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Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest - Cactus Ed Abbey

"Allah" is the Arabic word for "God" (capital G, "al-" prefix = *the*).

It's interesting how the definite article is associated with God. In English, "the" is the base of the word "theism". Any other languages?

"Actually, that's not true. The 20th century was the bloodiest in recorded history, more than 100 million were killed. Most in the name of atheism; via Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, etc." In the name of atheism? Let's take a look at the definition of atheism, shall we. atheism n 1: the doctrine or belief that there is no God [syn: godlessness] [ant: theism] 2: a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods Now, the second definition is the one I use when describing my atheism. I merely lack a belief in the existence of God or gods, now how would someone use their lack of belief to justify the slaughter of innocent human beings? I believe that these people, with possibly the exception of Hitler, did these things in the name of greed, not for atheism. It would be ridiculous to say that they killed in the name of Atheism, that'd be like saying that anyone who denies the nonexistence of unicorns, elves, or any other mythical creature should be slaughtered for their "heresy". Btw, Hitler publically stated many times his belief in the Christian God, so saying that Hitler killed in the name of Atheism seems a bit silly in light of the facts.

And by the way, in re Marty's rant about cheerleaders: maybe we will never know if there is a higher power, but it certainly IS relevant, or does he disagree with Pascal's logic in the matter?

Pascal's Wager is a bad argument for belief. There are a ton of resources out there debunking it, but my favorite is that, considering the possible consequences of belief in the wrong God, atheism may actually be a better bet than theism.

The Secular Web has an index that provides a pretty thorough analysis.

-brennan

Webster, American Heritage, and WorldNet would disagree.
Despite anyone's opinion atheism is a belief. The belief that God does not exist. Because God cannot be proven or disproven, theism and atheism are both beliefs.

"There's nothing oxymoronic about "belief in atheism". Atheism requires just as much belief as theism does."

Not that tired old piece of claptrap again. For your information, atheism is the absence of belief in deities.

If atheism is a belief, then health is a disease.

There's nothing oxymoronic about "belief in atheism". Atheism requires just as much belief as theism does. "Belief in agnosticism" is pretty close to being an oxymoron, but you could argue that "I believe that I don't know" is still non-paradoxical statement. In fact "I believe that I don't know" is probably the most skeptical position possible :)

One more nit: Technically, an oxymoron consists of just two words, so neither "science for creationism" nor "belief in atheism" are really oxymorons.

Certainly neither appears in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution


True, but there are lots of other great parts of American government that also do not. If you mean that our nation's affiliation with theism was not part of the Founders' original intent, then point taken.

James Pollock, Director of the Mint at Philadelphia, November 20, 1861 (note, closer to the Declaration of Independence than to today):


Dear Sir: No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins.
You will cause a device to be prepared without unnecessary delay with a motto expressing in the fewest and tersest words possible this national recognition.


President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954:

In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of reigious faith in America's heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource in peace and war.

That loony Eisenhower... what a crackpot. He said that in regards to adding "under God" to the Pledge.

Anyway, thanks for the history lesson. I didn't know how contemporary those devices were before, and you spurred some research, the fruits of which you see above. Thanks again.

Hmm, so here's what you trying to say:

There's actually two seperate issues, that being the state of my knowledge and the state of my beliefs. From what that link says, you can claim to be agnostic in knowledge, but not agnostic in faith, i.e.

The issue I have with that is that they REQUIRE a belief in something. They require either a belief that god exists or he doesn't not (theiest or athiest)...

I don't believe EITHER of those. I believe that I don't know, and thus I have suspended judgement, holding off my state of belief.

I quote:

"Getting an answer to the question is not so easy, because in order to do so, you must confront the declared Agnostic with the idea that they have not, as they previously assumed, deferred the question of theism or atheism indefinitely. Shortly, you will either have a theist, an atheist, or an abruptly terminated conversation and a very upset person. Think before you ask!"

And why can't I defer? It's all about symantics, and they are playing it hard core.

And what exactly qualifies as a god? The perfect chaos of quantum interactions that possibly drive our existence or an actual 'person-god' who actually intervenes in out lives? Are they both 'gods'?

You could play this semantics game into spirial of no escape.

I believe there may or may not be a god. I don't know if there is a god. I live my life the best I can. I am moral. I give more than I take. I do my best in every way to make the life of every person I interact with better. But I don't do it because of a god, i.e. my behaviour is not reward and punishment driven. But if I were ever to come before a god, I would face him(her/it) with confidence. Personally, I view death as the ulitmate answer... I hope at that moment I will know the truth.

