@TheMiddleWay I'm not sure I followed all of that, but what is often forgotten is that if a claim is such that there SHOULD be evidence for it, but there isn't, then the LACK of evidence is evidence of its nonexistence. (I have a fire breathing dragon as a pet, and as evidence of this dragon, I will show you the charred remains of my house, the dragon foot prints in my yard, and a dragon tooth that fell out last week. I take you to my house, and the house is not burned, there are no footprints in the yard, and there is no tooth when there SHOULD be if my claim is true. The fact that I then claim the dragon is magic and fixed everything, made the neighbor's forget, etc., does not lend "evidence" to the claim. The LACK of evidence for the claim is actually evidence AGAINST the claim, no matter how it is spun afterward.)

@TheMiddleWay There's also Hitchen's assertion that what can be presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. I wasn't attempting to prove those claims but present them as an example, albeit as hyperbole, and the logical fallacy is exactly the point.

@TheMiddleWay You are playing a word game with the word "prove" when you say situations in which one cannot prove there should be evidence. The way you determine if there SHOULD be evidence is by reason and logic in comparison to past experiences. Again, if I claim I have a pet dragon, and that the evidence for this is my charred house, footprints, and a dragon tooth, to then claim that the reason my house looks undamaged, there are no footprints, and there is no tooth is because the dragon used magic to make it disappear...DOES NOT REQUIRE YOU TO PROVE EVIDENCE THIS MAGIC DOESN'T EXIST to disbelieve the claim. You can disbelieve the claim based on Occam's razor, the extraordinary nature of the claim, and the lack of evidence. That does NOT mean there is a 50/50 chance the dragon exists. The lack of evidence in light of all of past human experience means the nonexistence of the dragon is virtually 100%.
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Moreover, I have never heard a god claim when closely examined that included no interaction with reality in any way, shape, or form that lends itself to evidence. In addition, I have heard many god claims that are inherently contradictory to logic itself, much less the most mundane of facts in the physical world. That isn't a claim that is in the realm of "no one knows" and "50/50 chance".

@TheMiddleWay We have extraordinary evidence for relativity and quantum mechanics. We have no such extraordinary evidence for prayer (we don't even have "ordinary" evidence for it). You seem to be playing with the idea that some claims are beyond the understanding of some people. That may be true, but the claims of prayer are easily testable using falsifiable methodology, and they fail every time. The evidence for relativity and quantum mechanics can also be tested using falsifiable testing, and they pass every time. An extraordinary claim is one that goes against all previous logic and evidence for such claims. Relativity, for example, went against all the evidence and logic previously. So we tested it using falsifiable methodology before believing the extraordinary claim that it was true. IT PASSED THE TEST. That's how we know it is true, and depend on it daily for everything from GPS to communication satellites. If we had said ordinary evidence is good enough, we would never have discovered the truth, as false claims about space and time would have been excepted with "ordinary" evidence (an in fact, they WERE, because we didn't yet no what kind of test to conduct to determine what was actually true).

@TheMiddleWay I didn't read all of your posts because I'm not responding with a wall of text. Suffice it to say, if a claim is such that there shouldn't be evidence for it, it is completely useless, practically meaningless, and can be in direct contradiction with other such claims. It is of no interest to me or anyone interested in truth.

@TheMiddleWay Atheism isn't a claim. Neither is theism. Theism is a belief in a god. Atheism is a lack of a belief. These are what the terms mean. If you don't agree, fine. I don't really care.

@TheMiddleWay Atheism to most atheists means "lack of belief in gods". That is why it is the opposite of theism, which is the belief in gods. If you don't agree, I don't care. You don't get to tell other people or groups how to define themselves. MOST atheists, and the dictionary, define atheism as the lack of belief in gods. I don't care what you think otherwise. The word games with the prefix a- meaning "not" doesn't even conform to English norms. "Ammoral" doesn't mean "immoral". Apolitical doesn't mean anti-political. Asocial doesn't mean antisocial. And on...and on...and on. And atheism IS NOT A BELIEF either, doofus. Lacking a belief is BY DEFINITION NOT A BELIEF. Good grief. Atheism isn't a claim, it's not a belief, it's not a philosophy, it's not a pizza topic. It is not holding theistic beliefs. Not holding theistic beliefs is not a belief, not a claim, not anything but NOT HOLDING THEISTIC BELIEFS. That's it. And since you claim you are not an atheist, you need to stop telling others how to define their own positions. Period.

@TheMiddleWay Doofus, I'm telling YOU to stop defining MY position. You don't get to define MY position. I have in no way tried to define your position, as I don't care what your position is. And I especially don't care what YOUR position is on MY position. Quoting other people who seem to be completely divorced from logic doesn't interest me.

@greyeyed123 you're wasting your time. It's not even worth the effort to debate him. He uses every straw man argument you cab imagine to avoid honest discussion.

