🚀 go-pugleaf

On 11/19/04 3:03 PM, FNO's useable flesh will be contributed to the Protein
Bank, where it will be recycled for purposes that serve His Shadow.

> 
> "Opus-" <jbuchy@telus.net> wrote in message
> news:aa4rp0pjpl5q7ttqs20n7sdebr7c77n0na@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 19:45:05 GMT, Norman Miller <spamthis@die.invalid>
>> spake thusly:
>> 
>>> In article <858bd3a9.0411171050.7c8514d0@posting.google.com>, Michael
>>> Yardley says...
>>> 
> <snip>
>>> Atheists don't address the matter very well at all. An atheistic dogma is
>>> still a dogma; an atheistic belief is still a belief.
>> 
>> Actually, no. Atheism isn't a belief, it's a non-belief.
>> 
> Actually, it is a belief and it is faith.

Wrong. You do realise that these words have meaning, and that you don't get
to rewrite that meaning just to cling to your beliefs?

> Faith is the acceptance of something in the absence of proof.

Such as belief in a god.

>  An athiest can no more prove that there
> is no deity than a theist can prove there is one.

No one has to prove the non-existence of anything. You believe in a god, so
you provide the evidence. All an atheist has to do is point out your
complete lack of evidence for any god. That is not a 'belief': the complete
lack of evidence for a god is a fact.

> The only non-believers are those who don't really know one way or the other.

Please. They are agnostics, and most agnostics admit to believing in some
higher power, but they do not claim to know what it is. They are still
believers.

> 
> In addition, from a logical perspective, it is has much more risk than an
> theistic belief.

Risk? 

> If a theist is wrong, they don't really lose; that's all
> there is.  But if they are right, they win.  For an athiest, if they are
> right they don't really win; again, that is all there is.  But if they are
> wrong, they lose.  Consequently, a theist cannot lose, and an atheist cannot
> win.

What a load of malarkey. The theist is just as wrong as an atheist from that
view, as there is no way to know if you have the right god.

> 
> An atheist, nevertheless, holds as firm a belief, in the absence of any
> proof, that there is no deity, as a theist holds the belief, again in the
> absence of proof, that there is.

Bullshit. There is no evidence for any god or gods whatsoever. That is the
atheist's position, and it has yet to be refuted.

-- 

VVV

His Shadow

I've always thought of philosophy as something like mental masturbation:
some people enjoy doing it, others enjoy watching it being done. But in the
end, it produces no viable offspring...

Dave Palmer