WWLabRat

That term hasn't been coined and I don't consider my vocabulary skills to be high enough to determine what that phrase should be. There's less difference between a vertebrae made up of cartilage and bone than no vertebrae and one made of bone. Amoeba: Not Kingdom Animalia (Kingdom Protozoa) Algae: Not Kingdom Animalia (Kingdom Protista) Photosynthetic Flagellate (aka Green Algae): Not Kingdom Animalia (Kingdom Plantae) The notocords are the only argument you can make of the ones listed. Clearly they belong to Animalia. Most embryos that are to develop into vertebrates start out with notocords as the support structure for muscle tissue. Autocorrect mishap. "All" should have been "at". I have had no confusions other than ones where your logic has fallen through. And I've only had one error and I admitted to it. No, the Christian God is part of a trinity, The Father (god in the sky), The Son (human), and Holy Spirit (ethereal being). So, no, god is not living. God's son, however, would be a different story. They would have a starting point to learn more about their neighbor. But as was stated previously, their individual intricacies would need to be discovered through conversation.

You were saying? And saying that all those who don't affirm their belief in a deity makes them automatically atheist is incorrect. There are those who has not decided their position on whether or not there is a god. Those people are referred to as "agnostic". Agnostics are the middle ground between theists and atheists. They are the ones who are "on the fence". Things are determined by the groups they are in all the time, even if the determining factor is one of the criteria in order to be considered part of that group. A Republican is a Republican because they have identified themselves as one in addition to the other political views they hold. A group is a group. There's no falsehood about it. Part of the definition of an invertebrate is that they are animal, not plant, not anything other than life. So yeah, the lifeform criteria stands until there has been a discovery made that shows a thing that has vertebrae and has never been living. And what do you mean that's what the problem is by learning from groups? When you went to school, was every class taught by the same teacher to all the students in the school regardless of grade? Grouping allows one to be able to focus on one aspect while not focusing on others. Going back to the school example, students are grouped into grades, from that, each grade also gets divided up on the subject of class they are currently in. And even those who are studying the same subject may be in an honors class, regular or remedial. And, last I checked, sharks have vertebrae. So your argument, with the exception of my misnomer (saying backbone instead of vertebrae), is invalid. And being that, if it is real, God has no known physical form, it could not possibly be known as living or nonliving, to say nothing of whether it has vertebrae. And again, a requirement of vertebrate/invertebrate is whether or not the thing in question is an animal or not. Being that mushrooms, bacteria, and plants are not animals, they can't even be considered as to whether or not they are vertebrates.

Actually it does allow you to figure out something about them right off the bat: They don't believe in a deity. And grouping isn't from where bigotry comes. Bigotry comes from ignorance or just plain stupidity. People not seeing or understanding that though there are differences between two people, they are still both people. Yes, grouping can take you in odd directions, an example being you saying inorganic invertebrates. What that tells me is that this lifeform is not carbon based (so it would almost have to be extra terrestrial in origin) and that it doesn't have a backbone. . And by it's very definition, Atheism is the disbelief in a deity. By this discussion even taking place, the issue has come up, and last I checked is still continuing. Since when is an oak tree an animal? Pretty sure plants don't have backbones... Or a skeletal structure for that matter... Inorganic matter exists all around you. Inorganic being synonymous with non carbon/hydrogen based compounds (wiki article). I fail to see how the scope of grouping inorganic matter into it's own group (which it is) would make things confusing...

How can you not lump atheists into a group? Everything on Earth is grouped into one or more categories. EVERYTHING. Name one thing that doesn't fall into a category. Please. I'm begging you. Atheism is a group. There's Atheists and Theists. See, I did it right there. On a larger scale, there's organic and inorganic matter, plants and animals, planets and stars... Everything out there, every possible large group is made up of smaller groups each covering a different facet of the whole. If atheism weren't it's own group, then all people would be theists. There would be no one to doubt or disbelieve the existence of a deity. Grouping people together allows you to figure out, broadly, what they are and what they aren't. Of course to finely tune that, you would have to get to know each person and from there realize that the lines dividing some topics may be more or less blurred than others.

The degree to which they identify as atheist is of importance. Those who feel more strongly about there being no god will defend that viewpoint that much more vehemently. Those who aren't concerned about it will shrug it off and move onto the next topic. This also applies to whether or not a person perceives a comment as being offensive or discriminatory. Are you saying that astrology is a valid science? (I'm only joking, do not take that comment seriously)