"RogerN" wrote in message
m...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

snip
"No religion" is not athiest. More likely agnostic.
Atheism IS a religion - they believe very strongly there is no "god"
or higher power of any description. An Agnostic doesn't know if there
is a "God" or higher power of any description, and really doesn't
care. A Panthiest believes there is "a god" within every ( at least
living) thing. A Polytheist believes in a plethora of "gods"

Not true, Clare.

Atheism means "without gods." The more common kind of atheist today,
sometimes called the scientific atheist, is one who doesn't believe in
gods because he doesn't think there is sufficient evidence in favor of
gods. Only the most extreme atheists, sometimes called the "strong"
atheists, assert that they have sufficient reason to believe that gods
positively do not exist.

Lots of people who think they're agnostics actually are atheists by any
sophisticated definition. They haven't seen evidence to believe in gods
with anything like assurance; they won't assert that there is a god or
gods. That's a variety of atheist -- someone who is "without gods."

An agnostic -- a term revived and re-defined by T.H. Huxley over a
century ago -- is one who believes that the existence of gods is
unknowable. Not "unknown," but unknowable, as a point of ontological
philosophy. Huxley and the others who re-coined the term were interested
in the ontological proofs of the existence or non-existence of things.
Very few people who think of themselves as "agnostics" even know what the
term really means. They think is just means "I don't know."

If you don't know, you just don't know. You're neither an agnostic nor an
atheist. You just...don't know. g

But calling atheism a religion is actually kind of dumb. Most modern
atheists make their claims based on evidentiary principles -- the version
of "science" they learned in school. They haven't seen the evidence, so
they are "without gods." What we call religion usually is the practice of
theism, and theism is a belief that doesn't require scientific evidence.
You may find a few atheists who are faith-based, like theists, but by no
means does the typical "scientific" theist think that way. They're more
like scientists who don't believe in ghosts or life after death, because
they haven't seen any evidence that they really exist.

--
Ed Huntress

Without proper dictionary definitions.. To not believe (not faith) in God
is different to believe (faith) there is certainly no God.

One person said claiming atheism is a religion is like claiming not
collecting stamps is a hobby. But for some it's like not collecting
stamps, for others it's like a hobby actively collecting things that are
not stamps.

RogerN

Damned good, Roger! I'll keep that one handy, with your permission.

--
Ed Huntress