Ok, before we move on...

Not having a belief in god is different than asserting that there is no god. That's as clear as I can make it - i think. (the other language being used was not getting to and changing the root of your misunderstanding - maybe this will)

Or maybe you get it already and it just seems like there should be more there to you. Idk.

I realize it's really odd that this has gone on so long with hardly any points revolving around it. But . . . it's a necessary distinction to make if one is going to understand the different considerations they have to make when it comes to the question of god.

I mean like, all powerful; not unable to do anything. Mega. So, yes, I think.

From what I understand, an Ignostic thinks that there is not a good (or is unsure of the) definition of the word "God." They cannot say whether they believe in one or whether God exists unless a better definition of "God" is made.

If this were true then agnostics and atheists would be the same thing, however, atheists believe that God does not exist, not simply that there is no way to tell whether he does or not, they have faith that he is nonexistent, and it is faith because there is no way to prove it to be true or false. As I said in the post you deleted, you have faith that someone else's faith is wrongly placed.

I keep telling you Atheism has no faith involved if there was then it is not Atheism. If there is faith that there is no god then this is beyond atheism.
An atheist is someone who must be presented the concept of god or gods then will say if it is an acceptable concept. Atheism is not saying necessarily saying a higher power does not exist, just that they personally have not found an acceptable concept.
An agnostic is just someone who cannot decide if there is a higher power or not, treat agnosticism as a form of skepticism. Whereas an atheist has not found an acceptable concept.

Atheism means "without God" at its roots, it does NOT mean "without faith" faith is simply a belief in something which you have no physical proof of, I think you're associating the word faith with God way too much, which is certainly not its correct definition.

You do not need faith to be "without god". You just have not found a higher power. (ever?!?!? yet!?!?) In its modern definition it is incorrect to associate faith with atheism.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 19 2010, 5:00 am by MasterJohnny.

In its modern definition, Atheists believe in Evolution, a theory that requires faith.

A theory in science means most acceptable explanation back up by logic. It does not require faith to understand evolution.
knowing evolution has nothing to do with evolution. Evolution is not even a requirement to be atheist. (what does this have to do with atheists?)
an ATHEIST can still have faith in things like you can be a christian atheist. (evolution does not require faith)
ATHEISM is a concept that DOES NOT use faith.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 19 2010, 5:14 am by MasterJohnny.

Atheists are not required to believe in any scientific theories. They are also not required to believe in folklore. The point of being an Atheist is to not have to exert faith of any kind because you find it unlikely that a God exists.

For example:

Person A, "Hey man, do you believe in any gods?"
Person B, "Nope."

Person B does not use any faith, and it's possible that they are an atheist because they do not believe in any gods.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/faith

There are multiple definitions for the word faith. Some of which do not apply to Atheism, some of which do. One that does, is #4:

"belief in anything"

Atheism, unlike Agnosticism, is both a lack of belief in the existence of a higher power, and the belief in the non-existence thereof (disbelief).

Unless you ignore certain definitions for the word faith, Atheism absolutely does involve faith.

But of course, Atheism doesn't necessarily involve other definitions, like "a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith"

Falkoner is correct, even though he isn't really displaying his thoughts in a way that is easily accepted. Theories require a certain amount of belief (e.g., the fourth definition of faith in my provided link). This is by definition. A theory is a conjecture, an idea, and is backed by physical or empirical evidence, and is usually widely accepted as truth, or as close to truth as possible for the subject being theorized. Once a theory becomes a law, then it is more safe to say that it requires no faith (fourth definition). Laws are by definition different than theories, and aren't supposed to have a certain degree of uncertainty.

One step below a theory, would be a philosophy. A philosophy can be very similar to a theory, but lacks means of being tested.

1. You're wrong, but i'm not going to argue with you because you don't listen. At all. But i wanted to respond because:
2. The post I deleted of yours was not put that way.

Please stop trolling. You have been warned. This includes continuing to give unsupported claims like 'all atheists believe in evolution' without providing an argument. I don't care if this is null or not, trolling is trolling. And if it was SD there's a good chance all of your posts in this entire topic would be deleted. Luckily it's not.

Uhm I kinda think he is right (about his argument relevant to topic). See above post of mine?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 19 2010, 6:26 am by Cervantes. Reason: Added in parantheticals =]

Falkoner's responses seem generally to be the group of people who are arguing that atheism refers to a lack of specific religious belief. By that definition of "atheism", no belief is necessarily involved in any way.
If Falkoner wants to argue that "atheism" is the belief that religions specifically are false, then the debate should be on which definition of the word is more valid.
At least so far as I can tell (and he has not, that I recall, denied this when someone else mentioned it), Falkoner is attempting to accuse evolutionism and thence atheism of being on the same logical grounds as religion in that they both supposedly require faith; while true by the definition of faith which you gave, it is irrelevant as this is not the faith for which religion is criticized by atheists. His point is null.
So... did you just forget that I already responded to this point, you responded to that, and I had to respond again?

edit: Yeah, at this point it seems almost beyond credibility to believe that Falkoner isn't just trolling.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 19 2010, 7:08 am by EzDay281.

