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I guess my point is, how can you disbelieve it, any more than you can believe it, if it is theoretically possible? It seems to be a much more rational position to say that you just don't know, one way or another.

I don't think you understand. Agnosticism is not a third choice between theism and atheism. Agnosticism deals with knowledge: whether or not the existence and/or nature of a god can be known. Theism / atheism deals with belief. If you possess a belief in the existence of one or more gods you are a theist; otherwise you're an atheist. Most agnostics are atheists as they don't see any reason to believe in something whose nature or existence can never be known but it is not unheard of for a person to believe that there must be SOMETHING that created the universe even if we can never understand it.

Most people who claim to be "an agnostic, not an atheist" are actually atheists (because they don't believe in any gods) but don't like the term or think that it refers exclusively to the positive belief that there is no god. This is different from simply not believing in any god, just as believing that there is no life on other planets is different from not believing in any specific life on another planet (UFO stories and the like).

Creationism is banned from being taught in public schools.

C'mon, work with me here, we are talking about the public system aren't we?

..."not endorsing atheism" as "endorsing theism"

"theism" is not a religion. However you are right, science' true position about God is much the same as its position about any theory; we don't know, but we want to find out. Science is a search for truth as much as religion is, the methodologies differ through.

Should aliens having created us be presented as an equally probable source of intelligent design?

SETI seems to think so, not that they created us per se, but that there may be intelligent extra-terrestrial life is a large part of the basis for their search, so it has to sit on the probability curve somewhere. What we are talking about here is theory, not fact and definitely not truth. If a theory is not sufficiently researched, to the point of breaking the theory, then it is still possible that the truth lies along that path; so the scientific community really can't afford to overlook any viable theory, just because there is a "better model" out there. Occam's razor is great for philosophy, but really sucks as discovering the truth and navigating mazes (why go left when there is a viable path directly in front heading more closely in the direction of the exit).

String theory is interesting, but its predictive value is somewhat questionable.

This is an example of what I am talking about. Quantum theory is like Copernicus' theory on the movement of planets; it is a good predictive model but has flaws, so it obviously isn't true. So we can either keep adding "epi-cycles" to a theory, or innovate and look for another explanation. String theory may turn out to be true, then again it may be just one more step towards the real truth. One thing is sure, until we hit the truth we aren't going to get a perfectly working model.

Genetic engineering is a product of our research on how species evolve.

It's a pretty big stretch to say that evolution was responsible for genetic engineering.

If a student hears the scientific view at school and the theological view at church, how are they deprived of a choice through reasoning?

Now we are back to the start; what people may or may not do out of school is not an excuse for what is or is not in the curriculum.

e.g. Perhaps we should teach nothing in school at all because there are study groups that people can attend in their own time which discuss any subject which is taugt in schools, there are private schools and there are tutors. Since we have it all covered, there's really no need for public schools.

Now obviously that is a bit extreme, but I am sure you get my point. There are some who will "go the extra mile" ;) but public schools should not be geared just for them. There is a study on the loss of creativity from western culture and a lot of it points to school and teaching methodology which encourage, even demand conformity. I am not an anarchist, but I do believe we need to teach creativity in every discipline at school, not just in the arts.

Correct me if I am wrong, but in the "Land of the Free" Creationism is banned from being taught in schools.

You are wrong. Creationism is banned from being taught in public schools.

In this case (and a number of others) I have to agree that the religion of Atheism has been endorsed above all others.

For that to be true you would have to define "not endorsing atheism" as "endorsing theism". It is possible to not endorse either one. Science is not atheist, it's agnostic.

It does not violate church and state since it is not a tenet of a single religion or even just of christianity as a whole.

It is ridiculous to believe that any belief that is held by a plurality of religions does not violate the establishment clause. The Raelians are certainly the most popular religion to believe our origin is aliens creating us, but not the only one. Should aliens having created us be presented as an equally probable source of intelligent design?

I also believe that the theory of gravity, quantum theory and string theory should also be taught in schools despite their conflicting ideas.

Gravity and Quantum Theory have predictive value. Their conflict is truly a puzzle, but within the realm they are used they are very useful.

String theory is interesting, but its predictive value is somewhat questionable. It's on the fringe. It may yet prove to be useful but for right now, it should stay as a studied curiousity outside of primary science curricula.

Evolution also has predictive value. Genetic engineering is a product of our research on how species evolve.

I agree with the other stickers mentioned - when other theories are available, teaching one is depriving our students of the ability to make a choice through reasoning.

Your lack of respect for people is truly dismaying. If a student hears the scientific view at school and the theological view at church, how are they deprived of a choice through reasoning?

