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I don't disbelieve in deities either, but I don't believe in them which makes me an atheist.

If I ask you the question "do you believe in any deities" and the answer was "no" then you are, by definition, an atheist. You may also be an agbostic but that's beside the point (as you say that is about knowledge, not belief).

I disagree that atheism requires faith. What some call "strong atheism" requires faith but by the actual meaning of atheism (i.e. without theism) then no belief is implied, hence no faith.

Atheism is about lack of belief, not belief of lack - a subtle but important difference.

An agnostic, on the other hand, doesn't think it is possible to know whether deities exist.

So it is quite plausible to be an agnostic theist as well as an agnostic atheist.

Let's take an example: a box either contains a blue coin, or it does not. The coinist would believe in the existance of the coin, the acoinist would not believe in the coin. Both are expressing belief. The agnostic refuses belief, he accepts that he is ignorant about the existance, or non-existance, of the coin. The decision is suspened, possibly forever.

I'm definately in the camp of the self-admitted ignorant. I do not know whether any deity exists or not. I can't be an athiest, because I don't *disbelieve* in deities; but I can't be a theist because I don't *believe* in deities either. I'm simply suspending judgement until better evidence comes along. I'm certainly not going to go around having faith in one answer or the other.

I see both athiesm and theism as being essentially the same: both require faith. Agnosticim requires no faith, merely the courage to accept that you don't have an answer to a rather important question. I think that by admitting my ignorance on this topic I'm showing more wisdom than those who claim to know things when there is no evidence. The box might have a coin, then again it might not; unless we can open the box and look I refuse to say one way or the other.

An atheist is, by definition, someone who is without theism: a person who lacks a belief in God. This is not the same thing as someone who "claims there is no God". It's someone who claims "I do not believe there is a God"; the two have a quite different logical status.

The default position is a subset of atheism: someone who lacks both belief and disbelief in God, who holds a decision entirely in abeyance.

According to Huxley's original definition, an agnostic is merely someone who refuses to assert the objective truth of a proposition without logical proof. In that sense, an agnostic could be either theist or atheist.

Atheists claim that there is no God. Theists claim that there is a God. Both are definite claims. Christianity is a (small) subset of Theism.

An Agnostic also makes a claim: that he doesn't know whether there is a God. This claim is definite only in the sense of the Agnostic's belief, it is not definite in terms of the existence or otherwise of God. Thus it is the defaultg position: an Agnostic has nothing to prove.

A devout Agnostic will make a definite claim: that the existence or nonexistence of God is definitely not open to proof. This is also not the default position, since the default position is a kind of double Agnosticism: one starts without deciding whether one can actually prove or disprove God.

So... either you are not an Atheist, or you don't know what an Atheist is.

However, your reading in the "Troll" mod is 100% on the money. Hope the metamods get the perpetrator.

That is factually incorrect. I can not know wether you intentionally lied or are merely ignorant. The ACLU in no way attempted to prohibit the publication or private distribution of any book that promotes the "Intelligent Design" mode of promoting theism. Rather, they have worked to prevent it being 'taught' in public schools along side science. "Intelligent Design" is not science becuase it can not be tested. It is an offshoot of religion, and as such, should not be promoted in public school science texts or classes. (Except, perhaps, in University level psychology classes that discuss pheomenological frameworks?) At issue is the fact that theists are attempting to promote religion through public institutions by presenting this pseudo-theory as comparable to actual cosmological theories.

They also support restricting religious speech in many, many venues, such as student-initiated prayers, spontaneous group events, etc.

Furthermore, the ACLU is not acting to restrict religious speech, per se, in any way. Rather, they are attempting to prevent situations where publicly funded events and facilites are used to promote religion and, in some cases, coerce those who believe differently from the mainstream. Nothing prevents Christians from meeting at a nearby chruch before a football game and having a prayer rally. There is no reason to, immediately before the start of a game, use the stadium PA system to perform a religious ritual, other than to 'stake a claim' on the the proceeding, regardless of the sensitivities of those attending. At issue is the use of the publicly owned equipment. If, at the middle of the second quarter of every game, members of the crowd broke into a vocal prayer that did not use the school's equipment, but was simply spoken aloud, the ACLU would have no problem with that.

