i'm so atheist that i dont believe i'm even atheist...i don't practice atheism i'm just labeled that cause i don't believe in god, jesus,santa claus or the easter bunny...oh yeah the tooth fairy or that we have souls and ghost don't exist.basically religion is BS to me

You will probably go to hell.

Yup, I agree the historical philosophical context is regarding the epistemology of the spiritual.

Now again as massagetrade has mentioned the word is used in many ways related and unrelated to its initial meaning.

I think its far more important to look at individual meanings, I however use the word as a reference to knowledge myself, or specifically the belief in what knowledge is either currently available, or attainable.


Agnostic is a wonderful word with a bucket load of meaning inside.

You could be an agnostic like JR who believes that the knowledge is unattainable for humans (and deeper for what reason).

You could be an agnostic who thinks that we just currently dont know, but eventually can know.

You could be an agnostic who just isn't sure and doesn't like to believe things that he/she isn't sure about to some arbitrary or subjective confidence level.

You could be an agnostic who just doesn't care to spend the time to think long enough to come to a conclusion one way or the other.

I call this the apathetic agnostic. I label most poeple this despite there protestations to the contrary.

"Atheist" likewise has a good bit of different meanings to different people, I however think I have the strongest case on for why I associate the meaning I give the word.

Simply put, an atheist is one who denies the existance of a Supreme Being, which has been created in the premordial times -- in an attenpt of explaining the reason for some people's wishes comming true...

As more and more people would rediscover and master that lost ability, Religion as such would become just a recallection...

An atheist does not need to 'deny' the existence of anything that does not exist. They don't even need to 'reject' it unless it is forced upon them.

They just have no reason to believe it.

But of course!!! I STAND CORRECTED! thank u...

I thought the La Vey "Satanists" were the only ones who thought that they themselves were God. I know that Atheists are people who do not believe in any God at all. I believe personally that God is all that was, is, and will be. God is also everything that isn't. I also feel that God is the light and love of universal oneness, the Heart of Bacchus, connecting all life to each other and to everything else. There is a tiny spark of divinity in each person. Me, you, everyone here, everyone not here, the living, the dead, everyone everywhen. God is all of these things, and God is most assuredly not Evil. (It was expelled pretty early on, and sort of never went back home.)

causality:

There's a much shorter definition of what your saying:
God is ... EVERYTHING!!!
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Using Richard Dawkins' scale of belief, 1 meaning you "know" there isn't a God and 7 meaning you "know" there is one, it seems most Athiests place themselves at about a 2. Sensible people would never claim to know matter-of-factly that there isn't a God, just like they wouldn't claim to know there is one. Most atheists can be classified as agnostic, not knowing either way. We just tend toward disbelief.

Jeannie, you are called an atheist most likely because you don't believe in someone else's concept of God. Simple as that.

Yes, and that concept I don't believe in is a single supreme being or deity who created the world or universe.

As far as the term "God" is concerned, It has no meaning other than that. I used to try to find a different meaning for the term "God" but I gave that struggle up. They can keep it.

To people who only acknowledge one concept of God, despite the ambiguous nature of the word, an atheist is someone with any other concept of God. Silly, really.

Yep. A Christian's opinion of my beliefs are that I am either an atheist or that I worship a false God.

This is what really irritates (or bothers) some theists (Christians.)

If you don't believe as they do and worship their (good) God, they like to consider and believe that you must be "evil." But if you are NOT "evil" and in fact you are a very loving and good person this really confuses them. They hate it when you speak to them or preach about love and forgiveness. (They think those things only belong to them and their religion.)

If they are drawn to liking you they become suspicious of you luring them into an evil trap as they have been taught that Satan practices deceit and can appear as an angel of light.

As Daniel Dennett put it (roughly), the more amiable you are, and the more convincing your arguments, the more certain they should be that they are talking to Satan.

Exactly! You know what I'm talking about.

I spent two years in the Bible Belt. Most of which time I was in a rural area. LOTS of ignorant, stupid people like that. lol.

The town I live in now (SE Colorado) is a Bible Belt. And yet there are a lot of drug use here I have heard. I lived in Dothan Alabama for a year. Seemed like there was a church on every third block if not more than that. Everyone had a permit to carry a concealed weapon and there was not a lot of crime.

I have never been able to get out . . . from one edge to the other.

Its called the temptation of sanity.

Isn't CO the location of an Air Force base where they essentially recruit "Soldiers for God"? I swear, sometimes I wish the South would secede from the Union and take the Midwest with it.