Atheism vs. Theism

[Toki]

total sense. and I respect completely anybody's beliefs and would never want to change them, let alone attempt it.

 

I only retaliate when i'm told i'm not thinking. and I only join in the discussion when i feel people are being mis-understood, or I can help to clarify a point.

 

its funny how i'm defending myself to someone (other poster) when all i was doing was explaining the atheists point of view, i dread to think what kind of reaction i would have got if i'd started saying anything against religion!

 

Okay good, after about six Guinness's I was starting to worry I was losing my point.

 

Your points of view has certainly been more than valid (and if you had read back the short discussion I had with Vertex) we don't disagree on Scientific Fact... its the subjective, and that's really where the meat of the conversation has taken us. I'm afraid its a lost cause, that neither side is willing to leave well enough alone.

 

I would hope you haven't felt like you need to defend yourself, but I can see the irony... Chances are if you started a thread against religion the exact thing would happen that I described in my previous post. Your fellow atheists would band together and *stroke* each others ego until you got bored, and less rationale, and they aren't in any short supply on this board, would say all sorts of nasty things whether they believe it themselves or not (and I do believe a great many like to troll for trolling's sake) in a vain attempt to drive you off. It may work... for awhile... but chances are they too would grow board, because neither side except the people asking the questions and the people replying with consideration actually care to see what the discussion is even about.

[Toki]

Toki: My response would be that "reasonable" is different from "logical." People can feel that things are "reasonable" on a moral scale. Science does not pertain to morality. The kind of "reason" or "logic" an atheist would use has nothing to do with emotion or the impact of "reasonable thinking," even if it happens to be associated with people who took a dark path. People can bring up Stalin and Hitler all day, but they didn't do the bad things they did BECAUSE they were atheist. Most people seem to misunderstand what "logical" or "rational" really mean.

 

Well, okay... taking your view point, its can still be logical to do a great many hurtful things to society. It would be logical if China decided to throw a couple of nukes our way, to respond with equal or greater force. Yet, it wouldn't make the situation better... more than likely it would kill us all. I'm not trying to use scare tactics, it's probably a bad example, but you get my point.

 

I think "Science doesn't pertain to morality" is perhaps a dubious statement. I'm not stupid, I know that Atheism doesn't mean you'll go off and sodomize goats and then cleave off the skull of your neighbor because he seems to have taken a creepy shining to your daughter. Rather, its a fallacy within religion to think that the religious are morally superior; since morality is something that is deeply tied into us on a biological level. I'm not sure a study could be conducted to tell us whether institutions such as the Church lead to less crime than someone who relies on institutions such as a School Counselor, but it would be interesting to see what the results of that would be. However there are always free radicals, most of them criminals, but some of them have certainly changed how we view the world, I dread to think how poorly we would be off without Einstein (of whose views I mostly correspond to), Stephen Hawking, or Martin Luther King Junior.

 

I suppose I invoked somewhat of a Godwin-esque approach with the Hitler/Stalin dialogue, but it wasn't intended. Although it would be short sighted to say the the Crusades would have never happened if somebody else besides Pope Clement the II had risen to power in his place. It may be a Chaos Theory approach, but I'm pretty sure given the nature of the situation, the Holocaust would have happened sooner or later, Hitler or not. Oddly enough, I'm not sure which I find more disturbing, the Holocaust itself or Christianity's silent approval.

[Malenfant]

Okay good, after about six Guinness's I was starting to worry I was losing my point.

 

Your points of view has certainly been more than valid (and if you had read back the short discussion I had with Vertex) we don't disagree on Scientific Fact... its the subjective, and that's really where the meat of the conversation has taken us. I'm afraid its a lost cause, that neither side is willing to leave well enough alone.

 

I would hope you haven't felt like you need to defend yourself, but I can see the irony... Chances are if you started a thread against religion the exact thing would happen that I described in my previous post. Your fellow atheists would band together and *stroke* each others ego until you got bored, and less rationale, and they aren't in any short supply on this board, would say all sorts of nasty things whether they believe it themselves or not (and I do believe a great many like to troll for trolling's sake) in a vain attempt to drive you off. It may work... for awhile... but chances are they too would grow board, because neither side except the people asking the questions and the people replying with consideration actually care to see what the discussion is even about.