Imagine what it would be like for a Christian to move to a town and pay taxes, only to have the Pagan majority in the town use tax dollars to buy and sacrifice a goat on the field before all their home public high school home games. The ACLU would be all over that!

This is probably meant as flamebait, but I'll bite.

Since there is no objective reason to believe in any deity, and there are many objective reasons to disbelieve any supposed deity, the only objective stance that can be taken is that there is no god.

Now, there are two kinds of atheists.

First, there are gnostic atheists. They claim they KNOW there is no god. In that respect, they are dogmatic.

Then, there are agnostic atheists. They claim they see no reason to believe in a god, but are open to change their position if evidence for the existence of a god comes in. Of course, since that evidence hasn't come forward during their lifetimes, they hold it very unlikely that a god exists. Hence, they are atheists.

Most modern-day atheists are agnostic atheists. Agnostic atheism is undogmatic.

There is another undogmatic stance, and that is agnostic theism. Agnostic theists believe a god exists, but claim they are not sure about it. In my view this is a very weird position, but many influential people in history have professed to be agnostic theists.

Most modern-day theists are gnostic theists: they believe in a god and claim to know for sure that god exists. That is pretty dogmatic.

In terms of "strength", I think agnostic atheism is the strongest system there is. It is the only system that is not in conflict with scientific evidence, and it is open for change, just like science is.

You will find that most scientists are gnostic atheists.

Agnostics doubt the existence of a god but are willing to change their minds

Nope.

From The Atheism Web:

The term 'agnosticism' was coined by Professor T.H. Huxley at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in 1876. He defined an agnostic as someone who disclaimed both ("strong") atheism and theism, and who believed that the question of whether a higher power existed was unsolved and insoluble. Another way of putting it is that an agnostic is someone who believes that we do not know for sure whether God exists. Some agnostics believe that we can never know.

In recent years, however, the term agnostic has also been used to describe those who simply believe that the evidence for or against God is inconclusive, and therefore are undecided about the issue.

To reduce the amount of confusion over the use of term agnosticism, it is recommended that usage based on a belief that we cannot know whether God exists be qualified as "strict agnosticism" and usage based on the belief that we merely do not know yet be qualified as "empirical agnosticism".


A similar division exists in atheism, the lack of a belief in gods is called "weak atheism" and is different from the belief that gods cannot exist, which is called "strong atheism".

I am a weak atheist. I don't have a belief that gods exist (I've never seen anything that I think requires god-like beings to explain), and I don't think that it is impossible for god-like beings to exist (sufficently advanced technololgy and intelligence could make a being god-like).

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No, they aren't taking my money, but they're definitely taking someone else's money. Not only that, but I have to live in a world and witness things turn to shit due to religion.


I believe that theism is actually a barrier to our continued existance. Theism prevents people from assuming responsibiltiy for themselves, their actions and their communities. Most theists have an 'afterlife myth' of some sort, this afterlife becomes the goal. The hear and now -- this world -- becomes a means to an ends. No longer are theists concerned with the responsibilities they have here, but how do they use the "here" to get to $afterlife.

Theism is a barrier to human progress and our continued existance, only rational people can address reality and participate in constructing a sustainable future. The theists capable of wild flights of fancy (obviously), they cannot be "depended on", singularily or collectively.

If you dont realize that "Religion is a mere matter of Geography" than what manner of predictable (read: reasonable) behaviour can we depend on you to manifest? What *unreasonable* behaviour? Stoneing Heretics? $witch Hunts? Crusades? Sacrifices? Terrorism? Oppression?

I agree with the other poster: that's a crappy analogy. I've never seen, touched, tasted, heard or felt the Loch Ness Monster, either, and I find it surprising that other people believe in its existence.

Belief can be tricky to explain at the best of times, but belief in God is probably the hardest of the lot. There is no conclusive argument that a being posessing the attributes commonly ascribed to the Judaeo-Christian God exists, or does not exist. There are lots of failed attempts, though: that's what makes first year Philosphy so much fun! Arguing for either atheism or some form of theism on slashdot is unlikely to convince anyone that you're "right", but it does show up some amusing (or worrying) misconceptions and inanities.

