Margaret Atwood: "Atheism is a religion"

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There was a thread about this episode of Moyers on Faith & Reason already, but it got very little response.
There's more to discuss than just her statement of atheism, but I thought that would make the best title. ;)

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BILL MOYERS: Does that mean you take your stand on the side of faith?

MARGARET ATWOOD: No, no having been raised a strict agnostic.

BILL MOYERS: A strict agnostic?

MARGARET ATWOOD: Strict agnostic.

BILL MOYERS: Not an atheist?

MARGARET ATWOOD: No, atheism-

BILL MOYERS: What's the difference?

MARGARET ATWOOD: -- is a religion.

BILL MOYERS: Atheism is a religion?

MARGARET ATWOOD: Absolutely.

BILL MOYERS: You mean it's dogmatic?

MARGARET ATWOOD: Absolutely dogmatic.

BILL MOYERS: How so?

MARGARET ATWOOD: Well it makes an absolute stand about something that cannot be proven.

BILL MOYERS: There is no God.

MARGARET ATWOOD: You can't prove that.

BILL MOYERS: So you become-- what' a strict agnostic?

MARGARET ATWOOD: A strict agnostic says, you cannot pronounce, as knowledge, anything you cannot demonstrate. In other words if you're going to call it knowledge you have to be able to run an experiment on it that's repeatable. You can't run an experiment on whether God exists or not, therefore you can't say anything about it as knowledge. You can have a belief if you want to, or if that is what grabs you, if you were called in that direction, if you have a subjective experience of that kind, that would be your belief system. You just can't call it knowledge.

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