Lost, what a long, strange trip it's been. Too bad the destination was a bust.

I can only assume that the writers worked themselves into a corner that they ultimately couldn't get out of and did what Sawyer would do: con their way out. The whole “Lost is a metaphor for purgatory” was postulated by the fans back in the first season and was explicitly denied by the writers. So what happens? They half get off the island and then that half turns out to be purgatory. So in essence the island doesn't matter.

OK, it matters a little but in a show that features its location as a character the island should matter more than just a little. Let's get some things out there.

• The sideways flashes during last season take place far down the line when everyone is dead.
  
  We know this because Jack's dad, Christian Shepard (frakking really?) knows all and tells us so. We also know that Hurley becomes the new Jacob and has since died so this could actually be taking place thousands of years after the crash of flight 815.

• The island is not part of the afterlife.
  
  Once again, we know this because our good Christian Shepard tells us so. He tells Jack that the reason these people have to meet again in death is that the most important part of their lives are with each other. Since it's impossible to have the most important part of your life occur after your death....

What's wrong with all of this? Let's just agree to accept the Christian/Mormon afterlife that Lost throws at us in the final moments of the series. The first thing that struck me is that there are a good number of characters who Desmond didn't even bother “activating” with their memories. Where's Miles? Captain Frank Lapidus? I understand why Richard Alpert isn't there, as his afterlife is probably with the others, but this core cast is the only set of people who deserve to move on? And how can people like Ana Lucia not be ready when the mechanics of their afterlife bar them from growing through self awareness unless specifically activated by someone else? If Ana Lucia isn't ready then Desmond needed to help her become ready. And is Lost saying that without romantic love your life is incomplete and you can't move on? It also bothers me that Jack spent years of his life trying to be a good father, loving his son, and finds out at the end of the show that his son isn't real and doesn't have a soul and will never meet him in heaven. And speaking of rejection, wasn't Sayid in love with someone else when the show started and wasn't he desperate to get her back even though she was dead and wasn't she NOT Shannon? Why isn't she the one Sayid finds in purgatory and who is she going to love for all eternity? Pretty callous, god.

Those are just nitpicks about the way the Lost afterlife works and aren't the crux of why this finale fails. The big issue is that the sideways flashes were death. Why is that a problem? Lost established itself with odd storytelling about this mysterious island. It was partially character based but since so many of those characters come and go (I read that over 75% of the cast died within the show) the series is anchored in this island. It really was the unspoken character. Then this last episode comes along and explains in soft-focus, drawn out detail what happens to some of the characters and ignores the island completely. It is the same as publishing a book that is a murder mystery up until the last chapter and tacking on the final chapter of a romance novel for “closure”; it doesn't work for either part of the story. What the writers of Lost have done was slowly get the viewers emotionally involved in the mysteries of this strange tropical location and then tell everyone “But that's really not the point. Love is”. While love played an important factor in many of the character relationships we already knew that because we saw that love develop on the island. Love and the island aren't mutually exclusive so whay was any explanation about the island cut in order to show viewers the same romances blossom once more in yellow tinted montage bursts?

All of this goes beyond the science-fiction to fantasy problem that I've written about before. The island never stopped being science-fiction and the purgatory epilogue that was fantasy. That's fine. What is problematic is that nothing pertaining to understanding the island really mattered. That's 5 years out of a 6 year show wasted. The Dharma experiments? Doesn't matter. Whidmore and his life long quest? Frak it. Whidmore and his last minute experiments with Desmond and electromagnetism? Forget about that. Anything about the time traveling? Doesn't make any difference later so don't worry about it. The subplot about babies not being able to be birthed on the island, Walt's mystical powers, Charlie's psychotic episodes like when he kidnapped and baptized Aaron? There are countless little questions that we're left with. I'm not saying everything needed to be spelled out in the end but beyond that we're all told that none of it makes any difference. Those problems, those mysteries, those first 5 seasons of the show aren't important.

I don't mind not having everything spelled out in the end. I'd rather a show err on the side of unexplained rather than giving half-assed excuses. I think lack of explanation is the one smart thing about the end of Battlestar Galactica. My favorite show is The Prisoner. Lost, especially early Lost, borrowed a lot from The Prisoner like setting as extension of identity, knowing one's self as dramatic conflict, subjective versus objective narrative to blur the reality of a show. I don't mind not knowing everything. I don't mind when characters lie if it's part of their character. Obfuscation in a show can be very rewarding. But with Lost the entire concept turned out to be a lie. And not in the manner of a twist. A twist is an exercise in irony where the assumed subject specifically turns out to not be the true subject of interest. With Lost's limbo ending, well, that could be tacked on to literally any show at any moment. It's a completely stand alone idea and negates all earlier elements of a story. Really. Take any TV show that you've been interested in. Then replace the finale and any closure it established with “then they all died and fell in love and went to heaven”. It's such a self contained concept that it really can be tacked on as a preassembled ending to any story.

