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No, they were saying that Public Schools cannot encourage class recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance because the "under God" bit is clearly a promotion of theism, and the Government isn't allowed to promote religion, due to the 1st amendment. (With help from the 14th.) People can still say the Pledge all they want, but Government-run schools can't encourage you to, because then you'd have the government getting involved in religion.

Because the claim of theism is that there _is_ a true evil.

"Evil" doesn't just mean in the sense of absolute true evil - it can be used to refer to anything which you view as being particularly wrong.

The claim of atheism is that there's nothing but matter, and we just happen to be interesting clumps of matter.

Rubbish. Atheists don't believe in god, end of story. Even science acknowledges there is more than "clumps of matter" - eg, space, time, gravity, all of which seem to be very strange things that require a greater explanation than simply a space filled with "clumps of matter". It may be in time that we can start to understand what causes consciousness too.

I don't see how you go from believing that we are just interesting clumps of matter to believing that it actually matters which side of the fence you are on in dealing w/ these different clumps of matter.

Well, for example:

I believe these "clumps of matter" are sentient and are capable of feeling pain and suffering. I believe that these sets of actions cause pain and suffering to these clumps of matter, so I believe that these actions are wrong.

'After all, there are many different religions with different opinions on what God supposedly says, so why do they use the term "evil", when they only have a different opinion?'

Because the claim of theism is that there _is_ a true evil. The claim of atheism is that there's nothing but matter, and we just happen to be interesting clumps of matter. You can go from theism "I believe in God" to "I believe God has these mandates", but I don't see how you go from believing that we are just interesting clumps of matter to believing that it actually matters which side of the fence you are on in dealing w/ these different clumps of matter.

The parent poster had said he was an atheist - i.e., he knew that God did not exist. So I asked him how he knew that. Perhaps he's an agnostic, instead - i.e., he's not sure whether or not God exists.

Many atheists distinguish between strong or positive atheism (the belief that no god(s) exist) and weak or negative atheism (nontheism, or the lack of belief in any system of theism). The parent poster did not indicate which type of atheist he was.

Agnosticism is, classically, an epistemological position that proof of the existance of god(s) is unavailable or unknowable. This belief is compatable with atheism, theism, or polytheism (Fideism encorporates strong agnosticism with christian faith, for example.)

It's true that pop culture tends to oversimplify these two different concepts into one spectrum, but self-identifying athiests are much more likely than the general populace to have familiarity with the formal definitions of these philosophical terms, so it's not a valid assumption to assume that every self-identified atheist professes strong atheism.

Don't be a nitwit.

I absolutely hate it when people assume that they must be right, and therefore anyone of separate opinion must be an idiot.

Do you realize you just called someone a nitwit, while complaining about being called an idiot?

The divisiveness between those such as your self, and those of the religious persuasion, is that you dismiss that which you do not understand (evident that you seem to think that our world is 'explained' so well already!), while a religious person stands in utter amazement at the number of questions.

You can't use an agnostic argument to prove theism over athiesm. You can only use it to disprove both.

But I think there are much better books critical of theism and christianity then this one. Anything by Anthony Flew and JL Mackie is a good start.

Given that the ratio of scientists being paid to produce results compatible with Naturalism to those being paid to produce results compatible with Theism must be hundreds to one, I think the creationist theories that have been put forward so far have fared exceptionally well.

Even so, Naturalism is a house divided against itself. One bunch tout "dark matter" and "dark energy" because without them their theories fall flat. A more honest bunch speak up about the patent ridiculousness of these just-so stories and try to produce Naturalistic theories that fit (so far, to no avail but yet their efforts are a good deal purer in heart than their opponents). Occam's answer would be to discard a lot of Naturalistic preconceptions about the age and uniformity of the Universe, and just work with what we have actually observed, not adding any interpretation to it until the last moment.

If you find your own gradual creation myths comforting, well, enjoy it. But I suggest that getting a right answer is far more important than getting a reassuring answer.

