I am a socialist nevertheless. I spent most of my life struggling to overcome autism. (It was never diagnosed. I think of it as Asperger's Syndrome). It and an abused childhood had me on the outside of society until late in life. I use the word I so much likely because I am all I had for over fifty years.

@CharlesTurner Do you think socialism is a natural result from being a humanist? Not that you said you were a humanist

@MsDemeanour I believe that most socialists likely are humanists, but my experience range is short.

@FrankA Or... atheists have simply determined to their satisfaction that gods are not real and there is no credible possibility that "something else" might be out there. We've shut the door on God and any other deity or deities known or unknown. We've reached a decisive conclusion on the whole idea of a supreme being or beings. They exist only in mythology.

@FrankA Please don't be so silly.

I love that we continue to have this discussion about whether or not we should be fence sitters on the topic of imaginary friends. There is absolutely not proof of divine beings(s), absolutely none but still we have sane and rational people that struggle with the concept because there are a bunch of delusional people that need a ghostly security blanket to drag around in adulthood. I think of them as wishy washy types, fearful of commitment, so they stand for nothing.

@Surfpirate Quite right. Also, if agnostics see insufficient proof for the God of the bible then what evidence do they see for "something else" that might be out there? There's no evidence for any of these wish-granting magic sky fairies so get off the fence. Just my $0.02.

@Sgt_Spanky Well we wouldn't want to hurt anybody's feelings by doing an intervention on their delusional thinking, now would we.

@Surfpirate Heaven's no! Why the very thought gives me the vapors.

I believe one is hard wired concerning the take on religion and ultimately incapable of believing otherwise.

@CharlesTurner I don't think that can be the case given how many people lose/find religion throughout their lives. Many people on this site were once true believers, myself inclusive, but gradually worked it out over time. Had we been harrdwired that likely wouldn't have happened.

@FrankA Opinions differ.

@Sgt_Spanky I just think they settled as sand filters until it reaches its natural level.

@FrankA "Actually, atheists are agnostics without the guts to stick with agnosticism. They are afraid the other atheists will mock them."

Speak for yourself, please. Labels like this can be offensive.

@FrankA I think, in view of your provocative posts, that you are simply trolling. Goodbye troll.

Hooray! I agree with you!

@FrankA Thanks, Frank.

@FrankA You will have to expand on how you use the word ‘agnostic’ and ‘atheist’. Otherwise we’re going to talk passed one another. For me agnostics do not know and athiests do not believe. There is very little difference there.

@FrankA Thanks. Though our use of ‘atheist’ differs, ultimately I agree with your ideas.

I will be here for a time, testing the water, so to speak.

@CharlesTurner Nice to hear!

I plan to stay unless the situation becomes overly rancorous.

@CharlesTurner There are only a handful of really obnoxious people whom you may find problematic, but using the blocking option is really the best way to deal with them, something I’ve only had to resort to twice in 2 years.

@CharlesTurner The people here are great ! There are a few that are not happy unless they stir the pot but such is life.

I see so many takes on this that I leave it to the individual to define it.

I like your response but I still say we don't need a label. We are the default position. Many of us never believed in anything supernatural. Not believing is a passive not active position.

I write according to notions. One story concerns an artificially created world (The Hollow Planet). Another good clowns versus bad clowns. Right now I am struggling to wrap up my first western novel (Mexican Red).

@CharlesTurner Oh, you sound very versetile

@CharlesTurner a Dyson Sphere is a hollow space big enough for a star inside to warm and power life on the inside .....are you published ?? Are your books in libraries or stores ?

@Larry68Feminist I have some on a blog that nobody reads. I am too old and poor and easily confused to know how to promote myself.

@CharlesTurner post a link to your blog and I will read here.....lots of readers here with nothing to do in quarantine

@CharlesTurner No you are not. You just need someone who knows how to do, someone who can help you with that bit. We cannot all be good and know everything.

@Larry68Feminist [cturnertales.blogspot.com]

Good to read your response. Thanks.

