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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (78334)	10/25/2003 6:07:08 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 82486

I think agnosticism is too weak Agnosticism IS weak. That's why it's in the middle. If you want a strong counter, then you have atheism. I think the main reason I prefer the agnostic label is that very thing. Atheism is hostile to religion. I'm not hostile to it. Perhaps that's only because I'm not a hostile person. If I were going to be hostile, religion would probably be pretty high on my list of targets, but I'm not hostile to it. I'm only hostile to those who would impose their religion on me. If you want to make a distinction between agnosticism and atheism there are a few choices. You can divide it at hostility. You can divide it as I did between those who don't believe in any of the known deities but can't rule out some incomprehensible kind of deity. You can divide it between those who don't know if there's a god but are still looking and those who have quit looking or don't care. In the first two cases I'd be an agnostic. In the last one, an atheist. There doesn't seem to be any fixed definition. That's probably because there's no church hierarchy to speak authoritatively on that. <g> I suppose you can call yourself what you want based on whatever image you want to project. I'd call a goat a goat, too. I'd probably call God a goat, too, if this were a Christian jury, rather than let the girls be convicted. I offer that for what it's worth. I don't know where it gets us, definition wise. I take your point about the situational labeling, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. We all need to get along and waving the flag of the atheist without something like the future of those defendants at stake just doesn't seem constructive to me.