Scott Adams Suggests Bill Gates For President

gerrysteele writes to point out a recent post to the Dilbert blog, in which Scott Adams discusses the atheist ascendancy in America and rationalizes the need for an atheist leader. From the article: "Ask a deeply religious Christian if he'd rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don't seem so bad lately. I think that in an election cycle or two you will see an atheist business leader emerge as a legitimate candidate for president. And his name will be Bill Gates."

God

[Wooky_linuxer (685371)]

help us.

Re:God

[sjwest (948274)]

If i was american i'd not vote for him, but im sure quite a few americians would vote for catbert.

Re:God

[Total_Wimp (564548)]

Forget Bill, the rest of article says something even more beautiful than his possible presidency.

I'm so happy that Atheists might possibly be able to achieve the lofy satus that homosexuals enjoy in our society, and might be even more respected than terrorists. Considering that I've been told by more than one Christian (true story here) that atheists do not have the capacity for morality, I absolutely love the idea that I might be able to catch up with gay people on the social pecking order. Now if only I had the chance of being less of an outcast than blacks in the south, but I'm sure unwed mothers and pickpockets will always beat out the both of us.

Read the ariticle. It's hope (sniff).

TW

Re:God

[markh1967 (315861)]

I've been told by more than one Christian (true story here) that atheists do not have the capacity for morality

I think this says far more about the lack of morality of the person making this statement than it does about the morality of athiests - they are obviously only held in check by their fear of divine retribution and are incredulous that anybody who is not so constrained would act in a moral manner because they themselves wouldn't if they thought they could get away with it.

Re:God

[COMON$ (806135)]

Interesting indeed. I would assume the Christian in question was referring to some kind of consistent morality. Although most of my fellow Christian are woefully ignorant about their own faith and could not distinguish the difference between Christianity and any other mainstream religion. Chances are someone they respect said the same thing "Atheists have no moral capacity" and thought, hey this person is saying something bad about Atheists, it must be true!

That aside, in my opinion, the atheist moral issue is more of a concern because it allows the scope of human stupidity larger reign. Regardless of whether a person thinks there is a God or not, there is a certain amount of respect to be paid to moral laws that are 8-10K years old. Humanity has learned certain lessons in the past and we need to heed those lessons. Example, even my atheist friends agree, If humanity would be more careful with its sexuality, (be more picky with partners, or abstain to a bonding relationship), we would be able to make STDs a very manageable problem. Many major religions have included abstinence in their moral law.

Now from a Theological standpoint, a Christian should not fear breaking the law because God will smite them. The proper fear comes from the human consequences. Eat Pork in 1500BC and you will have issues, weave different kinds of thread, you will have issues, or the bigger laws, Covet and you will pay $5K for a PS3.

The advantage that a Theistic group has, is it can enforce moral law without explaining it all. But if you delve into each Law it usually has a good, nontheistic, reason for it. The whole Wrath of God idea, just makes it easy to enforce. Whereas an atheist has to rely on his/her own discipline to maintain a moral law. Good luck controlling mass stupidity that way :)

Re:God

[Planesdragon (210349)]

A person who followed Biblical laws to the letter (i.e. kill your disobedient children, kill homosexuals, kill nonbelievers, etc) would be headed straight for prison in a modern, secular society.

Funny. Even when Israel was an independant state, the Talmudic death penalty was rarely enforced. And as soon as Jesus of Nazareth started saying "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone", well, the modern sense of compassion and mercy became law.

(And I'd be interested to hear your quotes for any one of those things, btw -- I'm pretty sure that you had be worse than "abomination" to merit the death penalty, and that's all that homosexuality was classified as. No worse than a menstrating woman going to temple.)

How many of the Ten Commandments are actually laws in any modern society? Two, maybe three? God is only 25% correct?

Taking the Roman Catholic Version [wikipedia.org]:

1: "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." Democratic socieites prohibit the enforcement of a state religion, meaning that Christians are not forced to have any other gods. Plus, there are still several American communities where not going to church will get you ostracised.

2: "Do not take the name of the Lord in vain." Nope, no legal effect.

