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Poll: What is your Specific Level of Atheism?
January 2, 2017 at 12:08 am
(This post was last modified: January 2, 2017 at 12:09 am by camlov2019.)
Hey all, I'm a little curious. I know a lot of the people here are Atheists, but I'm curious of the exact level. What I mean by this is are you a basic skeptic, gnostic in your disbelief, or however you see life and religion.
Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion specifically talked about these varying degrees, so where do you fit in?
- Will, the dude with a rocket launcher
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RE: What is your Specific Level of Atheism
January 2, 2017 at 12:10 am
I don't really prescribe to this scale. I'm an atheist. Therefore, I do not believe in god(s).
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RE: Poll: What is your Specific Level of Atheism?
January 2, 2017 at 12:27 am
Honestly, I personally consider Dawkins' scale flawed, as a good portion of it is predicated on the assumption that agnosticism and atheism are, on some level, mutually exclusive.
The way I see it, they're not.
Agnostic - Covers knowledge of God's existence or non-existence. Deals with an understanding of objective reality. Do you think you can demonstrate the existence or non-existence of God even if that demonstration can be seen as very weak indeed?
Atheism - Covers belief of God's existence or non-existence. Deals with person at hand's subjective understanding of the subject at hand. Do you consider the arguments for or against the existence of God convincing?
In fact, a charting of atheism might work better as a grid than a simple numbered scale like Dawkins proposes.
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
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RE: Poll: What is your Specific Level of Atheism?
January 2, 2017 at 12:54 am
I'm an atheist because I don't have the belief that gods exist.
I'm a strong atheist because I believe that gods don't exist.
Because the standard Christian god is shot thru with contradictions, I know that he doesn't exist. But other gods could possibly exist. I don't know that other gods don't exist, so I am an agnostic strong atheist.
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RE: Poll: What is your Specific Level of Atheism?
January 2, 2017 at 1:00 am
Every theistic concept of god or gods (meaning, non-deistic) are self-contradictory and logically impossible. So we know those are not real, at least not as described. While the answer of what set something like the Big Bang into motion is unknown, that doesn't justify sticking a deistic god in there to fill in the gap but as far as I'm concerned, that's the only reasonable position a believer can possibly have. Once you try to start ascribing characteristics to such a creator deity, then you've done gone and fucked up. That's the point at which you can no longer be taken seriously or considered benign because at least deism means it doesn't affect your beliefs on anything else or your day-to-day life AT ALL. Projecting our deluded fantasies onto this nebulous deist concept is the worst thing humanity has ever done.
Religions were invented to impress and dupe illiterate, superstitious stone-age peasants. So in this modern, enlightened age of information, what's your excuse? Or are you saying with all your advantages, you were still tricked as easily as those early humans?
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There is no better way to convey the least amount of information in the greatest amount of words than to try explaining your religious views.
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RE: Poll: What is your Specific Level of Atheism?
January 2, 2017 at 1:01 am
I'm an atheist because I don't have the belief that gods exist.
I'd be a strong atheist because I believe that literal gods do not exist ..
.. except that I don't think literally existing is the most important aspect of gods and in there more important capacity they may well exist for some ..
.. just not me.
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RE: Poll: What is your Specific Level of Atheism?
January 2, 2017 at 1:53 am
Agnostic atheist in principle, because intellectual honesty.
Gnostic atheist in everyday practice, because pragmatism. And I'm not a baby.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: Poll: What is your Specific Level of Atheism?
January 2, 2017 at 2:13 am
(This post was last modified: January 2, 2017 at 2:17 am by AFTT47.)
On that scale, I'm a defacto atheist. It's pretty close to what I believe.
Based on what we know about biology and cosmology, I think there is a very high probability that there are beings in the universe which have advanced to the point where we could not distinguish between naturally evolved beings and supernatural gods. I believe that that inability to distinguish is based on our own lack of knowledge though. I would be very surprised if there were not god-like beings in the universe but I would also be surprised if they didn't get that way through naturalistic processes.
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