Atheism: Belief or not a belief?

Did nobody from the second wave of these posts read the first waves discussion?

rugadd wrote: Did nobody from the second wave of these posts read the first waves discussion?

I can only speak for myself, but I skipped most of it. I might have made it to page two? Not meaning any disrespect by the lengthy and well-reasoned responses that people gave, but I got places to go and things to do, so I addressed the points that I wanted to address and left it at that.

rugadd wrote: Did nobody from the second wave of these posts read the first waves discussion?

I did!!!! :laugh:

rugadd wrote: Did nobody from the second wave of these posts read the first waves discussion?

Does it matter? Stop trying to control me man!

Atheists may believe many 'things', a deity may not be one of them.

I do not feel atheism is a belief any more then I feel one can have a belief about something they have no knowledge of. They simply see no evidence that it exists. That is not a statement of for or against the existence its simply a statement of what they can see or not see. To say that I do not see something is to not say it is not there its simply to say I cannot see it. Just my own perspective. However there are hard core people that call themselves atheist that say its impossible to have a god/s but I think they might be better termed anti-theist. Further there are atheist ( a much more common group) that say its unlikely. Which is stating a belief in odds based on their knowledge of the moment. But in my own opinion the term atheist in and of itself is not a belief for or against anything.

Alan wrote: Atheists may believe many 'things', a deity may not be one of them.

any other time i would probably have been like "whatever" but i just finished english comp (today) and this sentence is funny as hell to me right now

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actually, i guess hell isnt funny

then again, it IS an atheism thread lol

:silly:

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Edit
i know, i know, if i just finished english comp i should be better at english lol
luckily, my prof doesnt know my screen name

@Luthien, Rugadd
What I mean is that the fundamental stance of an atheist is either the belief in no gods or the lack of belief in any gods, but that the difference between the two definitions is ultimately purely semantic.
All opinions, all accepted knowledge with exception to certain undoubtable things (e.g. "Doubting exists"), are beliefs. The existence of your favorite movie series is a belief ("I believe that Star Wars exists"). Similarly, saying that you don't believe in something is really the same as expressing a belief in the nonexistence of something. "I don't believe in unicorns" really means "I hold a belief (by having an opinion on this matter) that no unicorns exist." As long as an opinion is held, it's a belief.

Supposing someone didn't know anything about religion and also didn't believe in any Gods, not knowing what a God is in the first place, then there would be an atheist who would not believe in God but also not hold any specific belief. This only possible through complete ignorance to the subject, I think.

As for agnostic atheists, I don't really see the point, personally. There is major doubt, but there is no real belief involved. I see it more as "I am in the process of deciding between theism and atheism and I am leaning towards atheism" than "I am an agnostic atheist". But I would say pretty much the same thing about agnosticism in general, too.

It should be noted that I base most of what I say here on The Fixation of Belief by Charles Peirce .

TheDude wrote: As for agnostic atheists, I don't really see the point, personally. There is major doubt, but there is no real belief involved. I see it more as "I am in the process of deciding between theism and atheism and I am leaning towards atheism" than "I am an agnostic atheist". But I would say pretty much the same thing about agnosticism in general, too.

I can't say that I agree with you. The view you present there is not my position. I don't think I can really know whether there is a god, nor do I live like one exists. Therefore, agnostic atheist. I don't doubt you know what they both mean and that they are two different terms that mean two completely different things (they're not mutually exclusive and they're not co-dependent). You may take any view you like because "that's just, like, your opinion, man." lol

I've nothing to prove, nor do I feel compelled to prove anything. Thank you.

If you don't read another post I've made in this thread, read this one.

Wescli Wardest wrote: Atheism, from what I have witnessed, is anti-Christianity.

Christianity, from what I have witnessed, is anti-atheist. <-- That's a statement I could make quite easily, if I wasn't trying to make a real effort at harmony here. Look at how many times Christianity has seen those who aren't part of their group as "unsaved", "hellbound", "lost", etc. I wish I had a clicker to record every time someone tried to witness to me or get me to come to their church or convert me. Just a few weeks ago a guy at work who had previously loved me told me to my face that I'd be "singing a different tune when flames were shooting out of my ass in hell", then refused to talk to me again. I've been asked pretty regularly, "how can you stand to live without Jesus? what is the point of your existence?" My daughter was bullied about her atheism to the point where I had to pull her out of public school for two years. One girl threatened to kill her with a knife next time she saw her. For being an atheist. And when we tried to join 4-H because Girl Scouts wouldn't let her join, we had to PRAY at the beginning of the meetings. Pray to WHAT? But if you don't do it, you get stared at and interrogated. So we bow our heads and pretend something is happening. But when's the last time someone pretended anything like that for us?

We are clearly viewed as "less than", like there is something missing inside of us. The lightbulb in the fridge is burned out. Now imagine having to live with that for 40 years. Guess how many times have I been insulted and told that my existence was meaningless, that I was going to hell, that I was garbage and without morals? There are only so many times you can beat a dog before it learns to bite in self-defense.

Yes, there are ugly trends in atheism. The current trend among some of insulting and ridiculing Christians is one of them, but those are the loudmouths. You get them in every group, and in this one it is backlash from centuries of abuse. When I was in college, the leader of the nontheist group that I was in was one of those radical anti-Christian individuals and insisted on playing these hateful youtube videos before each meeting. It drove a lot of us away. He defined his atheism by hatred, which so many of the rest of us found to be horrible.

My point is that FEW of us are like that. It's like the Westboro Baptist Church... they certainly don't speak for Christians at ALL.

The truly arrogant believe in their own abilities to do and provide the same for themselves.

It isn't arrogance to believe that nature put us here by random chance and that our only quest is to make the best of what we can see with our eyes. I don't have to believe in anything at all to go get a milkshake and enjoy the weather, or to feed meters downtown with quarters so that people don't get parking tickets. In my view it's arrogant to believe that everyone has to feel the way you do or see things your way to get through the day.

But, then again, they should probably call themselves what they actually are… Anti-Christian-ist.

We call it anti-theist, to mark the difference between THOSE atheists and the others. Anti-theists tend to be the guys at the party who you don't want to stand next to or they'll talk your ear off and kill your buzz. The only people they really like is each other.