Are you a TOLERANT ATHEIST?

Question

I think there are fake atheists and "real" atheists (tolerant).

In my view, to the affirmation "God does exist.",

- a fake atheist replies: "No, God does not exist.". So this fake atheist is a believer too: he/she believes in the non-existence of God, so he/she actually resonates with the concept of "God" but in a different way;

- a real atheist replies: "Well, I don't feel the need to wonder about the existence or the non-existence of God. I have no opinion about your affirmation. I can only acknowledge your religious belief without judging it :-)"

So: are you a tolerant atheist yourself?

Answer 1

I think that you are trying to describe the difference between an Atheist and a Humanist.
A Humanist is so-called because they remove themselves from the whole religious debate - not out of lack of interest but because it doesn't feature as part of their philosophy. A Humanist doesn't define him/herself in terms of theism.

Answer 2

I personally have not seen enough evidence to support the existance of a God described in the Bible. Nor do I deny the possibility. So I guess I'm a tolerant athiest.

But, even if I did believe there was a God, if he is like as described in the Bible, I would have very little respect for him and certainly would not bow down to him. The reason is this: if God, as described in the Bible, really exists, then he has no concept of life and death, nor love and hate, nor pain, nor anything else experienced by humans nor any other living thing.

So if he exists, how could he have created life if he has no clue what life is? Scientific knowledge, although still ignorant of so many things, does prove more against a God than for.

For example, the biblical writings really don't have any historical markings. What I mean is that science shows that the Earth has been here for over 100,000,000 years. Would a loving God really make us wait that long for him to return? I think not.

And think about the people that actually wrote the Bible. There's a clue...most of them were alcohlics, drug addicts, whoremongers, control freaks, etc. Would you think a God would have someone like that represent him? Or to try and prove his existance? Get real.

The more I study the Bible, the less I believe.

Of course, on the other hand, science cannot explain how life began. More particularly where the subparticles that make an atom came from in the first place. It can explain life and how it came about, but not the actual origin of the materials.

So keeping this in mind, wouldn't it be safe to say the universe itself always was and always will be (just like people claim God is)?

You also have to consider that over many thousands of years, people formed different beliefs supporting their religions. Some of those beliefs are just rediculous, and many are just "cause and effect". For example if you go outside at say 5 am and pray that there be light, within a couple hours there will be because the sun will come up. You could rightfully claim that you caused it to happen. That is cause and effect.

You also have to consider the intelligence levels of people back in the days when religions were forming, were substandard levels. They thought the earth was flat (until the 1600's or so), even though the Chinese may have discovered it was round as far back as the 1400's.

Back in the ancient religious times if someone saw a comet go by they tought it was some form of evil or a sign from God. When an eclipse occurs people think it is a sign of evil or the end of life. Some people still believe that. What idiots.

Another thing is like the meteor mounted in some holy thing I believe in Israel or somewhere thereabouts, they pray to it and kiss it thinking it's from God or something. Morons. It's a rock that fell out of space. Thousands of them do that everyday.

It's really hilarious if you think about all the various religious beliefs in our societies today.

Answer 3

No - you're describing strong atheism and non-theism.

I am a weak atheist myself. But I consider myself tolerant.

Let's not create more terminology. There's enough already.

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A few notes about the other answers: An agnostic believes that the existence or non-existence of God is unknowable, but may well feel the need to wonder. It's a philosophical statement about the nature of knowledge.

A humanist is someone who determines ethics and morals with regards to the human race and not concepts of the divine. I'd like to believe that it also implies a faith in humankind. It's not specifically related to belief in God, although many non-believers are atheists.

