Pseudoskepticism and logic

I would cite this as my reason for the default position I take being a healthy dose of atheism regarding any claim for which I have no evidence, or for which the possibility of said claim is not evidenced.

No, it means there is some evidence that there is no water on the moon. It means, until we find conflicting evidence, it is rational to BELIEVE there is no water on the moon. It may turn out you're wrong, and in this case, it seems we were, but being wrong does not automatically mean you were being irrational.If you look high and low for something and find no evidence of that thing, it makes sense to give its existence a low probability. Notice, the probability is not zero, and things with low probability happen and exist all the time. Until you find evidence that something does, in fact, exist, it seems, to me anyway, irrational to assert its existence with any sort of conviction beyond, "Well, it's possible, I guess..." which is far lower than 4 on the scale.I think, we all start at 7 for any claim. We're a 7 for all claims not made, since we haven't thought of them, we can't even hold an "it's possible but unlikely" position. Once a claim is made, we have to assert it's possibility, and we move to a 6. As evidence is provided, we move up the ladder to 5 and 4, and if the evidence is really good and/or keeps pouring in, we may make it to 2 or 1. Making people start at 4 causes people to skip the first few steps, and thus we end up with RAZD asking us for the evidence by which we say a particular claim is not evidenced.

One problem here is that agnostic and atheist are on different scales. One is a statement of knowledge and the other is a statement of belief. They often influence each other, but people often conflate them with speaking about the same things.I agree with RAZD, if there's no evidence, we should be agnostic since we can't know. I think we can also, rationally, be atheistic, meaning, despite recognizing we can't absolutely know whether a god/s exist or not, we also don't believe they exist.

What would you expect to find on the moon if there is no water? I would expect to find an absence of evidence for water, right? It's not strong evidence, but it does slightly tip the balance, and when we're operating in an otherwise vaccuum of evidence, a little is all you need. (Though as Rahvin and Straggler have said, we're NEVER operating in a true vaccuum of evidence.) Yes, I am granting the possibility, that we will find evidence to support it in the future, however, I am not presupposing that evidence until it is found. It will not take much evidence to rebalance or possibly tip the scales the other way, but until it is found, we can't factor it in. And I'm saying there is no conflict between the two. One is a statement of knowledge, the other is a statement of belief. It's like saying there's a conflict between being conservative and being libertarian. They're a measurement of different things, so position on one scale has no bearing on your position on another. I consider myself a liberal libertarian. I know of a lot of conservative libertarians. Likewise, I am an atheistic agnostic. I don't KNOW and I don't BELIEVE. Someone could be a theistic agnostic, they don't know and they do believe. Likewsie someone could be a gnostic atheist or a gnostic theist, though they would have to redefine the term "know." Right, so we're agnostic. That has no bearing on whether we believe the claim to have merit or not. We should use our knowledge to inform our beliefs, but if we're in a complete absence of knowledge, it's a flip of the coin where we believe. If we have, even weak, counter evidence, we should acknowledge that, however, and in the case of gods, we have evidence that people make shit up. It's not strong evidence, and it could be easily overturned, but it's currently known and evidence counter to that fact, with respect to gods is not known, so we're left going off what we know. Completely wrong. Disbelief does not equate to a lack of possibility. I didn't believe there was water on the moon based on the evidence, then we found mor evidence and my belief changed. My belief is consistently based on the evidence. WOuld you have considered it rational to say, "NO! Despite the evidence we have that contradicts the claim, I will still maintain an unevidenced belief in water being on the moon!" In this case, the new evidence overturned the previous belief, but we can't always assume that will happen. I'm not making a definitive claim about anything other than my belief. I didn't believe there was water on the moon. What would change my mind? Evidence of water on the moon. When we found evidence of water on the moon, what happened? I changed my mind. My beliefs are not set in stone and unable to be changed. They are fluid, much like theories in science. They are believed until proven wrong. I start with the belief that a claim is most likely wrong, until it is shown to be otherwise. If I didn't operate this way, I'd find it very difficult to live my life, always wondering if a dragin would pop out of the alley, or an invisible hole would swallow me up. Should I keep walking and chance running into the invisible wall that could be infront of me, or should I stop walking and let the invisible monster that may be just a few steps behind me catch me? I choose to believe that none of those exist until I am shown evidence for their existence, while always asserting that I'm agnostic about their existence, i.e. I don't know for sure.Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.

