An Atheist By Any Other Name . . .

It seems as though you are conflating tentativity with reluctance. I am not at all reluctant to say "I do not believe any of the propositions for a supernatural being that have been brought forth as of yet in human history, but I remain open to the idea of one if provided with sufficient evidence.". There lacks even sufficient evidence as of yet for it to affect my daily thought process (except when discussing such things), especially since there is a natural explanation for most everything, or if no natural explanation has been found, science has proven a useful tool so far to excel at finding the answer and has done so since it's inception. Science has filled the god gap time and time again.The difference, I think, between the atheist and theist, is that the atheist is absolutely willing to be proven wrong while the theist is certain he already has the answer and only seeks to prove himself right.

Define "accept." For example, I fully accept the fact that you genuinely believe what you say you believe.That's not the same as thinking that your reasoning is sound, or that I think you're right. I can still think you're "deluded" in your heartfelt and honest belief. It's a well known trait of people to be wrong you know. Many theists have told me that I'm "deluded" (well, usually it has something to do with deceit from the devil, or that I'm a fool, that sort of thing).If two people start with the same evidence and reach mutually exclusive conclusions on a matter of fact (like whether the sky is blue, as opposed to a matter of opinion like whether blue is better than pink), one of them has to be "deluded" in that at least one of them must have arrived at a false conclusion.I accept that you have your beliefs, and that you genuinely believe them. I accept that you have every right to believe whatever you find to be convincing, and that whether your beliefs are accurate or not should have no bearing on whether or not it's "okay" for you to have them (in a social sense; having accurate beliefs should be encouraged, but restricting belief and thought leads to social stagnation and intolerance and a lot of other negative consequences).I just don;t necessarily accept that your beliefs are correct, or that those beliefs are rational.

Yes I can. We are all entitled to our own beliefs or non-beliefs.
I am not trying to force my beliefs on anyone on this board.I assume I have the ok to express my beliefs and that is what I am doing.Your original question asked me if I was willing to accept the beliefs of someone else in the Hindu pantheon.that I will not do.

I agree with your message. As I don't necessarily accept your non-beliefs, or that they are rational.

It seems to be that the opposite is also true in regards to an atheist.

And that's perfectly fine. We're dealing with a question of fact, not opinion, and at least one of us has to be wrong because the positions are mutually exclusive. Clearly, each of us believes that we are right and the other wrong. We either have different sets of evidence (which can lead to different perfectly rational conclusions), or one or both of us are being irrational.The question, then, if we want to resolve which of us has beliefs that accurately reflect reality, is how to test them.

I like that one a lot, but it doesn't roll of the tongue.

That is the atheist position as well, so you already have a good understanding of it. Your view of the Hindu pantheon is the same view we have of your beliefs in your God.Would you call yourself an Ahinduist? Or an Azeusist? Isn't it kind of strange to define yourself by deities you don't believe in?Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Since we are dealing in the supernatural, I don't know how we could test them naturally.I guess one aspect would be the evidence of the appearance of the Blessed Mother at Fatima or Lourdes.There seem to be credible evidence of those two events, but I doubt if you would ever agree with them.I am not going to get into a debate about those appearances because I have not studied them in depth.That is only an example as to how experts in the discpline would attempt to provide such evidence or lack of evidence.

I would just call myself a theist of Roman Catholic belief. Edited by shadow71, : No reason given.

noneEdited by shadow71, : edited prior message

Hi Shadow,I don't think you're addressing Taq's real point.You reject Hindu beliefs just as atheists do. And you also reject Islamic beliefs, just as atheists do. And you also reject Buddhist beliefs, just as atheists do. In fact, you reject all the same religious beliefs that atheists do, with the exception of Roman Catholicism.Taq's question about whether you would call yourself an Ahinduist or an Azeusist was rhetorical. The key question concerns what reasons you have for rejecting the beliefs of religions not your own? Unless those reasons are trivial ("They're not my religion, therefore I reject them") they'll probably have much in common with the reasons atheists cite.The only difference between you and atheists is that atheists apply that reasoning to all religions, while you apply it to all religions but one.--Percy

I like percy and taq's assesment and the questions are really good. Hinduism is not a fair comparison, because like Judaism it is an ethic religion that you have to be born into, sure they have some "converts" but not really in the same sense as the universalizing religions.The Roman Catholic thing is easy to answer. I like to call it Culture. I am Irish, Bavarian, Croatian, Mexican. I am as much Culturally Catholic as I am a Catholic in faith. I would wager (if i did that sort of thing), that even in very secular nation, like say France, that the people are still very culturally catholic. That even if they do not believe in god, they know the catholic stuff, and prefer it to the madness that is protestants and Islam.What do you think of the Baha'i? they believe in all the religions as one religion.

Quite right. You define yourself by your positive beliefs, not by the things you don't believe in. So why are we called atheists?

Because the term "atheist" refers to a specific subset of the population, just as "theist" refers to a much larger subset. It's an identifier. There is a useful distinction between those who do believe in gods and those who do not.If 90% of the world's population were stamp collectors, there would be a term for non-stamp-collectors, because such a designation would be useful.I have absolutely no problem with being labelled by a term that accurately reflects my beliefs, and while "atheist" might not be complete, it's still entirely accurate. I don't believe in gods. I don't think they exist. I'm roughly as certain that gods do not exist as I am that we don't live in the Matrix. And I think trying to avoid an accurate term on preferential grounds is silly.