Welcome to enthropy. We're currently taking the majoirty of our power from an uncontrolled fusion reaction that we know will fail and kill us at some point in the future.
And, really, in 2103 we should have at least a bit of advancement over what we have now--meaning that power sources that are not impossible to access will be accessible.
You think the microwave oven (using quantum mechanic theory) would have ever been developed?
I think I have to call you on this.
How the @#$ is a microwave oven--an application of WWII era radar electronics--a use of quantum mechanic theory? Sure, you can explain a microwave with QM, but you can also explain a rifle round, and no one claims that we wouldn't have bullets w/o QM.
As to the greater point... we have a society where knowledge and discoveres can be owned and kept secret. And we get innovations anyway, because we encourage people who use their "secret" knowledge and discoveries to make money, which they do.
As I feared, no attempts at understanding was forthcoming. However:
To quote your original message that began this entire thread:
Atheism is a religon--that is, it's an answer to the question of "what's up with all this god stuff?". It being a negative doesn't mean that, as far as politics and law care, that it isn't a religion.
So again, don't say you never said that. You absolutely did.
To reiterate: a religion is essentialy an answer to "what's up with all this god stuff?"--a nebulous question that can be asked many ways. You have successfuly argued that "I'm an atheist" does not just mean "God doesn't exist," but "I don't think God exists" as well.
As "Agnostic" in a personal-religion sense means "I don't know"*, I find that my original stance, being that "I don't know" or "I do not believe that he exists", is still appropriate to the label "agnostic", leaving "atheist" for the much more commonly understood "I don't think god exists."
*: A good deal of confusion over religon, and barriers to understanding, is the simple fact that all people believe their religous beliefs to be true, and statements with regards to religion frequently have to be filetered of dogma and jargon to learn what is acutally being said.
As I have stated before, I do not agree that atheism is a religion so I do not see the point of discussing any "logic" that would determine it to be such.
Then you have left the path of understanding, and are essentially arguing by assertion. It is becoming increasingly hard to believe that any further understanding can come from this discussion.
However, in the interest of a final attempt:
Your position from the very beginning has been "Atheism is a religion." Don't say you never said that.
I didn't. You objected to my use, and have repeatedly maintained the existance of "technical atheists" who should not be considered members of a religion named "atheism."
You have successfully argued the point that the multiple usage of atheism, as lack of any deisitc belief or as belief in the absence of any diviniy, is confusing and brings misunderstanding. You have suceeded in convincing me that, when someone states that they are an atheist, it may be proper to ask if they are a "strong atheist" or a "weak atheist."
However, you have not given a compelling argument why Atheism should never be considered a religion, regardless of context. While we could continue to debate this, unless you are willing to accept that language is mutable, I fear that we will simply be unable to come to any kind of understanding at all.
I find it bizarre that you suggest this to me in light of the fact that in the past you have been the one saying that atheism is a religion and I have said repeatedly that the atheist's answer to "What is your religion?" is "None". But yes, I agree that the "None" is the correct answer, although in practice I often find I have to follow it up with "I'm an atheist" because all I get when I say "None" is a blank, bewildered stare.
I do believe that we have come to an agreement on this point. You are not a member of the atheist religion, regardless if such a thing does or does not exist.
Both are or are inspired by a commmon set of beliefs. In addition, Yahoo catagorizes "atheism" under "religion" which, while not in itself existance of a religion entitled atheism, is evidence of my original assertion that atheism is properly catalogued as a religion.
It doesn't, always. But it does introduce misunderstandings and confusion, which I thought you wanted to minimize.
Your example of "American" is a poor one, as "American" only has a single meaning in our common language.
You have not established the existence of inaccuracies in the dictionary definition of "atheism" so you should not refer to them as if you had.
I have. You ignored them, and misidenfitied my logic.
To wit: the definitions are not inaccurate, they are imprecise / variable. The innacuracy is in your use of the term "atheist", specifically the grammatical implication that there is a commonality between yourself and a Bhuddist or a Shintoist or a Humanist when your beliefs are not the same.
You are saying that the belief in a god is without meaning if that belief is not part of a religion (organized or not).
Not "without meaning", just "irrelvant to the purposes of religious catagorization."
As I have stated before, any logic that would determine "atheism" to be a religion would also determine "agnosticism" to be a religion. In a like vein, a body that is "agnostic" with regards to religion is also, by your preferred definition, "atheist."
Hence, by original suggestion that we agree that the terms are "effectively synonymous" for the purposes of our discussion.
One more point of yours deserves reply (the others are irrelevant, tangental, or unnecessary):
Atheism is not a religion because there is no specific set of beliefs that is common to all atheists.
I did not say that all "technical atheists" belong to the religon of atheism. Instead, I stated that there is a religion, identifed by you as "strong atheism", and that this religion is named "Atheism."
All members of this poorly-named religion beleive that God does not exist, and various other implications and distrust of various believing religions.
Try reading some discussion forums like alt.atheism for examples.
That is a specfic context. There are many others wherein Strong Atheists omit the "strong" modifier.
Based on what I said you are correct in that he will treat all organized religions as being wrong but that does not equate to lacking a belief in god. You argue that one must be part of an organized religion to believe in a god and that is simply not true.
I have never made any allegation of the sort--in fact, it has been other parties to this discussion that have implied that religion needs to be "organized" at all.
Furthermore, for the purposes of everyone except for your boss himself, he should be treated very much the same as an atheist.
Every time you willfully misrepresent my position...
That's a misallegation of malice. You should know better.
You should know that assuming your conclusion is a fallacy. I would dispute the idea that atheists have an unfair advantage against religious people on the basis that any government promotion of any religion would discriminate against all other religions. Of course, I have made this point in the past and you simply ignored it as you ignore all of my points.
Your points are incoherent, badly formed, assume facts not in evidence without noting such as speculation, and formed with a manner that reflects a childish adherence to words of authority without respect to real usage or intended meaning.
But, in re-affimation of my point:
Atheism is a religion, even if it's not YOUR religion. (Call it "Strong Atheism" if you want--but S.A.'s don't call themselves anything but "atheists" when then engage in public discourse.) A professor who says "God doesn't exist" should be penalized exactly the same as a professor who says "God does exist."
Doing otherwise gives atheism an unfair advantage; It is inherently unfair to require one party of a discussion to censor their beliefs and allow another to have their beliefs go uncensored.
If you wish to be taken seriously you will begin responding to every point that is made, even if that response is only to note it and request not to discuss it.
A demand such as that is immature and not in keeping with the inhereted rules and common understanding of proper decorum for dialogue.
