[Dragaera] agnosticism (no flame) (was, long ago: (no spoilers) The 17 [Great Weapons])

[Kenneth Gorelick]

On May 22, 2007, at 1:11 PM, Frank Mayhar wrote:

> On Tue, 2007-05-22 at 10:22 -0400, Kenneth Gorelick wrote:
>> The reason for the statement is tautologic: any other position
>> requires belief, and belief is intrinsically irrational. That does
>> not make it wrong. It is simply the case that both belief and atheism
>> require faith in either the existence or the non-existence of
>> something that cannot be proved.
>
> Or not.
>
> Atheism is simply the absence of theism.  Since when does the  
> absence of
> belief require faith?
>
> Flawed dictionary definitions written by theists notwithstanding.

Theism is a belief in god. Atheism is a belief in no god. Both are  
beliefs. It is sophistry to say that atheism is "no belief" because  
in fact it is the denial of an unprovable, and therefore equally  
unprovable.