[Serious] Absolutes and Atheism

[Mister Agenda]

C'mon guys! I am getting really disappointed. Can't a couple atheists debate this instead of this being another boring tribal us and them atheist versus theist thread. Surely there is someone willing to make put up some cognito ergo sum. So lame. If atheism is interesting and worthy of discussing then why all this "what do you mean by that" knida replies. Flesh it out. Or maybe you can't and hence do not try.

Atheism isn't really interesting or worthy of discussion. It's not that complicated. Neither is theism. It's a category error to compare atheism and Christianity rather than atheism and theism. It's one opinion on one topic, nothing to flesh out. A theist believes at least one god or God is real, full stop. Not that interesting. The question 'why are you an atheist' or 'why are you a theist' is more interesting, and if I was asking a random sample from around the globe, I would expect many different answers. Why are you a Christian could give interesting answers, but atheists rarely get asked 'why are you a humanist or theological noncognitivist or whatever'. It's unusual for theists to query beyond our atheism, and at least you're trying to do that. Anyway, none of those answers I get for those why questions would affect what atheism and theism are. Heck, I could confine my questions to Christianity and get many different answers.

Arguably, the most interesting thing about atheism is how hard it is for many people to grasp it and how many different ways they can get it wrong, usually by over-generalizing from a non-representative sample of atheists. I mean, a good chunk of the world's population of atheists are in China; and except for not believing in any deities I probably have more in common with you than I do with them.

See, people who aren't atheists generaly stop cold at the word 'atheist'. It's rare for a theist to drill down past that to philosophy. I think the problem you're having is that you're trying to drill deeper into atheism, and there's no there, there. The philosophy is in addition to the atheism, not part of it. Just like the specific religion of a theist is in addition to the theism, not a part of it. You can't drill deep enough into theism and get Sufi Islam. You've just drilled into a Muslim of a particular sect. The theism isn't the interesting part.