A single/. post (or usenet post, or e-mail) is akin to a monologue in a traditional discussion. If you fill your monologue with a myriad of unrelated points without giving the other party a chance to respond, you should not be surprised when some of your points go unreplied.
In general, demanding a reply to every point that you raise is both improper decorum and a sign of a childish mind. If you do not wish to convey this view, I suggest that you refrain from doing so.
Every time you do I explain that I don't agree that it is a valid analogy. I do not agree that using the correct definition of atheism "lacks understanding" and until you provide evidence to back up your point I will continue to express my disagreement.
*sigh*
Leaving the various ambiguties and variable meanings inherent in our language aside, allow me to simply focus on what understanding is lacked when you group in everyone who does not believe in divinities as "atheists".
As I believe I have mentioned previously, the faulty logic is an implication of shared commonality that grouping such as that implies. You consider yourself an atheist--but a sizable portion of what a broad swath would classify as "atheists" do not consider themselves as such. And a second portion considers themselves "atheists" but means something more than you would use the broad swath as.
Using the mere dictionary definition of "atheism" without understanding its innacuracies is the very essence of lacking understanding. I thought you wanted to reduce confusion, not propogate it.
As far as I'm concerned, the correct definition of the word is all that matters.
Quite simply, you're wrong.
I can't teach basic linquistic theory to you here. All words are artificial constructs designated to communicate certain ideas. While they should have the same broad meaning, their specific meaning is mutable--and each specific meaning is no less "correct" than any others.
If you don't believe me on this point, go ask an English professor.
That the term be used accurately is important to me because it is a term that I use to describe myself and I do not want people misinterpreting what I say.
In that case, as your foci is understanding, I would note that "atheism" is a word that is either differently defined by many persons, or mis-used by a near-majority of the population.
It may be best to consider use of a different word, when pressed to give a one-word answer to "what is your religion?" (I suggest "none" before "atheism", or "I don't have a religion" instead of "I'm an atheist"--the latter implies that atheism is a thing that can define you, and the unmodified term has the danger of being misunderstood.)
The reason that I argue against considering atheism a religion is that a religion is a specific set of beliefs and there is no specific set of beliefs that unites atheists.
But there are people with a specific set of beliefs who call themselves "atheists" and nothing else. I was not the one to co-opt the word.
It's becoming increasingly clear that your objection to using the correct definition of "atheist" is based solely on your view of it as opposing christianity.
Based on what do you make this near-malcious ad hominem attack?
"Atheism" is a creed that does attempt to influence the world around it, and spread its own idea of religious truth. It is very likely that followers of this creed have co-opted the word that you choose to describe your own non-affiliated religious position, but they exist nontheless.
This is what prompts my opinion of atheism as a religion--the fact that there exists a religion (as the term is used by the Supreme Court) that calls itself "Atheism" and does many of the objective things that religions do.
When discussing the religious beliefs of a populations, atheists might be buddhists or humanists or have no religion at all.
It is to those who "have no religion at all" that the label of "atheist" is, rightly or wrongly, applied. Perhaps it would be better to divide the definition:
Atheist: (1) A person who does not believe in the existance of divinity. (2): A person who belongs to no religion because he considers them all to be false, esp. those who believe in the non-existance of divinity.
(Please note that I am using the specific "system of belief" definition of religion. I maintain that, for (2), "atheism is a religion" is valid, if for no other reason than the simple imprecision of language.)
While (1) may be the historic, "technical", and even proper usage, (2) seems to be the much more common usage.
In all honesty, I think that one or the other definitons should be changed to a more distinct term: a name for those that believe in the non-existance of god, so that they can stop co-opting the term "atheism" and cluttering up the issue.
(Of course, there are loads of extant names avalable--"Skeptic", "Humanist", "Bright", "Scientologist" [though the last one, a perfectly sensible word, has been perverted by a money-sucking cult] and a few others. Unfortunately, (2)s are a diverse enough lot that convincing them to agree on a name might be more trouble than its worth, resulting in making it easier to just retire (1) and replace it with "non-theists".)
You keep trying to control the direction that this discussion goes in
When did it become wrong to direct a conversation to a different topic?
Consider it, at the least, my preference.
I also do not believe that you actually seek understanding, based on your description of me as a zealot (an ironic one since you hold to your own possition with no less zeal than I hold to mine).
Not so much ironic as honest. I make no apologies for being a zealous christian--my faith compels me to seek understanding and knowledge. On the other hand, you have repeatedly made statements that lead me to conclude that you have the same kind of zeal towards atheism that I have towards Christianity--and observation that, as I said, I find odd considering your statements that atheism is not a thing solid enough to inspire such zeal.
(Were I attempting to covert you, this would be the point where I would state something similiar to "obviously you're lacking God in your life." However, I am not compelled to convert, merely understand, and therefore my observation is simply "you seem to be searching for a cause to 'get religion' over; I submit to you that 'atheism' is not a cause worthy of such zeal by your own definiton of such. Much better foci would be understanding and/or truth.)
In any case, as evidence of my desire for understanding, I remind you that I have attempted to avoid topics and discussions that can have no further discourse, and I have endeavored to organize this discussion as to bring greater clarity.
As philisophical backing for my stance, in case you find it hard to reconcile with my stated beliefs: God made man intelligent, and the clearest sign of intelligence is being able to argue a cause in which you do not believe.
You have already agreed that the technically correct definition of atheism is a lack of belief in any gods.
Not as you seem to understand it.
In essence, this branch of the discussion to clarify by what I mean when I say "technical correctness." To repeat myself:
"technical correctness" is so misleading as to be effectively "wrong" for our purposes. It is "technically correct" to call Hindus, Native Americans, and Bhuddists "pagans", but such a broad catagorization lacks understanding and should not be used outside of a few very specific contexts.
Your response did not deal with this, but instead focused on the "real definition" of the word. Please focus your replies to what I said in the post that you are replying-to, so that we do not develop parallell lines of discussion when using a medium so capable of handling simultaneous threads of discussion.
Point 1: Until you do I have no choice but to consider them conceded and proceed on that basis.
Remember that "undiscussed" is not the same as "conceeded." If I concede something, then it can be taken as true for the purposes of this discussion. Please do not take things that I do not respond to as conceded unless I note as such.
Now, as to your points.
You claimed that weak atheism and agnosticism are the same position "when discussing religious beliefs". This is contradicted by my prior example of my boss, who believes that there must be a god (theist) but that its nature is unknowable (agnostic).
In rebuttal to your counter-example: Your boss does not believe in a god, he beleives that there should be one. Based on just what you said, he will act as if all religions with profess knowledge of a god are wrong, just as he would if he believed their god to be nonexistant.
Society should/does treat him the same as they treat a weak atheist--thus, he can be classified as either "atheist" or "agnostic" and, for most purposes, be effectively correct.
