Accepting/Rejecting "Atheism" as a label.

[Golbez]

[Confused Ape]

[Violet]

[Golbez]

There seem to be too many hangups really to proceed head on with your post. So let me understand what you mean with certain terms. Could I ask that you define for me what is meant by:
Truth
Knowledge
Facts
Evidence (again)
Existence

And what do you think about the laws of physics? Once we understand the mathematical expressions in which the world operates under, say for gravity or motion, do you think those can be radically violated in our day to day experiences? (So avoiding for the moment things like Pulsars, which are fascinating freaks of nature.) I can't begin to understand your opening gambit, that everything anyone knows is incorrect. Ironically, that sounds like something you claim to know. And it surely sounds incorrect. But maybe I can't know that, because then it would be incorrect. So I'll just have to "feel it" then in my gut. And now it's true...

EDIT - Sorry, wanted to add these terms as well:
Hypothesis
Conjecture

And I thought of another question. How do people learn information about our world through the process of science? What does that process entail? Basically - what is the scientific method?

[Violet]

[Zone]

I would just say I don't follow a religion there's no need to elaborate any further than that. I think as soon as you label yourself as something then you're making some kind of postive claim for or against some metaphysical position which I'm not doing myself.

As far as fairies and elves are concerned they would have the same chance of existing as angels and demons. Any kind of being that doesn't have a physical body of some kind and exists in some other dimension that intersects with our own but is beyond normal human perception. The myths we have are result from interactions between humans these extra dimensional entities passed into folklore of all human cultures. So I think it's reasonable to be agnostic toward fairies rather than flat out saying they couldn't possibly exist. Just like anything else you have no evidence for or couldn't possibly know.

[Violet]

[NonStampCollector]

I dislike the label, and this thread has served as a convenient illustration for why I dislike it. There is far too much confusion and disagreement about what atheism means.

I personally subscribe to the etymological definition, with it roots in the Greek "atheos":
-'a' meaning 'without'
-'theos' meaning 'a god'

Apply the same idea to the modern word theism (belief in a deity) and you get the etymological definition of atheism: lacking belief in a deity. That reflects my viewpoint perfectly. I don't unequivocally state that there is no god, because that would place a burden of proof on myself that I'm not interested in assuming. I simply lack belief in any god because there is currently no objective evidence to do so.

If everyone agreed on that meaning of the word, then I would be OK being labeled as such.

[Violet]

I simply lack belief in any god because there is currently no objective evidence to do so.

As there's no objective evidence for anything, I'm assuming you lack belief in everything.

Can't imagine you're that great at parties

[NonStampCollector]

I simply lack belief in any god because there is currently no objective evidence to do so.

As there's no objective evidence for anything, I'm assuming you lack belief in everything.

Can't imagine you're that great at parties

Objective as in able to be observed and repeated by multiple people, unaffected by personal belief.

I'm aware of philosophical viewpoints that propose that true objectivity can never totally be obtained. I'm not personally given to such thought.

From a practical viewpoint, many things in this world are supported by objective observation and experimentation. Theism is not one of them.