none of the above

Hey Crash! I'm not sure I've ever seen the term "scientific atheism" used - at least in the context of a juxtaposition with agnosticism. Could you define it for me? If you've already done so somewhere, a link to the post would be fine. I personally think there's a fine, but real, semantic difference between atheism and agnosticism, but would be interested in hearing/discussing it with you. I'm pretty sure moose will beat me up again about OT posting, so perhaps we could open a different thread (new or resurrected)?

Excellent! Thanks for the explanation - I'd sort of thought it was something like that. I'm not sure that's necessarily the case. I'd say more likely it depends on how each individual assesses the "confidence level" of their epistemology or worldview.I'm a pretty solid atheist, all things considered. From my standpoint religions have had literally thousands of years and literally millions of adherents searching for or at least interested in uncovering factual evidence of the existence of God or gods. In spite of all that effort, to date no such evidence has been unearthed. It is therefore quite reasonable to assume no evidence exists - and therefore god(s) doesn't/don't exist. Is it an assumption? Yes, of course. Is it unwarranted? No.This is quite different from a "belief" that abiogenesis has occurred, for instance. While there hasn't been any objective "proof" uncovered yet that it did, there are multiply-converging lines of evidence that give clues that it could have occurred. It certainly doesn't appear to violate any known natural laws or processes and can be reasonably postulated from known phenomena. Unlike, for example, an invisible, undetectable, unknowable super-entity.So whereas the statement "there are no gods" may be unsupported at the most fundamental logical level, it isn't unreasonable considering the vast amount of time and resources that have been unsuccessfully sunk into trying to find evidence for their existence. Could there be gods? I suppose anything is possible - just like quantum physics leaves open the possibility that my car might translate overnight from the garage to the street. However, the probability of this occurring is so vanishingly small that it is effectively zero. I'm not gonna hold my breath...I've gotta head to a meeting. I'll try and post more later on this.

Hi Geno.I'd like to correct a misapprehension here. There is no "atheist movement", there is no over-arching "atheist organization" that is taken as definitive, and there are no "atheist philosophers" or writers whose works are taken as guiding lights or whose writings are taken as gospel. The existence of any of these would relegate atheism to the same level as religion. It isn't. The only single thing that even remotely links all "atheists" is a rejection of theistic explanations for "life, the universe, and everything". And as you can probably see from the discussion on this thread alone, even that is open to interpretation. Beyond that, every single atheist of my acquaintance has arrived at their stance from a different direction - and has different politics, philosophies, worldviews, etc. The image to keep in your mind when discussing any "atheist movement" is of herding cats... So, in answer to your question: O'Haire doesn't speak for me, and the AAO doesn't represent me. Just 'cause they're Americans who happen to be atheists doesn't mean they even represent a putative "mainstream" atheism.