RJS

Absolutely nobody knows for certain the origin of existence (or whether existence even has an origin), but the theist believes that God is the origin of existence, and the atheist, due to lack of conclusive scientific evidence, does not attribute the origin of existence to anything, and leaves open the possibility that there is no origin.

Godless Dave

I'd buy that. But I think "a god or gods" would be more accurate than "God", unless you change "theist" to "monotheist".

Rational Ag

No.

More like:

Absolutely nobody knows for certain the origin of existence. The theist attributes it to a God. The atheist can only speculate on the origins of the universe, but cannot come to any absolute conclusion due to lack of conclusive scientific evidence.

-Rational Ag

Laera

I would tend to agree with that last one you suggested, RJS, though Rational Ag's also sounds reasonable (or rational?).

RJS: Did you get what you were after?

[edited 'cause I cross-posted]
[edited again 'cause while editing, one cannot review the thread... is that a bug?]

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: Laera ]</p>

RJS

I believe I did get what I was ultimately after. Thank you.

although, after reading Rational AG's, I had the following thought.

If a theist proposed this below language, might they get an earfull from the atheists - it sounds kinda negative.

"The atheist can only speculate on the origins of the universe, but cannot come to any absolute conclusion due to lack of conclusive scientific evidence."

In fact, this almost reads like it came from the original link (which was not a goal of mine, btw

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: RJS ]

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: RJS ]</p>

Laera

I don't personally have a problem with it - nor do I think other atheists would. Somewhere today I posted how one of my favorite traits of most of the atheists I've met is how willing they are to admit that they don't know all the answers (some include "yet").

In fact, the atheist would similarly claim:
"People can only speculate on the origins of the universe, but cannot come to any absolute conclusion due to lack of conclusive scientific evidence. However, most theists disregard this lack of evidence and "conclude" (assume?) that (a) god(s)didit!"

Kosh

How about this?

"IF (and that's a big IF) there was a God who created the universe, and has shown no direct evidence of himself, he mostly likely bares NO resemblence to the Christian God, a highly mutated form of the Jewish God, who started out as the war God YHWH of a small tribe of IGNORANT BRONZE AGE GOAT HERDERS, having been redacted from a list of multiple Gods they once believed in, and who's history is nothing more than a collection of various mythological stories borrowed from other nearby religions, and who repeatedly shows an uncanny resemblence to the humans who "created" him."

Can we agree on that?

RJS

I wont agree to that. And your tone is offensive.

Godless Dave

I disagree. It sounds pretty accurate to me, but it would be more accurate with "at this time." added onto the end.

Kosh

How so? Everything in that statement is fact. Are you offended by the truth?