I went to the darkfiber link and began to read. There appears to be much so it will take me a bit of time to get through it all. However, in the very first paragraph/question the site makes this statement :

"Atheism is living without gods"

Can you explain this statement further because on the surface I find a problem with that kind of definition of atheism. Even Christians are atheist when they consider the reality of gods from other religions. So one can believe in gods and be an atheist at the same time.

Also, an atheist isn't a person that arbitrarily denies the existence of gods simply because they don't want to believe. Atheism is a rejection of a religious claim, usually because the...

I went to the darkfiber link and began to read. There appears to be much so it will take me a bit of time to get through it all. However, in the very first paragraph/question the site makes this statement :

"Atheism is living without gods"

Can you explain this statement further because on the surface I find a problem with that kind of definition of atheism. Even Christians are atheist when they consider the reality of gods from other religions. So one can believe in gods and be an atheist at the same time.

Also, an atheist isn't a person that arbitrarily denies the existence of gods simply because they don't want to believe. Atheism is a rejection of a religious claim, usually because the claim fails to prove itself. The end result could be that a person is "living without gods" but that does not mean that a person lives by that credo.

Also, rejection of the belief is not a belief system in itself. This is like saying not collecting stamps is a hobby or baldness is a hair color.

If the site begins with a gross misunderstanding of what atheism really is then I have to wonder how accurate the rest of the writings are ...

Yo! We have a time difference. I am in the UK and waiting for coffee to kick in, so will get back with a more considered response at some other time. I really welcome your questions. The darkfiber thing is headed 'questions i have been working on'. Without evading anything, I think the many questions people ask in this area are a useful starting point for considered discussion. I am very much at the questioning stage. As for statements, personally I fully welcome totally justified criticism of the unacceptable behaviour and attitudes of many self-purported 'believers' and proseltysers of suffocating moralities, calls to hatred etc, dogmatists of the Law, claims to supernatural knowledge, th...

Yo! We have a time difference. I am in the UK and waiting for coffee to kick in, so will get back with a more considered response at some other time. I really welcome your questions. The darkfiber thing is headed 'questions i have been working on'. Without evading anything, I think the many questions people ask in this area are a useful starting point for considered discussion. I am very much at the questioning stage. As for statements, personally I fully welcome totally justified criticism of the unacceptable behaviour and attitudes of many self-purported 'believers' and proseltysers of suffocating moralities, calls to hatred etc, dogmatists of the Law, claims to supernatural knowledge, the adoption of 'belief' as akin to superstitious defence mechanisms that disable personal development, intolerance, righteousness, and so on. But back later.

After reading some of the question and answers I keep finding the same incorrect assumption of atheism - that it is its own belief system. This is simply wrong.

Atheism is not a belief system. It is not a philosophy of thought. It is really as simple as a lack of belief for a claim. In this respect YOU are an atheist as well. You do not take Mithra as a god do you? You do not believe Horus or Ra are living gods do you? You do not accept Shiva or any other number of gods as something real right? So in this respect you are an atheist to those belief systems and to those gods.

An atheist is simply an unbeliever. Someone who has looked at a claim of religion and concluded that the claim is fal...

After reading some of the question and answers I keep finding the same incorrect assumption of atheism - that it is its own belief system. This is simply wrong.

Atheism is not a belief system. It is not a philosophy of thought. It is really as simple as a lack of belief for a claim. In this respect YOU are an atheist as well. You do not take Mithra as a god do you? You do not believe Horus or Ra are living gods do you? You do not accept Shiva or any other number of gods as something real right? So in this respect you are an atheist to those belief systems and to those gods.

An atheist is simply an unbeliever. Someone who has looked at a claim of religion and concluded that the claim is false. An atheist IS NOT someone who has simply decided to refuse to believe in any gods regardless of evidence simply because they like the idea of no gods in this universe. That would require a level of intellectual dishonesty on par with "faith" - maintaining a belief without evidence or in spite of evidence.

It is at this point when I realized that the entire premis of your page is wrong :

Does atheism contain a moral imperative?
Yes: to live without gods.

You treat atheism like a philosophy and it simply isn't. Really, the best example is like trying to declare baldness a hair color, or not collecting stamps a hobby.

Either you grossly lack an understanding of what atheism is, or you are redefining it to lend strength to your points.

Blah...just tried to go back and read some more of the site. It is quite obvious that the author is trying to alter atheism into a religion of its own in order to then challenge it theologically. Faith vs Faith is a much easier battle than Faith vs Reality.