RE: Am I an atheist?
June 23, 2012 at 10:40 am
(This post was last modified: June 23, 2012 at 12:29 pm by Simon Moon.)
(June 23, 2012 at 3:20 am)cato123 Wrote:(June 22, 2012 at 5:47 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: It's basic logic. It is impossible to be a member of contradictory classes at the same time. This is the law of noncontradiction.
The classes in this case are:
The belief that a god exists.
The non-belief that a god exists.
Please let me know how someone can be in a state that is neither belief in a god or non-belief in a god. I'll wait....
Hey, Mr. Logic...the wait is over. Despite your obvious narcissism, you never even considered agnosticism , did you?
Why would I consider agnosticism? We're discussing atheism, which is the absence of BELIEF in the existence of deities.
Agnosticism has nothing to do with BELIEF. Agnosticism concerns KNOWLEDGE. Agnosticism is NOT a fence sitting position between belief and disbelief.
Agnostic - 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.
Atheist - a person who disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.
Notice how in the definition of 'agnostic', the word 'belief' is not used. Notice also , in the definition of 'atheist', the word 'knowledge' is not used.
If a person says they're agnostic, that says nothing about what the believe, only about what they claim is knowable.
You do know the difference between 'belief' and 'knowledge', right?
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