You are thinking of agnosticism, which asserts that the knowledge of the supernatural that would be required to choose either theism or atheism cannot be known by humans, e.g., both positions are bogus.

Atheism is the paradoxical doctrine that implies that atheists can and have investigated the supernatural realm which they believe to not exist, and the knowledge they found as a result of their investigation of this non-existent realm is that God isn't there.

keep up the trolling, dude. atheist means "not a theist". an atheist might have a faith other than theism, but this isn't required. all that's required is that an atheist doesn't share a theist's faith.

Now this is just silly. It is one thing to say that atheism is a faith, but it is most definetally not a religion. Even theism isn't a religion. Most religions are theistic however. A religion is a set of beliefs and practices. It has been argued that not beliving in God is a belief of atheists (I disagree, I think it is a disbelief), but no one has tried to attach a doctrine to atheism.

IT IS NOT A RELIGION.

What are you talking about?

Your rediculous statment assumes there is such a thing as the supernatural, which is a religious notion.

Not beliving in the supernatural is not a leap of faith. It is a choice not to believe in something that can not be proven. Not believing in something that has not been proven is not faith, but rather a lack of faith.

The flip side of this is that Theism is a leap of faith to believe in something that can not be proven. That doesn't make it wrong, but it does make it a faith. In fact as far as I know, having this "faith" is one of the most important aspects of most religions. It is supposedly a virtue to have faith (I think it is silly, but then I'm biased).

Why is this such an issue to those who have faith? Wouldn't you want to put distance from the "unbelievers"? Why insist that we have faith too?

Theism is faith in presence; atheism is faith in absence.

"I believe in God and..."
"I believe in Nothing/Nature and..." (yes, defining Atheism as a belief in Naturalism/Materialism)

The athiest still has to prove his/her statement true.

Atheism and theism both start from the same axiom: "The universe exists." Nobody really argues about that, so nobody needs to prove it. (Aside from solipsists, who we can safely ignore.) If it does need to be proved, then the theists need to prove it just as much as atheists do, since they're both making the same proposition. But effectively, they cancel out, since nobody demands proof.

From there, the theists add, "God created the universe." But atheists add nothing, despite your apparent desire to define them as being firm naturalists. They merely demand evidence for the proposition "God created the universe." But there is no parallel proposition on the atheist side that requires evidence.

Now of course this is simplifying things a bit; certainly there are some atheists who insist that there cannot be a God, or definitively state that God could exist but does not, and that there is no "higher" power than the natural laws of physics. Of course, there is no evidence for these propositions either, and it is foolish to make them. But many (most?) atheists, and virtually all of those that I know personally, take the null stance -- the universe appears to exist, and that's all we can really say about its origins. You have for some reason set up a straw man in your post, implying that all atheists say something that most do not.

And, as you pointed out, even if atheists had to prove a claim, that would not lessen a theist's responsibility to prove their claim in the existence of a God.

(different coward here!)

it does lie both ways. But they are addressing different questions needing proof. The theist needs to prove the existence of 'g/God' and the athiest needs to prove the existence of "that which replaces the need for God". You might retort that we don't "need" 'g/God' in a philosophical and practical way. I would say we do.

Two Statements Equally dogmatic:

"I believe in God and..."
"I believe in Nothing/Nature and..." (yes, defining Atheism as a belief in Naturalism/Materialism)

The athiest still has to prove his/her statement true.

But why should the athiest have to prove a negative statement? Simply because it's not a negative statement. The athiest is not disproving "God exists", but rather asserting that Naturalism rules. The challenge is to whether or not God is a philosophical and logical necessity. Back to the primum mobile etc.

Therefore the athiest's response or proof may be to cite a big bang/evolutionary cosmology in order to confirm their belief in Nothing (Naturalism). However, the aforementioned cosmology is frightfully inept at explaining the ORIGIN of *anything*, let alone the universe... and again we come back to the primum mobile.

