" Negative atheism , also called weak atheism and soft atheism , is any type of atheism where a person does not believe in the existence of any deities but does not necessarily explicitly assert that there are none. Positive atheism , also called strong atheism and hard atheism , is the form of atheism that additionally asserts that no deities exist." – Wikipedia
I think most people would find this distinction easier to understand.
Where does? I see no evidence for dieties, the supernatural, or anything of the sort, but it would be just as foolish of me to say that there is no way any of that is impossible.
I’ve always considered myself apathetic agnostic
quoting from wiki
Which I think is the right view
Course it might just be easier to say I am an atheist depending who I am talking to
But after watching the Satanist documentary I more align with them than most
“God” doesn’t know suffering. Suffering requires you to want things to be different than they are, and “god” is all accepting.
This is a cop out though that sounds open minded but is just not justifiable based on everything we know about the world.
There is a much reason to leave open the possibility of god as there is leprechauns and nobody would sound open minded saying they don’t believe in leprechauns but can’t totally rule it out.
I’m an atheist.
But what if this is all a simulation.
That’s a “higher power” right?
I like the sentiment in general but some things should not be accepted, like childhood leukemia and the Holocaust. I want those to be different and any loving God would too.
Read the Bible. God is only about suffering. He is the original sadist.
You can accept reality as it is, and work for change. Acceptance doesn’t mean not taking action. Wishing the past to be different is madness.
The idea of a separate, conscious god watching and judging us, of course that is nonsense. None of the world’s religions point to the truths they once did–they’ve all been hijacked and abused for personal interests.
Religion is a topic in and of itself and not one I’m interested in.
Hard atheism is an impossible position to hold as proving a negative is an impossible burden to meet.
Like Penn says
I’m a big fan of 2 Kings 2:23-24
23 Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!” 24 When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number
instead read Paradise Lost, and i dare you to not start rooting for the devil character. much more interesting than god.
What “truths?” Most modern religions have dropped at least a few of their more embarrassing truth claims about the natural world. Many/most have modified or at least now downplay their more reprehensible moral stances.
The shittiness of religions is a separate topic from “atheism,” which to me is really a question about the nature of the universe.
Some good news for once:
And here’s Brian Leiter’s summary and a little commentary:
Hope for America? Younger people are abandoning religion
The key facts (you can skip the author’s “analysis,” which obviously reflects his bias):
“Since 1988, the General Social Survey has been asking Americans of different ages what they believe about God. For decades, the answer did not change much. Around 70 percent of members of the Silent Generation said that they “know God really exists” and “have no doubts about it.” That same sentiment was shared by about 63 percent of baby boomers and Generation Xers.”
“But in 2018, millennials expressed a lot less certainty. Only 44 percent had no doubts about the existence of God. Even more doubtful were members of Generation Z — just one-third claimed certain belief in God.”
Today, scholars are finding that by almost any metric they use to measure religiosity, younger generations are much more secular than their parents or grandparents. In responses to survey questions, over 40 percent of the youngest Americans claim no religious affiliation, and just a quarter say they attend religious services weekly or more.
It’s striking that so many could be “certain” about something that is certainly false, but what’s heartening is the trend line. Since religiosity has been strongly associated with almost all the retrogressive tendencies in American society (not all the religious are reactionary, of course, but almost all the reactionaries are religious), this is a hopeful sign, notwithstanding all the ominous ones.
I get how this is good news, but I feel we are coming upon it too late. By the time we get out of the regressive dolldrums of rule by evangelical, the country and the (physical) world will be too far gone for the non-religious to do anything about it.
A severely autistic kid was lost in the bush for three days here and was eventually spotted and rescued. His mother credited his survival to the Virgin Mary and said Our Lady of the Immaculate Heart was clearly visible in the police helicopter footage. See for yourself:
Just wanted to post this as it has to take the cake for the worst alleged divine apparition of all time.
I can see Waheguru and two Ganapatis but no heart. Is this some kind of seeing eye puzzle?
