On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > A genuine sceptic (and a genuine scientist) is agnostic about what the > final science may turn out to be, if we ever get there.
Who are these strawmen scientists who think our current theories are the final word on the nature of reality? > > What Mr Steinhart is saying is that "skeptical atheists" as he calls > them are making a metaphysical assumption about the nature of reality - > which is, precisely, an act of faith. > Skeptical means having doubts, so I'm having a little difficulty understanding how having doubts about God or about anything else is a act of faith unless you've redefined the word "faith" so from it's original meaning that it means everything, which of course is equivalent to meaning nothing. By the way, redefining common words so that there mean next to nothing is what passes for philosophy these days. But it's true, technically I'm an agnostic in that I can't prove the nonexistence of God, but people who go to great pains to point out that they're a agnostic not a atheist seem a little silly to me because, judging from the equal respect they give to both believers and atheists, they incorrectly think both viewpoints are equally rational. I am certainly not that sort of agnostic, not even technically. This is what Isaac Asimov had to say in his autobiography and I agree with every word: "I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." There is another quote from Asimov that I quite like: "Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