I'm sorry this is so long, but I tried to reply in full, giving my reasons for you to examine, and without simply dismissing you. It is a subject I care about, being a person interested in greater understanding between believers and non-believers.

---From what I know, and I am not a religion expert or anything,---

This is my understanding as someone who studies religion and philosophy, is very concerned with the effects of these issues on people's lives, and as an actual atheist. But, that doesn't make me an expert, of course. :) Nothing can!

---is that someone who is an atheist does not believe that there is a god.---

Nope. This is what many theists will tell you, but it is not the way most atheists define themselves, the way most atheists have done so throughout history, or the metaphysically meaningful definition:

---atheism litterally means "without god belief" which is NOT "belief that there is no god: "a" = "without", as in "amoral", or "asymetrical" and "theism" = "god belief.

--some people have a belief that a god exists: this is called theism. Some people, however (about 15% worldwide), don't have this belief. We need some way to distinguish ourselves from the majority by what they have and we lack. But otherwise, we have NOTHING in common (no "belief"): just that we LACK something others have. Atheism is a "negative" definition: it conveys no positive characteristic, but rather simply rules out ONE possible positive characteristic

--Believing that a god does not exist is NOT distinctive only to atheists, and hence cannot be a definitional criteria for distinguishing atheists from theists. Some theists claim that some gods don't exist. Some theists (liberal theologians like Paul Tillich) even claim that their own gods don't exist. It is thus more accurate to simply say that some PEOPLE believe that a particular god doesn't exist (and we are ALWAYS only talking about particular gods), and that some happen to be atheists, and some happen to be theists. Some atheists DO believe that God doesn't exist: but this does not define all of atheism any more than the fact that some racecar drivers are blond means that racecardriving implies blond drivers.

--In discussions of the existence of something, non-belief is a far more important category than "anti-belief" This is because the burden of proof is entirely on the person claiming that something like god exists. One doesn't need to "disprove" the existence of god not to believe. The case for any claim rests on the value of the _positive_ evidence for it, and if that case is weak, then there is no reason TO believe the claim.

--this definition makes theism/atheism into a binary on the issue of belief. A theist is someone who takes the active step of believing in a god, while atheists do not take that step. This leaves no semantic ambiguity, without forcing views on people merely by semantic convention.

---Both of these definitions came from dictionary.com.---

This is an issue irritating to most atheists. Dictionaries are records of popular usage, but that means that they are primarily written by theists (especially Noah Websters, on which dictionary.com is based) who are often not afraid to put their views directly into definitions. Under "atheist" you'll also find the definition "wicked"- a definition, needless to say, that athiests have always objected to as well. You should also note that the definition for "God" in M-W implicitly assumes that God exists, while the dictionary does NOT do that for other beliefs: for things like astrology or faries, it used phrases like "proported" or "believed to be."

---Someone who is agnostic believes that there might, or might not be, they cannot be certain.---

An agnostic indeed says "I don't have knowledge of God." This can either mean that they simply don't, or, as in it's original formulation (as you note), that they think such knowledge is IMPOSSIBLE to have. Note, however, that agnosticism does not speak to the issue of belief. Belief is a different issue than knowledge, and this is a key distinction as to why atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive: they ultimately refer to different things. This means that when you tell me that you don't think you have, or even can have knowledge of god, I can _still_ say: "Yes yes, but do you BELIEVE in god, or not?" And saying that you are agnostic does not answer _that_ question (the question which theism/atheism are concerned). As I noted, many people are not certain whether or not a god exists: but choose to believe in god on faith.

---Then you are agnostic.---

The "weak" form of agnostic, yes (I don't have beliefs about the "knowability" of god, since that knowability is, to me, also unknown). But since that form is so trivial (we ALL have MANY things that we have no knowledge of), I rarely bother to include it. If I DID have knowledge of god, I wouldn't be an atheist, so the point is sort of moot. However, not all agnostics are atheists: some are theists.

---An athiest BELIEVES that there is NO god.---

Well, I don't have that belief. However, I also do not believe IN a god, as theists (even agnostic theists) do. If I tell people that I do not believe in god, they will immediately conclude that I am an atheist. In the end, you can use whatever word you want to describe me, but the fact remains that my non-belief is not itself a belief, but my lack of god-beliefs IS what distinguishes me from theists.

