But for the weak atheist, there's still the question of what is being ruled out. I could rephrase your versions thusly:

Weak: you think you know what you're talking about, but you don't, but I'm still willing to consider it (what, exactly?)

Strong: you don't know what you're talking about.

Haha! But then you're just describing someone who's ignorant or inarticulate! "Agnostic" means "can't ever know", not "doesn't know". But if "agnostic atheist" means someone who doesn't have the capacity to use logic, then we're just being nice with our labels of atheists, not even at the point of considering the concepts of theists. We don't mean "stupid atheists", surely.

Right. That would be "ignorance". "Agnostic" would refer to something that could never be known by anybody (which is how Huxley meant it, in that the problem is intractable). Even being partially ignorant, our ignorant atheist was able to furnish us with "gizmo" and "whirly thing", meaning certain parts of the gizmo were not beyond his grasp.

But this is why I find the whole label silly. It only seems to function as a way to say "my belief lacks clarity". But the only reason the belief lacks clarity is that they were tricked by the theistic position! It's really just a trick of language.

But merely acknowleging that the topic is nonsense is all that's required. It's not socially expedient (which is probably the reason this talk of agnosticism persists) but it's correct. If we're talking nonsense, logic doesn't apply. If logic doesn't apply, there's no argument to be had. Even intuitive arguments rely on a simple logic, and simple logic is all that's required.

Atheist: If god can't be defined, you're talking nonsense

Theist: Just because I can't define god doesn't mean the thing it references doesn't exist

Atheist: But then what are you saying exists, something you're not referencing?

That's the case for the weak atheist. For the strong atheist ...

Atheist: There are no gods

Theist: How can you say that? You don't know if what I've defined could possibly exist.

Atheist: No, what you've described as a god can't exist, because it contradicts itself to the point where we wouldn't even be saying anything exists if we said your thingee existed anyway.

...

Ta-daaaa!

Pretty much. I see no reason to accommodate nonsense except as a matter of social expedience.

 With the disclaimer that I think I agree with you, and am just trying to be a jackass, I think there could still be a useful distinction.

Back when we were having the whole "Theism is irrational" debate, several of us, myself included, bent over backwards to concede that theism can be rational if a person is misinformed or ignorant.  To take theism out of it, consider a person who is the victim of an elaborate hoax.  His parents, siblings, friends, and work associates are all in on the deal, and they've set him up to believe that, say... the TV star who went to high school with him saw his picture in a yearbook and remembered that she'd had a crush on him, and was sending a limo to pick him up for a date.

If everybody around him swore that it was true, and he had no evidence to the contrary, it would be rational for him to believe it, even though at first glance, it sounded far-fetched.  Corroborating evidence lends plausibility.

In the same way, someone who has been raised only by theists, like the Phelps family compound, might be literally prevented from ever having enough knowledge to question the existence of God.  In this case, we could only call their belief in God rational.

To take this back to atheism, I think there is a real distinction to be made if a person doesn't have the current capability to recognize that "God" is an incoherent term.  While it's true that they are simply ignorant of the facts, they are not in an epistemological position to justify strong atheism.  In the bubble that is their universe, all they can do is say that they see no evidence for this thing everybody else is saying exists.

The universal reality is that "god" is nonsense, and cannot be addressed in any meaningful way.  The local reality is that many people, through ignorance or bad logic, perceive the question to be sensical, and so must, if they are to be philosophically justified despite their factual error, be weak atheists.

The final insult, of course, is that you, in proclaiming that "god" is definitely incoherent, are proclaiming a local truth, insofar as you cannot prove that you are not mistaken or ignorant.  Obviously, we get into the brain in the vat problem if we go down this road, but for each of the attributes of "God" on which theists might be mistaken, there is a conceivable way in which God could exist and be coherent:

Omnipotent might actually be "really, really fucking smart, but not technically knowing everything."

Omnipowerful might actually be "really fucking powerful, but limited by some external constraint, though the limits are virtually meaningless from the human perspective."

They might just be wrong about the whole "all just" and "all merciful" bit.

So, perhaps there's a multiverse, and we really are a cosmic experiment for a super-high-school-lab-experiment thingy.  Perhaps the theists are onto something, but are just disastrously wrong in how they're interpreting it.