3: "Observe the sabbath and keep it holy": I just had a weekend, as did some 80% of my countrymen. Those of us who worked on that day chose to work it, and their employers have a legally-mandated fiscal incentive to give them at least one day in seven off.

4: "Honor thy father and thy mother": Elder law requires us to take care of our parents, either directly or through paying taxes. And parents have standing to file an array of cases relating to their children and grandchildren that ordinary folk have to fight tooth and nail for.

5: Murder. (Yep, all kinds of laws against that.)

6: No Adultury (It's a crime in NY, and either a crime or a cause for divorce elsewhere.)

7: Do not steal (Yep.)

8: Do not bear false witness (ever hear of perjury? Libel?)

9: "Do not covet your neighbor's wife" -- actually, more than a few states still have laws against interfering with someone's marriage.

10: Don't covet anything else (nope, no legal effect.)

So, on a modest view, 8/10 commandments are still legally enforced at least somewhere in America. If you want to be more strict, 6/10 are core principles of a modern democratic society. And either way you splice it, the other 2 or 4 are seen as "very good ideas."

Has the Bush Sr. quote been posted yet?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm) (193358)]

"No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots."

George H. W. Bush, August 27, 1987.

Re:Atheists and Morality

[dsanfte (443781)]

Why is it wrong to kill? Simply saying "because its wrong to deny another person life" implies that there is a higher value to human life.

Atheists do not believe in gods. They can still believe in man. There is no contradiction.

Yes, where is the atheist member of congress?

[guidryp (702488)]

I agree. The point of the article is more about gaining some of the acceptance for atheists that other minorities enjoy. References to Bill Gates are more tangential.

I think this links with a study a while back that had atheist as the most distrusted minority in America. I doubt there is an out of closet atheist anywhere in US politics.

I think I have finally getting a handle on the fear/distrust of atheist after watching a few 30 days documentaries (atheist/christians, Pro-choice/pro-life) and the "Root of all evil" documentary with Richard Dawkins, and Jesus Camp. You eventually get the strong sense that it is drummed in from day one that there is nothing worse than being without the word of god. So an atheist is unfathomable.

If you are taught from day one that the only "righteous" people are those that are steeped in the word of god. How do you understand someone that thinks about each issue independently? How can you know what they will think? Of course the old chestnut of atheist not having morality crops up. Having no authoritative source, how could they?

Though it is largely inaccurate,I guess I can understand where it comes from. So maybe Scott is correct and we are at least seeing the baby steps of having a very tiny minority of those in the public eye come out on atheism and one or two TV shows with atheists. We may be in the position of starting some very basic education so religious people can eventually get to have some tiny understanding of atheists.

Re:Yes, where is the atheist member of congress?

[Lysol (11150)]

Absolutely! Welcome to the world of indoctrination! People are taught from a very young age their various religious beliefs and morals.

It's funny tho, the whole 'morals from God ' thing. Any Christian I talk to (including relatives) all believe not only in words written on pages thousands of years ago (written by dudes named John and Paul, which are very Jewish names, and also hand-picked by the Catholic church in later years) but also usually support whatever bloodhsed in any part of the world as long as it's in God's name (the 'extremist' and uneducated Muslims love this too). Whether it's the (re-)invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever their morality points them, they all belive in and break the concepts 'written' down thousands of years ago. How hypocritical, yet, it's God's morals they're following. And they know it .

I was indoctrinated into Christianity from a young age. Was told all the scary stories of judgement and this and that and in my late teens/early twenties realized that it was all bullshit. All about control, judgement - all negative. I've never met anyone who is Christ-like in the western world. And I've come to realize that Judeo-based/Christian morals are the last thing I'd ever impart on my kids (if I ever have any). They're, in my opinion, totally backwards and have nothing to do with modern living and have nothing to do with living a decent, educated, fair, and compassionate life.

The best thing that could happen to the future of the world is the advent of a more universal, worldly, consciousness and an ascendency of non-theism. After all, there'd definitely be less or no wars (no God to justify them, no virgins in Heaven), less suffering (no wars plus no religious barriers to medical research), better integration (no separation of the righteous and 'wicked'), and hopefully more compassion (less Godly judgement), and definitely more time spent on learning about science and the natural universe and less about the supernatural, religious texts.

