i think this is an incredibly important point. of course. and my contention that the atheist who actually denies the existence of god, believes that god certainly does not really exist, this person does not exist. again, i have read maybe 20 books on atheism, heard every prominent atheist speaker a zillion times, and never once i have i heard of a person that pretends to have knowledge that god does not exist. so lets look at the definition. wikipedia, which is an expression of public opinion: Atheism can be either the rejection of theism,[1] or the position that deities do not exist.[2] In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities so, there you have it. i clearly reject theism as submitted without evidence. and i have an "absence" of belief. this is not a permanent condition. like 99.9% of atheists, i am willing to admit that god is possible. (but anything is possible) i have repeated this endlessly, but just use your understanding of word orgins. the prefix "a" means without. without belief. it dosent mean with a positive belief of the absense. the word amoral is different than immoral. the word amorphous means lacking shape, atheism means without theism. it is a statement about what you are not. atheism is a belief in something the same way bald is a hair color. atheism is not a denial. it is a lack. this is again, a definition used by no real world atheists. ask an atheist if they mean this. they dont. they never do. well i submit to you that the definitions you know are flawed. i am. i have read every one of his books and my impression is that you are wrong. can i see a link? i have heard him discuss this exact topic many times and he always rejects the idea that a child can be christian or muslim. he doesnt say that they cannot be atheist and i think he is implying that they are. i could be wrong, but my impression is that dawkins agree entirely with me. also, for the record, dawkins is without question, what you would call a "weak atheist". like i said, the sam harris', the daniel dennets, the christopher hitchens of the world, these folks are atheists in the same sense i am. st. never once in my life have i heard of any person who is a "strong" atheist. not from atheists you dont. ask them very specifically. i am "certain" the mets will not make the playoffs. but isnt a mathematical fact yet. i wont mention the mathematical part in casual conversation.
yunno i looked up your quote there. i thought you were referring to me "martin". but you were not. there is another martin in your article. i think i should point out that the article you reference is mistaken about dawkins. also your article starts off with my exact point. "Atheism is a complex term to define, and many definitions fail to capture the range of positions an atheist can hold. Perhaps the most obvious meaning to many people now is the absence or rejection of a belief in a God, or gods. However, it has been used through much of history to denote certain beliefs seen as heretical, particularly the belief that God does not intervene in the world. More recently, atheists have argued that atheism only denotes a lack of theistic belief, rather than the active denial or claims of certainty it is often associated with. This is held to follow from its etymology: it stems from the Greek adjective atheos, deriving from the alpha privative a -,'without, not', and 'theos', 'God'" (bolded text is my doing) Definition of Atheism - Investigating Atheism i also like that your article reference the exact same 3 dudes i mentioned and said the same thing i said "If we apply this distinction to the contemporary debates, the three chief public atheists, (Dawkins, Dennett and Harris) should probably be categorised as positive atheists in the broad sense." still though, your article has dawkins wrong about defining a child as an atheist.
i would like to think alot of athiets would like to believe in some sort of deity, but in order for us to believe we have to throw logic and common sense out of the window, and rely only on faith.
Again would be pure speculation. The bible is an account of what man saw or believed. The aspects of Gods law man believed and documented that God spoke to and gave the laws to Moses. Any debate would be pure speculation post facto. The bible itself can be debated on many different levels, and there are many different religions that interpret it differently. The laws of God, though, are ver much the same with all religions as they are with several different gov'ts and cultures.
How then is the Bible not pure speculation? It was mainly written way after the events took place by individuals who weren't there.
All very true. It is basically a history book, but there is no evidence to dispute certain aspects of the bible. Not to say that some of it can't be discredited, but some of it cannot. Although there are many logical explanations there isn't evidence.
I agree with this if I understand what you're saying. To deny that there is no existance of God is to actually prove that there is existance of God. How could you deny something without having an idea of what it is? I can't just say I don't believe in hybrid cars because I have an idea in my head that there is something named a hybrid car that does exist. A true atheist when asked the question, "Do you believe in God?" would answer: "Who?"
