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I -guarantee- I will. Nice knowing theism is true as a personally-empirical fact.

You are right that "Atheism" means "belief that there is no god" rather than being open to the possibility of there being gods. However, neither atheism, agnosticism nor the GP post are any variety of theism. Theism requires an affirmative belief in god(s).

Perhaps we can bring all the parties together with a combination of monotheism and polytheism or "moneytheism" - it ought to be popular.

Conjecture: Actually, your argument is false, in that 'rights' are not what is defined by those in power, those are laws.

Definition: Right: # Conforming with or conformable to justice, law, or morality: do the right thing and confess. (www.dictionary.com)

Statement: A right can be conforming to justice (legal or divine), law, or morality - but in the case he is using it, a right is a moral right, not a legal one. (I'm an atheist) We harbour many of the same belief in rights as religious people do, but we take it as a moral belief and not a religious one. This being said, all atheists are subject to their own moralities, most of whom define their moralities themselves. Furthermore, he is right in that all it means to be atheist is to be absent of theism (religion), a-theist.

Hypothesis: all people looking for the best interest of stable society base all rights on "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (to give the Christian wording).

Atheism is a belief about something, otherwise it wouldn't have anything at all to say about God

Atheism doesn't say anything about any gods, it's a position people who don't believe in any gods hold. Atheism literally means "without theism". If you don't believe in a deity then you are an atheist. It's not about belief, it's a statement of lack of belief.

Maybe when they start teaching people at church to blaim things on "satanists" and "militant atheists" (and often Catholics), they should teach the everything-I-hear-at-church-is-right type Christians how to actually behave at least somewhat like Jesus? Atheists don't blow up planes, burn witches, or kill people because they don't like their religion (unless they're mentally unstable, but most of those people seem to find religion). There are no evil atheists secret organizations or bands of satanists going about stealing your children and sacrificing your pets. Churches tend to be burned more often by rival religious groups than any other reason and though this isn't the only cause of course, people don't burn churches because they're like "Hmm, religious people are EVIL! I'm gonna go burn down churches to stick it to them!". Mindlessly calling people evil is something primarily stuck in the realm of theism. The reason religion has been attacked so much recently (and by attacked I mean verbally criticized, not violently like the responses by the religious sometimes are) is because so many religious people cause so much violence, and stupidity. Most "militant atheists" don't care if you wanna believe in some invisible skydude, but when you wanna make them follow this invisible skydude's laws, and especially when you ignore all the rules about love and peace and focus on the hateful ones, you can expect people to get pissed. Seperation of Church and State, you keep your religion out of our legal system and we won't have reason to criticize you.

I have to assume that your reading my post counter to my intent.

Your point would be cogent if I was attempting to prove that there is no god/deity/supreme/whatever.

I am not. I am not trying to convince anyone that god does not exist.

I am only saying that believing that god does exist is not rational. Put differently there is no rational basis for that belief.

The argument that there is no such thing as god is equally irrational.

The most accurate statement is that we have not encountered evidence to warrant belief in god.

Many people equate not believing with disbelief, but they are subtly different logical states.

Not believing is the act of assigning a value of 0 to a logical proposition of the form "p exists."

Disbelieving is the act of assigning a value of 1 to a proposition "~p exists" or "p does not exist."

However in certain circumstances the logical chain of

p xor q
q
therefore not p

is true, but this certainly not the case for the argument regarding theism. The first step there would read p xor ~p. It leads us right back to the notion of negative proof.

I am afraid that the question will remain open until evidence is accumulated supporting the existence of god. The same holds for the "supernatural", aliens and many other notions.

In other words the thesis that there exists god is not falsifiable. Which is another point in favor of the argument in the subject line: Science!=Religion.

1. The worldview that includes these axioms: God, science. [theism]
2. The worldview that includes these axioms: science. [rationalism]
3. The worldview that includes these axioms: nothing. [postmodernism]

You forgot one! Chuckle.
4. The worldview that includes these axioms: God. [fundamentalism]

Maybe it's a programmer thing, but your list of three items was painfully screaming "incomplete" at me, heh. It's a clear two bit God/no-God, science/no-science pattern. Also the theism tag doesn't seem to fit quite right. Theism would seem to encompass 1 and 4, and strikes me as a bit awkward attached to number one like that. I'm not sure how to fix it though. No good substitute tag for number 1 pops to mind.

placebo-controlled randomised trial is not a fitting research tool with which to test homeopathy."

Akk, that is pretty bad.
I do support (and you probably agree) proper scientific exploration of alternative medicine to dig various valuable nuggets from the mythology and mumbo-jumbo. But the above quote.... gahhhhhh. Bad.

