GameOver22 said:
chocoloco said:
GameOver22 said:
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Ok not trying to be a dick, but saying you can not deny something without proof could also mean you can not prove that I am not god. Can you really prove the existence of anything because I don't think the statement "I think therefore, I am," is enough. In philiosophical thinking, you could prove or unprove the existance of anything.
A deist is a theist as well, so of course the are not an atheist; monotheism and polytheism are equals as religions even if polytheism is not as popular.
Actually I tell people I am an agnostic, but I truly believe that it is just one type of atheism.
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I think you are setting to high a standard for knowledge. If I was an atheist, I could not deductively proof the non-existence of God. I have to use inductive arguments or show how the world is incompatible with the notions of God(things like the complexity of the universe v. the simplicty of God's mind or the problem of evil), but these types of arguments still count as proof. I could also proof you are not God in the same way, particularly by showing you lack omniscience, omnipresence, and have a physical body. Point is, you'e overlooking other argument forms and reducing knowledge to certainties. While this is fine if you want to maintain this, you also need to abandon atheism to remain consistent becasue atheists's claims cannot reach certainty.
Also, deism and theism are completely different. The big difference is theism believes in a personal God while deists do not. If you want to use agnostic and atheist interchangeably and include agnosticism as a sub-set of atheism, you can do that, but it doesn't change the fact that the words have different meanings. Using them interchangeably will only result in unneeded confusion.
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