The reality is of course different, but all statistics and policies are different when they are focused on the individual. (And, of course, relgion is effectively just a tool of society to help people come to their own spiritual beliefs.)
You asked: "However, for the sake of clarity, can you please specify when you are referring to Strong Atheists or disbeliving persons who do not consider themselves atheists?" I have always differentiated between all atheists, weak atheists and strong atheists. Your suggestion otherwise misrepresents my position.
This isn't a rebuttal; it's a point of order. You could just have effectively said "I already do."
You claimed that your reason for wanting to see atheism treated as a religion was that you were concerned that atheists would be discriminated against because they would not have First Amendment protections.
No. I merely stated that as a moral basis which I felt you could find common ground with. My reasons for wanting atheism to be treated as a religion are based largely on my desire to not give atheism an unfair advantage or diadvantage when placed against other religions.
(I belive that you have previously implied that you desire this to be, and I have chosen not to respond to this implication simply because that would be you taking a stance of unfairness, and that would lead to an end of civil discussion.)
I pointed out that atheists would still be protected by the First Amendment prohibition against making laws that respect an establishment of religion.
See the EBT Supreme Court case. Atheists are protected by laws that protect freedom of religion because the Supreme Court decided that the government should not be in the basis of saying what is and is not a religion--and, hence, the measure is effectively "you're a religion if you seek freedoms of religion."
Your reference is a christian ministry, hardly a believable source for an objective view on the word.
Provide a better source. It was the first one I found that had good dates on the history of the term.
Since you do not place any weight on dictionary definitions or on the definition actually used by atheists why do you expect people to use your definition?
I don't. I expect people to agree on the broad meaning of words, and to hammer out the specific meanings for themselves as specifics become important to their discussion.
Dictionaries and Atheist organizations do have weight--they just aren't the final say.
You repeatedly assert that the definition of "atheism" is not important to the discussion
Not quite. I assert that "atheism"'s explanatory definition is insufficient for catagorization--a different ball of wax entirely.
However, I am deviating from the subject at hand--atheism v. agnosticism. I think that you can agree that, if we were to consider atheism a religion, we would also by the same principle have to consider agnosticism a religion as well. Hence, the distinctions between these two words are moot to the larger issue at hand.
You started by asserting that atheism is a religion. This assertion was rebutted so you moved on to claim that although atheism is not "technically" a religion it should be classified as one.
No. I re-stated my position that, even though most dictionary definitions of "religion" specifically mention divinity, it is nevertheless proper to consider atheism "a religion." Specifically, I have maintained that public entities should treat Atheism the same as Christianity or Judaism or Wicca or Islam, and I have provided instances and practical applications wherein it is useful to answer questions such as "what is your religion?" with "atheist."
You gave a reason to back up this assertion but it was rebutted. You failed to respond to that rebuttal and failed to provide any additional reasons.
Kindly refresh my memory as to what you consider your last rebuttal to be.
If you are referring to my supplied context as to when it is and is not proper to consider "atheism" a "religion", your rebuttal was little more than a repetition of your previous allegation that "atheism is not a religion".
I did a small bit of cursory research, and found a summary of a Supreme Court case, ESA v. Rylander, in which the court found that "religion" should be interpreted very broadly when it comes to the law--and, ergo, my contexts wherein "atheism must be considered a religion."
I believe that I should add a fourth and fifth context wherein atheism must be considered a religion: Whenever discussing the religious beliefs of a population or the workings of religion in public life; and Whenever civil servants are compelled to self-censor their religion.
As it stands now you have no argument that atheism should be classified as a religion, which I speculate explains your desire to drop that part (the main part) of the discussion.
Not so. I merely felt that the argument had reached and intractable deadlock, and simply chose to focus on other, more negotiable avenues of discussion. Hence, by current subdividing of this topic into several managable sub-threads.
The only reasonable conclusion I can make from your post is that you wish to ignore the points I made and questions I raised in my prior message in favor of bringing up old arguments in a way that falsely implies that you have provided any rebuttal to my position.
Not so. There are numerous reasonable conclusions that you could draw from my actions.
The plain truth of the matter is that your myraid of points were, fairly often, the kind of rote repetition and droll verbosity that serves only to cloud the issue. My non-response should not be taken as acceptance--the reasonable matter in discourse when a point you feel to be pertinent is not replied-to is to inquire as to the reply and the stasis. I will note which points I concede, as is proper form.
If there are prior points that you wish me to reply to, kindly denote them (specifically, in quotes or in links) and I will endeavor to respond.
"Atheism" is a tricky word to use, because it is an invented word that has both entered the vulgar lexicon and been used as an identifier of a "movement" of sorts, despite that movement's subsequent fractionalization into finer shadings of meaning.
Your assertion that atheism is a "tricky" word appears to be baseless; the word atheism traces back to the Greek "atheos" and I do not see how you can deride it as an "invented word" as it is no more "invented" than any other word.
The fact that a word bases on a Greek root does not imply that it dates back to ancient Greece; merely, instead, that its inventor had a knowledge of the grecian language.
I did a quick search, and discovered a site that claims that the modern usage of the term "atheism" (and "theism") dates back only to the time of the French Enlightenment.
Etymology aside, Atheism remains a "tricky" term because it has so many distinct shades of meaning. A common dictionary search, returning 3 sources, lists "godlessness" as a second definiton for each one, and a search for godlessness returns those same three sources, each of which defines "godlessness" as "wickedness".
You'll have to explain what you mean by "vulgar lexicon"; the use of the term "vulgar" has a negative connotation that I do not believe you can apply to atheism.
No, it doesn't. "Vulgar lexicon" is a synonym for "vernacular." I.e., the common tongue spoken without jargon or specific contextual redefinitions.
You will also need to provide evidence of an atheist "movement". There are atheist organizations, but then there are organizations for stamp collectors and golfers; the mere existence of an organization does not constitute a movement.
It does when, prior to a certain period of time (say, the French Enlightenment or thereabouts), there was essentially no Atheism, and it would be fairly easy to research and learn that atheism has spread and become both more popular and more accepted as centuries have passed.
These are not merely "technical" differences, they are actual, significant, important differences that cannot be ignored.
There are differences. For the context of "is atheism a religion", they can be ignored--or, to phrase it better, glossed-over--so that we can discuss the larger issue.
I merely proposed what I did because I saw that confusion was arising from the difference of the terms.
Your attempt to "simplify" matters by ignoring or downplaying these differences is not acceptable in the context of this discussion,
We are not discussing the finer points of atheism or agnosticism. A common search reveals that approximately half of the definitions of "agnostic" refer specifically to divinty or religion. Ergo, it seems prudent to ignore each other's usage of "atheist" or "agnostic" and instead focus on the larger picture of the discussion.
which is why no matter how many times you ask me to abandon my position and accept yours I will not do so.
