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On 10/19/2010 1:33 PM, Warp wrote:
> (The difference between agnosticism and agnostic atheism is that the
> latter takes the stance "there's no *reason* to believe any deities
> exist because there is no evidence". It doesn't claim there are none,
> just that there's no reason to believe there are. Unlike strong atheism,
> which outright claims that there are none.)
>
Actually, this is not entirely correct. Even "strong" atheists will
generally state that its not *completely* impossible for something to
exist like that. Rather, the argument tends to be:
1) Once you provide a definition that could be, it becomes testable, and
if it actually applied to the real world, would pretty much eliminate it
as "supernatural".
2) You cannot, even in such a hypothetical, rule out numerous other
plausible, possibly more plausible, explanations, such as advanced tech
being used to present the evidence, in a way that *known* understandings
of technology cannot explain.
3) Trying to pin anyone claiming plausibility of a god down on what the
hell they actually mean by that isn't a matter of goal post shifting,
where by any definition that gets undermines is simply modified to be
more vague, imprecise, or simply sufficiently different that it no
longer fits the original claim itself. Rather, as PZ Myers recently
called it, it is a case of "motorized goalposts". They don't merely move
them around, to find some new "god" that you can't undermine, they move
themselves around, automatically, in reaction to any conflict, on little
robotic wheels...
You can't present even a plausibility of god existing, if you can't even
pin down a definition of what they bloody heck it is you are implying
might exist. Is it a rock? Its not unlike a rock! Is a it a boulder? No,
but its sort of like that too. A tree? No, but sort of. A bird?... ad
infinitum. Its like nothing, but everything, but undefinable, but still
definable enough that agnostics think its somehow *possible* for it to
be out there. Uh.. Ok. So, what the hell is it then? And to how many
decimal places? What are we talking about, so I can say, without
sounding like the Mad Hatter, from Alice in Wonderland, whether or not
its something that *might* plausibly exist, in any fashion, at all?
Because, nothing anyone comes up with is either testable **at all** in
any way, so knowable, or, if testable, implies any reasonable criteria
by which to claim, "It might be real after all".
That is the problem "strong atheism" has with the whole mess.
--
void main () {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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