From: perry@apollo.hp.com (Jim Perry)
Subject: Re: Do Atheists Have Their Own "Faith"?
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 15:08:18 GMT

In article <s2rfqINN84@festus.ksu.ksu.edu> yohan@festus.ksu.ksu.edu (Jonathan W Newton) writes:
>
>Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure someone
>will), but atheist means:  "to conclude that God(s) does not exist", while
>agnostic means:  "to draw no conclusion about the existence of God(s)."

  I think that in philosophical strictness at the level where one
  doubts the existence of material objects and holds that the world
  may have existed for only five minutes, I ought to call myself an
  agnostic; but, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist.  I do
  not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than
  the existence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla.  To take another
  illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between Earth and
  Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptic oribt, but nobody
  thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in
  practice.  I think the Christian God just as unlikely.
    	    	    	    -- Bertrand Russell
   
  ...it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the
  objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence
  which logically justifies that certainty.  This is what
  Agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is
  essential to Agnosticism.  That which Agnostics deny and
  repudiate, as immoral, is the contrary doctrine, that there are
  propositions which men ought to believe, without logically
  satisfactory evidence; and that reprobation ought to attach to the
  profession of disbelief in such inadequately supported
  propositions.
    	    	    	    -- Thomas Huxley

  *Atheism, therefore, is the absence of theistic belief.*  One who
  does not believe in the existence of a god or supernatural being is
  properly designated as an atheist.
    Atheism is sometimes defined as "the belief that there is no God
  of any kind," or the claim that a god cannot exist.  While these are
  categories of atheism, they do not exhaust the meaning of atheism--
  and are somewhat misleading with respect to the basic nature of
  atheism.  *Atheism, in its basic form, is not a belief: it is the
  absence of belief.*  An atheist is not primarily a person who
  *believes* that a god does *not* exist, rather he does *not believe*
  in the existence of a god.
    	    	    	    -- George Smith

  To state it positively, alt.atheists, through reasoned study of the
  available evidence, have concluded that none of the gods proposed by major
  religions actually exist, to the best of our ability to determine.  Beyond
  this disbelief in God[s], and thus in the supernatural authority of
  religious institutions, alt.atheists are as diverse as any other usenet
  population.
    	    	    	    -- Jim Perry

  Words mean different things to different people.  Just because a person
  claims to be an atheist, agnostic or theist does not mean that that
  person conforms to your opinions of him or to the tendencies delineated
  here.

  In particular, many people believe atheism to be "the belief that no gods
  exist".  Most atheists, however, seem to define the term as "absence of
  belief in the existence of gods".  (The latter is a definition supported
  by many major dictionaries, such as the Oxford English Dictionary,
  so it is not unreasonable.)

  If you wish to argue against the "strong atheist" position -- "the belief
  that no gods exist" -- it is recommended that you explicitly say so in
  each posting.
    	    	    	    -- the alt.atheism Frequently Asked
    	    	    	       Questions (FAQ) file
-- 
Jim Perry   perry@apollo.hp.com    HP/Apollo, Chelmsford MA
This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
Isn't generally heard, and if it is it doesn't matter!