Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:PP's, I am sick of posters like you!!!! Get your own thread!
The thread is "Posters your sick of!"
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Atheists do not assert that there is 100 percent certainty that god does not exist. What we say is that, absent any evidence to support it, there is no reason to retain the hypothesis.
I'm not sure I get the distinction involved in "no reason to retain the hypothesis." You seem to be saying there may be a <1% chance there's a God (in other words, as you said above, you are not 100% certain there is NO god). You don't find this 1% worth pursuing or "retaining." Which is fine with me. However, in the absence of 100% certainty, this still means you're an agnostic rather than an atheist.
Anonymous wrote:
No, he doesn't. If you read his book he is VERY CLEARLY saying that he is not an agnostic. He wrote a whole chapter in a book about it.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
If atheist = 0% possibility of God, then theist = 100% certainty of God. Find me a Christian that has never had a doubt.
Ah, but Christians don't pretend to be 100% perfect, in faith, in works, or anything else. That would be hubris, and it would be wrong. We leave that to you atheists.![]()
Atheists don't pretend to be 100% certain, either. But apparently that forces them to be agnostic according to the earlier poster.
So if atheist who are <100% sure are forced to be agnostics, then theists who are not 100% sure are agnostics as well.
OR, and I'm just throwing out ideas here, theists and atheists both get to define the meaning of the terms they use to describe themselves.
Anonymous wrote:PP's, I am sick of posters like you!!!! Get your own thread!
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It would be a lot easier to tolerate your labeling Dawkins "Agnostic" if he hadn't written a whole chapter of his book about "The Poverty of Agnosticism".
Time to repost from this link (http://www.investigatingatheism.info/definition.html):
"Dawkins' central argument against religion is probabilistic, and his scale of belief reflects this, ranging from 1: 'Strong theist. 100% probability of God' to the equivalent 7: 'Strong atheist'. He doesn't see 7 as a well-populated category, placing himself as 6: 'Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist'.[6] Again, this terminology suggests that he sees atheism as strictly requiring certainty. It should not be taken for a lack of certainty in a practical sense, however: Dawkins states 'I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden'." If you read the rest of the piece, it goes on to say that Dawkins "divides agnosticism into TAP (temporary agnosticism in practice) and PAP (permanent agnosticism in principle), identifying the first as Sagan's stance on alien life...." According to this piece, all but categories 1 and 7 are TAP.
Summary: Dawkins sees atheism as strictly requiring certainty. He himself is not 100% certain because the probability is "low, but short of zero." He is therefore not an atheist (he is a 6,not a 7 on his scale), either by his own definition, or by his own assessment of where he belongs on his own scale.
You're welcome.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:
If atheist = 0% possibility of God, then theist = 100% certainty of God. Find me a Christian that has never had a doubt.
Ah, but Christians don't pretend to be 100% perfect, in faith, in works, or anything else. That would be hubris, and it would be wrong. We leave that to you atheists.![]()
Anonymous wrote:
If atheist = 0% possibility of God, then theist = 100% certainty of God. Find me a Christian that has never had a doubt.
Anonymous wrote:It would be a lot easier to tolerate your labeling Dawkins "Agnostic" if he hadn't written a whole chapter of his book about "The Poverty of Agnosticism".
RantingAtheist wrote:Anonymous wrote:Atheism is fine except most of the ones ive met disrespect religions and teach their kids to make fun of or discriminate against those that believe in a religion. Instead of teaching atheism they teach intollerance and that everyone else is stupid.
Here is a good article
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/camp-quest-is-atheists-answer-to-bible-school/2011/07/19/gIQAe1hRbI_story.html
One last rant: Anyone who can read this article and come away from it with the idea that the main point of the camp is "discrimination" and "ridicule" of those who believe in religion has a deeply, deeply skewed perspective. Entitlement, persecution complex, and narcissism in full effect.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Dawkins calls himself a "De Facto Atheist" (level 6) instead of a "Strict Atheist" (level 7). Then he goes into some stuff about how level 6 is "temporary agnostic" or something.
Bottom line, though, "de facto" means "not exactly" as opposed to "de jure" which means by law, i.e. an actual atheist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_facto
After all the semantics, it basically means he's agnostic.
That's like saying a Christian with occasional doubts is not really a Christian, and therefore Mother Theresa is out.
Once more, with feeling: Dawkins does not call himself an atheist, in cases where he's really careful about defining the term. So why are you calling him an atheist?