I think you guys have done a nice job of taking this thread way off topic. Why not start your own thread?

[edit] I was by no means trying to be mean and I'm not annoyed with how the thread was going. Just saying something. (I'm sorry if I offended people, it was not at all my intention.)

[QUOTE=IRG SithLord]That's amusing. Exactly what do you consider constructive about posting the exact same argument several times? And if you actually used a shred of your "intellect," you'd realize the intent of this thread had nothing to do with the religious debate it's turned in to. So really, the only thing disgusting is the rubbish you and others have posted time and time again. Ahhh yes, this thread will end like all the others, either locked or floating off the first page without the first person conceding.[/QUOTE]

1) He's reiterating, backing up, and driving home points he's already made as well as expounding on said points
2) Threads EVOLVE. Kind of like conversations. Get over it guys.
3) Christ, you guys try to drive away intelligent debate (which may/may not turn into flaming) or is it just a reflex of some sort?

Before I say anything, let me just admit that I've yet to read anything on the third page, and I skimmed over parts of the second, so cut e some slack if I miss something. I'm kind of in a hurry, and I'm trying to keep up with how insanely fast this thread is growing.

I just want to say one thing quickly to Mort-Hog.

I totally understand your point. However, I think you're taking a too narrow view. When you specifically restrict "religion" to worldviews that believe in God, you miss out on a lot. I think of Athiesm (true athiesm, not agnosticism) as a religion in the same sence I think about Christianity or Islam or Hindu, etc. Christians believe there's a god, athiests don't. That's belief is still within the realms of religion. If you disagree than that's up to you, but remember even a decision for the negative is a decision. Thus, it's not that an athiest would be less likely to be biased against religion, but rather that an athiest would be more likely to be biased against all religion that involves a deity.

Also, I wanted to ask you, do you understand the difference between Athiesm and Agnosticism? You're a pretty well-educated guy, and you argue a good case, but some of the things you've said suggest that you might be confusing or inter-mingling the two.

Mort: if a teacher can prove him- or herself to be skilled at presenting the information, why should they be barred from teaching simply because they are Christian/Muslim/Hindu/Jewish/etc., etc.? If you limit the employee pool to simply atheists, you're reducing only the odds of a harmful bias and in no way ensuring a quality and informative class. A theist can (and has, for many) provide a quality education about religions.

Further more, personal experience does count, because you are attempting to qualify the efficacy of a theist RE teacher, which can only be measured through the personal experiences of the students under those teachers. Again, I agree that atheists will have a lower chance of a bias for a religion - but that's hardly any reason to bar theists from teaching the class.



Threads evolve. Learn to live with it.

(Bonus points to me for involving evolution in a religious thread!)

Oh, and in regards to the "topic drifting"

Guys get over it. If you don't want to involve yourself in an intellegent conversation on religion then don't. Just ignore this thread. The rest of us don't mind, and I haven't seen any "flaming" or inappropriate arguing, just constructive debate that brings about thought (and thought is a good thing, unless you're on the Vogon homeworld).

Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.

[QUOTE=IRG SithLord]That's amusing. Exactly what do you consider constructive about posting the exact same argument several times? And if you actually used a shred of your "intellect," you'd realize the intent of this thread had nothing to do with the religious debate it's turned in to. So really, the only thing disgusting is the rubbish you and others have posted time and time again. Ahhh yes, this thread will end like all the others, either locked or floating off the first page without the first person conceding.[/QUOTE]


It's a conversation.

Ebb and flow.

Thats how it works. If you don't like it leave these forums, because it's been like that since they started.

Atheism is a belief, not a religion.

Strong atheism ("I believe god doesn't exist") is a belief, weak atheism ("I have no reason to believe a god exists" - which is of course exactly right) is a lack of belief.

"God is dead." - Nietzsche


"Nietzsche is dead." - God

Tenshu put it best. Both atheism and agnosticism (I'll deal with this below) are the 'miscellenious' catagory. Calling atheism a religion is like like a questionnaire asking your racial catagory: White European, Black African, Black Carribbean, Latino, Chinese, None of the above;
and then considering None-of-the-above to be a racial catagory (and then refuse to tolerate none-of-the-above and be a none-of-the-aboveist, resulting in none-of-the-above rights campaigns and none-of-the-above musicians and none-of-the-above history week and such!).