"Yes, I agree that you've proved your position. But my [contradictory] position is still true for me."

I woudn't consider than a valid endpoint in most cases. It might be tolerable in something about what you personally enjoy or dislike or priorities, or maybe in how different couples choose to run their relationship or the like. However I assume you're talking about people using it on less personal matters.

constructivist education

Uh oh. Chuckle.
I read the first couple of links, and from what I saw there seemed to be some decent value and truths within there.

It's possible that the links I happened to follow didn't illustrate whatever "bad" example you were trying to show, or maybe in my brife scan I didn't fully grasp "bad" aspects, or maybe I grasped it and placed it within context of software expertise and neural nets and other ideas and maybe I saw how to apply it in a positive way in conjunction with "more traditional" education ideas.

Though I do see how some aspects of constructivist education ideas could be interpreted or applied very badly. Anythign can be applied badly, heh. I can see how it could lead to some bizzare "you've proved your position. But my [contradictory] position is still true for me" application, but my understanding and my application of what I read there would generally not lead to that sort result.

My view of constructivist education would still need to involve what I'd call "coherent functional interface compatibility". Or in english, it means that while we do each build our own internal understanding and models and interface with the world, we live in a shared world and different people's logical results still need to match up even if their internal process for getting there are completely different.

One of constructivist education's points is that we build and improve our internalities through experience. One point I think they neglected was that language is an incredibly powerful medium for incredibly condensed "experience". A teacher stating that there are 5280 feet in a mile can be nearly effective (and far faster) for builing that internality as a a student experiencing measuring out a mile with a foot-ruler.

If two people have a "you've proved your position. But my [contradictory] position is still true for me" sort of situatiuon, well then the continued learning and experience from further discussing it should generally be able to result in internal learning and modification on one or both sides until the two people reach coherence... until they can agree on the same result.

Or at least that's what I would take away from constructivist education and how *I* would apply it. :)

It was interesting reading.

evolution has in fact been used as an explicit challenge... insisting that evolution disproves religion

As I said, I've never seen it (not calling you

Why should there be an outcry?

There shouldn't be, of course. That was the irony, right? =)

Abiogenesis is quite admittedly a weakly developed and weakly supported field. That is hardly surprising considering that it attempts to address a singular microscopic event hidden in the deep depths of time, and which has left no direct trace.

Again, this is the interesting bit. It's perfectly acceptable and accurate for you to say this. But imagine if Pat Robertson (bleh) were to get on national TV and make the same statement. The flaming arrows would be flying within the hour.

When a debate turns into kneejerking, it's time to make fun of the debaters.

I wouldn't call ID "the end of science", ... On the other hand I've never even heard of radical postmodernism before, so it does not appear to be a particularly signifigant threat to anything.

The "end of science" bit was a reference to that common refrain here on Slashdot, as well as in a few other places (New Scientist editorials, for instance). I agree it is not the general position.

As for postmodernism, the reason you haven't heard of it is that humanities teachers don't go into lecture and say, "Okay class, today we're going to cover postmodernism" any more than scientists go into lecture and say, "Okay class, today we're going to cover philosophical materialism." It's just a technical label; my description was the main idea: that "rationality [is] neither as sure nor as clear as rationalists supposed, and that knowledge was inherently linked to time, place, social position and other factors from which an individual constructs their view of knowledge."

Half of what you learn in a class is the content; the other half is the teacher's assumptions (assuming you learn anything at all =). This is why a huge percentage of college students and graduates these days will say extremely illogical things like, "If you believe it's true, then it's true for you." If you've heard that, then you've heard postmodernism. In its more radical form, you get people making mind-blowing statements about science being nothing more than a tool of male oppression.

And here is where we get to the real crux of the matter. We are all talking about things that are fundamentally pre-rational. There are (simplifying greatly) three epistemologies at loggerheads here:

1. The worldview that includes these axioms: God, science. [theism]
2. The worldview that includes these axioms: science. [rationalism]
3. The worldview that includes these axioms: nothing. [postmodernism]

(To be more precise, the word "science" here should be replaced with "logic" or "reason.")

Epistemology cannot be chosen rationally because it defines what you consider to be rational; an adherent to any of the above views does so purely on faith. I view postmodernism to be a vastly greater threat to science because it rejects that you can even argue logically. I have heard highly educated people say, "Yes, I agree that you've proved your position. But my [contradictory] position is still true for me."

