Subject:
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Re: Holy crap! (was Re: The partisian trap in California)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 20 Oct 2003 17:17:57 GMT
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Viewed:
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862 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Justin Pankey wrote:
> > Atheism is not a religion, although I know Xtians like to think that it is.
>
> This is because it takes "faith" to NOT believe in God because you have to
> have faith in such fatally flawed teachings as evolution,etc. or regarding
> whatever other theories you have about what got us here.
Justin, your comment betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of
atheism. Consider the following statements:
A: I believe that God does not exist.
B: I do not believe that God exists.
Do you see that these two statements are inherently different? The first is a
statement of belief (in the notion that God does not exist), while the second is
a statement of a lack of belief (in the notion that God exists). To put it
another way, the first is a statement of positive belief in a negative, while
the second is a statement of negative belief in a positive.
It is a misrepresentation for you to claim that I, as an atheist, *believe* in
the nonexistence of something. There are those who may indeed believe that God
doesn't exist, but you are correct to identify such belief as a statement of
faith.
My statement, that I do not believe that God exists, is a statement of non-faith
rather than faith.
In addition, the theory of evolution is not fatally flawed except in the
desperate dreams of certain religious groups who are unable or unwilling to
accept the overwhelming evidence of empirical observation. However, I do not
*believe* in the theory of evolution. Instead, I *accept* that the theory of
evolution provides the most powerful explanatory model for the diversity of life
on Earth (and, likely, elsewhere).
Check out this post
http://news.lugnet.com/off-topic/debate/?n=17972
for a discussion of the differences between "to believe" and "to accept."
> > By contrast, atheism is defined specifically as "disbelief in or
> > denial of the existence of God or gods." Claiming to be an atheist by
> > professing a belief in god is an outright contradiction.
> >
> > I'm not seeing the point you are trying to score here...
>
> Acting on the belief is the proof, not the merely claiming it...
Could you clarify this comment?
Dave!
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