 

oh yeah. i've absolutely no interest in arguing. considering its something that is based on opinion, i've never really understood why people enter into such arguments. totally pointless!

 

i'll discuss the ideas that lend people towards or away from certain beliefs, and if someone asks why i think what i do, then i'll tell them, but as soon as i start having to defend my views, i'm outta there! (after i've said my piece!)

 

i only felt the need to defend myself as soon as i was called a moron! I expect to be disagreed with, especially over such a topic, but straight insults are not called for, and i'm too stubborn to let that one lie! oh well.

[Crusoe]

I know better than to enter a discussion about religion, but here it goes. I have skimmed through a lot of this thread seen arguments for both religion and science, but at times I also see conviction. Surely as soon as conviction rears its head, both religion and science stop doing good and start doing bad?

[Vertex]

Well, okay... taking your view point, its can still be logical to do a great many hurtful things to society. It would be logical if China decided to throw a couple of nukes our way, to respond with equal or greater force. Yet, it wouldn't make the situation better... more than likely it would kill us all. I'm not trying to use scare tactics, it's probably a bad example, but you get my point.

 

I would argue that this is not an example of a "logical" retaliation. What says we absolutely have to retaliate with greater force? We do that because we want to survive and uphold some degree of power, and so that in itself might be a "logical" or "reasonable" response when looking at it from a human's survival standpoint. However, there is nothing objectively logical that says we have to do anything. When it comes to irrefutable logic, that's where math and science step in. The answers to such questions will always be the same. The same cannot be said for a "moral" situation that can be said to be the result of a "logical or reasonable" action.

 

I think "Science doesn't pertain to morality" is perhaps a dubious statement. I'm not stupid, I know that Atheism doesn't mean you'll go off and sodomize goats and then cleave off the skull of your neighbor because he seems to have taken a creepy shining to your daughter. Rather, its a fallacy within religion to think that the religious are morally superior; since morality is something that is deeply tied into us on a biological level. I'm not sure a study could be conducted to tell us whether institutions such as the Church lead to less crime than someone who relies on institutions such as a School Counselor, but it would be interesting to see what the results of that would be. However there are always free radicals, most of them criminals, but some of them have certainly changed how we view the world, I dread to think how poorly we would be off without Einstein (of whose views I mostly correspond to), Stephen Hawking, or Martin Luther King Junior.

 

Absolutely, but my point is that an atheist shouldn't factor emotion or morality at all into his belief system for the universe. A scientific explanation is stone-cold regardless of how we feel. For example, we cannot "wish" the afterlife into existence. We may base a religion around the notion of an afterlife, or may even find the idea comforting. Doesn't make it true. Same thing with a moral decision. Morality is a system we've come up with as humans in order to maintain certain stable, utility-maximizing optima. That's ALL morality is. And none of it has anything to do with scientific explanation or logic.

[clv0116]

Any strong belief that there must be a God or cannot be a God are both irrational.

[FleshNBones]

I would hope you haven't felt like you need to defend yourself, but I can see the irony... Chances are if you started a thread against religion the exact thing would happen that I described in my previous post. Your fellow atheists would band together and *stroke* each others ego until you got bored, and less rationale, and they aren't in any short supply on this board, would say all sorts of nasty things whether they believe it themselves or not (and I do believe a great many like to troll for trolling's sake) in a vain attempt to drive you off. It may work... for awhile... but chances are they too would grow board, because neither side except the people asking the questions and the people replying with consideration actually care to see what the discussion is even about.

The OP did pick this audience for a purpose. I would have to agree with you.

This does remind me of certain coworkers who try to upstage me in meetings. They generally know a lot less than they claim to know, but they can talk the talk.

[Vertex]

The OP did pick this audience for a purpose. I would have to agree with you.

This does remind me of certain coworkers who try to upstage me in meetings. They generally know a lot less than they claim to know, but they can talk the talk.

 

If you're referring to me, you're again setting up a straw-man argument. Nothing I've said has been incorrect, so please don't resort to the same old hollow argument.

[mbeewood]

religion by definition is built on faith, not facts. god does not prove he exists for therefore faith would be pointless. its the argument that theists use to cover the fact that there is no actual evidence of god. IE no facts.

 

You keep getting the definition of faith wrong. Look up what it means. By the way, there is evidence of design in the universe, plus we cannot yet prove the beginning of the universe, which is all decent evidence towards God. I already told you that.

