Atheists can't hold office in the USA?

And there is the special pleading dancing that just can't admit that said person does not know whether they believe or not.Enjoy

And here you are forcing the conclusion you want to see, dancing around the fact that they just don't know. You don't see it because you don't want to see it.What you are doing is tiptoeing around the muddy ground until you can point and say "there, right there they became an atheist" ... which is fine as long as you also look at the beginning of the muddy ground and say "there, right there they became an agnostic" ... the solid ground before the muddy section is when the knew they were a theist, the solid ground after the muddy section is when they know they are an atheist. Ignoring that beginning of the muddy ground does not make it go away. Let me correct that for you: Yep -- because agnostic is the muddy middle "I don't know" ground, it can go towards either theist or atheist with equal aplomb. This person was looking for more evidence\information to reduce cognitive dissonance between believing and not believing, neither a(n evolutionary) theist nor an atheist would need to, their worldviews would not involve dissonance, so dissonance from the original YEC position resolved. This might be part of your problem.That is not what I understand agnostic means -- as I use it agnostic means that the evidence available is not sufficient to form a logical and rational decision based on evidence. A popular definition can be found at wiki:

quote:

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Agnosticism - Wikipedia

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Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims — especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether or not God, the divine or the supernatural exist — are unknown and perhaps unknowable.[1][2][3] ...

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What you are describing is more Deism -- the belief that gods exist but you cannot determine this from the evidence. Deism would logically also be agnostic, almost by definition. Agreed, because science bases decisions and conclusions on evidence, decisions and conclusions cannot be reached scientifically without evidence, so until that evidence is available the position cannot be belief nor non-belief, but agnosticism ... or as I like to call it, open-minded skepticism:

• It could be valid,
• It could be invalid,
• the case for it being valid has not been made with the available evidence,
• the case for it being invalid has not been made with the available evidence.
  ∴ no decision or conclusion can be reached.

Note that all four premises are necessary for a fully rigorous and scientific evaluation. And neither do atheists. The more rigorous, more scientific approach is to be equally skeptical and equally open-minded about the question until there is sufficient evidence to form a decision or conclusion. Why not? It's based on beliefs, is it any different from theists being self-convinced that they know something without evidence (see definition of faith)? Amusing. You are correct that it must be agnostic, the rest is funny dancing around trying to turn agnostic into atheist.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : ..subt

Amusing Now it's irrational to question your beliefs? Or is it rational to question your beliefs, to review them bit by bit to see what you still believe and what you no longer believe. Cognitive dissonance is what causes the door to open. At the moment of that opening the person was still a theist, then he asks, "If I no longer believe in the YEC fundamentalist god, what do I believe? Do I still believe in god at all? What do I believe? And no, I don't buy the diagram as a definition, and it begs the question of it being binary, when there are degrees of knowledge and degrees of belief. You can have some knowledge of an issue but not sufficient to form a decision or a conclusion -- you don't know enough to know with confidence, so a decision or conclusion would be a guess, from WAG to educated but still a guess. No. The position is that on any issue you can have knowledge, or a lack of knowledge, or some knowledge but not enough to make a decision or form a conclusion. The amount of knowledge you have determines the confidence you can have in your decision or confidence.You can also have negative knowledge, information that is misleading or erroneous (such as the knowledge the YEC fundamentalist had regarding the age of the earth based on the information and evidence he had been given) Why can't it be theistic? if the question/s asked are, "If god/s made the universe, how did they make it work?" you can do scientific investigation of how things work. You do know that a large number of scientists are theists, yes?What science does is look at issues without using belief pro or con, but with testing based on what you know and what you can know - what you don't know but can hypothetically find out.Science can test some beliefs, such as the age of the earth, geocentricism and "flood geology" because the involve how the universe was made. Agnostic to theism\atheism regarding god/s and their effect on science. (or "apatheistic" -- don't know and don't care (until need to)). One of the reasons I prefer Open-Minded Skepticism as better description.Science makes the a priori assumption that objective empirical evidence provides a true indication of reality, that we can use objective empirical evidence to test concepts of reality, and refine our approximations of reality by eliminating concepts that are invalidated by objective empirical evidence.Science also makes -- and tests -- assumption that the rules of how things work remain constant, whether those rules are natural or set by god/s at the formation of the universe. This is part of the attack by some theists on science, but the tests show insignificant variation in the rules and this gives us high confidence that these rules have applied since the formation of the universe. I find it curious that you need to label this questioning behavior as irrational, when to my mind it is more rational than unquestioned belief pro or con.But that's the open-minded skeptic in me.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : clrtyEdited by RAZD, : mo

