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Originally Posted by Vinterland  You will have to clarify by what you mean by atheist.
It seems that you contend that an atheist must be sure that there is no God. |
Atheism is not believing in any deity. The assumption that there is nothing except matter in the Universe.
If I don't smoke cigarettes, it does not mean that I smoke the absence of cigarettes.
The same way - If I don't believe in God, it does not mean that I believe that God does not exist.
The absence of God is just a necessity to be rational. One cannot prove anything without having taken this premise. Because if God exists, any miricle is possible and you can be sure in absolutely nothing, you even cannot be sure that Newton's Law works right now as ever, because you cannot garantee, that God has not changed the law right in this moment.
Atheism is just a necessity to be rational, that's why science has to be atheistic. But science is not religion. The same way atheism is not also.
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Originally Posted by Vinterland EVERY agnostic, if not an atheist, is a theist; it's one or the other. |
Yes, I know it. But what does it mean? Can I find an agnostic Christian, for example?
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Originally Posted by Vinterland As for comparing God to fairies and whatnot, the question of God is much more implicative, granted importance alone does not measure how true something is. I think if anyone puts God in the same level as leprechauns and Santa, then they are question begging by assuming none of those exist. |
So what's the difference between God and leprechauns? Why is God better to exist than leprechauns? I can see no difference between them. Both are the product of imagination.
By the way Santa Claus is a Christian saint, so he is as real as God for Christians.