Question for atheists and believers

Classifying myself.....

I do not believe that a god exists. (athiest?)
I do not know whether a god exists. (agnostic?)

I'm really not sure that I care. :wink:


<allowing my brain some well-earned (?) down time.>

WOW, a whole thread dedicated to the definition of atheism.

here is my understanding of the terms:

theist - someone who believes in the existence of god or conciders it highly likely
........ monotheist - someone who belives in a single specified god and asserts that no others exist
......................... Christian
......................... Muslim
......................... etc. etc.
........ polytheist - someone who belives in multiple gods
........ panentheist - someone who belives that the universe is part of god
........ pantheist? - someone who defines god as the universe
........ deist - someone who believes in some non specified god(s), (or conciders the existence of such highly likely)

atheist - non theist, somone who does not belive in gods
........ agnostic(-atheist) - someone who holds that there is not enough evidence to justify any possition regarding the existence of gods
........ (me - someone who holds the existance of gods to be highly unlikely)
........ assertive-atheist, someone who asserts that gods do not exist

I'll save setanta the trouble of mentioning that he disagrees with my definition of theist. He defines a theist as someone who knows god(s) exist, and isn't immagining things. I still think my definition is both more usefull, and more common.

As a Muslim believer, the majority of quires directed to me concern Islam and terrorism. Faith has yet to be a begged, unfortunately.

--Ibn

As a Muslim believer, the majority of quires directed to me concern Islam and terrorism. Faith has yet to be begged, unfortunately. [Pardon my error]

--Ibn

Believer


Many atheists are just looking for an argument. So I would try to make their mind set to be open b4 I even begin. To try to show him that we are trying to reach to the truth and not here for a debate. Then i would begin proving it. But that is too long so I will not post it here. But there are many websites which people can access that proves the existence of a Creator.

There may be website which pretend to prove the existence of a Creator...but I doubt very seriously that there are websites which actually do that.

And, for the record....I doubt there are any websites that prove there are no gods either.

Believers...whether they are theistic believers who believe there is a God....

...or atheistic believers who believe there are no gods.

....are doing nothing more than guessing.

Interesting agnostic link:

http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/humftp/E-text/Russell/agnostic.htm

I do not believe that anyone really knows. I understand faith, but get a little annoyed when there is no room for exploration within the individuals sphere of belief, and I'm not talking about changing minds, just allowing a discussion with respect for each others wishes to take place.

So, I would answer, I can't convince anyone as when you look at the two sides, neither can they and neither should they try. Most of the time, the reasons for believing or not believing are deep rooted within a person, and for an outsider to understnd that passion, wherever it may come from, is a difficult task to set, but I suppose, not wholly unachievable.

And anyway, once all of this convincing is over with, it doesn't prove anyone is right!

Question for Atheists and believers
I've often entered into debates on the subject from the Atheist's perspective, and I've found that the vast majority of believers cannot fully articulate why they believe in God, using either the "It says so in the Bible" response or the "transcendant experience" one. In my younger days I dismissed them as serious people and added their response to my lists of proofs that he doesn't exist. however, in my Junior year in High School, I entered into a debate with a devoutly Catholic friend, and using a mix of historical references and personal experience, convinced me that one cannot "prove" conclusively the existence of God, one can only feel it. I am reminded of two quotes, one from an extremely popular movie, and another from an almost anonymous book, that personify this answer.
--"It is not important to prove the existance of the soul. All that matters is to perceive it." - The Broken Sword, Molly Cochran
--"You're judging this thing the wrong way. It's not about what. It could be God stopped the bullets, he changed Coke into Pepsi, he found my fuckin' car keys. You don't judge **** like this based on merit. Whether or not what we experienced was an according-to-Hoyle miracle is insignificant. What is significant is I felt God's touch, God got involved." - Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino

Frank,

Hey its good to hear from u. Its been a long time. How is it goin?

I do agree that some websites do no do the job well. Well i cant really go into this subject because its so long and cannot be done over written text. For i really have no say in this.

Okay, Kid. Good to see you too.

Einherjar: I find it interesting that you proclaim yourself a quasi-atheist yet still call yourself after a polytheistic being. I wonder if, like me, you're fascinated with comparative mythologies and archetypes, or if you just played Age of Mythology? If so, we should get together and discuss it sometime; I'm actually writing an essay on archetypes I'm considering posting here, if it's not too long.