virus: Atheism

Twirlip of Greymist (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Sat, 13 Apr 1996 19:26:33 -0700 (PDT)


/Just a question I've been pondering: Isn't agnosticism a far more
/tenable philosophical position than atheism? Doesn't atheism
/presuppose omniscience?

This depends on what your definitions are.

Wesbter: agnosticism:
:one who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown
and prob. unknowable

atheism:
1a: a disbelief in the existence of deity
1b: the doctrine that there is no deity

Note the difference between 1a and 1b. 1a is more etymologically
correct: a-theist means not-theist, which at its broadest includes
anyone who is not a theist, including agnostics. On alt.atheism 1b is
called "strong atheism", and admitted to be as untenable as theism. 1a
is considered to be the default, the state of not believing in god, as
opposed to believing that there is no god. I think agnosticism there is
seen as more vapid, treating a lack of evidence about God differently
than a lack of evidence about green penguins on Mars. I side with these
definitions myself: I see no more reason to believe in God than in any
other fictional construct, and those don't. I'm an atheist.

Slainte,
-xx- Damien R. Sullivan X-) <*> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix

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