general, belief is justified under X, Y, Z conditions)
Presuppositionalist (Belief is justified because only my worldview can explain X, Y, Z)
Evidentialist (Belief is justified because of the natural/Biblical evidence that points to it)
Agnostic (There is no justified position, as a matter of principle)
Skeptic (Belief is not justified unless proportional evidence is presented)
Cynic (Belief is not justified because it is an extraordinary claim)
Ignostic (The issue is not worthy of epistemic discussion because theism is not falsifiable - scientific method)
Nihilism (Rejection of all or specific claims)

3. Apologetical positions
Theistic : classical, evidential, presuppositional, reformed epistemology, post-modernist
Atheistic : positive arguments (semantic, materialist, incoherency, evidential) and negative arguments (showing how the theistic arguments are wrong and why belief is unjustified). "Strong atheism" and "weak atheism".

4. Ontological positions
"God exists." - supernaturalism, dualism
"God does not exist." - materialism, naturalism

5. Science vs religion
Separate magisteria (Wittgenstein, science and religion speak a different language)
Consilience, non-overlapping magisteria ("no contests", promoted by Gould, science and religion are about different things - science has nothing to say about morality)
Religious metaphor (science and religion speak about the same things, but religion is metaphorical)
Religious interpretation (science and religion speak about the same things, and when correctly interpreted religion is in accordance with science)
Religious superiority ("know-nothings", science and religion are enemies, and religion is the right position)
Scientific superiority (science and religion are enemies, and science is the right position)
Post-modernism and variants (neither science nor religion are valid)

6. Atheistic reactionary positions
Tolerence ("Mother Superior" attitude, opposition to anyone's beliefs, including Christians, should be actively discouraged)
Apathy
Anti-theist - at a small or large scale (Actively fighting against religion through personal evangelism or at an organizational/political/social level)
Collectivist opposition (religion must be wiped out in order to substitute a new political/pseudo-scientific/cultist belief system)

Post a Comment


3 Comments:

At 8/25/2005 2:14 PM, Blogger Aaron Kinney declaimed...

Nice list. I wonder if any presups or other theists would agree with the list format and individual listed items?

 
At 8/25/2005 4:23 PM, Blogger Brucker declaimed...

I like the list, but what context are we talking about here? A specific debate, or "the debate" in the more general sense?

 
At 8/25/2005 4:27 PM, Blogger Francois Tremblay declaimed...

The general theism/religion vs atheism/science debate.

 

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