In both Part I and Part II of this very intermittent series, I argued that the terms “agnosticism” and “atheism” were best used to describe distinct and mutually exclusive, though vaguely delineated, positions regarding the existence of deities. An atheist would tick the “no” box when asked whether at least one god existed, whereas an… Read more »
Guest post by BillyBob The word atheism is simplistic and confusing. Atheists get asked facile questions like “are you a hard or soft atheist?” or “how do you know atheism is accurate and correct?” and many variations of these questions. It is a waste of time answering that atheism is not the position that god… Read more »
Is an atheist someone who doesn’t believe in gods, or someone who believes there are no gods? It’s a hairline distinction, irrelevant for most practical purposes, but there clearly is a theoretical difference between the two definitions. Anyone who lacks belief satisfies the first, but only those who consciously reject belief satisfy the second. In… Read more »
Guest post by BillyBob Recently on this site, there has been a discussion about whether an atheist should say gods do not exist or that atheism is a lack of belief in gods. The underlying concern is can you prove a negative, which brings up the question is anything possible? In my response to the… Read more »
Atheists tend to be a gloriously disputatious bunch, which is not surprising for a group united only by rejection of the blandishments and superficial consolations of religion. Atheists, it sometimes appears, are people who can argue about anything – and as if to prove the point, we Canadian Atheist readers and writers had a good… Read more »
This gem popped up in my Facebook feed today. Like many internet memes, I have no idea of its origins but I hope it’s not indicative of what people really think about atheists (i.e.: atheist = sociopath). But just in case, I thought I’d go through this meme’s assertions sentence by sentence. Instead of pointing… Read more »