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Is it possible that there are things in this universe (and outside of it) that exist, yet are unknowable, or even haven't been discovered yet?

We are talking about theism and atheism. Theism means that God intervenes in the physical universe after its creation (the position that God created the universe but doesn't intervene in it is called deism). Christian, Islamic, and Judaic dogma states that this intervention has been active, ongoing, and very visible to human beings.

Atheists consider Christian dogma to be inconsistent with observable facts. A very subtle form of theism might still be possible, but absent any evidence, Occam's razor requires that we should reject it. Atheism is neutral on the question of deism (in fact, Christianity considered deism and atheism to be synonymous until a century ago).

Most people who consider themselves Christian or Muslim these days are probably "subtle theists" or deists instead. But that leaves them pretty much without any well-defined theology at all.

Citation needed. I have never heard of any experiment that a Christian would expect a useful result from.

There are tons of physical effects described in the Bible and Koran, including the creation of those scriptures themselves. So far, there is no scientific result that unequivocally shows any supernatural effects.

The only experiment you can make with God is a personal one - it will not give you publishable results.

If that's what you believe, you're not a Christian, since Christian dogma states that God can directly intervene in the physical world and has done so on many occasions.

Furthermore, even if you believe in some form of theism in which God only communicates with you, that's also a physical effect, and it is becoming accessible to experimentation and measurement.

Oy. Not this again. Look. Theism consists of dogma, rules for behavior, and often enough, a strong and well solidified political agenda, for instance, as with Islam or the Christians that are constantly attempting to fiddle with the sayings on money, messing with the pledge of allegiance, praying in congress before making laws, seeing to it the rest of us can't buy beer on Sunday, etc. They do these things because they think this is the way to "bring" their religion, and its dogma and rules, to the rest of us. Speaking generally, theism is a belief in a god or gods, and it carries, in a very official and intentional manner, a great deal of imposed behavior and canned rules with it.

Atheism:
Definition of ATHEISM
1
archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2
a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism

Please don't add more to the definition than what it is. Atheism is a religious concept. The separation of church and state does away with religious interference in secular laws. The separation of all pressure and interest groups still does not occur even in secular societies because things such as financial resources can influence political decisions.

The Soviet state was ATHEIST according to the above definition. It had an ideology which was not followed properly as the Soviet State was not even truly Communist, it resembled a fascist state. In terms of ideologies, Sweden a secular state, can also be considered to be an ideologically run state where it is considered that democracy, socialism and a myriad of feminist laws (among others) dominate government ideology.

As for voting along secular lines, most religious people are more than capable of doing that. Perhaps some people cannot grasp this but it happens and it works. People even in atheist societies would vote according to subjective opinion. For example poorer, less educated people would want more social welfare while the rich would want more tax breaks and those with children would want a larger budget for education and so on. In every society there is a difference of opinion and people are egoistical and will vote according to what is better for than and not think of the good of the state. Remember the Soviet Union was conceptualized this way - it was meant to be an utopia of altruism, people were repeatedly told that Communism was just round the corner but it never came. True Communism would mean that all form of government would be abolished and a workers'/peasants' paradise would follow with each worker donating according to his abilities and receiving according to his needs. This never worked out, partly because without incentive people will give as little as possible and take as much as they can.

Agnostic and atheist gets confused all the time. Theism is about belief. Athiests do not believe in god. Theists do. Gnostism is about knowledge. Agnostics claim to have no special knowledge one way or another. Gnostics claim they do. You can have agnostic theists - people who don't claim to know, but believe in god; agnostic atheists - people who don't know, and don't believe in a god; or gnostic theists - people who claim to know and believe in the existence of a god. I suppose you could have gnostic athiests if you had people claiming knowledge about the lack of existence of god, and did not believe in a god.

I read until this:

"Theism is a belief in magical superheroes"

and I think I had enough of bashing today.

Aren't you mixing duality and theism? Duality deals with an assumed distinction between body and mind (-> Descartes). Theism is a belief in magical superheroes. The one does not imply the other. Even if you were to convince me of dualism, that doesn't imply the existence of a god.

Anyway, there are some serious objections to dualism. If there is an immortal soul, there should be a mechanism by which it connects to your brain. How else can your soul perceive what your senses feel? So the claim you thought was so safe from science is suddenly under siege. Dualism, since it interacts with reality, should be testable.

In fact, the current data all points into the direction that the mind is what the brain does. This explains neurological disorders quite well. In fact, you can be a kind, honest, gentle person, but if I were to remove a specific, small part of your brain, you would become a lying, cheating son of a bitch. So if you have the misfortune of a hemorrhage and you become a bad person, after you die you get punished in the afterlife as well?

