Today is National Ask an Atheist Day

[One Brow]

Of course not, you're an atheist. You wouldn't know a goddess if she bit you.

What makes you think I haven't been bitten by one before?

 

[One Brow]

One comment totally reminded of you where it broke up another comment and responded to it piece by piece.

It's a common practice on boards with skeptics. We tend to be reductionistic, although not all of us are, and not all atheists are skeptics.

 

[Gameface]

What is it that makes you atheist, rather than merely agnostic?

I would say a lot of the same things Siro and One Brow said on this.

For a long time I would only say that I was not religious. Not sure how people interpret that, but I pretty much refused to get into it beyond that. When I was in my teens I was kind of what I would describe as a militant atheist always trying to challenge people's religious beliefs. When my grandmother passed away I wondered if I would have gained any satisfaction by shattering her LDS faith, or if she would have gained anything from it. I decided it wasn't really important to challenge people's faith or convince anyone I was right. That's when I stopped calling myself an atheist and just said I wasn't religious. But, I just don't feel like that's completely honest. I am an atheist. I don't always like using the unicorn or flying spaghetti monster comparisons, but essentially I consider those to have as much believability as a supernatural intelligent creator being. To me that's atheism and to call myself something else is not the whole truth.

 

[franklin]

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/04/17/national-ask-an-atheist-day-this-thursday/

Feel free to ask. Fellow atheists should feel free to answer.

Why won't God talk to me?

 

[One Brow]

Why won't God talk to me?

He doesn't exist.

 

[franklin]

He doesn't exist.

Why do you call God He? tehehehehe!

 

[Siro]

Why do you call God He? tehehehehe!

Because the people who capitalize the word god understand it as such.

 

[Beantown]

I on't think I've ever posted a comment on Friendly Atheist. If I did, I would have registered as One Brow, since I've been using that pseudonym for 30 years.

Holy **** you are old.

 

[HipHopAnonymous]

Because the people who capitalize the word god understand it as such.

Santa is also capitalized.

 

[Siro]

Santa is also capitalized.

Santa is also a he!

 

[Stifle Tower]

Santa is also capitalized.

We were talking about Gordon Hayward.

 

[Bronco70]

The two are not mutually exclusive. Agnosticism is an epistemological position. It states that conclusive knowledge about the existence of a cosmological creative force is impossible (at least for the moment). An agnostic can believe in a god because of other reasons, but he would not consider his belief a result of his knowledge.

As an atheist, I find agnosticism to be somewhat useless. It is not like the existence of a god has a 50/50 chance. The whole concept is utterly meaningless without context. Which god are we talking about? The ones I looked into are almost certainly false. I have a plethora of reasons why this or that religion is man-made, and the answer to all of those concerns end up being either "you got to have faith" or "you must understand it through my unique interpretation". And considering there are countless gods in countless religions, and that the chance that any of them is in any way true is close to zero, it is perfectly reasonable to ignore the hypothesis all together.

In other words, the default position is that of a natural universe inhabited by natural beings operating within the natural laws of that reality. Any claim to the contrary must be evaluated on its own merits. And I've yet to find one with enough merits to warrant serious consideration.

I would say many agnostics are also atheists. If you take the position that it is impossible to know if a God does or not exist (one sort of agnosticism), they you don't believe in a God (atheism). Probably both of those statements apply to me. I agree it's impossible to know if the God of classical Deism exists or not, for example, but I don't believe in that God any more than any other. Then, choosing/acknowledging a label becomes a matter of taste and presentation.

Probably some agnostics would say they have some level of belief, but not enough to say they really accept the existence of a God/gods. I would not be agnostic in that sense. I don't have a partial or tentative belief.

I would say a lot of the same things Siro and One Brow said on this.

For a long time I would only say that I was not religious. Not sure how people interpret that, but I pretty much refused to get into it beyond that. When I was in my teens I was kind of what I would describe as a militant atheist always trying to challenge people's religious beliefs. When my grandmother passed away I wondered if I would have gained any satisfaction by shattering her LDS faith, or if she would have gained anything from it. I decided it wasn't really important to challenge people's faith or convince anyone I was right. That's when I stopped calling myself an atheist and just said I wasn't religious. But, I just don't feel like that's completely honest. I am an atheist. I don't always like using the unicorn or flying spaghetti monster comparisons, but essentially I consider those to have as much believability as a supernatural intelligent creator being. To me that's atheism and to call myself something else is not the whole truth.

To me, there is significant insight in these answers. To be perfectly honest, because I'm simple, I have generally viewed this in these terms:

Atheist - Certain that a supreme creator does not exist
Agnostic - Certain that a supreme creator can be neither proven, nor disproved.

Thank you for expanding my understanding.