I don't even think it's worth the effort of analyzing the show now that it's over. Play back the finale without the side-flashes and it's pretty straight forward. Watch all the side-flashes in a row after that and even the afterlife twist is easy to understand. Other than the unanswered island mysteries there isn't much about the finale that is unclear. The mysteries of the island, well, you just have to let those go. We know that everyone (eventually) dies. We know that the afterlife is fundamentally in line with Christian mythology, with a heaven, hell and purgatory. More specifically we know that it's pretty close to Mormon where you take the knowledge you gained in life and use it to build your own afterlife world which you share with the soul mate that is meant for you. We know that the island isn't part of the afterlife because of the reason addressed in the above bullet points. On a technical level it is true that “then they all died and fell in love and went to heaven” is an ending. What's left to discus? From the characters' perspective I suppose that once their soul passes to heaven with their soul mate, all those pesky questions about science and time travel and free will (Faraday and his mother show us that there is no free will anyway) don't really matter much anymore.

Lost has always been, foremost, an experiment in storytelling. With Lost, the way the story was told was always more important than the story. Were there good parts to it? Absolutely. It had enough good parts to keep people watching for 6 seasons and the first season is flat out brilliant. It's just disappointing to complete this show's run only to find out that the entire plot wasn't just secondary but arbitrary. So in the end Lost was interesting storytelling, a mediocre story. But I think “interesting” is the biggest compliment that I can give the show.

"Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" is nearly upon us!

It's May 20th for those who want to participate.  I know I will and I'll probably be posting my amateur art.

I'd like to address is some negative reaction that this has received.  I found a well written response by Ann Althouse, a law blogger.  She argues that while anyone is well within their rights to draw Mohammed but that doesn't make it a good idea.  I agree that not everything legal is a good idea.  She claims that it will do nothing but incite anger by being disrespectful and this is where I part company with her.

While it may not be respectful of Islamic law that is the very point.  Anyone who is not Muslim should not be expected to follow Islamic law.  Althouse then likens the act of drawing Mohammed to the art piece entitled "Piss Christ" in which a crucifix was photographed submerged in a jar of urine.  These are not comparable acts, though both are legal and valid.  With "Piss Christ" the artist did something that was not specifically breaking a religious law but was intended to be controversial by going against social graces.  Submerging any symbol in urine shows disrespect to the subject.  A drawing of Mohammed is almost the opposite.  It breaks a specific religious decree but does not violate social graces.  Simply drawing a symbol or person is not normally a sign of disrespect.

It is this point that "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" is supposed to express.  Doing something that is not normally rude and is not forbidden by someone's beliefs shouldn't be a problem simply because someone else doesn't want to do it.  A much more applicable comparison would be how Jews should react to the crucifix itself.

Assuming that Jesus is actually god then it counts as a a graven image of god, which is forbidden.  If Jesus is not god then it's idolatry which is forbidden.  Simply from a historical perspective Jews see people hanging up and wearing crucifixes as a group of non-Jews parading around the image of a murdered Jew.  That's pretty tasteless and cruel from a non-Christian perspective.

And yet when is the last time you heard of a group of Jews protesting the very existence of the crucifix.  I  can't think of an instance.  Why?  Because the people that wear this symbol are not Jews.  They are not bound by Jewish law.  If a Jew were to start wearing a crucifix they would surely be confronted about it.  If a Muslim were to being drawing images of Mohammed I would assume that their community would confront them.  But I would not expect a rabbi to give a Catholic a stern talking to nor do I expect an Imam to tell me that I'm breaking a law that binds me.

To be fair there are portions of every religious population that will turn to violence to get their point across.  Fundamentalism from any source will act violently to opposition.  Orthodox Jews in Israel (and New York or really anywhere for that matter) have been known to stone cars and people for violating the Sabbath.  Christians have been killing others for not being Christian or Christian enough since there was such a thing as Christians; from the inquisition to George Tiller.  Even some Buddhist monks have led mobs to destroy property and attack people.  In general if you piss off Jews you'd expect letters and protests.  Piss off Christians and you expect sponsorships pulled and protests and bitching on Fox news.  Piss off Buddhists and, well, no one really worries about that much.  Piss of Muslims and people get scared.  And attacked.