I also find the attitude to discuss religion in a public forum to be refreshing compared to almost official atheism in the U.S.A. (the ACLU's attitude about this not withstanding).

Official atheism? Are you in Bizarro U.S.A.? I'll give you one since you seem to not be from the U.S. We have an official "seperation" of church and state - but not official athiesm. Christianity and theism is the accepted belief system. If you can, watch close as the U.S. presidential debates begin - I guarantee they will try to out-religion each other.

Credentials? I don't have them but these guys do (I am an engineer myself):

Michael Behe,PHD, Darwin's Black Box

Edward M. Purcell, "The Efficiency of Propulsion by a Rotating Flagellum", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA '94www.impa.br/~jair/pnas.pdf>go here, This certainly seems like a design to me.

"Intelligent Design Theory as a Tool for Analyzing BioChemical Systems", Mere Creation, ed. William A. Dembski

God and Design: The Theological Argument and Modern Science, Robin Collins,PHD The resurrection of Theism William Lane Craig, PHD

Charles Hodge's Critique of Darwinism, Jonathan Wells, PHD

Case For Creator, Lee Strobel (This is what I referenced in my last post, he interviewed/researched with some of the guys I mentioned above)

And there are many, many more references, but this should get you started. I did not mean to offend anyone in my last post, but "obviously" I did. Thanks for the names you gave me, I will look into their writings. Could you give me a book to start off on? I would say that my belief in creationism is not irrational from the research I have done on the subject, but I like to keep an open mind, sorry it did not appear that way before.

I think what the difference is is that, the grandparent stated what makes Christianity, Christianity, while the great grand parent stated what made a generic form of Mono-thiesm, mono-theism. Because the great grand parent describe about a dozen religions including Christianity.


And what I stated was that Christianity and those dozen other religions - including any generic monotheism - can be exactly the same thing, and it's important to remember that.

If you're strictly defining Christianity, then yes, the grandparent (well, you know what I mean) is correct. But considering so many people also have an idea about what people "have" to believe in, it's important to realize that Christianity is also the great-grandparent as well.

I think what the difference is is that, the grandparent stated what makes Christianity, Christianity, while the great grand parent stated what made a generic form of Mono-thiesm, mono-theism. Because the great grand parent describe about a dozen religions including Christianity.

Atheism is the only religion I know of that's based around NOT believing something.

Atheists believe in reason.

I have to strongly protest here.

First of all, I do not believe anyone here, theist or otherwise, would say she does not believe in reason. For that reason alone, such an assertion is completely meaningless, leading to a pointless argument like the pro-life versus pro-choice one with interestingly enough no one being anti-life or anti-choice, fighting about semantics while confusing the meaning of words.

But that is not what is most important here. Much more importantly than being merely meaningless, the implications of the assertion "atheists believe in reason" are simply false.

Believing in reason (whatever that is supposed to mean, whether believing in the existence of reason or in the power and possibly superiority thereof, if so then over what, etc.) is by no means a necessary condition of being an atheist, nor is it a sufficient one.

I can very easily imagine a complete moron who is an atheist because the poor simpleton is just too stupid to understand the very idea of theism, which clearly shows how the stupidity itself can directly lead to atheism.

This is very important: atheist is not someone who believes in reason.

Atheist is someone who is godless (from Greek atheos), i.e. someone who does not believe in the existence of any deity, no more, no less. Reason does not necessarily have anything to do with faith. As a matter of fact, I know quite a few atheistic cretins and Mensa membership card holding theophiles, as well as godless geniuses and God-loving idiots (not even counting fundamentalists, mind you).

Now, the atheism having been slightly clarified, we now have to define God which is hardly an easy task...

Choosing pantheistic definition, we can define God as meaning the universe and the universe being God. This is a perfectly valid definition. Assuming that the universe itself exists, which is in my opinion quite a reasonable assumption, it means that therefore God must exist. Period.

So, is the question answered? Of course not, because a pantheistic God (i.e. the universe) does not have to contain any supernatural, omnipotent supreme being, which we usually mean by God, possibly being even consistent with materialism, secularism, and indeed atheism.

