Nope the poster is a so called teacher insulting Atheists and Agnostics equating us as believers with "belief systems" ....he is full of horseshit and is begging for apologetics not epistemological responses

@Larry68Feminist I try to give people the benefit of the doubt when being asked a question ... perhaps you have more background with @APhg?

@p-nullifidian the believer is bragging about his believer students and insulting us Atheists with his false leading question....fuck him .... if I asked him why he is 99% Atheist rejecting all alleged deity claims except his own, I would be asking the converse question all believers are Atheists except for their alleged true belief....he is the problem in education NOT THE SOLUTION

@Larry68Feminist Although I do not see what you do, like you, I am solution driven, even if I appear unwilling to cast aside sincere knowledge seekers out of hand.

Unfortunately you did not read carefully or perhaps not completely.

Please read the part where I say that scientists have to believe the rules of logic are true and that they are indefinitely true. This may not be the case at all. It might be the whims of a diety.

Logic is not the same thing as empirical evidence.

So let's talk about empirical evidence.

Most empirical evidence carry one singular belief: the evidence can be confirmed because the experiment is repeatable. Obviously there are some that can only be done once due to rare or singular items. But there is an inherent belief of repeatability that is fundamental to how we look at and build our trust in empirical evidence that is seperate from simply relying on good scientists not lying to us.

Also beliefs typically have a submitted proof...it's just not the proof we are willing to accept. The bible is often submitted as the proof. Its just a proof we as secular belivers don't accept. And the religious don't accept our science books as proof even though we say it's based on empirical evidence that they can verify for themselves...because we believe empirical evidence is repeatable! (mostly)

Beliefs can be based on empirical truth, and are often neccessary to function. Many of us simply believe empirical truth is true because we trust scientists did their due diligence. But we know from smoking to drugs to nutrition to health therapies to genetics, that beliefs based empirical evidence exist.

But there is one thing that about beliefs that needs to be actively done on a regular basis: Keeping beliefs even after they have been proven wrong should be looked at as bad and is what we really need to teach.

Yes...sums it up better than I can.

@OwlInASack Curious what you have against Pinker? Though I'm not the hugest fan, it's probably simply that he's not as prolific in my main areas of interest as many others - those of religion and counter-apologetics.

@OwlInASack He does all that? Guess I'll nave to be more attentive.

Reasoning is fine by Pinker. Our conclusion is Atheism based upon zero evidence and no rational definition for theism. Alleging gawds miracles ad infinitum is pointless and delusional.

@Larry68Feminist I would refine that slightly to say poor evidence for theism, and good evidence that it's a crock of shit, with all the various indications of fraud, forgery, error, and low moral standards.

@Rossy92 zero evidence for alleged gawds is upgraded to "poor" ???

@Larry68Feminist I may not have been clear on the point I was trying to make. I was not trying to split the difference between zero and poor. I was trying to point out that there is not simply just an ABSENCE of evidence for case, but also CONSIDERABLE evidence against it. And I'm referring primarily to the Abrahamic religions, and secondarily to others. That there might possibly be some sort of deistic or pantheistic god concerns me little, for while interesting, said entity has not revealed itself nor decreed any doctrines.

@Rossy92 thank you comrade..... here with both emerging and veteran peer Atheists the believer trolls are too often kept around for some to bash..... it's pointless to try and "convert" believers to Atheism on the same page believers sneak into our pages to insult/convert us Atheists to their xian creationist BULLSHIT

I like your definition of spiritual. And even after you boil emotions down to the firing of neurochemicals and all, there is still something very mysterious about them.

Cherokee do not separate feelings from knowing observing from intuition.....we think with our fingers as well as our brains behind our eyes ears and hair... typists and pianists don't think of every note or keystroke.... language and music are as spiritual as whiskey or wine or burning incense/tobacco/rope

Probably most self identifying agnostics are atheists who don't play fast and loose with evidence in order prove a negative with blowhard-ery.

@OwlInASack Mostly but it isn't too hard to find atheists who proceed from there to distort and overstate. It isn't atheism that makes them do it. That's just a bare fact of not being persuaded. But the jump to assuming the negative by default is sloppy.

Religion = fear ..... healthy spirit living does not promote or manipulate fears like the fucked up believers do

Religion = spirituality.... belief = error .... Atheism = freedom from religion

Atheists have a disbelief. The burden of belief definition is on those who can provide the evidence for their belief.

Christians have this phrase they use a lot "to accept Jesus Christ as your savior". I know - they use the believe word too. Kinda means the same thing. To me, science is the best basis for belief. We can't really "know" anything for certain.

@skado IMO, a shining example of the highly flawed english language.

"accept" 'god' and "accept" (replicable,
verifiable, falsifiable) evidence do NOT mean the same thing !

True for religious literalists, but not for other religious practices.

@skado Fail to see how it does not apply to all religious assertions. I don't care if someone says the Bible is flawless, or says men messed things up and got god wrong... at some point when you divorce yourself from the original claims, aren't you just inventing new ones?

@TaylorWalston
Depends on whether you interpret the original claims literally or mythically. Literal God is unsupported by evidence. Metaphorical God is as undeniable today as it originally was..