 

 

I was replying to another post about science & religion. i didnt bring it up.

To atheists, (not agnostics) science and religion do not compliment each other because we do not believe in god.

 

Who is 'we'? It doesn't matter anyway, just because some people have a belief doesn't make something untrue true.

how can we be expected to consider religious arguments when we do not believe?

 

Because that's what you're supposed to do as a scientist? Science isn't about having a certian belief and ignoring all beliefs that contradict your own, that's almost the exact opposite of being a scientist. And that's exactly what you are doing.

 

Theists have to find a way for the two to combine, because theists know that science exists. they cannot deny its presence.

 

 

science: knowledge attained through study or practice," or "knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world."

 

No one ever denied the existence of "science" and no one would.

 

atheists, however, can deny the presence of god. thats the difference.

 

Again, you keep making **** up. You seem to think that somehow an atheists belief is in science and a theists belief is not. That is just a stupid thing to say. Beliefs or lack of beliefs in God have nothing to do with science. Science is completely irrelevant to it. Stop trying to base an argument around that.

 

surely you can see that this is true?

I'm not actually trying to pursuade you that god doesnt exists, merely giving my view.

Strange that you're getting so angry about this, maybe these arguments are offending you? and BTW callng people names makes you appear ignorant, not me.

 

Probably because your 'view' is so misinformed.

 

 

 

because the world moves on and people become more educated.

 

Just because the world changed and people became more educated doesn't mean religion needs to change. That has nothing to do with religion at all. Trying to compare them makes no sense at all.

 

what was fact for people 2 thousand years ago is not neccessarily fact nowadays.

 

What was claimed to be fact? Religious beliefs? Because if a religious belief was fact 2000 years ago, it's sure as hell still fact today

 

btw so many strawmen lol

[mbeewood]

If you're referring to me, you're again setting up a straw-man argument. Nothing I've said has been incorrect, so please don't resort to the same old hollow argument.

Do you not realize how many bad arguments you make and how many strawmen arguments you make?

[Toki]

Absolutely, but my point is that an atheist shouldn't factor emotion or morality at all into his belief system for the universe. A scientific explanation is stone-cold regardless of how we feel. For example, we cannot "wish" the afterlife into existence. We may base a religion around the notion of an afterlife, or may even find the idea comforting. Doesn't make it true. Same thing with a moral decision. Morality is a system we've come up with as humans in order to maintain certain stable, utility-maximizing optima. That's ALL morality is. And none of it has anything to do with scientific explanation or logic.

 

You can be moral and logical, but I'm not sure its such a great idea to be logical without morality, or moral without logic... any way you look at it, you're right that it has very little to do with science itself.

 

Science has very little to do with religion, none, in fact. So I fail to see the need to express one's views so bluntly without it having been a moral conundrum and not a scientific one... just to put that out there...

[Malenfant]

religion by definition is built on faith, not facts. god does not prove he exists for therefore faith would be pointless. its the argument that theists use to cover the fact that there is no actual evidence of god. IE no facts.

 

You keep getting the definition of faith wrong. Look up what it means. By the way, there is evidence of design in the universe, plus we cannot yet prove the beginning of the universe, which is all decent evidence towards God. I already told you that.

 

 

I was replying to another post about science & religion. i didnt bring it up.

To atheists, (not agnostics) science and religion do not compliment each other because we do not believe in god.

 

Who is 'we'? It doesn't matter anyway, just because some people have a belief doesn't make something untrue true.

how can we be expected to consider religious arguments when we do not believe?

 

Because that's what you're supposed to do as a scientist? Science isn't about having a certian belief and ignoring all beliefs that contradict your own, that's almost the exact opposite of being a scientist. And that's exactly what you are doing.

 

Theists have to find a way for the two to combine, because theists know that science exists. they cannot deny its presence.

 

 

science: knowledge attained through study or practice," or "knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world."

 

No one ever denied the existence of "science" and no one would.

 

atheists, however, can deny the presence of god. thats the difference.

 

Again, you keep making **** up. You seem to think that somehow an atheists belief is in science and a theists belief is not. That is just a stupid thing to say. Beliefs or lack of beliefs in God have nothing to do with science. Science is completely irrelevant to it. Stop trying to base an argument around that.

 

surely you can see that this is true?

I'm not actually trying to pursuade you that god doesnt exists, merely giving my view.

