<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border-collapse: collapse; ">>people who go to great pains to point out that they are a agnostic not a atheist seem a little silly to me because, judging from the equal respect they give to both believers and atheists<</span><div>
<font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">Who said an agnostic has to afford anything approaching respect to an atheist or a believer based on their belief or lack of it? An agnostic could just as well despise both camps for presuming to know or not know the existence of something for which they have no solid evidence either for or against. This is the point, anyway, where the labels themselves become more important than their denotative meanings, always a breaking down point. I joined the atheist nexus and started blocking the e-mails because so much time was spent discussing what an atheist is and what he believes that I was convinced we were soon to start breaking off into denominations. Lately I just think of myself of someone who simply doesn't believe in the supernatural. That includes gods, witches, archangels and Richard Gere's mythical hamster. And if it you're going to argue any of those things *are* natural, you better be able to prove it, or at least show me tangible, verifiable proof of it that is repeatable by experiment. Or at the very least offer a theory that you can back up with something besides "I am" or "I believe" or "I know."</span></font></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">As for the romantic in me, I like Carl Sagan's fictional scenario: if we're going to look for a universal creator, let's start by digging around in irrational numbers.</span></font></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">Darren</span></font></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br></span></font></div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote">2011/1/29 John Clark <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jonkc@bellsouth.net">jonkc@bellsouth.net</a>></span><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div style="word-wrap:break-word"><div class="im"><div><div>On Jan 29, 2011, at 10:20 AM, Ben Zaiboc wrote:</div><br><blockquote type="cite">
<span style="border-collapse:separate;font-family:Verdana;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;font-size:medium">An agnostic says it's not possible to know certain things, either in principle or in practice.</span></blockquote>
<br></div></div><div>But they do have faith that it's not possible to know certain things either in principle or in practice.</div><div><br></div><div>Technically I'm an agnostic too in that I can't prove the nonexistence of God, but people who go to great pains to point out that they are a agnostic not a atheist seem a little silly to me because, judging from the equal respect they give to both believers and atheists, they incorrectly think both viewpoints are equally rational. I am certainly not that sort of agnostic, not even technically.</div>
<div><br></div><div>This is what Isaac Asimov had to say on the subject in his autobiography:</div><div><br></div><div>"I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've
been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was
intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it
assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one
was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason.
Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God
doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want
to waste my time." </div><div><br></div><div><div class="im"><blockquote type="cite">if there really was a Supreme Being, and it was everything it's cracked up to be by the god-squad people, I'd feel morally obliged to oppose it. </blockquote>
<div><br></div></div>I agree and so does Asimov:<br><br></div><div>"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." </div><div><br></div><div> John K Clark</div><div><br></div></div>
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