@skado Either a god exists or it does not, literal or metaphorical does not get us out of the possibility of misidentifying and mischaracterizing and failing to understand an actual, were it to even exist

@TaylorWalston
Nothing does.

Take a look at anthropology.

I'm curious whether (if) there is a "mood-modifying substance" involved.

@FearlessFly I’m particularly fond of Cuervo Spirituality.

The agnostic philosophy is about knowledge not faith. Without evidence one cannot know what is true or not. There is, technically, no ism about it since an ism requires a movement. There is also no uncertainty, However, we are comfortable not knowing what can't be known Atheists refers to the position about faith in which one simply does not believe in deities.

The invention of Agnosticism by Huxley 1860 was a dodge against friends of Darwin .... evolution means change over time....how species evolve .... Atheism = Materialism..... matter can neither be created nor destroyed ..... assuming there was a beginning creates a bigger PROBLEM what existed before "creation" .... the alleged gawds jump into that PROBLEM without an answer to when alleged gawds were invented..... our Atheism is freedom FROM religion and freedom from theocracy
.....

It's strange how much disagreement there is on the definition of these two terms, but it seems pretty straight forward to me. Agnosticism deals with what can be known and atheism deals what what one believes. They are not mutually exclusive or in contrast in any way. The same is true of any religion and agnosticism. I have met two agnostic Christians (which is technically what all Christians should be).

@JeffMurray Agnostic by definition is not a word restricted to religion or god(s) people can be agnostic about anything that that lack a knowledge or understanding of I am agnostic about string theory, I understand the principles, but lack certain knowledge that it is the correct explanation for the mathematical modeling carried out since the 1950s, especially when their are equally plausible theories that explain the behaviour of matter and energy at sub microscopic levels equally well loop quantum gravity for example.
My objection is based on the use of the term as a form of "Atheism light" for want of a better term.
If there is insufficient evidence to justify belief in a deity, and the investigator is intellectually honest the only available conclusion is atheism, the premise is not proven therefore the default position is to assume it is wrong, until such time as more evidence is forthcoming, if ever.
The correct conclusion is not to say there is no evidence to justify belief, so I'll sort of believe because the premise is still out there and some day some more evidence might come along, and if it does I want to be able to say "see, told you so" and if it doesn't I want to be able to say " Let's hang on another two thousand years and see what happens"
I don't know for certain there is no god(s), but I am not agnostic about it, because if there is is why is it hiding, being completely useless and malicious, and if there is are god(s) the question still stand about why has it been such a completely malicious ass for all this time.
Either way it would seem to make no difference to my life, or anyone else's and so is theologically a useless, indecisive, compromise for the frightened closeted religious hypocrite.

@LenHazell53
Not sure where you are getting that definition from. I checked a few references and none of them claim agnosticism relates to anything but god(s).

I also object to the use of 'agnosticism' as 'atheism light' for the reasons I stated above.

If there is insufficient evidence to justify belief in a deity

This is where it gets sticky for a couple reasons.

1. You can't choose what you believe. Either your brain finds the evidence it had been given sufficient to believe a proposition or it does not.
2. Even if you don't believe number one (your brain has determined that the evidence you've uncovered, if any, is not sufficient to believe said proposition) it begs the question who determines what is sufficient evidence to believe something. Gullibility is definitely a continuum, and past experiences must obviously play a significant role in whether or not you believe what someone, anyone, or "everyone" tells you.

I'll sort of believe because the premise is still out there and some day some more evidence might come along

I know other people could possibly think these thoughts, but they make zero sense to me because I know people cannot chose what they believe. They may rationalize a belief in this manner, but it doesn't mean it's a conscious decision to believe.

because if there is is why is it hiding, being completely useless and malicious

Neither of these things mean anything to whether or not a deity exists for several reasons. 1. A god could not eliminate all suffering because that would require the elimination of everything. Humans experience suffering in contrast to other states. 2. Why couldn't a deity be mean or absent just for shits (or boredom)? If we could contemplate a scenario where humans could bestow consciousness in something we've created, we would essentially be god to it. Do you believe no human that created conscious beings would ever torture the fuck out of their creation?

@JeffMurray
Agnostic from the Greek A= without and Gnosis = Knowledge
There is no reference in the etymology of this word to gods, spirits, supernatural entities or theology.
The co-opting by Thomas Henry Huxley of the word for use a religious context was a one off, that has simply become popular in the intervening years.

After your stating that I am not going to bother reading your dissecting of the rest of my answer for obvious reasons.

@LenHazell53 Well, that's idiotic. Words and euphemisms change definitions and to be so indignant about keeping to the original use is just silly. If your child came to you and said they were gay, would you just reply, "Well, that's good, I'm happy too"? When a word becomes so popularized to define something, you don't really have a choice but to get on board, otherwise you're just that annoying guy who has to explain what he meant for two minutes every time he opens his mouth and uses an antiquated definition for a word.

And I don't believe you didn't read the rest. I think you're just shaking your fist at the euphemism treadmill because you don't have a response for the rest of my comment.