My first post absolutely should not have been deleted. I was correcting an obvious mistake being made re: agnosticism/atheism. It becomes more of a derail when you let that stuff slide. wtf. The diagram from the wiki article explains quite well why the terms exist and why no one needs to "man up".

I believe leprechauns don't exist. I don't have any strong belief one way or another regarding fauna we don't know exist. See?

Yes we do, but the formation of a specific belief isn't a strategy or tactic. The total number of stars in the universe is an empirical fact which does 'leave evidence' but we have no access to it - I know the total number is either odd or even but there is nothing to push me one way or the other.

How can god be a better explanation if it isn't *an* explanation in the first place?


The steady state theory has nothing to do with being an atheist or the origin of existence having/needing an explanation. DUCY?

When you "felt a connection with god" you believed he existed. Now that you don't, you're all about jumping to an active positive belief of his non-existence?

Maybe someone should "man up" and realize that things don't pop into and out of existence based on how we feel about them at any given moment.

What's the difference between a leprechaun and God?
No - the ruling things out based on lack of evidence is. A very fruitful one, as it turns out.
Me neither. This is not an argument for taking a view on every question. When a theist walks up to you and tells you he believes in God - it's just as reasonable to tell him you think he's wrong as it is if he tells you he believes he's just bought the winning lottery ticket. Telling him "Well I think youre conception of God doesnt exist but there might be this other, kinda, thing, with sort of ...godly properties, I suppose which...anyhow that might exist". What's the point? He tells you he believes in his God and you probably think he's mistaken, not that he's speaking from ignorance about something which hasnt been settled.

No. I think he doesnt exist, since there's no evidence he does and, when things exist, they leave evidence.
Yes, my position is that the fundamental properties of the universe change when I have different feelings about them. Right.

Yeah, me too. I dont think we're very far apart at all (not that I can think of any specific conceptions of God which seem very likely).

I think you're right that God is put into a special category and I dont see any good reason for that. As I see it many discussions are along the lines of:

T: "I believe in God"
A: "I'm an atheist"
T: "How can you know he doesnt exist?"
A: "Oh no - a God might exist. I just lack a belief"

If you discuss the atheist's position, nine times out of ten they'll say that they dont believe in the actual conception of God that the theist was speaking about there's just this amorphous 'godlike' concept which they dont want to rule out. When else does someone come up to you and discuss some object x to have you shift the discussion to some more general 'X'?

Any theist is able to describe whatever God they mean - NotReady believes in a different god than Concerto, Jibninjas or anyone else. If you think the god they're describing doesnt exist why not say so rather than saying you lack a belief in it? What's gained by moving the discussion to some meta-concept which nobody is really able to articulate anyhow?

If a pantheists defines God as the universe. I believe in the universe so i believe in God when he/she/it is defined that way. I might not agree God can be defined that way....but if it is.

Oh sure, if you want to define God as an egg sandwich then I'm a theist again. That's not what God means though - I would suspect that a pantheist probably means something different from 'the universe' than you do.

Pantheism varies but i think some keep it that simple. Either way just saying God is a big term. And under some definitions im a believer.

People who believe in god don't believe in the big term. They mean something specific. The weak atheist response is peculiar:

T: bunny just drove up in his Ferrari
A: I don't believe he has one
T: why not? He might drive one, mightn't he?
A: now hang on a sec, I never said he didn't own some kind of motorized transportation. I wouldn't make a positive claim without sufficient evidence.

'Leprechaun' is a very specific term denoting a very specific set of entities with very well-defined attributes. 'God' can mean anything from Allah to some Tillichian 'ground of all being' jazz. 'Apples' and 'citrus fruit', really.

What's the difference between 'ruling something out' and 'choosing to believe it doesn't exist'?

It's not that I 'probably think he's mistaken' - I definitely think he's probably mistaken.

So what of Stu Pidasso, who freely admits he's probably almost completely wrong about the nature of the god he believes in?

But not in the context in which it's Generally discussed. Which theist believes in such a broad concept? (ok maybe big erf?)
So you think his god probably doesn't exist?
I agree with him. If he wants to respecify and broaden his concept, I doubt he's going to make it so broad as to seem likely. You never know with him though.

Im just on a different page then everyone else again. I dont think i will ever understand the strong weak atheist divide.

Not that how im defined is that important. I believe some things more then others and some things less then others. Some of those things are the different versions of God. Call me what you will.

I call you a strong atheist. Barring the "god is love/the universe" definitions, you think human conceptions of god don't exist, right? Or do you think Thor might be hiding somewhere?

I believe the universe might of been created by a creator as much as i believe it might not of been.

If that can fit into strong atheism then i would be one. I just dont think it can be fit in there in the way i think of strong atheism. But like i said im probably just doing it wrong.

There are no scientific truths in a Betty Crocker Cook Book, therefore, Betty Crocker Cook Books are false.

lol nice try.

Total fail. No one is claiming Betty Crocker is a guide to morailty and cosmology, only corn muffins. (And even then the cook books at least contain some science. Mine has a discussion of things like lipid bonding and how yeast fermenting works.)

Which context? All I ever seem to find myself talking to theists about these days is public policy issues and design. The former discussion could mostly be had if religion didn't even concern gods, and the latter is wide open for highly personal to completely impersonal deities.

Probability may not be the right concept. I think any specific claim he makes is unlikely to be correct. The 'base' claim - there exists an entity about which to make claims - this I can't say I believe is false.

I think you're jaded - the long term theists here have few survival strategies. Making imprecise or indirect claims is one of them. Most people you meet in the real (western) world who believe in god are referring to a being who caused a human to come to life after three days of being dead. You don't believe anything like that exists and in fact you think it doesn't.
I don't accept that's their base claim. Ask people about the heart of their religion - it's all about accepting Jesus into your heart, loving your neighbor, repenting or such. They don't say "there's this nebulous entity about which I have formed some views". The views come first, in my opinion.

Back in the 70s with the utter destruction of the steady state theory atheists began to classify themselves as negative or positive atheists. This changed in the early 1990s with the advent of the internet into weak and strong atheism.

RLK has it. We disbelieve in ether because experiments have shown that it doesnt fit into observable phenomenon. There are experiments that have given more plausible explanations for natural phenomena that were previously explained by god ( eg lightning), but an experiment that conclusively proves there is no god, Im not sure there is one.

Obviously these people are either irrational or don't believe these to be equivalents hypotheses.

I had a name for these people...I called them closet th....nah...we won't open that can of worms again.