sapphi_snake said:
HappySqurriel said:
Religion requires the irrational belief in something in the absence of evidence or proof ... It is impossible to provide evidence for or proof of the non-existance of anything (including a god) therefore Atheism is inherantly a religion based on the irrational belief in the non-existance of god without evidence or proof.
Being non-religious implies that you're agnostic, but (you're correct) being agnostic does not necessarily mean you're non-religious.
As for my comment on the rise of fascism in Germany, I didn't imply that the surpression of rights drove the rise of the Nazi party or even that they were the main factors but only someone who was ignorant to history would claim that these laws didn't contribute to their rise to power. You can not surpress resentment to a group of people by making it illegal because it eliminates open debate, and in the absense of open debate you ensure that people will only hear one side of an issue; and that can be the horribly slanted view that you were trying to ban in the first place. Beyond that, a government being afraid of the citizens is called liberty, citizens being afraid of their government is called tyrany, and by disarming your people and creating laws to silence them you eliminate the "tools" the public has to "harm" a government.
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This is the most irrational thing I've ever heard.
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You mean formalized logic is irrational?
The only way to prove the non-existence of something is to assume it exists and then demonstrate that its existence violates a premise or axiom. While this works in pure mathematics where the entire system is built on formalized proofs, this does not work in the real world. There have been many cases where people have believe that certain "Beasts" were mythical or were simply superstition, like black swans or the gorillas in Africa, only to be proven wrong.
There is no way to prove that the Sasquatch, Loch-Ness monster or honest politician doesn’t exist, the best we can do is argue that the lack of evidence of their existence suggests that we should not operate under the assumption that they do exist.