There was just a post on American Atheists that makes this point.  In the same South Park episode they portray Jesus watching porn and Buddha snorting cocaine.  And yet there's been no Christian or Buddhist backlash.   The only response that's feared is an Islamic one.  I know, there are violent Christian groups that aim to hurt and kill.  I also know that not all Muslims are violent.  It's not even a majority.  What I am getting at is that people keep fighting back when Christians kill doctors or counter-protest when the Phelps folks show up somewhere but there's a pre-emptive censorship when dealing with Mohammed and other Islamic content.  That is what needs to stop.  It's not the people making commentary and criticism that should be curbed.  It's the violent reactionaries who push their holy symbols as universally untouchable.

Which brings it all back to "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day".  I've personally done a web comic where "Christ-ee the cross" was a reoccurring minor character.  So I'm following, well...  That is interesting as well.  Molly Norris drew the original cartoon that's over at The Stranger's page but has since gotten cold feet and has pulled her cartoon from her own site.  So now it's really just rolling on its own.  I completely understand why she would get scared.  After all, if there ends up being some sort of response it's easier to attack one woman that the internet.  The ironic (real irony!) thing is that she's scared over her own protestation of the media being scared.

Rebecca Watson puts it very nicely in video form over here.

My perspective is that people should gauge how they control their speech based on respect, not by fear or force.  You can't make a decision to be respectful until you have the freedom to choose your actions.  So who's in on this?

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day
Thursday, May 20th, 2010

Movie Review: Kick Ass

First of all, it wasn't. When you have a property named “Kick Ass” then it better come across pretty damn strong. Instead this movie was just a moderately weak addition to the current trend of “gritty and realistic” super hero movies. I put that in quotes because anything actually realistic can't also be about super heroes. That's like having a non-fiction book on leprechauns.

I held off on watching this because it's based on a Mark Millar comic. I haven't read his Kick Ass but I have read enough of his other books to know his standard notes: glorified brute force as character development, all women as whores or mouthy vaginas, rape as more character development, lots of guns, obnoxious 4^th wall breaking narrative. I only saw the movie after being told that some things that a friend objected to in the comic were supposedly absent from the movie.

The film does have a strong Millar feel to it so I don't know how much was taken out. Not enough, in my opinion. And yet it's too soft to function as the testosterone-loving Millar vehicle it wants to be. The story is bland, the directing adds nothing and there are too many genres being dropped on a weak foundation. The result is a film that is less than the sum of its parts.

There is action and blood and guns. That cannot be denied. However, this is all placed on the framework of a teen sex comedy and that chassis is not strong enough to support everything that is piled on top of it. We have a young, whiney teen who takes up the role of Kick Ass, a super hero. But he has real world problems. Eventually he becomes the “gay best friend” of the girl he likes. Oh, that's so hilarious. Except that there's not enough character to go around and really it's just something he's doing because that's the situation that's been placed in front of him. And that's really his special ability. He simply does whatever is in front of him. He buys a costume and then fights people that he literally falls on top of. At one point he gets taken to the hospital after a fight and this results in him being full of nerve damage and metal plates. Of course the “gritty and realistic” drops completely as he has entire bones and joints replaced but is walking again in what appears to be a week or less. He then is confronted with other heroes (Big Daddy and Hit Girl) and pretty much does whatever they say.

One would think that this could lead to him growing into his role. But the journey of the hero is twisted to useless steps in a loveless dance. His “rejection of the call” stage lasts for all of three lines until Hit Girl tells him to essentially man up and get back to work. So how does he come into his role as a full fledged super hero? It's not by inner strength. It's because someone buys him a large gun. That is probably the essence of any Mark Millar property. Can't be a man? Get a gun.

All that? That's the whole movie. Sorry if I spoiled it. Sure, he gets the girl. She has some ridiculous social associations that act as ridiculous plot devices. She goes from being a sweet girl who does charity work (and dates pimps/drug dealers?) to a mini-skirt wearing nympho who has to have sex against dumpsters in trash filled alleys. This too has a very Millar feel.