@TheMiddleWay Atheism broadly defined is a lack of belief in god. That can include gnostic atheists and agnostic atheists. Moreover, atheism IS NOT a claim. Neither is theism. You keep SAYING they claims. But they are not. Belief in something is not a knowledge claim. Lacking a belief in something is not a knowledge claim either. Again, amoral means having nothing to do with morality. Immoral means against what is moral. Asocial means having nothing to do with being social. ANTI-social means actively hurting/killing people. Etc. Etc. This is just the basic semantics of the language. Do you deny that there are the basic four positions that virtually everyone takes on the god question? 1) I know there is a god and I believe in him. 2) I don't know if there is a god and I believe in him. 3) I don't know if there is a god and I don't believe in him. 4) I know there isn't a god and I don't believe in him. These are all positions real people in the real world hold, and agnosticism overlaps both atheism and theism with the "I don't know" half, while theism and atheism address BELIEF or LACK OF A BELIEF. That is why these definitions are the most useful. Your definitions above are not useful because lacking a belief DOES NOT REQUIRE A CLAIM OF ANY KIND, just as belief DOESN'T REQUIRE A CLAIM OF ANY KIND EITHER. As Yoda said, "That is why you fail."

@JimG I know. I'm just bored. I love the "atheism means different things to different people" tactic, lol. I haven't heard that one before. For SOME people, atheism means a lack of belief in gods. For OTHER people, it means devil worshiping baby eaters. Who's to know which definition is correct? (I'm sure he'll look up a definition on conservapedia that says we're baby eaters, lol.)

@TheMiddleWay The SEP also starts with the claim that "God" exists and everything else flows from there. The "Hiddenness of God" page has sentences like "There are people who are capable of relating personally to God but who, through no fault of their own, fail to believe." Hardly an even handed, objective approach to defining different perspectives from their own point of view. Just admit you are a theist infiltrator, lol. You are spy behind enemy lines!

@TheMiddleWay If you'd like me to give the argument for antitheism, it would only take a second. Maybe two. lol I would probably be wasting my time, however.

@TheMiddleWay Also, that joke about "conservapedia"? The atheism entry on conservapedia literally links to SEP. No joke. (And the conservapedia entry for SEP literally copies an entire paragraph from wikipedia. No joke.)

@TheMiddleWay Theism isn't a proposition.

@TheMiddleWay Carl Sagan was wrong. (He was playing to a largely theist audience and trying to soften his message as a science proponent.) In any case, you say YOU are not a theist. That makes you an atheist, by your own etymology above. Everyone who is NOT a theist is an atheist. It's a true dichotomy.
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But why not ask 10 or 20 atheists whether they agree with your definition of themselves or not? If ONLY there was a place where a bunch of people reacted negatively to your claim that atheism is a myth? Hmm. Where oh where could you go to be corrected by real life atheists? I guess there is no such place. Oh well. I guess you'll have to remain in ignorance. Maybe you could go to conservapedia's atheism site and get plenty of well researched information that is peer reviewed by a bunch of Conservative Christians, so you KNOW it has to be true.
[conservapedia.com]
If anyone else hasn't read this entry on conservapedia, I'd recommend it. It's one of the funniest things I've ever read.
This one is hilarious also: [conservapedia.com]

@TheMiddleWay You are wrong. Stop replying to me. Find some fellow Christians to talk to.

@TheMiddleWay That's not ironic. Leave me alone.

I've got a 5year old nephew with a far better grasp on logical reasoning than, imho, does this ' Storm1752' character or the arrant source from which he dug up that drivel.

You are an agnostic, like me. We have no PROOF one way or the other, so we don't KNOW. That's all I'm saying.

Atheists have a good to excellent grasp of reason, logic, facts and data and for the majority ARE self-determined people, UNLIKE the religious Sheeple of this world.

@Triphid My point exactly.

@jlynn37 Though it may self-centered, etc, in my opinion, Atheists are the light in the darkness imposed upon mankind by religions.

@Storm1752 We have no PROOF one way or another that flying, fire-breathing dragons exist or not, so we don't know.
We have no PROOF one way or another that one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eaters exist or not, so we don't know.
That is all you are saying.
What is your stance on these two unfounded assertions?

@TheMiddleWay Please give your source for this statement. I doubt that it is true.

@TheMiddleWay No one has won a Nobel Prize for proving a god exists, or any supernatural religious claim whatsoever. Doctors, scientists, and Nobel Prize winners are none of those things by virtue of being religious. Doctors do not heal by using religious doctrine or magic, scientists don't discover things through prayer, and Nobel Prize winners don't win the prize because of their good judgment about religious teachings.

@TheMiddleWay You just keep getting in deeper but yes, anyone who is religious has a logic, fact and data problem regarding religion, since it's all a myth. A rocket scientist doesn't necessarily know how to cook...apparently in addition to believing in god you believe in doctors, scientists and science nobel prize winners

@Storm1752 you are saying that there is no proof of anything and people may invent anything they want and challenge anyone to disprove it. It also means you won't believe any proof. For instance if there was an all knowing and all powerful god who was supposed to be loving then little kids wouldnt be born into starvation in India. But then you will say it's god's plan to torture people. People invented Poseidon to explain the tides. We can explain the tides now but that doesnt mean that Poseidon doesnt exist right? What's also proven here is that being on this site doesnt make you rational.