We could choose panentheism (in the form of pan-entheism or panen-theism) which is a little bit less extreme in that it does not define God as a synonym of universe, but as the material universe plus something or someone supernatural and transcendental. It is, however, still not very helpful, as we are reasoning about that very transcendent which is hard enough without the inclusion of the rest of the universe, upon the existence of which I hope we all can agree.

Let us find a better definition, like the deistic definition of God, for it is remarkably clear and consistent. God is an absolutely transcendent creator of the universe who made it a perfect self-regulating mechanism which he does not intervene with since then. Of course, it inevitably leads not only to apathetic agnosticism and in fact even strict, closed agnosticism, but it also means that all prayers are unanswered and there are no miracles and revelations whatsoever.

For that reason I doubt such a definition would satisfy many theists, or even many atheists for that matter, as the hypothesis of the existence of such a deity is absolutely unprovable and unfalsifiable, rendering it thus quite meaningless and irrelevant from the scientific standpoint.

But if it is not the case and there is a deity who is even remotely less transcendent than a deistic Divine Watchmaker, being somewhat immanent, then by definition there have to

The definition of agnosticism that I subscribe to is: God is unknown and possibly unknowable. That's a far cry from knowledge of dieties is impossible, it's *possibly* impossible, but possibly possible, in which case I'd be wrong saying that it is impossible.

The definition of agnosticism that you "subscribe to" seems to be quite different than the real definition of agnosticism. You might want to "subscribe" to some dictionary or at least do us all a little favour and next time use Google for God's sake... There is a little [definition] link when you search for agnosticism. Don't be afraid to click it, it won't bite you. *sigh* I am doing it the last time! Next time PLEASE do your own homework yourself before you start to spread misinformation. Thank you... OK, here we go. Please read it all CAREFULLY:

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition:

agnosticism
n.

1. The doctrine that certainty about first principles or absolute truth is unattainable and that only perceptual phenomena are objects of exact knowledge.
2. The belief that there can be no proof either that God exists or that God does not exist.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary:

agnosticism

\Ag*nos"ti*cism\, n. That doctrine which, professing ignorance, neither asserts nor denies. Specifically: (Theol.) The doctrine that the existence of a personal Deity, an unseen world, etc., can be neither proved nor disproved, because of the necessary limits of the human mind (as sometimes charged upon Hamilton and Mansel), or because of the insufficiency of the evidence furnished by physical and physical data, to warrant a positive conclusion (as taught by the school of Herbert Spencer); -- opposed alike dogmatic skepticism and to dogmatic theism.

WordNet of Princeton University:

agnosticism

n 1: a religious orientation of doubt; a denial of ultimate knowledge of the existence of God; "agnosticism holds that you can neither prove nor disprove God's existence" 2: the disbelief in any claims of ultimate knowledge [syn: skepticism, scepticism]

Wikipedia:

The terms agnosticism and agnostic were coined by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1869. The concept however has long existed: the philosophical and theological view that the existence of God, gods or deities is either unknown, or inherently unknowable. The term is also used to describe those who are unconvinced or noncommittal about the existence of deities as well and other matters of religions. The word agnostic comes from the Greek a (no) and gnosis (knowledge). Agnosticism is not to be confused with a view specifically opposing the doctrine of gnosis and Gnosticismthese are religious concepts that are not generally related to agnosticism.

The singular characteristic of agnosticism is uncertainty or doubt. For this reason it is a form of scepticism focusing on religious statements, and so faces some of the same philosophical issues. For instance if an agnostic claims that absolute knowledge of truth is not possible and does not restrict the scope of this claim, they are in danger of contradicting themselves. For then the statement there are no absolute truths would appear itself to be an absolute truth. An agnostic is on firmer ground if they claim that religious s

(Many) Atheists don't claim to know the answer for sure. Semantic quibbling aside, most atheists don't believe in/disbelieve in god the same way you don't believe in/disbelieve in bigfoot. Sure, it could exist, but there's either no definite way to know and it's rather unlikely given the nature of the claim. Agnosticism isn't necessarily a middle ground between atheism and theism-- one could be agnostic and be the other.