I also vote against that 'dept' headline.

It really isn't the church versus science, here. It's one valid paradigm, atheism, that obviously and unfairly has legal-political backing, versus another valid paradigm, theism, that is being championed at this time by the church. Neither is a matter of science, rather personal experience, faith and philosophy.

Those who believe in God should not be called unscientific, as your headline did, because they interpret the universe that way. Those believe in 'no God' should not be called scientific because they have chosen that paradigm. 'All we are saying is...' students, especially children, should not have their paradigm predetermined for them by school textbooks. The theory of evolution as taught in schools proceeds from and leads back to an atheistic paradigm. (Loud cries of protest! Yes I hear you, and disagree.) This is why there is a necessity to emphasise that it is merely an option. If a creationist theory was taught it would need the same disclaimer. Origins science has huge implications for your worldview. It's too important an issue to let one paradigm override another mistakenly using the word 'science' as a club.

The question, then, is is this truly belief, or merely self-delusion?

"If you reply 'I don't know, and we can never tell' to everything, you won't get anywhere.

Think of it like this: say I have a function on the plane, and I give you 10 random sample points with x values in the interval [0,1]. Now you might interpolate a polynomial through those points, and say you have found my function. But have you? Well, maybe, but there are a lot of other possible functions that also go through those points! In particular, even if I gave you all the values with x in the interval [0,1] and said my function was continuous, you still wouldn't have any idea what's going on outside of [-epsilon,1+epsilon] or so. This is what I think of when I see people trying to model a God based on their experiences. Thus, even if you do choose a particular model, you're going to "get there" with probability zero. So why not just acknowledge this instead of spinning your wheels and getting nowhere?

"Atheists say 'There is no god.' and based on that assumption have made great advances in science."

In science, we restrict our model to the observable world. Science does not require atheism.

"Theists say 'There is a God.' and have made great advances in philosophy."

I'm not familiar with the work to which you refer. The greatest advances I have seen in philosophy have been by agnostic logicians.

"Agnostics say 'Maybe there is nothing, maybe I'm still asleep... mmm sleep I'm going to go sleep.' I doubt there are more than a handful of true Strong Agnostics, and there are far far too many weak agnostics 'Who cares I want a burger.'

Heh, well, I do sleep a lot, and I don't eat burgers, but I think you're mischaracterizing agnosticism. Being an agnostic is really just about not extending your claims beyond what you can fairly and truthfully defend.

Naw, you're just a moron.

The problem here is that atheists are being dogmatic themselves, which is really fscking stupid. Nobody died to justify our(atheistic) beliefs, nobody has to steadfastly accept only our conclusions, and nobody is judged post mortem for being correct about the nature of the universe.

In this case, the religion is irrelevant next to the dogma. There are atheists and theists alike who curse science(some atheists consider most science unnatural!), and rather than let theism become the dividing factor, why not instead try to focus on the real issue here, that dogma is trying to reach it's way into the classroom where science, whether a description of an atheist universe or a description of a world created by God, should be?

I think that evolution school K12 textbook controversies suffer from being a proxy for theism versus atheism debates. That is the real reason they become so heated--the actual facts are twisted by both sides of THAT debate. For example:

atheist: we see bacteria evolve to become resistant to antibiotics. Therefore natural selection explains everything, and there is no God. (Biased argument: I don't think God exists, and I select facts to support my view.)

theist: we cannot explain how the improbable complexities of life came to be. Therefore God exists. (Biased argument: I believe in a God and select facts to support my view.)

The fact is that many Christians believe in physical but not spiritual evolution: see
http://www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri/Q-and-A_OL D/Evo lution-and-Orthodoxy.html

and some atheistic philosophers have argued that we may live in a computer simulation, which is a creation that does not require a God of ordinary religion: see
http://www.simulation-argument.com

So we can have theism with or without evolultion and creationism with or without theism.

The problem is that, on the street in the US, many people think that belief in God and belief in evolution are incompatible. They are not.

If you reply "I don't know, and we can never tell" to everything, you won't get anywhere. Atheists say "There is no god." and based on that assumption have made great advances in science. Theists say "There is a God." and have made great advances in philosophy. Agnostics say "Maybe there is nothing, maybe I'm still asleep... mmm sleep I'm going to go sleep." I doubt there are more than a handful of true Strong Agnostics, and there are far far too many weak agnostics "Who cares I want a burger."

I choose theism because if you run the equation, I like the answer. I'm a believer because I want to be.

But love is not a valid theory, and has no place in the public schools :).

