Inductive Atheism

I understand your point to an extent CS, and I suspect others do as well.... but I can't help but point out that, according to this logic, I should be agnostic about a 7-toed sloth that lives in hollowed out human skull on Pluto, directing his army of nano-machines to slowly take over the Earth and enslave the human race. WHY should I be agnostic about this? It is indeed impossible for me to know if this being exists or not, but on a scale of probabilities, I can rationally conclude the chance that it doesn't exist far outweighs the chance that it does exist in all its specifics. Therefore I declare myself an atheist with regard to above mentioned evil-doer. And... in that same vein... I declare myself an atheist towards God(s).I would add, in the sense of the deist God, the non-intervening one, that I would put a notably larger weight on that possibility, as it is far less open to criticism than the very specific supernatural entities presented in the major religions, and thus far harder to dismiss using the knowledge available to us. Nonetheless, I (personally) still place a low probability rating on this possibility as well... that's just me, and just my opinion, I freely admit it. BUT - can you see the idea I'm trying to express?

Hehe, valid reply. (Does hehe make me sound like a hick?)In terms of the deist God, I have no data, and I only place my personal low level rating on his/its probability based on the simple premise that, if everything we do observe can be attributed to naturalistic explanations, why should we then leap to non-naturalistic explanations for the things we can't observe (i.e. what happened/existed just prior to the big bang). So, as you point out, I have no data in this respect, and thus I do not seek to dissaude the deist for this very reason.With respect to the very specific descriptions given of God in the major religions, and more importantly the very specific descriptions of the powers and motives attributed him, I believe many examples of disproof (such as the one you gave about the lack of oxygen on Pluto in reference to the sloth) can be given. But... please don't ask me to give those examples here hehe... this board is rife with them.Thank you as well for sharing matey.