Star Trek was promoted by MLKingJR ....Professor Tyson sez military need not be the driving force of space colonization where like Greek City States democracy and Atheism can flourish better this time without slaves or sexism

Your profile pic........who is the man in the painting?

@MsDemeanour Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense, The Crisis ("These are the times that try men's souls" ), The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason, and IMO, one of the most forward thinking minds of the 18th century. Without his pen, there may never have been a United States of America. And yet he was nearly forgotten to history due to his attack on religion.

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman [Catholic] church, by the Greek [Eastern Orthodox] church, by the Turkish [Islamic] church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
The Age of Reason, 1794

@p-nullifidian ah yes. I have heard the name Thomas Paine but not being 'up' on American history didn't know anything about him. Many of your past leaders were so progressive thinking. The world looked to America as the future. Unfortunately, it no longer appears the forward-thinking, dynamic 'land of the future'. Thanks for the info.

@MsDemeanour Indeed! Sadly, the days of American leadership, whether it be human rights, science or moral decency, appear well behind us.

I am an atheist because I do not believe. That is all.

I didn't think the tone of my post was condescending to anybody. I am only purposely condescending to blowhards, regardless of their persuasion, whether they be religious, agnostic or atheist.

"Imagine for a moment that the concept of god never existed, that no one had ever heard of such an ..."/

You are splitting hairs. Atheism and Agnosticism are belief systems just like any other religion... Though they tend to be more scientifically weighted. I used to tell everyone I was an Atheist until I joined this site and found more belief definitions.

I do not believe in a god or gods yet I cannot prove they do not exist. So therefore I fall into the Agnostic camp logically speaking... At least logically to me.

Before any of that, would you mind telling me excately how an athiest and an agnostics life actually differs? What effect does religion have on an agnostics life that differs from how religion affects an athiests life?

@RiverRick it's not up to you to prove they don't exist, but fuck me if I'm going down that rabbit hole again.

. . . . . and is there an atheist.com web site for the "true" atheists to go to rather than be a part of agnostic.com? Just wondering.

10f5; The life of an Atheist and Agnostic differs as I do not go to church or waste my time praying. I worry about what I can control and try to work on that instead of putting it into the "Lord's hands."

The fact is... There MAY be a god somewhere. I just believe it based upon what I have read, seen and know to be true.

I make no bones about being an atheist. I take agnostics on an individual basis. So if there is a conflict it's strictly intellectual.

Does open minded mean people that agree with you exactly? It seems that you feel you need to defend your position and seperate yourself from "wrong atheist" at every oppertunity. Look we have gone over this many times. So we don't necessarily agree on the fine neuances of the meanings. So what? We do agree on the idea of atheism agnosticism. I hope in no way that you feel younare being attacked here or that you habe to defend yourself. Being yourself is okay.

@RiverRick I can't understand a concept of a religion of atheists. Not all atheists reach their understanding in the same way and they don't have structured meetings or rules of thought and conduct. Some of us use the findings of science to arrive at their conclusion. Some are just born that way. We could likely live our whole lives without these conversations if deists did not find atheism remarkable and abhorrent.

@RiverRick You should know better.
Agnosticism is not a belief system.
Atheism is.
I have ideas, shared by some, 'god' is a 'collective unconscious,' or something, But I certainly don't BELIEVE IN that. I just have a feeling, in a quasi-pantheistic sense, there's something. Not anything we can precisely define (yet) or describe, if it exists at all. But it might.
That's not a belief system. That's a vague feeling consciousness permeates everything, IS everything.
Can you even call that 'god?'
I don't know, but it's fun and interesting to speculate about, which I do here regularly.
Atheists don't do that, because they BELIEVE IN the NON-existence of God.
Do you see the difference?
This is not a put down. Everybody is entitled to their opinion or lack thereof.
And MY opinion is Agnosticism is not a belief system, a quasi-religion.
If you want to think so, you're wrong.
In my opinion.

