(July 6, 2012 at 11:32 am)Metonymie Wrote: Ahh
I see what you mean.
But I'd say it depends on how you define "exist".
Plato thought that the material world was fake and that there was a higher level of existence. I don't think that an atheist can believe that and still call himself an atheist with intellectual integrity. He could still not believe in god, of course. But he couldn't come up with a convincing argument for his position.
Uh, why? Atheists don't have to be evidentialists or naturalists. They just have to not believe "At least one god exists". They can believe that you should only believe claims for which there is no evidence; they can be nihilists, and believe nothing. They can believe that the material world is real, but the Astral Plane is even realer, and that's where unicorns and fairies live.
As long as they don't believe in the existence of any gods, they're atheists.
“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”
