As td won't, can you explain why you are allowed to make the same move when you say you are an atheist ("I don't believe in gods") when there are people who define god as "Prince Philip" or "the laws of physics" or "the universe"? I mean, if god means "Prince Philip" etc then you are a theist, right?

Obviously I am fine with you dismissing Prince Philip and the laws of physics as "not what I'm talking about when I say I'm a (weak) atheist" but what's good for the goose...

And then the claims get rejected as non-empirical, Russel's teapot again.

I don't recall saying you can know something whilst not believing it, but I have said you can believe something you don't know.

That's what I'm saying, though - you're assuming this trichotomy where you either believe it doesn't exist, believe it exists but isn't a god or worship it. It seems odd, which isn't something you necessarily need to worry about.

There are obviously cases where it's fine. What I'm talking about is making it this absolute immutable rule: in the limit, Lord Vishnu manifests before your eyes and you shrug and say "Fine, he exists, but I believe in him now so he's obv. not a god, still a strong atheist, ezgame."

I'm not saying you would do that, obviously. But I only think you wouldn't because it would be silly, not because I can point to the part of your position that prevents you.

I don't think it's odd, I think I just haven't expressed two different concepts very well.

I believe there aren't any gods. That everything that anyone has put forth as an existent god has a superior explanation. However, I'm not particularly wedded to that view. If someone demonstrated some reason to believe in some previously unknown god, I'd become a theist.

Separately, I made reference to the fact that some people put forth very loose, generally unfalsifiable (or vacuous) concepts and declare them god. I was just clarifying that those sorts of things are not what I'm rejecting when I declare myself a strong atheist.

The part you would point to are the strong atheist's reasons for being an atheist. Those would no longer hold in the hypothetical you present - theism is now a better explanation for the facts.

No, that's easy to understand. You definitely said the other way around (which was nonsensical to me). It marked the end of our discussions about epistemology - I couldn't find any common ground with a view where that is possible.

It seems to me that a better description of you would be a weak agnostic (only strong agnosticism states that the existence of God cannot be known).

Your rejection of the non-empirical is simply theological noncognitivism.

My claim (that I've had a hard time expressing between trying to say that an undefined deity is both nonsense talk and unimportant) is that I have sufficient justification that Big Foot doesn't exist because I know the guy who dressed up as Big Foot in all the footage and that Uri Gellar didn't really bend spoons in an extraordinary way because I've seen how it is done in the ordinary way.

A watchmaker god is unfalsifiable. Maybe it's vacuous. I don't think we can say there's a clearly superior explanation for the universe, just a more elegant one.

'Faith' isn't a dirty word, but assuming you believe no watchmaker exists, is your position distinguishable from someone who believes one does exist?

Bad example, I suppose. Though I'll have to think about how to articulate my thinking on it better.

Well I remember neither the discussion, the context or the statement so I can't comment.

It was a long time ago (possibly SMP). I think you were essentially defending the view that belief and knowledge were psychological states and attacking my view that objective truth is a necessary component of knowledge but not belief. Not very important, anyway.

It becomes an especially difficult discussion when you consider that as far as physics go, it is theoretically possible to create universes and the principles behind such creations have even been demonstrated via experiments.

Don't you think elegant is superior (all else being equal)? Ockham's razor has some utility in my view.
I'm not 100% sure what a "watchmaker god" is - I suspect it is, indeed vacuous. I don't think it's worshipped by anyone, is it?

Sure, but when does it inspire belief? Should it ever?

Only if they feel like it, I suppose. I'd call a watchmaker god one that sets everything in motion and is basically uninvolved from there on in. Theoretically may not even know we exist.

I'm undecided for metaphysical questions, but as a general principle I think induction gives us a decent argument for relying on it.
I don't consider that a god, no. (I'm inclined to deny it on logical grounds - creation requires temporal existence, which something super-universal doesn't have). I guess I'm mildly inclined to believe there's no such thing. I don't think belief in a watchmaker god is a theistic belief though.

Well, while it's (again) not your problem, that really does seem odd. Mysterious, sort-of-magicky thing that made the universe but isn't a god. That attitude does basically take care of my objection, though, despite its oddness.

FWIW, The way you described it wasn't mysterious and magicky - I wonder whether you're importing other properties to it beyond pressing "go"? The watchmaker you described was basically an unknowable, undetectable first cause.

Nonetheless, being regarded as odd on RGT has never been an issue for me.

It shouldn't inspire belief.

That sort of god could obviously exist. It lends itself to the first cause argument.

I find that it isn't satisfying either way. Either there was an uncaused first cause or it is turtles all the way down.

Such things lead to the correct stance that heavy drinking is in order.

I don't find turtles all the way particularly unsatisfying. Or at least a watchmaker seems a step in the wrong direction from an infinite causal chain on my Occam-meter.

Same number of words and the same amount of explanation.

not the same amount of anthropocentricity

I'm rather neutral on the subject of anthropomorphism and anthropocentricity. I tend towards figuring that cats probably don't like being stuck in a bag and burned to death. I acknowledge that it is possible that maybe some cats have being stuck in a bag and burned as a personal goal.

Immutable rule? FFS chap, I've been entirely consistent throughout this thread in saying that I'm making a simple pragmatic argument where I take the statement "Gods do not exist" to apply only to the gods of the major religions:

By extension, if someone takes 'god' to mean 'Prince Philip' then I'm a theist about that god-concept.

And the reality is, you guys are in the same boat. We are all are weak atheist about some gods (watchmaker gods, perhaps others), strong atheist about others (Poseidon, Thor etc), ignostic about other (undefined gods) and theist about yet others (Prince Philip, the laws of physics).

Since myself, Bunny, Brian, OrP etc put Yahweh/Allah and the Hindu gods in the same category as Poseidon and Thor, it seems conversationally expedient to call ourselves 'strong atheist'.

I do think that you guys *might* have some substantive argument against strong atheism, but we've not heard it yet because hundreds of posts have been wasted trying to make this extremely simple point clear.

And I do understand your position. I held the same position as you and td and called myself a weak atheist. I spent a lot of time arguing for weak atheism on RGT. But then when I read OrP's thread, I immediately realised that I had misunderstood what strong atheists meant and - having gone and looked around to see what other strong atheists were actually claiming - updated my beliefs about what they meant accordingly.

I fear that you guys have invested so much time in arguing that we must mean something we don't that there is no way for you to concede this trivial misunderstanding and move onto substantive points while still saving face.

So I'm out.

Wouldn't it be conversationally expedient to just drop the strong/weak distinction and call yourself an atheist leaving the strong weak discussion for specific accounts of god?

Oh and I get I'm paraphrasing OrP's post in the other thread but it seems entirely reasonable and didn't get the traction it deserved.

Occam's Razor is an argument from parsimony, not validity. Earlier in the thread I was even derided for suggesting that taking up less space should be a criteria, but admittedly this doesn't necessarily reflect your opinions on strong atheism.

Anyway, if you invoke Occam's Razor then obviously the notion of a watchmaker is unnecessary, unfortunately for your standpoint (in this post, not necessarily your beliefs) so is the notion of a watchmaker not existing. Neither yields explanatory power.

If you want to use Occam's Razor then you have to use it fairly, not as a surgical tool.

Back in for dereds

Essentially every conversation I have with a theist is about one specific god: Yahweh, the god of Abraham. That said, it's not like I have 'strong atheist' printed on my business cards, and the only time it really comes up is when someone wants to talk about strong vs weak atheism directly, or some sort of "but you can't be sure that god doesn't exist" type discussion.