Seriously though, if you read the wording, the court decision was based on a legal notion of political fairness, not on scientific facts. That is to say, the sticker was felt to _demean_ those who do not choose to believe in any conscious creative principle behind human origins.

I think that evolution school K12 textbook controversies suffer from being a proxy for theism versus atheism debates. That is the real reason they become so heated--the actual facts are twisted by both sides of THAT debate. For example:

atheist: we see bacteria evolve to become resistant to antibiotics. Therefore natural selection explains everything, and there is no God. (I don't think God exists, and I select facts to support my view.)

theist: we cannot explain how the improbable complexities of life came to be. Therefore God exists. (I believe in a God and select facts to support my view.)

It would seem reading through the above debates here that neither side is willing to retreat from their own absurdity, preferring to just point out the problems of the other. Both emperors have no clothes. :)

Perhaps "materialist" would have been a better word than "atheist".

As someone which you accuse of being unfamiliar with religion, it is my great joy to teach you simple words like "agnostic," "skeptic," "praxist," "platonicist," "idealist" and "realist." A materialist is someone fascinated with ownership and wealth. Get a dictionary.

I'm familiar with western non-theistic ethical systems having surveyed a number of them back in school.

And yet you don't know what a skeptic is?

We covered all the major philosophers from Plato to Sartre and Wittgenstein.

Somehow I doubt that: both Sartre and Wittgenstein put quite a bit of effort into seperating atheism, agnosticism, theism, seminarianism, realism and materialism. Anyone which actually read either of those two authors wouldn't have made the egregious error above. (Besides, Wittgenstein is hardly one of the major philosophers of his day.)

There was little agreement among them as to even what "the good" is

Sartre was famous for stating that there was no such thing as "the good," something with which Wittgenstein agreed. Plato believed that Good was an ideal created by belief systems and relegated to the plane of ideals. None of those three authors you claim to have read support this statement in any way.

The professor had an interesting method: she would get a sense for the consensus opinion of the class and then argue against it

That's called the Socratian method. If you're as familiar with philosophers as you claim to be, you'll recognize that this is the principle on which Plato formalized The Academy, having learned the Socratian method from Aristotle. Read some Empedoxles, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Eumenides or Leucippus for fundamental clue. Democritus was famous for disagreeing so strongly with this method that while developing Leucippian Atomism he went to the kings of each Mycenae and Macedon attempting to prevent the spread of the method, suggesting that it was a mechanism of aesthesis rather than noesis, and that conceptual ideals (which he later crystallized into idols) were the more appropriate way to forward concepts.

This is moot in any event. No materialist I've ever spoken with has ever referred to any of these systems.

That's because materialists are investment bankers. Still, given that you probably meant agnostics, let's point out that yes, agnostics rarely hinge their beliefs on Buddhism, or in fact any other faith; since you claim to have studied Sartre, you will realize how damning this tautology is.

Of course, being a bastard, I'm more inclined to suppose that this is another instance of the Spotlight Fallacy, in which reasonable people refuse to talk to zealots like you.

So theism is the belief, not the god or gods. I definit[e]ly lack such a belief, but I don't see how the lack of belief makes it a religion.

1. Some form of supernatural personality does exist, however vague. You are a Theist.
2. Some form of supernatural personality may exist. You are an Agnostic. Well, strictly an Agnostic's position is that it is impossible to be sure whether a diety exists or not, but that's not common useage.
3. Some form of supernatural personality cannot exist. You are an Atheist.

You need to do a bit more research before putting up straw-men. If objections seem too easy to knock down, perhaps it's because they're not real targets, did you think of that?

Do you have kids? If so, has there ever been a time when they simply Will Not Be Told? When you have to go ahead and let them hurt themselves in some degree, in order to prevent them from totalling themselves and/or hurting others? What you're looking at here is in part a scenario like that.

Have you ever run across a military situation in which a few troops had to go through absolute hell in order to spare many troops and/or civilians a bad experience? You're also looking at a situation like that.

If God had created a set of automata, completely incapable of doing anything wrong, we would not have these problems, or anything like them. We would also be essentially unaware of ourselves in any way that mattered. Why does God need self-aware creatures? I haven't been told. Certainly not to - you should pardon the phrase - lord it over them. But stop and imagine for a while, would you rather have responsive children or a house full of machinery? If your SO doesn't always do what you want, do you destroy them on the spot? Would you want to?

RT.org, BTW, are reknowned more for their flexibility than for any attachment to logical rigour.

But we digress. If Atheism exists, and it does, it must see Theism as an abberation. Agreed? You're certainly reacting like that so far.