While I say each to his own, it's clear to me that the Judeo-based religions are fundamentally flawed and have little place in the future of humanity. Some day, they will be realized (hopefully) as the primitive thinking they are just like the Greek and Roman and even Sumerian or Egyptian gods (which we dismiss as ridiculous nowadays). Of course, I won't live to see it, but it will probably happen. It has to, otherwise humanity will destroy itself. You have only to glimpse any religious leader/figure around the world to be sure of that.

That always creeped me out

[Weaselmancer (533834)]

Considering that I've been told by more than one Christian (true story here) that atheists do not have the capacity for morality

I've heard that one too. Always really creeped me out.

Why? Because you can infer from that statement that the only reason they are moral is because they believe there is an invisible man watching their every move who will drop them in a boiling lake of sulfur if they misbehave. So the other side of that coin is that they would be completely amoral if The Big Guy wasn't watching them. If religion suddenly went away today, first thing these people would do is go berserk and give in to their every urge - since there would be no reason not to.

Maybe religion isn't such a bad idea after all.

Re:God

[GNious (953874)]

I don't think Balmer would run...

/G

Oh, the humanity!

[Bromskloss (750445)]

Something tells me that government wouldn't switch over to free software too soon.

Re:Oh, the humanity!

[VincenzoRomano (881055)]

Well, this way the President will announce for "America NG" a brand new country for the next generation, designed from scratch, better, more powerful, for a better western expericence.

Scott Adams is smoking crack

[Lord Kano (13027)]

We're a country who has had one Catholic President and one Quaker. Arguably we've had pagans, if you count the deists. But their particular brand of deism was not too far from standard Christianity.

I predict that we'll have a Jewish president before an athiest.

LK

Of course!

[Esteanil (710082)]

I believe him.

But as to timing, I think it will happen a short while after Microsoft wins the nationwide bid on supplying software for the next generation election machines... ;-)

I can see it now....

[by Anonymous Coward]

"Your country has performed an illegal operation."

Oh, wait............ it already has. Nevermind.

Re:I can see it now....

[Dunbal (464142)]

"Your country has performed an illegal operation."

Oh, wait............ it already has. Nevermind.

      Cannot find file "WMD.IRAQ", System Halted.

Re:I can see it now....

[Geminii (954348)]

Sorry, we're gonna have to shut your country down temporarily and replace the political drivers. In the meantime, try running in Safe mode - no invasions, no corporations running in Ring 0, and no personal incomes over 640K. (That should be enough for anyone.)

Gates

[zeromorph (1009305)]

As if US politics hadn't enough *Gates in history.

But a Iraq SP2 might be useful anyway.

A whole new range of political terms and language.

[salparadyse (723684)]

My Oval Office
My Little Puppy British Prime Minister
My Electronic Voting Machine - press the button, the screen changes, but nothing else does.
UN.dll has caused a fatal error.
Foreign Country Explorer - where do you want to invade today?

Why?

[techmuse (160085)]

Why would Gates want to give up so much power to become president? Wouldn't that be a step down?

End of faith

[clickclickdrone (964164)]

Anyone interested in the possibilities of a world without faith could so worse than read the book "End of Faith" by Sam Harris. This book puts forward a powerful argument against all religions whilst putting forward insightful ideas for an alternative way to add value to our lives. It also has interesting views on radicalism within religion, primarily that the only true believers of any religion are the fanatics as they take the entire bible/koran/whatever at face value and live it whereas more moderates cherry pick the bits they like and ignore the bits they don't (stoning the neighbour for eating fish on a tuesday, nah, ignore that one. Hate gays? yup, tick) resulting in the vast majority of any given religions followers as basically failing that religons requirements.

Re:End of faith

[MartinB (51897)]

One could get in to a discussion about OT versus NT but a quick look at e.g. Leviticus will reveal a whole bunch of 'laws' which most modern Christians choose to ignore yet others which they hold to be absolute truths to live their lives by.

The thing is, that the OT/NT discussion is the key here. The NT thing is that loving God, and loving other people fulfils the entire OT law, without the specific list of items.

