[quote author=Cracticus link=1194410206/45#58 date=1203913339]
Anyone can write anything they want on the web. It doesn't give it any validity.[/quote]

That's true too.

More web crap: http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/atheism.htm

What some atheists don't like about the "weak/strong" definition is that they feel "weak atheists" are really agnostics.

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[quote author=Musician35 link=1194410206/45#59 date=1203913485][quote author=Cracticus link=1194410206/45#56 date=1203911060]Dear Muso, a "[i]gross mischaracterisation[/i]"? No, it isn't. It is an entirely accurate characterisation.

An atheist is one who believes that God does not exist.
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That statement is correct, but it wasn't my point. (Did you actually read my post?). Let's see if I can explain:

You used the term [color=#ff3300]"know categorically"[/color].  That was the crux of my argument. An Atheist is not a person who "knows categorically" that God doesn't exist, and a Theist or a Christian is not a person who "knows categorically" that God exists.

As I stated in a previous post, you can believe that the cheque is in the mail , but you won't know it until you get some evidence.

To know and to believe are two different things. As somebody else pointed out, it's even a mainstream Christian belief that it is impossible to know if God exists. That's where faith comes in.  To state otherwise is  not strictly scriptural.

In that way, the majority of Christians (and the majority of atheists) are also agnostics.  I think most people have accepted that an atheist agnostic is a possible combination.

[quote]Atheists are ones who have decided to believe that there is no such thing as a God[/quote]

Again, not necessarily. You're stating that atheists have [b]decided [/b]to believe something.  Can you actually decide to believe something like that? I don't think so. You either believe it or not as the case may be. [/quote]
Agreed: it wasn't your point — it was mine!

"Decides to believe" means exactly what it says. The atheist decides to disbelieve in God in the same way as the theist decides to believe. He or she adopts a position based on lack of empirical evidence and refuses to deviate from it, or to acknowledge that he or she could be wrong. Perhaps "chooses to believe" would make what I mean clearer.

Ask any devout Christian, Muslim or whatever if he or she categorically believes in God and the answer will be "Yes."  Ask followers of Dawkins if they believe that a God exists and the answer will be a categorical "No."

Your cheque in the mail example is a bit of a red herring. Here we are dealing with a different kind of knowledge. Only in the mind of an irrational person could confidence of a cheque's existence be an irrational belief, based on no empirical evidence. The person who knows a cheque is in the mail is either the one who mailed it, or the intended recipient who has total confidence in the word of the sender. Either way, it is evidence based, testable knowledge.

As I have demonstrated before, there is a clear distinction between atheism and agnosticism. If there were not, there would be no need to the two distinct terms. I won't be bothered going over all that again.

This kind of reminds of the terms macro and micro evolution which some people prefer to use over natural selection and evolution.

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Technically and pedantically speaking, you would of course be right. But by that criteria, no one KNOWS anything. (According to some systems of belief, everything may be an illusion.) So any attempt to communicate ideas becomes pointless — we may as well all give up before we even start.

To usefully communicate, we need to accept what our communicant says in the spirit in which it is said, not mount an arcane argument on the technical meaning of some word he or she has used, and divert the discussion to an argument on semantics. Knowledge theory is not what this thread is about. It is about whether or not atheism can be considered to be a religious belief.

Have you ever debated religion with a believer? Try telling a fundamentalist Christian that there may be truth some other religion. It is a pointless and quite frustrating exercise. So it is with telling an atheist that there may be truth in religion. Both are equally locked in to their beliefs. Neither may know he or she is right; but both claim to know, and argue from a position of absolute certainty.

One doesn't need to be an atheist to know what atheism is, any more than one needs to be a carpenter to know what carpentry is. Atheism or carpentry — the nature of each is explicit in the words which name them. Certainly I will claim to have more expertise in the meaning of words than Austin Cline. So, I dare say, do the judges of The US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, who ruled Atheism to be a religion.

freediver wrote on Feb 27^th, 2008 at 10:58am:


This argument is in danger of going around in circles.

Strange as it may seem, I can actually see where Cracticus is coming from. As always it's a question of attitude, and interpretation of words - semantics if you like. It hinges on what you mean by 'know'. The English language is notoriously vague, but I'm quite sure if we discussed this in real life we could pinpoint the source of conflict.

You can look up a dictionary and find the word vision for example. You'd find that a synonym is sight. No problem? 20:20 sight is the same as 20:20 vision. However if I tried that small substitution  with my wife, I know what the result would be. "My dear, you are a real vision tonight" - compare with "My dear, you are a real sight tonight"

To call somebody an atheist just means that they don't believe in God, however in some ways it's too broad a term, and in other ways it's too narrow. It's about as useful a word as 'believer' (in what?)

The word 'know' means something different for a scientific thinker than a theist. For me know is pretty close to absolute. So, when I hear a theist saying "I know that God exists", I interpret that to mean (god exists, probability=1). However the word has a certain emotional charge for a theist that an atheist, an agnostic or say a Buddhist would not share. You can see it in the Handel oratorio "I know that my redeemer liveth". The same dichotomy applies to the word 'believe'. A Christian would assign a somewhat different value to the word than an atheist or agnostic. 

For example when I go for my 2km run, I tell myself
"I know I can do it in 8 minutes and 30 seconds"

In that respect, I dont mean know as in 'probability=1', (After all, I could drop dead at any moment) I use it as a method of having faith in myself to achieve that goal.   

I think that's what you mean by 'know' in the case of God. Please feel free to correct me.

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Well I'm not a very good example of an atheist, but I can see truth, virtue and indeed beauty in many world religions. With respect, an atheist just doesn't believe in God. I'm not totally locked on to any belief. All my beliefs are working hypotheses. They can change at any time based on available evidence - and as I've said before, I'm not in the slightest bit interested in trying to convert you to my world view or defending my view, although my current position is one that I've had all my life, and it has been reinforced by a great deal of thinking.   

Unlike your standard militant atheist, I actually see some cultural and moral value in religions. In fact I get on better with religious people than most atheists. I just don't happen to believe in the supernatural myself.

I apologise for my short and slightly sarcastic reply. I think it was probably motivated by the fact that we  have slightly different definitions of words.

- and trust me, I wasn't trying to be technical and pedantic. I just am technical and pedantic. 

I also jumped on your choice of words when you said "decided not to believe in God". You then substuted "chose". Actually I did neither. I have never had a belief in God in my entire life. Within the last ten years or so, I have changed my focus somewhat, in that I only believe in the physical world, so you can remove horoscopes, superstitions and anything else that involves the supernatural from my belief system. 

If I retorted by stating that you "decided to believe in God", I think you'd feel the same way. 

I hope you will start to understand from this that 'there are atheists and there are atheists' as Ray pointed out. I have the greatest respect for those who have a faith, and I have no wish to be disrespectful. I also seek a reciprocal respect for my personal belief system.

But you have reason to believe your wife, be it history, trust or whatever. It's not like 'She has headache, she has spoken.' Believing what someone says does not qualify someone as a doctor, but holding a belief regarding the existence of dieties qualifies someone as having a religious belief. You don't need a piece of paper to tell you that you are a believer. The belief alone is what qualifies you.

Oh, and I have another thought.....

Briefly (cos I do prattle on a bit), I've been trying to put my finger on the definition and difference between religious and non-religious belief.

Religion is a combination of faith, belief and worship of the divine. Athiests believe that there are no deities. That belief is not a religious one because there is not spiritualism in their concious thought and they do not worship.