I am not, and have not, and will not, ask you to abandon your position on the meanings of the various words--though I will remind you, yet again, that English dictionaries are all descriptive and not proscriptive--that is, they are used best to learn new words or understand unfamiliar ones, not as an authorative source to settle issues of real merit.
Instead, I will simply re-state my suggestion that you cease both your juvenile "corrections" of my use of "agnostic" as "atheist" and we move on to matters of actual substance and not mere tit-for-tate squabbling.
My use contradicts yours, which is why when you describe mine as "technically correct" you describe your own as "technically incorrect". I do not believe you will be able to point to posts you have made in the past where you describe your definition as technically correct.
Your use of atheism is different, but not contradictory, to mine. I believe that you have said that "atheism is not anti-religion", which means that it clearly is not the mere opposite of religion.
Now, a simple view is to term atheism as a mere inversion of "theism"--instead of "there are gods", "there are no gods." By this term, we could classify Bhuddism, Shinto, and some variants of Humanism as Atheist. And, were we discussing the characteristics of moral systems that do and do not include gods, this would be a fair distinction.
However, in the common vernacular, "Atheism" has a more specific meaning than "A religion that doesn't belive in gods." It is commonly understood to include a lack of belief in not only in divine all-powerful beings, but also in souls, reincarnation, and a good deal of other spiritual or theological concepts.
Using Atheism to mean something more than what it means--by applying it to people who are not atheists and would neither consider themselves atheists nor likely be considered atheists by atheists--strikes me as contributing only to the confusion and upset regarding atheism that you so stridently hope to avoid.
Hence, "technical correctness" is so misleading as to be effectively "wrong" for our purposes. It is "technically correct" to call Hindus, Native Americans, and Bhuddists "pagans", but such a broad catagorization lacks understanding and should not be used outside of a few very specific contexts.
Are you abandoning your position on classifying atheism as a religion or are you just trying to avoid the hard questions?
No. I am merely attempting to bring order to the discussion in hopes that a real understanding can be reached. I think you can see as well as I that neither of us will gain any understanding at all without some order to this chaos.
If I'm completely wrong here, someone please correct me, but the only reason for going to 64 bit is to escape the limitations on addressable memory imposed by 32 bits. Until embedded devices come bundled with more than 4GB of RAM, there will be zero reason to use a 64 bit chip.
You're wrong.
A 64-bit chip, AFAIK (IANAEE), can process data in 64-bit "chunks." While this does pre-emptivley remove the 4 GB barrier (in 5 years or so, if current pace remains constant, 4 GB+ will be fairly common), it also has the nice side-effect of speeding up the processing of any properly-compiled program that handles data in chunks bigger than 4 bytes.
All other things being equal (which they never will be), a 64-bit processor will be faster than a 32-bit processor, simply by virtue of getting more out of each clock cycle, even if they address the same memory space.
(Another, off-the-top-of-my-head use for 64-bits: addressing fast hard drives with the same schema that is used to address memory.)
I propose that we table, as talked-to-death, my original point--and instead move on to things on which we may be able to actually come to an understanding.... insisting of the use of a definition that you have agreed is incorrect
Now, I never agreed that the definition of "atheist" or "atheism" that I was using was wrong--merely that your use was "technically correct", with an immediate note that I felt it to be impoper.
"Atheism" is a tricky word to use, because it is an invented word that has both entered the vulgar lexicon and been used as an identifier of a "movement" of sorts, despite that movement's subsequent fractionalization into finer shadings of meaning.
It doesn't have the same easy-identification that other adjectives such as "Christian" or "right-handed" do. Hyopthetically, if we were to conduct a poll to determine the ammount of atheiests in America, what sort of questions would we ask? Heck, what would be consider "atheist" for the purposes of the study?
IMO, this hypothetical study would be best served by using specific terms: "self-identified atheists", "strong atheists", "undecideds", and some other term for those who follow religious traditions but believe the religion's stance on the divine to be false.
To paraphrase Arthur Dent, this is obviously some strange usage of the word "clarify" that I wasn't previously aware of. I've explained the basis of my speculation about your motives above and have, in my prior message, invited you give an explanation of those motives.
I believe you are referring to the following (from this post)
(I believe that we can both agree that "Agnosticism" and "Weak Atheism" are essentially synonyms. Please state "All Atheists" or "Strong Atheists" if you mean more than mere disbelief or followers of the Atheist creed.)
Now, your respone of denying the first belief is, IMO, at best a technical rebuttal that ignores context; when discussing religious beliefs (or, if you prefer, "the existance of God"), an "agnostic" and a "weak atheist" have essentially the same position for essentially the same reason.
The odd part is your apparantly emotional reaction to the second part of my statement. Perhaps I phrased it too simply; allow me to specify better:
I know that I cannot alter your usage of "atheist", and I have no reason to attempt. However, for the sake of clarity, can you please specify when you are referring to Strong Atheists or disbeliving persons who do not consider themselves atheists?
Explain to us why it is irrational to lack a belief in any god.... use of the term "irrational" is not intended to hold any specific negative moral connotation
I never claimed that it was irrational to lack a believe in God. Rather, I simply asserted that it was no more rational or irrational to believe or not believe.
Reason and morality are neither synonyms nor strongly related. Love is amazingly irrational but perhaps the foundation or morality; Eugenics, on the other hand, is both clearly rational and totally amoral.
The only reasonable conclusion from your continued refusal to accept the true number of atheists in the world is that you are threatened by the fact that an increasingly large number of people do not believe in your god or indeed in any god and by the fact that these people are doing just fine without those beliefs
Again with the ad-hominem attacks.
Please cite some staistics for the number of people who don't believe in a divine being, who don't believe in the Judeo-Christian divine being, and the number of people who consider themselves atheists.
Until then, please don't assume that your allegation that there are a great number of atheists in the world as fact. There may very well be, and I would be interested to see some real numbers, but your allegation that there are is no more valid than the opposite interpretation.
You have given what you call your reasons and I have refuted every one of them
No, you haven't. You have ignored many of my arguments, responded to several with
irrelvenant attacks (why is it relevant AT ALL what I or you believe for the sake of this discussion?),
faulty logic (rational minds can disagree; my disagreeing with you does not make me irrational, even if you are rational),
unnecessary inflexibility with regards to the definition of what you claim is a mere word, and
unfounded allegations of malice at any suggestion on my behalf to clarify issues in an attempt to further the discussion
(I will re-state one point: Religion is not strictly without evidence. There are numerous instances and recollections that, while insufficient for scientific determination, do meet the standards of evidence for litigation.