Now many evangelicals like to pick and choose from the specific list according to their own tastes/prejudices, but you're right, to be consistent, one should go the whole hog, as Christianity doesn't actually have a concept of big sins/little sins - a sin is a sin is a sin (pace Catholicism). But they don't like it when you point this out, as much of it is clearly absurd to western society. As are the bits they like to pick out. One good exposition of this is the one from the The West Wing [bewarne.com]:

"I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleaned the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?"

        "My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police?"

        "Here's one that's really important cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7 If they promise to wear gloves can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?"

        "Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother, John, for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?"

But just because some people like to pick specifics from a menu doesn't mean that this is at all an accurate, authentic description of Christianity.

Bill in charge?

[Patrik_AKA_RedX (624423)]

I can see this happening.
- Finland added to list of rogue states.
- Bin laden looses first place to Torvalds
- US army invades China in the War Against Piracy.
- European parliament get accidentaly carpet bombed. Suriving senator drops MS fines.
- Microsoft tax becomes official and mandatory for everyone.
- Making MS jokes becomes capital crime. Death sentence reintroduced in all states.
- Gate-ology becomes state religion. Defines witches as people who use different OS.
- enviromentalists complain on enviromental effects of witch burnings.
- Enviromentalists proven to be very flameble.

An honest person for president

[ortholattice (175065)]

No, I wouldn't like to have Bill Gates for president, not because he's an atheist, but because he's dishonest. From obvious lies he told during the antitrust trial to the one-sided, biased spin he puts on almost anything having to do with Microsoft, I simply cannot trust him. Once a person has lied to me, it is very difficult and often impossible to re-earn my trust. In Bill Gates' case, I think it is impossible. I think this is sad for him, but it is his own doing. He is not someone I admire or respect because of it. At least he has his riches to bask in, but I could never trust him.

I suppose some will come to his defense and say that he was just defending or promoting his company, and that's the way business works. Well, I don't buy that. Does a person's integrity have a price? This is also why over time I am becoming more and more cynical and distrustful about almost any information provided by corporations - it is almost always one-side, biased in their favor, with any relevant negative aspects suppressed. This unethical behavior is defended, even encouraged, in the name of capitalism, business promotion, salesmanship, and so on as a good, positive thing.

To be forthcoming, in the past I too have twisted the truth to my employer's customers to please those who signed my paycheck, and I feel terrible about it. But it is unethical and very wrong, and it is wrong for society to encourage it as a positive virture. I have decided that I simply won't do it anymore. Thankfully my life situation permits that the moment. I realize others aren't so fortunate. But that isn't an excuse for Bill Gates.

The need for an _intelligent_ leader

[darekana (205478)]

We don't need an atheist leader...

We need an INTELLIGENT leader.

I propose a community service requirement, simple speech writing, debate, basic geography and IQ tests for potential presidents.

If we have tests for becoming a lawyer or doctor why isn't there a fricking test to become president.

Why do applicants to med school need 100 hours of community service and impeccable marks while Bush don't need shit.

We can't continue having senile or stupid people running America.

what?!

[oyenstikker (536040)]

What does religion have anything to do with setting up a wireless network?!

I am a Christian. I work with a Muslim and a Hindu. Any of the three of us will help you set up your wireless network. None of us are planning on blowing anything up, save maybe lightbulbs in our microwave ovens.

Re:neighbors

[Das Modell (969371)]

Atheism does not make you predisposed to any particular behavior, or increase your likelihood of doing or not doing something. The same cannot be said of Islam.

Re:neighbors

[ContractualObligatio (850987)]

On the child molestor odds:
Have you heard the stories about some Catholic priests? Or the activities of some cults? Or Michael Jackson? Hardly a scientific study, but arguably in the public mind child abuse is more likely with those who have a strong belief (however bizarre in Jackson's case...).

Irrespective of whether Adams is right or not:
Suggesting that the US electorate is more willing to vote for an atheist than a member of a religion that is (however unfairly) associated with the current war in Iraq, 9/11, etc, seems to me an entirely reasonable thing to suggest.

Why is suggesting an atheist president so stupid? Have I missed something? It seems to me Adams is simply hopeful that there might be a president who bases his decisions on facts and thinking, rather than an unaccountable belief system within a framework no one can quite agree on anyway. And again, it seems a reasonable proposition for a debate that the electorate might go for a well respected (outside of the tech community!), successful, famously philanthropic atheist before a Muslim, even if it is only for all the wrong reasons.