I could give you many reasons why an invisible rabbit is both illogical, impossible and unecessary and still it is your responsibility to prove it exists. Equally I can give you plenty of reasons why Naturalism/Materialism (and you could turn this around to read: theism) is illogical, impossible and unecessary and still it would be YOUR responsibility to prove it is true.
We both have points to prove, it just depends which questions you ask.

In statistics this selection works well because the selection of the Null hypothesis is non-arbitrary -- it's usually the given data you're trying to disprove/verify (like if a manufacturer claims that a certain part can withstand 8mA of current before breaking).

I don't see how this style of hypothesis verification can work in discussions where two parties hold completely different assumptions.

But the choice of a null model isn't at all arbitrary in this case either. Early man had no gods, as far as anyone can tell. Idols, temples, etc, are all rather recent in the archeological record. And even existing primitive tribes today are overwhelmingly animistic rather than theistic. So, it really appears that religion is an *introduced hypothesis*, and therefore in need of verification.

I rather think that this observation also explains the popularity of Creationism -- the only way the theists can get out of this hole is if they deny the archeological record and assume that theism started with "Adam and Eve".

He's not standing for everyone. He preaches Christianity to everyone when he makes a speech, so he's not representing anyone apart from Christians.

First of all, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post, as I enjoy most of your posts. For what it's worth, I think you are an excellent writer and thinker.

Thank you very much. I think you are too kind. I will quote you, though, if you don't mind.

While I don't have time to respond to your entire post, I did want to highlight one point where I disagreed with you.

I have never seen anyone saying that all of smart people or all of scientists are atheists. Not only on Slashdot, I have never seen anyone saying that anywhere.

I have often experienced the sentiment that if you beleive in God you are not smart/logical/rational. I've heard it from strangers and close friends. There are even examples in the discussion you linked to in your last post. On Slashdot, I have been called weak-minded for beleiving in God.

That is very strange, almost unbelievable. Next time you might point such an ignorant person to Perl 6 website, and ask her to read Apocalypses by Larry Wall, especially Apocalypse 4 talking about the syntax per se, Apocalypse 3 explaining the operators in details, Apocalypse 5 about regular expressions, grammar rules and pattern matching in general, Apocalypse 6 on subroutines, closures, methods, submethods, multimethods, rules and macros, and the soon-to-be-published Apocalypse 12 about objects, classes, traits and roles (and I mean really read them, not merely skim or take a look at, it is actually quite an entertaining read anyway), which together form the most smart/logical/rational fundamentals of programming language design I have seen to date, and then ask her if she still thinks that when one believes in God one is not smart/logical/rational any more.

Indeed, Larry Wall being a hacker god (pun not intended this time) and also being alive at the same time, might actually be a better candidate for your Slashdot signature than Albert Einstein himself. Besides, Einstein never wanted to be a missionary, if I recall correctly, and thus his faith might be questioned.

Speaking about faith and reason, it seems rather strange that people consider them mutually exclusive. I myself always considered faith to be completely orthogonal to reason. Furthermore, I also fail to understand any desire to prove the existance of any object of faith (be it some deity or otherwise) because as soon as it is proved (assuming that it can be proved) it is not a faith (defined as a belief beyond evidence or logical arguments) any more and becomes merely a knowledge of a simple fact. Let me quote Gary Curtis. "To believe a dogma without evidence, or even despite counter-evidence, is sometimes regarded as more admirable than to believe on good evidence."

Therefore, if any religion was provable (and subsequently proved), there would be no need for faith any more. Even more importantly, proving the validity of any particular religion or faith system, would have to inevitably disprove most of other religions as a side effect, for most of them being mutually contradictory cannot be valid simultaneously.

Now, if we assume faith and reason to be orthogonal (which I believe is the only reasonable way to consider them) then using reason to analyze faith (which by definition would be inherently unanalyzable) might lead to committing subtle fallacies, like e.g. this quite popular one:

Every event must have a cause. Therefore, there must be a cause of every event, that is, a first cau

Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism have always stated that life is everywhere and that Earth is just some insignificant little planet in a very big universe. Hindu scriptures even have space rockets in 'em. Seems like it's going to be a problem for the big 3 theisms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam that'll have the problems if anyone is going to.