Frank Mayhar wrote: > Erik Dahl wrote: > >>I find this recent trend towards defining atheism as a religion of non-belief >>very disconcerting. Instead of maintaining that atheism is "belief in no god," >>or "belief there is no god," can't we say instead that it is "no belief in >>god?" For me, at any rate, it is more about not believing in something than >>believing in something opposed to something else. > > > That has always been my position, the many times I've engaged in this kind > of discussion. It's not a belief, it's a _lack_ of belief. I similarly > don't believe that an invisible asthmatic squid is hovering over my lamp, > as well. > It depends, for some people it is a belief. I know a few people who describe them selves as Atheists and are almost evangelical in their belief "That there is _no_ god". As opposed to people like myself, who admit they don't know and futher feel the question is irrelevent to how they view the world. Oh and I consider myself an agnostic, though reading the dictionary definitions posted for that word I may have to invent a new term :) > I don't know why this seems so difficult for some folks to understand. Because some people feel that there is more than two answers to the question "Is there a God?". And so if we choose to categorise people by their answer to that question , we have to have more that two terms. But basically it gets tied down a lot in exact definitions of Agnostic vs Atheist, and what a religion is. For a bit of fun, consider the following question: "If Gods existance was proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt , tomorrow, how would that affect you?" Andrew.