Atheists can't hold office in the USA?

It's rather surprising that there is so much resistence to call a spade a spade. The only usefulness I can see in that, is spotting sloppy thinkers. I would expect ALL atheists to accept that we can not know that a god of some form does not exist and therefore leave some latitude for that eventuality. But that is not even close to being the same as not believing in one. The two positions are quite different - the first is an intellectual assessment of our state of knowledge, the second is an emotional response to that knowledge - belief or disbelief. I doubt Hitchins would totally rule out the possibility of a god, but he would say that the chances of that kind of god existing are so remote that he's prepared to say that for all practical purposes, god does not exist. I sort of know what you're trying to get at, but I think it mistaken because the categories do not actually exist. Under those terms, I am both a agnostic and gnostic atheist. I accept that logically a god may possibly exist but I 'know' (ie believe) that he, she, it, they doesn't, don't. But there is a polarisation - it can't be avoided. Most people believe, some people don't. The distinction is actually not with those that pretend to have not made up their minds (and therefore actually don't believe) and people who say they're atheists, it's between those atheists who campaign and make a noise and those who don't.

If I can drag myself out of my apathy and reply to all the misconceptions in that post I will at some point.Meanwhile I'll try to explain this again. He rejects everything except reason and logic. He rejects all gods and no gods. He uses this as a mental parachute to get him out of an insoluble problem and everyone breathed a sigh of relief and said, 'thank god, it's not just me that thinks all this god bollocks is just too damn hard,'Sadly, the parachute didn't open because as soon as he says 'I just don't know' he's also saying that he doesn't believe. He can't just reject atheism - using its usual, everyday, common or garden definition - because once he says he doesn't know, he also admits to not believing.We all know what he means - he can't find enough evidence to accept or reject belief in god, but by doing that he can't avoid not believing in god. There's probably a term for this kind of logic error, but obviously I'm not clever enough to know what it is.

I didn't understand why you'd want to do that. But now I get it, you're a logic-cop.Fixed.

And You're confused because you've swallowed this invented agnostic nonsense. Agnostic as a word and concept that didn't exist at all until 150 years ago. Humanity existed without it perfectly well through the the great philosophical eras of the Greeks and even the Enlightenment.People quite clearly understood that belief had nothing to do with knowledge. The along comes Huxley who is an obvious non-believer (because he says so) and decides that he can't think his way into belief because god is unknowable. Then he makes this huge logical error and simply invents a non-position. The agnostic. The agnostic is someone who doesn't know whether god exists or not.But knowledge is NOT belief. So I'll try yet again.When I say god, I mean god, gods, God, Gods - any and every god we've named and those we'll invent in the future.When I say I don't believe in any of them - that's it, nothing else. In exactly the same way as you don't believe in fairies and Santa Clause. (And, what's more you have no name for it.)Where you're confused is when I also say that I'm an agnostic. Well of course I am. I don't actually KNOW god doesn't exist. No-one posibly can. Atheism is just a lack of belief. Belief is a positve step beyond knowledge which you have or don't have. That's why agnosticism is a nonsense, we are ALL agnostic whether we like it or not. Belief is not knowledge it's an emotional state.We only know whether we believe or not. That's why I say I'm an atheist - it is a matter of belief or not. Huxley was an atheist, he didn't believe. His not knowing is irrelevant, because none of us know.You are an atheist and you are an agnostic - big deal, the agnostic part is redundant. The agnostic tag is simply a bit of philosophical snobbery to denote that you've thought about it.(i'm using 'you' in a general sense, not you personally, but I expect it applies to both of us.)Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

No. No and thrice No. Between the ancient Greeks and the Enlightenment we had hundreds of different gods and no gods - from Allah to Brahma to Izanagi. And more before that and more will come.For some reason you're stuck on Christianity as though it was the only iteration of a god.You're also stuck misunderstanding the terms belief and knowledge. There MUST have been atheists and those who weren't sure for the entirety of time - humanity is not uniform and some people think for themselves. Homosexuality was not invented in the 20th century, before that people had the sense not to mention it.That was your own assumption. I'd like you to test that assumption of yours by finding a post of mine where I refer to atheism only applying to Christianity or any other god or gods.Atheism is not a disbelief in A god, it's a disbelief in all gods. How could anyone claim to be an atheist but believe in Suijin? It makes no sense. I claim it because it doesn't exist as a REAL thing. An agnostic doesn't believe in God. The End. Do you love your wife? Do you support the Jets. Do you believe in god? Of course they *claim* to be. Huxley claimed to be, but claiming it does not make it real. All agnostics claim to be agnostics - so what? They still don't believe in god, it just makes them atheists that are confused. Like you.

Jeeze, how many times. An atheist does not believe in ANY gods, capitalised or lower case, definite article or not, singular or plural. YHWH or Neptune. How can a atheist be otherwise???? Why so dense?

I would love to know how an atheist can believe in god. Or God. Or Gods or gods. Or the god. Or a God. How???Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

You've missed the point Phat, but bless you anyway.

Do you want me to go back through this thread and point out to you all the posts I've made that say that an atheist does not believe in god or gods?There cannot be confusion about how many and which gods an atheist doesn't believe in. If he believes in ONE he is not an atheist.

Oh us atheists will sign anything. We're totally corrupt. I've been known to eat babies without cooking them first.Seriously, you know that you can sign anything if you cross your fingers don't you?Pffnrr......

... You don't believe. When you believe, you're a theist, and when you don't you're an atheist. I know this stuff is hard to grasp, but with a bit of practice you'll get it. So far you've failed to demonstrate why.So to your superstitions and so on. Ancestor worship, ghosts, spirits etc etc. Whatever you care to mention. For what it's worth, my position on *all* this irrational nonsense - including beliefs in so called gods - as I've said before, is that there should be no word for a lack of belief in them. There is no word for a lack of belief in fairies, ancestor worship, etc etc so what's so special about another made up superstion called God? (god, gods, Gods).I know you're fond of logical falacies - try special pleading.

This is fun. Twenty years after coining the word 'agnostic', Huxley speaks at a Symposium to take a bow from his intellectual peers. He's given them an escape hatch to save their embarrassment. The world had turned but without the trapdoor of agnosticism, they'd have to admit to atheism. http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/UnColl/Rdetc/AgnAnn.htmlIt's a plain assertion; confusing knowledge with belief - conflating science with an emotion. To say that you can't know if you believe or not is, obvious, tosh. Just ask Faith.

Yes. And also, if we don't know whether we believe or not, then we don't believe. With evidence there is no reqirement for belief. If there was evidence we would know. Subjective evidence in this context is just another term for belief.

Exactly. I don't know whether god doesn't exist, but I believe he/she/it, plural, lower and uppercase, doesn't.It's not knowing ie. having enough evidence, that matters, it's whether you believe it or not. If you don't know if you *believe* or not, then you don't believe.

Nope. You're confusing knowledge with belief. Correct Correct.But like everyone else, you're asking the wrong question. The question that doesn't work with your cancer analogy is 'do you believe you have cancer?' (aka, do you believe in God?). The answer of 'I don't know', can only mean 'no'. People know what they believe.You believe in Bigfoot only because you don't know. If you knew, you wouldn't need belief.