Secondly, we're now into the realm where we discuss the difference between 'religion' and 'philosophical position'.
The two are not the same. I'm sure you find semantic debates as boring and uninteresting as I do, but I think we can agree that the one thing all religions share in common is a belief in the supernatural. They require belief in the supernatural. Atheism does not. Atheism doesn't exclude belief in the supernatural, atheism is just one sentence: There is no God (more on this below). One sentence isn't a religion. This is not an irrational belief, this is not an unsubstaniated belief, this is not a belief in the supernatural, and this is how atheism is fundementally different and fundementally outside of all forms of faith.

Atheists don't have faith that there is no God, atheists must have some sort of logical reasoning behind it (even if that reasoning is very simple). The question regarding atheist reasoning is whether the argument is logically valid and sound.
This is precisely the question we ask of any philosophical position. Kant's Transcendental Idealism, Hume's Is-ought problem, Hegel on dialectics, law of contraction; these are all philosophical problems with lots of different positions, and the adoption of a philosophical stance (like, say, Young Hegelians) can in no way be described as a 'religion'. The issue of atheism belongs in the context of philosophy, not religion. When evaluating atheist arguments, you do so in exactly the same way you'd evaluate any other philosophical position.




Well, this is actually a contemorary issue for atheist philosophers, quite simply "What is atheism?". It's quite funny how philosophy sometimes works, really, starting off with terribly complex questions and terribly complex answers and progressing onwards to simpler, more fundemental questions (but not necessarily especially simple answers). But yeah, this is a topical issue and there are various different viewpoints and various different reasons for adopting each. The one I adopt I choose not because it has any logical virtue, I merely consider it the most elegant because I can express it in two sentences (I think may also have stolen this one off of Flirbnic). So, here goes.

- An agnostic does not believe God exists.
- An atheist believes God does not exist.


There's probably going to be one of two reactions to this..
1 . You just said the same thing twice! (this was my reaction when I first heard it, anyway)
Yeah, they're the same words, but the order makes the world of difference. The agnostic does not believe that God exists, and the atheist will agree with this sentiment precisely. But the atheist will go one step further as to say There is no God. The agnostic will not commit himself to this. There's various reasons why the atheist will go 'one step further' (and none of them based on 'faith'), they will be usually be regarding logical contradictions within the supposed qualities of God. All of these arguments will fall under some philosophical issue, as we discussed above. Agnostic vs. Atheist is usually a very interesting and productive way of evaluating atheist arguments.

2. No no no, an agnostic simply doesn't know, that's what a-gnostic means, without knowledge (Note that agnosticism has nothing whatsoever to do with gnosticism)
Yes, it is, and the definition An agnostic does not believe in God doesn't contradict this. If you look up a few posts, you'll see my circle of theism. Everyone inside that circle of theism, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, they will all proclaim God(s) exist(s)!. In order to be in this theist circle, you must say that. The agnostic will not say God(s) exist(s)!, so cannot be in the theist circle. The agnostic is not theist, and therefore the agnostic does not believe in God.
Sure, you could shuffle the words around and call this 'non-theism' and have agnosticism and atheism as both within 'non-theism', but I don't really see the merit in introducing yet another word. I take agnosticism to be synonymous with non-theism. Other people, like Tenshu, will add in concepts like 'strong atheism' and 'weak atheism' to describe what I've defined as 'atheism' and 'agnosticism'. The reason I reject Tenshu's approach is that there isn't any difference between 'weak atheism' and 'agnosticism', so you're just left with a lot of fairly unnecessary words. (Still others will introduce 'strong agnosticism' and 'weak agnosticism', but I'm not even sure what that's supposed to be).

The reason I reject the "agnostics just don't know" definition is simply because it isn't very useful. Apply it to any other context; is there an apple under my chair? I don't know. Quite possibly, I quite like apples. But I don't actually know. The statement 'Quite possibly, I quite like apples' was infinitely more useful than the statement 'I don't know' and offering that best-guess approach, even though it probably isn't even a very good guess, is far more useful than offering no approach whatsoever. 'I don't know' is a valid answer to every single question ever, and that's why it isn't very useful at all.

The downfall of both this system and the agnostics-don't-know system is that it doesn't really offer any insight as to why the agnostic isn't an atheist. But it does make it quite clear that the agnostic isn't, and eliminates confusion between the two.

Sorry to disappoint you but.....no.

