Atheists can't hold office in the USA?

And obviously doesn't disbelieve in god, like atheist do.It makes sense to separate those groups. But it would still be unknown if they disbelieve in god. That's why my way is better: it clears it all up. By maybe-believing? Nah, you're just trying to force your usage again.

I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean by that? No, people didn't lack a way out before Huxley coined agnosticism. The halfway house was there all along, Huxley just made up a term for it.As far as what Huxley meant, he explicitly said that he wasn't an atheist - atheism was a positive position that god did not exist. It was not simply a lack of belief in god.He wanted a term for people who didn't fall into either the theist or atheist camps. And it helps to have different terms for those positions. Well, the "less" part comes into play as soon as you realize that atheists were people who took the position that god did not exist rather than being people who just lack a belief in god.If you can ever get around to getting that, then maybe you can see why "atheism" isn't the best word to describe the weak/passive position.Agnosticism simply works better.

Annoyed isn't the right word - I'm pretty sure that would require me actually caring.I'm laughing at you on this end... Well no, that's not the only difference at all. I'm not making the same arguments as you did so your responses to mine are not the even the same as mine to yours.You're really trying to parallel them but actually you're not. Except that nobody says that elves and fairies, etc., are leprechauns.You've put the blind men in a petting zoo and are trying to say that the goats and sheep are elephants - so you can then say that the elephant has been specially plead.I don't see how anyone would fall for that.As I said before, if you changed it from leprechauns to just "small magical creatures" then my arguments would have to be different. And then they would be more parallel to arguments against "gods". As I've explained in other threads, if you want to talk about a particular god, like a particular small magical creature, then its easy to construct arguments against them. But those arguments don't work for all gods in general like they don't work for all small magical creatures in general.Coming up with an argument against leprechauns is just as easy as coming up with an argument against Thor. But that is not an argument against elves, like the one against Thor isn't an argument against Allah. I haven't made an If-Then argument at all.When you were talking about gods, you did.Again, we're just not making the same arguments. But you do spend a lot of time discussing gods where I won't hardly talk about leprechauns.I guess you do care about gods.I still don't about leprechauns. Its not special pleading just because it is different. My argument against leprechauns is not like your argument against gods. And the reasons that I know that leprechauns aren't real are not like the reasons that you believe that gods are not real.Your just desperately trying to make your anti-god argument valid.But you're failing to draw a parallel to my anti-leprechaun argument.My argument against leprechauns just is not the same as your argument against gods. If everyone believed in leprechauns then I would reconsider my position, and most likely go from an atheist one to an agnostic one. And I probably would also avoid claiming that they really are fictitious. For one, I don't care and wouldn't want to waste my time discussing it. And for two, yeah I don't care so why should I care?It very easy to avoid the social relevance by just not talking about it.

That's simply not true. Huxley readily admitted that he did not believe in god.The reason he invented to the word was to avoid being grouped with the atheists.Because even though you do not believe in god, you can also not believe that there is no god.The atheists in Huxley's time, like the theists, behaved as if they had attained a certain gnosis - that they had figured it out.Huxley invented the term agnosticism to separate himself from both of those groups to say - "no, you have not figured it out". That you lack a belief in god, but are reasonable enough to admit that you aren't sure, unlike the atheists that think they're sure enough to make claims that god does not exist. You can keep repeating it but its still not true.If you are unfamiliar with a concept, you don't know if you believe in it or not, but it can be something that you do believe in but you just haven't realized it yet. You don't disbelieve in the thing until you learn what it is - you're in limbo until you know what it is.

He wasn't as hung up on dissociating belief from knowledge as you are, though:

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I know what I mean when I say I believe in the law of the inverse squares, and I will not rest my life and my hopes upon weaker convictions ...

