h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ku'Reshtin: Your definition of agnostic is actually that of a wishy-washy atheist who ducks the label because of connotation. There is nothing wrong with making a reasonable conclusion based on available evidence. If we never did that, we'd never get anything done. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with accepting the possibility that new evidence will come to light that will change perceptions. It has happened many times before.

An atheist is one who concludes, based on the available evidence, that there is no god, but will listen open-mindedly if any new evidence comes to light. An agnostic isn't much different from an atheist... the agnostic just refuses to commit to a position.

How can a short article make so many assumptions, implied judgements and strange statements?


'Atheists are the people who hang out in bars and drink beer and watch football on Sunday mornings without the least feeling of guilt'

This is a strange way to define atheism, as there is no reason for an atheist to feel guilty about not attending a meeting of a religion with which they are in no way associated. The other interpretation of this sentence is that those who do not beleive in a God somehow lack a full set of moral values.

Atheists do not necessarily sit around drinking all day either.


'Atheists believe that God does not exist.'

This is a fundamentally flawed way of looking at atheism, as this implies that they simply go against the flow. Rather, atheists think that God does not exist, or to put it more patently, they know God does not exist.


'Atheists and agnostics generally agree that the world's religions are futile and meaningless.'

This makes atheists look bad - atheists do acknowledge the good points of religion as well...


'Atheism is the least understood of all beliefs.'

For one thing, atheism is not a belief. Atheists think there is no God from the available facts, just as someone may think that they still have cheese left in the fridge from the fact that they have not eaten it all. How this can be complicated or be difficult to understand makes no sense.


The paragraph on moral values seems to create a lose-lose scenario. It claims that atheists have no moral values, but if they do then they value their own life above all else.


Marketing - what were you thinking? Atheism is not a business, but a personal decision that God does not exist. What do atheists have to gain from thinking that God does not exist? There is no such thing as a Professional Atheist...

And one other thing - Father Christmas was not created through religion, but through the legend of an ordinary kind man being taken and horrifically distorted by consumerism. So if Christianity is trying to market something using a jolly old red-suited Santa, it must be Coca Cola.

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You must admit, AlexAshman, that there are atheists who do *not* make such acknowledgement!

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There is only a tangential relationship between Christianity and Santa Claus! As a Christian mother, I got into trouble with my ex-husband's family for refusing to brainwash my kids into the whole Santa myth.

I believe that was the point he was trying to make.

Yes, that's exactly my point.

(The entry says 'Christianity has jolly old Father Christmas')


And yes, not all atheists look at a religion's good points, but then there are some Christians who claim that it is difficult to understand how anyone could not beleive in a God.

I think most atheists would accept that religions have various social and psychological functions, some good, some bad. Most atheists would, however, contend that the "good" stuff is self justifying, but that the "bad" stuff needs the religious (or quasi-religious) dogma to justify it.

Noggin

I don't think most atheists would have much to say about religion one way or the other if religious dogma wasn't incorporated into society the way it often is.

And also if they weren't labelled 'atheists' simply because they didn't believe in the existence of someone else's god concept.

I mean, they are only 'atheists' if asked whether they believe in some god or other, otherwise they are simply people living their lives - why should god(s) have any part in their lives at all?


az

If you don't eat cheese for some reason or other, you aren't branded an antifromagearian...

You just don't eat cheese.

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If only they'd go away. But some memes just hang around, whether they're wanted or not.

"How can a short article make so many assumptions, implied judgements and strange statements?"

Maybe because the article was just trying to be silly.

At a certain stage, a race will develop far enough to start asking 'why?'

As Number Six (from The Prisoner) said, this question is insoluble to both man and machine, and so three mindsets emerge.

1.Religious - beleives in God to explain their existance, giving their life a purpose.
2.Scientific - just sees life as being a matter of fact, and something interesting which can be looked into but maybe not completely explained.
3.Other - finds some other way of coping, or is just inherently happy with life.

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I am one of them, but that doesn't mean I think they're not entitled!

Sorry if I implied that... all I meant was that there are varying levels of both understanding and allowances when it comes to different people looking at the same debate.

True, Alex..

"I don't go out of my way to defile churches/mosques/temples etc either. This counts me out as an Atheist."
What the hell is that supposed to mean? Just because someone doesn't believe in something doesn't mean they have to defile things close to it!
"I also acknowlege the fact that there may indeed be no gods at all. Which counts me out as an agnostic as well."?
That's the whole point of being agnostic. You don't know what you believe.
I don't mean to sound so angry, but my non-beliefs is a topic that's very cose to me.

I believe that when atheists like myself claim that they are not atheists it is just an attempt to win over the majority of religious people.

I don't defile things - if I had a motto it might be 'Live And Let Live'.

Your second point is entirely correct (IMHO) - an agnostic knows what they beleive, and that is that they don't know what they believe

My non-beliefs and the fact that I can sustain them and yet be a good person is a thing that is very close to my heart.

Alex

I'm coming to this nearly five years later, so sheer level of improbiblity that you might be reading this could convince you that there really is a God, but only if probablility had anything to do with certainty.

26199 is among the many people who think that probablility can be used in logical argument, which it can't. DNA described the behaviour of probability very nicely in Hitchhiker - it doesn't prove anything . If a proof of the existence of God is very very unlikely indeed, then it might still exist.

In any case, 26199's logic defeats itself. It argues that if there were a proof of God, someone would have found it already. Turning that around, if there were any proof against the existence of God, someone would probably have found that before 26199 and this thread wouldn't be here.

Even DNA needed to invent the Babel fish before he convinced himself God doesn't exist.

nacnudus

Ooops, don't know how I managed it, but put that last post in completely the wrong place. Sorry everybody!

nacnudus

I seem to have put my reply after the wrong posting, sorry if I caused any confusion as to who I was talking to.

Well, if we are going to go with "an agnostic is a person that admits that they don't know if there is a god" then we are going to have to admit that we are all agnostics.

how so you ask? (I am an atheist by the by)

An atheist cannot really claim that they *KNOW* that there are no gods, because they do not posses infinite knowledge of every nook and cranny of the cosmos, so they can't really *KNOW*, as we define they word.

On the other hand, same is true for religious-believing people, as they don't have personal knowledge of the universe, they know only what they have been taught, and also base their knowledge on a "warm, fuzzy feeling" (hardly compelling evidence). So they cannot *KNOW* either that there is a god.

Following this logic, I deduced that based on common sense, lack of any supporting evidence, religions that only contradict each other and themselves, that gods as pictured in these said religions do not really exist (e.g.Christ, GOD, Allah, Vishnu, etc.)

By the way, most of the adherents of these religions will scoff at the ancient romans and greeks beliefs on Zeus or Jupiter, or the Mediterranean worship of Mithra (which is the base of the Christ myth, look it up). But how do these ancient religions differ from the modern ones? They are doing the same, they just replaced the names of the deities and some of the ways they worship.

Anyways, this is always a prickley subject.

Love,