Witness, then, the appalling rise of alternative medicine, such as homeopathy and energy healing. Of psychic celebrities, like John Edward. Of the dominance of constructivist education in America. You may think this is just good ol' run-of-the-mill superstition, but it's not. Defenders of homeopathy are often highly educated and yet have full confidence in statements like, "It has been established beyond doubt and accepted by many researchers, that the placebo-controlled randomised trial is not a fitting research tool with which to test homeopathy." Nursing schools teach "healing touch" alongside basic

Hmmm, I'm atheist. I don't say that what I believe is anything more than that, a belief. I don't think the existence of a god makes sense, but I also don't claim that to be scientific fact. I believe there is no god, there is no doubt in my mind. Is that a religion? Yes, of course it is.

Well, your particular individual "beliefs" might play out that way, but there's no need for all of that.

The simple fact is that everybody in the entire history of the world was born an atheist.
Many people at some point choose to begin believing in a god, the vast majority of the time because their parents drum into their heads from birth that if they don't, they'll burn.

Just because you don't choose to buy into any particular brand of nonsense that somebody is pushing doesn't mean that you're being "religious" about it.

There is a whole bunch of crap people try to sell all the time which I don't see any need to believe.

That doesn't mean that I am religiously not believing in them. It just means that I think their ideas are without merit.
All religion falls squarely under that description, so I am an atheist ("A"= without "theism"=belief in god(s) ), but that is in no way, shape, or form religious in any way.
It's just simple common sense.

Of course, you believe or don't believe what you want for your own reasons and that might not apply to you.

Okay, since you're saying that there os no dogmatic way of defining reality (this is what I think you're saying), then why do we have to treat as dogma those axioms that those specific natural philosophers came up with? Why do we have to reat scientific naturalism as THE ONE AND ONLY form of science (don't take this as shouting)?

I'm not saying we should - in fact I explicitly said that if you can come up with problems with the scientific method, that they should be appropriately addressed and the method revised accordingly if need by. It's simply the best we've got right now, and has stood the test of time as the best we've had for a while.

Another nifty question I would like to get input from you on: Why do we have to tie religion to theism, and the existance of God? Is every religion theistic? Therefore my question implies: just because you're not a Christian doesn't mean you're exempt from any dogma. Therefore everybody has "crutches".

I agree, I'm not saying Christians or other monotheists are the only dogmatic people - someone who religiously follows the teachings of the Buddha or Confucius or believes in the ancient Norse or Roman pantheons is just as religious and dogmatic, and to the extent that that means they don't question things, such dogmas/religions are just as dangerous as any monotheistic religion.

However, it doesn't follow from that that EVERYBODY has crutches. Those who are open to questioning everything are not relying on crutches. However, nobody is a perfect runner, we all stop to rest at times, and sit where we are for a while or lean on something or even, when we are too exhausted or injured, let others carry us a bit... but that doesn't make us habitual crutch-users. It's not black and white, everyone can at least *try* to walk a bit, and nobody is a perfect runner, but those who use crutches all the time or just let others carry them are never going to develop the leg strength to be able to walk on their own. I'm just saying it's better to try to walk if at all possible, rather than just to use the crutches all the time.

My good freind, can you tell me how on earth you were capable of knowing that it's an elephant? Methinks it's rather quite like a walrus.

I'm not sure if it's an elephant or a walrus, or maybe both or neither; but I am sure that we're all feeling things in the same universe, and together we could give a better description than any of us alone. And if we could open our eyes and see our way around, instead of just fumbling in the dark, we still wouldn't see exactly the same thing, or see the whole universe all at once, but at least we'd know when we were both feeling different limbs of the same animal.

Sight is just a better means of exploring the universe than touch. If we had a better sense than sight, that'd be even better and I'd recommend its use. That's the analogy I'm making here: dogmatic religion is like fumbling around in the dark. You're getting some truths but they're all small and disconnected and you must fill in the gaps with your imagination, and given the differences in imagination that leads to wildly different descriptions of the same things. Natural philosophy like science is more like sight: you can take in a much broader picture far more quickly and get a lot more detail and accuracy out of it. It's still not perfect, it's not omniscience, but it seems to be the best sense that we've developed so far.

Most importantly, philosophy is about META-questioning: figuring out how to ask and answer specific questions, either physical or ethical in nature. At some point some natural philosophers (i.e. people asking questions about physics, as opposed to questions about ethics) came up with some axioms about reason and observation that provided a really efficient and reliable way of asking and answering physical questions about reality. These became the scientific method, and what was then called "natural philosophy" we now just call science.

Then this:

Religion, on the other hand, is not in contrast to science but in contrast to philosophy, because it is about dogma, authority, and NOT questioning things. Religion is about taking some set of specific things on faith, while philosophy is a personal quest for what things must be taken on faith to support everything else, e.g. the axioms underlying the scientific method.