@1of5 Affect my life? Well, even though I've no idea if 'god' exists, my OPINION is there is an ultimate reward-punishment reality enforced by natural law, AND I've a strong suspicion reincarnation is a 'thing,' so I try to live 'AS IF' these things are true.
I don't KNOW they are, and it's okay. It doesn't matter.
It just seems adherence to certain unspoken principles, except for in the cases of mentally deranged people, are common. It's not a 'religion,' just the way things are.
In my opinion.

@RiverRick Atheism is NOT a belief system It is a lack of belief. In fact I do not believe we need a term for 'lack of belief in a god". I'm not a member of a group......it is the absence of a group. Just because you're not a member of the boy scouts doesn't give you the label "non-boyscout". ANd @Storm1752 Everyone has opinions but they don't all carry the same weight. if you have done some research and found supporting evidence for karma or reincarnation I'd love to see it. (hmmm now he is going to think I'm patronising.....Not my intent). I'm a hopeless skeptic and need convincing evidence.

@MsDemeanour It always surprises me that at a time we have the internet on our phones some make statements without bothering to tap out R-E-I-N-C-A,-R-N-A-T-I-O-N and see for themselves the myriad documented cases.
Like a Thailand boy who was shot, purportedly as a teacher in his immediately preceding life, while riding his bicycle to school. He knew his prior name, BuaKai, the name of his village, his parents and wife (who confirmed the shooting and death), and was found to have birthmarks corresponding to both the entrance and exit wounds as described on the medical document obtained from the medical examiner.
This is typical, and ust one of HUNDREDS of cases studied by ONE research lab headed by Dr. Ian Stevenson, University of Virginia, and his successor, Dr. Jim Tucker.
For example, three children studied had a 92% rate of correct statements about their past lives. And these are merely examples. Dr. Stevenson personally examined 2500 CASES. Usually the children's memories persisted from age 3 to age 6, or so, then faded.
This kind or evidence won't satisfy people who insist on not accepting it for whatever reason, but anyone with an open mind would AT LEAST admit it is highly suggestive, if not compelling.
But if you are content to dismiss it all as hoaxes (like so many do with crop circles and other phenomena), and can't even be bothered to invest 10 minutes of your time to pick up your phone and LOOK, then why should I sit here tapping it out FOR you? Your mind's made up and closed as a steel drum.
For more open-minded people, this does NOT have anything to do with 'god' as popularly defined. No god required. What IS the cause? That's open to speculation. Maybe purely physical processes which may one day be detected and pinpointed.
If you don't look, however, you won't find.
Just stop saying there's NO evidence of any kind. It just isn't true

@Storm1752 you're contradicting yourself. If there is a natural law of reward/punishment it very much matters - thats what religious arguments are all about when you boil all the crap away from the debate(s) they have. It's quite literally what all the bruh hah hah is about.

You can choose to believe anything you want, but the label you give yourself as a non believer is meaningless as anything but a purely academic function. Calling yourself an athiest or an agnostic will not change how you live your life one teeny tiny bit - there is nothing required in living as an athiest vrs living as an agnostic. We're you an athiest you'd just have different justifications for being a good person and still live your life the same way.

The debate about athiesm vrs agnosticism is as meaningless as the debate amongst xtian sects about leavened or unleavened bread for communion. The same rites are performed and the same end goal is desired, it just gives them an excuse to go after one another for being "wrong" about a useless distinction.

@Storm1752 What you choose to believe or not is your belief system... You can label it anyway that you want. And, unlike you, I am not here to say you are right or wrong for doing so. Perhaps for you we can call it a disbelief system. There ya go!

@1of5 Are you saying that's one of the bonus perks of atheism? No accountability? No hell, for sure, but NO reason whatsoever to behave ethically (except we're super nice folks)? No telling. Matter of opinion, I guess. It just doesn't seem 'right' to me.
But I do disagree how you view reality has nothing to do with how you live your life. I think it matters, whether in this life or the next (if there is one).
No, there's a HUGE difference between Agnosticism and Atheism, whether you think so or not. Seems like a lot of other people here think so, too.
I get tired of reiterating it, and I won't here and now. Doesn't seem to penetrate your belief system matrix anyway.
But I will, update and refine my points and arguments as I go.. Why, if it doesn't matter? Because

1. It DOES matter to me,
2. It helps me, I feel, get closer to 'my' truth.
3. It's fun.

@RiverRick You nailed it.