There are also action sequences. Sometimes they are flat out fun but they are never really fun in the context of the movie. There are some nice stunts but often this is knocked flat by bad narration or the injection of awkward sentimentality or out of place pop-culture references in order to keep the teen sex comedy aspect in there. The parts that do work revolve around Hit Girl and Big Daddy. Why? Because they really don't have anything to do with Kick Ass' male sexual fantasy and fetish fulfillment.

Unlike Millar's stock “boy becomes man by way of a gun and dirty sex” story they are interesting and fun, if not all that three dimensional. Nicholas Cage is the best I've seen him in a long time as Big Daddy. He plays his out of costume persona as a father well. In costume he's not channeling but imitating Adam West as Batman and it works. Do realize that his cheese factor works in a “gritty” movie so often it's the world around him that fails to add to the story and that is a shame. Hit girl is great. Some of her scenes are bordering on “look, it's an 11 year old cursing and killing” but for the most part watching an 11 year old cursing and killing is disturbingly entertaining. Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl gives a solid performance. She's not courting any awards with her role but the actress, much like the character, gets the job done and does it well.

A Hit Girl movie is what this should have been. She has a story arc. She has an interesting back story. She's funnier, more shocking and a better fighter. She's the perfect subject for a twisted super hero story. Hit Girl, to put it plainly, kicks ass. Kick Ass does not.

On a scale of -5 to +5

Kick Ass is a +1.5

Freedom from Porn?

Over at Gawker there's an email exchange between a blogger and Steve Jobs.  It's a bit heated, there were things misspoken bits on both sides and it doesn't change anything.

What it does do is clarify Steve Jobs' comfort level about pushing his close-fist agenda.  When I buy a computer product I like to think I own it.  That entails being able to do what I want with it.  That doesn't include accepting the manufacturer as a morality firewall.

Jobs said that "some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is."  Why on earth he would brag about an open system being converted to a closed system is beyond me.  Yes, Apple puts out very nice hardware.  Yes, Apple is currently the pinnacle of user interface design (though Android with SenseUI reviews put it anywhere from close to better then iPhoneOS).  Yes, Jobs is making computers into easily used appliances.  That's all great.  What I can't get behind is that they are appliances linked directly to Apple.  Your washing machine can clean clothes from any store.  Your oven cooks food from all groceries.  Your car will drive on anyone's gas on any pavement.  Why should your computer not run apps that Apple hasn't personally approved?

I get why he wants total control.  Who wouldn't?  Plus it guarantees that the user get the simple interface he produces.  An iPhone running tons of 3rd party software can get bogged down in bugs.  What I don't accept is that he refuses to offer the option of making your own choices.  I'm an adult.  Perhaps I want porn on my phone's screen.

By the end  of the exchange Jobs gets downright nasty and asks, in a sinister parody of "Where do you want to go today?", what the blogger has accomplished with his life.  My guess would be writing.  And if this email conversation is any indication I'd also guess that it'll be done on less Apple hardware in the future.

Did "Lost" just jump the shark?

So last night's episode of Lost... It was interesting. Well, was. The more I think about it the more it simply doesn't work. I understand that when you have a show with devoted fans and years of build up to a finale you're going to run into problems pleasing people with your story. Look at Battlestar Galactica. But Lost is different. It is its own special case in a lot of ways. The manner in which the world-building was done is, well, unique. Lost spent seasons building up mysteries with barely any reveals. And that's why this episode doesn't work.

The fans came to Lost for the mysteries. It was a puzzle and really drew the viewer in. You'd watch and try to work out what the hidden black light map meant in the hatch. You'd wonder about the polar bear. You'd try to figure out why Walt had magic powers or Locke couldn't die. But then they announced the final season and things started to get answered. And the answers were mundane. I don't think Walt was ever really explained. The polar bear was part of an experiment. Alpert didn't know as much as people thought. The mysteries of the show turned out not to be that interesting. Instead, the focus went from “what's going on with the island” to “we have to protect/leave the island”. No one cared about the why and because of that gave up a lot of motivation.

