Parole Diver

Since you guys have covered the degrees of agnosticism, it would be appropriate to add the degrees of atheism here. I think negative and positive atheism might be more common but i'll use weak and strong since i'm more familiar with them. Strong atheism: Agrees with the statement "God certainly does not exist". Weak atheism: Agrees with the statement "God probably does not exist". That probably can range from "almost certain" to "mmm i guess maybe probably it doesnt" I think most atheists are the latter category, as its pretty unscientific to say you are 100% sure of something when you don't have proof of it. Atheism hinges on the lack of proof or evidence for or against a God. There is no proof of God, some (including myself) would say that there is no evidence for God, so they don't believe in it. Even atheists like Richard Dawkins would not go so far as to say that Gods lack of existence is certain. In other words weak atheism is not a contradiction because 'I do not believe in God' is not the same thing as 'I believe there is no God', the difference is very distinct and I think most atheists who have put a reasonable amount of thought into their position are weak atheists, even if they don't know the term.

I am unironically against the death penalty and for abortion and do not use logical fallacies to justify that position. Why against the death penalty: Innocent people have been executed in the past and will be in the future. The penalty is not applied equally and it is just barbaric revenge as opposed to keeping the public safe. Since it's more expensive than life in jail I don't see it as in the public interest either, and it also bereaves the loved ones of that convict too. Early foetuses have no hopes, dreams, desires, fears, experiences, emotions, loves or anything else that makes humans so special. Yeah if not aborted they would have the possibility of obtaining these things and the same argument is often used against contraception, but since they do not have them when aborted, it is irrelevant. The whole thing gets gradually more worrying as the foetus gets older and the brain gets the ability to feel pain but as far as early abortions go its just wiping out some of your own inanimate body cells. This is far from the state sanctioned killing of a living breathing human, regardless of what that human has done. I find it amusing that many death penalty advocates are against abortion because of fetal pain when the electric chair, gas chamber and lethal injection are all horribly painful. Utter utter rubbish and nonsense. Firstly because that was never the title, it was for the first 5 editions 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life', and then 'The Origin of Species' from the 6th edition. Besides the fact that 'The Origin of Species' is the title of the most recent and updated edition, 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life' is far too long for people to refer to repeatedly. Secondly, races refers to species. Races of cabbage. Races of finch. The word 'race' today has vastly different feelings attached to it today than it did in the mid 1800's, and is used differently. Thirdly, describing Darwin's goal as 'justifying one race ruling over another' is so ridiculously and evidently inaccurate that it is difficult to appreciate how offensively libellous it is. Quite aside from the fact that Origin makes barely a mention of human evolution, Darwin's correspondence shows that he explicitly rejected the idea of enforced eugenics. I'm not aware of his thoughts regarding the supremacy of once race over another, but unless someone can come up with some evidence of it then I'm going to assume it has just been made up by someone who doesn't like evolution. As a side point trying to discredit evolution by discrediting Darwin is meaningless, his works may well have been the main contributor to convincing the scientific community that evolution by natural selection is how species came about, but the evidence gathered since then stands up by itself.

That was astoundingly fast, many thanks