User: adk

I'll have to second BJake--the idea of god is as relevant to me as the flying spaghetti monster or the three-hundred-foot-tall ogres who inhabit Mars. One can invent any mythical being and say "prove it doesn't exist". The fact of the matter is, there are billions of things you can invent that can't be disproved. But that's precisely why I don't believe in any of them.

All I've been trying to do is modify my explanation to see if we could come to at least a minor agreement, yet it seems all you've been doing is to try to end any possibility of dialog. I'm sorry if I offended you with the Bill O'Reilly comparison. Perhaps I should have found a better way of expressing myself, but your "my way or the highway" approach got the best of me. The fact of the matter is, if you wish to define atheism in the manner you do with regards to your own view, fine. But you can't reasonably expect others to have that definition because definitions of words are based on far more than one person's opinion, and in addition, American Atheists and pretty much every other atheist venue I've come in contact with accepts the general definition I've supplied. You can accuse me of babbling, "not making any sense" and "not understanding the meaning of resolved" all you wish to. There's only one thing that's been resolved, which is that we'll simply have to agree to disagree on what the "proper" definition of atheism is and what the correct thought process is for reaching an atheist conclusion.

Shadowwatcher, I've been itching to ask this question: if you are so confident that the issue has been resolved, why, for the life of me, do you keep returning to post here? No one's forcing you to continue posting. Repeating an untruth over and over again won't suddenly make it true--ask Bill O'Reilly or any of his ilk.

And BJake, that's a very good question. Perhaps he means he's resolved that any chance of further reasonable discussion on the topic is to be destroyed.

The meaning of resolved? Let's see what the first entry in the dictionary says:

1. to come to a definite or earnest decision about.

Hmmm . . . I don't sense a definite decision here. YOU may think the issue is resolved, but that holds just about as much weight as Bill O'Reilly thinking he "wins" over his guests by loudly repeating himself over and over again.

I'm sorry you're having such a hard time accepting this, but you don't have the liberty to redefine words as you see fit. The fact of the matter is that the consensual definition of the word atheist is disbelief in god, or the assertion of such disbelief. You may not like that definition, but since definitions are based on consensus, your personal views on the matter are meaningless . . . sorry.

OK, Shadowwatcher, where do I begin? Finding evidence to fit my position and citing my source is not "coddling my ego" as you put it, any more than you claiming to have "resolved the issue" is doing the same thing yourself. I'm simply backing up my position, a common debate tactic--if you're upset with the way I'm debating, why do you continue to come back here to respond? No one's forcing you to.

"I know based on the information provided by religious texts that follow their imaginary friends, friends none of them have experienced, but have no better explanation of exactly what it is they ACTUALLY experienced and so attribute their experiences to an imaginary friend. Guess what, if it doesn't exist there's no reason to affirm it or deny it either."

How does this disprove my definition of what an atheist is?

"No, as an atheist I speak on behalf of all atheists everywhere. I did not say I speak for those who claim to be atheists without understanding what true atheism is, I said I spoke for all atheists, what you are referring to is agnostics who claim to be atheist because they tend to think in the opposite of affirmative. get it now. I AM speaking on behalf of all atheists , and you are scolding me for not including agnostics. So, don't kid yourself."

I'm not scolding you for not including agnostics. An atheist simply needs to disbelieve in god, no more. You claim to speak for all atheists, yet you conveniently make your definition of what an atheist is so strict that not even Richard Dawkins, as Talhob pointed out, would fit your definition of atheist. Since I've never heard of or met anyone who takes a stronger position than Dawkins, I find it spectacular you could possibly think that virtually the entire atheist population is actually agnostic.

"There is nothing to be disproven because nothing has been proven only claimed."

I don't disagree with you on that, neither does Dawkins, neither do the three atheists I found on youtube, and I don't think any other atheist would. This is a non-issue.

"You're engaging in circular thinking here."

That's precisely what you're doing. You say as an atheist, you're the only one who can determine who counts as a fellow atheist and who doesn't. You claim to speak for every atheist, and that only you can determine the definition. Thus, anyone who disagrees with you about the definition of an atheist and who uses him or herself as an example is discounted as an agnostic--how very convenient! How is that not circular reasoning?