A non-theist removes himself from the argument about God by calling it irrelevant. Buddhism is mostly non-theistic. This is a quote from the Buddha:

When the doctor arrived to remove the arrow, the man grabbed the doctor's hand and asked, "Before you start treating me, Doctor, tell me, who was it that shot me? Was he of warrior class or some other class? Was he tall or was he short? Was he young or was he old? Was he dark skinned or light skinned?" The doctor ignored the questions and removed the arrow. Had he taken the time to answer the questions, the patient would have died. For this reason, said the Buddha, I will not answer your question about God. If I did, you would just spend your time in endless speculation, and never awaken from your current state.

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I personally can apply the labels agnostic, atheist and humanist to me. In normal life, I'm non-theist too, though I'm clearly not when I'm here on Y!A R&S.

Answer 4

this is very poor reasoning.

if someone wholeheartedly believes that god doesn't exist, they are an atheist. your calling them a "believer" is just a word game; while they do believe something concerning the concept of a god, what they believe is that it's not true.

using your logic, your "tolerant atheist" is a believer as well, since they believe that they don't believe in a god.

while you're right that there's a logical difference between believing there is no god and not believing there is a god, these two positions are equally atheist.

what makes someone tolerant is that they keep their beliefs to themselves instead of attacking someone for being, acting, or believing something different.

what should be made clear, though, is that being tolerant does not include being tolerant of intolerance. if someone verbally assaults someone for being gay, telling them that they will go to hell, etc., my trying to stop the assault doesn't amount to intolerance. that's just an argument frequently employed by fundamentalists to shift negative attention from themselves to genuinely tolerant, caring individuals.

Answer 5

I think that the operative word here is tolerant. I would hope that it would apply to any belief system. If a person is confident enough in their beliefs then they need not be intolerant of other beliefs and would find joy, interest and encouragement from others. Unfortunately, the insecure zealots among us seem to think that they have the need and right to judge the rest of us who don't believe as they do. Oddly enough, this is often in direct contradiction to the professed beliefs of their faith.

Answer 6

I think there are fake atheists who are closet christians trying to play stupid semantic games.

I think there are agnostics who don't understand the distinction between atheism and agnosticism.

I don't 'believe there is no god', I do think there aren't any gods, goddesses, spirits or supernatural entities of any stripe. It's not a matter of belief it's a total lack of sustainable proof that any of those things exist outside mythology, anecdotes and hysteria.

Answer 7

it is unlucky which you have come throughout those varieties of atheists. yet whether you have come throughout a hundred illiberal atheists on your lifetime, it particularly is barely a small proportion of atheists interior the worldwide. Majority of the folk in my existence are religious, yet i comprehend that no longer all of them are illiberal. some are, some are not. So i think of you're creating particularly a generalization here. i can not answer why YOU in my opinion stumbled on a lot of undesirable atheists. i do no longer unavoidably have self assurance we could desire to continually understand all ideals. i think of particularly everyone seems to be entitled to their critiques, yet Im certainly no longer gonna understand somebody who's a member of the KKK or those pesky West Boro Baptist human beings we've been listening to approximately interior the information recently. in case you notice somebody attempting to impose their ideals into the government and you think of those ideals are unfair and infringe upon human rights, then PLEASE talk up! do no longer purely cover at the back of "properly, we could desire to understand all ideals".

Answer 8

Wow, you're retarded. Are you seriously going to tell me what an Atheist is. You claim that an Atheist is not someone who doesn't believe in God, but someone who believes in not believing. You should really try pulling your head out of you *** before opening that loose mouth of yours powered by hot air and misinformation.

Answer 9

I'm a 'tolerant atheist' probably because I'm so old! LOL I once had to argue with Everybody about Everything & if you didn't agree with me you were a ____kety ____! I realize I didn't convert anybody to my way of thinking, which is fine, some times I wonder myself! I wish other's realized they also didn't convert me & will give it a rest!

http://www.total-knowledge.com/~willyblues/

Answer 10

I suppose they are interesting semantics to you, but I don't buy it. If some asks me if I believe in sasquatch, I feel perfectly content answering "I don't believe in sasquatch" without feeling that I have somehow validated the existence of sasquatch through poorly chosen grammar.