Woopiee Free from reading anything at all and now I just go around and push people down. If the complain I yell "theises are people too. or better then them." I'm so glad that you told everyone you know and repesent me. I'm going to use you in court. That charge will be down to vountery manslater in no time.

Manslater?

Hello, I have been reading your site and enjoy your posts. For several years now I have considered myself an agnostic. I never felt that I could commit to saying that I was atheist. This was in part, because for so long I thought that I KNEW there was a God and looking back on that it seemed like arrogance. So now I find that I cannot say with the same conviction the opposite, that I know there is no god.

However, I came across a site recently. I do not remember the link but the author was talking about 'strong' and 'weak' atheism. I'm not so sure I agree with the adjectives they used to describe atheism but as you probably know they're pointing out that some atheist say 'there is no god' and others say 'they see no evidence of god'. The author then went on to point out that atheism/theism deals with beliefs in god (or lack thereof) while agnostic/gnostic dealt with knowledge. So it was their claim that someone cannot be either theist, atheist, or agnostic because it doesn't fit on the scale of belief. Instead they posed it as matrix of knowledge and belief, pitching people into 4 groups. Gnostic Theists, Agnostic Theists, Gnostic Atheist, and Agnostic Atheist.

I just wondered what your thoughts were on this line of thinking. I guess this would cast me into the Agnostic Atheist camp. It looks to me though that anyone who claimed to be a gnostic 'anything' is fooling themselves. Perhaps in their own perceptions they are sure they can 'know' that god does or does not exist. I'm just not convinced that anyone who claims to be a gnostic really knows anything. Isn't the whole point of the scientic method to support a hypostheis or disprove a hypothesis. Meaning that you can never reach that 100% certainty. Only that you can make a very well informed highly probable statement.

Anyway, I only bring it up because I've noticed that same subject of 'strong vs weak' atheism on a few sites and wanted to see your take.

ok il add osme slightly more constructive comments

neway, i do not believe its possible to 'disprove' gawd, or nething else, instead the more logical approch to dealing with belief systems is analysing hte belief rather htan atempting to fight crazy magic stories and circulur logic with real logic and science

first of all people of today who werent blessed with the prevliege of seeing jebus and his numerous mircicles nor having any direct contact with gawd only hear about gawd thru people who hear it thru people why not walk back thru the chain and assess the validty of these people's claims and how stupid it would be to believe PEOPLE as a pos to anything less than seeing mircles and gawd urself?

people should focus more on why they believe something than wether or not god COULD exist, and why they should or should not believe

but as for attacking god il have a crack firstly i cant subjectivly fight the concept of an ompitiant being with out first being one, nor can i really argue agisnt an omipitant being doing say evrything the bible says such a being did.... so i wont botehr while attacking gods morality doenst disprove nething it shure raises questoins of his character if god is omipresent, then why would he doom man kind?

Hi, all!

I found this website yesterday, and I loved the whole "Rights" concept; the whole "10 Commandments minus God" bit. So I was talking with another guy today, a man with his PhD nonetheless. He is very smart in academics, but in life as well. I am not sure if he is athiest, but he left the Catholic Church at age 12 (I was also around that age when I too left the Church).

Anyway, he said something very interesting today. Now, I know both sides (those who are religious and those who are athiest) both have their morons who don't listen and their only reason for their beliefs, or lack thereof, is because the other one is "stupid". However, this man and I both find more than enough Christians whose reasons we should be religious is "because it's just not right if you aren't religious", and then they talk in circles; we never meet the people that make sense and listen to our side of the story as well.

So this one obnoxious Christian was trying to tell the man about how he will go to Hell if he doesn't believe in God and such, and this man said, "That's great; I'd actually prefer Hell; that's where all the interesting people are!" And if you think about it, it is true. Some of the most interesting people in history had some form of an aspect (being athiest, not believing in God, committing mass genocide) that would condemn them to Hell, but those are the interesting folk. I am not making it sound as great as the man described it today, but basically his thoughts were, "Even if I had a choice, I'd still chose Hell over Heaven".

So there you go. I thought it was a neat idea, since everyone seems to think Hell is bad. And here, this guy would take Hell over Heaven, if given a choice.

Descartes: 1. I exist 2. I have an idea of a supremely perfect being, i.e. a being having all perfections. 3. As an imperfect being I would be unable to create such a concept. 4. The concept must have come from God. 5. To be a perfect being God must exist. 6. God exists.

OR

ThaTGuY: 1. I exist. 2. I eat stinky cheese. 3. As an imperfect being I would be unable to create stinky cheese. 4. The concept must have come from God. 5. To have a perfect head of stinky cheese God must exist. 6. God is stinky cheese.

I mean really the evidence is there!!! Who could refute?

Love, me

Y'know I have to say that if men are from mars and women are from venus then I have to say, atheists are from saturn and believers are from I really don't know where. At a private level, I am stuck in the middle - an agnostic. I would like to believe but cannot really do so. My rationality does not let me. But neither does it allow me to say it just aint so because I keep having this damn hunch that there may be something to this God thing. Not the bible stuff - thats a crock: A bunch of silly fairy stories told by a group of tribal elders to their people to explain the unexplainable and the fact that so many damn silly fools take it seriously in the 21st century just has me goggle eyed with amazement and gasping for breath. What ever is true then I know one thing; its more complex, confounding and, at the end of the day interesting than either side perhaps acknowledges. (Another hunch.) But this is a private belief as I say. I mostly try to keep it to myself and I sure as hell do not go aroound trying to ram it down other people's throats.

This is the thing that most of all gets me damned angry about the believers. So is it worth an atheist trying to argue the case to convince a believer to recognise the errors of their ways.Well as long as "God is on thier side" its not an option and sorry pal its about as useful as trying to fill up the grand canyon by pissing in it. Speaking from personal experience, atheists do not chose not to believe. They just cannot believe something that is so patently absurd that blind Freddy and his half wit dog rover would not believe it unless they were brainwashed. (Mostly I am talking about the literal "truth" of the bible here.)

Believers on the other hand are called believers for a good reason - they want to believe, they need to believe and cannot help themselves! I have no problem with someone having a private belief that I do not share. But I get pretty shitty when they try to beat me over the head with it and force me to believe. And if there is anything more reprehensible than a bunch of self righteous God botherers trying to force society to obey their private beliefs then I cannot think of it.