all_shall_perish

I think it is reasonable and (hopefully) virtuous that people are skeptical about most things. Especially those things concerning ideas and maybe even entities that are out of our physical and intellectual reach (at least as of current). I can't say it better than Emerson does about skepticism so I'll just quote him: “If there is a wish for immortality, and no evidence, why not say just that? If there are conflicting evidences, why not state them? If there is not ground for a candid thinker to make up his mind, yea or nay,- why not suspend the judgment? ...In short, since true fortitude of understanding consists "in not letting what we know be embarrassed by what we do not know," we ought to secure those advantages which we can command, and not risk them by clutching after the airy and unattainable... It stands in [the skeptic's] mind that our life in this world is not of quite so easy interpretation as churches and schoolbooks say. He does not wish to take ground against these benevolences, to play the part of devil's attorney, and blazon every doubt and sneer that darkens the sun for him. But he says, There are doubts.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson (Montaigne; or, the Skeptic)

"You say you have faith in science, but science is commonly proved wrong. Science is also many times 'blind faith'. There are several things in science which cannot be proven, but are known to be true. Therefore...you are the same as any person that believes in a God." The problem here is a very deep and silly misunderstanding of the word and idea "science". Science is not an institution or a conglomerate of anti-religious lab coats. Science is simply a methodology. As Wikipedia more eloquently puts it: "In its more restricted contemporary sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method, and to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research." There is nothing wrong with science, only scientists (practitioners of the scientific method). Also, perhaps "...but science is commonly proved wrong" is a poor choice of words. Science is always tentative and expects a better answer will come along eventually. This expectation is part of the beauty of the system itself. The fact that scientific theories are sometimes abandoned for something better should not detract from the validity of the scientific method. Science, good science that is, is never what you call "blind faith." Blind faith is a belief in something regardless of actuality. Because the scientific method is grounded in reproducible evidence, science itself cannot be blind, only those interpreting the information it has yielded. "There are several things in science which cannot be proven, but are known to be true." There is no such thing as something existing within or without of science. Researchers have either applied the scientific method to solve a certain problem or they haven't. According to the scientific method something cannot be known to be true without evidence, and even then we can only assert its truth value so far. Even to simply say that the grass is green is only true to a matter of degrees. This dispute seems to be more concerned with the literal meaning of the term "religion" which is incredibly ambiguous (like with most parts of language). The deeper question which should be probed is this: "is there a practical and significant consequence if we are to prove Atheists are indeed religious?" Does it change the fact that they deny or, in most cases, just are not concerned with the supernatural? "Those that are athiest always have one definite lining, and that is that they think they can describe the proof of no God through science." This is just simply not true. You've corralled all atheists into a single bland category. Atheism is simply the lack or absence of belief. No more. No less. It doesn't matter for what reasons they lack their beliefs in the supernatural. Science is also not their "church" as your describe. They may not believe in high powers for many reasons. Atheism does not require a blind devotion to the fruits of scientific thought. If someone is an atheist, all it tells you is what they DO NOT believe. It says nothing about what they do believe: science or otherwise. "Truth be told, however, there is no true Athiest..as in order for them to be 100 percent athiest, they would have to prove absolutely without a shadow of a doubt that there is no God. If they cant, they are agnostic." This, also, is a severe abuse of logic. To be agnostic is to simply be unsure or to say "I don't have enough information yet (or maybe ever) to make a definitive statement about such topics." Communists don't have to present 100% definitive proofs of the soundness of their political ideology for us to believe they are communists. It simply means they hold political, social, and/or economic beliefs in common with communist ideology. By your same logic no Christian could claim they were truly a Christian as they are equally unable to definitively present a proof of God's existence. This does not mean they hold what is said in the bible to be any less true. As far as my personal understanding and usage of the term "religion" goes, I would say calling atheism or agnosticism religions is sort of like calling bald a hair color.

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i think you'll still end up getting billed for it but at the time you need it you'll receive treatment.

Depends on whether or not you feel government should be in charge of providing medical care for its citizens. I personally feel that people should only be en!@#$%^&*led to emergency treatment, regardless of their ability to pay for the services and that's exactly what the United States offers. My biggest issue with universal health care is that I have to support irresponsible fools because they don't know how to control themselves: Some piece of !@#$%^&* walks down the street and stabs/shoots/!@#$%^&*aults a person for some unjustifiable reason and guess who picks up the tab.

I'm still up in the air about my candidate of choice. However, I watched McCain about two nights ago essentially list all of the countries he wants to bomb for whatever bogus reason and he has not even made it out of the primaries yet.

"A terminally ill child getting better appears to be unexplainable: therefore God" I was briefly considering unicorns but after further thought I'm going to say it was leprechauns. Unfortunately, all of these conclusions are equally valid.

At some point social constructs are important because otherwise human interaction and communication would be tedious and useless. At some point we all have to agree the gr!@#$%^&* is green and the sky is blue, regardless of what the reality of the matter is. As long as we can agree on that fact, we can then make statements and arguments about the gr!@#$%^&* and the sky and interact on that basis more readily. The practicality of agreeing on which fairy tale to believe or which invisible man lives in the sky is not nearly as important because our ability to agree or disagree on such topics does not change the fact that it doesn't effect us.

I don't think the motivation behind agnosticism is really from a lack of evidence but rather that the current evidence which exists isn't convincing enough to believe either way definitively. So essentially, agnostics simply aren't convinced. Believing in something due to a lack of evidence is reserved for the theists and atheists.

Although I don't classify myself as an atheist, I'll address your question from the atheist's standpoint which is just as fair an argument from my point of view. The argument of choosing a religion "to be better safe than sorry" was addressed by Blaise Pascal who essentially said that if your belief in god ends up being right then you have an infinite gain whereas if you didn't believe in god and god turned out to exist, then you'd have an infinite loss. See Pascal's Wager for a clearer explanation. So by Pascal's logic, it's better to believe in god and be wrong than it is to not believe in god and be wrong. My main problem with that notion is that you're believing in something purely out of fear which makes those gods out to be rather tyrannical if you ask me. Also, if the god(s) you believe in is omnipotent and all knowing and what not then you'd think he/she/it would be able to call your bluff for simply playing the "better safe than sorry" card. There is a very very very very remote chance that you've somehow managed to believe in a god that actually exists and have done all the things necessary to avoid an eternal !@#$%^&*ation. But you must recognize that there is the exact same probability that your belief may be upsetting a god you didn't think existed which will probably land you in eternal !@#$%^&*ation too. This is sort of a spinoff of the atheist wager http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/atheistswager.html which points out some flaws in the !@#$%^&*umptions Pascal made in his wager.

that's the one that you want, just register for the free serial.