"Allow me to rewrite that sentence for you... I do assert that with certainty, just as every other atheist would. Others may express heavy doubt, or use the burden of proof, but then they would be considered agnostic, but not atheist."

Every other atheist according to your convenient definition. And no, the burden of proof is an atheist argument, as there is no reason to believe in god until someone proves this imaginary figure to be true.

"Yes, I do, as we all think the same way and based on the same line of reasoning, and I can and I have. You simply choose not to accept the fact."

I choose not to accept it because you simply cannot prove every other atheist thinks the exact same way you do----UNLESS you use circular thinking as you accused me of using earlier. The only people you accept as atheists are the people who think exactly the way you do, which allows you to make the statement that all atheists think the same way.

"In a short matter of time you've managed to find three agnostics in addition to yourself who've not contradicted my claim that one must "know that no god exists" in order to be an atheist. I'm sure you could pan across the internet and find many other agnostics claiming to be atheists making the exact same mistake. This only "supports" my earlier dictate. Once again, the definitions I provided earlier do the same."

Agnostics claiming to be atheist only according to your self-applied definition of "knowing". There's no way to disprove this circular reasoning, and you're just as guilty of it as you've accused me of being.

"I will say that, not "an agnostic" of any sort--just an atheist. It's perfectly plausible that an agnostic may not know what others expect them to believe in, therefore making it difficult to argue against the existence of something, the definition of which they don't clearly understand or find to be too vague. What matters is that they don't know whether to believe in it or not. It matters because in the not knowing they show themselves to be agnostic rather than atheist."

I agree that an agnostic doesn't know whether to believe in god or not. Therefore, that proves that an atheist knows whether or not believing or disbelieving makes more sense. An atheist realizes that disbelieving makes more sense than believing--someone who's agnostic, not atheist, wouldn't know which position to take, simply because they find the possible existence of god to be plausible.

"The thing resolved is that I know god doesn't exist, and whether or not such knowledge or perception of such knowledge is mandatory in order to consider oneself an atheist."

You most certainly haven't resolved the latter. Let me spell out my position. I don't think you can "know" anything about that which science hasn't resolved with 100% certainty. For example, I don't "know" that a giant magical pumpkin doesn't control the universe--but the chances of that are so ridiculous, why believe in it? It would be absurd to say "I'm an agnostic about the giant pumpkin. Maybe it exists, maybe it doesn't, we'll see." I also don't "know" that the universe isn't ruled by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Zeus, or Thor, or Ra, or the giant furry purple monster who often hides behind Pluto. But does it make any sense to be an "agnostic" about those things? Does is seem remotely reasonable to say "maybe they exist, maybe they don't"? Of course not!

Now I can't "know" they don't exist any more than I "know" every other human being on this planet isn't a robot and that I'm not being used for a robot-human interaction scientific experiment by aliens on another planet. But should I be an agnostic about this just because I don't "know"? Certainly not. I don't believe in any of the aforementioned things because they are preposterous beyond belief. In a similar vein, I don't believe in god because there's absolutely not a shred of evidence this thing exists. Given that every culture has its mythology, it makes sense that the god of today is no more plausible than the gods of yesterday. This doesn't make me an agnostic.

Here's an article from the American Atheists website:

http://www.atheists.org/comingout/othercloset.html

Let me quote what it says about atheism in the first paragraph under the bold caption "What is atheism?":

"The definition of an atheist is someone who is 'without theism'."

Here's what it says in the fourth paragraph of that section:

"Since we are bound only by our disbelief, there are atheists with differing views on every political, economic, and social issue."

OK, two things I'd like to point out. Atheism has clearly been defined here as "lacking theism", and the author points out that the only thing cohesive about atheists is a lack of belief, or disbelief. So number one, an acceptable definition of atheism is "non-belief", not knowledge, and number two, no one, neither you or I, can claim to represent all atheists, given that the translation of atheism means "no belief in a deity". That's the factor that determines what an atheist is, as different people reach that non-belief for different reasons. You may have no belief for a different reason than another atheist but that doesn't make him or her an agnostic simply because they don't describe their conclusion the same exact manner you do.