Agnosticism vs. Atheism

quote:

---

like if i held out my hand and said "is there a coin in my hand"... a theist would say "yes, there is a coin in your hand" and an atheist would say "there is no evidence to support there being a coin in your hand, so there is no coin in your hand".

---

Poor analogy. How would the theist know there was a coin in your hand if neither he nor the atheist (sorry, Smoky, 'athiest') could see it? On second thought, don't answer that.There either is or isn't a coin in your hand. But we can all agree on the definition of a coin. The problem is we can only pretend there's consensus on what the word 'God' means. Is it the big magic guy in the sky or is it a creative life force? Is it intelligible to humans or is it by definition beyond our comprehension?------------------
I would not let the chickens cross the antidote road because I was already hospitlized for trying to say this!-Brad McFall

quote:

---

Seriously, folks - is there any time in science that absence of evidence isn't taken as evidence of absence?

---

I'm not going to deny that the rule could be used to excuse belief in imaginary cohorts, but none other than our beloved Nobel-lareate-to-be Michael Behe is living/breathing/equivocating proof of the reality of absent evidence. Prior to his triumph over anything resembling common sense with Darwin's Black Box, he mocked scientific speculation concerning cetacean evolution. This was mere months before Thewissen y compaa started digging up fossils aplenty for the transitional species 'twixt land mammals and their aquatic counterparts.{edited to add quote}
------------------
I would not let the chickens cross the antidote road because I was already hospitlized for trying to say this!-Brad McFall[This message has been edited by MrHambre, 09-21-2003]