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To: Dimensio
And I gave you my reason. Why should I believe in your God and not the gods of any other religion? Why should yours be given special consideration requiring special justification for lack of belief?

Your reason for not believing in God is because there are many different believes to choose from? So, if there are two people with different believes you will automatically choose to believe they are both wrong? How about creationism and evolution? By your argument you must believe that both creationism and evolution are equally wrong - after all there are people who believe in one and there are people who believe in the other.

No, it makes me an atheist. An agnostic is one who believes that it is impossible to know for certain whether or not gods exist. Agnosticism is orthagonal to atheism/theism.

Does your definition of atheism include a possibility that God may exist? If not, what is the meaning of your statement "not convinced"?

It's also up to Hindus to justify their faith, and Muslims to justify their faith. Once again, yours isn't the only religion out there and to me, an atheist, your religion is no more "special" than any other.

We have not, actually, been arguing about superiority of one faith over another. As far as I understand, we were talking about having faith in God and having faith that there is no God.

I've seen that definition. It's crap. Try the American Heritage dictionary for a better definition (it encompasses both lack of belief and outright denial of both general gods and a named -- though not specifically defined -- God). Also look at the roots of the word: "a" means without, "theism" means "belief in a god or gods", therefore "atheism" means "without belief in a god or gods".

I just did a search on the American Heritage web site (http://www.bartleby.com/61/). The definition for atheist came up as: "...One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods....". This is identical to Merriam-Webster's definition. There is nothing here about lack of proof, there is just an active believe that denies existence of God.
524 posted on 11/23/2003 2:37:12 PM PST by bluejay
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To: bluejay
Your reason for not believing in God is because there are many different believes to choose from?

No, I'm not sure how you derived this from my statements. My reason for not believing in the God that you worship is the same as my reason for not believing in the gods of any other religions: I've seen no evidence. Should I see evidence for any gods -- yours or another -- I will have to rethink my position of lacking belief in gods. Thus far, no evidence has surfaced, so I remain without belief in all gods.

So, if there are two people with different believes you will automatically choose to believe they are both wrong?

No.

How about creationism and evolution? By your argument you must believe that both creationism and evolution are equally wrong - after all there are people who believe in one and there are people who believe in the other.

Invalid conclusion drawn from a false premise.

Does your definition of atheism include a possibility that God may exist?

My definition of atheism does not address the possibilities for or against the existence of any gods. It addresses nothing more than lack of theism. If any gods actually exist, I'm still an atheist because I currently don't hold belief in them.

I just did a search on the American Heritage web site

Addressed above.
529 posted on 11/23/2003 3:06:29 PM PST by Dimensio (The only thing you feel when you take a human life is recoil. -- Frank "Earl" Jones)
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