Indeed.Except for the false black and white dichotomy folks ...IF
Person doesn't believe in god/s -- because the case has not been made for this, Tangle\Moose say atheist
AND
Person doesn't disbelieve in god/s -- because the case has not been made for this, Tangle\Moose say theist.But how can you be both at the same time?Ergo it is a false dichotomy.Enjoy

Not quite ... you replaced "and" with "or" ... which changes the meaning.2) Person does not believe that god/s exist AND does not disbelieve they exist (neither case has been made). Tangle/Moose say atheist\theist at the same time: a contradiction, ergo false dichotomy. Person is an agnostic no contradiction.Another way to say it:I am skeptical of the position that god/s exist (theism)
I am skeptical of the position that god/s to not exist (atheism)
Based on the evidence I am aware of, it appears equally possible that god/s could exist or not exist ...
and I am equally open to both positionsIf being skeptical of theism makes you an atheist
and
IF being skeptical of atheism makes you a theist
then
being skeptical of both creates a contradiction if there truly is a dichotomybut if being skeptical of both makes you an agnostic the contradiction goes away (and with it the false dichotomy)

quote:

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Fallacy: False Dilemma:

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A False Dilemma is a fallacy in which a person uses the following pattern of "reasoning":

1. Either claim X is true or claim Y is true (when X and Y could both be false).
2. Claim Y is false.
3. Therefore claim X is true.

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Now let's look at this again:If being skeptical of theism means (theist) is a false description
and
IF being skeptical of atheism means (atheist) is a false description
then
being skeptical of both does not create a contradiction because both theist and atheist are false descriptions.SO being skeptical of both makes you an agnostic, not theist and not atheist, and there is no contradiction.Enjoy

Amusing. So when I say "Person doesn't believe in god/s" it is now knowledge based ... Would you AGREE or DISAGREE that you would call someone who is skeptical of believing in gods, who says: "I see no compelling reason to believe in god/s," an atheist?Would you AGREE or DISAGREE that you would call someone who is skeptical of disbelieving in gods, who says: "I see no compelling reason to disbelieve in god/s," a theist?What happens when you are skeptical of both? Because there is no compelling reason to either believe or disbelieve?If I don't believe AND I don't disbelieve because I am skeptical of both ... and thus neither the theist nor the atheist position describes my belief ... then what am I?If my reasons are knowledge based (if a lack of compelling evidence is knowledge based), then does that mean that I actually believe one or the other in some convoluted Tangled Moose fashion? Or does it mean that I have evaluated\tested those beliefs against the evidence and found a lack of compelling information one way or the other.Beliefs can sometimes be tested against evidence -- that is why we know that a young earth is a false belief: it is contradicted by evidence, so there is compelling reason to disbelieve it.However, belief in an old world is not contradicted by the evidence, so there is no compelling reason to disbelieve that.SO
if belief in X is not contradicted by evidence - there is no compelling reason to disbelieve it
AND
if belief in notX is not contradicted by evidence - there is no compelling reason to disbelieve it
THEN
there is no compelling reason to disbelieve either ... agnostic ... beliefEnjoy

Except that agnostics don't disbelieve in god/s AND they dont disbelieve in the absence of god/s.Would you not agree that beliefs in general are irrational in that they are not based on evidence, and that they can sometimes be silly because they may not be true, AND I trust we can agree that we can eliminate some beliefs based on knowledge we have:

1. I don't believe the earth is flat, because I know the evidence shows it is an oblate spheroid.
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2. I don't believe the earth is young, because the evidence shows that it is at least 4.5 billion years old.

To hold such beliefs would not only be irrational, or silly, it would be delusional.Now,If I disbelieve god/s exist that would make me atheistic, but
If I don't disbelieve god/s exist -- because there is insufficient evidence to show they don't exist -- that doesn't mean it is zero belief in god/s not existing, it doesn't make me theisticandIf I disbelieve god/s don't exist that would make me theistic, but
If I don't disbelieve god/s don't exist -- because there is insufficient evidence to show they do exist -- that doesn't mean it is zero belief in god/s existing, it doesn't make me atheisticthus I am agnosticOne is not quite theist and the other is not quite atheist, the combination is agnostic. Without both parts one would be either a weak theist or a weak atheist.Let's take a well worn hard to read coin, toss it and then say what the downside is ...The theist says "the tops side looks like a tails to me, so I believe the downside must be heads"The atheist says "the tops side looks like a heads to me, so I believe the downside must be tails"The agnostic says the tops side looks like it could be a heads or it could be a tails, and I so there is insufficient evidence to disbelieve the downside is a heads and there is insufficient evidence to disbelieve the downside is a tails.The top side is what we know or think we know, the bottom side is unknown (or we have insufficient knowledge about it)Schrdinger's cat is alive if it is a heads and dead if it is a tails. We don't know which it is until we look at it, and until then all you have is what you believe it to be. Until you know the cat is both alive and dead.Enjoy