So yes, you can try to convince some atheists using those arguments, but it won't work on me. I ask too many questions.

Atheist, as the word would imply, is one without theism. I don't think it's been used in selective context as you have done here. (Zeus, Thor)

At any rate, yes your second statement is always unreasonable to these people. You can't seem to reach their logic centers on this topic, even given the massive contradictions they've read, let alone dichotomy between the book they hold sacred and their beliefs. Womens' Rights were not part of the old or new testament, but you'll find just as fierce opposition when pointing that out - usually in a dismissive wave such as "times change."

I find it sad that these people feel the need to sequester themselves away from the rest of the information on the web. It's doesn't take much to be just-critical enough to get by in a browser, yet their answer is a new service that blacklists most of the net with horrible ranks (or no result at all)

drinkypoo doesn't know what atheism means either. An atheist is one who doesn't think the proposition of theism is even an avenue for discussion. In the same way as the discussion about the likely languages of aliens on Betelgeuse 7.

Agnostics don't know what they believe in, but still believe that theism is something worth discussing.

What atheists WILL discuss is whether the effects of others' theism should impact upon the world they too live in as a-theists. E.g abortion laws, tax free status of churches, time given to religion on TV or in schools, etc.

As to the existence of any god? No, nothing there worth discussing.

Much like Theists, Atheists come in many types

Some don't believe in a Christian type God, but believe other things spiritual or supernatural
Some reject all the supernatural
Some definitely reject a God that interferes but might accept a creator
Some are Agnostics, they don't think there is enough proof to decide either way some believe anyway some don't
Some are Ignostics, they don't think "God" is well defined enough to even discuss if he exists

Soft/Hard/Atheism,Apatheism,Strong/Weak Agnositc, Agnostic Atheism/Agnostic Theism,Pragmatic agnosticism and many many more ..

Just like Theists they have many differing views arrived at for many different reasons, ranging from blind faith via all degrees of grey to reasoned logic alone ...

They are not mutually exclusive.

(A)gnosticism refers to what you know, and (a)theism refers what you believe in terms of gods. They are two independent dimensions. Think cartesian plane with one axis for theism and the other for gnosticism. You can be an agnostic atheist, a gnostic theist or everything in between. Gnostic atheists are hard to come by, but many gnostic theists are pretty loud about it.

Bald isn't a hair color, but it is a hair style.

Atheism is a type of religious belief just like pantheism, deism, theism, polytheism etc.

Sorry for dividing my response into 3 posts, but the ultimate point is that a/theism is orthogonal to religious membership for many religions. The opposite of atheism really should be understood to be theism, not religion, even in the context of a discussion of atheism. There are just too many non-theistic religions and religious identities to permit the conflation you defend.

religion != theism

Atheism is an absence of faith, not another type of religious belief. FULL STOP!

Since when did excessive use of capitals became an accepted substitute for facts?

Theism - belief in the existence of a god or gods
Monotheism - belief in the existence of a single god
Polytheism - belief in the existence of multiple gods
Antitheism - belief in the non-existence of gods
Atheism - the lack of belief in the existence of a god or gods (although often used as synonymous to anti-theism)

The GP is correct stating that: "Atheism" is about the belief in god(s). It is not about "faith" in the generic sense of the word.

Right, deists believe in a deity - a supreme, supernatural being, and "Theism, in the broadest sense, is the belief that at least one deity exists." and "Religion is the belief in and worship of a god or gods." So deism is theism, which is the opposite of atheism. So the question is - if deists posit that there is a deity, but they do not worship the deity, is deism still a religion? If I believe that the Greek gods actually exist - that Apollo etc. are real supernatural beings - but I choose not to worship them, am I religious? Does the belief of an individual constitute a religion? If a large group of people believe in the Greek gods, but choose not to worship any of them, does that constitute a religion? Interesting questions.

Yes, truly religion is the root of all ignorance, and -- thanks to its staunch atheism -- Soviet Russia was a scientific paradise.

Oy. Not this again. Look. Theism consists of dogma, rules for behavior, and often enough, a strong and well solidified political agenda, for instance, as with Islam or the Christians that are constantly attempting to fiddle with the sayings on money, messing with the pledge of allegiance, praying in congress before making laws, seeing to it the rest of us can't buy beer on Sunday, etc. They do these things because they think this is the way to "bring" their religion, and its dogma and rules, to the rest of us. Speaking generally, theism is a belief in a god or gods, and it carries, in a very official and intentional manner, a great deal of imposed behavior and canned rules with it.

