Atheism FAQ - first draft

[NotReady]

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So he's not one of those second rate mathematicians who assured us that god's constant intervention was needed to keep the planets in orbit? whew.


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Like Newton? And for the record, Pascal was Catholic.

[Subfallen]

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bluebass -

Most Christians who endlessly quote Pascal's Wager are misrepresenting it. In the same passage of Pensees where the Wager appears, Pascal says, "Il faut s'abetir"---that is, "One must make oneself stupid."

The Wager was not really meant as an "argument" for Christianity. It was more of a post hoc rationalization for committing intellectual suicide. A typical artifact of the glorious Protestant tradition.

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I don't know what you just wrote. I do know that Pascal was a world class mathmetician. Which meant that there was no way he could have said what most people think he said.

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David -

Your instincts were accurate...Pascal did not see the Wager as a rational "argument" for Christianity. The wager was motivated by Pascal's painful faith which, as Nietzsche said, "...resembled in a gruesome manner a continual suicide of reason---a tough, long-lived, wormlike reason that cannot be killed all at once and with a single stroke."

I saw you at the Bellagio poker room the other day and was going to say hi but you were reading something so I didn't interrupt.

Also, Pascal's religious heritage was heavily informed by his early exposure to Jansenism...in any case, definitely not orthodox Catholicism.

[ChrisV]

Here's the Wikipedia article on weak and strong atheism. Feel free to delete it and replace it with "None of you understand English" and see what kind of reception you get. You're reserving the use of the word "atheist" to describe a person who basically doesnt exist (neither Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris nor Christopher Hitchens would identify as an atheist under your strict definition) while erasing any semantic distinction between the atheist/agnostics on SMP and the sort of agnostics who go "Gee, I just can't work out whether this whole Son of God dying for my sins thing is plausible or not".

Self identified atheists only answering this question please:

[Alex-db]

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To put atheism in any other way then the absence of a belief is misleading, biased, and just plan propaganda.

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It's actually just factually correct, although the effort by all of those "atheists" who incorrectly labelled themselves to change the meaning of that label rather than correctly reidentify themselves as "agnostics" is well under way and so the meaning of the word is slowly changing to catch up.


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This must be just straight wrong isn't it? According to www.etymonline.com the word "Atheist" is from the 17th century while "agnostic" was added in the 19th century.

It appears the word was used originally to describe theists who didn't claim certainty. Over time it has changed to be perceived as a tactful term for atheism.

This definition actually makes much more sense in the order:

Omniscient theist
Agnostic (theist)
Atheist
(Strong atheist)