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Sean wrote:
> > Atheism is not a claim, atheism is simply an absence of
> > Virgil's religious belief that there might be a magic invisible deity
> > anyway, even though there is no such thing known in reality, it's just a
> > part of his religion.
> >
> > "Atheism is characterized by an absence of belief in the existence of
> > gods." -- http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/intro.html
> >
>
> I have no doubt that you and many others believe what you Claim. ;-)
>
> imho "Atheism is characterized by a belief in the non-existence of gods."
>
> Other people's beliefs in a God or creator, and religions in general has
> very little to do with that. So describing it as an absence of belief is a
> comparative term about others, and not about your own particular views and
> how those were arrived at.
>
> If the only way you can accurautely describe your own pov is in relation to
> others pov, then I suspect you may not have really looked that closely at
> how you have arrived at your own conclusions about what is, or isn't.
> Underpinning that is usually a whole pile of beliefs. That's not a
> criticism, just an observation about human nature and what all people do.
> Atheists in general really aren;t that different than everybody else. imho.
The point about "atheist" is that it implies a negative. There is a
perfectly good word for someone who positively rejects the notion of a
belief in god: antitheist, and another one who has declared for "i
don't know": agnostic.
"A - theist" means NO belief in god. It is most bizzarre, I find, that
those that insist there is a god usually insist that "atheist" is some
kind of faith belief system - this I find utterly strange, but probably
reflective of the type of thought processes that form the theist
position.
Generally I classify myself as atheist, and normally give no thought
whatsoever to the topic. That is, until I read a thread which causes me
to think about why I have rejected the god notion. At this point I
become antitheist and prepare myself to produce arguments as to why I
think the god idea is utterly incoherant.
But I insist that I have no "system of belief" which comprises atheism.
If someone tries to convince me that "wheat is purple" and I attempt to
argue against it, I do not say that i am an "Apurplewheatist".
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