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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