On 08 Jul 2013, at 19:53, meekerdb wrote:
On 7/8/2013 1:11 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 08 Jul 2013, at 02:45, meekerdb wrote:
On 7/7/2013 6:56 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 07 Jul 2013, at 07:28, meekerdb wrote:
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/06/god_is_not_great_christopher_hitchens_is_not_a_liar/
I love Christopher Hitchens. I agree with many points. He is more
an anticlerical than an atheist to me ...
Everybody called him an atheist. He called himself an atheist. I
think you just don't like the term.
"atheism" is different in America and in Europa, although I have
realized now that some atheists in America might be similar, but
not Hitchens. Many people confuse agnosticism and atheism. Some
atheists maintains the confusion to hide that they are believers
(in "matter" and in the non existence of God).
I don't know any atheists who are shy about their belief that matter
exists and God doesn't.
That is the problem.
Many people, and dictionaries, confuse agnosticism="that whether or
not God exists is unknown"
That's the usual mundane sense of the word.
with agnosticism="that whether or not God exists is impossible to
know".
That's a technical view by some philosophers.
I agree with Sam Harris that "atheist" is not a very useful
appellation because it only describes someone in contrast to
"theist". It just means they fail to believe in a God who is a
person and whose approval one should seek.
Pebbles and chimpanzees fails too, but are not atheists in any
reasonable sense. Most vindicative atheists really believe that god
does not exist, and then they believe in a primitively material
universe, even a Boolean one (without being aware of this in
particular).
Also, many religions and theologies have other notion of Gods.
As Harris points out we don't invent words like awarmist to describe
one who fails to believe there is global warming or anummerist to
describe someone who's not sure about the existence of numbers.
Yes. I heard a catholic bishop, taking about a book written by a
Belgian atheist, saying that the atheists are "our allies", "they keep
advertising for us and (our) God" Then, at least around here, "Matter"
is such a dogma that you can get problem when you dare to doubt it,
"apparently" --- because they don't practice dialog, and ignore the
embarrassing questions.
They don't practice science in the matter. For them you are just mad
if you doubt ... basically the same theology of matter than the
christians. Greek theology is allowed to be studied by historians, not
by mathematicians. The atheists I know fight more the agnostic (in the
mundane sense) than the radicals of any religion. Political
correctness makes easy to defend 2+2=5, and impossible to defend 2+2=4.
We are all believers, and when a machine pretend to be a non believer,
it means "I know", and she will impose her religion to you, by all
means.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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