eponavet
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Joined: 8/18/2006
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quote:
ORIGINAL: GotSteel
quote:
ORIGINAL: eponavet
Isn't the absence of belief more of an agnostic position?
There's overlap. There's also overlap with the agnostic and theist positions. The position that someone believes in a god but doesn't actually claim to know would be an example of that overlap.
quote:
ORIGINAL: eponavet
Athiests believe that there is no God, right?
That's sort of like saying Christians handle snakes. While some Christians are snake handlers others are not, same deal. Here's the wiki about atheism.
I'm fairly well versed in several world religions and philosophies, even if i misspell them  ...wikipedia is not the best place for that, but hey, it's a good basic link. I think your analogy is a bit skewed....snake handlers are Christians who have taken a passage from the Bible and applied it to their ritualitisc practice when worshipping God/Christ. They are literalists as it pertains to a specific portion of their holy text. All snake handlers will be Chrisitans but not all Christians will be snake handlers....am i getting the gist of what you were attempting to say? If so, how does that pertain to Atheism? All Atheists deny the existence of a supreme being, but not all Atheists have come to that conclusion in a particular fashion? That is the best i can come up with from your post. To which i would reply....and your point is? They still all deny the existence of a supreme being. They still all "don't believe in a God...." or to put it another way They still "believe that there is no God". And yes, there are atheistic agnostics, but they are about as common as snake handling Christians. so....if THAT was your point - point taken.
If your point was that atheism is the absence of a belief, i think it is a skewed perspective. Atheism has some fundamental guiding principles (i.e. - beliefs) that differetinate it from other philosophies. Even your wikipedia link begins with a very basic statement before delving into the various "sects" of atheism....Atheism can be either the rejection of theism, or the position that deities do not exist. In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities. I think you are using semantics to defend your position that atheism is the "absence" of any beliefs based on the above statement. It is not difficult to see that the meaning of the statement is that an atheist is someone who believes that deities don't exist. And although they are a completely different set of guiding principles, the underlying idea that if one accepts those core principles to be true, one is an atheist is honestly NO different than a person who accepts the underlying prinicples that define christianity being christian.
I think that agnosticism is the best example of the absence of a belief system as it pertains to a religious discussion. Do you disagree?
~ epona
_____________________________
~ You are a child of the Universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here, and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the Universe is unfolding as it should ~
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RE: Is Atheism a religion? - 
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