Nor is the case made against it. I apologize for any lack of clarity on my part.Would you not agree that beliefs in general are irrational -- in that they are not based on evidence -- and that they can sometimes be silly -- because they may not be true -- AND I trust we can agree that we can eliminate some beliefs based on knowledge we have:

1. I don't believe the earth is flat, because I know the evidence shows it is an oblate spheroid.
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2. I don't believe the earth is young, because the evidence shows that it is at least 4.5 billion years old.

To hold such beliefs would not only be irrational, or silly, it would be delusional.So we can have knowledge about what NOT to believe. That doesn't make what we do believe any more nor less validThe case to NOT believe god/s exist has not been made, but this doesn't make me a theist ...just asThe case to NOT believe god/s do not exist has not been made, but this doesn't make me an atheist ... Curiously the initial symptoms of cognitive dissonance are often anger when pet beliefs are argued against and attacking the messenger instead of the message. The more emotional attachment one has to their beliefs the greater the anger ... Actually what I am showing -- the point I am trying to get across -- is that you cannot eliminate either belief in X or belief in notX with the information available. That leaves you with:

1. It is possible that X is true
   AND
2. It is possible that notX is true.

Believing (a) does not exclude belief in (b) and believing in (b) does not exclude belief in (a), and now we can look at possible beliefs:

1. person believes X is true (theist)
2. person believes (a) is true (weak theist)
3. person believes notX is true (atheist)
4. person believes (b) is true (weak atheist)
5. person believes both (a) and (b) are true (agnostic)

Let's take a well worn hard to read coin, toss it and then say what the downside is ...The theist says "the tops side is a tails to me, so I believe the downside must be heads"The weak theist says "the tops side looks like it might be a tails to me, so I believe the downside possibly might be heads"The atheist says "the tops side is a heads to me, so I believe the downside must be tails"The weak atheist says "the tops side looks it might be a tails to me, so I believe the downside possibly might be tails"The agnostic says the tops side looks like it could be a heads or it could be a tails, and I so there is insufficient evidence to disbelieve the downside is a heads and there is insufficient evidence to disbelieve the downside is a tails, so I believe the downside possibly might be heads" and possibly might be tails"The top side is what we know or think we know, the bottom side is unknown (or we have insufficient knowledge about it)Schrdinger's cat is alive if it is a heads and dead if it is a tails. We don't know which it is until we look at it, and until then all you have is what you believe it to be. Until you know the cat is both alive and dead.Now you may say that holding contrary beliefs is irrational, and I point out to you that (a) we have seen this in some people, (b) belief is necessarily irrational, (c) belief is irrelevant to what is real and (d) it is silly to get emotionally wrapped up in something that is in the end irrelevant.What we believe has no effect on the cat ...So be amused.Enjoy

Two different axii ...Do you AGREE or DISAGREE with me that there is a gray area between know and not-know, where information is incomplete and possibly contradictory?Such as the knowledge jurors have in deciding which evidence to believe and which evidence to disbelieve ... where the criteria is "beyond reasonable doubt" not beyond all doubt ... and if the jury cannot decide, some believing guilty and some believing innocent, then the jury cannot decide and it is a hung jury with no verdict. But we KNOW that the Flat Earth believers are delusional because we KNOW that the earth is round.We KNOW that it is a falsified belief and so we can rationally and logically discard it.Curiously, I have before said that the rationality of a world view is inversely related to the number of beliefs contradicted by evidence that must be denied to maintain that world view. You can winnow your beliefs based on knowledge, but that does not make the remainder of what you believe knowledge based.When it comes to other beliefs, ones that are not contradicted by objective empirical evidence there is only an irrationality when they are also not supported by objective empirical evidence ... because you do not have a basis to decide if the belief is possible or not possible.Not irrational so much as non-rational: all beliefs are non-rational because they are not based on evidence. And I could also equally honestly call them a passive theist if they don't know whether they disbelieve in god/s or not.Or I could simply use a word that means that they don't disbelieve god/s exist AND don't disbelieve that god/s don't exist ... like agnostic. Words are not always perfect descriptors, which is one of the reasons I have had some concerns about the term agnostic and prefer the phrase open-minded skeptic -- a person open minded enough to entertain the possibility either side of a question could be correct AND skeptical that each side could be correct. To my mind this is a better descriptor of the situation, and it is more universally applicable.However, in this regard the term agnostic -- used to denote open-minded skeptic -- is useful in that it neither implies belief nor implies disbelief, where theist implies belief and atheist implies disbelief.It is the implications of words that matter in communication. Forcing a perfectly good word and usage to mean something different does not improve communication. It is a silly exercise in pedantic self-delusion. Or you don't understand the coin analogy. And you miss the point on how you can best constrain your beliefs with what knowledge you do have and with rational choices ... Now I submit to you that (a) and (c) are rational decision paths, while (b) and (d) are non-rational. Would you agree?EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : impossibleEdited by RAZD, : replaced tan graphic with flowchart

