[ExI] Fw: Re: atheists declare religions as scams.

[Dave Sill]

On Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> Technically, what you speak of is agnosticism.
>
> Agnostic = absence of belief
>
> Atheist = belief of absence
>
> That's the difference between the terms.
>

No. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism :

Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of
deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that
there are no deities. Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of
belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in
its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.

The term atheism originated from the Greek ἄθεος (atheos), meaning "without
god", which was applied with a negative connotation to those thought to
reject the gods worshipped by the larger society. With the spread of
freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in criticism of
religion, application of the term narrowed in scope. The first individuals
to identify themselves as "atheist" appeared in the 18th century.

Atheists tend to lean toward skepticism regarding supernatural claims,
citing a lack of empirical evidence. Atheists have offered several
rationales for not believing in any deity. These include the problem of
evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, and the argument from
nonbelief. Other arguments for atheism range from the philosophical to the
social to the historical. Although some atheists have adopted secular
philosophies, there is no one ideology or set of behaviors to which all
atheists adhere.

In Western culture, atheists are frequently assumed to be exclusively
irreligious or unspiritual. However, atheism also figures in certain
religious and spiritual belief systems, such as Buddhism, Hinduism and
Jainism. Jainism and some forms of Buddhism do not advocate belief in gods,
whereas Hinduism holds atheism to be valid, but difficult to follow
spiritually.

-Dave
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20110125/b64bda5e/attachment.html>