From: ds0007@buhao (Dale Skiba)
Subject: Re: Deja vu all over agai
Organization: Medtronic, Inc.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 07:01:43 GMT

emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout) writes:
: In <1992Sep25.125418.18312@medtron.medtronic.com> ds0007@buhao (Dale Skiba) writes:
: 
: >I'll argue a bit here, just for fun.
: 
: >emc@doe.carleton.ca (Eli Chiprout) writes:
: >: 
: >: Atheism is not a belief but a lack of one.
: >: You cannot prove atheism by any means or argument.
: >: Atheism simply acknowledges the epistemological problems
: >: of trying to come to knowledge of an agent that cannot be defined 
: >: or observed.  
: 
: >I think you may be getting confused between Agnostisism and
: >Athiesim.  Agnostics acknowledge that there are problems with
: >proving or disproving the existence of God, so they say that
: >they do not know.  "Maybe there is a God, maybe there isn't a
: >God".  This is a true lack of belief.
: 
: >Athiests believe that God does not exist.  This is a belief. 
: >Your summary appears to be as follows:  "People imagine all
: >sorts of silly things.  I choose not to believe in the existence
: >of any of them unless they are observable."  
: 
: The line between Agnosticism and Atheism is actually very thin
: or nonexistant.  I suggest you tune in to alt.atheism.  If you
: post the same comment, you will find that many atheist disagree
: with you.  The prefix "a" in atheism means "without" or "not".  But
: because atheism is without or not theism leaves it with no meaning
: of its own.  An individual who feels that "God" is not a well
: defined/formulated concept to have comments about can very well
: be called an atheist.  He does not believe in "God" because he
: does not know what "God" is.  The "strong" atheism to which you
: refer, where the concept of God is felt to be fully understood, 
: and one has complete conviction that it is false, is actually 
: rarely encountered among most reasoning individuals.  This would
: indeed be a faith as much as theism. Most would
: rather not give a higher place in their thoughts to a god with
: no implications in the real world that to Pink Elephants unless
: it shows more promise.

Interesting.  I guess I must have defined "pure Agnosticism" and
"pure Atheism".  Not everyone will fit into such categories, I
guess this makes things a bit more messy.  I agree that there
are people who feel they are atheists that fit somewhere inbetween.

I guess you are saying that an atheist believes that God has no
implications in the real world.  This still sounds alot closer to
"pure Atheism" than "pure Agnosticism" though.  I think most theists
would agree that if God exists but has no implication in the real
world is the pretty much the same as no God existing at all.

: As for you comment about miracles, many a modern theologian
: wonders about the veracity of the miraculous accounts accepting
: that the enthusiam of the time allowed for this kind of wild
: exageration in the Bible.  So we are back to "no interaction"
: with the verifiable world.

This is very controversial.  Alot depends upon the seminary
that they study at.  Some say there is wild exageration in the
Bible, some say there is no exageration at all in the Bible.
It is difficult to draw the line on what things are likely
exagerated.  Some of this was done earlier when books containing
obvious exageration were left out of the Bible.  If a real miracle
occurs, witness reports can apear to be exagerated.  If a non-
miracle occurs, but is slightly exagerated, this sounds like a
real miracle.

The "no verifiable interaction" follows from the accepted fact
that we can not prove or disprove the existence of God.  Theists
believe that there is an interaction, and most believe that they
actually do observe it, but they can not prove it emperically. 
If they do prove the interaction, the have just done the impossible
and proven the existence of God. :-)

This is a sticky subject.  It is nice to be able to discuss it
objectively without resorting to calling each other names.

--
Dale Skiba
Newsgroups: talk.origins