Religious writers and audiences

David Stockhoff · 06 Jun 2010, 20:23 · from 2010-June.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Sun, 06 Jun 2010 16:23:18 -0400
Subject: (urth) Religious writers and audiences
In-Reply-To: <mailman.27396.1275855765.5093.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
References: <mailman.27396.1275855765.5093.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
Message-ID: <4C0C03B6.60601 at verizon.net>

That thought occurred to me but I sidestepped it. 

Tony's understanding is closer to mine. Agnosticism has always struck me as atheism within a theistic context, as one might refer to a disease within a clinical context. If a priest turns atheist, he doesn't join a Unitarian church---he just nurses his doubts. Within that context it is ideologically impossible to conceive of true atheism, or even to use the word politely. In a word, it is a euphemism.

But that's just a hunch. I suppose what I do is more like "rejecting belief in a divinity but accepting the possibility that a divinity exists, and continuing as though the possibility does not in fact exist."

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Message: 6
Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2010 16:09:17 -0400
From: John Watkins <john.watkins04 at gmail.com>
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Religious writers and audiences
Message-ID:
	<AANLkTinhKvnRVDKsz-TC_ht0B0g0SjEoTOo3yXc_Y06r at mail.gmail.com>
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I don't know that I accept that...there's a word for the position of
rejecting belief in a divinity but accepting the possibility that a divinity
exists, and that word is "agnosticism."

On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 4:07 PM, Tony Ellis <tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com>wrote:

> > John Watkins wrote:
>   
>> > > Atheists by definition reject the existence of a
>> > > deity.
>>     
> >
> > Well, no. Atheists by definition reject *belief* in the existence of a
> > deity. Not the same thing.

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