On Jul 7, 10:43 am, Free Lunch <lu...@nofreelunch.us> wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Jul 2012 07:23:11 -0700 (PDT), Milt <milt.sh...@gmail.com>
> wrote in alt.atheism:
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> >On Jul 7, 9:24 am, 3054 Dead <d...@gone.com> wrote:
> >> On Sat, 07 Jul 2012 14:38:07 +0200, thomas p. wrote:
> >> > "Steve" <stevencan...@yahooooo.com> skrev i meddelelsen
> >> >news:4doev7561ipo35p13oh4jk9cuc7q2buu5o@4ax.com...
> >> >> On Fri, 6 Jul 2012 13:45:08 -0700 (PDT), SkyEyes <skyey...@cox.net>
> >> >> wrote:
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> >> > snip
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> >> >>>That's right - nobody knows the absolute truth (or indeed *anything*) -
> >> >>>about any "higher beings." That's why the vast majority of the
> >> >>>atheists on this group are also agnostics. Atheism is a statement of
> >> >>>belief; agnosticism is a statement about knowledge. I don't know that
> >> >>>any higher being exists, therefore I do not believe in one.
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> >> >> Actually, an agnostic atheist is someone who does not believe, but who
> >> >> does not deny the possibility. Is that your position?
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> >> > And an agnostic theist is someone who does believe but who does not
> >> > know.
> >> > Those theists who believe that the gift of faith is required in order to
> >> > believe can be said to not know.
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> >> >> See how
> >> >>>easy that is?
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> >> >>>Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34 BAAWA Knight of the Golden Litterbox EAC
> >> >>>Professor of Feline Thermometrics and Cat-Herding skyeyes nine at cox
> >> >>>dot net OR skyeyes nine at yahoo dot com
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> >> Fundies love to conflate possibilities with the false certainties of
> >> their beliefs.
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> >So your pledged certainty that there is no god is due to your
> >fundamentalism. Glad to see you admit it. Kind of.
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> Are you under the impression that there is any evidence that any gods
> exist or that anyone has ever described a god that could exist?
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Are you under the impression that there is any evidence that god can't
possibly exist, and that every single description of a god or gods is
absolutely wrong and that such a being could not exist?
See how that works? It's called "faith" for a reason.
The problem with demanding "evidence" is, you have to believe that
something can happen before you can accept "evidence."
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> >> A lot of atheists would acknowledge the possibility in a
> >> universe as big as ours that beings superior to ourselves with god-like
> >> powers might exist. Some will even admit that in the lack of any
> >> evidence of what came before the big bang, any theory is on the table as
> >> to what caused it.
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> >> So: they are agnostics.
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> >No. This is the blind spot some of you evangelical atheists have that
> >makes you as frustrating to deal with as evangelical Christians. It's
> >called "faith" for a reason. Neither side can be proven correct. The
> >acknowledgement that nothing can be proven is "agnostic." But the term
> >"agnostic" doesn't work as a label. Because it's actually possible for
> >someone with an agnostic viewpoint to be either theist or atheist.
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> >Ah, but labels are easy.
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> >> But they look at the god described in the bible, the koran, or the talmud,
> >> and they see a logical impossibility; an absurdity on the face of it; an
> >> entity far less believable than space aliens or unicorns because unlike
> >> those, the god of the holy texts simply is not possible.
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> >> So: they are atheists.
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> >And therein lies the vacuousness of the evangelical atheist.
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> >Tell me, Zepp. Does the fact that Abraham Lincoln didn't really hunt
> >and kill vampires (that we know of) mean that Abraham Lincoln didn't
> >exist? Does the fact that Shakespeare wrote a fictional account of
> >Julius Caesar's life mean that Caesar didn't exist?
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> >MOST Christian clergy and theologians, when pressed, will tell you
> >that most of he Bible is meant as a teaching tool, and that the Bible
> >is not a history book. Yet, they're still Christian. Why? Because they
> >believe God exists, regardless of what humans have written about him/
> >her/it. Please explain for the class how proving that Jonah didn't
> >actually spend several days inside a "great fish" would prove there
> >can't be a god/creator.
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> >Do you see the logical disconnect there? Even if you proved all the
> >stories in all of those books are complete bullshit, you cannot prove
> >there is no God. By the same token, if someone were able to prove that
> >many of the stories in the Bible actually happened, that still
> >wouldn't prove there IS a god.
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> >You work just as hard to support your impossible-to-prove concept that
> >there can't be a god as the average Fundie does trying to prove
> >everything in the Bible is correct and there is a god. There's really
> >no difference; both are irritating.
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> >> So it's possible to be one or the other, depending on which set of
> >> possibilities or impossibilities you are presented.
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> >It's also possible to be both, since agnosticism is basically the
> >acknowledgement that God/no God cannot be proven either way, and
> >theists and atheists can do so.