Atheism is simply a lack of belief in God. It is not a positive statement "No God exists" - it is a statement "I do not believe in a God".
I am an Atheist. My reasons for not believing are simple - I have no knowledge of God - and knowledge means that which is verified by sense experience, and verifiable. Atheism , in its basic form, is not a belief: it is the absence of belief. An atheist is not primarily a person who believes that a god does not exist; rather, he does not believe in the existence of a God.
I do not state "from a purely logical view, and based on the following assumptions, I can state God doesn't exist"; I state "From the rational means of acquiring knowledge I have found no evidence of a God".
I'm rather offended at the idea (and I've seen it before) that all atheists are really, if they stop and consider it for awhile, closet agnostics. Agnosticism is not a theory about religion, it is a theory about knowledge. From my vast amounts of dealing with sensory evidence and verification, I do know whether or not any evidence of a God or Gods has entered my path, and it has not.

I don't really like entering these discussions - people get all heated up, and angry, and it's sad. Let me just say to the Christians that any quick reading of Paul's writing in the New Testament demonstrates that belief in a God is not to be placed on the mantle of reason at all but on faith, so any sort of logical conclusions/arguments against your God should actually reinforce your own belief. No one (well, at least me) is saying 'You are stupid and can't think'. Identifying myself as an atheist usually leads to all sorts of problems due to STRONG, strong gnostic atheists who in their smugness and propositional calculus and seeming hatred of all things God have said clearly offensive things. The last thing I want people to think is I'm telling them to 'stop believing', okay? As long as people act humanely and all that, knock yourself out. Doesn't matter to me.

Oh yes..something else. With regards to 'negative' mathematical proofs; ie "Prove that for the interval x,y there exist no number a such that P", to actually prove it you either have to a)assume the contrary and find a logical contradiction which is actually the same as b)proving a POSITIVE, that every number in that interval satisfies the proposition ~P.

I consider myself to be an atheist and an agnostic. I believe there is no god, and I recognize that I don't know whether or not there is a god. I don't see the contradiction there.

Linus Van Pelt wrote:I consider myself to be an atheist and an agnostic. I believe there is no god, and I recognize that I don't know whether or not there is a god. I don't see the contradiction there.

I'm not sure that I do either, but our discussion is dependent upon how we are each choosing to use these terms.

For a fuller explanation of the relationship between these terms, in another indivudual's understanding, see this link:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... ition.html

At least the first few paragraphs are directly relevant. I don't have enough time to read the whole article right now.

Linus Van Pelt wrote:I consider myself to be an atheist and an agnostic. I believe there is no god, and I recognize that I don't know whether or not there is a god. I don't see the contradiction there.

There is no contradiction at all. You can also be an agnostic theist. The fact is, the agnostic position (semantically) has nothing to do with the religious position. My point was that 'agnostic' can't just be a middle position between theism and atheism - it's like saying "You don't know if you like Fender guitars or Gibson guitars, just say you like double-coil humbuckers".

2 more terms:
positive atheism - is the positive belief that a God or gods do not exist. Now, as we have argued in the section above, the positive atheist does need to provide proof of his belief. Here the positive atheist normally specifies in advance exactly what concept of God is being positively rejected as non existing.
negative atheism - is simply atheism in its most general form-that of not having any belief in a God or gods.

I think it's safe to say with regards to a Christian God capital G I'm a positive atheist while other more general 'supreme force' discussions I'm probably closer to negative atheism

galanter wrote:What is it about a personal claim of agnosticism that you would find uncomfortable?

You forcing it on me, which you seem so keen to do.

Question: are you an agnostic towards the Norse god of thunder Thor or just the judeo-christian god?

steve wrote:Your position is that things as-yet-unproved-to-your-satisfaction-by science are in the realm of the divine. I say nothing is except those things attached to the belief in the divine.

I have never made such a claim. I do not think that simply because a question regarding a matter of science is not adequately (such as that which the theory of plate tectonics attempts to answer) answered means that the matter must de facto be direct divine interaction. I DO think however that there are certain matters which are ABOVE the realm of purely empirical science and thus science can neither prove nor disprove their veracity by virtue of the fact that they transcend any purely human effort to comprehend them. In other words, pure, un-aided human reasoning cannot come to an understanding of certain matters. They're simply supra-scientific...TO AN EXTENT, mind you.

Matters as such include:

-The origin of the universe
-The origin of living beings
-Miracles


Then again, I take it from what you have said that you are coming from a viewpoint that denies the very existence of God, Mr. Steve. Correct me if I'm wrong.

This is getting fairly retarded. Sometimes I'm tempted to engage people like Matthew, but it's completely pointless: by debating a topic like this, you are attempting to engage someone via a rational discussion when they are people who by definition of their argument alone, defy rationality.

People who believe in such ridiculous crap as "intelligent design" should not try to seek out any kind of "science" behind it, nor should they try and negate evolution. They should simply just say "well, I just believe in God, thank you very much. I know it sounds silly, and I have no 'proof' to back it up. I have my faith. And that's all I have: my personal faith." They should say this, shut the fuck up and not try to take on the scientific community by substituting faith and tradition for human reason.