Atheism is the lack of such a belief. It embodies no dogma; no rules; no political agenda, no morals, no ethics. Atheism contains no guides in any particular direction as to science, politics, etc. No atheist will burn a scientist because atheism presents an alternate worldview, because atheism doesn't present worldviews at all. If an atheist has a particular worldview about a scientific issue, it is a 100% guarantee that the worldview did not arise from the atheism (although it is possible that the atheism came from the worldview.)

Your line "thanks to its staunch atheism" is completely wrong and misleading. The soviets were a highly corrupt -- meaning, far from core principle -- communist society and the things they did, they did in the name of active dogma, rules and outlooks that came from communism, socialism, and so forth. Not as any kind of consequence of atheism. Think about it: "I don't believe in god, therefore you can't go to a scientific conference"??? "I don't believe in god, therefore we'll build a ground-based laser"??? I mean, really... WTF?

The thing you theists need to get through your heads is that atheism is not the opposite of theism; it does not present or espouse mirror outlooks to theism. The 'a' up front doesn't mean "the devil's minions", it means "without." It is a lack of belief in religion's core idea, the existence of a god or gods. That's all it is. There is no atheistic mirror to religion's constant, dogmatic, intentional interference with society and law. And there is not one single thing in it that tells us what we should do WRT politics or science. When you see an atheist taking action in some area, you can be sure they are basing those actions upon something other than atheism.

Atheism isn't a religion, in the same sense theism isn't a religion.

Correct.

But just as it's obviously impossible to find a theist who does not in fact have a religion, I think it's not possible to find anyone who is "only" an atheist.

Once again - correct. How do you get from that, to calling atheism a religion?

That communists aren't "only" atheists are obvious to all - except communists themselves, a rather important exception.

I'd say it's obvious to communists, also.

There were several problems with soviet-style "atheism":

1. You cannot legislate belief. You can persecute people, the way most religions have done to eachother for thousands of years, and you can get those whom you're persecuting to say that they now believe what you believe, but you can't actually make someone believe something by threatening or harming them.

2. Atheism without religion is meaningless. Every child is born an atheist, but there's a massive difference between the atheism of a newborn, and the atheism of, say, Richard Dawkins. Atheism based on ignorance is no better than religion.

Bascially, yes.

Atheism isn't a religion, in the same sense theism isn't a religion. But just as it's obviously impossible to find a theist who does not in fact have a religion, I think it's not possible to find anyone who is "only" an atheist. Atheists have stamps of their own to collect.

That communists aren't "only" atheists are obvious to all - except communists themselves, a rather important exception. Other groups of atheists are typically self-oblivious in the same manner.

Simply because widespread atheism is a pretty new phenomenon

Isn't that at minimum claiming that the default for a sentient mind is theism, and sentient animals millions of years ago were theists? That would be an interesting claim, even more so coming from an atheist ;).

Or would it be agnosticism, but that would also be interesting since it would first require a concept of God to be "agnostic" about.

FWIW that's why I said "resurgence of atheism" in an earlier post :). Of course I could be wrong, and dogs, apes, dolphins etc actually tend to be theists.

I'm not sure that you can infer that it gives evidence that any particular religion is better than atheism

I wasn't and am not saying any religion is better than atheism. Those religions which had regular human sacrifices, and other crappy ones certainly were far worse (good thing they have mostly died out :) ).

I was saying that since the placebo effect exists and is real, so it is reasonable to suggest that in theory a religion could let believers more easily take advantage of it, and if this theoretical religion did not have significant drawbacks, groups following it would be fitter than groups not having a religion at all (all else being equal). A costly but war-happy religion might still be fitter, just because it wipes out all the others - but we wouldn't want to cultivate such religions right?

FWIW, I just came back from a funeral, and sure seems like religion can help many people deal with loss and grief better, and an economist might be happy if such people can sooner return to being productive members of society. Of course I'm claiming this without any proof. It might make for an interesting study - see how well people of different belief systems recover (atheists, muslims, christians, buddhists, taoists, hindus, sikhs etc), but it might take a rather brave (or oblivious) researcher to do it...

Saying "yes, he's definitely gone forever" is normally not helpful to the bereaved.

So even if I was an atheist, I would still think that at least some religions are good to have around even if I didn't believe in them.

Atheism is not active disbelief, it is, literally, an absence of theism. More to the point, it is an absence of belief in god(s). All babies are born atheists because they haven't been introduced to the fantasy of gods until later in life.