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In no way was I trying to belittle agnosticism, atheism or theism. If you would have read one of the posts I included, you would have seen the following...

The term 'agnostic' was created by T. H. Huxley (1825-1895), who took his cue from David Hume and Immanuel Kant. Huxley says that he invented the term to describe what he thought made him unique among his fellow thinkers:

They were quite sure that they had attained a certain "gnosis" -- had more or less successfully solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble.

Sorry I left out the "probably", but since agnosticism (like theism or atheism) is just one of many beliefs, I felt the "probably" was kind of implied.

I'm still honestly confused as to what I said to piss you off or why.

You're just deliberately being a dick now, which is where pretty much every debate on /. ends up eventually, so let's just do this.

Read this and let's agree to disagree. As it turns out, we're both using somewhat skewed definitions. However, it supports my central argument that agnosticism is not an alternative between theism and atheism. By that page, I'm an agnostic atheist--I lack a belief in a god or gods because of a lack of evidence. What are you? Again atheism is NOT a belief. It's a *lack* of belief. "There is no justification for a belief in God, therefore, I do not believe in God." It doesn't pre-suppose that an atheist would never convert to theism if evidence were offered for the belief. It simply means that because there is no evidence for the belief, the atheist does not hold that belief. You are in fact an atheist if you do not actively believe in a god or gods.

-- Dave

That's one definition of agnosticism, and probably the most popular. The original, superior definition has it holding that the ultimate nature of the universe cannot be known with certainty. For instance, you could die and meet someone claiming to be the God Of All Creation, but there'd be no way for you to know whether he were telling the truth -- and what's more, there'd be no way for him to know that there wasn't something above and beyond himself.

This sense of agnosticism is opposite of what you're saying; unlike theism or atheism, this agnosticism is provably true.

Modern English usage dictates that one who is an atheist denies the existance of God. I don't care what you think the etymology of "atheism" is, today an atheist is one who believes there is no supernatural diety. In fact, it's interesting to note that "atheism" entered the English language before "theist" or "theism," so there is no real reason to expect "atheism" to conform to your views about what it SHOULD mean.

You are looking for the word "agnostic"; an agnostic makes no statement about the existance of God because whether God exists is inherently unknowable. So agnosticism is the lack of a belief about the existance of God.

The fundemental claims of an atheist or no more supportable by science than the claims of a theist.

You make a mistake here though.
There are no fundamental claims of atheism.
Theism is the statement that there is a god.
Atheism is simply the lack of that belief (prefix 'a' means without). You, yourself might mean something different when you describe yourself as such, but I don't and that isn't what the word means in and of itself.
The word really couldn't even exist if there wasn't already the other word for it to modify.

"Atheism is the most fashionable belief"

Really? Fashionable in what circles? At my workplace religion is not much spoken of, but when it is, folks generally conclude with something along the lines of "I disagree with some of the tenets of the church, but I can't understand how people can look at the world and not believe in God."

But that's my personal experience. According to statistics widely available online, a full third of the world's population is Christian, over a fifth is Islamic (add these together and already over half the world's population believes in a God). Secular/agnostic/atheist is somewhere around one sixth of the world's population. I'd say that historically, theism is unquestionably the most popular position, and even today, atheism is decidedly unfashionable.

Numbers taken from: http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.ht ml

Former fundie here, turned to, well, uh, some form of theism I guess you could say...

Anyways, life on other planets was actually advocated by everyone I had ever talked to about it in the churches I grew up in. My grandfather, a devout catholic(of the good hearted variety), was convinced we would find life throughout the universe, if not our own solar system. His reason was simple: Why would God make the entire universe and then only put life on one planet, orbiting around one sun, in one arm, of one galaxy?

I'm certain that some segments of whatever faith can be found that will try to denounce it, and I'm also certain that they will be held up as examples of what's wrong with that entire faith, and the sad, pathetic, pointless, and utterly moronic war between True Believers in science and True Believers in religion will continue.

While the intelligent find whatever synthesis of the two that is required for them to realize their own potential and happiness.

If we are the least bit honest with ourselves, we must admit that the possibility of God has not been disproven.

In fact, in many cases, it offers a much more robust solution than any offered by science alone.

Finally, you suggest that the presence of religious arguments "allows no new understanding or predictions". Do you not understand that this is precisely what evolutionary dogma has done to research on the origin of life?

because the academic mainstream has jumped to a premature conclusion about the origin of life that eliminates God from the equation.