Given a responsible Atheism ("since I am essentially the ultimate authority I am also ultimately responsible for what happens around me and after me") - call it Altrusitic Atheism even though that's not really correct - such an Atheist is duty-bound to promote their position in order that the people around him react in a way which (s)he sees as most responsible. Which is a long-winded way of saying that a responsible Atheist would work to most completely undermine the assertion "only Theists operate charities" where the opportunity existed, by operating or contributing an Atheist-bannered charity. Any problems with that so far?

The other, sadly popular pole of Atheism could be typified by the assertion "since there is no afterlife, no accounting, I should grab for as much as I can get out of this life, and damn anyone else" (or possibly, "apres moi, le deluge") - call it Selfish Atheism - couldn't care less about charity unless it needed some itself, and therefore has no rational motivation to operate or contribute to charities. Yes? No?

The vast majority of real-life Atheists exist somewhere along that spectrum. This picture is muddied by labelling issues: the practical observation that many who think of themselves as Christian (this applies to members of other religions, but I address Western society) are for all practical purposes Atheist, and many who call themselves Atheist are really Agnostic.

However, the vast majority of Atheists, effective or declared, hew to the Selfish Atheism end of the spectrum. What you are living amongst is a society driven by Selfish Atheists with some echoes of what might be called "habitual Protestantism" and a sprinkling of Altruistic Atheists and others to give it a veneer of responsibility.

Take away that echo and the dilution by others and what you're left with looks very much like the French Revolution. Babies being passed from pike-head to pike-head and the kind of stuff you read about in the Jesuit Oath (plough through all of the Black Masses to the core of the Black Pope's army and what you'll find is - surprise - more Selfish Atheism and might-makes-right).

Now we pass again from observation to speculation, but it bears upon one of many possible existential options beyond the two you posited.

If you want the whole planet to look like that, just wait, it's scheduled to happen. When it does happen, remember this conversation. This tsunami is but an apertif of disasters to follow, and an faint echo of disasters which have already been.

Sigh. This is a proposed recommendation which applies only to marriage counseling and only if both parties choose to do so. Traditional marriage arbitration is still available and would be rendered if requested. The idea was to make new immigrants more comfortable by accommodating their religious traditions. This has absolutely nothing with Canada marching towards theism, mono, multi or otherwise.

Atheism is as unproveable as theism.

Atheism is unprovable but theism is not since you could, in theory, show me a God.

It doesn't make a theory more likely if believing it to be true have side benefits. (E.g. "feels good", "smaller chance of Hell", "meet pretty girls in bible study", etc.)

Pascal's wager never claims that "smaller chance of Hell" means that any theory is more likely. A human wager has no bearing on the truth of the subject of the wager. What Pascal says is that it is a good idea to believe in God. His reasoning is a fairly simple cost/benefit analysis.
If God exists and I do believe in Him, I gain a heck of a lot. If He does not exist and I do believe in Him, then I (maybe; depending on your point of view, some people would say that adhering to a moral code is a good idea whether or not any deity commands it) lose a little. If He does exist and I do not believe in Him, then I lose a heck of a lot. If He does not exist and I do not believe in Him, then I gain a little (again, depends on your point of view and your decision to adhere to a moral code).
So to sum up, believing in God can either gain you a lot or lose you a little. Expectation value: positive. Not believing in God can either lose you a lot or gain you a little. Expectation value: negative.

Thus, Pascal says it is a safe bet to believe in God. He never claims that his reasoning ever touches on the truth of theism, and anyone who claims otherwise is simply wrong.

So what you have said (the bit that I quoted anyway) is strictly true. However, from the context, it would seem that you either believe or are trying to imply that Pascal's wager is somehow related to what you have said (that I quoted). If you believe this, then you are wrong. If you are trying to imply this, then you are not using good logic, you are trying to convince people by slipping fallacies past them unnoticed. Which I personally consider despicable.

Well, maybe because the atheists' claim for the Thruth is the only proof built on scientific proof... all theories without proof are, well, as you say, essentially trolls. And we all see on slashdot how well people respond to that kind of reasoning..

You mean agnosticism, don't you? Atheism is as unproveable as theism.

Oddly enough, a book called "The Art of Shaolin Kung Fu" by Wong Kiew Kit. Part of the book deals with the philosophy of Shaolin, which is Cha'an or Zen Buddhism.