I think you should use a real dictionary.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith

If you believe that atheism does involve faith, what is the word in which there is a lack of belief in a higher power and does not involve faith. Falk is absolutely incorrect because we define atheism in its modern concept, without faith.
Atheism is not blindly believing there is no higher power. It is seeing a concept of higher power, then considering if it is possible. If you deem it not possible then you do not believe in that until you find one you do deem possible. Thus becoming theist. (or not?)

Maybe I'm assuming too much about who is having these beliefs, but I'm pretty sure I understand the difference now.

However, if we're talking about normal people like you and I, who understand the situation of God, then if we do not have a belief in God, we do have a belief in no God, since we understand that there either must be or must not be a God. If someone is uncertain as to whether or not God exists, I would classify that as completely separate because they don't really believe one way or the other, and to stop the mix up between when an atheist says "I don't believe in God" which means "I believe God does not exist" and when the uncertain person says "I don't believe in God" which means "I'm not certain enough about the situation to have a belief at all"

Yes, it most certainly is. See the definitions referenced on the previous page from multiple sources.
Agnosticism is the belief that mankind is incapable of knowing whether a higher power exists. It's much stronger than a simple uncertainty as to whether or not he/she thinks God exists.
And since you don't like dictionary.com for some reason:
In colloquial use "agnostic" may be what you said, someone who just can't decide, but in a debate such as this we should probably make a distinction between the two classes of positions "agnostic" and "uncertain" to prevent semantic discrepancies.

Secondly, an atheist may or may not have faith. There's nothing in the definitions that says an atheist must or must not have faith. However, it is important to make the distinction between religious faith, the strong acceptance of material without regard to probable reason, versus probabilistic faith, the acceptance of material which is supported by reasoning of some sort. In a religion, we are told to believe in God. A person of probabilitic faith may refuse to believe in God because he thinks it's unlikely God exists, but he may accept the big bang theory on faith because it correlates with his observations of the universe. While both are forms of faith, the difference is that religious faith assumes true, while probabilistic faith assumes false until probable evidence is presented. What they share is the fact that both believe in an unproven claim, despite the fact its unproven. They differ only in the likelihood of being true. As to which position is better? If we had the probability distribution of the universe we might be able to say, but until we find that, either method may result in a greater chance of successes, where we define a success to be the number of beliefs which turn out to be true. Kinda like sometimes when you play Street Fighter or Tekken and you smash buttons against a really good player and kick his ass. We'd need the cosmic "button smashing vs. good player" binomial distribution to say for sure.

Also why don't you like Dictionary.com? It's just as good as any other dictionary.

Thanks, Dapperdan. Hopefully your explanation cleared the air.

This video makes some excellent points (nothing hateful) and touches on what we've been debating: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4hVc8YGZlE

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The terms agnostic and atheist are not mutually exclusive. Agnostism has to do with knowledge, atheism has to do belief. A- meaning without, gnostism meaning knowledge. If you're atheist, you don't believe gods exists; if you're agnostic then you don't know if gods exist. You could be an agnostic atheist, meaning you both don't believe and don't know. Alternatively, you could be a gnostic atheist, meaning you don't believe in any gods and know they don't exist. You could also be an agnostic theist or a gnostic theist. Watch the video I linked to above, they cover this.

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If atheism is a religion, just what isn't? I'm thinking both you and Falkoner will need to define what a religion is in order for your arguments to make any sense.

Let's see how this works if I apply your logic to other areas: If I don't belong to a political party, I'm in a political party? Moreover, if I don't have any political beliefs, I have political beliefs?

Atheism contains one issue people agree on, not a system of beliefs. It does not constitute a religion. This video covers the topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=200qAsgpfwU "Bald is not a hair color."

No! See definitions of weak atheism.

Because it was a recommendation from some English professors to not use stuff like dictionary.com because it is not a direct source thus prone to mistakes and overall not credible as Webster.

The discussion is not about atheist who are still people which can still have faith even though they are atheists. It is about the concept of atheism which does not require faith.

I mostly agree with what Vrael was saying and pretty completely with what Hercanic has said above...

But i did want to add that dictionary.com is definitely not up to par with merriam webster. Amd even better than merrian webster i would have to say is the oed. My english professor last semester thinks oed is the best and i see no reason that anyone who uses it would believe otherwise. Though i typically crosscheck definitions using both when i'm not perfectly clear on certain words.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_and_explicit_atheism

There is a definite difference between implicit and explicit Atheism. If you don't want to be labeled as one incorrectly, then you need to specify which you are. Saying "I am an atheist" is a pretty broad claim which encompasses both the lack of belief in a higher power, and the belief in the absence thereof, which is contradictory to what I said earlier.

Although, in simplest terms, I've always thought of an Atheist as someone who is implicit. So again, if someone says "I am an Atheist", and they are being accused of certain traits that they don't subscribe to, then they should have made a necessary distinction between weak and strong Atheism.