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[Son of Sluggish]

Oh man, you're not religious are you?

I am the antithesis of religious: agnostic.

I neither subscribe to the religion of theism or atheism.

 

[Krazeh]

I am the antithesis of religious: agnostic.

I neither subscribe to the religion of theism or atheism.

Agnostic isn't the antithesis of religion, that'd be atheism. Claiming that you cannot know whether a higher power exists or not is not the opposite of belief in a higher power. Should also be mentioned that atheism isn't a religion.

 

[Scouse]

Finally, go to the dentist you pasty skinned wankers!

This all started after the first Austin Powers film. The Yanks missed the point of a joke about it was OK for Brit movie stars to have shit teeth in the 60's. It's not the case nowadays.


But trust the yanks to miss the point and then think it's real eh?

 

[Scouse]

Atheism isn't a religion. Religious people cannot understand this because lack of belief is not a concept that they can understand without first having experienced it.

 

[Son of Sluggish]

Agnostic isn't the antithesis of religion, that'd be atheism. Claiming that you cannot know whether a higher power exists or not is not the opposite of belief in a higher power. Should also be mentioned that atheism isn't a religion.

You're wrong, you know?

What is religion if not the very foundation of faith? Taking the stance that in an infinate universe with infinite possibilities that there could not possibly be any possibility of a higher power requires just as much of a leap of faith as claiming that there's an old man in sky watching us.

90% of all people who claim to be atheists are actually agnostic.

 

[Grits]

Agnostic isn't the antithesis of religion, that'd be atheism. Claiming that you cannot know whether a higher power exists or not is not the opposite of belief in a higher power. Should also be mentioned that atheism isn't a religion.

Atheism is absolutely a religion, it just rejects the idea of a deity and replaces it with secular humanism.

 

[Grits]

This all started after the first Austin Powers film. The Yanks missed the point of a joke about it was OK for Brit movie stars to have shit teeth in the 60's. It's not the case nowadays.


But trust the yanks to miss the point and then think it's real eh?

We get the joke, and I've seen Kate Beckinsale, I know that is not necessarily the case today, but damnit dont let that spoil the fun.

 

[Son of Sluggish]

Atheism isn't a religion. Religious people cannot understand this because lack of belief is not a concept that they can understand without first having experienced it.

Lack of belief is the foundation of being agnostic. Stating and believing with conviction that there could not possibly be any higher power requires faith.

 

[Krazeh]

You're wrong, you know?

I'm not.

What is religion if not the very foundation of faith? Taking the stance that in an infinate universe with infinite possibilities that there could not possibly be any possibility of a higher power requires just as much of a leap of faith as claiming that there's an old man in sky watching us.

Except being atheist doesn't mean taking that stance. It simply means not holding a belief in the existence of a higher power. It doesn't require saying that one doesn't exist nor does it require any 'leaps of faith'.

90% of all people who claim to be atheists are actually agnostic.

Well that's great but it doesn't change anything about what atheism is or that it is the antithesis of religion.

Lack of belief is the foundation of being agnostic. Stating and believing with conviction that there could not possibly be any higher power requires faith.

Again you've gotten being agnostic mixed up with being atheist. Atheism is the lack of belief, plain and simple. There is nothing more to it than that. If you want to go further and say there definitely could never ever ever be a higher power then that's upto you but it's not a requirement of being atheist.

Atheism is absolutely a religion, it just rejects the idea of a deity and replaces it with secular humanism.

Perhaps it does in your definition of atheism, but that doesn't make it so. Lacking belief in a diety doesn't mean you have to replace it with anything else, or indeed do so.

 

[Raven]

Meh, I don't care either way, there are far more important things in life than wondering if there is some dude fucking about with everything. I sort of believe in things spiritual, not to the point of going out of my way but I believe in the soul. Organised religion is a con though, it exists to make money and to have power over people.

 

[FWNuke]

This all started after the first Austin Powers film. The Yanks missed the point of a joke about it was OK for Brit movie stars to have shit teeth in the 60's. It's not the case nowadays.


But trust the yanks to miss the point and then think it's real eh?

You guys still don't really take care of your teeth like Americans do. You guys ever put braces on your kids so they don't have crooked teeth when they grow up? I'd say better than 90% of American kids get braces, if needed.