Okay, since you're saying that there os no dogmatic way of defining reality (this is what I think you're saying), then why do we have to treat as dogma those axioms that those specific natural philosophers came up with? Why do we have to reat scientific naturalism as THE ONE AND ONLY form of science (don't take this as shouting)?

Another nifty question I would like to get input from you on: Why do we have to tie religion to theism, and the existance of God? Is every religion theistic? Therefore my question implies: just because you're not a Christian doesn't mean you're exempt from any dogma. Therefore everybody has "crutches".

Only by finding the natural ways of questioning and examining themselves, by opening their eyes and seeing the big picture, will the various blind religions of the world see the common elephant they're all striving to grasp,

My good freind, can you tell me how on earth you were capable of knowing that it's an elephant? Methinks it's rather quite like a walrus.

Science is not atheism.

Science is "here is how the world appears to work, based on our observations, and here is a method for continuing to expand our knowledge."

Atheism is "there is no god".

Science does not discuss divinity or lack thereof, only our observations of the world around us. That world may have been made by God, or not - science does not address that point, regardless of what theists might fear and fundamentalist atheists might wish.

If that's your sole concern, you're in good shape - theism and atheism are subjects of theology, which is a different field from science.

Where you run into problems, though, is when one field is inappropriately applied to the other, such as an atheist saying "humans evolved from apes, so there is no god" or a theist saying "God created man in His image, so evolution must not happen". The former is a bogus theological argument, and hence has no place (as written) in a well-run theological class. The latter is a bogus scientific argument, and hence has no place in a well-run science class.

The problem that this thread is addressing is that people are trying to use bogus arguments like the latter to push theology into science classes; preventing that from occurring is not extolling atheism, it's simply keeping theology out of science class. Extolling atheism would be putting the former argument ("evolution means no god") in a science class, which would also be pushing theology into a science class, and hence would be bad for exactly the same reason.

So, if that---"evolution means no god"---is what is being taught in your children's science classes, then you do indeed have cause to complain. If their classes are teaching "evolution is the way the world works" without discussing the theological implications of it, though, then they are correctly leaving theology for theology classes instead of science classes, and you have no grounds for complaint.

Some people complain anyway, though, which makes their intentions pretty clear---they want theology (their theology, of course) taught in science class. That's forcing their beliefs, and that's just as bad as forcing "God is dead" on your children.

Is the distinction clear?

"Sounds like Jesus if you ask me. He lived and died just like a non-omnipotent/omniscient human, right?"

Er, yeah that was Jesus. However, we're talking about the guy who created the universe. The Father, you know,
not the Son.

(It's not *my* fault you guys want to play in poly- AND mono- theism. )

It's understandable why people would prefer Jesus, he being after all the Good Cop, compared to
the Father's Bad Cop. But Jesus wasn't the one involved with Creation. When talking creation, I'm going to
go with the Jewish version, not the complicated Gentile retcon which is right up there with "Greedo shot first".
The Jews got it first-hand, but Jesus was all about the cheese makers.

This should really be modded up.

There are a lot of scientists out there who are theists, and still effective at their fields, because theism doesn't contradict any known scientific theories. You can still accept evolution, even the "primordial soup" theories of where life self-replicating life began, and have a place for God at the Very Beginning.

This is not true with Intelligent Design.

I would be hesitant, even if only for PR reasons, to lump theism (the belief that a God created the universe and guided the development thereof) with Intelligent Design, which fancies itself as an alternative to evolution.
"Theistic evolution" is a legitimate view of the origins of the world. "Intelligent Design-istic evolution" is a contradiction, assuming the normal denotation of those terms.

I think you misunderstand the seriousness of all this. The feelings are over atheism vs theism. The debate is over whether good or bad science will be taught in schools. Wishing away evidence for evolution can be practice for wishing away evidence for global warming, for illegal wars, and for social injustice. To put it perhaps too dramatically, science is the modern approach to rational behavior, and democracy relies on rational behavior to fend off tyranny.

The first one is easy to refute for the vast majority of the ID proponents; "Is the designer perfect?" If they're adherents of The God of Classical Theism, their answer has to be, "Yes."

Well, if they want a snowball's chance, they need to abandon a specific brand of creator in what they propose.

The first one is easy to refute for the vast majority of the ID proponents; "Is the designer perfect?" If they're adherents of The God of Classical Theism, their answer has to be, "Yes."

Second, in some religions life is not supposed to be perfect. In such religions, life is a test. God gives us hardship and monitors how we react. The help with the "hardship" part of the test, things are often sloppy or faulty.

