I've been called a radical atheist, a fundamentalist atheist, even an uppity atheist... but I like organic atheist, that'll do me.

This doesn't exactly come as a great surprise to me. But I'm also happy to admit its the kind of research I like to hear.

Country Total Pop.(2004) %Atheist/Agnostic/Nonbeliever
11 Germany 82,425,000 41-49%
12 Russia 143,782,000 24-48%
13 Hungary 10,032,000 32-46%
14 Netherlands 16,318,000 39-44%
15 Britain 60,271,000 31-44%
16 Belgium 10,348,000 42-43%
17 Bulgaria 7,518,000 34-40%
18 Slovenia 2,011,000 35-38%
19 Israel 6,199,000 15-37%
20 Canada 32,508,000 19-30%

Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns, pitzer.edu

I'm agnostic. It is more stupid to say that god does not exist for a fact as it is to say that he exists for a fact . That will do me. I guess it would make me feel better to say I was an atheist, but then I would have to have faith in something.

No. Atheism is simply the absence of belief. I think you are one, don't you?

Atheism is simply the absence of belief.

No, not at all that simply, John. While atheism is a philosophical (and, at least in the case of Buddhism, a religious) view, the simple absence of belief can just as well be caused by the absence of cultivated thinking.
The simple non-believer says eventually nothing but that he/she lacks belief, and that's it. The atheist, however, either tries to make plausible, why it is reasonable not to believe in any deity, or his/her religion is an atheistic one.

An absence of belief is not a "philosophical view"
Because believers are causing so much trouble we have to take a stance. But I don't believe in loads of things: Zeus, Jupiter, The Glorious Pink Unicorn, the invisible green men under my bed etc.. It isn't a "view" to not believe.

I agree and that is what religions try to put on atheists. They will argue that atheists have to prove that there is no reason for the mumbo jumbo.


Watching a show about evangelists (I didn't last long) nearly put me off the Blues Brothers movie. That would be bad. No more of those horrid docos.

An absence of belief is not a "philosophical view"

That's what I said.
But atheism is not simply "an absence of belief". Atheism is philosophical thinking (you seem to misunderstand the word "view") that implicates and explicates the rationality of not-believing in any deity.
Don't you see the necessity of considering it differentiatedly?

I agree and that is what religions try to put on atheists. They will argue that atheists have to prove that there is no reason for the mumbo jumbo.

Sorry, tabsey, that's a weak statement.
Look at all the platitudinously or scarcely thinking people that believe in nothing but in their prospects of a prosperous livelihood. Would you really call them "atheists"? That would defame atheism, fellow!

I thought vietnam would be more religous ,since they have their own brand of buddhism and thich nhat hanh comes from there.

Johnwaterman, my absence of belief is not a belief. Atheism is a belief just like theism is a belief. I could not possibly know whether God exists for a fact or not. So I am an agnostic. I will say, I used to call myself an atheist, until I realized that I was actually validating Theism. I don't think people that claim to be atheists really know what they believe at all. If you call yourself an atheist, I think it is probably more likely that you really don't have the convictions of your faith and it just makes you feel more confident to state your opinion boldly in the face of those that believe in God. Oh well, I'm not criticizing. I just think that it is juvenile to pretend to believe something you really don't believe.

I've have been readin' a lot of this guys stuff
http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/
he said beliefs and ideals are just a dissapation of energy.
god is love ,unconditional love ,doesn't matter what you name it.
more of what I'm reading on this
http://www.paddymcmahon.com/index.htm