Re: Physics and metaphysics

From: Atheistagnostic (atheistagnostic_at_nospam.net)
Date: 03/07/05 

Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 14:06:49 -0800

jientho@aol.com wrote:
> Zachriel wrote:
>
>>"Atheistagnostic" <atheistagnostic@nospam.net> wrote in message
>>news:54WdnYybqbTMZrTfRVn-vA@comcast.com...
>><snipped>
>>
>>I admit to not having followed the whole discussion, but this caught
>
> my eye.
>
> It's a Red Herring

No it isn't. See
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/11859ccee5ad099c

You insist you are "defending against" something. You are not, you are a
proponent of God. Evidence: Your lame if/then argument that if there are
atheists then there might be a God.

>>>P1. Atheism is lack of belief in all gods (including God).
>>
>>That is a common and acceptable definition.
>>
>>
>>
>>>P2. Assertions with equal amounts of empirical evidence must be
>>> treated equally as regards their truth.
>>
>>Empiricism and "truth" are not actually comparable in this manner.
>
>
> I tend to agree; there are alt.atheists who actually equate the two,
> however, thus my use of this premise. (One purpose of a Reductio ad
> Absurdum argument like this one is to force a re-examination of
> premises.)

You need to force yourself to re-examine your lame premise that atheism is an
assertion. It is not an assertion at all, "Atheism is characterized by an
absence of belief in the existence of gods." --
http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/intro.html

Atheist agnostics go beyond absence of belief in the existence of gods to
unabashedly deny and repudiate, on principle, religious belief in the existence
of gods:

"That which Agnostics deny and repudiate, as immoral, is the contrary doctrine,
that there are propositions which men ought to believe, without logically
satisfactory evidence." -- Thomas Huxley, who coined the term 'agnostic', in
his excoriation of the Christian Belief, "Agnosticism and Christianity"
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE5/Agn-X.html

"The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence."
-- Thomas Huxley, Evolution and Ethics

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