I know what you wrote: it's right in fron of me. But you missed my point. Perhaps this clarifies: Atheism is a lack of belief. If I you ask whether God or FSM actually exists for certain, an honest person must answer "I don't know", because it's impossible to know. This is really agnostic, so it's truly a pointless word. If you ask "do you believe in a supreme being who created everyone anf everything, and answers people's prayers?" Saying no doesn't make you religious. Just as saying no to the question "do you believe the FSM created everything?" doesn't make you religious.
Lack of belief is not a religion, no matter how much you want it to be.
Everyone lacks belief in some religions, even most. You wouldn't claim that they were religious in their lack of belief in Thor or Quetzacoatl, would you?
Perhaps you would.
Do you have a deep religion in your lack of belief in the invisible pink unicorn?
"God did it", firstly, doesn't actually explain anything. Secondly, it is the "explanation" that something complex created life. But it simply pushes the question further back, because it leaves the question of how God came into existence.
My kids have to learn 2 systems. That's one more than necessary. They have to answer questions like "what's the most appropriate unit for measuring a lake?", and the choices are fl oz, cups, pints, quarts and gallons. Wtf?
I only learned metric at their age. We had a MUCH easier time.
Then why have some major fuckups been traced to a units mixup?
And why do Planck units even exist?
Whether you like to believe it or not, some units are easier to work with, and it depends on the task at hand.
From your post it seems like you don't even know enough about the metric system and its underlying basis to even have an opinion. Yet you behave like you think you're an expert.
Btw... "whoever's an atheist raise your hand" Is that supposed to eliminate the selection bias I mentioned? Because it doesn't. And if you think it does you aren't going to be able to study your subject very well. If I was in a group who was given those instructions, I wouldn't raise my hand. And I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.
Some of that is so hard to parse I'm not sure its valid English.
As for a mis (sic) assertion, I didn't make one. I made a suggestion. I put it to you. You could explain how you know that atheists aren't discriminated against, but you chose not to. I have an idea why, but I won't recount. If you so decide, please share. Perhaps the most telling and visible demonstration of such discrimination, look at politics. How many politicians currently in the senate or house (or other) do you know to be atheist?
Faith has meaning in English. A related word in Hebrew in next to useless to help us understand the English sense, since these things change vastly over relatively short timeframes.
When I hear or use the word faith, the closest definition I'd use is "belief in the absence of evidence". This understanding of the word faith is echoed by many people. So faith would apply to the existence of a god, but not of air.
This makes more sense, since we need different words in order to differentiate meanings. If faith simply means belief, then using one rather than the other makes no distinction.
Occam's razor to the rescue! The simpler explanation of the world is better. I.e. the one without invisible pink unicorns. (There existence is already a logical impossibility, since something that's invisible cannot have color, but that misses the point)
I think people are far less likely to assess this like a mathematician and weight the proportion of each. People in general are notoriously bad at judging probabilities.
The likeliest thing people will choose to evaluate this question is their perceived morality and therefore likely trustworthiness. My guess is they will ascribe more morality to the religious.
The bible has to be interpreted differently than the plain meaning of the words because otherwise it's immoral, self-contradictory, bigoted and doesn't fit with modern understanding, morality or facts.
But let's take an example from science. The equations of motion are used today as they were when they were written. We've learned there are more accurate models, and sometimes need to apply those, but we still read his writings as written. we've also invented a way to apply his methods and equations to more objects that have been invented since, which is a form of reinterpreting, but a distinctly different one.
You are so horribly misinformed it's not funny. You probably got most of this from Fox. One question: do you really think we shouldn't gave entered WWI or WWII? Note that the US was already in Korea at the end of WWII and war was inevitable. The Vietnam war was just plain wrong.
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I know what you wrote: it's right in fron of me. But you missed my point. Perhaps this clarifies:
Atheism is a lack of belief.
If I you ask whether God or FSM actually exists for certain, an honest person must answer "I don't know", because it's impossible to know. This is really agnostic, so it's truly a pointless word.
If you ask "do you believe in a supreme being who created everyone anf everything, and answers people's prayers?" Saying no doesn't make you religious.
Just as saying no to the question "do you believe the FSM created everything?" doesn't make you religious.