Curiously I am trying to walk you through this in small steps so that you can remove the beam in your eye. So let's take another step:Do you AGREE or DISAGREE that there is NO gray area between sure and not-sure, where information is incomplete and possibly contradictory?According to your position on belief/s I expect you to say that there is none, that any amount of unsureness means you are unsure ... if you are consistent in your logic ... am I right? In the US it can lead to a second trial if more evidence can be found or if some evidence can be invalidated.And any verdict can be appealed because such decisions are not always hard and fast solid evidence with no questions. Many convictions have been overturned when new evidence is presented.Or some said "not sure" whether guilty or not, that the evidence was insufficient to make such a decision. Certainly the jury as a whole has made that determination because the evidence was inconclusive or contradictory.Now think of that jury being a single person -- the evidence is inconclusive and contradictory, and thus they cannot be sure of their choice, whether they make one or not. Which just shows you are not paying attention to what I am saying. Which is why I don't like the term -- there are too many people with different opinions of what it means, and so using it causes confusion between those meanings. And I notice that you failed to comment on the little graphic ... let me repeat it for you and then review your "axe murderer behind that door" scenario: Now you can argue that this is a decision you need to make every day, due to the possible impact of impending death should the axe murderer actually exist behind the door, and that threat puts you in the (B) category, yes?

1. Now your "best guess" would be based on past experience and knowledge of current events in your neighborhood and your worldview beliefs ... none of which includes axe murderers behind doors in your neighborhood, so you enter.
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2. Or your best guess is due to a paranoid approach to life so you draw your gun (which you have because you are paranoid) and enter the back door ready to shoot the axe murderer on sight. (Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean you are not being stalked ...).
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3. Or you live in a rebel war zone (Boka Haram?) where axe (machete) murderers are common and take precautions

Because you perceive a certain level of possible imminent personal threat, you are forced into making a choice for your behavior, and whichever path you take is governed by your worldview on the existence of axe murderers behind doors in your neighborhood.But note that in (A) the person does not really think they are in imminent danger -- they actually proceed to the (D) position, based on their worldviews regarding axe murderers behind doors.AND that doesn't include the condition where you do NOT perceive a certain level of possible imminent personal threat and you are not forced into making a choice on your behavior, and so we again end up at (C) or (D):Instead of an axe murderer lets posit a surprise party is waiting behind the door. Do you ...

1. decide that there IS a surprise party waiting for you
2. decide that there is NOT a surprise party waiting for you
3. don't feel you need to make decision either way?

IF there IS a surprise party (a) and (c) are happy and (b) is surprised, but
IF there is NOT a surprise party (b) and (c) are happy and (a) is disappointed ...Do you ask yourself the question and then go through this decision process every day?Now I submit to you that if you don't actively ask that question every day, that you are effectively acting as though a decision is not necessary ... would you not agree?AND if a decision is not necessary, then why make one? Do you make a decision to a question you do not ask?Do you have a pathological impulse\compulsion to make decisions about everything?EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : clrtyEdited by RAZD, : clrtyEdited by RAZD, : moEdited by RAZD, : replaced tan graphic with flowchartEdited by RAZD, : ..

