Posted on 03/30/2007 6:20:58 PM PDT by buccaneer81
Actually, South Park borrowing from MP. "Isn't that right, Cockathree?"
I'd still like to know how atheists believe in "matter in motion".
Rocks, dirt, minerals, etc. don't move on their own. "A body at rest stays at rest" as Newton pointed out.
So what is the source of movement in the cosmos and on earth?
What gives living things the ability to move, but dead things cannot? The chemical composition of a recently dead person and a person about to die is identical, but one can do many things the other cannot. What is the atheist's explanation?
Why didn't I get the memo?
So much for "for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? or what communion hath light with DARKNESS?..." Sigh
Depends on your definition of 'atheism.' If by atheism you refer to militant atheism, where the possibility that any sort of deity might exist is denied in priciple, then you are correct. But that definition of atheism is a strawman lacking any utility, since few 'atheits' are actually that dogmatic and closed-minded.
The preferred definition of atheism refers to the belief that the evidence for the existence of deity is so weak that it's safe to assume in practice that it doesn't exist, even though in principle (in theory) deity may in fact exist.
There are perfectly logical non-supernatural explanations for everything you mention. One can believe in life without believing in God.
Forgive me, but I don't understand your comment. My comments mentioned neither the word 'message,' nor any synonym thereof. Please explain?
I didn't get it either.
The article is essentially about a split between militant and moderate atheists.
The preferred definition of atheism
Preferred by whom?
I don't believe in a god, but cannot rule out the fact that a god may exist. In other words, my lack of belief is not proof of the non-existence of a god.
Furthermore, I do not find the concepts of Christianity (as emulated by Jesus, not the subsequent church) objectionable (like the guy who wears the T-shirt that says "Atheists for Jesus".
Who could object to Jesus, a man who taught total love and brotherhood and who laid down his life for those beliefs? Whether or not he was the son of God, the guy had balls.
I'm a little foggy on the difference between agnostic and atheist. Can someone tell me where I fall?
Agnosticism is uncertainly as to the existence of a god, atheism is outright disbelief. I don't know wbout you, but I'm pretty sure I fall in the latter category.
Atheists get angry when one points out that they hold to a non-diety religion. But their's is a belief based upon at least as much faith as any "normal" religion.
- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Actually, agnosticicm is quite different, since it involves indecision/uncertainty not only in principle/theory, but also in practice. The agnostic is actively unsure. The atheist has decided the question does not deserve active consideration, and the possibility that God might exist, although not zero, is too small to be given any weight in making practical, strategic, hard decisions.
In other words, the atheist juror is sure beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no God (and so votes 'Guilty/No-God.') The agnostic juror is not sure beyond a reasonable doubt, and so votes 'Not-Guilty/Unsure.'
Preferred by whom?
By atheists.
I think you'll have to look a schleptillion miles.
Straight up.
< };^)
I regret any confusion my post has caused, unless you're on the other side of the split from me, in which case you're a heretical, schismatic so-and-so and woe be unto you, etc.
No. It'll be the Front for the Liberation of Atheism. Wait--I mean, the Atheist Liberation Front. No, wait--
Wouldn't it just be simpler to follow the gourd?
Firstly, not everyone means the same thing by the word 'religion.' (Or by the word 'atheist,' for that matter.)
Secondly, if you define religion as belief, then all beliefs are religious--including the belief that the Sun will rise the next morning. Think of what that definition would do to the scope of the First Ammendment's guarantee of Freedom Of Religion.
Thirdly, both atheism and science are fundamentally different from religion (as I define those terms, at least): Both science and atheism are subdomains of an epistemelogical paradigm where there are no absolute beliefs. Scientific theories are not absolute beliefs that must be taken on faith--and that's true by definition.
By definition, a scientific theory (belief) must be falsifiable. Scientists must accept that, in principle, any of their theories/beliefs might be wrong, that new evidence may require that any belief/theory be discarded. Some even have begun to realize that the rationalist epistemology itself must also be falsifable (subject to the possibility of disproof, at least in principle.)
Oh--got it. Actually, that's funny :-)
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