And the Zen master said "we'll see."

You give credit to the existance of something that doesn't exist.

Atheisum doesn't exist. Everyone believes in something and in doing so they null the value of their own atheist order. Really when someone is telling you they are atheist.. all they are really saying is that they don't like your god or belief structure. Talk to them long enough and they will confess their belief in a higher power. They just atune to this in their own way of acceptance. Never the less... they do believe in a higher power and therefore cannot be atheist.

I've never met an atheist. Thats my proof of God. That every person acknowledges a higher power. Maybe... aliens! :-p

Well… That depends, doesn’t it? What does existence mean really? From one angle we could say that atheism does not exist because it is a belief system and belief systems only appear to live within the human mind. Can anything that can only breathe within a purely mental environment be said to properly exist? From another and equally valid angle, we could say that of course atheism exists because there are plenty of people who seem to hold that belief system as being accurate and valid.



Hmm. That hasn’t been my experience although I believe you when you say it has been yours. I have met people who said they did not believe in higher powers of any kind. I once included myself in that number as a matter of fact. When I called myself an atheist I truly did not believe there was any kind of higher power. So to paraphrase your argument, I was a sincere atheist because I did not believe in any kind of higher power, ergo I was an atheist, ergo atheism exists.

Then again, don’t take me too seriously because in the end, religion is not worth arguing about in my opinion.

Whitewolf,
Twisted logic. Your so-called "proof" is just silly. How do you know what everyone in the world thinks or doesn't think. Just because you have never met anyone who has no belief in a so-called higher power does not prove at all that there are no such people. And, even if there were no such people, that would not prove in any way that "god" exists. Every human being on Earth could believe in a higher power without such a power really existing. At one time everyone in the world believed the Earth was flat. Get it? Twisted logic.

I've never met an atheist. For a time some people do become demoralized and lose their faith. But as already confessed... they come back. Their faith in whatever rises again.

It's the way the human mind seems to work. Haters and nay sayers try to punch holes in it because they don't understand this. Let's just say that my theory has yet to be proven wrong in my application.

White Wolf,

Your last comment seems to be an overly broad conclusion. If atheism is defined as being “without belief in a god” (a=without and theism=belief in god) and that belief holds over a lifetime, then atheism can be said to “exist”. It shouldn’t be too terribly difficult to imagine that some people either never return to any kind of faith in a god or never develop that kind of faith to begin with. It isn’t helpful to define faith as a “belief in whatever”. If you look at it that way, then faith and god lose all of their meaning and in that case, authentic conversation is no longer possible. It's the ultimate in solipsism, where "external reality" no longer informs your thought processes. You can just go on declaring that atheism doesn’t exist in that case despite all of the apparent evidence to the contrary, just as some theists, like my parents for instance, declare that homosexuals don’t really exist. And that is of course your right. I’m having a hard time seeing how this perspective of declaring atheism and atheists as nonexistent helpful or accurate.

Well put. Amen!

This seems... odd? I've never believed in any sort of higher power whatsoever, none. I have no need to label myself with anything but if someone asked, i would answer that i'm an agnostic more than an atheist.

If a deity descended on earth tomorrow i would need proof that it is a supernatural being and not just tehcnologically advanced and even then i would most certainly not worship it in any shape or form. I see people that believe, in whichever invisible creature they choose, to be pathetic and weakminded. The bible holds as much meaning to me than the latest hatty potter book.

Then again, when asked: "what do you believe in then? that we all just got here by accident?!?" I answer, without shame, "i don't know, nor need to know".

Hmmm... I'm not so much as an atheist, as a person who currently doesn't know if there is really a deity or a god or not. So, I guess: agnostic. I mean: how can I know? And so on. How can I measure a deity, a god, to confirm whether it exists or not? And so on.