Here is an article for you from an American's point of view after moving over there.

The ugly truth about British teeth - Times Online

The ugly truth about British teeth

I wonder if the jockey Liam Treadwell knew that he had bad teeth, before Clare Balding mentioned it. “He hasn't got the best teeth in the world,” she burbled to the little fellow, and to anybody else watching the Grand National on Saturday. “But you can afford to go and get them done now if you like.” Treadwell looked shocked. Maybe he was embarrassed. But maybe he just didn't know. Often, British men just don't. Hence Austin Powers. We Brits are fortunate in that we don't spend our teenage years looking as if we're vomiting coathangers, but unfortunate in that we end up looking like, well, Brits. Pre-globilisation, this probably didn't matter much. Before anybody had seen Friends, nobody cared if you had a mouth filled with what looked like the broken ends of lollipop sticks. As a teenager, my most promiscuous friend had a middle tooth. True story. Outside of countries that were suffering actual famines, only Brits would stand for this sort of thing.

The established caricature of Tony Blair - all beaming perfect teeth in a huge smile - probably makes no sense at all if you come from anywhere else. Blair's teeth are appalling. The more stressed he got towards the end, the more that one, tricky posterior tooth seemed to recede back into his mouth. Kate Moss, likewise, can only be considered one of the most desirable women in the world until she opens her mouth. It's grisly in there. Like King's Cross in the middle of the night.

Only in Britain are too-perfect teeth considered sinister. The point at which Cheryl Cole got her teeth sorted out, clearly, was the point at which the chaps from Stepford took possession of her soul. Simon Cowell and Esther Rantzen both have teeth so well-tended that they are actually terrifying.
Hollywood is littered with films rendered absurd because the actors have teeth that are far too good for their roles. Christian Slater as a medieval monk (The Name of the Rose). Mel Gibson as William Wallace (Braveheart). Hilary Swank as an actual, honest-to-God boxer (Million Dollar Baby).

In America, nobody notices that this is a problem, because nobody remembers that bad teeth even exist. And, some day soon, we'll be just the same. When I was younger, dentists used to tell me, quite approvingly, that I had teeth like Madonna. These days they sniff, and ask why I never had a brace. Clare Balding is a sports journalist, for God's sake. They're officially the least fashionable people this side of Alan Partridge. Truly, Britain has changed.

I grew up in the States, coming of age tooth-wise in a seaside town north of Boston. It was around 7th grade (year 8) that the metal really started. By then, you were in the tiny minority if you weren't wired up to some sort of contraption, instilling your orthodontic values firmly and forever. This was largely down to the mad amounts of pain and inconvenience caused by braces, and the fact that everyone had them.
But the result is that all my school chums now have uniformly perfect teeth. We all still go to the hygienist at least every six months for a vigorous clean. The dentist is a normal part of our personal upkeep. And we love smiling for pictures.

Soon after I came to the UK to university, I began looking for a dentist for my regular cleanings. I'd assumed it wouldn't be so different from asking where the best local Chinese food was or, for that matter, a GP. Instead, I was shocked to discover that either people told a horror story of that time ten years ago when they lost a tooth in a riding accident and had to go the dentist, or they just looked blank. I discovered that most people here haven't been to the dentist for years - and cheerfully admit to it. To me, that's like saying you don't use computers, or you boil your water over an open fire and use outdoor toilets.
The proof is in the pudding: British teeth are so riddled with over and underbites, crowding, swollen gums, discolouration and erratic spacing that, for self-preservation, I have stopped looking too closely at British mouths.

Still, occasionally I am overcome, such as at the recent dinner party with my boyfriend's colleagues. I couldn't take my eyes off one well-spoken, well-dressed man - his mouth had imploded, leaving him with an underbite so drastic his jaw was permanently jutting out. I couldn't believe this was possible in someone under 30, who had grown up in London in the 20th century. It was all I could do not to scream over the table: “Why oh why didn't your parents get you braces?”
The fierceness and commitment with which we American kids were made to spend our youths in disfiguring, tongue-slicing metal is also bewildering. But at the end of the day, I think we've come on top, at least when it comes to saying cheese

 

[Scouse]

You're wrong, you know?