Lack of belief is not a religion, no matter how much you want it to be.
Everyone lacks belief in some religions, even most. You wouldn't claim that they were religious in their lack of belief in Thor or Quetzacoatl, would you?
Perhaps you would.
Do you have a deep religion in your lack of belief in the invisible pink unicorn?
There is a lot to learn from C.
On the other hand, C is full of undefined behaviour.
As such, C regularly kicks newbies in the teeth.
Better to learn a language that doesn't have undefined behaviour.
Why?
"God did it", firstly, doesn't actually explain anything.
Secondly, it is the "explanation" that something complex created life. But it simply pushes the question further back, because it leaves the question of how God came into existence.
Not funny. Insightful, interesting, yes. Funny - no.
A rational explanation is the only one that's useful.
My kids have to learn 2 systems. That's one more than necessary. They have to answer questions like "what's the most appropriate unit for measuring a lake?", and the choices are fl oz, cups, pints, quarts and gallons. Wtf?
I only learned metric at their age. We had a MUCH easier time.
I use time all day too.
I work in milliseconds, microseconds and nanoseconds.
I'm not kidding either.
You just copied that whole comment in, didn't you?
Quit spamming.
Units don't make any difference at all, huh?
Then why have some major fuckups been traced to a units mixup?
And why do Planck units even exist?
Whether you like to believe it or not, some units are easier to work with, and it depends on the task at hand.
From your post it seems like you don't even know enough about the metric system and its underlying basis to even have an opinion. Yet you behave like you think you're an expert.
Good point.
You need help.
Btw... "whoever's an atheist raise your hand"
Is that supposed to eliminate the selection bias I mentioned? Because it doesn't. And if you think it does you aren't going to be able to study your subject very well.
If I was in a group who was given those instructions, I wouldn't raise my hand. And I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.
Why would you expect atheism to have "done" something?
Some of that is so hard to parse I'm not sure its valid English.
As for a mis (sic) assertion, I didn't make one. I made a suggestion. I put it to you. You could explain how you know that atheists aren't discriminated against, but you chose not to. I have an idea why, but I won't recount. If you so decide, please share.
Perhaps the most telling and visible demonstration of such discrimination, look at politics. How many politicians currently in the senate or house (or other) do you know to be atheist?
Well, not being an atheist, I put it to you that you have no clue.
Faith has meaning in English. A related word in Hebrew in next to useless to help us understand the English sense, since these things change vastly over relatively short timeframes.
When I hear or use the word faith, the closest definition I'd use is "belief in the absence of evidence". This understanding of the word faith is echoed by many people.
So faith would apply to the existence of a god, but not of air.
This makes more sense, since we need different words in order to differentiate meanings. If faith simply means belief, then using one rather than the other makes no distinction.
Faith is belief in the absence of evidence.
Occam's razor to the rescue!
The simpler explanation of the world is better. I.e. the one without invisible pink unicorns.
(There existence is already a logical impossibility, since something that's invisible cannot have color, but that misses the point)
I think people are far less likely to assess this like a mathematician and weight the proportion of each. People in general are notoriously bad at judging probabilities.
The likeliest thing people will choose to evaluate this question is their perceived morality and therefore likely trustworthiness. My guess is they will ascribe more morality to the religious.
Most atheists hide their beliefs.
It's natural to do so in the US, since atheists are discriminated against.
You have selection bias, since you assume those that don't claim to be atheists are not. Which clearly isn't necessarily true.
I think you misunderstood my post, because 1. I would never defend the bible and 2. I agree 100% with the rest of your post.
That's not a very good argument.
The bible has to be interpreted differently than the plain meaning of the words because otherwise it's immoral, self-contradictory, bigoted and doesn't fit with modern understanding, morality or facts.
But let's take an example from science. The equations of motion are used today as they were when they were written. We've learned there are more accurate models, and sometimes need to apply those, but we still read his writings as written.
we've also invented a way to apply his methods and equations to more objects that have been invented since, which is a form of reinterpreting, but a distinctly different one.
You are so horribly misinformed it's not funny. You probably got most of this from Fox.
One question: do you really think we shouldn't gave entered WWI or WWII?
Note that the US was already in Korea at the end of WWII and war was inevitable.
The Vietnam war was just plain wrong.