It is only through a multi-disciplinary open-mindedness that science can remain pure and truth may be discovered. Now how often do you hear a Christian say that? ;-)

Actually my intent wasn't to discuss theism or push creationism, however someone made the claim. You mean like the fossil records going back billions of years? And I simply made the point that this is not exactly a fact and there is still much discussion to be had about how old the earth is and then the discussion went off on a tangent. So in a very indirect way it is a related topic. Sorry it offends you :)

Nature's HarmonicSIMULTANEOUS 4-Day Time Cell

Believers are ignorant of Cell Creation
and will be destroyed by their own word.

All Creation occurs between Opposites.
On Earth between opposite hemispheres,
and for humans, opposites sexes. The 2
opposite sexes equate to 2 separate Cells,
as if dice of femininity and masculinity -
equating Human Life to a Crap-Shoot
chance of exciting lifetime possibilities.

I have demonstrated absolute proof
of "Cellular Creation", through its
attributes of 4 simultaneous 24 hour
days within a single rotation of Earth.

I have $10,000.00 that I will
wager that Cellism transcends
and disproves Theism Creation.

You ignorant dumbass.

Darwin himself pushed no theology with evolution, and to the extent the theory flew in the face of widespread religous beliefs,

There is both belief and dogma in origanised religion.

that would tend to make the theory HARDER to accept, not easier. Darwin was raised Christian, moved to theism, and settled into agnosticism. Alfred Wallace, a co-discovered of natural selection was also agnostic and was quoted as saying "I cared and thought nothing about [religion]." I think the years of careful observation coupled to the twenty years Darwin spent working on his ideas prior to publication was a bit more important to the acceptance of evolution than their religous implications.

IIRC Wallace had to work hard to persuade Darwin to publish.

The implicit assumption in your point is that all scientists are athiests out to somehow disprove religion, which again, is CRAP.

Gregor Mendal was a monk, Albert Einstein was a deeply religious man. Plenty of scientists, both modern and ancient, would see no conflict between science and religion. Some might even claim that it is their faith which has inspired them to find out how things work.

In astronomy, early scientists like Copernicus and Galileo either lived in fear of the church, or were outright destroyed by it, because they pursued better explanations in the face of authority.

The persecution of Galileo looks to be more about the Vatican retaining political power than anything else. After all the cosmological models which were orthodox at the time appear to have more to do with Aristotle than anything in the Bible.

No, your two points are also CRAP. Darwin himself pushed no theology with evolution, and to the extent the theory flew in the face of widespread religous beliefs, that would tend to make the theory HARDER to accept, not easier. Darwin was raised Christian, moved to theism, and settled into agnosticism. Alfred Wallace, a co-discovered of natural selection was also agnostic and was quoted as saying "I cared and thought nothing about [religion]." I think the years of careful observation coupled to the twenty years Darwin spent working on his ideas prior to publication was a bit more important to the acceptance of evolution than their religous implications. The implicit assumption in your point is that all scientists are athiests out to somehow disprove religion, which again, is CRAP.

The second point. While there some may have believed in an infinite universe at the time, and I'm not at all sure that this opinion prevailed, it wasn't based on science. There was certainly no consensus. The sun's power source was unknown. Radioactive dating, and radioactivity itself, was unknown. More importantly, all the nonsense about probabilities and bases pairs is CRAP, since DNA was not recognized until the middle of the 20th century. Who was to say in Darwin's day what was slow or fast, or about how much time was needed? Even though geology couldn't put hard numbers on the age of the Earth, geology alone was sufficient to question a young Earth of 6000 years.

So I'm calling crap. Especially if you "can't do the math." Cite some serious sources, not creationists or their lackeys. I'm not an atheist, but I am a scientist who defends critical thinking and accuracy. I don't even know why you're bringing this up other that to perpetuate myths that hurt science and scientific literacy. The fact that evolution was accepted, and the fact it is still accepted, is that it is scientific and testable, and meets the tests.

Why don't you think evolution was accepted on its merits? Why create this myth that it was initially accepted for political and philosophical reasons, if not to discredit it?

In astronomy, early scientists like Copernicus and Galileo either lived in fear of the church, or were outright destroyed by it, because they pursued better explanations in the face of authority. Nothing sticks in science because it contradicts a religous belief, but rather because it passes experimental verification.

Why not post something thoughtful related to the Hubble Space Telescope rather than spreading misinformation about evolution???

Of course theism is the easy way out! It's always easier to believe in fairy-tales than to seek out the truth.

