Interesting thread.

Joe, I think I have to come down on Mrr's side on the meaning of atheist — it just means "without god" as far as I've ever been able to figure out. I think his term "antitheist" is closer to describing someone who is actively negative about about god and the religious trapping mankind has built around the belief.

All that said, though, I wonder if there really is such a thing as an atheist in the sense of it being a "religiously-held" belief. As Bertrand Russell and the cardinal (was it Cushing? I can't remember for sure) amply demonstrated in their famous debate, you can't PROVE the existance of god without first ASSUMING the existance of god. You also can't prove that god doesn't exist without assuming that god doesn't exist.

That makes agnosticism the only position open to a thinking person — an agnostic being someone who DOESN'T KNOW if god exists.

Then the relevant question becomes "Does it matter whether there is a god?" The only answer I've been able to come up with is that it doesn't, except to use it as a framework to scare people into adhering to societal rules if they're too slow to figure out for themselves that those rules — applied as evenly as possible — are what allows us to live with bunches of people without commiting or being victims of murder and mayhem.

Examples of this are easily found in the 10 Commandments. I don't remember all of them offhand, but take adultry, for instance. I really can't believe that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, omni-everything being who really gives a shit about who's doing who, but I can sure as hell believe that a lot of men will kill you in a minute if they catch you dipping your stick in THEIR PROPERTY.

Same goes for "thou shalt not steal" and all the other commandments. They make sense for the peace and wellbeing of the group — no matter how narrowly or widely it's defined — but it has nothing to do with a god. Or at least it NEED NOT NECESSARILY have anything to do with a god.

There are several other points in the thread I'd like to comment on, but work calls. Back later.

David