@Storm1752 Anecdotes are not evidence, no matter how many cases you present. There are 2.5 billion Christians who say they talk to Jesus, but that doesn't make it true. When the evidence for even a soul or spirit has been found we can talk reincarnation. I remember reading about repressed memory therapy and how that came about. And yes it was accepted as a legitimate therapy. Research had been extensive but they were wrong and many lives were ruined. It was our old friend Confirmation Bias that skewed the results. I suspect the same thing has happened in the reincarnation cases. We are all susceptible to confirmation bias and usually, it works well for us but we need to have an awareness of how our brains work this way and remain vigilant. I am sorry you see me as 'closed minded'. I require the same stringent evidence from flat earthers and those who have been taken by aliens.

@MsDemeanour These are not anecdotes. These scientists personally investigated many of these cases.
Look, if you want to have an airtight brain and not even bother to look into it, and start talking about deluded people talking to Jesus, be my guest.
But you as a result are simply casting stones from afar based on preconceptions with which you are comfortable, because they conform to your BELIEF SYSTEM, and not because you are informed on the matter at all.

@Storm1752 They why isn't reincarnation taught in science class?

I don't know. Maybe because there is a cultural/religious bias? I think it probably is in some curriculums, but I've never thought of it before.
Of course that's beside the point, but I think I'll tap-tap-tap with my fingers and see if it is. The scientists I mentioned are at the University of Virginia, so they must teach. There probably are many others.

@Storm1752 what? No eternal or post death accountability, just the accountability society demands and is able to extract, which varies from individual to individual.

There are lots and lots of reasons to behave ethically without bringing in magical thinking. If you want to rely on magical thinking have at it, but don't try and sell that to me.

Many things don't seem 'right' to me either but that doesnt change what they are or that what I think should be is how they actually are. That's wishful thinking.

But I do disagree how you view reality has nothing to do with how you live your life. I never said that. I said that choosing between the labels athiest or agnostic doesnt change how you live your life.

You can choose to argue there's marked differances and i can choose to argue that the differances are inconsequential and absured. It really is arguing about the best way not to believe, which IMO misses the whole point - neither one believes. It's a wedge issue.

@1of5 Not magical thinking. Since I'm not psychologically and emotionally invested in a BELIEF SYSTEM which demands I think a particular way, prove my case, and defend it at all costs, I'm free to express any point of view I wish. In fact, tomorrow I could be Ignostic, Pantheist, Neo-Deist or, about Abrahamic gods, even atheistic.
So try to SELL you anything? No. Usually I'm lashing out angrily at atheists for misrepresenting my agnostic opinions and insisting everything be judged in atheistic terms.
You see, I don't BELIEVE IN anything and/or BELIEVE anything. It's ALL a matter of opinion. It's not that I DON'T believe in God. THAT'S THE DIFFERENCE! I DON'T BELIEVE OR NOT BELIEVE!
I'm perfectly happy discussing or arguing with or against theists or atheists.
My best conversations are with fellow Agnostics, though, because sometimes I get high like I used on LSD in the old days, it can get intricate and complicated and it can be great.
Not so much with atheists. It all turns into purple dragons in the garage or fairy cities in the clouds, ad absurdium, and it's just a frustrating bore.
But I persist because I just can't get over the stubborn bullishness and arrogant boorishness and just unengaged hardheadedness often on display.
Not always. I think 'agnostic atheists' (really more agnostic at heart I think) CAN be very interesting, because if 'god' is not at the center of the topic, they're willing to at least discuss speculation about peripheral things.
Anyway, please believe me I don't care what you think. I just care about what you think about what Agnosticism is, and it isn't--I repeat ISN'T!--about just a different way to not believe in 'god.'
Religion, yes, you have an ally there!
I believe I'll ALWAYS have an open mind about 'god' because it'll always be impossible to know one way or the other. I freely acknowledge there may be no such thing as 'god,' but after that acknowledgement, what is there to talk about. If you have something, I'm all ears.
For instance, how DO you solve the lack of reward-punishment dilemma? I've been thinking about that again lately...why do you feel guilty if you do the 'wrong thing,' as dictated by your own conscience? And isn't that a 'punishment?' And why is that guilt so hard to shake? It shouldn't matter, you'd think...(I sometimes speculate-- reincarnation is not 'off the table' for me--
punishment extends to 'karma' in subsequent lives, but that's irrelevant to this more narrow focus) but it does, doesn't it? It matters a lot. It comes out of our 'consciousness' and the mystery is where it comes from. And it isn't so easy to commit crimes, even one easily commissioned, executed, and of great personal benefit.
I think arguments themselves can be learned from if approached with the right attitude.

