Historically, theists have used the word atheist to describe heretics - anybody worshipping the wrong god or the right god in the wrong way. Thus it was common as a term of opprobrium between catholics and protestants during the reformation. To lack belief in any divinity seemed beyond comprehension for most people, especially in the middle ages.

Since I don't believe in any traditional, personal god or gods, I'm an atheist in the modern sense. I think that we have evolved in such a way that we are natural dualists. We tend to impute intention to any activity in the world (e.g. storms) even when there is no intender (it's still common for churchgoers to pray for good weather) and we live the illusion that we are minds or spirits or souls inhabiting bodies and thus possibly separable from our bodies. These two things together give rise to beliefs in all sorts of disembodied entities that I think are just flat impossible (no perception without perceptors, no cognition without nervous systems).

I usually avoid identifying myself as an atheist, if I can, both because I want to continue to get along with my extended family and because of the strident religion bashing that many self-identified atheists seem to revel in. It seems pointless to me, rather like bemoaning that we have four limbs. Religion, whether theistic, spiritual or just philosophical, seems to be one of the things that people in groups just do, like language, music, dance, the use of intoxicating substances, and storytelling.

The fact that some societies have tried to suppress one or more of these things is irrelevant; such prohibitions tend to be both difficult to achieve and short-lived, testifying to their universality.

There is a separate, deeper question beyond the question of the existence of disembodied entities. Is there a purpose or goal (telos) to the universe, to existence? Some, such as Steven Weinberg and Richard Dawkins, believe that we are here by chance and the only purpose or purposes to existence are those we act on. On the other hand, the well respected skeptic Martin Gardner has written that he has chosen to take the leap of faith that the universe indeed has purpose, however obscure that purpose.

I think we lack empirical evidence to answer the question of ultimate purpose. Therefore, I prefer to remain agnostic on this question. I think that the answer one prefers is a matter of taste or temperament rather than one of evidence. I do suspect that if there is purpose to the universe it may be beyond the ability of our primate brains to grasp or even to recognize the evidence for it, if such exists.

Perhaps our far descendents (same genus, different species) will have better luck with the question.

In the meantime, I hope that beliefs in disembodied entities will fade as the results of modern neurological research trickle down into the primary grades, just as most people now accept that we don't live on a motionless planet and recognize that our immediate perception of the world as not moving is illusory. Perhaps that's just my misplaced faith in the power of education.

Enon Zey:
I think we lack empirical evidence to answer the question of ultimate purpose. Therefore, I prefer to remain agnostic on this question. I think that the answer one prefers is a matter of taste or temperament rather than one of evidence

I found the rest of your comment very nicely put. But the quoted portion above is strange. If a proposition has no evidence and there is no imagined way to test it then for now at least it is irrelevant. We might as well ask if there is something like a god out there. Also if you postulate a purpose then the question becomes whose purpose?

Boelf:
Thank you for the kind words. I don't know if my answer will be satisfactory as I view this as a matter of taste and not one of logical consistency. Perhaps you're right and, borrowing Dennett's terminology, I'm just longing for a skyhook instead of settling for the available cranes.

If all we can do is ask "if there is something like a god" then we haven't gotten very far, have we? And that's the trouble; all our gods are primate gods, like us. The pathetic fallacy is one of our most natural ways of thinking.

A note of hope: We now know that there is a Designer in the world, a most marvelous and creative Designer that is nothing like us at all, not a Who but rather an impersonal process of variation and selection. A process that for a very long time was beyond our grasp. Might not the source of telos be similarly beyond our grasp? Or, alternately, not just not like a god but not like anything we can conceive, a mystery? This is certainly not an original thought with me; it was J.B.S. Haldane that quipped that the universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it's queerer than we can imagine.

I wouldn't characterize the question of telos as irrelevant but as intractable. Either way it certainly has attracted a plethora of commentators, from poets to philosophers. Steven Weinberg famously wrote, "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless." I'm not the first one to point out that seems rather cold and nihilistic.

So, an aesthetic justification rather than a reasoned one. I'm not willing to make a leap of faith but neither I'm I willing to embrace pointlessness. So I'll remain agnostically in doubt and comfortable regarding the world as a mysterious place. Happy New Year.

I think we lack empirical evidence to answer the question of ultimate purpose. Therefore, I prefer to remain agnostic on this question. I think that the answer one prefers is a matter of taste or temperament rather than one of evidence.

Interesting that I copied and pasted the same passage from Enon Zey's earlier post that Boelf did. Hopefully this won't be too redundant: I also thought this was a strange statement. If there is no empirical evidence one way or the other, then concluding anything is unscientific. If you truly believe that no evidence exists either way, then choosing atheism over agnosticism seems to me to represent some unscientific prejudice.

I can hardly blame people for reacting against dogmatic religions; where there is no empirical evidence either way it seems ridiculous, though sometimes fascinating (and sometimes dangerous), to come up with such elaborate stories and proscriptions. But if your premise does not equate religion with dogmatic religion, and does not equate spirituality with the predominance of "good" in the universe, there seems little logical basis for preferring atheism.

Voltaire said "doubt is an unpleasant position, but certainty is absurd". I first read this quote as the motto of UC Berkeley's (most likely now defunct) SANE: Students for a Non-Religious Ethos, a predominantly atheist group. But to my mind, this motto applies equally to religious people and to atheists.

I take this case as an illustration of the unselfcritical attitude I perceive in many self-declared atheists (and so we all have our prejudices...). When this attitude becomes strident, it is distasteful to me as it is to Enon Zey. At some point, the real theological differences between athesists and agnostics may become fairly academic, but in my experience there tends to be a personality divide between the two groups.

If it ever becomes necessary (politically for example), to choose a dogma, then the dogma of non-belief is clearly preferable to me than dogma made up by someone thousands of years ago. But for the time I feel better not having to tell anyone that they are wrong without having any hope of producing any empirical evidence to support myself.

Quick rejoinder: the admittedly strident agnostic motto "I don't know and neither do you" does appeal to me, as a response to religious and atheist people.

"Atheist or Agnostic?"

Why identify?

Enon Zey
A note of hope: We now know that there is a Designer in the world, a most marvelous and creative Designer that is nothing like us at all, not a Who but rather an impersonal process of variation and selection.

I think this is a misleading bit of anthropomorphism.  Evolution is a result, selection is the process by which that result is achieved.  To discuss evolution as a form of design is no more accurate than to imply that the Colorado River designed the Grand Canyon.  The river designed nothing, it merely flowed -- creating a canyon in the process.