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GameOver22 on 09 December 2010
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chocoloco said:
GameOver22 said:
chocoloco said:
HappySqurriel said:
Bobbuffalo said:
leatherhat said:

Atheists are people that bust religious peoples balls over believing in God when there is no proof, completely forgetting that there is no proof God doesn't exist as well.

That's not atheism. Atheism is simply that you won't believe blindly in something unless there are proofs. If there are proofs that God exists then I'll accept it because there's a proof of it.

But so far there isn't and no religion has proved it yet.

That stance is more in line with being agnostic ...

Agnostics (like myself) generally respect other people's religious views but don't believe there is significant evidence to support the view that god exists.

I truly think there is little difference between an atheist and an agnostic. They both are skeptical and non-religous.  And an atheist can respect the good that religion has done even if they believe that no one true religion is possible.

They are distinctly different groups though. Skepticism maintains we cannot have knowledge, and atheists argue we can know that God does not exist. Agnostics are more in line with skepticism because they maintain we cannot assess the truth of religious claims. Atheists are obviously going to disagree because they claim we can know that God does not exist.

That would be true if there was some absolute definition of an atheist which there is not. For an atheist to say there is an absolute definition of the word is the same absolutism that most religions project.     For me, all it takes to be an atheist is to deny the exsitance of a god/goddess/creator it never requires someone to say that they can prove the nonexistence. Maybe it does from a philisophical stance, but in general to be an Atheist really just believes you don't believe in religion.

I also do not think that all definitions need to be absolute, but you can definitely name the characteristics something needs to have in order to fall into a category. The one obvious characteristic of atheists, at least good ones, is they must claim to have the knowledge that God does not exist. Without this, they just have a belief with no justification, and atheists are not going to want to rely on belief for their argument. The most popular form of argumentation would be arguing that the characteristics of God are incompatible with observations of the universe (eg. Richard Dawkins). Someone could also say we cannot know if God exists, but this is an agnostic and not an atheist.

How does someone deny the existence of something without proof? Without proof, its just an empty statement. There needs to be some form of argumentation. I don't really think this is a question of philosophical v. common meaning. I think most atheists will maintain that belief is not enough to be an atheist. It is necessary, but this belief also needs to be true and justified, and hence, knowledge. Also, atheism is not concerned with religion but God. There can be people who believe in God but are not religious, such as deists, but they are not atheists.