@Storm1752 Atheists - no belief in any god or gods.
I am with that. ...but we are flexible about everything and anything else and have our own mind about other topics etc .
See my first post on the site when I came on in April last year: ...and no-one gave comments/responded.

@Storm1752 I don't attack people for being agnostic. Or for being deist, actually. It's what one does with their convictions or lack thereof that concerns me. I don't believe there is no god, in the sense of moral conviction. It's a simple fact acknowledged as one acknowledges that I get up in the morning and make the first pot of coffee.

@TimeOutForMe Thanks. When people dismiss ALL of it because they think it's an admission of SOME kind of 'god,' I partially agree because while I'm an 'atheist' when it comes to the 'god' most of us were brought up with, the door for me is wide open when it comes to either an impersonal 'god' which probably doesn't include a separate entity. What I mean by that I have no idea.
A new label is 'Ignostic,' which means someone who thinks the whole concept is so beyond human comprehension it can't be and/or isn't worth talking about. I usually don't go that far, because I've read about reincarnation, which seems real, though does that mean there's a 'god?' Or psychism, which through reading about Edgar Cayce and other convincingly genuine clairvoyants seem to point to SOMETHING beyond our five senses which give one reason the think it could be called 'god.' We STILL don't know what that is, of course.
So I don't know how anyone, frankly, could be 100% atheist. About the biblical guy, fine, no sale, but my theory is we will one day KNOW exactly the nature of energy and matter, and if there is (as I think) a "collective unconscious," and how people like Cayce accessed the information they did (and presumably do), and how some children apparently remember past lives, etc.
About aliens, I watch all the Ancient Aliens programs, and c'mon, there's a LOT there that just can't be explained away, and there are regularly sightings by extremely believable witnesses like military pilots and law enforcement and many others, and some pretty amazing video. MY only questions are CAN they travel here from there (lots of theories) and IS it possible we are the only inhabitable planet in the universe (unlikely but possible). Otherwise I'm pretty convinced we have been and even are now being visited.
Anyway, I wish these obnoxiously 'no way, no how' atheists would lighten up and admit they DON'T KNOW and it's okay.

@CharlesTurner WHAT is a 'simple fact?' That there's no god?
I don't acknowledge it. So what is a 'fact' for you is not one for me. It's not a 'non-fact,' or a falsity, either. It's neither.
To me, it's open to conjecture and must necessarily be so. That you are so certain it's a 'fact' amazes me.
Yet there it is.
It's as big of a mystery you think that way as it is a mystery the subject matter ('god' itself.

@Storm1752 It's your right to see it that way. To me it's the sort of fact one lives with unselfconsciously, like being and going about the daily routine. I rarely think about it, except on the internet.

@Storm1752 The funny fact about when I was hindu, I didn't buy into that reincarnation thing. As I got older, long after I shrugged off all types of religion and gods, I would say around my late 20s, I started reading about reincarnation. The other funny thing it was happening to "white" kids and it wasn't part of "their" walk as I thought it only came to those who believed in it. I read soooo many children's experiences, parents who couldn't understand it, but eventually had to believe it had some truth and just couldn't dismiss it. ...and like you say, after these kids remember, name places, family members, where they lived etc by the time they're 6 yo they tend to get on with their new life. We simply cannot dismiss someone else's life's experience as untruth just because it wasn't your experience. I try to live my life with a conscience so that I don't have to walk forward looking over my shoulder. There are other events I would like to mention but I'd rather not as it would seem very very weird, even though I'm very sane, have always been sane, others may find it challenging.