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When I tried to exemplify how people don't actually disbelieve unfamiliar concepts before they figure out what they are, by using the unknown Concept X as being cheese example, you stifled that discussion by saying that you don't need belief because you have knowledge.I don't think Huxley would have that issue with that discussion. You say he "confuses" knowledge and belief, but I don't see that he does. I think he understands the differences, but realizes that the dissociation isn't as important as you are making it.Plus, if we really wanted to be pedantic about it, we could say that nobody really knows anything and all that we really do have are beliefs.But I don't like to go there, because I don't have a problem saying that I know the sun will rise tomorrow, or even that I believe that sodium and chloride make salt, or whatever simple scientific knowledge you want to go with. Particularly, the discovery of and explanation of evolution and how that impacted man's 'special place' in this world and how that relates to our understanding of a need for a god.I imagine there were people saying that if you accepted evolution then you were anti-god. Huxley's agnosticism gave folks a description they could use that explained that while they were for scientific explanations, they were not against god.You keep saying that its about distancing yourself from religion but I think its more about aligning yourself with science (and not caring about the religion).I thought this was interesting:

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Huxley supported the reading of the Bible in schools. This may seem out of step with his agnostic convictions, but he believed that the Bible's significant moral teachings and superb use of language were relevant to English life. "I do not advocate burning your ship to get rid of the cockroaches". However, what Huxley proposed was to create an edited version of the Bible, shorn of "shortcomings and errors... statements to which men of science absolutely and entirely demur...

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So i don't see him as being anti-religion as much as you seem to. I don't think that stuff drove much of his desire to invent a new term. Huxley didn't really care that much about denying orthodoxy, it seems to me.He was much more pro-science than anti-religion, me thinks.

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I neither affirm nor deny the immortality of man. I see no reason for believing it, but, on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it. I have no a priori objections to the doctrine.

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. Weird, my religious beliefs carry almost no certainty. Would an isolated man come up with a god concept or not? What do you think?I think they would. I think there's something inside us that draws us to wonder about the what-else that might be out there, and how it might be much greater than we are.If men do come up with god concepts on their own, then I don't think its special pleading as much as it just is a special case - its something almost everyone wonders about so it makes sense that we don't treat it like anything else.On the other hand, if we need indoctrination to form beliefs in gods, then while still being a special case, I can see how its more actual pleading in that regard.Edited by Cat Sci, : formatting, pasted an update in the wrong spotEdited by Cat Sci, : strike two

Yup, its a shrug (at least for me). There's not a lot of conviction or strength, things just seem that way.When I look deep within myself, or far out into the distance, I see a place that is governed by a higher power. The term "God" fits the bill. Well, don't hold my feet to the fire "It just seems right" I try not to make it special.Specific gods are easily dismissed.The generic concept of a god, not so much. And I don't think that's special pleading - I think its a unique case.Unique in the sense that practically everyone has come up with the same concept, so I think it deserves more consideration than a one-off superstition does.That's how I can say that I know leprechauns aren't real, but not the same for a random culture's god. I'm not specially pleading gods because I believe in one, they really are a special case that deserves a different attention.

I don't call myself an agnostic because I am a theist.An agnostic, to me, is someone who is neither a theist nor an atheist.To me it is worthless to separate knowledge from belief when discussing gods, since nobody really knows and its all beliefs anyways.If you do separate them, the word 'agnostic' becomes completely useless.We might as well have uses for words, so its better to have it be the third position between the positive claims of god either existing or not existing.So the agnostic is someone who doesn't claim either way.Since there's plenty of those people out there, the word not only becomes meaningful, but also useful.That's why its better my way. There's really no reason to remove it from the equation.

How about "convinced"?I'm convinced that there is a god, so I'm a theist.You're convinced that there is not a god, so you're an atheist.Then there are all the people that are not convinced either way.I get that you prefer to call them atheist because they lack a belief in god.But can you not see the practicality in keeping them in a separate group?What, then, should we call them (to distinguish them from both convinced theist and convinced atheist groups)?What is wrong with using the term 'agnostic' there?Can you admit that it can work for that usage, even if you don't prefer it?Can you also admit that dichotomizing it into just theist and atheist groups doesn't cover all the details?If so, then why do you prefer it that way?

