On 7/8/2013 12:26 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 12:53 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> 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.
Many people, and dictionaries, confuse agnosticism="that whether or not God
exists
is unknown" with agnosticism="that whether or not God exists is impossible to
know".
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. 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.
There is the term "Bright", which perhaps better describes someone who seeks to include
only naturalistic explanations in their world-view:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brights_movement
But what would happen if naturalistic explanations lend credence to the existence of God
or gods?
Then people would have a greater degree of belief in gods; but they wouldn't have "faith",
i.e. unquestioning belief, in them. In fact that's the way it was at one time. The
belief in storm gods, volcano gods, deer spirits, rain gods, plague's as punishment for
impiety,...were all 'naturalistic' explanations at the time. It was just assumed that
important, unpredictable events must be the work of a powerful being. It wasn't forbidden
to doubt these models and their effectiveness as predictors was not supposed to depend on
how pious or faithful you were. There was no distinction between natural and
supernatural. Those were later developments as religion was split from science and
subsumed into an instrument of social control.
Brent
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