Atheism is the exact opposite of a Fundamentalist Christian…
At least if you ask a Fundamentalist that is what they would want you to believe. As it is I do not agree. There are many aspects to faith and religion that should be dealt with here to have a fully valid discussion, but for the purposes of this blog I will simplify.
There are two aspects of faith that I will look at. The first is the relationship between an individual and God. Again, for the purposes of this discussion I will limit discussion to the Christian God. Once the argument is presented the relationship to any Religion can be used. The second aspect is the strength of conviction to that relationship.
There are many definitions for religion (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion) but all definitions indicate that the heart of religion is the ‘belief in the creator of the universe’. Thus an Atheist is a religious person. I could not find a secular definition of religion that required the belief that God exists, but only that you have a belief about God.
Atheists do not all have the same level of conviction. Some Atheists argue the non-existence of God with furvor rivalling the preachers on late night television. Can there be such a thing as a born-again Atheist? Others, however, are just as unsure there is not a God as that there is.
Agnosticism to me is the lack of conviction in one’s relationship to God. By definition they believe that the truth about God us unknowable.
Interestligly an agnostic Atheist and an agnostic Theist are one and the same. Since Agnostics believe that the truth is unknowable then they cannot state whether God exists and they cannot state that he does not.
Remember, any position chosen here is a belief. Regardless of how loud people shout whether God exists or not, and there are many people on both sides shouting loudly, there has been no proof of God’s existence or non-existence. This is not for a lack of trying, people have been trying to prove God’s existence for as long as it has been possible to talk about the divine.
But what about the concept where someone may ‘believe in God, but also believe that his existence is unknowable?’ This just means the questioner lies somewhere in between Agnosticism and Unquestionable befief. Egotistically, I believe most people have a similar thought, for this is the perspective that I hold.
Having stated the apparent contradiction I puport that these same people believe the existence in God is not truly unknowable. If they read in the newspaper that MIT had just discovered a logical proof that God exists, I would expect they would read further hoping to learn the details of the proof rather than discounting the article as hogwash immediatly.
This brings us to a triad of beliefs, Atheism, Agnosticism, and Theism. Two beliefs Theism and Atheism can be collected together with the strength of their beliefs. For that matter, Theism can be replaced by Fundamentalism in sitting next to Aethism. Only Agnosticism stands alone.
So, who actually lies as a polar opposite to the Fundamentalist Christians?