So in last night's episode we get a whole lot of back story on Jacob and The Man In Black (the baby that no one bothered to name). They're brothers. New information but not shocking. Same age, same period of time on the island... and it's simply not a big deal. Their mother? Some random woman. We learn that they were raised by a white woman (good thing they don't look remotely like their mother of darker coloring). The immortality thing? She did “something”. And apparently that “something” was a lot more effective than the “thing” she did so they couldn't hurt each other. Something else we learned is that this whole struggle to keep safe/escape the island is really nothing more than Jacob having nothing else to do and The Man In Black having a desire to go “home”, somewhere he's never been or heard of. That seems like pretty weak motivation on both their parts to keep pushing them for centuries. In fact, the thing that Jacob is protecting has been changed from “the island” to “the special light in the island”. While this may have some metaphysical value it has no story value as of yet. That's not a reveal or an explanation; it's just a diversion. “You were looking here. Now look here!” and nothing is told to us about it. The only thing of any consequence that was show was Jacob killed TMIB. Great! We see how he used to be angry and violent while TMIB was impetuous but more even tempered. Other than that one fact this episode was weak reveals and constant runaround. At the very end we see that the non-mother and TMIB are Adam and Eve. At this point is it even important to know that? We have multiple universes, a time traveling island and immortals locked in an eternal struggle. We need to have every small mystery explained? We don't need to know everything so make sure what we do learn is important!

I was also a little put off that the flashback pointed to a lot of things being magic. The island has the spark of life within it. TMIB was suddenly turned into the smoke monster after his death by floating through this spark. Up until now we've had a the strangeness based on science-fiction: Desmond has some effect when it comes to electromagnetic fields, the core of the island was held in check with computers and magnetic machinery, Faraday worked out the mathematics of the time travel effect for frak's sake! Hell, even the smoke monster is held at bay with electronic pylons. Suddenly we have sparks of life, “things” done to create immortality, bodily transformations. The most science-fiction consistent point in the episode was when TMIB explained he was going to install a wheel inside the spark of life “with a system” he and his people worked out. A system? We get magnetic fields, quantum theory, branching universes, genetic research and suddenly it comes down to the spark of life and a wooden “system”? I always say it's important to know which side of the sci-fi/fantasy line you're on. Lost started out in a place where it could have been anything. Science-fiction, fantasy, religious afterlife, mental psychosis. I do realize that recently there have been a number of characters using fantasy buzzwords but these people were mainly getting it from Jacob and TMIB. If they want to turn on some fantasy aspects then at least weave it into the established sci-fi. Battlestar Galactica had mythology and gods from the get-go. Star Wars is based on the Force. 9 (with Elijah wood) starts with machines that can transfers parts of the soul. Focusing on time travel and quantum physics has, over the seasons, dug Lost itself deeper and deeper into science-fiction territory. It's too late to switch sides without loosing a lot of good will from followers.

So, what wasn't explained? How the two are immortal, exactly what's important about this life light, why does the spark of life make time travel possible... It's not that these weren't really touched on but rather that they were poorly explained elements in the story. Lost used to be impressive because, even if they were making it up as they were going along the details of different stories weaving together into something larger was impressive and fulfilling. This felt like filler and that's a problem since it was most of the origin story of the two eternal characters who seem to be the point of the show. If TMIB is immortal, invulnerable and can fly why doesn't he swim/fly from the island? He has the time. Is Jacob really destroying hundreds of lives just because the woman that killed his mother told him that this light was important? If the spark of life is extinguished everywhere if something happens to that cave of light then why is everyone fine in the alternate world where the island sank? I could understand it if the writers created a world that was falling apart due to issues brought about on the island but it just seems like the script is what's crumbling. If this whole thing has just been a Cain and Abel/Jacob and Esau retelling with the island used as a MacGuffin I will be royally pissed.

VERSUS: Atheism and Agnosticism

I am an atheist. Most people know this. What they might not know is what an atheist actually means. In fact, I'd say most non-atheists don't have an accurate meaning in mind when they think about atheism so I'm going to clear this up. To be fair I also think a large portion of atheists are confused about the term as well. To clear this up I'll be clarifying a few terms but the main focus in this post will be Atheism Vs. Agnosticism. Don't be scared.

The first step is to break these words down to see what they really mean, not what some people assume them to be.

• Atheism – without a belief in gods
• 'a' – no or absence
• 'theo' – god or divine
• 'ism' – a practice of, belief in, condition of

• Agnosticism – without enough knowledge to know. And in this case “know” is in terms of scientific thought so it needs certainty.
  
  • 'a' – no or absence
  • 'gnostic' – know, learn, discern
  • 'ism' – a practice of, belief in, condition of

Most people have a sort of scale in regard to belief in gods. From what people say and from what I've personally experienced it generally looks like this:

atheist → agnostic → deist → theist

This is actually being generous as I find fewer and fewer people who are aware of deism. Deism is a belief in a creator who has, since creation, not interacted with the universe in any personal way. Deists don't believe in any sort of revelation from a god and tend to think of their creator as a sort of watchmaker who created the universe and then took a step back to observe. Theists believe in (at least one) god and that it/they have, since creation, interacted with the universe and communicated with humans in some way.

