Jack the Bodiless

Dictionary definitions of atheism are notoriously poor, this is an issue that has arisen many times before.

From the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Comprehensive Definition of Atheism":
Here's my own, more concise definition:

A theist is one who considers it likely that the fundamental basis of the Universe responds to stimuli in a manner analogous to the human brain.

An atheist is one who does NOT consider it likely that the fundamental basis of the Universe responds to stimuli in a manner analogous to the human brain.

...In other words: if the notion that the First Cause actually thinks strikes you as too farfetched to take seriously, you're an atheist.

HelenM

Sounds great to me - thanks!

Hobbs

Isn't it odd, then, that there is a correlation between education and atheism (i.e. the more educated you are, the more likely you are an atheist).

Bill Snedden

Silly atheist. Don't you realize that "knowledge" is properly defined as "contents of the holy book?" The information in other books, or that we glean from observation of the universe, is naught but foolishness.



Bill

theophilus

Oh really? Then I suppose you don't give into the tyranny of having to breathe to stay alive. After all, it's such an arbitrary rule.

Actually, you won't go to hell with your "head held high." God's judgement will not only be just, it will be SEEN to be just, even by those who are condemned. You will spend eternity hating yourself.
Sorry.

theophilus

Besides being patently false, you mistakenly correlate "education" with "knowledge and wisdom" - two different things.
Do you count yourself in this group? Do you want to match wits with Augustine, Jonathan Edwards or CS Lewis?

theophilus

From "here."

<strong>One of the principal purposes of my essays is to make clear that the evidence for naturalism is overwhelming, so much so that in our day and age it takes acute blindness to believe in the supernatural in general and in the sovereign-God in particular. The Universe is anti-theistic in every aspect, showing nothing but natural, material necessity. The evidential barrage offered by Nature, comprising of biological evolution, indiscriminate good and bad fortune, lack of miracles except in contexts of propaganda (Bible, Qur’an and the like), diversity far beyond mankind’s need (the many stars and animals for which mankind has no use), and so many more facts which are not in accordance with a purposively-designed, top-down controlled reality, ought to have made the case for theism all but defunct nowadays. With evidence so plentiful, who can hold to theistic beliefs today?</strong>

Nice try, but demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the epistemological challenge to naturalism. Pure matter, as Nature, cannot serve as a foundation for knowledge. Phenomena must be interpreted within a context; "facts" must be known comprehensively in relation to all other facts before any authoritative statements can be made. Therefore, you know nothing as an atheist/naturalist.

This argument begins from, and therefore fails, an atheistic assumption. It assumes that the meaning of universe is wholly perspicuous to man as man. It is not. It is an inpenetrable, dark mass.

Eudaimonist

What a charming revenge fantasy.

David Gould

But the fact that we will be hating ourselves might distract from the fact that we are being horribly tortured...or it might make it fun:

"Oh, yes - I deserve it! Give it to me! Again! Oh, Satan, you really know how to punish and I've been so bad...oh...harder...faster...burn me, you demon you..."

This thing about the elect I find really strange. If only a certain number of people have been chosen to go to Heaven, that measn some people have been chosen to go to Hell. How do they deserve it if they were chosen? How could we know that it was just?

If it is just, then it is by definition unjust that others get into Heaven. Where is God's perfectly just nature?

[ January 30, 2002: Message edited by: David Gould ]</p>

Bill Snedden

Do I? Demonstrate how.

If anything, I was pointing out how Hobbes was committing this "error" himself. But, of course, this begs the question of how knowledge and wisdom might be obtained, if not through education and observation (which is essentially what I was pointing out).

Count myself in what group? The group of people who could expose some of the extravagant nonsense these three considered "wisdom?"

If that's what you meant, then yes, I do count myself in that group.

Regards,

Bill Snedden