J Corbally wrote
> Most atheists I've met would not say "god doesn't exist", they
> would say they don't believe it exists. They're well aware of
> the problem of making such sweeping claims. By default, atheism
> is merely a lack of god belief. It can also be a form of
> "assertion of nonexistence", but this in my experience is much
> less common, and atheism tends to be described
> that way in order to strawman it.
Well, I'll say it flatly: God does not exist.
Would you say that Santa Claus exists? Or would you be discreetly
non-commital? After all, can you prove that Santa Claus does not
exist?
While agnostics are people who don't have a strong claim in the
matter, most are really atheists under the Santa Claus test.
They are merely unwilling to say so for some reason. They no more
believe in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy than they believe in God,
but are merely "agnostic" about the latter (for some arcane reason).
Yet they do not hesitate to express their strong belief that the
former do not exist.
The truth is, we can't prove anything. An educated 21st century
person with good judgment has to stand by the statements that
the Earth goes round the sun and God does not exist.
Lee Corbin
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:59:46 MDT