@TimeOutForMe Now I'm curious...send me a message!

@Storm1752 I will do so

Good one!

I will take a look in time. Thanks.

Nice to know there are some pinko commie scum on the west side in your area. With CWU here in town there is some diversity but the most of the folks are right leaning and religious. I am the heathen. hahahahaha

Pleased to meet you.

It often takes time to figure out what we are. In the end, our decision in my view is recognition of what we truly were all along.

@CharlesTurner our long journey of self discovery ......I alwsys knew I would be a good lover and parent my 2nd GENERATION Atheist childten but 63 years an Atheist I did not expect to be finger typing on a phone in quarantine yet I always knew Atheism would triumph over McCarthyism ever since I rejected my family racism against my Black kindergarten teacher.....you remember Korea like I remember Vietnam ????????

@larry68feminist i was too young to follow the korean war, except to pick up on a few headlines, such as macarthur's departure. I served in the navy during the cuban missile crisis. - pardon my typing mistakes. I have a new keyboard.

@CharlesTurner you were ships company ? Personnelman Seaman Apprentice Larry at your service sailor.....What did you do in JFK s Navy ? I remember many of the old rates .....or were you a officer promoted out of boot camp to OCS ?

Only you can truly know you.

Can't you try to know others?

@PabloNeruda I don't know, boss.

Not sure what your post refers to.

@CharlesTurner I checked in to see what agnostics are up to these days.

Where were they and what are they up too?

I haven't examined the site features as yet.

@CharlesTurner lots of music art humor comraderie called community and maybe a mate for life as this was advertised as a dating site 3 years ago ....some happily married couples and satisfied safe dating have seen some movies had a beer or tea or pizza and a kiss goodnight

I used to express the same sentiment. But after all these years have come to believe that one ultimately accepts the premise according to one's nature. I may disagree with agnostics and deists, but am accepting of their beliefs as genuine. So we have to take each on an individual basis.

@CharlesTurner Participation is not compulsory, everyone is entitled to play or sit out on the sidelines, watch from the stands or go do something else.

I almost wrote a reply earlier but paused to make coffee and prepare a nice breakfast for the wife and me. In my own experience, atheists are lower than a gopher's butt to most. I rarely mention the topic in personal encounters and then only when pushed. My wife is a deist. She no longer goes to church and even smiles at jokes aimed at the ministers, but she did her best to keep me from reading Satanic Verses (which bored me enough I gave it up). She was visibly shocked when Sheldon on the TV series said, "I don't believe in god." But she and I have never argued our beliefs in over 40 years of marriage. I once nearly married a woman at age 20, but she insisted I would go to church every week, like it or not. It was ten years later that I proposed to my first wife. Her mother tried to argue her out of marrying an atheist. Six years later when we broke up, she threw my atheism at me as part of the cause. Then she joined the Jehovah's Witnesses.

I only see spots of acceptance, much of it given grudgingly. Of course, I live in Texas and that fact says a lot.

@CharlesTurner Feeling younger, and in Oregon, I bucked the system.. Allowed to be an Atheist, it definitely lessened the pool of prospective mates. It also worked as a filter, avoiding many potential mistakes.

Did 30 years of marriage, if one ‘living in sin.’ Worked for the most part, religion was never an issue. Raising our daughters went well in that respect, too. However, I was second generation Atheist, at least. My wife was first.. And, as exhibited around here, I developed a militancy due to a lifetime of lesser-than-honorable treatment within our US society..

Met one, and corresponded with all three of America’s First Family of Atheism … corresponding with Robin ..to the end ..to get them out of Texas, if Austin. Following their lead, and passing it on, I’ve learned two lessons: Humans are deadly, and Politics counts. With that, I do what I can