Dear Thorne:

(or to whom it may consern)

Sometimes to have a debate one must be willing to use terms that we can all accept as common...thankfully the english language has a number of dictionaries to choose from, and 99% of them have a consensus when it comes to definitions of the words used within them even if 99% of them have more or less words contained within them. My faviorte dictionaries are the "unabridged" variety becuase they ussually have the largest number of words and definitions.

According to allmost every dictionary I have looked in:

An atheist: is one who believes that there is no deity or takes a position that a deity (or deities) does not exist.

One can say its not a belief all they wish becuase they cant stand the word belief becuase they believe it to be a religious word in and of itself or they wish to somehow change what the word believe means via sophistry for the purpose of twisting things in a discussion...but that doesnt change what the word actually means in the slightest....at least not in so far as the commonly accepted standards of the english language are agreed upon to be by the experts who wrote the dictionaries we all use.

Again according to the same dictionary:

To Believe: is to have a firm conviction of somethiing, to hold an opinion on something, to consider something to be true or someone to be honest, to accept the word or evidence of someone or something, to have faith that what one believes is true and right.

Here are some examples of the word believe when used correctly in a sentence:



  • Some scientists believed the reports of their peers considering climate change without double checking the data.
  • Many people seem to believe that theory, but I find it hard to believe.
  • You shouldn't believe everything you read.
  • He says he'll help us, but I don't believe what he says.
  • They were tricked into believing that he was a doctor.
  • He says he'll help us, but I don't believe him.
  • She went to church because her family expected it, but she didn't really believe in God. (Probabely becuase she was an atheist imho lol)
  • I have watched the many ways that teachers demonstrate pleasure in what students have said or done. I used to believe that teachers needed to present a stoic face for fear of losing control—as if smiling caused bad behavior. —Nancy Mack, English Journal, September 2008

Philosophical or otherwise...points of view..or thoughts of an individual on any given subject are by definition beliefs.

They may or may not have believable evidence supporting them which can be a determining factor as to how much faith one puts in the beliefs of another on a given topic.

But a lot of times (as with the "scientists who had faith in their peers status...and didnt bother to double check the data) prestigue of the bearer of the message precludes one to have more or less faith in the expoused beliefs conserning a given thing.

That they are provable or not has very little to do with the fact that they are still beliefs with varying degrees of faith in said beliefs all the same.

If you Thorne can acept these above facts conserning the english languange then we can perhaps procced to have an actual logical conversation conserning this topic in so far as our respected beliefs and our faith in them may apply.

Hopefully without resorting to calling one side or the other full of doo hickie, or being purposfully insulting (which btw calling anyone who believes in god an idiot by defualt or associating their belief with that of fairy tales and spagetti monsters is in fact very deliberatly "insulting" I might add.)

Otherwise it will be just as pointless as it has been in the past to continue with you again or for that matter any further.

Respectfully,

denuseri