Atheism FAQ - first draft

[wtfsvi]

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All you have is parental and societal indoctrination from an early age, and that skews your judgement.

[/ QUOTE ] My judgement is still all I have, and Christians being rewarded seems more likely to me than atheists being rewarded. Your judgement is all you have too, and if you have the opposite view I will think your judgement is poor. But that shouldn't stop you I guess.

[TimM]

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My judgement is still all I have, and Christians being rewarded seems more likely to me than atheists being rewarded. Your judgement is all you have too, and if you have the opposite view I will think your judgement is poor. But that shouldn't stop you I guess.

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I am not taking the opposite view though. I am taking the view that I have no idea one way or the other, and neither do you in my view, in spite of your claims to the contrary.

[wtfsvi]

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I am not taking the opposite view though. I am taking the view that I have no idea one way or the other, and neither do you in my view, in spite of your claims to the contrary.

[/ QUOTE ] Taking our best guess at the probability of something is the best we can do to decide anything. In this case I would agree with you that I had no reason to believe one over the other if it wasn't for hundreds of millions of people already believing that Christians will be rewarded. I'm pretty sure they are all wrong, but they are also pretty sure I am wrong. In my mind this is enough to skew the probability of them being right a lot higher than the probability of atheists being rewarded

[br.bm]

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[AlexM]

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Question 1B: So wait, weak atheists don't actively claim that God doesn't exist? Isn't that agnosticism?
Answer 1B: No.

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Only if by "no" you mean "yes."

At the very least, you should admit that there are other opinions and that the vast majority of those who self-identify as agnostic are people you would call "weak-atheists."

[AlexM]

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It's outside my realm of expertise, but I'm pretty sure agnosticism is "supposed" to include the impossibility of knowing (even a-gnostic seems reminiscent of anti-knowledge...?)

1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

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Most definitions have "unknown or unknowable". And it's not a question of area of expertise - we're looking for a definition of the word as commonly used. It's one of those situations like "anti-Semite" meaning anti-Jew, not anti- all Semitic peoples.

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You either believe in a god (religion), actively believe that there is no god (atheist) or you consider it "unknown" (agnostic). Thanks for disproving your point.

And... most definitions of atheism have "active disbelief."

[Alex-db]

There is a very good explanation of the definitions of "agnostic" in The God Delusion. In fact, that book should probably be the FAQ.

Agnostics are nearly always atheists by practical useful definitions. We could define "agnostic" as "an overly tactful, overly-PC, atheist"

Just consider whether you're agnostic (in any useful sense) regarding FSM when saying you're agnostic regarding Yahweh.

[DougShrapnel]

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It's outside my realm of expertise, but I'm pretty sure agnosticism is "supposed" to include the impossibility of knowing (even a-gnostic seems reminiscent of anti-knowledge...?)

1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

[/ QUOTE ]

Most definitions have "unknown or unknowable". And it's not a question of area of expertise - we're looking for a definition of the word as commonly used. It's one of those situations like "anti-Semite" meaning anti-Jew, not anti- all Semitic peoples.

[/ QUOTE ]

You either believe in a god (religion), actively believe that there is no god (atheist) or you consider it "unknown" (agnostic). Thanks for disproving your point.

And... most definitions of atheism have "active disbelief."

[/ QUOTE ]People sometimes get a kick out of the fact that dictionaries are to blame about the misdefintion of atheism. You will be able to find a source that says that atheism is the active disbelief in God. Followed by some quote like "There are no atheists in foxholes", or "On his deathbed even an atheism prays." It's also amusing to me that those sources typically use God, and not god's. Christian deny Allah, in fact they are hard atheists with regard to Zeus. They do fit the definition of atheist with regards to Baal. The difference between denies the existence of god's, and lacks a belief any god(s), is subtle but important. The term agnostic also has it's rightful subtleties. But it doesn't really fit well on a line that goes theist, agnostic, atheist. There can be agnostic xtians and agnostic atheists. It's a position that the existence of god's is unknowable.

If that wasn't enough even the link posted verifies my position more so than yours.

2nd entry
Atheism is the state either of being without theistic beliefs
5th
Atheists claim there is no proof for God[s]. "Strong" Atheists claim God does not exist. "Weak" Atheists do not deny the possibility of God[s], or that proof might eventually be discovered.

6th
A person for whom the idea of god is senseless.

The 7th post says this
Atheism is just as active a religious system as is Islam, Christianity or Hinduism. HWHAT??

and lastly
# is one who does not believe that there is a god.
yes even this statement is much closet to one who lacks a belief that there is a god, over one who denies that there is a god. It's very subtle and important.

[AlexM]

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It's outside my realm of expertise, but I'm pretty sure agnosticism is "supposed" to include the impossibility of knowing (even a-gnostic seems reminiscent of anti-knowledge...?)

1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

[/ QUOTE ]

Most definitions have "unknown or unknowable". And it's not a question of area of expertise - we're looking for a definition of the word as commonly used. It's one of those situations like "anti-Semite" meaning anti-Jew, not anti- all Semitic peoples.

[/ QUOTE ]

You either believe in a god (religion), actively believe that there is no god (atheist) or you consider it "unknown" (agnostic). Thanks for disproving your point.

And... most definitions of atheism have "active disbelief."

[/ QUOTE ]People sometimes get a kick out of the fact that dictionaries are to blame about the misdefintion of atheism. You will be able to find a source that says that atheism is the active disbelief in God. Followed by some quote like "There are no atheists in foxholes", or "On his deathbed even an atheism prays." It's also amusing to me that those sources typically use God, and not god's. Christian deny Allah, in fact they are hard atheists with regard to Zeus. They do fit the definition of atheist with regards to Baal. The difference between denies the existence of god's, and lacks a belief any god(s), is subtle but important. The term agnostic also has it's rightful subtleties. But it doesn't really fit well on a line that goes theist, agnostic, atheist. There can be agnostic xtians and agnostic atheists. It's a position that the existence of god's is unknowable.

If that wasn't enough even the link posted verifies my position more so than yours.



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No, it doesn't. Some of the definitions (web search definitions not dictionary defintions) of atheism lean that way, but all of the agnostic definitions lean that way.

Regardless, my point is that for the FAQ question in question, the answer isn't "no," it's "there are two schools of thought on this..." Answering "no" is misleading, biased and just plain false.

[DougShrapnel]

Did you even look at the definitions you posted? 2 agreed with you, and 1 that agreed said that atheism is as much a religion as xtain, hindu, and everything else. I don't have a lot to say about agnostics. If your main point is about that ok, I'll gladly assume you now more about that term then I do. Other persons might be be so quick to concede.

If however you are talking about the meaning of atheism, the links you posted don't agree with you. Not many self identifying atheists agree with you. You are in good company amongst theists tho. To put atheism in any other way then the absence of a belief is misleading, biased, and just plan propaganda. Of course it's true that some people, mainly non atheists, even self identifying agnostics, think atheism must contain some sort of active denial of God. But this is an Atheism FAQ. And all though the alternate, read wrong view, should be mentioned. It does a great disservice to pretend that the other view is acceptable.