A lot of people thought he was secretly Concerto, nothing was ever proven though.

Damn people with their multiple accounts. It makes it all so confusing.

Not really when you are talking to a theist there's an account of god you can take a weak or strong position on. If you are claiming that strong atheism needs to be strong on every account of god then the strong / weak dichotomy seems not helpful.

I don't think you can get around that strong atheists assert that there is no god. I think it is fairly large and sloppy exaggeration that you can somehow meet any theist and debate with them on grounds of some defined and falsifiable claim, that will always be dismissable.

You also see that some people in this thread imply that theistic beliefs such as deism are merely invented to "hide" conceptions of God in a manner that makes them beyond reproach. Such conjecture seems dangerously close to making (this specific version at least, I'm not saying all strong atheists in this thread agree) of strong atheism tautological.

If it is helpful with a distinction? No, probably not. For almost all practical applications heuristics will generally trump trying to follow the philosophical Ariadne thread.

He was an enthusiastic member of the "plane on a conveyor belt" thread. That was a pretty legendary effort (though perhaps that was SMP).

Maybe I didn't notice when I was caught up in it.

My conception of god is deist and is thus not theistic if theism's concept of god includes traits such as personal and present. Deism isn't theism and so I'm not sure why atheism needs to account for it.

True. But isn't the dispute over what "god" refers to in that phrase?

I think it's true because I think the various atheistic explanations for theism are superior to the alternative. Brian might have a dog called God but that's not the kind of thing I'm referring to when I make the assertion.

I have never heard that deism is not theism. I have understood it to be a sub-set of theism, theism in the broadest sense, after all, is the belief that "there is at least one god". Deism fits that description. Thus deism is theism the same way a Ferrari is a car, but theism is not deism the same way a car is not a Ferrari.

Strictly speaking you are absolutely correct. However, on this forum theism has been taken to mean a belief in an active, revealing God and deism is a God that lit the fuse on the Big Bang and then has watched things unfold without further involvement. In general of course, I simplify for brevity.

If I hold that my knowledge regarding the universe is too incomplete to make a definite answer regarding the existence of an entity being implicated in its conception and/or operation, then I am bit surprised that the implication is that I must now suddenly accept that Brian's dog, on account of its doglike qualities, might be this entity.

I the world I live in the implication of not knowing something, is not knowing it.

Apologies for quoting wiki and I understand there's a more general sense but if we specify theism with the following qualities then deism doesn't fit

theism

If we're going to quote the wiki on theism, then at least note that it agrees with my broad definition and also lists "deism" specifically as a type of theism.

I'm not assuming your beliefs are necessarily similar to that of other theists. It is a very broad category of beliefs.

Your response to Beacoupfish about ignosticism was just offtopic handwaving:

An ignostic could claim that you are intellectually unjustified in claiming to be a weak atheist, as there are some definitions of 'god' that you DO believe in. E.g. "god is the law of physics, man" or that tribe that believe Prince Philip is a god. Therefore your atheism is false. You DO believe in at least one god.

What about the 1% of theists who are bonged out stoners and think "God is just the universe, man" or similar. Why doesn't this 1% prevent you from saying "I don't believe that god exists"?

Or how about this analogy: you think that strong atheists are saying "there are no gods in the sample, therefore there are no gods in the population", whereas we are actually just saying "there are no gods in the sample". And here the sample is "the gods that 99% of people actually believe in".

Or this one: you were happy to claim that "unicorns do not exist". But what if someone claims that the unicorn they believe in do not live in this galaxy? Where is your empirical evidence that unicorns do not exist on another planet?

yeah it does and it's why I was careful about referencing it's more specific sense.

But it only helps to discuss concepts when we understand what the other person is talking about and it's for this reason I would no longer identify as a theist.

That is fine and it is helpful. I don't identify as a "European" either.

However atheism, as in not "not theism" would also imply "not deism". This was more what I wanted to point out.

So I get that's a part of the discussion but if you declare to a theist that you are a weak atheist they are not going to know the account of god that you are weak on. It seems weak atheism misrepresents your belief when discussing this with the majority of theists who's account of god you strongly deny.

I don't really agree with that, as I don't think a lot of people hold their belief in a revealed God due to some empirically falsifiable claims. Thus the implication is that there is no agreement between us on neither definitions and nor on how to use them. Such beliefs I can rarely reject because they are false, I can only reject them because they're not even false. Basically a statement of "You can't know that, so the claim that you do should be rejected".

People will recognize that there is a strong element of agnosticism in this. However classic agnosticism goes one step further and claims that such knowledge is impossible, which I don't think is a known - so I generally avoid the agnostic label for that reason.

It doesn't matter whether someone believe in a proposition because of the empirical claims, what matters is whether the proposition entails empirical claims. And the point is, regardless of what theists might like to claim, the conjunction of even the smallest set of core claims about their gods do make empirically testable predictions. These predictions have been falsified.

Snippier is one thing, but most people here don't even make their own snippy retorts anymore. It's googled memes or at best a "LOL".

The elegance of coming up with things like "You're bootstrapping arguments like an avalanche in a ski resort" or "I'd call you a rationalist, but you obviously reject the notion of reason by way of example" is all but forgotten now.

Elegant weapons for a more civilized age.

I was going to say "Your epistemology needs a little more Quine and a little less Aquinas." but I figured I'd save that one for someone who would get it.

These aren't the bons mots we're looking for.

Laugh it up fuzzball

Much anger in him... like his father.

This weak atheist is my kind of scum. Fearless and inventive.