This is a bend-over-backwards way to give them any credibility at all, but if there is any credibility to be had -- even very dubious credibility -- then the concept is not total nonsense and weak atheism is at least epistemologically, if not practically justified.

Well, at least you got right the first two of the four.

Here's for staeters...

These links below will shed some light on why the above definition of Gnosticism is in left field.

(Links to: A library of Gnostic texts, and
both link to the philosophy of Gnosticism.)

http://www.gnosis.org/library.html http://www.spiritpathways.com/gnosis.html

Treat, could you please stop being a pylon? That's two posts of no content, and this one for Gnostic Christianity.

AHA!

That makes a big difference, and I don't think I'd wrapped my brain around this idea.  If we're counting theists as the only source of evidence for god, then I agree with you.  The next question to ask, then, is whether anybody who is not a theist can give us a reason to question the existence of a god.

That question isn't as flippant as it might seem.  Consider something like the Loch Ness Monster.  Most serious paleontologists don't give the idea of an extant dinosaur any real consideration, but once enough tin foil hatters say they've seen the damn thing, the only responsible thing is to go out there with equipment and look for it.

Since the god concept has been around so long, and so many people claim to have interacted with the thing, do we have an epistemological obligation to search for it, even though everybody who talks about it is wearing a tin foil hat?

This leads us to an important question.  Are we talking about epistemology or linguistics?  If it's just a trick of language, I have no problem agreeing with you whole-heartedly.  However, I have to wonder if the concept itself merits discussion on its own.  Again, I have to return to the whirly thingy some dude saw.  While it's clear that "whirly" and "thingy" do have meaning, and might point us to something real, it's also true that "being" and "powerful" and "loving" also have meaning, and people might just be very confused about "spiritual" and "all-powerful" and such.

At what point do we have the obligation to investigate claims that appear to be incoherent?  I mean... shit... two thirds of the world's population seem to believe that this thing exists.  I'm not suggesting we have to spend our lives thinking about it, but doesn't it at least deserve a cursory glance?

I believe agnostic is a completely useless word.  If there are no gods, then saying a person is agnostic is equivalent to saying they're a person.

Of course, the brain in a vat reduction is also pretty pointless, but what I'm suggesting is that, like the Loch Ness Monster, "god" is something that so many people claim to have experienced that whether it's legitimate or not, we have an epistemological obligation to examine the evidence, such as it is.  Just looking at two thirds of the earth's population and saying, "Sorry, you're full of shit" may be technically the correct thing to do, but practically...

(Goddamn, I'm starting to sound like Michael Shermer.  I need to cut this devil's advocate thing out pretty soon or I'm going to start spontaneously generating pussies, like when the South Park boys got their panties in a twist over baby cows.)

I agree.  The bait and switch is a real son of a bitch.  I guess it's really a matter of when to put your foot down and demand to see the man behind the curtain.

So... should we refuse dialog at all until a coherent definition is presented?

(That's a very serious question.)

But their interpretation might be what's wrong.  Their self-conflicting definition might be refering to something internally consistent that they can't articulate because they're stupid.

This is the one point I'm having trouble getting past.  Here's what we know:

1) Literally billions of people claim to experience this thing.  (Yeah, I know, appeal to numbers.)

2) They all have similar descriptions which are apparently all internally contradictory.

3) It is not unfathomable that a thing might exist which is being experienced by billions of people, but due to some unknown constraint or other, is being universally misinterpreted.

That, I think, is the justification of weak atheism.  Is it bending over backwards?  Yes.  Is it indefensible?  Certainly not.

I guess the difference here is akin to Dennett's discussion of the "theoretically possible" versus the "physically possible."  Maybe that's the real divide?  Weak atheism addresses the theoretical while strong addresses the physical?

Just read an interview with David Attenborough in New Scientist of May 16:

Obviously a classic 'weak atheist'.

His attitude to a 'God' is clear in this response:

Right. And even before that, we're all human. We believe in "love", despite the fact that it refers to a whole bunch of different things. But at least there, we know that we're discussing behaviour.

Here, I'm moving away from the "more likely scenario", which would be appropriate when dealing with reasonable people, to a more direct "meaninglessness" argument, which can be discussed with people who are in the throes of apologetic arguments.

Exactly, but that's why the scientific mind is particularly sucked into the weak atheist position.

