Starboy

GeoTheo,

Now that is a good question. It works extremely well and not at all. Supernatural explanations were banned from scientific discourse for a very good reason. They were too powerful. If the question is “Why is the sky blue”, the supernatural answer is “because god made it that way.” The problem with that explanation is that it really doesn’t have any explanatory power at all, since it would work just as well if the sky were red or green or whatever color. So from a scientific point of view it doesn’t work at all, however if you are a superstitious native it works just fine. Also, such explanations under the right circumstances can be very comforting.

Starboy

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

Tabula_rasa

That's a hoot. I could care less which brand of ?-theism with which you choose to equate yourself. For some reason, you felt the necessity to interject that into the conversation. Maybe you ought to ponder your own reason(s) for doing so.

Tabula_rasa

Starboy

[Inappropriate response]

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

Starboy

Tabula,

I appear to have offended you and for that I do apologize. I think if you check with many of the other people on this forum who call themselves atheist, that many of them do not share your definition of the word. If you would like to get a better understanding of what I mean when I use that word look at this:

<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/atheism/atheism2.shtml" target="_blank">BBC Religion and Ethics page on atheism</a>

I am not a strong atheist, but just an atheist with a little a. I am without theism, so I don't think god exists, but I don't think he doesn't exist as well. To me, as with a new born baby, god is irrelevant. I try to learn new things every day and to do that I must listen carefully to others. Would you care to explain what you mean when you use the word?

Starboy

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

Tabula_rasa

No need to apogogize, because no offense has been taken. I'm not that easily offended. I wouldn't be in the position I'm in if I were. I checked out the site and the only thing you need to clarify is how you see this definition (from my post):

"Atheism denies the possibility of a deity or deities outright."

is not equivalent to (taken from the site):

"Atheists are people who don't believe that God or supernatural beings exist."

I'm not really sure how anyone could twist those words around to not mean the same thing.

Tabula_rasa

Starboy

Hi Tabula,

That last sentence has alot of double negatives in it. Could you restate it with more strength of meaning?

I recall reading somewhere that the original definition was without theism. If you check the webster site it shows as an obsolete definition, but that some time ago the Catholic church changed the definition to make it easier for them to attack atheists. I guess it was hard to get upset with someone with no beliefs but much easier if you were told that they believed you were just flat wrong! Also the orginal definition would have made babies atheist, and it is pretty hard to get the congregation wipped up enough to go after babies.

Starboy

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

Albion

Well, I know there's supposed to be a difference between weak atheism and agnosticism, but that BBC definition of weak atheism sounds a lot like agnosticism to me.

Starboy

Hi Tabula,

This is as difficult a word to use as evolution, since so many different people understand it so many different ways.

To me an atheist is an a-theist, without theism, just as apolitical means without politics, asymmetrical means without symmetry, asexual means without sexuality and so forth. So a small baby is an atheist, not because the baby denies god, but because the baby is incapable of having any theism. To the baby god is irrelevant, it doesn’t know and it doesn’t care. Also to me god is irrelevant, I do not know if god exists or doesn’t exist, I just do not care. So from your posts I gather you would say strongly that god does not exist. Is that what you think?

Starboy

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

Starboy

A better definition would be to take:

"Atheists are people who don't believe that God or supernatural beings exist."

And change it to:

"Atheists are people who don't have a belief that God or supernatural beings exist."

Maybe that will make it a little clearer. You would think that "believe" and "have a belief" would mean the same thing but to me those two sentences are not the same. The English language really sucks, but I guess I’m stuck with it.

Starboy

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

Claudia

Well, I come from a country where dominant religion is catholiscism, and where public education has been secular from XIXth century.

From my experience, I can say that now, teaching evolution and science is not teaching implicit atheism. I have enought friends which are shightly or strongly religious and which have no problem in associating their religious beliefs with what they were taughts at school. Why? because they have no problems in viewing their holy books as symbolic!

Science taughts that if there is any truth in mythology (I do consider Genesis as mythology), it can be only symbolic. It does not say that there is not even this symbolic content. It takes no position on this.

So it is teaching that some religious views (litteral understanding of religious texts) are false, it does not says that symbolic understanding is false. it does not say it is true either. Hence it teaches atheism only for people who believe that the only other possibility (compared to their litteral reading of the texts) is atheism. For people who undestand that there are other possibilities, it does not