@TheMiddleWay I don’t think you’re using the same definition of atheist as I am. I don’t see it as a definitive statement of anything other than what I [don’t] personally believe or see evidence for. It doesn’t mean I think it’s 100% knowable that there’s not. If you don’t have a particular god or system of theism you believe in, you’re technically an atheist (without theism) even if you’re more comfortable with the term agnostic. The two terms describe different things. My agnosticism answers the epistemological question “do you believe anyone can know for sure?” (No I do not.) my atheism answers the question “do you actively have a belief in a supreme being? (Same answer, like it is with most of us.)

@TheMiddleWay right. So I think our differences are purely semantical here: you see the term atheist as a definitive claim that we are all without gods, I see it as a claim that I personally am without a god, in lieu of evidence for one and to me it is a position congruent with my agnosticism. I don’t see them as being mutually exclusive descriptions under many very likely circumstances. I fit your definition of agnostic and you fit mine of an atheist. In reality I feel like both terms apply to both of us unless you can pick a certain god or system of theism that you think might be more plausible than the rest to hold out for. I agree with your hesitation to make any absolute statements but what I’m saying is, atheism doesn’t have to be as absolute of a position as it sounds to most people. When I say I’m 100% sure there is no god, I mean you can pick any god that’s ever been previously described in popular religions, and considering the fact that it was made up in a time where those people didn’t know where the sun went at night, I can safely say that one doesn’t exist.

@TheMiddleWay What I object to is when people try to tell me that my unbelief is more accurately labeled as agnostic is that the distinction is lost between the position of being unconvinced of claims for either position (which describes me in my 20+ years of relative ignorance of many of the arguments on either side), and my current position of being convinced of the bogus nature of religious claims (after gaining acquaintance with the historical origins of the Abrahamic religions, and knowledge of all the contradictions, absurdities, scientific errors, mistranslations, and ethical failures of religions). I find it a deep insult that anyone would try to gloss the difference between those two significantly different states, asserting that they are fundamentally equivalent positions. I am very proud of the level of knowledge I have attained to progress from one position to the other.

@TheMiddleWay My apologies for jumping into this thread without clarifying my objection to something related you said in our interaction in another post a few days ago. Perhaps you have now revised your position, or you truly don't remember. So I will change the "you" to "people" in general.

Why would a god with a message as important for human salvation as the Abrahamic gods hide themselves away and leave only such dirt poor evidence for their existence?

@Rossy92 That's just it. It's people that make those messages and who make them important. People wrote those books, based in a deep impression of what they thought god was and how god affects life and people. That isn't on any god, biblical or otherwise. Once you grasp that, it's a lot easier to realize there is a possibility but its currently at an unknown and unknowable level.

@AmyLF And impressions are a dime a dozen. I think we are mostly in agreement and you are on the right track in being divested from the biblical.

@atheist I like to consider that if there exists a just god, it would count in my favor that I was honest and courageous enough not to be swayed by all of religions' contemptible and absurd lies.

@atheist I've encountered it as "The Argument from the Hiddenness of God", or something like that.

Didn't Einstein disprove this? Or at least challenge it. ??

LMAO

In a serious note, you crack me uuuuup ??

My grandfather was a missionary. He said it was a nice position.

@IamNobody the only thing I have going for me is my sense of humor

@atheist oh no, I meant it... She is really funny !!

@atheist Sigh, a few years ago I might have gotten away with that, but mt body starts making weird crackling noises when I try anything creative.

@atheist That vatsayana guy had it all figured out - literally!

@atheist "It" means the "position" in your OP. How can something not known be verified?

@atheist Just what position do you think an agnostic adheres to?

@atheist Nevermind. I see where other discussions here have gone. Appeal to ignorance isn't a great argument of "proof" or "evidence". Just because the claim that theists have the burden of proof is true, it doesn't automatically make your conclusion true. Atheists are pretty much using arguments equal to those who believe there definitely is a God. The argument that someone else made here seems rational.....that someone who is investigating, must know what they're actually looking for, and also have the ability to do so.

@atheist Oh ok.

@TheMiddleWay Really? Here's a list of nobel prize winners in physics with no professed religion. Amazing "minority" wouldn't you say?

Zhores Alferov[50][51]
Philip Warren Anderson[2][52]
John Bardeen[2]
Hans Bethe[2][53]
Patrick Blackett[54]
Niels Bohr[2][55][56][57]
Percy Williams Bridgman[58][59][60]
Louis de Broglie[2]
James Chadwick[61]
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar[2][62]
Marie Curie[2]
Pierre Curie[2]
Paul Dirac[2]
Albert Einstein[2][63] Einstein used many labels to describe his religious views, including "agnostic",[64]:216 "religious nonbeliever",[64]:218 and a believer in "Spinoza's God."[64]:204 He was an active participant in various humanist and Ethical Culture groups, including the First Humanist Society of New York and the Rationalist Association (UK).[65] He disliked labels like "atheist" and "pantheist".[66]
Enrico Fermi[2]
Richard Feynman[2][67]
Val Logsdon Fitch[68]
James Franck[69]
Murray Gell-Mann[70]
Vitaly Ginzburg[71]
Peter Higgs[72]
Lev Landau[2][73]
Leon M. Lederman[74][75]
Albert A. Michelson[76]
Konstantin Novoselov[77]
Jean Baptiste Perrin[78]
Isidor Isaac Rabi[2]
C. V. Raman[2]
William Shockley[2]
Erwin Schrödinger[2][79][80]
Igor Tamm[81][82]
Johannes Diderik van der Waals[2]
Eugene Wigner[2]
Steven Weinberg[2][83]

@TheMiddleWay How many were actually "believers" in everything their religions taught, and how many merely paid lip service to a faith, ib order to avoid controversy? Gallileo himself publicly withdrew his theories to avoid persecution, but continued to develop them. Beware of believing that because a person ticks a box on a questionaire that person is devout. Only in very recent times have people been able to express their lack of belief, and then only in certain places. A quick read of this site will reveal the militancy of Southern US Evangelists, meaning others pay lip service unless they are in a safe place.

@TheMiddleWay But we do know. Read their biographies before you argue, please!!!