I probably could have worded that more carefully. Allow me to try again. It is not that they do not believe in ***....meaning to simply not believe in *** doesn't suggest that you don't hold the possibility as plausible.
It is that they believe there is no ***....meaning that one believes firmly that there is no *** and that it is utterly implausible.
Not implausible so much as impossible, at least in the definition that I was raised to believe a *** to be. Not only that... but many of us also believe a *** to be unnecessary.
Anyone who does not believe *** does exist... by default.. DOES believe there is no ***. There either is or isn't a ***. "Agnostic" is a cop-out. The term should be replaced with Apathetic. That would be more respectable.
Me, I do not believe in a ***/Gods. However I do believe in the plausibility of a ***/Gods. Does that make more sense? I admit the wording was in need of better construction.
You are.. and don't take this as an insult because it is an actual measurement.. by definition you are a "weak atheist". I am by definition a "strong atheist".
Honestly its hard to pin down. But whatever it is, its called ATHEISM.
I do understand the term is widely used even by atheists. I have a pet peeve with it. I grow tired of hearing other atheists complain that some theist has referred to "atheism as a religion!". So I tell them "Stop calling it a freaking ISM then!.. It isn't an ISM!... It's just a lack of freaking belief!! That's all!'". many atheists refuse to drop the "ism' because they think if they do then the believers have won. Isn't that just stupid?
That isn't "just some website" I googled up as a means of response to your post. I used to be a member of that website. IIDB is the collective Secular/Atheist movement in the United States. Tens of thousands of members, some of whom donate thousands of dollars to the cause. Many of the members are renowned public speakers who are known in certain circles all around the world. College professors and the like. You should look around that website if you truly are an Atheist.
I understand what it is. I also know that those people are moving nothing but their computer keys. Atheists make up less than 10% of the voting population in this nation and many of us don't vote. Many of us are conservatives even. (myself included) We would rather vote for a fundi who upholds our morals and protects our nation than an atheist who wants to make this a socialist nation. I voted for Bush... Twice.
Yes I suppose you qualify as such, and your practicing Atheism right now. You're playing semantical games with this terminology.
So if I argued semantics in a debate about politics would I still be practicing atheism? I argued semantics when I was a creationist as well. IMO the athe"ism" you speak of is probably more along the lines of picketing to have the nativity scene removed from the courthouse lawn. I don't do that **** and I don't agree with it. This nation is a democracy and so long as we are in the minority, we will just have to deal with it. It's not worth sacrificing the "majority rule" that we work for... for the sake of a statue on a lawn.
Ever notice that those practicing athe"ism" never protest against Islamic icons?
Very well put, and I'll concede that to you.
It is not the rejection of the insistence of religion to explain such things by means of divine interaction, but rather the rejection of the possibility of supernatural forces causing such things as Black holes and the existence of dark matter and anti-matter.
At this point, Black holes are theory. Before we are to figure out what causes them we must first deduce that they actually exist. But science is ahead of itself with this one because they didn't discover black holes and then attempt to figure out how they come about. They studied stars and theorized what would likely be left when a star burns out... and what they came up with is a Black Hole...
"Now imagine an object with such an enormous concentration of mass in such a small radius that its escape velocity was greater than the velocity of light. Then, since nothing can go faster than light, nothing can escape the object's gravitational field. Even a beam of light would be pulled back by gravity and would be unable to escape.
The idea of a mass concentration so dense that even light would be trapped goes all the way back to Laplace in the 18th century. Almost immediately after Einstein developed general relativity, Karl Schwarzschild discovered a mathematical solution to the equations of the theory that described such an object. It was only much later, with the work of such people as Oppenheimer, Volkoff, and Snyder in the 1930's, that people thought seriously about the possibility that such objects might actually exist in the Universe. (Yes, this is the same Oppenheimer who ran the Manhattan Project.) These researchers showed that when a sufficiently massive star runs out of fuel, it is unable to support itself against its own gravitational pull, and it should collapse into a black hole. "
So... if it is real... and we don't know that it is... but if it is... then scientists are on top of it.
For example, our weather is dictated by many things. Such as the moons gravitational effects with the Earth. We know that the moon in a rock comprised of innocuous minerals. Completely natural in the purview of science. However, perhaps the moon isn't just a rock. Maybe it was created and placed there in order to provide the necessary effects needed to support the desired environment on Earth by an unknown entity. This is the type of abstract thought I feel escapes the Atheist. I do not believe that this obscure moon reference is true. However I would not rule it out because I cannot prove this isn't true. Just the same I cannot prove there is no Santa Claus.
That kind of abstract thought does not escape us. That kind of abstract thought is what is left when all other avenues have been explored to their fullest. That is the difference. Theists go to the most abstract and unnatural as their FIRST answer to every "unknown", atheists start with the most likely to have occurred within the confines of nature.. and work our way out from there. To date we have never run across anything that we could not eventually explain through natural events and occurrences. That is not to say we never will... But chances are... if we study something for 100 years and do not find a natural cause.. we will continue to study it for 100 more or however long it takes until we do find a natural cause… because we do believe the natural cause exists.
It is this very type of nature-based science that has provided us with all we know to be scientific fact about the earth, animals, our bodies, and the universe around us.
Once we find a natural cause, there is no need to attribute things to the supernatural. That is, if we see that all planets have moons... and we see that comets and asteroids also have moon-like fragments around them... and we see that the earth is extremely pitted from being pelted with meteorites and asteroids over the years... and we know that the earth has a gravitational pull... from that we can deduce what the moon is, where it came from, and why it hangs out where it does. And because it is all based on observable occurrences, it is valid scientific theory... not assumption or "faith"-based.
Occam’s Razor... the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions and be as uncomplicated as possible.
To assume
"A supernatural force that has always existed and was created by nothing did it on purpose as part of a great plan for all of mankind..." is a pretty large and complicated freaking assumption... which by better definition is an astounding leap in logic.