Only because you, yourself, are creating it.What you are doing is defining all of mankind in the terms of "them" or "not-them". That never works well.Too, you are grouping people into your group that don't really belong there. Perhaps in an effort to bolster your numbers so you can go - see, look how many atheists there are. But all you're really doing is saying: look how many 'not-thems' there are.If you define people into your group as not being a part of another group, then they going to wonder if they really are in your group or not.I take you as simply being anti-woo. Well, there are lots of people that you are including in the "atheist" group that, while they don't believe in a god, do actually subscribe to a significant amount of woo. Those people are not like you, they are 'thems'. But its more complex than that. You've over-simplified it. Sort of, but not really.I think you're being honest with yourself, in that you're using the terms how you prefer them to be used.But when other people tell you that they don't fit into the boxes you've constructed, and you insist that they really do - in spite of them, then I think that is dishonest..How about an analogy (and don't be that guy that only attacks the analogy, itself, by pointing out where it doesn't align. It doesn't fit perfectly with the god-positions but I think it makes the point)Black is the absence of all color. White is the presence of color. So therefore, there are only two states: black and white.If anything contains any amount of color, then it is not absent of color and is therefore white. Everything else is black."Well, what about things that look grey, and only contain a little bit of color? They're not really white, and they're not really black."=Nope, they contain some amount of color so therefore they are not black and are white. Its the same problem."But some things are red and others are blue..."=Nope, since they contain some color then they do not contain no color, ergo they are not black and are therefore white.That's an honest position is it not? You have to admit that it simplifies things...

So you went the attack-the-analogy-and-miss-the-point route.That puts me in a position of requiring to much effort to be willing to continue.Have a nice day.

I just did.

The only thing I didn't understand was the embiggened part below at the end: What did you mean by that?

From Message 516: And that position is wrong.I don't know if Bigfoot exists or not. I'm convinced there is something out there responsible for the reports. I'd like for there to exist a Bigfoot species. I think there is, in fact, a "bigfoot" of sorts, but I don't know if its a large primate or just a bear or something else entirely.Do do I believe in Bigfoot or not?I don't think that is a yes-or-no question.Or look to my Message 359 (which wasn't replied to), that explains it in another way:

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Note that you can only believe or not believe. There's no other state for belief.

I believe in God. A dude walks up to me and goes: "Aye yo, do ya believe in gawd?"

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Without knowing what kind of god he is referring to, nor whether or not my concept of god fits within what he is talking about, I can be in a state of not knowing whether or not I believe in the god he is talking about, despite the fact that I do believe in a god.

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The fact that I do not know if I believe in the god he is talking about does not default me into a state of not believing in that god, for the god he is thinking of could fit with the god that I do believe in. I simply don't know that at the point of questioning - So I might go: "I dunno, whadaya mean?"

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That would be me not knowing if I believe in what he is talking about or not. That is not necessarily me being in a state of not believing in what he is talking about - because once I learn what he is talking about, it might be something that I believed in all along.

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Again, whether or not I believed in that dude's god was not a yes-or-no question. You assume wrong:

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Well, concept X is cheese. Now that you know, did you go from not believing to believing?

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If it's cheese, belief is not required. I can see, touch, taste and smell it. Belief doesn't come into it.

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Of course that was just a dodge and didn't address the point. The fundamentalism stems from the claim that: this is the only way that things can be. I don't think anybody is having trouble grapsing the point...Its just that the point is wrong - there are stages in between believing and not-believing that many people find themselves in. And not just for gods.To simply deny that those positions exist is ignorant at best and dishonest at worst.That any arguments that exposes otherwise is simply reinterpreted within the intial premise of the position, that there really is only belief or not, is what makes the behavior look like fundamentalism.From my second post in this thread:

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And why can't today's atheists answer my question instead of just insisting that their definition of atheism is the correct one?

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Is that really the only reason, that they think they're right? How can they face the facts that the words were used differently (with the understanding that words are defined by how they are used) and then just claim that everyone else was wrong?

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Did I call it, or what?

But that's not the only definition.How do you now know this? I've shown you the other definitions Are you just being dishonest on purpose?

So? It still proves him wrong. It doesn't. As I said: its the insistence the your way is the only way that makes you a fundamentalist. Except for the fact that I just refuted his argument by talking about belief in Bigfoot.Man... 0/3