Strange that you're getting so angry about this, maybe these arguments are offending you? and BTW callng people names makes you appear ignorant, not me.

 

Probably because your 'view' is so misinformed.

 

 

 

because the world moves on and people become more educated.

 

Just because the world changed and people became more educated doesn't mean religion needs to change. That has nothing to do with religion at all. Trying to compare them makes no sense at all.

 

what was fact for people 2 thousand years ago is not neccessarily fact nowadays.

 

What was claimed to be fact? Religious beliefs? Because if a religious belief was fact 2000 years ago, it's sure as hell still fact today

 

btw so many strawmen lol

 

I'm speaking from the atheist POV.

i'm saying thats how I see things.

 

You dont get where i'm coming from, and thats cool, people are different.

[Vertex]

Do you not realize how many bad arguments you make and how many strawmen arguments you make?

 

I haven't made a single straw-man argument in this thread. Otherwise point out one such example. If you feel an argument is bad, you're free to debate it -- but don't just make a claim about arguments without backing it up.

 

By the way, there is absolutely no evidence of design, as you claim. The argument of intelligent design shoots itself in the foot because it does not solve the problem of complexity, but rather amplifies it and gets no closer. Evolution, however, satisfies Occam's Razor and explains how complex systems arise from simplicity WITHOUT the need for a more complex designer.

 

What's with the constant flamebaiting from the theists of this thread?

 

 

 

 

You can be moral and logical, but I'm not sure its such a great idea to be logical without morality, or moral without logic... any way you look at it, you're right that it has very little to do with science itself.

 

Science has very little to do with religion, none, in fact. So I fail to see the need to express one's views so bluntly without it having been a moral conundrum and not a scientific one... just to put that out there...

 

 

Morality is in itself a sort of logic if you want to get into its derivation. We hold certain morals in high standard because society would not function well without it. For instance, we consider it immoral to kill -- "human rights" exist because of the logical conclusion that we'd have an unstable society to no society at all if everyone could kill at will. Decisions we make that are illogical or irrational are done NOT to the tune of optimality, but usually some sort of external influence or confounding variable (i.e. emotion).

 

None of it has any bearing on the veracity of science, and yet many people feel a "spiritual" link or something stemming from "emotion" or "morality" or "intuition." My argument is that ALL of these things are human constructs. We feel the emotions we do as a result of deterministic variables. Likewise with morality, etc. We can "feel" a certain mystery or "something greater," but I would argue that it's a mistaken conclusion. These feelings come about as a result of other factors -- not a "link to God" in some form. It's psychologically satisfying to most (and the contrary may be hard to understand for many), which is why it doesn't surprise me that theism has maintained such a strong hold through these sorts of feelings and long-term indoctrination despite scientific evidence against things like Creationism/Intelligent Design/supernatural intervention/etc.

Edited November 8, 2009 by Vertex

[disgracian]

Science is far from being able to explain everything in our universe so there is plenty of room for God.

You are proposing a shrinking god. What would be the point?

 

Cheers,

D.

[Vertex]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps

[FleshNBones]

You keep getting the definition of faith wrong. Look up what it means. By the way, there is evidence of design in the universe, plus we cannot yet prove the beginning of the universe, which is all decent evidence towards God. I already told you that.

He also claimed that science can explain everything.

Because that's what you're supposed to do as a scientist? Science isn't about having a certian belief and ignoring all beliefs that contradict your own, that's almost the exact opposite of being a scientist. And that's exactly what you are doing.

He is not a scientist. Not even close.

science: knowledge attained through study or practice," or "knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world."

Einstein spent years working on his ideas for relativity, and it was all based mental experiments. In other words, Einstein was a whimsical fool, and an ignorant one I might add. He evolved into a genius the moment his theories had supporting evidence.

Again, you keep making **** up. You seem to think that somehow an atheists belief is in science and a theists belief is not. That is just a stupid thing to say. Beliefs or lack of beliefs in God have nothing to do with science. Science is completely irrelevant to it. Stop trying to base an argument around that.

I know. His creditability is in the crapper, and I think it is time to flush.

Just because the world changed and people became more educated doesn't mean religion needs to change. That has nothing to do with religion at all. Trying to compare them makes no sense at all.

He just wants to throw the baby out with the bathwater (thinking about abortion).