Of course, how much or how little evidence exists for religion isn't relevant here; we're discussing grammar, remember?)
Slashdot Mirror
Nuclear power is not renewable.
Welcome to enthropy. We're currently taking the majoirty of our power from an uncontrolled fusion reaction that we know will fail and kill us at some point in the future.
And, really, in 2103 we should have at least a bit of advancement over what we have now--meaning that power sources that are not impossible to access will be accessible.
You think the microwave oven (using quantum mechanic theory) would have ever been developed?
I think I have to call you on this.
How the @#$ is a microwave oven--an application of WWII era radar electronics--a use of quantum mechanic theory? Sure, you can explain a microwave with QM, but you can also explain a rifle round, and no one claims that we wouldn't have bullets w/o QM.
As to the greater point... we have a society where knowledge and discoveres can be owned and kept secret. And we get innovations anyway, because we encourage people who use their "secret" knowledge and discoveries to make money, which they do.
As I feared, no attempts at understanding was forthcoming. However:
To quote your original message that began this entire thread:
Atheism is a religon--that is, it's an answer to the question of "what's up with all this god stuff?". It being a negative doesn't mean that, as far as politics and law care, that it isn't a religion.
So again, don't say you never said that. You absolutely did.
To reiterate: a religion is essentialy an answer to "what's up with all this god stuff?"--a nebulous question that can be asked many ways. You have successfuly argued that "I'm an atheist" does not just mean "God doesn't exist," but "I don't think God exists" as well.
As "Agnostic" in a personal-religion sense means "I don't know"*, I find that my original stance, being that "I don't know" or "I do not believe that he exists", is still appropriate to the label "agnostic", leaving "atheist" for the much more commonly understood "I don't think god exists."
*: A good deal of confusion over religon, and barriers to understanding, is the simple fact that all people believe their religous beliefs to be true, and statements with regards to religion frequently have to be filetered of dogma and jargon to learn what is acutally being said.
As I have stated before, I do not agree that atheism is a religion so I do not see the point of discussing any "logic" that would determine it to be such.
Then you have left the path of understanding, and are essentially arguing by assertion. It is becoming increasingly hard to believe that any further understanding can come from this discussion.
However, in the interest of a final attempt:
Your position from the very beginning has been "Atheism is a religion." Don't say you never said that.
I didn't. You objected to my use, and have repeatedly maintained the existance of "technical atheists" who should not be considered members of a religion named "atheism."
You have successfully argued the point that the multiple usage of atheism, as lack of any deisitc belief or as belief in the absence of any diviniy, is confusing and brings misunderstanding. You have suceeded in convincing me that, when someone states that they are an atheist, it may be proper to ask if they are a "strong atheist" or a "weak atheist."
However, you have not given a compelling argument why Atheism should never be considered a religion, regardless of context. While we could continue to debate this, unless you are willing to accept that language is mutable, I fear that we will simply be unable to come to any kind of understanding at all.
I find it bizarre that you suggest this to me in light of the fact that in the past you have been the one saying that atheism is a religion and I have said repeatedly that the atheist's answer to "What is your religion?" is "None". But yes, I agree that the "None" is the correct answer, although in practice I often find I have to follow it up with "I'm an atheist" because all I get when I say "None" is a blank, bewildered stare.
I do believe that we have come to an agreement on this point. You are not a member of the atheist religion, regardless if such a thing does or does not exist.
You keep saying this but your saying it doesn't make it true.
A TISPOSATH
Your continual denial of it does not make it false.
However:
http://www.atheists.org/
http://www.positiveatheism.org/faq/faq1111.htm#WH
Both are or are inspired by a commmon set of beliefs. In addition, Yahoo catagorizes "atheism" under "religion" which, while not in itself existance of a religion entitled atheism, is evidence of my original assertion that atheism is properly catalogued as a religion.
I do not agree that this matters.
It doesn't, always. But it does introduce misunderstandings and confusion, which I thought you wanted to minimize.
Your example of "American" is a poor one, as "American" only has a single meaning in our common language.
You have not established the existence of inaccuracies in the dictionary definition of "atheism" so you should not refer to them as if you had.
I have. You ignored them, and misidenfitied my logic.
To wit: the definitions are not inaccurate, they are imprecise / variable. The innacuracy is in your use of the term "atheist", specifically the grammatical implication that there is a commonality between yourself and a Bhuddist or a Shintoist or a Humanist when your beliefs are not the same.
You are saying that the belief in a god is without meaning if that belief is not part of a religion (organized or not).
Not "without meaning", just "irrelvant to the purposes of religious catagorization."
As I have stated before, any logic that would determine "atheism" to be a religion would also determine "agnosticism" to be a religion. In a like vein, a body that is "agnostic" with regards to religion is also, by your preferred definition, "atheist."
Hence, by original suggestion that we agree that the terms are "effectively synonymous" for the purposes of our discussion.
One more point of yours deserves reply (the others are irrelevant, tangental, or unnecessary):
Atheism is not a religion because there is no specific set of beliefs that is common to all atheists.
I did not say that all "technical atheists" belong to the religon of atheism. Instead, I stated that there is a religion, identifed by you as "strong atheism", and that this religion is named "Atheism."
All members of this poorly-named religion beleive that God does not exist, and various other implications and distrust of various believing religions.
Try reading some discussion forums like alt.atheism for examples.
That is a specfic context. There are many others wherein Strong Atheists omit the "strong" modifier.
Based on what I said you are correct in that he will treat all organized religions as being wrong but that does not equate to lacking a belief in god. You argue that one must be part of an organized religion to believe in a god and that is simply not true.
/. post (or usenet post, or e-mail) is akin to a monologue in a traditional discussion. If you fill your monologue with a myriad of unrelated points without giving the other party a chance to respond, you should not be surprised when some of your points go unreplied.
I have never made any allegation of the sort--in fact, it has been other parties to this discussion that have implied that religion needs to be "organized" at all.
Furthermore, for the purposes of everyone except for your boss himself, he should be treated very much the same as an atheist.
Every time you willfully misrepresent my position...
That's a misallegation of malice. You should know better.
You should know that assuming your conclusion is a fallacy. I would dispute the idea that atheists have an unfair advantage against religious people on the basis that any government promotion of any religion would discriminate against all other religions. Of course, I have made this point in the past and you simply ignored it as you ignore all of my points.
Your points are incoherent, badly formed, assume facts not in evidence without noting such as speculation, and formed with a manner that reflects a childish adherence to words of authority without respect to real usage or intended meaning.