Theist: But you can't know what you can't know if you can't ...

Scientist: Okay, okay! Fuck. If I say I'm agnostic, will you shut up, already?

I'm developing the argument specifically to deal with the unreasonableness of delving into any metaphysical discussions. Can't define your terms? No metaphysical discussion. Thank you, have a nice day.

I recently clarified my position to an non-theist (but would likely use the word "whatever" to describe her stance on religion) as theological non-cognitivism and she summed it up as telling the other person "you're talking gobbledegook." I think that sums up the position but I don't think I could ever approach a conversation that way with the average theist. In fact the one dialogue I've had since sharpening my skills here was with a up to his eyeballs Mormon. In which case, I think you need to approach factual issues and basically tear the claim down from the top.

The non-cognitivism stance takes out the foundation of the claims and, I think, would prevent any dialogue from occuring. You whittle the person down to generic theist or deist, then they might be more receptive to releasing their magical thinking.

-Triften

And of course, even the possibility of a sentient being in a Metaverse which created 'our' Universe doesn't do anything to answer the question of ultimate origins, which had to be something far simpler and more 'elemental' than a sentient entity, otherwise you have the dreaded but unavoidable 'infinite regress' problem of requiring ever greater beings creating lesser ones.

That is my sticking point to Theists on 'First Cause' and related pathetic excuses for 'proofs' of God. 'Explaining' the ultimate origin of our Universe with an even bigger, totally fabricated, incomprehensible thing is the opposite of an explanation.

So you're okay with the "something" not being a "god"? Because then we're talking about weak a-something-ists, not weak atheists.

Thus ... no gods.

 Well, yeah... I'm still working this out, but I think what I'm saying is that IF "god" were to be intelligible as a concept, it would not be in a way that was internally inconsistent or incoherent.  Since "supernatural" is incoherent, and "omni" leads to internal inconsistency, "god" would not have those properties.  In other words, I think justified weak atheism would involve the possibility that any "god" that could exist would necessarily have to fall substantially short of many of the terms theists describe it with now.

From your perspective, I get that you would not want to call that thing "god," but you can't very well say that nobody else would be ok with it... at least, I don't think you can.  Can you?

That's close to what I've always thought: religions are a convenient off-the-shelf, pre-packaged world-view that doesn't require the effort of sorting out reality by yourself. IOW it is the 'easy road' to 'truth', ironic since many preachers liked to characterize the path of non-belief as the 'easy' option.

Non-belief may indeed be the easy option for people who are happy to just take life as it comes, but for anyone seriously interested in coming to an understanding of the world, some effort is required if you find the religious options unsatisfying.

Please stop being a dork.

http://www.gnosis.org/library.html http://

doesn't refer to Christian Gnosticism.

It does provide a very comprehensive definition, library of non-Christian Gnostic Texts.

As in other threads, you prefer to post ignorant garbage rather than research topics.

Your persistent hardon for me has drained the blood from your brain.

Cut back on the Viagra and stop wollowing in your ignorance.

If you would read and research you might be able to
moderate intelligently, instead of constantly falling back on garbage.

There is something even atheists fail to take into account. There is a past, present and future in this equation as well.

I am certain that all past and present claims of deities/super natural are bunk and deserve the same weight as Marvel Comics as far as claims are concerned. In this sense I am a strong atheist.

However, not knowing the future, even though I lean toward strong atheism, the fact is absolute zero cannot be reached, by proxy puts me in the agnostic atheist category in terms of time line.

Having said that, even having not lived in the future, I still don't think I am losing anything by tossing aside claims of super natural, even in regards to the future.

That's a good call: in one of the other threads, I pointed out that all the definitions of gods (obviously in the past) were crap, but didn't account for possible definitions in the future.

Because you're yet another thoughtful individual who has fallen for a linguistical trap. If the thing that might be defined in the future can be defined coherently, would it still be a god? I haven't found that conceptual gap where we can define something as being a god AND make it also make any kind of sense. You're right to say that it could happen in the future, but we're really bending reality at this point to accommodate this concept.

Right. You could say "odds are", but since I'm making the strong argument, it's safe to discount the incoherent as perpetually beyond our reach. As such, belief in incoherent things is nonsense, and disbelief in incoherent things is justified by virtue of the fact that you wouldn't know what you were believing anyway.