I've said this many times and it just seems to be ignored by everyone. Agnostic..."a" means lacking the proprty of, "gnostic" means knowledge. So, agnostic means "doesn't/can't know." This is completely different from atheist..."a" means lacking the property of, "theist" means belief in a deity.I would say everyone arguing with you is an agnostic, they don't know. Most of them are also atheistic, they don't believe.Incidently, the 50/50 don't know either way is an atheistic position, because by not mkaing a decision, that means you don't actively believe, therefore you're an atheist.Here's a Venn Diagram that I know RAZD likes so much I would say the blue circle is the atheist circle and unfortunately we don't have a name for the people who fall into the red circle.Now, I wouldn't put an agnostic anywhere on that diagram because this deals with belief, not with knowledge.While it is logical to be an agnostic, since we don't have all knowledge, it is also logical to be an atheist, since having a belief FOR anything for which we have no evidence is irrational and could lead to all sorts of bad things.

No, because I am basing it on all the objective reality I have, namely, people make things up, whther consciously or subconsciously, to provide an answer for something they can't answer.The reality is that we don't know: agnostic. So, based on not knowing, do you then decide to believe? If not, you're atheistic. Not at all. Agnostic means something entirely different from atheistic. In fact, they talk about two entirely different phenomena, they are not in opposition, nor are they synonymous, they're completely different. One deals with knowledge, one deals with belief (or more accurately, lack of belief).There is absolutely no certainty in the atheistic view. It is a negative definition, a lack of something. If someone has not actually made the decision to believe, they lack belief. Therefore, they are atheistic. Once someone decides to believe, they are not atheistic. However, someone can (and people quite regularly do) make belief decisions without complete knowledge...mostly because complete knowledge is impossible to attain. So, we are all agnostics, even theists and deists. What we decide to believe based on our incomplete knwoledge is completely different from whether we know or not. And that's why we have this debate raging for thread after thread after thread. The diagram is showing all possibilities of belief, not touching at all on knowledge. Agnostic is a knowledge statement, and therefore is not represented at all on the graph. If you're a theist, you believe. If you lack belief, you are an atheist. Now, whether you then believe in the lack of gods is again, another category (the blue shading) but as long as you do not actually believe, then, by definition, you lack belief, whether you assert the possibility or not. The 50/50 position on belief is an atheistic position, because you do not actually believe. Ok, in the blueshading is people who assert: "I believe there are no gods." In the purple shaded are are people who say "I don't believe either way." And in the red shaded area are people who assert, "I believe there is a god."Can we both agree that people in blue and purple both contain the property of not having belief in gods? If so, we've just defined atheism, which is the lack of belief in gods. Atheism does not make the positive statement, "I believe there are no gods." It's merely the negative statement, "I DON'T believe there are gods," which is a far different statement. The first believe in the lack, the second merely lacks belief.What you and RAZD seem to be doing is conflating belief statements and knowledge statements.I don't KNOW if there are god/s: I'm an agnostic.
I don't believe there are gods (based on the evidence I have seen): I'm an atheist.I don't KNOW whether there is an invisiible wall in front of me when I'm walking: I'm an agnostic when it comes to the invisible wall.
I don't actually believe the wall is there (or I would try to protect myself from walking into it): I'm an a-wallist, I lack belief in the wall. But we can't, absolutely know anything, so following your logic, it is delusional to believe anything at all. We should take precautions against any and all possiblities, even the contradictory ones and therefore fall down in a quivvering mass of goo, unable to do ro decide anything. If there is absolutely no evidence one way or another, then it comes down to a coin flip. If you believe one thing over another, it's not delusional, it's just not logical. If we can acknowldge that, then we'll be fine once evidence shows up, even if it contradicts our previous belief. However, we're never in a complete vaccuum of evidence. As others have shown, there is the possibility of human invention, intentional or not, and we CANNOT discount that as a possibility. If that's all we have to go on, I agree it's not much, but it's more than the total lack of evidence for the claim being true. Until there is evidence provided, the only evidence we have is on the side of the nonbelievers, thus that is the logical side to be on, despite not being able to say we know, and allowing the possibility of changing our minds if and when new evidence comes in.