I'm not, you know. I even wrote a mathematical proof

Absence of belief is not the same as the belief in the absence of a god. They're very different things indeed...

 

[Scouse]

You guys still don't really take care of your teeth like Americans do. You guys ever put braces on your kids so they don't have crooked teeth when they grow up? I'd say better than 90% of American kids get braces, if needed.

I had braces because I needed them for medical reasons. My teeth are immaculate.

90% of kids don't need braces for reasons of anything other than vanity. I'd call unnecessary medical procedures on children what it is: mass child abuse.

 

[Son of Sluggish]

I'm not.



Except being atheist doesn't mean taking that stance. It simply means not holding a belief in the existence of a higher power. It doesn't require saying that one doesn't exist nor does it require any 'leaps of faith'.

Unless you're willing to state emphatically that there could not possibly be any chance of a deity, you are an agnostic.

There are no levels of atheism; you either are or aren't. As "edgy" and "with it" stating that you're an atheist may seem, most people who claim to be atheists are agnostic.

 

[FWNuke]

90% of kids don't need braces for reasons of anything other than vanity. I'd call unnecessary medical procedures on children what it is: mass child abuse.

That's why we think you have bad teeth. Because you guys have a lot of crooked, ugly teeth.

Examples of people that have lots of money, yet have messed up teeth.

 

[Krazeh]

Unless you're willing to state emphatically that there could not possibly be any chance of a deity, you are an agnostic.

There are no levels of atheism; you either are or aren't. As "edgy" and "with it" stating that you're an atheist may seem, most people who claim to be atheists are agnostic.

That is just nonsense. If you do not hold the belief that a higher power exists then you are atheist, it has nothing to do with stating that a diety could never exists. I do not hold the belief that dieties exist, ergo I am an atheist. If I held the view that one could exist but we simply don't know one way or another then i'd be agnostic, but doing so would require me to hold the belief that a higher power does exist at one level or another.

It would seem that you're getting confused between the concept of not holding a belief that dieties exist and holding the belief that they do not exist. They are two separate concepts and you do not need the latter, only the former, in order to be an atheist.

 

[nath]

Unless you're willing to state emphatically that there could not possibly be any chance of a deity, you are an agnostic.

There are no levels of atheism; you either are or aren't. As "edgy" and "with it" stating that you're an atheist may seem, most people who claim to be atheists are agnostic.

It may be "edgy" or "with it" in the states, but we're not as God obsessed over here as you guys so it's not any where near as big a deal. Plus you're entirely wrong about your definition of agnosticism vs atheism. All babies are born atheist, indoctrination makes them anything else. To put it another way, my lack of belief of fairies and unicorns does not make me agnostic to their existence it means I have no belief in them. My lack of belief in God makes me an atheist - I lack theistic belief. As has already been stated, atheism is not the absolute *belief* in the absence of God.

However, this is a semantic argument and once that will probably go in circles. It has been demonstrated enough that you're wrong so if you don't accept it by now then you probably won't ever so I'll not bother discussing this point any more. Unless of course you come back with an interesting point .

 

[Scouse]

That's why we think you have bad teeth. Because you guys have a lot of crooked, ugly teeth

Ms Moss doesn't seemed to have suffered on the fucking-loaded-supermodel circuit because of her crooked ugly teeth does she?

It could be that the rest of the planet (it's not just the UK, you know) aren't a bunch of shallow, vacuous air-heads who prize looks above all else, even if it means a couple of years of serious pain for their children.

 

[Son of Sluggish]

However, this is a semantic argument and once that will probably go in circles. It has been demonstrated enough that you're wrong so if you don't accept it by now then you probably won't ever so I'll not bother discussing this point any more. Unless of course you come back with an interesting point .

I will concede that it is a semantics argument in which you are wrong...

To get back to my original statement, militant atheists (unlike agnostic atheists like yourself) who emphatically state that "THERE COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE A GOD!!!" are practicing a faith akin to any organized religion.

In fact it is a religion.

 

[FWNuke]

Ms Moss doesn't seemed to have suffered on the fucking-loaded-supermodel circuit because of her crooked ugly teeth does she?