But, in re-affimation of my point:
Atheism is a religion, even if it's not YOUR religion. (Call it "Strong Atheism" if you want--but S.A.'s don't call themselves anything but "atheists" when then engage in public discourse.) A professor who says "God doesn't exist" should be penalized exactly the same as a professor who says "God does exist."
Doing otherwise gives atheism an unfair advantage; It is inherently unfair to require one party of a discussion to censor their beliefs and allow another to have their beliefs go uncensored.
If you wish to be taken seriously you will begin responding to every point that is made, even if that response is only to note it and request not to discuss it.
A demand such as that is immature and not in keeping with the inhereted rules and common understanding of proper decorum for dialogue.
A single
In general, demanding a reply to every point that you raise is both improper decorum and a sign of a childish mind. If you do not wish to convey this view, I suggest that you refrain from doing so.
Every time you do I explain that I don't agree that it is a valid analogy. I do not agree that using the correct definition of atheism "lacks understanding" and until you provide evidence to back up your point I will continue to express my disagreement.
*sigh*
Leaving the various ambiguties and variable meanings inherent in our language aside, allow me to simply focus on what understanding is lacked when you group in everyone who does not believe in divinities as "atheists".
As I believe I have mentioned previously, the faulty logic is an implication of shared commonality that grouping such as that implies. You consider yourself an atheist--but a sizable portion of what a broad swath would classify as "atheists" do not consider themselves as such. And a second portion considers themselves "atheists" but means something more than you would use the broad swath as.
Using the mere dictionary definition of "atheism" without understanding its innacuracies is the very essence of lacking understanding. I thought you wanted to reduce confusion, not propogate it.
As far as I'm concerned, the correct definition of the word is all that matters.
Quite simply, you're wrong.
I can't teach basic linquistic theory to you here. All words are artificial constructs designated to communicate certain ideas. While they should have the same broad meaning, their specific meaning is mutable--and each specific meaning is no less "correct" than any others.
If you don't believe me on this point, go ask an English professor.
That the term be used accurately is important to me because it is a term that I use to describe myself and I do not want people misinterpreting what I say.
In that case, as your foci is understanding, I would note that "atheism" is a word that is either differently defined by many persons, or mis-used by a near-majority of the population.
It may be best to consider use of a different word, when pressed to give a one-word answer to "what is your religion?" (I suggest "none" before "atheism", or "I don't have a religion" instead of "I'm an atheist"--the latter implies that atheism is a thing that can define you, and the unmodified term has the danger of being misunderstood.)
The reason that I argue against considering atheism a religion is that a religion is a specific set of beliefs and there is no specific set of beliefs that unites atheists.
But there are people with a specific set of beliefs who call themselves "atheists" and nothing else. I was not the one to co-opt the word.
It's becoming increasingly clear that your objection to using the correct definition of "atheist" is based solely on your view of it as opposing christianity.
Based on what do you make this near-malcious ad hominem attack?
"Atheism" is a creed that does attempt to influence the world around it, and spread its own idea of religious truth. It is very likely that followers of this creed have co-opted the word that you choose to describe your own non-affiliated religious position, but they exist nontheless.
This is what prompts my opinion of atheism as a religion--the fact that there exists a religion (as the term is used by the Supreme Court) that calls itself "Atheism" and does many of the objective things that religions do.
When discussing the religious beliefs of a populations, atheists might be buddhists or humanists or have no religion at all.
It is to those who "have no religion at all" that the label of "atheist" is, rightly or wrongly, applied. Perhaps it would be better to divide the definition:
Atheist: (1) A person who does not believe in the existance of divinity.
(2): A person who belongs to no religion because he considers them all to be false, esp. those who believe in the non-existance of divinity.
(Please note that I am using the specific "system of belief" definition of religion. I maintain that, for (2), "atheism is a religion" is valid, if for no other reason than the simple imprecision of language.)
While (1) may be the historic, "technical", and even proper usage, (2) seems to be the much more common usage.
In all honesty, I think that one or the other definitons should be changed to a more distinct term: a name for those that believe in the non-existance of god, so that they can stop co-opting the term "atheism" and cluttering up the issue.
(Of course, there are loads of extant names avalable--"Skeptic", "Humanist", "Bright", "Scientologist" [though the last one, a perfectly sensible word, has been perverted by a money-sucking cult] and a few others. Unfortunately, (2)s are a diverse enough lot that convincing them to agree on a name might be more trouble than its worth, resulting in making it easier to just retire (1) and replace it with "non-theists".)
You keep trying to control the direction that this discussion goes in
When did it become wrong to direct a conversation to a different topic?
Consider it, at the least, my preference.
I also do not believe that you actually seek understanding, based on your description of me as a zealot (an ironic one since you hold to your own possition with no less zeal than I hold to mine).
Not so much ironic as honest. I make no apologies for being a zealous christian--my faith compels me to seek understanding and knowledge. On the other hand, you have repeatedly made statements that lead me to conclude that you have the same kind of zeal towards atheism that I have towards Christianity--and observation that, as I said, I find odd considering your statements that atheism is not a thing solid enough to inspire such zeal.
(Were I attempting to covert you, this would be the point where I would state something similiar to "obviously you're lacking God in your life." However, I am not compelled to convert, merely understand, and therefore my observation is simply "you seem to be searching for a cause to 'get religion' over; I submit to you that 'atheism' is not a cause worthy of such zeal by your own definiton of such. Much better foci would be understanding and/or truth.)
In any case, as evidence of my desire for understanding, I remind you that I have attempted to avoid topics and discussions that can have no further discourse, and I have endeavored to organize this discussion as to bring greater clarity.
As philisophical backing for my stance, in case you find it hard to reconcile with my stated beliefs: God made man intelligent, and the clearest sign of intelligence is being able to argue a cause in which you do not believe.
You have already agreed that the technically correct definition of atheism is a lack of belief in any gods.
Not as you seem to understand it.
In essence, this branch of the discussion to clarify by what I mean when I say "technical correctness." To repeat myself:
"technical correctness" is so misleading as to be effectively "wrong" for our purposes. It is "technically correct" to call Hindus, Native Americans, and Bhuddists "pagans", but such a broad catagorization lacks understanding and should not be used outside of a few very specific contexts.
Your response did not deal with this, but instead focused on the "real definition" of the word. Please focus your replies to what I said in the post that you are replying-to, so that we do not develop parallell lines of discussion when using a medium so capable of handling simultaneous threads of discussion.
Point 1: Until you do I have no choice but to consider them conceded and proceed on that basis.
Remember that "undiscussed" is not the same as "conceeded." If I concede something, then it can be taken as true for the purposes of this discussion. Please do not take things that I do not respond to as conceded unless I note as such.
Now, as to your points.
