Ubuntu 11.10 makes Unity compulsory

[Ignazio Palmisano]

2011/4/5 Mark Widdicombe <markwiddicombe at gmail.com>:
>
>
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> On 5 April 2011 13:44, Avi Greenbury <lists at avi.co> wrote:
>>
>> Mark Widdicombe wrote:
>>>
>>> There's a difference between not believing in god and believing there is
>>> no
>>> god.  I can't remember who said that saying atheism is a religion is like
>>> saying not collecting stamps is a hobby, but he was right on the money.
>>>
>>
>> I don't think the second sentence supports your first.
>
> Why not?
>>
>> Say we take stamp collection as analogous to believing in God. Not
>> believing in God would, therefore, be not collecting stamps. This would
>> probably be some form of agnosticism.
>>
> No, this is atheism.
>
>>
>> Atheism, though, goes one step further and claims there is no God. I think
>> the best we can do with the stamp collecting analogies is say this is like
>> habitually disposing of stamps, but that's not a great analogy.
>
> I don't know of anyone who makes such a claim; you misunderstand what
> atheism is.  We can say that it is *extremely unlikely* that gods exist, but
> I can't think of anyone who expresses faith in the notion that god does not
> exist.

It's extremely unlikely I got a million dollars in some bank and I'm
being told by email by some nice stranger too. What's the difference
between the extreme unlikelihood and stating there is no million of
bucks? Practically speaking, none, I can't cut checks off it either
way.

The agnostics I know say: "I'm not sure, it doesn't matter either
way". I call myself an atheist, and I say: "there is no reason why I
should say yes, and it doesn't matter anyway". That's when we go out
to share a drink and laugh at the hypocrisy of such guys as the pope
and the others sharing his business of scamming people out of their
money. THAT, I have no difficulty believing. To reuse the stamp
analogy, these are the guys purposefully misprinting a bunch of stamps
and then selling them as priceless rarities. No need for us regular
people, who would very much prefer to share a drink, alcoholic or not,
than start a(nother) religious war, to nitpick on how many stamps can
dance on a pinhead, or whether not collecting stamps is a hobby or
not...
Cheers,
I.

>>
>> Atheism appears to perform the same functions as a Religion - it requires
>> belief in a particular status of a deity or deities, and succinctly answers
>> the question of why we are here.
>
>
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