There are many more branches than this but I wanted to get out just the basics.

Let us say that there is a button. There is a group of people who think pushing this button is the right thing to do. There is also a group that thinks pushing it is the wrong thing to do. But not everyone falls into this dichotomy. Some people aren't completely sure. They say they currently don't know whether pushing the button is right or wrong. If you take that undecided group and look at them right now they actually fall into the non-pushing group. While undecided it would be stupid to push the button. It could do something great. It could do something terrible. But either way no one is going to push it if they're not sure.

Pulling this back over to atheism you can see that people who are agnostic are not fulfilling any sort of belief. They are not being theists. Someone who is unsure of whether to press that button is not a button-pusher. Someone who is abstaining from belief in a god because of lack of knowledge is not currently believing in any sort of god. That means they are being atheists. Agnostics are a subgroup of atheists.

Here's another way of thinking about it. Let's take a hobby, say, stamp collecting. Some people are stamp collectors. They collect stamps. I do not collect stamps. I really don't care about stamps one way or another. If I learned more I might either feel strongly that they are a good investment and become a stamp collector, or that it's a huge waste of time and become an anti-stamp collector. As it stands, stamp collecting is just something I don't do. Now replace “stamp collecting” with “believe in god”.

An agnostic isn't 100% set in either direction in regard to belief. This means that they are in a subcategory of non-believers since they are not actively believing. They could have a leaning (Richard Dawkins ranks himself at 6.5 on a scale of 1-7 where 1 is complete faith in god and 7 is complete rejection) but since even someone leaning towards belief still hasn't gotten there they are still an atheist. In fact, as long as there's any percent of uncertainty then that person is still uncertain. Inside of the term 'atheist' an anti-theist would be 100% sure and an agnostic would be 99%-50% sure that there are no gods (50% being an estimated tipping point of doubt. Actual tipping point between belief and doubt may vary). If you decide that you want to go out and buy a set of stamps to collect you're not actually a stamp collector until you do it. If you choose to press a button you're not a button pusher until your finger pushes down on that button. If someone doesn't think there's enough evidence either way to make an educated decision regarding the existence of a deity then they are an atheist.

One note on the above is that there's actually a much more complicated aspect to doubt than I put in. There is the possibility of harboring doubt and still being a theist. An example is someone who takes up Pascal's Wager, that if there is no god but you worship him then you still get into heaven but if there is no god and you don't then you go to hell. That means Pascal finds it a better bet to pointlessly worship than possibly damn one's self. Since the person might fulfill the acts of worship but not truly believe then there's the whole question of whether following the actions commanded by a religion is enough to fulfill that religion. Whether it is enough differs from faith to faith so the result of doubter being or not being a button abstainer/atheist is different from religion to religion. In most forms of Judaism the action is more important than the motivation. In Catholicism the opposite is true. So in the spirit of openness I am admitting that this post is written with the assumption that doubt stops one from pressing the god button, as this is true for the Christian majority.

Since most atheists are Skeptics you'll actually find that the large majority of atheists are technically agnostics. Skeptics use reason and the scientific method in refining their world views. This means that since the god concept has been set up to be unfalsifiable at least recognition of this has to be acknowledged. For those who don't know, unfalsifiable means "not capable of being proven false". This does not mean it is true but only that the concept has some built in self defense mechanism to negate any investigation as to its existence or not. The idea that a god created the world in 7 days but made everything to look as if it were billions of years old is unfalsifiable since the concept negates any test results showing the universe to be older The standard skeptic's atheism says “There is not enough evidence to believe in any gods, however if proof was ever found then it would have to be acknowledged and atheist belief reconsidered”.

A lot of people think of anti-theists when they hear the word atheist. The idea behind anti-theism is “against believing in a god”, usually because they think it's detrimental to the mental well being of the believers and society in general. Similarly, but different enough to make a note of, are anti-religionists. The idefa behind anti-religionism is obviously "being against religion".

Belief is an active state. If an agnostic has not taken the action to believe then they are without belief, without god, a-theist.

Since “a theism” means “without god” and all of this is without god. “With god” is JUST deism and theism. Another differentiation I have been seeing a lot recently is the term "non-theist". Often times I see it used when the author thinks that atheist is too strong a word and agnostic will open up, well, this whole can of worms that I'm addressing now. But there is already a word that means non-theist. It's "atheist".