Pericles,
As with many of our labels, there are shades of grey – ‘Atheism’ is no exception. Strong atheism is the explicit affirmation that gods do not exist. Weak atheism includes all other forms of non-theism. Involved also are the epistemological and ontological arguments where the foundation of epistemological atheism is agnosticism. Immanence gives us the philosophy that divinity is inseparable from the world itself – another ‘atheistic’ viewpoint. The rationalistic agnosticism of Kant and the Enlightenment only accepts knowledge deduced with human rationality; this form of atheism holds that gods are not discernible as a matter of principle, and therefore cannot be known to exist. Metaphysical atheism is based on metaphysical monism - the view that reality is homogeneous and indivisible. Absolute metaphysical atheists subscribe to some form of physicalism, hence they explicitly deny the existence of non-physical beings. You certainly may not subscribe to some if not many of these labels, but nevertheless, they certainly ‘exist’.

Interestingly, Jean Meslier, a French priest who lived in the early 18th century was the first known atheist who threw off the mantle of deism, bluntly denying the existence of gods. It was discovered, upon his death, that he had written a philosophical essay denouncing organized religion. Religions, to him, were fabrications fostered by ruling elites; although the earliest Christians had been exemplary in sharing their goods, Christianity had long since degenerated into encouraging the acceptance of suffering and submission to tyranny as practised by the kings of France.

To claim that atheism is unethical and immoral is to be ignorant of what atheism is in the first place. While there are immoral atheists, there are also immoral Religionists. It is a point of view that is void of any religion and does, it appears, to go beyond simple definition

Bushbasher,
I've grown accustomed to your jeers and barbs. You didn’t have to specify that you were referring to me.

You may refer to Sellick as a sanctimonious dick, but you ought at least give him credit for attracting the most amount of traffic on these Forum pages (including yourself), as much as most others put together.

Hi Grim,
When did I advocate taking the Bible literally? I did suggest inerrancy, but that is a different thing.

The stoning of divorcees? Well, you seemed to answer your own question. But why your hesitancy to get into contentious questions such as ID? (I recently saw the Ben Stein documentary called ‘Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed'. I thought it was a hoot. Have you seen it?)

http://www.amazon.com/Expelled-Intelligence-Allowed-Ben-Stein/dp/B001BYLFFS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1250933027&sr=1-1.

Davidf
Yes, I would agree that it is a good thing that scientific texts are revised and updated as scientific knowledge accumulates. And this helps to demonstrate how the Bible is different in nature from scientific texts.

Some hold the Bible to be authoritative over all domains, including the scientific. Others would say that is ‘nutty’. A creationist might say, well, we have to start our thinking somewhere, may as well start here and see how far we get. Their science flows from their presuppositions. Is that more nutty than the premise that ‘nothing exploded and became everything’, which is the current fashionable cosmological starting point?

Actually, I was addressing my question to Rhian, who had made some comments about the scientific method. A few others responded but not Rhian (not yet). My question is still out there. How on earth can science, or someone using the scientific method, discount or disprove singular events that allegedly took place near Lake Galilee roughly two thousand years ago?

bushabasher,
I do not think that statements like “sellick is a sanctimonious dick, repeatedly writing humorless, insulting crap. everything else is obfuscation“ (statements that are more about the author of the statement than about Sellick) are the proper way to express disagreement. However, it is a good illustration of why I stated before that I did not want to add to this war of “insults” that Sellick is supposed to have started.

Oliver,
If you, unlike some others, do not find insulting passages in Sellick‘s unfortunate article, then we are in agreement, and that is all I wanted to say: Whatever one understands under insult it should not depend on which world-view is targeted: either the article contains “insults“, then there are many other “insults” in these and other OLO posts, or we should stop calling insults sweeping statements that we disagree with (there are many in Sellick’s article, and he knows I disagree with them if he remembers our earlier discussions).

You claim to know what I believe, whereas I can know about your beliefs only from what you write down (as I used to tell my students, I cannot mark you on what I thought you thought, only on what you wrote), so I appreciate your personal confession.

I agree that “Sells’ would be neither a scientist nor a writer were it not for the Enlightenment“ only adding “and Chistianity”. Same as you and I would not be able to criticise him, or to enjoy the achievements of technology and “enlightened thinking”, without Christianity (and other inputs), since there is no other parallel civilisation that on its own reached these standards of science and democracy.

In this sense those who are too emotional in their criticism of Christianity’s (or Enlightenment‘s if you like ) shortcomings remind me of an adolescent who gets emotional in his/her criticism of his/her parents - an oversensitive parent might also feel insulted - without realising that without them he/she would not exist, and wold not have received the necessary education enabling him/her to be critical at all.

I posed a question to Sells earlier, because I have genuine doubts that Sells suffers from bad grammar, so much as a lack of courage in coming straight out and saying those who don't share his particular Christian beliefs don't qualify as "Human".
George, I think there are many, many instances in the historical record which indicate science has progressed not because of religion, but in spite of it.

Grim,
>> there are many, many instances in the historical record which indicate science has progressed not because of religion, but in spite of it<<
Though I do not know how this contradicts what I said above, I agree.

However, there are also many, many other instances in the historical record which indicate science has progressed because of the impetus Christianity gave to its pioneers, because of the “intellectual atmosphere“ - unique among civilisations - Christianity (aided by other influences) prepared for it with its striving to “know the truth“, as “unscientific” as it originally was, and as painful as it was for the Church to agree with Galileo’s dictum that “Scripture is intended to teach us how to go to heaven, and not how the heavens go“.

In A.N. Whitehead’s words, “Faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology." (Science and the Modern World).

Without doubt science has progressed most rapidly in the western world where Christianity provided the dominant culture at least up to the time of the enlightenment.
It did not, however, progress rapidly in non-western, Christian parts of the world so perhaps Christianity, as such, was not such a major contributor to the rapid development of science.
Perhaps we need to keep in mind that religion itself was on the wane in the western world from the time of the reformation and particularly from the enlightnment onwards. It may indeed be the demise of religion that freed the minds of scientists to 'explore all possibilities'.
I still believe that the rediscovery of Greek philosophers and the influence of Islam were major factors in the cultural/intellectual shift that began in the renaissance. Although this discovery may have taken place 'within' the Church it surely provided the destabilising influence that comes when people start to think for themselves to question and challenge the orthodoxy of the day.
Pandora's box may have been opened within the walls of the Church but it was not the Church's will that opened it.
I think any rational assessment of the history of science will come to the conclusion that science grew despite the Christian Church and largely without its support. One only need follow the Creation-Evolution forums to see how deep the wedge between science and religion is even today. Sadly, wherever the Church has been able to maintain its cultural dominance science has languished.
History will show that the emergence of science in the west is very closely correlated with the retreat of Christianity