This is so fucking retarded.

Go believe in Unicorns. Go believe in Hobbits. Go believe in anything you want, but do not regurgitate your bullshit and try to make us swallow it just because it works for you. No one thinks it's tasty but you and your kind.

Secularism: a wonderful thing that I see no reason for Christians to not support. Seriously. It's ok. You can do it.

Connor

Defining terms is all well and good, but it's not an end in itself...it's something you do to ensure communication.

It seems to me that the terms theism, atheism, and agnosticism are best reserved as evaluations of the proposition that "God exists", and correspond with the values "true", "false", and "unknown".

I have seen the term "agnosticism" broken usefully into two camps, playfully termed "hard boiled" and "soft-boiled" where the former means "it is impossible for anyone to know whether God exists" and the latter means "I only know I don't know whether God exists, and I don't know whether such knowledge is possible for others". (I tend towards the latter).

I've seen two claims here I think are a bit too cute, and don't really stand up to hard inspection, although I respect the issues and think they are worth inspecting.

First, the notion that agnosticism is merely a statement about knowledge, and is free of actual religious content. One measure of religious content could be whether a given statement has implications for how one lives their life relative to religion. Clearly a theist would have to factor in God in their daily choices, especially practical moral choices. An atheist, on the other hand, could safely ignore the God factor, but would also have to find some other foundation or ground for moral behavior. An agnostic would have to live their life in a more contingent way, allowing that neither theist or atheist morality has a lock on certainty, and that rationality would require trying to find moral choices which are somehow inclusive and acceptable to both theists and atheists.

Second, the notion that atheism is not a statement about God's existence but merely a reflection of one's own lack of belief. I think the problem with this is that it's an attempt to overload a single term with a conjunction of at least two propositions. At best this view seems to both say "as a rational matter I don't know whether God exists" and "as an irrational (i.e. intuitive but not defensible) matter I don't believe God exists".

Put another way this notion of atheism says "as a matter of faith I personally don't believe God exists, but as a matter of logic or science I can't take a position one way or the other".

My preference would be to label such a position as agnosticism, but I can see why some would be tempted the other way.

But to return to the statement that launched me down this path, keep in mind that I was pointing out that it actually said 2 things. Not only was it a statement of belief that God doesn't exist, it was also a statement of not having *any* doubt about it. It was this statement of no doubt that, for me, lifted the proposition into the realm of requiring proof.

It's one thing to have a belief, but it's quite another to state that one's belief is beyond all doubt.

I mean, what would you call a belief beyond any doubt but without any proof?

I'd call it an article of faith.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I'd also like to add this in an attempt to humanize my presence here a bit.

While I believe every bit of what I've posted, it could be very misleading to those who don't know me. (Which is, like, almost everyone here).

In terms of how I live my life soft-boiled agnosticism might appear to theists as being little different than atheism. I don't think in terms of "what would Jesus do?"...at least no more often than thinking "what would Ghandi do?" or "what would Lao Tzu do?".

But I try to give people a fair hearing on all sides, and I try to not deny people a measure of respect for perspectives taken in good faith, especially when they allow an equal measure of respect for others.

The universe is a huge place. For everyday life believing what we see, and not believing in what can't be "seen" (in the broadest sense), is just fine. Even the very religious tend to (with rare exception) trust their senses and everyday experiences, and do not live their lives moment to moment as if they may suddenly wake up to find themselves a brain in a bottle or some such epistemological mind experiment.

But considerations about God, by their very nature, demand thinking beyond everyday experience. Consideration of the extraordinary requires an extraordinary kind of thinking if it is engaged in good faith.

On the fringes, when considering the very small or the very large, or the very energetic or very massive, or very short or very long periods of time, modern physics also ventures into realms which are beyond our everyday experience...and contradict "common sense".

Who, on the basis of daily experience, would find natural and comfortable quantum effects where particles occupy multiple simultaneous states or randomly flicker into and out of existence? Who would intuit string theory, or the 11 dimensional space of M-theory, as they take the train to work or fix an evening meal?

And what if, as some physicists say, realiity is a multi-verse with uncounted universes, each with it's own system of physics, blinking in and out of existence with the clapping of 'branes that confounds any human sense of time and space?

How should we think about science, like theoretical physics, when it gets to a place where hypotheses are so far beyond our ability to provide experimental verification that it's more metaphysical speculation than what we traditionally think of as science?

In my experience, it's not agnostics (religious or more generally) who cause human strife. Agnostics tend to reserve judgement about the unknown and generally prefer inclusive discussions that lead to mutual coexistence of views.

Dogmatists, and others with rigid belief systems that allow for no doubt or variation, are where human problems most often begin. Absolutists have no incentive to negotiate, reconsider, or change as the world inevitably changes around them.

Again, in everyday life, one has to make small choices about small matters, and certainty is far less critical. But really big questions require more rigor.