Now, I was a Christian born and raised - Altar Boy and Choir Memeber in the Anglican Church. When I was around 14 or 15, after having actually read a good deal of the Bible, I decided that Christianity in particular and Theism in general just did not make sense. I still had an sense of right and wrong, but to me, it was based on simple "common sense" - "Good things happen to people who do good things" and vice versa. Through some amount of personal trial and error over the intervening years I simply learned that if I spoke softly and calmly and thought about what I was going to say before saying it and tried to see things from other peoples point of view,I got along alot better. Now I didn't have to do that - I am (and was) a 6'2", 260 lbs farm-boy-linebacker bruiser and knocking heads would have been just a easy. But I found that life was more peaceful if I acted nicely and calmly, rather than throwing my wieght around (and I tried that for a few years too). And I never again bought into the idea of un-seen, un-proven (or provable) God(s). I was and still am an Atheist.

So when I got "The Art of Shaolin Kung Fu" 2 years ago at 35 and read about Buddhism, I discovered that it was the philosophy I had come to on my own. So, I read books such as What the Buddha Taught by Rahula Walpola and How to Practice by HH the Dalai Lama. And a few others.

I discovered a "religion" that is more of a philosophy or practice, that is simple and elegant. No need for "God". Accepting the inter-connectedness of all things and searching for peace under the control of the individual and anyone can do it..its not an exclusive club.

"No Hell below us, above us only sky" if I may quote... ;-)

Anyway, if you want to go through the books above or the Buddhist Holy Books, I would also reccomend finding the Dharmapada and the Lotus Sutra.

A great place to start is here.

Have a look and see if you like it (and if you don't, feel free to try something else...)

Of the two options you mention, Special Creation usually connotes the first (intervening), whereas Theistic Evolution connotes the second (fine-tuning in creation). Intelligent Design, in the strict use of the term, does not necessarily make any claims about origins, but rather studies intelligent action as the best explanation for different kinds of order.

Generally, Christians working in the natural sciences are mostly commonly Theistic Evolutionists, then IDers (long ages), and only very occassionally into Young-Earth Creation (YEC), in which case they will belong to an organization like Answers in Genesis. The first two perform meaningful research IMHO, whereas AIG spends most of its time promoting YEC in churches as the only possible option for Christians.

Something like the Anthropic Principle is consistent with either ID or Theistic Evolution, as is Antony Flew's recent adoption of some kind of Aristotelian Deism (not Theism but no longer strictly Atheism, even by Flew's usual agnostic definition) which appears to have been motivated by ID concerns (requiring intelligence as an information source for DNA). See the following interview:

http://www.biola.edu/antonyflew/

Of particular interest is the bold claim at the end that Ayer and Russell would have agreed with him had they lived as long. As Richard Carrier summarizes at SecWeb:

...he is increasingly persuaded that some sort of Deity brought about this universe, though it does not intervene in human affairs, nor does it provide any postmortem salvation. He says he has in mind something like the God of Aristotle, a distant, impersonal "prime mover."

Source: http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369

Flew is not, of course, a scientist, a point Carrier makes several times, and his views should be understood rather as those of a (respected) philosopher.

Of course, I personally don't find this surprising, because I don't think such explanations are possible. What I do find surprising is that people still believe in such things (sometimes quite vocally) when they don't even have a cogent reason to.

Well pointed out. I just wish to add that Intelligent Design doesn't necessarily preclude atheism, either.

You can well believe that the evidence presented in nature means that there must be an intelligent designer. (We can debate that ad nauseam, but let's just accept it as true at the moment.) However, that does not necessitate that "the designer of life on earth" == "the creator of the universe" == "the author of the Christian [or other] moral code".

This is the point on which the real controversy hangs. Opponents of ID are so vehement because they are concerned that ID's proponents wish to use it as a back door to force a moral code on nonbelievers. This does not follow logically: it may be that humans were designed by Klaatu the Alien rather than "God", and therefore even accepting ID we need not accept the various social constructions generally associated with ID's proponents (prayer in schools, opposition to homosexuality, government funding of religious schools and charities, etc.)

Mind you, I know nobody who actually believes this way. Well, that's not true: Star Trek (among others) posited that humans were placed here by aliens. But for the most part both ID's proponents and opponents believe that the ID argument equates the designer with the Christian God, and so ultimately this is a debate more about morality than science.

ID's proponents don't necessarily explicitly want to enforce their moral code, but rather to eliminate what they consider an erroneous argument for atheism. Neither ID nor evolution is a conclusive argument for or against theism, but ID does encourage (but not necessitate) the belief in God, and evolutionary theory does encourage (but not necessitate) the belief in the non-existence of God. It's unlikely that we'll ever have conclusive evidence one way or the other, so there will always be some element of "belief", which is what the top-level article is really about.