You claimed that weak atheism and agnosticism are the same position "when discussing religious beliefs". This is contradicted by my prior example of my boss, who believes that there must be a god (theist) but that its nature is unknowable (agnostic).
In rebuttal to your counter-example: Your boss does not believe in a god, he beleives that there should be one. Based on just what you said, he will act as if all religions with profess knowledge of a god are wrong, just as he would if he believed their god to be nonexistant.
Society should/does treat him the same as they treat a weak atheist--thus, he can be classified as either "atheist" or "agnostic" and, for most purposes, be effectively correct.
The reality is of course different, but all statistics and policies are different when they are focused on the individual. (And, of course, relgion is effectively just a tool of society to help people come to their own spiritual beliefs.)
You asked: "However, for the sake of clarity, can you please specify when you are referring to Strong Atheists or disbeliving persons who do not consider themselves atheists?" I have always differentiated between all atheists, weak atheists and strong atheists. Your suggestion otherwise misrepresents my position.
This isn't a rebuttal; it's a point of order. You could just have effectively said "I already do."
You claimed that your reason for wanting to see atheism treated as a religion was that you were concerned that atheists would be discriminated against because they would not have First Amendment protections.
No. I merely stated that as a moral basis which I felt you could find common ground with. My reasons for wanting atheism to be treated as a religion are based largely on my desire to not give atheism an unfair advantage or diadvantage when placed against other religions.
(I belive that you have previously implied that you desire this to be, and I have chosen not to respond to this implication simply because that would be you taking a stance of unfairness, and that would lead to an end of civil discussion.)
I pointed out that atheists would still be protected by the First Amendment prohibition against making laws that respect an establishment of religion.
See the EBT Supreme Court case. Atheists are protected by laws that protect freedom of religion because the Supreme Court decided that the government should not be in the basis of saying what is and is not a religion--and, hence, the measure is effectively "you're a religion if you seek freedoms of religion."
Which, in the end, is only fair, IMO.
Have any other missed points you wish a reply to?
Your reference is a christian ministry, hardly a believable source for an objective view on the word.
Provide a better source. It was the first one I found that had good dates on the history of the term.
Since you do not place any weight on dictionary definitions or on the definition actually used by atheists why do you expect people to use your definition?
I don't. I expect people to agree on the broad meaning of words, and to hammer out the specific meanings for themselves as specifics become important to their discussion.
Dictionaries and Atheist organizations do have weight--they just aren't the final say.
You repeatedly assert that the definition of "atheism" is not important to the discussion
Not quite. I assert that "atheism"'s explanatory definition is insufficient for catagorization--a different ball of wax entirely.
However, I am deviating from the subject at hand--atheism v. agnosticism. I think that you can agree that, if we were to consider atheism a religion, we would also by the same principle have to consider agnosticism a religion as well. Hence, the distinctions between these two words are moot to the larger issue at hand.
You started by asserting that atheism is a religion. This assertion was rebutted so you moved on to claim that although atheism is not "technically" a religion it should be classified as one.
No. I re-stated my position that, even though most dictionary definitions of "religion" specifically mention divinity, it is nevertheless proper to consider atheism "a religion." Specifically, I have maintained that public entities should treat Atheism the same as Christianity or Judaism or Wicca or Islam, and I have provided instances and practical applications wherein it is useful to answer questions such as "what is your religion?" with "atheist."
You gave a reason to back up this assertion but it was rebutted. You failed to respond to that rebuttal and failed to provide any additional reasons.
Kindly refresh my memory as to what you consider your last rebuttal to be.
If you are referring to my supplied context as to when it is and is not proper to consider "atheism" a "religion", your rebuttal was little more than a repetition of your previous allegation that "atheism is not a religion".
I did a small bit of cursory research, and found a summary of a Supreme Court case, ESA v. Rylander, in which the court found that "religion" should be interpreted very broadly when it comes to the law--and, ergo, my contexts wherein "atheism must be considered a religion."
I believe that I should add a fourth and fifth context wherein atheism must be considered a religion: Whenever discussing the religious beliefs of a population or the workings of religion in public life; and Whenever civil servants are compelled to self-censor their religion.
As it stands now you have no argument that atheism should be classified as a religion, which I speculate explains your desire to drop that part (the main part) of the discussion.
Not so. I merely felt that the argument had reached and intractable deadlock, and simply chose to focus on other, more negotiable avenues of discussion. Hence, by current subdividing of this topic into several managable sub-threads.
The only reasonable conclusion I can make from your post is that you wish to ignore the points I made and questions I raised in my prior message in favor of bringing up old arguments in a way that falsely implies that you have provided any rebuttal to my position.
Not so. There are numerous reasonable conclusions that you could draw from my actions.
The plain truth of the matter is that your myraid of points were, fairly often, the kind of rote repetition and droll verbosity that serves only to cloud the issue. My non-response should not be taken as acceptance--the reasonable matter in discourse when a point you feel to be pertinent is not replied-to is to inquire as to the reply and the stasis. I will note which points I concede, as is proper form.
If there are prior points that you wish me to reply to, kindly denote them (specifically, in quotes or in links) and I will endeavor to respond.
"Atheism" is a tricky word to use, because it is an invented word that has both entered the vulgar lexicon and been used as an identifier of a "movement" of sorts, despite that movement's subsequent fractionalization into finer shadings of meaning.
Your assertion that atheism is a "tricky" word appears to be baseless; the word atheism traces back to the Greek "atheos" and I do not see how you can deride it as an "invented word" as it is no more "invented" than any other word.
The fact that a word bases on a Greek root does not imply that it dates back to ancient Greece; merely, instead, that its inventor had a knowledge of the grecian language.
I did a quick search, and discovered a site that claims that the modern usage of the term "atheism" (and "theism") dates back only to the time of the French Enlightenment.
Etymology aside, Atheism remains a "tricky" term because it has so many distinct shades of meaning. A common dictionary search, returning 3 sources, lists "godlessness" as a second definiton for each one, and a search for godlessness returns those same three sources, each of which defines "godlessness" as "wickedness".
You'll have to explain what you mean by "vulgar lexicon"; the use of the term "vulgar" has a negative connotation that I do not believe you can apply to atheism.
No, it doesn't. "Vulgar lexicon" is a synonym for "vernacular." I.e., the common tongue spoken without jargon or specific contextual redefinitions.
You will also need to provide evidence of an atheist "movement". There are atheist organizations, but then there are organizations for stamp collectors and golfers; the mere existence of an organization does not constitute a movement.
It does when, prior to a certain period of time (say, the French Enlightenment or thereabouts), there was essentially no Atheism, and it would be fairly easy to research and learn that atheism has spread and become both more popular and more accepted as centuries have passed.