Then why do so many atheists feel compelled to tell religious people they're wrong all the time? Really, atheism is specifically a disbelief. Agnosticism is the belief that something is out there, but no one knows what. It can also include people who feel there is a higher power but don't choose to quantify it, or don't think they're capable of doing so.

And why does praying hurt? It wastes time. It does absolutely nothing but waste time. If you want to feel good about doing something for an ill person, work for them, not being lazy and pretending you're doing something when you're really not.

It doesn't waste *your* time. I seriously doubt there is anything the OP could actively do to help the article poster. Praying is no worse in this situation than simply reading about it on /. and then forgetting about it. Of course, if there *is* a God, then praying could help. Your statement that it does absolutely nothing contradicts your previous statement that atheists don't claim to know for sure. "[Prayer] does absolutely nothing but waste time" isn't an ambiguous statement.

If your doctor says 'I'm praying for you instead of administering medicine," that's totally different. However, if that's the kind of doctor you want to go to, it's your life and your health. You have the option of accepting that or going to a different doctor. That's the beauty of choice.

(Many) Atheists don't claim to know the answer for sure. Semantic quibbling aside, most atheists don't believe in/disbelieve in god the same way you don't believe in/disbelieve in bigfoot. Sure, it could exist, but there's either no definite way to know and it's rather unlikely given the nature of the claim. Agnosticism isn't necessarily a middle ground between atheism and theism-- one could be agnostic and be the other.

And why does praying hurt? It wastes time. It does absolutely nothing but waste time. If you want to feel good about doing something for an ill person, work for them, not being lazy and pretending you're doing something when you're really not.

Talking of track records...

All that has already been gone over. Nobody's saying that science has had bad consequences. What I'm saying is that religion has not had good consequences, especially when compared with science.

As far as the goods that theology has done, those were despite theism. We all know how religion was used to justify the position that slaves occupied. Indeed, the 10 commandments implicitly condones slavery because it mentions it, but does not condemn it.

And the rest, music, literature, art. That's where the money was. If you were an artist and you wanted to eat, you made religious stuff. This in no way means that without religion there would not have been art.

Finally, it's not coincidence that the terrorists who destroyed the WTC were A) not atheists and B) wearing clothes.

This world would be much better with fewer gods, and fewer clothes.

Disbelief is defined as "Refusal or reluctance to believe."

Sounds pretty much the same to me,

And that's where you're wrong. Not(not X) is only equal to X in sitautions that are boolean. Belief is not boolean. So "Believe there is no god" is a MUCH, MUCH bolder assertion than merely "Not believe there is a god".


Either way, you are either saying, or swaying towards saying, "there is no God."

I'm only "swaying toward" it if you assume the default postiion is to start somewhere halfway between ahteism and theism. The whole point of atheism is that that's not the right place to put the default hypothesis.

And at any rate, even if I was "swaying toward" saying there is no god, that is a far cry from your false claim that it's the same thing as just saying it outright.


Just because you don't like the choice of words, it does not mean that the words are wrong.

It is wrong to attribute opinions to people which they don't actually hold, and that's precisely what you're doing.

Except that not the actual definition of "atheist". "Atheism" = "a+theism", i.e., "without theism". Just because you're not a theist, doesn't mean you "deny the existence of God", and few atheists describe their own beliefs or lack thereof as "denying" anything.

Linux isn't atheist. It's just that no-one has written good kernel modules for theism yet. All the decent implementations are proprietary and you don't really want to steal from God even when He has been so unforthcoming about releasing the Source Code -even though the Bible is around, it only really describes the interface, so the hard details of implementation are left to the poor coders.

How is this off-topic?

Agnosticism and gnosticism are not related like atheism and theism. The word gnostos is Greek for 'known' -it follows that the a-qualifier makes the word 'unknown'. Gnosticists chose the word for their sect because they were in the know, so to speak.