I disagree with this assessment.
It is predicated on the assumption that a lack of personal experience equals an empirical solution in the minds of both atheists and flat earthers.
Now, I understand that OP said that this does not apply to all athiests, but I don’t believe that this applies to anyone except a very select few.
By the OPs description of the thought process, “If I haven’t seen it with my own eyes, then it empirically 100% does not exist.” would be the thought process that both atheists and flat earthers utilize for all beliefs. The claim that if you believe one, you must believe the other.
If this were true, then flat earthers and athiests would also not believe that mountains exist if they have never been to one themselves, that Japan, Amsterdam, Australia, Iceland, London, don’t exist if they have never been there, etc. Basically, if they haven’t seen it with their own eyes, not only would they not believe in it, but they would also believe that empirically, 100%, that it does not exist.
So someone who has never seen a whale with their own eyes would assert that whales absolutely do not exist as an empirical fact, if they were to subscribe to this sort of logic.
This is not how athiests or flat earthers think.
The thought process is one of requiring sufficient evidence to prove the claim.
So well there may be some validity in comparing the two groups, in the sense that each group feels that there is a claim that is being made with no evidence to support it, or that the truth is different than what people say it is, belief in one does not require belief in the other.
There are both atheists and flat earthers who have never seen the bottom of the deepest ocean with their own eyes. But I would be willing to bet that the majority of then believe it is there from the evidence available.
This proves the idea that athiests and flat earthers must both believe in both concepts is an assumption based in flawed logic.
English
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Pffft. You believe in Australia?
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I haven’t been there so I know that it is a scam and does not exist. The fact that I haven’t seen it is 100% proof it’s not real! /s
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The reason I still asserted that is because it is logically inconsistent to apply sight=belief to one thing, but not to everything
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I think that the spirit of your statement (or at least how I interpret it) is that you shouldn’t cherry pick different types of evidence for different types of situations just so you can justify the beliefs you want to. I can agree with that 100%. 1- I don’t believe that “sight = belief” is the way that anyone thinks, other than a very small minority, if at all. Zardoz’s previous comment sums that up . 2- In my opinion, many (not all) religious people do not require the same standards of proof for their beliefs that they require to believe in other things.
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[quote]The reason I still asserted that is because it is logically inconsistent to apply sight=belief to one thing, but not to everything[/quote] Your post wasn’t saying that though. It was asserting atheists say [b]sight=empirical fact[/b]. I’ve never seen atheists say that. In fact I don’t even think flat Earthers say that. Most atheists don’t even say [b]sight=belief[/b]. What the vast majority say is [b]evidence=belief[/b]. [b]Evidence=belief[/b] is a perfectly rational position to take and should be applied to everything. Including flat earth.