Atheists on the rise in America

[kaneada]

FootballFan said:

wfz said:

shio said:

wfz said:

Are we including agnostic people in with "athiests?"

 

Just wondering.. and I'm also wondering if those people are truly athiest, or merely say it because it's the more common term. I'm more agnostic than anything... it'll be a long time before we humans ever attain some enlightenment that proves the existance of a god or afterlife, so in the meantime I'll find truth in unknowingness.

I wouldn't put agnostics and atheists in the same bag. In the core, they're completely different from each other.

I, for one, am an atheist. I don't believe there's a god or such kind of beings, but it's possible there was a Jesus (although without the hocus pocus written in the bible).

Truth be told, I think agnosticism is more balanced they atheism or any religion. You may not have any evidence of god, but that doesn't prove he's not real.

How are they so completely different? All the negative reaction I've ever heard about agnosticism is that it's so incredibly close to atheism that it's hardly woth claling it it's own class. It's all about how close to zero you want to go with the probability of no type of Diety existing... but I'm betting there's a lot of self-proclaimed "athiests" who actually are more agnostic.

 

...Even though they're almost the same thing.

Equally, there are a large amount of "Christians" by law who are infact agnostics and atheists. Myself included, I was Christened (without choice) and really don't see the point in getting rid of the evidence just to comply with the paper forms.

Agnosticism merely asserts that the truth cannot truly be known without an arguement based souly on circumstancial evidence. An agnostic can be religous or not (personally I'm not.) I personal disagree with the religous front, as one cannot define the exitence of god, or his beliefs, without a self referencing statement (i.e. statements quoted from the Bible, Koran, Torah, Kabalah ect.) however I think scientifc method is a better approach as it is self correcting and counts on error in thought to re-evaluate theories and generate a more accurate answer. I think Ahtiests often abuse this method and state theories as definitive facts, which in my opinion, is no different than a relgious person does in a debate. I've seen it countless times on messages boards and think that Atheism is just as much a problem as Christianity and as a result can cloud the ration thoughts of the people arguing and those that join either cause. The plain and simple fact is I refuse to be a part of that mess.