Since science isn't able to provide all answers to every question, I'll concede that it requires a small degree of faith (better termed confidence), but not the kind of blind faith that theism requires.

Also, atheism does NOT lead to ennui, nihilism, or anything else. That meme is pure religious propaganda.

You're missing a category here.

Don't think so, but let's see.

What if you just believe that you should not take a stance because there is insufficient evidence on both sides? Meaning, based on the available "facts", you consider it meaningless to choose a position. A "committed agnostic", you might call them, would simply be somebody that says "I looked at the evidence on both sides and decided that there wasn't enough of it to form a belief, even a slight one, either for or against".

There is no problem here. A theist is someone with a belief in a god or gods. The position you postulate represents someone who holds no such belief. That is the very definition of an atheist: Someone without a belief in a god or gods. Doesn't matter why they arrived there, the point is, they are there.

So, the question you're asking is "What is your belief concerning the existence of God(s)?" An agnostic would answer simply, "I don't have one". Yes, by your definition, that would make him an atheist, but he would believe even less than an atheist agnostic would.

An atheist "anything" holds no belief in god. Without isn't a term that admits of degree. It means you don't have any. If I am without oranges, I don't have three of them instead of a bushell, for instance. If I say I am without funds, I am telling you I am broke - I don't even have money to buy penny candy. And coming back around, if I say I am without belief (and you may assume with a very high degree of confidence that I am) I don't have any belief that there is a god or gods. Your "committed agnostic" can't have less belief than I do, because I don't have any.

What your agnostic is saying is, emphatically, they hold no belief in god. There are all manner of atheist positions, just as there are all manner of theist positions, but none of them is any more atheist or theist than the next, as far as I am concerned. They can be more or less logical, more or less accurate, more or less annoying, and more or less about a zillion other things. When I talked about atheist agnostics and theist agnostics, I was attempting to make the point that knowledge -- theory, evidence, facts -- isn't involved in the issue of theist/atheist, because we're talking about belief, not knowledge.

Belief is an utterly trivial state of mind; people believe in elves, pyramid healing, phrenology, astrology, luck charms, angels, gods, UFOs, telepathy, life on other planets, the evil eye, voodoo, crystalomancy, big bang, creationism, hollow earth, homeopathy... I could go on, it seems, forever. They enter into active states of belief with solid facts, shreds of facts, complete lack of facts, and everywhere on the continuum those points define. Belief, as far as I am concerned, is the very poster child for retarded intellectual processes. I prefer to avoid it and talk about confidence, which is something that fits the world I see a whole lot better than belief. I try very hard not to ride the belief train at all. Which, of course, makes me a dyed in the wool atheist. :)

Theism and atheism just define if you hold belief in a god or gods.

The question is, "Does the glass contain water?" Not - "How much water is in the glass?" The determination of a theist or atheist position is a conversation starter to me, not the whole shooting match.

All matters of word definitions aside, you seem to be assuming that everybody must either believe that there is a god or believe that there isn't. Which simply isn't true...

Not at all. I assume that everybody either has a belief in a god or gods, or they don't. Which is true. And which is not at all the same as "beliving there is no god", which is what you said. That is an atheist position that some people take, but it is not the atheist position that all athei

In this case, looking in the same 1913 Websters at "theism", they say:

"The belief or acknowledgement of the existence of a god, as opposed to atheism, pantheism, or polytheism." For them to say that the "opposition" is belief in something else (even if that something is a negative proposition), rather than a lack of belief, exceeds my etymological, semantic and linguistic credulity thresholds. Not only have they hashed the definition of atheism, they contradicted themselves when trying to define theism. As they have it, atheism is in the same camp with polytheism. Duh. If the twerp who wrote this had been working for me (I own a literary agency, among other things) they'd be working in the mailroom before they knew what hit them. With someone watching over their shoulder so as to make sure that mail didn't go to Nigeria instead of Niagara Falls.

Anyway... I'm not sure there is an ultimate authority for anything. It seems to me that we work with metaphor refinement at all times, trying to hew as close to reality as we can manage. We're often somewhat "off", we discover some additional info that helps us out, and then we do some adjusting of our attitudes, metaphors, what have you. That's certainly the case for science (in fact, a better layman's description of the confluence of idea, repeatability and falsification in science as "metaphor refinement" might be difficult to come up with.)

>>You accept a scientific theory because it explains observation; surely religious faith explains observations as well.>Finally, I think you will find that an atheist, at least originally, was by definition one who believes there is NO god.

