question no. 17 for atheists

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nice word there - "squick"

i don't think of agnostics as hedging their bets as much as refusing to believe in the existence or the non-existence in god since it can no more be proved than disproved. by that logic this is the only "correct" belief.

but theists believe in a variety of different gods, and each thinks his / hers is the "correct" belief also.

i could be wrong. there could be a god. there could be a loch ness monster. crop circles could be made by aliens. winter could deliberately extend itself six weeks as a result of punxsatawney pete seeing his shadow. the 13th floor in a hotel could be less prone to poltergeist hauntings because it is called the 14th floor, and houses on 13th street could have fewer break-ins because the street is called euclid.

whatever my beliefs i will never be accosting strangers in airports to give them pamphlets, claiming they have holes in their souls and need to be saved.

This is patently false, as are the original assumptions made by the OP.

(A)theism = (lack of) belief
(A)gnosticism = (lack of) knowledge

"Atheism" literally means a lack of belief in deities-
not the positive claim that they cannot or do not exist, though a minority do feel that way (gnostic atheism).

Most atheists are agnostics.

No offense, but might wanna brush up on the ol' definitions.

Last edited by Bethie on 28 Aug 2010, 7:27 pm, edited 4 times in total.

You don't have to be 100% certain to be an atheist. Indeed, there are almost no things that I am 100% certain about (aside from tautologies).

I think anyone who is more than 60% certain that God(s) does (or don't) exist is solidly atheistic. Some good probabilistic arguments for the non-existence of God includes the fact we can come up with a better explanation for numerous past occurences using bottom-up naturalistic explanations, the problem of suffering (works only agaist benevolent Gods), and the infinite regress problem when it comes to explaining divine complexity.

For the record, I'm 88% certain their is no God (I'm 93% certain the chair I am sitting on won't vanish into thin air, for comparison).

There's a lot of ambiguity and hair-splitting under the assumption that every uses your own system in the field of agnosticism vs. atheism, but here's a standard I use. It's a variant of the "the Spectrum of Theistic belief" used by Dawkins.

100% Confidence there is no God = Certain Atheist (there are practically no people in this category)
99% - 85% Confidence there is no God = Strong Atheist
85% - 60% Confidence there is no God = Atheist
60% - 51% Confidence there is no God = Agnostic Atheist
51% - 49% Confidence there is no God = Agnostic

Given that everyone's definitions of "agnostic", "atheist", and "theist", tend to be a bit idiosyncratic and full of epistemological presumptions, I'd say the best thing to do is simply state what you mean before entering into a discussion.

The concept of a "God" was created by long-ago humans to satisfy their questions as to why and how they exist. Since, all the beliefs and rituals have been proven false with only the remaining idea of a supreme being that cannot be proven false because it cannot be comprehended or imagined.

For me, I don't believe there is a "deep reason" we are here. We are a random biological accident or mutation among millions of others. When Chilean miners get trapped, when children are struck by lightning, when animals kill each other in order to survive, it's just a big cruel joke to me. None of it means anything, none of it happens for a reason.

As for what I'm going to do with this one life that's been given to me: make a shitton of dough and live like a king. When I die, I won't go to Hell, I'll be like I was before I was born - nonexistant.

Your repudiation of my post is based on nothing but semantics. Atheists disbelieve the existence of deities - atheists can therefore be said to believe that there are no gods. Your definition of agnostic is exactly the same as mine.

Oh, and technically the correct translation of Atheist is 'Without Divinity' or 'Without god/s' Might want to brush up on your Greek.

I feel quite certain that Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster don't exist.
Why?
Because you can't have ONE monster. There would have to be a breeding population of hundreds and that couldn't be hidden.

However when you get into things like crop circles and poltergeists I am stumped.

There is a LOT of scientific evidence that these things exist and couldn't be made by someone having a joke, so what is the truth?
Darned if I know.

The American government spent a ton of money on things like Project Stargate (distance viewing).
Did it work? Not every time but far more than random luck.

Do we survive our bodies? Is there a God? I don't know.

I don't believe in any particular God or religion but I know that there is more to the universe than meets the eye.

The guys responsible for the crop circles 'came out'.

<Doug and Dave>

Master_Pedant, you literally freaking made up those likelihood percentages.

As for the distinction between atheist and agnostic. Agnostics feel less certain about whether God exists or not, atheists feel more certain, the problem is that people's assumptions about language and knowledge are very difficult and seem incoherent given that knowledge seems required to be true, but people can't really absolutely prove their truth in most things.

Thanks. I used it totally contrary to acceptable use. Now it has a new meaning.

What you have committed here is known as the "etymological fallacy." Welcome to the English language, where words don't always mean what they sound like.

I think your stance may be towards strident... I mean, strong atheists rather than atheism in general, there are some who state that atheism = nontheism, I'm not sure about that though, if they are exactly the same or just similar and differing in some aspects, but the idea is this, you either believe in a god (theist) and if you don't, you are atheist. I believe, agnosticism is generally considered as part of "weak" atheism.

There is no distinction, eternal damnation will be served equally for both.

There is also no proof that "Snow White" does not exist. But there is proof that Snow White is fiction, just like god. I personally deny the existence of any fictious characters, god, allah, etc. But I dont deny the existence of any presence that Im not aware of. I simply ignore them.

I agree. Agnostics tend to be quite insistent on being separated from atheists, though they still belong to the 'without god' group. I'm willing to accept the possibility, however slight, that one or more religions are correct. By the same token, I'm almost certain that the God that christians talk of does not require the ritualistic worship, the plea for forgiveness or even the belief that his representatives on our planet are so insistent on.

The beliefs of atheists are always going to be as varied as those of any theist mindset.

By "made up" those confidence percentages, do you mean I attached percentage numbers to words ("atheist", "agnostic", "agnostic atheist", etc) in a manner that was contrary to consensus or that I displayed false precision?