An atheist president would be good for America

[Colin Smith (2679)]

There's no afterlife or later judgement so they're far more likely to think about the soldiers they're sending off to die.

Anyway if they claimed to be humanist most christians would be completely unaware that it isn't a christian sect.

 

Re:Not compatible

[jmv (93421)]

Dunno, they could build a giant, 50km tall wall all around the US... which in turns would help a lot reducing global warming (in the rest of the world that is). :-)

Re:Not compatible

[mustafap (452510)]

>the US has enough land to sustain only about 1/10 of it's population

Maybe they should eat less.

Re:Not compatible

[Gorshkov (932507)]

The drivers for the rest of the world wouldn't work. Does that mean all the Pakastanis in New York City would be unemployed?

Re:How is this news?

[Jugalator (259273)]

And I fail to see your sense of humor.

Re:How is this news?

[kripkenstein (913150)]

Yes, TFA was in humor. But is there no basis in fact? In the US, only the ultra-rich run for (and win) the presidency. Bill Gates in the richest man in the US. Now, it's true not every rich candidate can get elected (as nicely pointed out in the book Freakonomics), but still, the possibility can't be discounted. Like Scott Adams says, give Bill a decade or so of charity work, and his popular image will look pretty voteworthy. A chilling thought.

Re:How is this news?

[diegocgteleline.es (653730)]

You don't read Scott Adam's blog a lot, do you? Scott Adams is all about parodies and is always laughing about something, specially about the people who takes seriously what he says. His proposal of Bill Gates as president is just yet another funny post of crazy ways to be president of the united states. Just a small example:

"As a political candidate, I would advocate some sort of tax rebate to subsidize Internet porn and Kleenex for single men between the ages of 18 and 35. That way all the potential rapists can more easily afford to exhaust themselves at home. I'd have graphs and charts to make my argument that no other policy would be as effective. My slogan would be "Deal with the root cause." I would call it my Yankee Doodle plan.

Re:How is this news?

[Beige (81376)]

Right now, generally speaking those with faith are thought of as uneducated and unenlightened.

Prejudiced as it may sound, there might be something in this idea:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intel ligence#Religiosity_and_education_in_the_United_St ates [wikipedia.org]

Re:How is this news?

[Mantorp (142371)]

Can't remember where I saw this so I'll paraphrase: Among highly intelligent people almost everyone is atheist. Not a single member of Congress is atheist. They are either liars or not highly intelligent.

Re:How is this news?

[Dr. Manhattan (29720)]

At least, two books, #7, Richard Dawkins book, and #17, A Letter to a Christian Nation, have atheist overtones.

You forgot "CULTURE WARRIOR" at #3 by noted atheist Bill O'Reilly, and "THE MYSTICAL LIFE OF JESUS" at #13 by Sylvia Browne. Oh, right - the world is so "anti-religion" nowadays. It's actually news that atheists have books that are selling now, but "Godless" by Ann Coulter and "Deliver Us From Evil" by Sean Hannity are, of course, not any cause for special note.

Let me just quote Jon Stewart on this one: "Yes, the long war on Christianity. I pray that one day we may live in an America where Christians can worship freely, in broad daylight, openly wearing symbols of their religion, perhaps around their necks. And maybe - dare I dream it - maybe one day there could even be an openly Christian president. Or, perhaps, 43 of them. Consecutively."

Re:How is this news?

[HairyCanary (688865)]

Good luck with that. There is no such thing as news that is not biased. If you think you know of any, then it just proves that they are either good at hiding their bias, or they happen to have precisely the same bias you already have.

Re:No, we need a philosopher-king...

[Shawn is an Asshole (845769)]

Or

Colbert/Stewart

Hell, I've met several right-wingers that don't get Colbert's character and would probably even vote for him.

Re:The more I see Microsoft Products like Zune pop

[pubjames (468013)]

Yes, he knows some tech, but does he get it?

This is the great misunderstanding about Bill Gates. Many people think of him as a brilliant technologist, but he is actually a brilliant businessman with a good understanding of computer technology. Unfortunately I expect he will go into the history books as a brilliant technologist.