---If you are saying you do not have knowledge of the proof of god, you are not stating that there is not one.---

I have no idea if there is a God or not. When I was a baby, I also had no idea (that was before I could even HAVE coherent ideas that I can remember). This hasn't changed. I also didn't believe in god then (since I wasn't able to believe in ANYTHING) and I still don't believe.

---You are stating that you are unsure. That is being agnostic.---

Yes, but because I am unsure, I have not/cannot take the step of believing in god. Therefore, I am _also_ an atheist.

---If i was an atheist, I would believe that there is no god completely. There would not be a shred in my mind that there is a god.---

If that is what "atheist" means... but that is not what the majority of athiests define themselves as. Surely we have a right to define ourselves, rather than being defined by the slander of others! I should now explain what this slander is, why I call it slander, and why it is so popular for theists to use that definition:

Consider again: if I tell someone that I don't believe, they'll happily label me an atheist. But then they'll also, quite wrongly, claim that I "believe there is no god, without a shred of doubt that there is no God." They will then claim that I am arrogant, think I know everything, have faith, hate god for the bad things he did to me, etc.
But all of this will be untrue. And when I say it's not true, they laugh and say "so really, you're not an atheist: you DO believe in god!"

This is the main reason theists try to define "atheism" as "the unreasonable and unprovable belief that no god exists." It serves to make their position look like a natural default. It's a great rhetorical tactic. And best of all: it totally draws attention away from the fact that THEY are the ones making the claim, and THEY have the burden of proof. Instead of having to prove their claims, all they have to do is refute the ridiculous straw man position of the belief in the non-existence of gods, and then they can declare that they've proven the existence of god. To many theists, the world looks like this: either you believe in (their) god, or you knowingly and arrogantly reject the existence of (their) god. Since they can easily label the second position as "arrogant" (even though it is no more arrogant than their position), this leads easily into evangelical arguements for belief. They would prefer that simple non-belief simply not exist: it's too threatening to even acknowledge.

But this is all unfair, and untrue. Some theist theologians have spoken out against this dishonesty, however, not only out of respect for atheists, but also be it puts the beliefs of theists in a clearly, more honorable light.

There are two reasons for this. First: I didn't repeat any lies. I quoted the man. Secondly, with respect to the "misquote" issue: I said that of course the man is not surrendering any turf, and that of course the man has what he thinks is a good explanation as to why there aren't more "transitional" fossils. I then went on (twice, IIRC) to demonstrate that even if he thinks he *does* have "transitional" fossils, he still hasn't actually proven it -- and thus all he has are inferences, which is exactly what he said in the quotation that I cited.

The long and short of it is that I don't think I've abused the man at all, inasmuch as a) I quoted him correctly, and b) I have interacted with what he says he was arguing in the context.

BTW, as far as I'm concerned Gould has no place for whining anyway, when people accept his admissions of fact but reject his mass of inferences offered to rationalize the facts.

Crying out that you need absolute proof is a quick way to demonstrate that you want to shut off your brain and eyes.

(Aside: yet this is always what evolutionists demand of theists. Physician, heal thyself)

I did not ask for "absolute proof". I asked for an actual demonstration of biological descent. That is hardly the same as "absolute proof", in the absurdist way that you are using the phrase. Gould wants us to believe that critter X is biologically descended from critter Y in the fossil record, and yet he cannot prove it. To be quite honest, I don't think it would be possible to prove it: no contemporaneous observers. But he wants us to believe it anyway, and to believe it with a certitude that brooks no dissent. I don't grant that on the basis of inferences that are as groundless as his are.

And babbling about his alleged admissions about "provisional knowledge" is silly. He is a naturalist. He has not "provisionally" rejected theism; he has rejected it out of hand and refuses to even provisionally consider it.

So you have a Book which contradicts itself.

Incorrect. The Bible does not contradict itself, and it certainly doesn't do so with respect to the field of blood - nor how it got its name, nor how Judas died. In the first place, it is a common thing in the Bible for a thing to have multiple names (e.g., Jacob == Israel), and for them to be given even the same name multiple times: see, for instance, how many times "Havoth Jair" gets the exact same name. So different people call a thing the same name for different reasons in the Bible? That's hardly novel! And it certainly isn't contradictory. In the second - with respect to the purchase of the field: the chief priests bought the field in Judas's name - since it was his money, which they declined to receive back from him. So it is not contradictory for Acts to say that Judas bought it, when it was purchased with his money.

Lastly, with respect to how Judas died: again, no contradiction. Acts does not say "Judas did not hang himself." It doesn't even say that "Judas died by xxx" (where 'xxx' != 'hanging himself'). It says that he 'fell' and that his guts spilled out. Falling does not preclude prior hanging, and one may certainly fall upon being cut down from the rope used to hang him.

