if you must know my view on the teacup logic.
If the teacup is so small that we can't even see it, even with our most highly advanced telescopes with highly advanced microscopic technology. Then it may not even exist, although in the case of it being somewhat coated in highly advanced radar scrambler skin suit, and having the ability to camouflage itself. Then the possibility of its existence is down right near impossible to find.
There ya go. We pretty much agree then.
Would you like to point out what questions i'm not answering?
Nope. Ya got me. Honest mistake.
I remember asking a bunch of questions that didn't receive a response. The reason you didn't respond was that the answer to the first question (ie. whether you are a young earth creationist or not) made the other questions redundant.
My apologies. That's what I get for relying on my somewhat dubious memory, instead of checking my facts.
:sorry1:
How exactly am i labeling you? And i very much indeed understand your view of life, in fact i already knew your view of life when you first commented on my first thread.
Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with you labeling me. Or in labeling myself. Labels are just shorthand. So, I'm an atheist. That tells people something about my religious beliefs. Or, I'm an agnostic atheist. That tells them more, but only if they have some understanding beyond the basic. Most people I deal with in a day to day fashion wouldn't know the difference between a weak or a strong atheist. They would divide the world into theists (without using that term), agnostics, and atheists.
Long as we recognize that labels are shorthand, and only tell the beginning of the story, then it's all good.
Of course its common to be agnostic atheist, but in sake of the so called new atheist movement, i think its better to just call yourself agnostic. Because of the new atheist movement, The term atheist is looking more like anti religion and anti rights then just the lack of belief in god or gods.
I understand this point of view. But I'm not agnostic. It's something I thought about for quite a while, not because I have a preference, but just in terms of the most accurate label. I am an atheist. If I don't fit the stereo-typed view of an atheist, then so be it.
When i say anti rights, i mean it's our given rights by the founding fathers to Freely exercise religion without being attack because of our beliefs. Although i'm aware that we have free speech, but i don't think that free speech allows you to attack someone based on their beliefs, that you find inconsistencies in your world view.
A few points on this.
Freedom of speech absolutely provides the right to attack someone else based on their beliefs (at least, in the US...it is a little more complicated where I live). It's actually more problematic if they start attacking people based on things they DON'T believe (ie. making stuff up, demonising, etc)
Atheists in the USA are the single most mistrusted group. They have a higher level of mistrust from the rest of the community than Muslims, homosexuals, or any other commonly mistrusted group you can think of. The reason for this is...well...buggered if I know. It would be interesting if the reasons for people's vote was included. I'm pretty sure there'd be a very high level of attack on atheist beliefs, or lack thereof.
Are you sure you want to play the freedom of speech card from a broadly Christian perspective?
Finally, on this, I actually don't agree with a lot of the stuff that some of the atheist groups in America are doing. They're trying to turn atheism into a political or (horror) semi-religious movement, which is ridiculous. Any form of fundamentalism is the antithesis of what I believe.
This may or may not clear up, that i see agnostic and atheist being mutually exclusive, and i never claimed that agnostic atheist was uncommon. Its hard to tell the differences between the so called strong atheist and the weak atheist, simple the fact that they label themselves as just atheist. if you are not label as weak atheist or agnostic atheist, it can easily be common to see that you are claiming 100% that there is no God or gods.
Fair enough. From my experience, there are more weak atheists than strong. But even most atheists (at least in Oz) wouldn't label themselves as weak or strong, and might not even know that such labels exist. Oftentimes, atheism can be a broad, fairly unsophisticated statement that a person doesn't believe there is a God.
But please don't ever claim that i don't know anything about atheism or agnosticism, I take a different view because of many definitions and dictionary seem to be conflicting with each other. And because agnosticism was invented to be anti Gnostic towards the big church claiming to have superior knowledge over everything.
I am only interested in clarifying my position. As long as you understand that, I have no reason to claim anything about yours.
I hope this clears it up
Probably as close as we're going to get.