Re:WTF is this intolerant bullshit?

[MichaelSmith (789609)]

It is interesting to me that the USA is one of the worlds most influential christian nations, and one of the few countries on earth with a constitutional separation between church and state.

By comparison my own country (Australia) is almost athiestic, yet our constitution bars anybody who is not a member of the church of england becoming head of state.

Is it possible that this is a passing phase for the USA? Is the religious right being supported by people who will be dead in 10 years? Or does this run right down through the younger generations?

I get the impression that religion, like support for guns, is just one of the symbolic markers which politicians use to stake their territory. Perhaps because the language of economics is too complex for most people so they have to base their campaigns on simple things.

Re:WTF is this intolerant bullshit?

[brianerst (549609)]

Is it possible that this is a passing phase for the USA? Is the religious right being supported by people who will be dead in 10 years? Or does this run right down through the younger generations?

Most likely, it's cyclical. The USA goes through periods of heightened religiosity every 50-70 years or so. They are widely recognized by sociologists as "Great Awakenings". See here [wikipedia.org] for a brief article on the current (fourth) one, and links to previous ones. The Third Great Awakening of the late 1800s was probably the one with the greatest impact, as many important American protestant denominations had their starts during that era. It also had its biggest impact at the opposite side of the political spectrum - for America, the Third Great Awakening provided the moral force for the Progressive movement. Child and woman labor laws, compulsory elementary education for all, prohibition of alcohol and a whole host of other progressive causes were largely the outgrowth of that religious revival.

Some of this is no doubt due to the separation clause in our Constitution, but probably not in the way you're envisioning. The separation clause, I think, gives both sides enough latitude to swing too far - when the religious frenzy gets to be too much for sensible folk, the pendulum gets pushed back hard the other way. When secular excess seems to go too far (big changes in sexual mores and capitalism run amok), people start streaming back into churches. An establishment church, where everyone is required to give at least lip service to the church, appears to have a societal calming, but enervating to faith, effect. No one gets too worked up about the church (it's at some level compulsory, after all), but its widespread reach allows its hierarchy to speak with some authority long before the "pendulum" starts moving too fast. You end up with societies formed of irreligious believers - which is a nice, cozy place to be.

Re:M$ jokes aside...

[CAIMLAS (41445)]

Would it really be so bad to have the government run with a more business like model?

Are you kidding me? Fuck yes it would!

What is the one, single thing any business is intent on doing? Making profit. When you have a government operating like a business, what does it do? It tries to make a profit. And governments can only reasonably make a profit in three different ways: 1) tax the bejesus out of the population, 2) actually print money, and 3) take wealth out of other nations without their consent.

You can not truly 'create wealth'. You can do more with fuel and machines, but commerce and taxation is only shifting wealth around, when you come down to it.

Re:Obligatory

[smitty_one_each (243267)]

In Soviet Redmond, your new borg overlords...ah, to hell with...oh, wait, they're aethist...

This article deserves the tag flamebait.

[by Anonymous Coward]

This article deserves the tag flamebait. It is CLEARLY intended to start a massive argument; it is the verbatim definition of flamebait.

Re:This article deserves the tag flamebait.

[mattcasters (67972)]

Yes, don't you just love it!

Re:Athiest or Agnostic?

[Domomojo (886220)]

The definitions of "agnostic" and "atheist" are hotly debated. The common definition of atheism being the denial of the existence of gods is inadequate for most people who call themselves atheists. Basically "atheist" should mean the person is a non-theist. In that sense there is no middle ground. Since Gates doesn't have a belief in a particular deity, by that definition he is an atheist. (It's like being pregnant, you either are or you aren't). "Agnosticism" is about knowledge, not belief, so Gates could be both an agnostic and an atheist, just like you could be an agnostic and a theist. What most people think "atheist" means is actually the definition of "strong atheism." I think most people who call themselves "agnostics" by the common definition, are actually "weak atheists". Wikipedia has plenty of information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism [wikipedia.org]

And PZ Myers had a good discussion on the issue in a recent blog post: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/11/freetho ught_tagteam_wrestling.php [scienceblogs.com]