To Baftan:
The agnostic says that he does not know if God exists or not.
You obviously got carried away; I did not say or claim anything about agnostics or agnosticism. Find whoever made these claims not Baftan...
The atheist does not have this doubt. He states that God does not exist.
It is possible to deconstruct this sentence on many different levels; from the point that there is no one type of atheist, from the point that if one doesn't have doubt how can s/he started to question the existence of God and became an atheist in the first place -obviously I am talking about those who became atheist later on-; but I will not do that since I realise you have someone else in your mind when you were writing this down, not Baftan...
Those are the facts. It is really of no consequence whether or not you want to say the atheist holds a "belief" or not.
"Facts" are things like world rotates around the sun, plants use photosynthesis, or living organisms have DNA. Stupid human ideologies have nothing to do with "facts", it's about social constructions, politics, imaginations, lies, more lies, emotions, and similar type of other shit. Plus, I did not claim that atheists have a "belief" that God does not exist. Quite the opposite: I brought all these dictionary definitions in order to show that only some perspectives (such as Oxford dictionary) do claim that atheism is a belief system. But you obviously didn't accuse me with that, you had someone else in your mental agenda, not Baftan...
Some dictionaries may use the word "belief" when describing the atheist’s POV and other may not. So what?
So what? So what you say, eh? For your information, dictionaries are sort of "battle grounds" of language; the name, fame, status of dictionaries become decisive reference points for many when it comes to social or linguistic discussions. As I stated in my example, Oxford dictionary definition of Atheism may become an important reference point for some people to claim that atheism is a "belief". The only thing you can do is either to go through some complicated linguistic and etymological -maybe some philosophical- scrunity in order to prove otherwise, or find some other definitions that clearly contradicts the original definition. I followed the second way as I found it more practical. My point was to prove that atheism is not necessarily a belief system.
There is a very definite difference between these two positions and it has nothing to do with courage. It has to do with doubt or not. It is false to assume the agnostic is just a cowardly atheist.*
It is or it is not false to assume that the agnostic is just a cowardly atheist, I don't care, because I did not claim this, somebody else did -I know who but it's your duty to find out, and it's not my duty to point others in our discussion-. But no, you didn't care less to control who wrote what, instead you chose Baftan as a target in order to vomit your problems. I am not taking this, learn how to read first before you start to list your claims about anything. If you can not see a simple thing like who wrote what, how can you expect credibility for your ideas on atheism, agnosticism or anything else for that matter?
In most cases, mine certainly, the agnostic is just more cautious about making claims he cannot defend with evidence. If forced to bet, I would go with atheist POV as in general I tend not to accept the existence of things for which I know of no evidence.
You see, since you have been such a careless reader, I don't give a toss about your "agnostic case"...
For example, I tend to think unicorns do not exist, but it is quite possible that on some distant planet in this vast universe unicorns are currently pulling plows for some farmer. It is nearly impossible outside of math, to prove the non-existence of anything (unicorns or God) so I am an agnostic.
I was not going to say anything about your nonsense again since I assume that you had someone else in your mind while you were addressing Baftan. Yet again, in this paragraph you exceeded the limits of your own incapability and started to give completely wrong logic on things. Let's decode it:
-You say "I tend to think unicorns do not exist, but it is quite possible that on some distant planet in this vast universe unicorns are currently pulling plows for some farmer". Maybe this is the core reason why you are an agnostic. "Whether or not unicorns do exist" discussion is about this planet since we can only prove that life exist on this planet, in this existence, within this environment. If you start to "assume" things, you can easily assume a Godlike creatures in other planets too, why not? Since it is an "assumption" and "imagination", the sky is the limit, isn't it? What can stop you? Simply nothing. That's why discussing the existence and/or non-existence of unicorn(s) are one thing; assuming gods, unicorns, or any other thing is another thing.
-You say "It is nearly impossible outside of math, to prove the non-existence of anything (unicorns or God) so I am an agnostic." What does that mean? Honestly, repeat what you just said and ask yourself "what do I know about maths, and what did I try to say?" Math is a method of thinking and it can prove non-existence (like zero) as much as infinity. Because it is math, a human way of thinking. We know that math proving the non-existence does make any sense whatsoever when it comes to "facts". You must have realised this bit so you can claim that "math can prove non-existence", fair enough... But how on earth you can claim that other methods can not provide a way of thinking, a method, a discourse in terms of proving non-existence? If math can do that, others can do too, it's just matter of who is believing in it, that's all. If one does not understand math, the concept of non-existence (let's say "zero") will not make any sense for this math-ignorant person. If one does not understand the story format of archaic divine stories, the concept of God or unicorns will not make any sense for this divine-ignorant person. So would you believe in non-existence if maths prove it? That's the question...
The older I get, the less I know for sure. Long ago, when I was 20, I knew a lot.
Take this as a compliment or some other way you wish -depending on your agnostic perspective-, but I assume that you haven't changed a bit...
