I also wonder why the hell someone would actually choose atheism. I think its because some thing terrible/scarring happened to them in their life to make them stop believing.
Atheism has nothing to do with belief; it is just a characteristic. It can be an aspect OF a belief, though. For example, Humanism is a belief that is atheist. Some would say Buddhism is as well.
Pretty much all atheists hold world views that are beliefs with an atheist characteristic.
__________________
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Then I will illustrate further. If indeed Atheism is the rejections of gods. Then by all means Christians are Atheist. Because they reject any gods and only accept the true creator and savior in their faith which God and Jesus. See the contradiction here? If we were to accept your explanation of a weak atheist then that weak atheist denies all other gods but leaves the possibility of one true creative being. That doesn't work. Either you do belive or just don't believe. So if you come to the conclusion that there is no point in believing then you've become an Official Atheist.
Gender: Male Location: Welfare Kingdom of California
That's my point. Under that observation a christian would seen like an atheist because of his/her rejection of other gods. Which makes it contradictory. Now, you bring a theist. Which is what I would say is more credible than a "weak atheist".
I completely agree. This is what I consider a Hardcore Atheist. Or a "strong atheist" as Ush mentions. The weak atheist is the one I have a hard time accepting.
Finish it... the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, I really love that line.
I do not like the term agnostic because I definitely believe in a higher power and I do not doubt it but the definition of agnostic from dictionary.com is :
ag‧nos‧tic Pronunciation[ag-nos-tik]
–noun
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.
2. a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.
Athiesm can be just as destructive as Thiesm has been throughout history...
I mean think about it....many people have killed in the name of their God...many innocent people throughout history have been terrorized, tortured, oppressed, and killed by the followers of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism...
And many of the Thiests in power who have committed those inhumane crimes have done so in the name of God, justifying their violence through thier dogmas based on Faith.
At the same time, however, people have also been motivated to kill and do horrible things by a beleif in the LACK of natural consequences. If you truly beleive that there is no afterlife, no punishment, no justice, etc. and you desire to hurt somebody, what's going to stop you from doing so?
While this is technically correct, there is strong evidnece against god and no one has any reason to take the notion of god seriously.
Because you do what you can with the time you have. Honestly, do you do everythign for your god? I thought not. Try thinking. "there is no point in living" is not associated with general athesim.
If you think thats true, then I say to you, "why not just die, since all you live for is in your afterlife?"
Thats waht I thought...its a bullshit perspective.
What? You can't create your own purpose for living?
No, it's simply called they believe solely in their religion.
And I really don't understand why you're having trouble accepting weak atheism. In my sentence about atheism there I included both atheistic stances - not holding a belief in a higher being (which is in line with weak atheism) and believing that there is no way for one to exist (strong atheism). It might seem like the difference is just semantics but it isn't.
It certainly can be. If you'd expect evidence, and there isn't any, it's evidence of absense.
For example: I'm living in a graduate dorm, with walls so thin you can practically hear it when one of your neighbors turns on his computer.
"I believe that the other people in my pod throw extremely loud parties every Friday night."
"I have never heard my neighbors make noise on Friday night."
That last statement is a statement of absense of evidence. And, since I'd expect to encounter certain evidence if my hypothesis was true (specifically, I'd expect to hear a lot of noise on Friday nights), it is also evidence of absense.
__________________ "Men curse the Communist Party, but eventually it may release them. If hell were endless, then God would be worse than our Secret Police."--Pastor Valentin
Last edited by Gregory on Oct 3rd, 2006 at 10:23 PM
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Oct 3rd, 2006 09:37 PM
Sure. 