[QUOTE=IRG SithLord]Sorry to disappoint you but.....no.[/QUOTE]

You're the one that's being dissapointed.

As far as I can see, this thread is going fine. Conversational threads are supposed to go off-topic. Try having a conversation with someone in real life, you'll always go off on tangents unless there is an overwhelming reason to stay on the original topic.

A religion is a belief. It is not necessarily the belief in a deity. Atheism comes in different types, just as any other belief does. Most athiests don't seem to be aware of that. Heck, some of the people who claim to be atheist are actually ignostic - they believe that whether a god exists or not is irrelevant. Mort-Hog comes to mind, given that he's said a god's existance is unnecessary, quite a few times.

Weak atheism is 'the absense of belief in god'. It's not a belief. Don't try to drag us down with you.



He/she isn't needed to explain natural phenomena, but that doesn't mean wheter a god exists or not is irrelevant.

Sure, a religion is a belief, but not all belief is religious.



If you're referring to the other thread, then yes, the reason I don't believe in God (agnostic) is because God simply isn't necessary to explain anything. But I also go one step further, not only do I consider that God does not exist, but that it is impossible for God(s) to exist. This is what makes me an atheist.

By the definitions I posted before, I am both agnostic and atheist. By Tenshu's definitions, I am both weak atheist and strong atheist. (I don't think Tenshu has elaborated on what constitutes an 'agnostic' in the Tenshu model or how it's different from 'weak atheist')

I go by the wikipedia 'weak atheism' definiton by the way, which is the same I stumbled upon in philosophy textbooks.

I think Mort believes that God is really teh Goa"uld

I just replace 'weak atheism' with 'agnosticism'.

That's funny, because I replaced your heart with a baked potato.

How's that working out anyways, Mort?

Really? I'm glad you're able to pretend that you can read minds, Mort.



Playing that card already?



Detty: say something along that line in a real conversation and it probably won't go off on a tangent. At the least, it would be extremely rude to do so.

Then Sith, stop being rude by draggin us off topic. Seriously, get out of this thread if you have no reason to be here.

No one said you had to follow anyone off topic, which I'm not trying to do. And pointing out rudeness isn't rude.

But I will leave at the request of the author.

The dude that started the thread isn't the 'author' or the 'owner' of the thread, no more than you 'own' a conversation that you start. The dude posts something that will spark a conversation, and the conversation will twist and turn as conversations always do.

People not talking about what you started the thread off about? Tough. You can't force people to be interested in whatever you happen to be (as I've found out myself). You can only be happy that the thread is being used for something that people are interested in.

There is a variety of types other than "weak" and "strong." Hedonism is a form of atheism. Communism is a type of atheism (albeit one that requires a corresponding government to actually work, and one that has been abused many times). There's a third type I can't remember. Definition torquing is fun.

No, now you're doing the classic mistake*.
Yes, they're both related to atheism, but neither has any theological significance, so they're certainly not 'types' of atheism. Materialism and logical positivism are also both concepts that relate to atheism, but have no impact on atheism itself. Not believing in God(s), or actively rejecting God(s), may well have knock-on effects on what other stuff you can or cannot believe, but that doesn't affect the arguments for or against believing in God(s).


I'd like to go back to my 'circles' example. All these things, materialism, logical positivism, hedonism and (possibly) Marxism; they wouldn't be little circles within a big 'Atheism' circle. They'd be circles of the same size, overlapping the 'atheism' circle somewhat. You'll find that most everything in philosophy overlaps most everything else, and atheism is no exception.


* [These sorts of arguments stem from notions of the style Hedonism is bad, Communism is bad, both are vaguely related to atheism, therefore atheism is bad.]

[QUOTE=IRG SithLord]Playing that card already?

...

Detty: say something along that line in a real conversation and it probably won't go off on a tangent. At the least, it would be extremely rude to do so.[/QUOTE]

Firstly, I wasn't playing ANY card. I used that example specifically because it's what i'd assumed EVERYONE is familiar with, it wasn't some shot at saying you don't have a life.

Secondly, it would be rude to change the subject immediately, yes. But it's impossible to remain on the original topic indefinitely. Anyone is free to say something to contribute to the original topic if they want to swing it back, if what they have said is worthwhile the topic will swing back. But to simply moan about the topic changing is pretty damn childish.

Actually, these sorts of statements stem from my World Religions course.