[clv0116]

People who believe God cannot exist are no more rational than those who claim he must exist. What is God, for that matter? What would it take to be God? When I run a CA simulation am I their God?

 

Time as we enjoy it might not have even existed .. wow ... well it might have a starting point.

 

What was there before that? What exists 'outside' our Universe? Is it someone who's out on lunch waiting for his simulation to finish?

[Vertex]

Honestly, I'm not going to bother with this thread anymore. You guys just cannot be civil. You're both attacking him out of vast misinterpretations on your behalf.

 

"You keep getting the definition of faith wrong. Look up what it means. By the way, there is evidence of design in the universe, plus we cannot yet prove the beginning of the universe, which is all decent evidence towards God. I already told you that."

"He also claimed that science can explain everything. "

 

There is no direct evidence for Intelligent Design. The argument shoots itself in the foot and has been shot down repeatedly. Complex systems can evolve out of simple ones through gradual changes as a result of environmental variables. This concept is well-supported and well-evidenced. Just because we can't "prove the beginning of the universe" doesn't mean it's evidence. Moreover, a lack of evidence doesn't mean it is positive evidence towards another concept at all. There is literally zero proof in favor of a God. Science can "explain everything" to the extent that everything in our universe is governed by various laws, types of matter, certain interactions/forces, and we can explain these things and learn more about them. If we can observe it, we can collect the data. If there is some sort of "supernatural realm," we may or may not be able to observe it. The point is that science is a system that is always learning more. We can never know its end-state limitations. We have to go with what we know and be humble in the idea that there are things we don't know, but that doesn't mean they can't be explained.

 

Faith doesn't require proof, which is what Malenfant was saying. There is no evidence of God.

 

 

how can we be expected to consider religious arguments when we do not believe?

Because that's what you're supposed to do as a scientist? Science isn't about having a certian belief and ignoring all beliefs that contradict your own, that's almost the exact opposite of being a scientist. And that's exactly what you are doing.

He is not a scientist. Not even close.

 

You guys are again misinterpreting. A scientist demands proof. An atheist doesn't believe in something that has no proof in favor of it. This is what Malenfant was saying. Why consider a religious argument that is purely based on faith? You're correct that a scientist should not ignore contradictory evidence, but this is NOT the case here. There's no evidence of a God that "contradicts" anything, so to claim he "is not a scientist" because he is ignoring contradictory beliefs is stunningly incorrect. A scientist will factor in a God the moment there is proof of one that is consistent with everything else we know through science.

 

 

Einstein spent years working on his ideas for relativity, and it was all based mental experiments. In other words, Einstein was a whimsical fool, and an ignorant one I might add. He evolved into a genius the moment his theories had supporting evidence.

 

Again, incorrect on so many levels. It's not like Einstein sat down doing nothing, thought up a bunch of random stuff, and happened to have some of it be spot on. He was not a fool, nor was he ignorant. He was extraordinarily observant, which is why he was able to make the scientific advances that he did. "Thought experiments" are another way of saying "What would happen in this situation" based on things we already know in order to answer that which we do not. Much of Newton's work, for instance, was the foundation for much of his thought experiments. To say that "he evolved into a genius when he suddenly had proof" is silly. He derived the conclucions that he did precisely FROM proof. He didn't postulate things blindly and look for proof later.

 

 

 

atheists, however, can deny the presence of god. thats the difference.

Again, you keep making **** up. You seem to think that somehow an atheists belief is in science and a theists belief is not. That is just a stupid thing to say. Beliefs or lack of beliefs in God have nothing to do with science. Science is completely irrelevant to it. Stop trying to base an argument around that.

I know. His creditability is in the crapper, and I think it is time to flush.

 

You guys just won't stop with the misinterpretations. An atheist can deny the presence of God because there is no proof in favor of one. That's it. This isn't "making **** up." You guys bringing up this tangential dialectic on your own accord is purely your own doing. If anything, you're damaging your own credibility because you guys have continually been setting up straw-men arguments by attacking points which we aren't saying and ignoring points that we are. Science governs us all equally. An atheist needs proof of God to believe in one. A theist is okay with belief in God through faith in absence of evidence. Whichever you believe in, that's totally fine. My original post asked why theists are sufficiently satisfied with their faith-belief in God despite the underlying science which shows that a God is not needed to explain anything at all. Instead you guys keep misconstruing what people are saying and turning it into a flame-war.