And still you are evasive on the questions ... So I will have to repeat them: This is a simple agree or disagree question, it does not relate to the jury issue ... Abstaining means neither guilty nor not guilty. It really is a simple issue: some people are not convinced by the evidence one way or the other -- that doesn't make the person on trial guilty and it doesn't make them not guilty. Hung juries happen all the time, the person may be released but not because they are innocent but because they were not found guilty.If you are going to make the analogy to atheism then you need to look at three possible outcomes:

1. guilty
2. not guilty and
3. reasonable doubt that the person was guilty even though it is possible that they were

In both (1) and (2) cases the evidence was sufficient to determine guilt or innocence.In case (3) the evidence was not sufficient to determine guilt or innocence. If the person is released it is because our legal system requires that it err on the side of the person on trial -- that they are considered innocent until proven guilty. Being released does not mean that they aren't guilty but that there was not sufficient evidence to determine guilt.Because innocent is not a verdict choice both innocent and indeterminate are lumped together into the not guilty verdict.This is like lumping agnostic and atheist together -- a lumping you like to label atheist (while arguing that atheists are agnostic), but just as the not guilty verdict does not mean innocent, your lumping fails to mean denial of faith, it just means that you are begging the question. We can come back to this once you have answered whether -sure- and -not-sure- make a true dichotomy ... Well I was not the one that introduced the axe murderer behind the door meme, it was in your post that I replied to. Glad to see you back away from a silly argument. So: Now I trust you will agree that there is not sufficient objective empirical evidence to know that god/s exist nor to know that they don't exist, so we can eliminate (A) from the list, leaving us with:

2. people who feel that it is necessary to make a decision, it is a life threatening condition ... I would put fundamentalist believers in this category ...
3. people who feel no compulsion to decide based on insufficient evidence, that they can afford to wait for further information ... even if it means waiting for death to find out ... and
4. people who feel compelled to decide even with insufficient evidence, that they can NOT afford to wait for further information ... and I would put moderate believers and atheists in this category.

The (C) category are the agnostics_{on belief} in my book: they don't disbelieve god/s exist and they don't disbelieve god/s don't exist -- they see no reason to form an opinion at this time.Now I find the (D) category fascinating: there is no rational need to form an opinion\belief, but some people do anyway ... as if they have a pathological compulsion\drive that pushes them to make irrational and baseless decisions\opinions\beliefs.Curiously, I note that when people who are confronted with information contrary to beliefs that the cognitive dissonance leads them to "double-down" -- to become more adamant and committed to their (unreasonable) position, rather than recognize they are wrong.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : codeEdited by RAZD, : fixEdited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : ..Edited by RAZD, : ...Edited by RAZD, : tan graphic still not right - it looks okay in preview ... ???
gray yes should be over grey text (AEdited by RAZD, : No reason given.Edited by RAZD, : replaced tan table chart that was acting up with picture graphicEdited by RAZD, : last one ... ?

It is fascinating (and a little amusing) to watch a fundamentalist atheist (you) go through the same mental train wreck that fundamentalist theists go through when shown their belief is not valid.And you still have not answered: chirp chirp chirpEnjoy

Says the one who dogmatically insists on his version of definitions, who quotes Huxley as THE one and only source for the definition of agnostic ... And yet you say you don't believe god/s exist -- and say that it is a belief, rather than a lack of belief. Let's go back to the question flowchart where you requested that I redo it to ask do gods exist?: Note that I edited the message to change from a tan background coded text version to an image version of the flowchart (the tan one got squirrelly on reply quoting)So do you feel that people MUST decide? It certainly seems so with your adamant insistence that everyone but fundamental theists are actually atheists in disguise, hiding from (your idea of) reality ...Or are you someone that just believes god/s don't exist, based on no objective empirical evidence for that position, just on personal opinion and beliefs? So you are not sure of your position? Are you a little unsure? a lot unsure? or is it just binary not-sure unsure? Or are you absolutely sure of your position?Inquiring minds want to know.Enjoy

Just as fundamentalist Christians say god wrote\inspired the bible so it must be true ... you are again referring to your dogma as was written in The Book of Huxley ... How fundamentalist of you. And amusingly squirmy ...So you are as adamant about your belief as Faith is about hers. Fascinating. Well maybe there is hope for you ... if they haven't decided are they theist or atheist? What about part theist and part atheist? What causes you to force them into one box or the other? Or you just can't admit to your fundamentalist core that a middle position exists, no matter how much you try to define it out of existence. A kind of backward "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Also curiously in line with fundamentalist Christians that label anyone not a fundamentalist Christian as an atheist. You do have a lot in common ... Very easily -- I am 50% sure of deism and 50% sure of atheism ... because neither position is refuted by evidence (so I cannot disbelieve either) and because neither position has provided sufficient evidence to compel one to chose either position with anything more than 50% confidence\sureness. Typical open-minded skeptic position when there is insufficient evidence to compel a conclusion. Ah the godless of the gaps. Because you perceive an absence of evidence you feel 100% confident (sure) you can make the logically false appeal from ignorance argument that it is evidence absence with impunity, and think (pretend) it is rational ...

