is an agnostic atheist. But the fact he? holds open the door to a higher power/greater intelligence suggests there's a theistic hangover going on in there, which is what Dig and Ex-Min are recognising and understanding.

I can see Vast's point of view, too. If you see no proof of a god, can't define a god yet can't prove a god's non-existence, then you are an agnostic atheist. I think agnostic atheism is the position of intellectual integrity though I tend to think our agnosticism bows to a theistic appeal to ignorance.

If an agnostic atheist has simultaneous leanings towards panentheism of the Eloise variety I'd be quite relaxed. I'd want to know what the panentheist thought they might believe in, though. I think for Eloise is was math. For Marco, perhaps it's something else. But it has to be something coherent or recognised as an unsupported hypothesis.  

In such a case, what is the higher power/supreme being? What do these words actually mean apart from being umbrella labels to shelter fallacious appeals to complexity?

If these ambiguous labels can't be tested from our perspective (beyond the rather feeble Law of Non Contradiction), do they have any business straying beyond philosophical speculation?

It seems to me the discussion is in part about what should constitute an acceptable standard of evidence, as well as highlighting the necessity for a definition of terms. I think Marco will see things more clearly in time, if we don't RedNef him. 

I know he could be quite arrogant and quite aggressive, but I actually miss RedneF.

Same could be said for Blake. Blake could be quite conceited and sometimes lecturing, but I actually enjoyed his posts for some reason.

I remember when Blake, myself and several others were going back and forth with a guy named Optionsgeek on a couple of threads (one belonging to that troll Jean), that RedneF just popped out of nowhere, declared Optionsgeek to be an idiot, picked apart a couple of his posts and pummeled them. Then declared the end of the thread. I actually thought it was funny.

I do felt RedneF was a bit too harsh on Sandycane one time, whom I also miss.

Ah the good ole days of 2010.

Yeah, Red was the real deal. Clever guy with great confidence. He had a way of getting right to it. I never quite bought his reason for stamping out of the sandbox with his bucket and spade. Why would you walk away from often entertaining arguments on account of a single personality? P'raps he just got a bit bored with it all, as we all sometimes do, and was prone to the grand exit.

There's such a molded design to theistic minds that it's often groundhog thread - so I can understand a dislike of the sameness of things. Maybe we could research and engage arguments we've never used before against some new theist, just for the education of it. Personally, I seem to be simplifying my argument down to 2 words. 'Define god'. It's not very exciting. 

Remember in posting here you have jumped into exchanges that have been going on for years and are not forgotten just because a new poster has appeared.

A higher power. Seriously, how much higher? There is a great difference between some interstellar busybody and creator of all that is with a personal interest in details of homo sapien social and sexual relations.

As to not believe there is no cause to suspend or make a judgement as it requires physical evidence to do either. Judgement without evidence is not possible. So you are sort of hanging yourself on misuse of words with has nothing to do with your grasp of English which is excellant btw.

I for one consider Dawkins a poor thinker outside of his scientific field and rather out of his depth in the atheism discussion. For example he declared himself to be an ethnic Christian without any excuse for not knowing the meaning of ethnic nor the least attempt to explain his new usage of the word ethnic. He published a book on cat behaviour in which his preferatory material cites his professional credentials. About a quarter of it is silly stuff any cat lover might write.

So learning anything from Dawkins writings on atheism is an iffy matter. He is a johnny come lately not an authoritative source worthy a conversation stopping quotation.

True story. His website used to have open discussion boards like this one. As I did here I expanded the attacks on Christianity to all religions including Judaism. They got so pissed at me for doing that and documenting it they shut down all the open discussion boards. The website is for attacking religions other than Judaism which is sacrosanct making him a hypocrit. Modern political Israel is also sacrosanct.

The incorrect usage of belief and knowledge as well as proof and few other words is incredibly common among people whose native language is English. I have called at least a dozen people to book on these misusages.

Consider the legal definition for criminal cases. It is quite reasonable, almost mandatory, to say that 99.9% is way far beyond a reasonable doubt. Other than that in scientific terms proof only applies to two fields math and logic. It applies to nothing scientific. What real world physical evidence do you have which requires a god or gods to explain? If you have nothing then holding open the option is a fool's errand.

Let me point out "another plane" is a Hollywood scriptwriter trope with no scientific merit or standing whatsoever. More intelligent should imply they have better things to do than meddle in the affairs of cattle. One would hope the cattle would not have to tell them to get a life.

In other words you are making unstated assumptions on the nature of these hypothetical creatures. Speculating on their existence has been an SF theme since at least the 1950s and it is fine for you to speculate on their existence also. BUT for things you cannot evidence their existence you are giving definitive characteristics to their interests and activities. That is not reasonable.

In this case "there may be" would also apply to everything that was the subject of an X-Files episode. It would apply to every crackpot idea you ever heard of and without any distinction. The idea of there being a god or gods has no greater standing just because of the subject matter.

Despite the efforts of some to create rules for capitalization the only serious rule for English is, when in doubt capitalize. I keep it lower case in hopes of snaring an objection from theists. Then I have a mess of responses. For example the name of god is not God. The Jewish ones will often use G-d allowing me to remark upon their hyphenated god. The name of the jewish/christian god is Yahweh of the Elohim pantheon. Some 5000+ places in the OT Yahweh Elohim, Yahweh of the Elohim, is deliberately falsely translated as Lord God. Lord God would be El Adoni.