How Would You Answer This?

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Permalink Reply by Will Faithless Sophia on September 15, 2011 at 11:52pm

There are many different definitions of God so this is pretty much pointless. Someone saying they believe there is no God lacks an understanding that words can have many meanings, and in the case of God there are almost as many meanings as there are people. Forexample the pantheist god is pretty much equivalent to the atheist life outlook, except it's maybe a little bit sexier... especially if we happen to be inside and one with the Goddess ^^

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Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on September 16, 2011 at 12:04am

How about, "What? How could you NOT believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster!!!!!'

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Permalink Reply by George on September 16, 2011 at 3:05pm

I disagree with your wording here:

 

"No. Atheism is merely the lack ("a") of theism, or the belief in a deity or deities. I simply don't believe in God. I don't have faith."

 

Faith ≠ Belief.  

A "belief" is simply any proposition that one holds to be true. 

"Faith" is a type of belief, one which is held without evidence (or in spite of evidence to the contrary)

 

So a strong atheist does have a positive belief (that a god or gods do not exist), and a weak atheist basically doesn't know.

 

Note that the "strong atheism" is not the same as "absolute certainty", which is a common straw man argument made against atheists.

 

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