 

 

Just because the world changed and people became more educated doesn't mean religion needs to change. That has nothing to do with religion at all. Trying to compare them makes no sense at all.

He just wants to throw the baby out with the bathwater (thinking about abortion).

 

Aside from the fact that your reponse, Flesh, is nothing but a cheap shot and adds nothing in terms of argument, the initial quote here makes me wonder. As people become more educated, people learn more about science and all the things that contradict the intervention of a Godlike figure. To this extent, why still argue religion doesn't need to change? Why do you believe in the religion that you do? Again, we can show much of the Bible to be demonstratively false. Does this mean a Christian is really just taking the word of a few guys from an era when nobody understood much about science at all? Would the same thing be able to fly today? If your religion is a concept that is always outside of science, why do you believe it? A lot of people in this thread have basically said "Because I lead a better life/etc," without addressing the point that what makes us feel better emotionally doesn't make it true. This point gets continually dodged.

 

 

Anyways, I leave you all with that. I won't be posting in this thread anymore. I appreciate those who made a serious effort to stay on topic and be civil.

[FleshNBones]

Time as we enjoy it might not have even existed .. wow ... well it might have a starting point.

I don't think the original poster would exercise the thought of time having a starting point.

What was there before that? What exists 'outside' our Universe? Is it someone who's out on lunch waiting for his simulation to finish?

My guess is nothing observable, and nothing tangible. These are two requirements the original poster absolutely requires. I think most of us would agree that there was something, but not in the conventional sense. Stephen Hawking would argue that if there was something before, it would be covered up. My guess is the universe is a giant expanding bubble where space, time, and energy only exist within it. Saying that there is nothing beyond space, time, and energy is the same as living in a box.

[FleshNBones]

Einstein spent years working on his ideas for relativity, and it was all based mental experiments. In other words, Einstein was a whimsical fool, and an ignorant one I might add. He evolved into a genius the moment his theories had supporting evidence.

 

Again, incorrect on so many levels. It's not like Einstein sat down doing nothing, thought up a bunch of random stuff, and happened to have some of it be spot on. He was not a fool, nor was he ignorant. He was extraordinarily observant, which is why he was able to make the scientific advances that he did. "Thought experiments" are another way of saying "What would happen in this situation" based on things we already know in order to answer that which we do not. Much of Newton's work, for instance, was the foundation for much of his thought experiments. To say that "he evolved into a genius when he suddenly had proof" is silly. He derived the conclucions that he did precisely FROM proof. He didn't postulate things blindly and look for proof later.

I believe it was mostly based on the idea of light having a fixed velocity. His ideas were not incremental, but were groundbreaking which is why he is considered a genius. Again, he formed his theory from his imagination, and he got his proof afterward. He didn't derive it from measurements.

[clv0116]

Also interesting that Einstein was not an atheist. Many physicists in fact are not. Idiots one and all.

[Toki]

Also interesting that Einstein was not an atheist. Many physicists in fact are not. Idiots one and all.

 

I'm not sure Einstein wasn't atheist, either. He never really said in crystal clear terms, he was quick to damn religion when it may have suited his purposes, such as when Israel offered him the Presidency. Although he never really said he didn't believe in a god, just that science was more interesting with the prospect. In that sense, he was certainly atheist, in that he didn't care either way.

 

Oppenheimer on the other hand was a pretty cut and dry theist.

[clv0116]

I'm not sure Einstein wasn't atheist, either. He never really said in crystal clear terms, he was quick to damn religion when it may have suited his purposes, such as when Israel offered him the Presidency. Although he never really said he didn't believe in a god, just that science was more interesting with the prospect. In that sense, he was certainly atheist, in that he didn't care either way.

 

Look into atheist versus agnostic or apathetic/areligious.

[Toki]

Look into atheist versus agnostic or apathetic/areligious.

 

Yes, I'm quite aware of the differences.

 

Just not so sure on Einstein, hard to make a conjecture on exactly what he believed (or didn't believe) since he wasn't willing to tell us exactly what he he believed or didn't believe.

[disgracian]

It doesn't even matter what he was. I find it so ridiculous and petty the way both sides try to claim great individuals as their own while denying association with monsters.

 

At least nobody has mentioned Hitler yet.

 

Cheers,

D.