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On 22/04/2020 01:12, Will Steinberg wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.5.1587514345.2435.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">Atheism
is clearly an assertion. If it wasn't, then "God does not
exist"...</blockquote>
<br>
Whoa.<br>
You're saying atheism asserts "god does not exist"?<br>
<br>
You've heard the saying "Absence of evidence is not evidence of
absence", right?<br>
<br>
Atheism is a lack of belief in gods, not a belief in the lack of
gods. Completely different things (although many people don't seem
to appreciate this).<br>
<br>
It's normally, in my experience, religious folks who claim that
atheism is a belief system, in an attempt to 'demonstrate' that even
the dreaded atheists <i>believe</i> something. "See? Everybody
believes! I believe there is a god, you believe there isn't!!".<br>
<br>
That's not how it works.<br>
<br>
I do not say "god does not exist" (Of course, the obvious first
question in resonse to that would be "Which god are you talking
about?", as we have records of literally thousands of gods,
globally, throughout history. I once started counting them, but
eventually gave up, after passing the 2000 mark, I think it was.
Some people say this is nitpicking, and they are just different
names for the same god. If so, it's one hell of a confused and
contradictory being!).<br>
<br>
I don't even say "gods do not exist". How could I? I don't know
that. I can't prove that. All I can say is "I don't believe in any
gods". That's not a cop-out at all. Neither is it agnosticism.
Agnosticism is nothing to do with belief, it's to do with knowledge
(Gnosis). An agnostic doesn't <i>know</i> if gods exist. I say I'm
an atheist, a more precise description would be 'an agnostic
atheist', because (obviously) i don't know if any gods exist
(although I do suspect it's highly unlikely), but more importantly,
I don't believe they do (again, note that this is not the same as "I
believe they don't"). But that's more of a mouthful, and lots of
people just get confused by it, so I just say 'atheist'.<br>
<br>
So, no, atheism is not an assertion. It's an opinion, or an
attitude.<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Ben Zaiboc</pre>
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