quote:

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Argument from Ignorance

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Argument from ignorance (Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance stands for "lack of evidence to the contrary"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to prove the proposition satisfactorily to be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four,

​

1. true
2. false
3. unknown between true or false
4. being unknowable (among the first three).[1]

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In this case we are dealing with either (3) or (4) ... so no, your perception of an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence (all it really is amounts to a perceived absence of evidence). Says the fundamentalist atheist unwilling to look at the evidence and admit to the proportion of "don't disbelieve god/s exist" is a statement of moderate default/passive theism .... Very easily -- I am 50% sure of deism and 50% sure of atheism ... because neither position is refuted by evidence (so I cannot disbelieve either) and because neither position has provided sufficient evidence to compel one to chose either position with anything more than 50% confidence\sureness.But you will likely be fundamentally incapable of accepting that as written.Can I assume that you agree that "there is NO gray area between sure and not-sure, where information is incomplete and possibly contradictory?" The number of quote boxes are indicative of the number of times you have not answered this simple question, which I find vastly amusing given your fundamentalist black and white position on belief and not-belief ...So, should I put you down for "Agree" because ... Gotta love the equivocation there ... that sounds a lot like NOT 100% absolutely sure to me, so maybe your problem is not being able to see shades of gray ...Fascinating: according to your paradigm you are an asurist ... because you exhibit a smidgen of doubt ... According to you and your dogmatic fundamentalism. Curiously I am not asking about whether there is a "need in people to believe in some form of god" but whether they need (feel driven) to decide that god/s exist (theists) or that god/s don't exist (atheists) ... why do you feel so driven to decide god/s don't exist?Here's the chart again: Now I remind you that you said So that eliminates (B) from the possible paths you would follow, but does not answer why you feel so compelled to choose (D) over (C).But then you pretend to decide FOR them: Curiously this just further demonstrates you are part of the group with a "pathological compulsion\drive that pushes them to make irrational and baseless decisions\opinions\beliefs" ...And it is the more amusing that you cannot accept a 50/50 position when you say: Position (C) is more rational than (D) ... you should try it some time. Being absolutely sure of a belief is silly and not rational behavior.Enjoy

Ah yes, the dogma of The Book of Huxley cannot be reinterpreted by the true believer, it is TRVTH. No I do not have any trouble with you being a fundamentalist atheist, whether you see the parallels or not it is amusing to watch. A belief based on a logical fallacy ... And you will not accept the evidence that theists say exists for their beliefs, because you will not find it conclusive.Curiously I have no problem with that, I just point out that failing to be equally skeptical of the evidence that god/s do not exist is hypocritical because the evidence you cite is also not conclusive.And I don't need to convince you that theism is true (difficult if I am not convinced) -- all I need to do is convince you that the evidence you cite for atheism is inconclusive, because it is as inconclusive as the argument for theism.As you have not demonstrated to me that it is in any way conclusive. Care to try? You believe a logical fallacy to be conclusive evidence. Fascinating, but not very convincing.As I said, your failure to be skeptical of this "evidence of absence" to be anything more than a perceived absence of evidence, or a failure to perceive the evidence, is not conclusive "evidence" or argument that god/s do not exist. Plus equivocating again ... LOL There's the fundamentalist again, failing to confront the information that could show your position to be irrational and unsound. Run away from the argument ... an argument that you started and requested more information on ... of course information that shows your arguments to be silly is dangerous to your fundamentalist beliefs ...Of course I wrote them to be ignored ... and still ... Curiously I've asked this 7 times and had no response from you. Is it not covered in your Book of Huxley? It is a very very simple question ... Zen Deist ... because it is more descriptive of my position ... half theist and half atheist (ie agnostic). You might want to look up deism. And you still fail to understand, and once again you demonstrate your non-rational (D) category compulsion to force people into your tidy little boxes: People exist that are neither theist nor atheist. I know this. And I know that "agnostic" is the best terminology we have for this category of people. It does not matter how or when the term originated, what matters is current usage, as that is what communication depends on.From the oxford dictionary:

quote:

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agnostic
[ agˈnstik ]
NOUN

​

a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.

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Note that this: "a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena;" -- is a good definition of deism.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : convincing