Visual Representation of Steve McRae’s Atheist Semantic Collapse:

Visual Representation of Steve McRae’s Atheist Semantic Collapse:

Some people may understand my Atheist Semantic Collapse argument better by a visual representations of argument. (See Attached)

Assume:
(subalternation) S1 -> ~S2 is “Theism := “Belief in at least one God

(subalternation) S2 -> ~S1 is “Atheism” := “Disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.” (meaning to believe God does not exist *or* lack a belief in Gods) where S2 is “believes God does not exist” and ~S1 is “does not believe God exists”.

If you take the S2 position (“believe God does not exist“), and extend it to its subalternation on the Negative Deixis so that the entire Negative Deixis is “Atheism“, and you do not hold to the S2 position, then you’re epistemically committed to ~S2 (i.e. Either you “believe God does not exist” (S2) or you “do not believe God does not exist” (~S2), as S2 and ~S2 are contradictories.

This subsumes the entire Neuter term of “does not believe God exist” (~S1) and “does not believe God does not exist.” (~S2) under the Negative Deixis which results in semantic collapse…and dishonesty subsumes “Agnostic” under “Atheism. (One could argue it also tries to sublate “agnostic” in terms like “agnostic atheist”, but that is a different argument)

The Neuter position of ~S2 & ~S1 typically being understood here as “agnostic“, representing “does not believe God not exist” and “does not believe God does not exist” position.

This is *EXACTLY* the same as if you had:

S1 = Hot
S2 = Cold
~S2 ^ ~S1 = Warm

It would be just like saying that if something is “Cold” it is also “Warm“, thereby losing fine granularity of terms and calling the “average” temperate “Cold” instead of “Warm“. This is a “semantic collapse of terms” as now “Cold” and “Warm” refer to the same thing, and the terms lose axiological value. If we allowed the same move for the Positive Deixis of “Hot” , then “Hot“, “Cold“, and “Warm” now all represent the same thing, a complete semantic collapse of terms.

Does this help explain my argument better?

 

 

Author: Steve McRae