If energy were said to be a form of "deity", as in, a type of force that has an ability to shape the world on a certain level, then you could say that in that aspect, I would confirm that "yes, you could classify energy as a deity". But I do not know nor would I likely ever know. (If the universe and everything in it, had to be created from something in order to evolve and in order to set off reactions and processes, then how could it all have been created from nothing? Using that logic, I guess it's a paradox to me. And quite frankly, if there were any explanations for all these, these would most likely be just far-fetched theories since the scientists have just barely tapped the tip of the universe and one derives logic by observing and recording and so on.)

Though somehow, in this world, mankind might be moving towards to the trend of worshipping ourselves as deities. As an example: scientists who are in important positions of power and influence and their very words being accepted with ultimate belief by the masses and being heavily respected by most, to a point, that nears adoration and worship. Ah... oh well, my head is kinda blanking out and I'm starting to losing myself so this is as much as you're going to get for some time.

Well, as pertaining to the topic itself: well, I very much suspect that many people simply use labels because they are convenient, are trendy, are unsure of themselves, only know how to conform and so on. As to why they do so: could be because they don't want to know, are afraid of knowing, are simply unable to understand certain aspects of life, prefer to concentrate on understanding other things in life, don't see the point in knowing, and so on.

Oh and as to the ones who truly believe there are no gods or deities or supernatural and other forces around, well, good for them, though I'd also love to ask them(like I used to often ask the believers in gods, deities and so on): "How did you arrive at this belief, this form of understanding? What are the factors that you think are/were involved in this process and sub-process of realization? What would you define as a god, deity or ?" and so on.

Also, there are these 2 articles that pertain to the subject of "belief" and yah, I know they are also more suited to that other topic about belief:

http://www.livescience.com/culture/080818-monsters-ghosts-gods.html

http://www.livescience.com/culture/090701-close-minded-people.html

You say that you are "agnostic" because you don't know if there is a god or not. Yes, nobody knows that, and nobody ever can know. But are you also "agnostic" about a huge, mile-high bat that lives on the dark side of the moon, and eats rock for breakfast? Nobody knows whether or not such a thing exists, and nobody can know. Nevertheless, I am "ahugebatistic," and I see no more reason to believe in a particular god than I do to believe in the mile-high bat.
An atheist is not someone who denies that god exists. An atheist is simply a non-believer. Non belief is not denial, it is simply saying this: "Since I have no particular reason to believe, I do not believe." In other words, an atheist is just someone who finds the entire idea of "god" empty of meaning, probably imaginary, not worth discussing, and certainly not worth all the fuss and waste of time spent on it.

Oh, right. Well, I do not function in such a manner. Rather, I will only believe in something or reject it once "the various forms of logic, belief, argument, system, etc. behind it" have been proven or disproven(to a certain degree).

Alas, I see the world as a giant environment full of variable factors and so on, so I rarely believe or disbelieve in anything anymore. Instead, I accept thoughts, ideas, incidents, etc. as things that may or may not have happened and also in terms of degrees of "defining/undefined factors" and so on.

Anyways, since a god or deity can't really be proven or disproven for now, so why believe or disbelieve in it? Therefore to me, these "things" are just a "great big unknown", just one of the mysteries of the universe. I have other things to spend my time and efforts on, after all.

And yes, I'm starting to arrive at a certain train of thought that I might just be crazy.

Edit: So, if I'm not really an agnostic or atheist or even religious, then what am I?

Yes. Well, I get that completely, Dee, and certainly do not mean to suggest that there is anything "wrong" with your point of view.

My point is really more general than that. What I mean to say is that so-called "atheism" is not denial or disbelief, just lack of belief which stems from having no real reason to believe.
After all, if I don't believe that unicorns exist (which I don't) no one questions that or argues against it. My "a-unicornism" is simply accepted. Even though unicorns exist in many accounts and stories, I simply have no reason to believe in them, and no one questions that or asks me to be "agnositic" on the question. That is how I feel about so-called "god." I am not a believer, and see to reason to believe, so I am an atheist, not agnostic, by definition.

I find the illogic of self-described believers like Whitewolf to be a kind of support for atheism actually. If proving an idea means that logic must be tortured to such an extent, there must be something wrong with the idea that such a logic seeks to prove.

Anyhow, that's how I see it.