How would we know that? Where was it "orginally" defined? But I can tell you that as far back as the Atheistic Greek Atomist School of Philosophy did not deny the possible existence of gods but did deny their permanence and immortality. (The HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion)

In comprehensive dictionaries I find both the weak and strong definitions of atheism. Regardless, it has been defined as the lack of theism for all intents and purposes by more comprehensive definitions and by thinkers with wider views.

Nonetheless, the assertion that atheist have just as much faith as theist is a very tired argument and demonstrates a narrow few of what an atheist is. It's a poor attempt to shift the burden of proof and to justify an irrational belief (faith).

A person who is theist agnostic would say "I believe this is so, but I don't actually know -- I lack sufficient facts and/or evidence to make a case for either existance or non-existance."

A committed theist would say "yes, I know this because (whatever ''fact'' set that floats their boat... the world is too complex to be the product of nature rather than "design", He saved my kid brother, my toast had the Virgin Mary on it, I played Black Sabbath backwards at 78 speed when I was on acid, whatever.)"

An atheist agnostic would say: "I don't believe this is so, but I don't know -- I lack sufficient facts and/or evidence to make a case for either existance or non-existance."

A comitted atheist (sometimes called a "hard or hardened atheist") would say "no, because (whatever ''fact'' set floats their boat... the world is too chaotic to be the product of "design" rather than nature, My kid brother drowned, my toast only had butter on it, I played Black Sabbath backwards at 78 speed when I was on acid, whatever.)"

Someone who is operating under the mistaken assumption that an agnostic is magically neither a theist or an athest would simply say "I don't know" in an attempt to sidestep the issue of belief -- which is precisely what "theist" refers to -- belief, not "knowledge." Typical reasons for this are that socially, a lack of belief is frowned upon by the majority, or that the question was not understood by the listener for whatever reason (usually a poor education or poor absorption of education, IMHO, but perhaps that's just my cynical take on your average/median citizen of IQ 100 or less.)

If you're truly trying to talk about knowledge -- as distinct from belief, which does not have to involve knowledge (facts) at all -- then theism and atheism aren't even on the table for discussion. Which leaves god or gods out of the discussion. In that case, the specific question you're asking here is utter nonsense based on the proposed audience if the objective is a definitive and all-inclusive set of answers.

To illustrate the absurdity of how you posed the question: If you ask, "Does god exist", a dictionary writer will respond "Yes. Under G." A dyslexic might answer, "No, I have a cat." The problem is, as always, domain; the domain of interest is that of belief, and that domain is that which the words theist and atheist exist to delineate. The question "Do you believe in a god or gods" is the question "Are you theist, or atheist?" You weren't asking about knowledge, and so the answer of the self-declared agnostic does not pertain.

:)

You havent ever looked at the dictionary... Atheist means without theism. No religious belief, it aplies to all religions. Agnostic means you dont have an opion on any belief for or against.

I do wonder what it is that makes you think that his position is a delusion, but yours is not - from a probabilistic standpoint, it's just as likely.

Even if the probability of a super-intelligent all-powerful being which created the universe is 50%, that most certainly does not mean that Christianity, just one of countless possible forms of theism, and which claims an awful lot more than just "there exists a God", is just as likely to be true.

How the fuck is this flamebait?

Well, calling other people's religious believes "fantasy" and "dangerous delusions", without giving any evidence for either statement, is rather hard to take as anything but deliberate insult.

I agree with you. It's ok to point out when someone is incorrect in almost every other situation, although in some it may be impolite.

Unfortunately, the parent poster didn't point out any incorrectness in the believes he insulted; he just insulted them.

Pointing something incorrect requires at least some proof; just saying "you're deluded" is not sufficient.

"evoultion is just a theory"

The Theory of Evolution is, as the name implies, theory.

Evolution, as in "species change over time", is a process which has been observed (the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in hospitals, for example).

"atheism is a religion too" bullshit.

It is.

• Theism means a believe in a fundamentally higher power, usually called God.

• Atheism means a believe that no fundamentally higher power (God) exists.

• Agnostism means a lack of both believe or disbelief on a higher power - basically, the person says "I don't know if there's a higher power".

Notice the word "believe". Atheists believe that there is no God. Atheisms is no different than any other religion, and as usual, it's supporters like to think themselves as rational and their religion the only logical one. However, as of yet, no one has managed to proof that atheist beliefs are correct.