Here's the refutation for that piece: Tests are intended to prove worthiness in the eyes of God, right? And only things with souls can pass that test, right? So why would He inflict the same tests on soulless beasts?

...thus didn't need to prove any belief structure which adopted the negative stance by default ... I can't help but see "atheism" as "just another belief structure" that is equally proven correct as the other "faith based" belief systems.

Frequently theists will claim that atheism is "just another belief system" or similar. It is often hard to explain to them that this is simply not the case, but I will try in simple terms.

Atheism is not "a belief that God does not exist". Atheism is the absence of "a belief that God exists". Do you understand the difference? I don't walk around on this planet convinced there is no God, I just do not posess a belief that there is one. I also do not believe that there are blue swans with yellow spots, a Santa Claus, or microscopic green men living under my bed. The lack of those beliefs could hardly be considered a "belief system".

It doesn't appear to be provably logical to believe in "atheism" anymore than some "theism"

If you run into a man in the park one day that says that there are invisible men following him, and they are going to kill him by stuffing him full of small white lab rats in 10 minutes, you would probably consider him insane or at least not particularly logical about his world view. If something that there is no compelling evidence for, or in fact no reason whatsoever to believe, is a significant part of your world view, insane is often the diagnosis. Lacking in logic is definitely the case. Why would it be different when we are talking about the belief in a devine power?

The God common in the western world today is a construct created by a small group of ignorant and superstitious nomades some 2500 years or so ago. The God they created was modeled on Gods they had heard about in Egypt and from other sources. In fact, the God they created shared a significant amount of properties with an old Egyptian God. This belief system was modified later into what we call Christianity. In Christianity the "son of God - Jesus" walked the earth for a while. The stories told about Jesus and the properties given to him were taken from older myths and legends. A lot of Jesus' properties were taken from old Greek legends to make the story easier to sell in Greece, the primary market for the Christianity sales people.

Believing in the writings of ancient, ignorant nomads and ancient greek legends for which there is no compelling evidence or even plausible curcumstantial evidence, is not particularly logical.

Atheism is "strong atheism". WTF is weak aethism, agnosticism? The very term means you believe that there are no theistic beings, which in rational terms means provably false. Your playing word games here. Skepticism isn't inherently rational, in fact, it is just as irrational as positive belief. You have no more rational basis in disbelief of something that cannot be falsified than you do in belief of something that cannot be falsified. The question is metaphysical and inherently not rational, all positions are irational. The Agnostic is the only one who doesn't take a position. Look at the words:

Theistic : belief in a positive answer to a metaphysical question.
Atheistic: belief in a negative answer to a metaphysical question. Theistic with 'a' on the front, as in opposite.
Agnostic : no belief, a state of not knowing. As in Gnostic, or posessing knowledge with an 'a' on the front, not possesing knowledge.

These are all greek words with greek roots. The meanings of them are consistent with my post and inconsistent with yours.

This is why atheists traditionally stick to logic to denounce theism, since poking holes in definitions is a lot easier than the impossible feat of disproving the existence of .

Ever read theistic philosophy? There's a lot of logic in there. Protestant, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, they all use logic to argue with one another in sectarian dispute, which is why an Atheist using logic to poke holes is no different than the way a Catholic pokes holes in Protestant thought and vice versa. It's a sectarian argument, entirely irrational. Just as a Catholic or Protestant must resort to dogmatic foundations for their logic, the atheist must do the same, the dogma that there is no theistic being.

Now denouncing a religion with science typically works, since religions make ad hoc explanations of the world, most of which turn out to be wrong, and demonstrably so. But gods are conveniently not subject to any of the standard rules of the universe, such as the tendency of things that exist to leave evidence of their existence.

It doesn't work. You can't prove or disprove metaphysical questions, that's why gods aren't subject to physics. Attempting it is a misrepresentation of science. Science is just as much an ad hoc description, it's goal is to produce an objective and consistent description of the physical world. There is no inherently rational reason for doing this, it's just useful to our other irrational goals. If I'm going to wipe out the heretics, I need ballistics. Science is a tool, it's scope does not include metaphysical questions, those that produce theories which cannot be falsified.

You really should read my post more carefully and reconsider what your saying. You've contradicted yourself a number of times and misused the meanings of several words. David Miller's "Critical Rationalism: A Restatement and Defense" contains the logical proofs that there are "No Good Reasons". That all goals are equally irrational. Thus rationality is can only be measured in how well one's actions will assist in achieving one's equally irrational goals. To attempt to prove some goal as inherently more rational is to attempt to answer a metaphysical question, which is not scientific.