@TheMiddleWay Congratulations but that means zero, at least to me because I don't worship doctors or scientists and don't believe that they are infallible and incapable of irrational thought.

@TheMiddleWay But the claim would simply be that they don't have a grasp of reason, evidence, and logic WHEN IT COMES TO THEIR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. And many would probably admit as much, claiming their beliefs are a matter of faith, not reason and evidence.

@TheMiddleWay Sure. Religious people can be reasonable, logical, evidence based people. If they NEVER were such people, they would have died out a long time ago. Atheists too can be irrational, as "atheism" is only a lack of belief in gods. You could lack a belief because there is no evidence, which dictates reasonably that you should not believe in things until presented with sufficient evidence for it. Or you could lack a belief because your talking frog Julian told you gods are not real, right alongside beliefs that global warming is a Chinese hoax and Sandy Hook was a false flag and that Hillary Clinton had sex slaves in the basement of a pizza parlor that had no basement. I think the claim that atheists are saying religious people are completely and totally irrational because they believe in irrational religious beliefs is disingenuous. What many of us ARE saying is that deeply ingrained, irrational religious beliefs can and often does teach people how to think fallaciously, and they transfer that fallacious thinking to everything from politics to personal relationships to even medical advice. Does that mean they ALWAYS think fallaciously? No. But as Hitchens said (from a paraphrase of Stephen Weinberg), to get good people to do morally abhorrent things, you need religion, or something so akin to religion that the thinking pattern is the same.

@TheMiddleWay Firstly, my friend, I do NOT have a disdain for Theists, just the ridiculous twaddle they purvey endlessly,
Next, I commented that most Atheists DO have a very good to excellent grasp on reason, logic, etc.
So, where is your problem with my comment or me personally?

@TheMiddleWay Give it up my friend, you are in a losing situation on an Agnostic/A-theist site. Your opinion is noted as are all the others.

@TheMiddleWay So, correct me IF I'm wrong, BUT most Doctors are religious. Does that mean they actually offer up prayers BEFORE, DURING and AFTER they've treated/operated upon a patient?
Where does that happen because in my years as a Nurse I never once saw a Doctor pray over any patient?

I totally agree. BUT there is no proof god or gods do NOT exist, either. If you agree with that statement, you are agnostic, not atheist.

@Storm1752 by your definition, I'm agnostic about my invisible wings, plus that at night, me and Holly Hunter's spirit flesh enjoy each other's love.

That's what I think, as well. There's absolutely NO proof. BUT there's absolutely no proof there ISN'T a god or gods, either. If you agree, you are agnostic, not atheist.

@Storm1752 There is no "there" there. I'm an atheist.

Saying there's no proof that there are no gods, so maybe there are gods, is the same as saying there's no proof there are no unicorns, so maybe there are unicorns. As far as I'm concerned, it's fucking stupid.

If there is no proof of a thing existing, then that thing does not exist.
It's not that hard.

I refuse to say I'm an agnostic, because I'm not.
You either believe, or you don't. I don't go for all that wishy-washy bullshit of "I don't know". It might work for you, but it does not work for me.
Don't tell me what I am. It's fucking rude. You do you, and leave others to do the same.

I am an atheist.

@Storm1752 There is actually quite a lot of proof that an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omnipresent creator god does not exist. And if you start peeling away these descriptors, it's hard to call whatever is left a "god" as anyone would normally define it.

No need. Atheists don't believe in god. So, they are agnostics. What's the difference? If someone says they KNOW there's no god, they are as deluded as believers. All I'm saying...

@Storm1752 That's ridiculous to say that because we see no proof for the theory of a God that equates to a belief. Atheist simply do not agree with a theory put forth by the theist. To attach any belief to the word is to twist and add onto it other meanings that do not apply. It takes breathtaking arrogance to accuse us of the very flaws your beliefs have in order to justify ignorance, cowardice, and/or lack of intelligence. You are an atheist or a theist, there is nothing else. This attempt to create a third coward's way out the call agnostic is pathic and another bastardization of another word they don't even realize was created as a joke. The Gnostics believed to know the exact will of God, Agnostic was created as a joke meaning not knowing the will of God. So agnostic has nothing to do with if a god exists but everything to do with knowing gods will. You can be an Atheist agnostic or a Theist agnostic but you are a theist or atheist. Look them up in philosophy. The way people are using it is wrong so before you can even have this argument of the words maybe a definition must be agreed to first. Kinda like arguing the Bible, first, we must know which version. Let the religious side get to demonize a word for a couple thousand years and it's understandable why people don't want the label of atheist. I think it's all about offending people, saying I do not agree with you on the god issue is the same as saying you are wrong to most dumbasses so people want to say I don't know because it doesn't offend or force people to make a decision. Agnostics know they see no evidence of a flying spaghetti monster so they have no problem saying that's bullshit yet when presented with the same evidence for a god someone believes in then they don't know, that's my definition of a coward. Maybe you are just sheep and because all these others believe so I must follow. Either way, you will do it without me because I'm not afraid to say there is no evidence, I do not believe things without evidence especially really fantastic stories about imaginary beings dreamed up in the bronze age or before.