Conclusion: no contradictions.

And based on that you say that scientists should disregard the evidence of their eyes that they just dug through 20 times more history than you think exists?

No. I am saying that they need to reinterpret the evidence, because their interpretation of the evidence is incorrect, and they would admit this if they were not adamantly in rebellion against God. Evidence is interpreted -- always.

Evolution has been checked over and over again.

Evolution has been checked over and over again by people who are utterly committed to the denial of God's existence. They are committed to any and every conceivable "explanation" they can fabricate that will do away with the possibility of his existence, because they do not like the obvious conclusion that if God created them, then they owe him something (namely, love and obedience). To tell me that evolution has been "checked" by such obviously dishonest people doesn't really do much to sway my opinion.

One of the biggest lies that has been perpetrated by scientists is that scientists are "disinterested observers". That, friend, is B as in "B", S as in "S". Everybody's interested in something, and most scientists are in the vanguard of the anti-theism brigade.

---You are an athiest... Therefore you belive that there is no God.---

This is a common mistake, and would be forgivable if I didn't think that most theists that know it's a mistake, but continue to use it anyway so as to make their position look more sensible.

"atheism" (a = without theism = god belief) only implies lack of belief in a god. This is NOT the same thing a "believing that there is no god." Non-belief is not a claim that requires a burden of proof. It simply says: "I don't have a belief in that claim."
For instance, I am an atheist. I see no reason TO believe THAT there is a god. Therefore, being an honest person, I cannot honestly claim to believe that the claims about your god are true.

Now, some PEOPLE (not only atheists) claim that certain gods do not exist. These ARE claims that DO require a burden of proof. However, not all atheists make such claims, and some theists DO make such claims (both about the gods of others, and even, in the case of Paul Tillich, their own gods).

So it is very misleading to, when hearing someone doesn't believe in your claims (in this case, is an atheist to your theist claims), to accuse them of having to prove an inferential negative, or be omniscient.

For a description of how theism and atheism are the same thing, read my book, God's Debris.

Your point is good. The point in the book is a little better.

Scott Adams

---I feel it would be a good time for atheists to join together in a movement implicitly to destroy theism. The control over the minds of billions that the dogma of religion gives a minority is dangerous and needs to be stopped.---

I think this would be bad, if not highly unethical. It's not my bussiness to tell people what they should or should not believe: everyone is best equipped to do that for themselves. Where I think atheists could do some good would be if they could voice calls for tolerance and respect more generally, and oppose the enroachment of religious ideology into the bussiness of public institutions.
Most theists are content to believe their beliefs happily without forcing them on me, and I am content to let them. Only a small but vocal minority causes the real trouble. Plus, plenty of theisms aren't even empirically questionable, like non-willful pantheisms.
.....
To not do that would be bad. Ok I posted before about divine morality but its point was lost on you or you did not read it.
The major religions claim that there is such a thing as divine morality. A morality that exists independent of the material world. We humans are dereft of morality and are not capable of determining right and wrong ourselves is what they contend. Religious authority who were seen as closer to God and hence more than an average man used to set up early theocratic regimes.
To derive morality from religious or political dogma is dangerous. Religion is very popular. Lots of people hold the ten commandments and other religious doctrines as their morality systems. In time if enough people believe in this morality system it will become social truths that most of society hold as true. These truths will eventually be forced upon us all in the form of laws.
I do not contend that precepts such as "Thou shall not kill are wrong." What I am saying is to think killing is wrong because the Bible or Koran says so is dangerous. It is authoritarian and can only led to "Governments for the people, but never by the people." Religious and political authority can use the fact that many people believe that the average human, believes we should not choose our morality, because they believe we have no morality. Politicial and religious have througout the ages and up the present used this to force their morality on us.
>>and oppose the enroachment of religious ideology into the bussiness of public institutions
Too late the precepts of many religions because they are so widely held they have become social truths.
>>It's not my bussiness to tell people what they should or should not believe: everyone is best equipped to do that for themselves.
This is a popular argument that came out of the Post Modernist movement. I just explained how religious belief permeates itself into social truths and then into law. You will most likely not accept my radical anarchistic views on religion. Religion is not about freedom it is about limiting it.
Atila Ataturk wanted "pure Turks" to live in Anatolia. He killed many non Turks to achieve this goal. Hitler wanted much the same thing but he wanted "pure Germans." Should the Kurds who once had an alliance with Ataturk stand by while the Turkish government labels them "mountain Turks" because the Turks are entitled to their own belief? Should the Kurds watch silently while Turkish historians and linguists claim that Kurdish is part of the Turkic lanuage family, when it is not? Should they stand down and allow them to let Kurds forget they are Kurds and instead think they are Turks.
Certain authoritian beliefs should be fought. I am not saying atheists should force religious people to be atheists. We should explain to them that religious truth and scientific truth can not exist together. We can not have the tried and tested scientific axioms and illogical religious claims that contradict scientific truth. We should fight religion with words. Religion is not about allowing people to believe what they want, it is about telling them what to believe.

