On Mon, 19 Jul 1999 05:47:20 GMT, malcolm at pigsty.demon.co.uk (Malcolm
McMahon) wrote:
>On Sun, 18 Jul 1999 17:21:10 -0300, "M. McLeod" <mycloud at chebucto.ns.ca>
>wrote:
>>>On Sun, 18 Jul 1999, Malcolm McMahon wrote:
>>>>> Sure, atheism is a religion. Agnosticism isn't a religion but atheism is
>>> a positive set of beliefs about the nature of the universe which fits
>>> any sensible definition of the word.
I see its time to straighten out another agnostic.
Theism means that you have a belief in one or more gods.
Atheism means that you hold no belief in a god. It does not mean
that you disbelieve in a god.
Agnosticism means that you don't believe that its possible to
prove the existence of a god.
Therefore all humans are either theists or atheists. A subset of both
of those groups are also agnostic. You can be a theist, an agnostic
theist, an agnostic atheist or an atheist.
You have to hold a belief to be a theist or an agnostic. You don't
have to hold any particular belief to be an atheist. Therefore
the atheist is the only one of the three categories that is clearly
not a religion.
>>By your criterium agnosticism IS a religion. If you read the ng you'd
>>know
>>Which of the various newsgroups?
>>>this. Agnostics are POSITIVE that mankind can't positively know whether or
>>not there is a god nor how the universe was created nor any of the other
>>things you know-it-alls go on about.
>>MM
>>Hmmm.. positive about not knowing. Is that a faith, I wonder?
True.
Michael Stanley
Atheist at large
To email me, remove the Z's from my
email address. I put them there to
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