There is a small nuance between ‘a belief’ and ‘I believe’. There’s also a misunderstanding around the logical entailments of beliefs. In this short piece, I hope to explain the difference. Basic definitions of Belief A belief is: But “a belief” isn’t just that. It should be considered more in the noun sense. A belief…
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Set theory is one of the foundational concepts in modern mathematics, or more specifically mathematical logic. This branch of mathematics deals with the study of sets, which are well-determined collections of objects that are completely characterized by their elements. In other words, two sets are equal if and only if they have the same elements….
Logic is a lot harder than people give it credit for, and logical fallacies are no different. Both are frequently misunderstood and misused on the internet, and it can often be us atheists/sceptics and other folks that claim to be logical that make the mistakes. Sometimes there is the idea that because we know the…
When I think about language and linguistics, I often do it through the lens of logic and so I sometimes apply these terms to language. This might not be the ‘normal’ way we use the terminology, but I find it a useful way to discuss the language being used. Language is the way we try…
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“You can’t prove a negative” is such a common phrase among atheists these days and it’s ridiculous!
Do You really think you can’t prove a negative or non-existence?
Well, you’re mistaken – check out this post to find out how!
Atheism is a word that has quite a rich history going all the way back to ancient Greece and the definition of atheism has changed quite a lot throughout the years. There’s also quite a contentious view pushed by some people who identify as atheists that there is only one definition of atheism. This is…
I’m an atheist, I believe gods do not exist, though atheism is polysemous so not all atheists use it that way and I want to address a term some atheists use known as agnostic atheism. This article is the written form of the video, so, if you prefer to watch, please check the below: Agnostic…
This is the audio version of the recent YouTube Video An Article version can also be found at: Discussions and The Burden of Proof DavidianI’m Joe. I write under the name Davidian, not only because it is a Machine Head song I enjoy but because it was a game character I used to role-play that…
Read More “Discussions and The Burden of Proof – Podcast Version” »
Introduction You are presented with a jar full of gumballs. There are no broken gumballs inside the jar, they are all whole gumballs. Most sceptics and atheists will have heard the Gumball Analogy already. It’s a pretty common analogy used by sceptics and atheists who have discussions on places like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Fans…
The null hypothesis is used in science, and we atheists tend to have a lot of respect for science, the scientific method, scientific and empirical evidence. We think of ourselves as logical and rational people. We feel we know a lot about the topics we discuss, especially when it comes to science. In conversations with…
Read More “Misunderstanding The Null Hypothesis and Knowledge.” »
Something that comes up quite often in conversations is people saying things are logically impossible. This, at times, is used correctly however, there is often a misunderstanding over what is meant by logical and what it means by possible. Possibility When speaking of possibility we are talking about the likelihood something can happen. This is…
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As a site that proclaims to have ‘Answers in Reason’ we have very few articles about what this actually means. When we speak of reason, we are speaking of the cognitive process of; actively thinking through a topic and coming to conclusions based on all available/known arguments and data. To summarise Plato, reason is the…
The repetitious nature of folks trying to prescribe a singular definition of atheism, and claiming that other definitions are, “talking about something else” or are “wrong”, seems to never die. What’s worse, these folks who take you saying that there are actually multiple uses of atheism claim that YOU are the one being prescriptive and…
As an atheist, even one that doesn’t feel that in tune with many other atheists, I still want atheists to come from a position of strength. I want us to have good arguments, sound reasoning and solid logic. This is a big part of why I have the Bad atheist arguments series and the SciPhi…
Read More “The Problem With ‘Atheism is the Default Position’ Arguments” »
Are we Really Born Atheists? We atheists have a number of things in our toolbelts, and one of those is memes. Many of these memes are oversimplifications or just flat out wrong, so I thought I would create a series to address some of our worst memes and explain why they are so bad. Something that…
Read More ““We Are All Born Atheist!” – SciPhi Shortz: BAM!” »
What does it mean to be rational? It is common to hear that all beliefs are irrational, but is that really the case? In this SciPhi Short we will be briefly examining rationality and how it relates to belief. We will be covering: – What is a Belief – What is Rationality – States of…
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