The definition I use is from the meaning of the parts of the word. "a" means "without". So atheism means "without theism". A theist is someone who has belief in a god, therefore an atheist is someone without a belief in a god. It doesn't get any simpler than that.

---I feel it would be a good time for atheists to join together in a movement implicitly to destroy theism. The control over the minds of billions that the dogma of religion gives a minority is dangerous and needs to be stopped.---

I think this would be bad, if not highly unethical. It's not my bussiness to tell people what they should or should not believe: everyone is best equipped to do that for themselves. Where I think atheists could do some good would be if they could voice calls for tolerance and respect more generally, and oppose the enroachment of religious ideology into the bussiness of public institutions.
Most theists are content to believe their beliefs happily without forcing them on me, and I am content to let them. Only a small but vocal minority causes the real trouble. Plus, plenty of theisms aren't even empirically questionable, like non-willful pantheisms.

No, it simply requires some deduction. No evidence exists for the existence of god. No need is demonstrated in any explanation of the universe's workings for the hand of such a being, and finally, the reason people postulate God in the first place is because they invented him in fiction in order to explain that which they originally did not understand. No proof, no need, and no reason. God is an illogical quantity, entirely aside from whether or not I've ever seen any proof. I don't need it, and I don't ask for it, because most of the activities God is alleged to engage in have been explained already by rational and repeatable means. The quite valid assumption is made that eventually we will have explained everything in the "space" that God used to occupy, and there will no longer be even the basic uncertainty to drive theism. This is why, in my opinion, fundamentalists rail so endlessly at evolution, because desribes in concrete terms how life arose on this planet, and is entirely independent of the hand of a fictional God.

The same is true for the afterlife. What is it that makes people imagine their consciousness could survive the death of their body? There's no evidence that your consciousness is anything other than the chemical activity of your brain's neurons, so when the brain stops functioning how can you imagine that this activity will continue? Even if it did, for what possible reason would that be so? You will not have eyes, so you will not be able to see. You will not have ears, so you will not be able to hear. You will not have hands or feet, so you won't be able to move around. Supernatural experiences were first described by people who didn't know how the body worked, so they just assumed that being a "ghost" meant you had ghostly eyes and ghostly ears and ghostly hands and ghostly feet, but the simple fact is we know those things are very fragile mechanisms and we know exactly how they work. What sense does it make to imagine they continue to work, somehow, after the physical components that make them function are destroyed?

Again the entire postulate that there is such a thing lacks evidence, and logical consistency. I certainly don't have to make a leap of faith to understand that when I die, I will lie in a coffin and rot. It's what I've observed. For the same reason I postulate that there is no God in charge of the Universe, or its creation, because there is no need for such a being.

Here's a handy conversion chart:

• Theism: Yes
• Atheism: No
• Agnostisicm: I don't know
• None: I don't care

Folks, theism -- meaning belief in a single all-powerful being that is separate from the earth, yada yada -- is a cultural peculiarity of the Semitic peoples of the Levant, whose rise was documented in the books we call the "Old Testament" or Torah, and which happens to have been exported to some other cultures (like ours). Most religions are not theistic!

Ask a Buddhist if he believes in God. Likely the answer will be something like "what on earth are you talking about?" Hindus and many others are polytheistic, which has a whole different set of philosophical interpretations which are not even conceived of in peoples "does God really exist" navel-gazing QED-spouting pontificating. Indigenous religions tend to be animist or pantheist.

There are many many different ways of conceptualizing the spiritual aspect of the world other than theism. RELIGION DOES NOT EQUAL BELIEF IN GOD.

---so yes there is a difference between none and atheist.---

Only if you have a rather strange definition of "atheist." Being an atheist says NOTHING about what other belief systems one might have (utilitarian, capitalist, whatever). The ONLY characteristic that atheist rules out is theism.