So I see doubt as a friend. A friend who does me the favor of reminding me of my rather small place in the universe.

Okay, first of all, galanter, I like you - I enjoy calm, reasoned discussions. You are a credit to your position.
Secondly, this is why I never finish these arguments, especially on the internet - you get down to the point where you're defining terms, and bringing in the propositional calculus, and there's always some idiot who pipes in "DUH DOES THIS EVEN MATTER" and no one's mind ever gets changed. That last part is important, though it happens anyway. I've yet to meet a theist who says to me "You know, if you can convince me logically there's no God, I will stop believing". I admit I am easy to sway; 1 solid piece of evidence and I'm ready to throw everything in disarray. It's the mathematician in me.

Anyway, I'm going to address some of your concerns and probably leave it at that. Like I said, you bet this is all about defining terms - what is knowledge? What is reason? What is faith? Is faith a reliable means of obtaining knowledge? What does it mean to 'take something on faith' - even something as crucial as the Law of the Inclusive Middle? Blahblahblah. I don't know if I have the energy for all that, but let's at least look at what you're saying.

galanter wrote:First, the notion that agnosticism is merely a statement about knowledge, and is free of actual religious content.

You have a problem with that? Hrm. There are still scientists who take an agnostic position on some of the crazier parts of astrophysics, or string theory. Your attempt to attach the term 'agnosticism' to 'religion' is misleading. It's misleading!

One measure of religious content could be whether a given statement has implications for how one lives their life relative to religion. Clearly a theist would have to factor in God in their daily choices, especially practical moral choices. An atheist, on the other hand, could safely ignore the God factor, but would also have to find some other foundation or ground for moral behavior. An agnostic would have to live their life in a more contingent way, allowing that neither theist or atheist morality has a lock on certainty, and that rationality would require trying to find moral choices which are somehow inclusive and acceptable to both theists and atheists.

I seriously am not detecting any sort of....connection here. You began this point stating that agnosticism is tied to religion, and then when on to explain how 'an agnostic' (what kind of agnostic? You have yet to define this word as a general purpose term. I have, and it needs a 'theist' or 'atheist' in front of it to make sense).

Second, the notion that atheism is not a statement about God's existence but merely a reflection of one's own lack of belief. I think the problem with this is that it's an attempt to overload a single term with a conjunction of at least two propositions. At best this view seems to both say "as a rational matter I don't know whether God exists" and "as an irrational (i.e. intuitive but not defensible) matter I don't believe God exists".

Okay, this is where you're really overloading terms - not me. In my sensory experience, I have come across every reason to believe unicorns do not exist. Are you saying I am taking the non-existence of unicorns as a 'matter of faith'? Faith is, as you supposed, wholly irrational, non-verifiable means of obtaining knowledge. Don't get all bunched up about 'non-verifiable' - that's the very nature of faith. I would NOT say my non-belief in unicorns is a matter of faith, but cold hard sensory experience. And thus it is with the Christian God, or the Norse God, or whatever.

But to return to the statement that launched me down this path, keep in mind that I was pointing out that it actually said 2 things. Not only was it a statement of belief that God doesn't exist, it was also a statement of not having *any* doubt about it. It was this statement of no doubt that, for me, lifted the proposition into the realm of requiring proof.

It's one thing to have a belief, but it's quite another to state that one's belief is beyond all doubt.

I mean, what would you call a belief beyond any doubt but without any proof?

I'd call it an article of faith.

This is back to your 'burden of proof' problem. Take a look at this:

Suppose someone comes up to you and say "I believe there are three headed flying snakes in Jupiter. If you cannot prove me wrong, then my belief is as valid as yours." You may perhaps point out to this person that what we know of reptilian biology and of the Jovian atmosphere, makes it very unlikely that snakes - regardless of how many heads they have - could survive in such an environment. However one could easily imagine the retort from the believer in the Jovian triune reptile, "Ha! You are simply asserting your non-belief without any proof. Until you can built a spacecraft which can scan every cubic inch of the Jovian planet, I consider your position to be irrational." Furthermore he could argue that these snakes are such that they are simply undetectable by any known instrument made by man. Thus even if you did send a spacecraft to Jupiter and manage to (impossibly) scan the whole volume of the planet, he could still assert that that does not prove the three headed, invisible, undetectable-by-any-instrument, flying snakes do not exist. You will finally reach a position of telling him, "How do you know that such an invisible, undetectable animal exists on Jupiter, if it is indeed invisible and undetectable?" In other words, he has to provide proof before you would even consider the case any further.

Removed from any emotional attachment to the argument one can easily see that in this specific case the believer's position is absurd. The underlying reason is simple: anyone could make an absurd or extraordinary claim. It's easy, all they have to do is to say it. To prove these claims wrong would take a great amount of effort and often times (as in the claims of an undetectable, invisible snake in Jupiter above) impossible. Clearly then, the burden of proof has to fall on the party making the positive claim.[/b]