It could be that the rest of the planet (it's not just the UK, you know) aren't a bunch of shallow, vacuous air-heads who prize looks above all else, even if it means a couple of years of serious pain for their children.

Just letting you in on why we think you have bad teeth. It's because you do, lol.

 

[FWNuke]

When I was a kid, most kids I knew had braces at one point. I don't remember any of the kids complaining about it. It's not that painful.

Even at eleven years old, I could see that I would benefit later in life by having my crooked teeth fixed.

I understand that your NHS probably wouldn't pay for a cosmetic procedure, but we don't have that problem here.

 

[Krazeh]

I will concede that it is a semantics argument in which you are wrong...

To get back to my original statement, militant atheists (unlike agnostic atheists like yourself) who emphatically state that "THERE COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE A GOD!!!" are practicing a faith akin to any organized religion.

In fact it is a religion.

Hang on, a minute ago there were no levels of atheism, you either were or you weren't. Now we have 2 different types of atheist?

Regardless, "militant" atheism, as you put it, is only a religion in as much as holding a belief in any idea can be considered a religion. You can have faith in an idea without it being religious.

 

[nath]

To get back to my original statement, militant atheists (unlike agnostic atheists like yourself) who emphatically state that "THERE COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE A GOD!!!" are practicing a faith akin to any organized religion.

In fact it is a religion.

More semantics, it's not a religion but a belief without facts to back it up. Just like other religions but I think it takes more than a belief in something that cannot be confirmed to qualify as a religion.

Also, just to correct you the correct term for me would be a weak-atheist though I'm not a fan of that term as it suggests some sort of feeble mindset when it's actually based on scientific reasoning and logical thinking. Richard Dawkins apparently describes himself as a de facto atheist, that works for me.

 

[Scouse]

When I was a kid, most kids I knew had braces at one point. I don't remember any of the kids complaining about it. It's not that painful.

Even at eleven years old, I could see that I would benefit later in life by having my crooked teeth fixed.

I understand that your NHS probably wouldn't pay for a cosmetic procedure, but we don't have that problem here.

Like I said. I had braces. I know how it hurts. And, quoting the article which you yourself posted:

The fierceness and commitment with which we American kids were made to spend our youths in disfiguring, tongue-slicing metal is also bewildering.

This, of course, is ten years after getting most of your children's foreskins lopped off, for no good medical reason.

Yep. As a country you're almost as bad as the japanese foot binders. You self-mutilating weirdos!


As for the "agnostic atheist" comment above. Lol! You can't mix up two distinctly separate terms to make another totally bullshit term in an attempt to win an argument you've already demonstrably lost.

But then, you don't speak English do you, so how can I expect you to understand the rules?

 

[Scouse]

BTW yanks. Is that ronpartmycheeks guy that chap you told us about with the mental problems?

 

[Son of Sluggish]

BTW yanks. Is that ronpartmycheeks guy that chap you told us about with the mental problems?

You bet.

 

[FWNuke]

This Robbie Williams guy is one that I don't get at all. He's the number one selling solo artist of all time in the UK, I think. You guys went from Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Beatles, Kinks, Stones to this?

YouTube - Robbie Williams - Rudebox

 

[nath]

Yeah Robbie Williams is fucking dire, but Garth Brooks ain't exactly great music.

One of the few reliable things in this world - the masses have fucking awful taste in music.

 

[FWNuke]

BTW yanks. Is that ronpartmycheeks guy that chap you told us about with the mental problems?

What do you mean, mental problems? Just because he's 58 years old , spends his time suing people (and losing), typing gibberish and getting repeatedly banned from forums doesn't make him mental. Oh wait, yes it does.

 

[Son of Sluggish]

As for the "agnostic atheist" comment above. Lol! You can't mix up two distinctly separate terms to make another totally bullshit term in an attempt to win an argument you've already demonstrably lost.

I invented the term "agnostic atheism" to demonstrate the idiocy of so-called "soft-atheism". I thought you Brits were supposed possess the height of ironic sarcasm?

You either are an atheist or you aren't. If you can't make an absolute statement to the impossibility of the existence of a higher power you are agnostic.

If you do claim to be an atheist you are taking a leap of faith only surpassed by a Roman Catholic (and really only because of the incense and I bet a lot of atheistic rituals include incense too).