These are not merely "technical" differences, they are actual, significant, important differences that cannot be ignored.
There are differences. For the context of "is atheism a religion", they can be ignored--or, to phrase it better, glossed-over--so that we can discuss the larger issue.
I merely proposed what I did because I saw that confusion was arising from the difference of the terms.
Your attempt to "simplify" matters by ignoring or downplaying these differences is not acceptable in the context of this discussion,
We are not discussing the finer points of atheism or agnosticism. A common search reveals that approximately half of the definitions of "agnostic" refer specifically to divinty or religion. Ergo, it seems prudent to ignore each other's usage of "atheist" or "agnostic" and instead focus on the larger picture of the discussion.
which is why no matter how many times you ask me to abandon my position and accept yours I will not do so.
I am not, and have not, and will not, ask you to abandon your position on the meanings of the various words--though I will remind you, yet again, that English dictionaries are all descriptive and not proscriptive--that is, they are used best to learn new words or understand unfamiliar ones, not as an authorative source to settle issues of real merit.
Instead, I will simply re-state my suggestion that you cease both your juvenile "corrections" of my use of "agnostic" as "atheist" and we move on to matters of actual substance and not mere tit-for-tate squabbling.
My use contradicts yours, which is why when you describe mine as "technically correct" you describe your own as "technically incorrect". I do not believe you will be able to point to posts you have made in the past where you describe your definition as technically correct.
Your use of atheism is different, but not contradictory, to mine. I believe that you have said that "atheism is not anti-religion", which means that it clearly is not the mere opposite of religion.
Now, a simple view is to term atheism as a mere inversion of "theism"--instead of "there are gods", "there are no gods." By this term, we could classify Bhuddism, Shinto, and some variants of Humanism as Atheist. And, were we discussing the characteristics of moral systems that do and do not include gods, this would be a fair distinction.
However, in the common vernacular, "Atheism" has a more specific meaning than "A religion that doesn't belive in gods." It is commonly understood to include a lack of belief in not only in divine all-powerful beings, but also in souls, reincarnation, and a good deal of other spiritual or theological concepts.
Using Atheism to mean something more than what it means--by applying it to people who are not atheists and would neither consider themselves atheists nor likely be considered atheists by atheists--strikes me as contributing only to the confusion and upset regarding atheism that you so stridently hope to avoid.
Hence, "technical correctness" is so misleading as to be effectively "wrong" for our purposes. It is "technically correct" to call Hindus, Native Americans, and Bhuddists "pagans", but such a broad catagorization lacks understanding and should not be used outside of a few very specific contexts.
Are you abandoning your position on classifying atheism as a religion or are you just trying to avoid the hard questions?
No. I am merely attempting to bring order to the discussion in hopes that a real understanding can be reached. I think you can see as well as I that neither of us will gain any understanding at all without some order to this chaos.
If I'm completely wrong here, someone please correct me, but the only reason for going to 64 bit is to escape the limitations on addressable memory imposed by 32 bits. Until embedded devices come bundled with more than 4GB of RAM, there will be zero reason to use a 64 bit chip.
You're wrong.
A 64-bit chip, AFAIK (IANAEE), can process data in 64-bit "chunks." While this does pre-emptivley remove the 4 GB barrier (in 5 years or so, if current pace remains constant, 4 GB+ will be fairly common), it also has the nice side-effect of speeding up the processing of any properly-compiled program that handles data in chunks bigger than 4 bytes.
All other things being equal (which they never will be), a 64-bit processor will be faster than a 32-bit processor, simply by virtue of getting more out of each clock cycle, even if they address the same memory space.
(Another, off-the-top-of-my-head use for 64-bits: addressing fast hard drives with the same schema that is used to address memory.)
I propose that we table, as talked-to-death, my original point--and instead move on to things on which we may be able to actually come to an understanding. ... insisting of the use of a definition that you have agreed is incorrect
Now, I never agreed that the definition of "atheist" or "atheism" that I was using was wrong--merely that your use was "technically correct", with an immediate note that I felt it to be impoper.
"Atheism" is a tricky word to use, because it is an invented word that has both entered the vulgar lexicon and been used as an identifier of a "movement" of sorts, despite that movement's subsequent fractionalization into finer shadings of meaning.
It doesn't have the same easy-identification that other adjectives such as "Christian" or "right-handed" do. Hyopthetically, if we were to conduct a poll to determine the ammount of atheiests in America, what sort of questions would we ask? Heck, what would be consider "atheist" for the purposes of the study?
IMO, this hypothetical study would be best served by using specific terms: "self-identified atheists", "strong atheists", "undecideds", and some other term for those who follow religious traditions but believe the religion's stance on the divine to be false.
To paraphrase Arthur Dent, this is obviously some strange usage of the word "clarify" that I wasn't previously aware of. I've explained the basis of my speculation about your motives above and have, in my prior message, invited you give an explanation of those motives.
I believe you are referring to the following (from this post)
(I believe that we can both agree that "Agnosticism" and "Weak Atheism" are essentially synonyms. Please state "All Atheists" or "Strong Atheists" if you mean more than mere disbelief or followers of the Atheist creed.)
Now, your respone of denying the first belief is, IMO, at best a technical rebuttal that ignores context; when discussing religious beliefs (or, if you prefer, "the existance of God"), an "agnostic" and a "weak atheist" have essentially the same position for essentially the same reason.
The odd part is your apparantly emotional reaction to the second part of my statement. Perhaps I phrased it too simply; allow me to specify better:
I know that I cannot alter your usage of "atheist", and I have no reason to attempt. However, for the sake of clarity, can you please specify when you are referring to Strong Atheists or disbeliving persons who do not consider themselves atheists?
The only reasonable conclusion from your continued refusal to accept the true number of atheists in the world is that you are threatened by the fact that an increasingly large number of people do not believe in your god or indeed in any god and by the fact that these people are doing just fine without those beliefs
Again with the ad-hominem attacks.
Please cite some staistics for the number of people who don't believe in a divine being, who don't believe in the Judeo-Christian divine being, and the number of people who consider themselves atheists.
Until then, please don't assume that your allegation that there are a great number of atheists in the world as fact. There may very well be, and I would be interested to see some real numbers, but your allegation that there are is no more valid than the opposite interpretation.
You have given what you call your reasons and I have refuted every one of them
No, you haven't. You have ignored many of my arguments, responded to several with
(I will re-state one point: Religion is not strictly without evidence. There are numerous instances and recollections that, while insufficient for scientific determination, do meet the standards of evidence for litigation.
Of course, how much or how little evidence exists for religion isn't relevant here; we're discussing grammar, remember?)