Atheist vs Agnostic

loudmouth writes:Poor analogy. Both bigfoot and Nessie are hypothetical physical beings who can be tested for through physical means. All I need to do to discount Nessie is drain Loch Ness, or mow down all of the forests in NA to find Bigfoot. Fairies are in between the physical and supernatural. They are supposed to be ongoing physical manifestations, so they should be amenable to testing. But then again, the absence of fairies can be explained away through supernatural mechanisms, so fairies aren't exactly like Bigfoot or Nessie.God, or any deity or hosts of deities, are completely supernatural. They act on the physical world through supernatural mechanisms (I know, I know, if it affects the physical it is a physical mechanism, but just humor me for the moment). Due to the supernatural mechanism, their effect on the world would be indistinguishable from an unknown, or undiscovered natural mechanism.I am agnostic simply because I have not seen evidence, but would not be able to distinguish the evidence from unknown or undiscovered natural mechanisms. I can't know if I am truly experiencing a religious event. Atheists take this lack of knowledge and transfer it to a lack of a deity/deities. I, as an agnostic, prefer to leave it at "I don't know".

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My question for agnostics is: Since you're presumably pretty negative about the existence of fairies, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and other fairy tales, why do you make an exception for God?

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Poor analogy. Both bigfoot and Nessie are hypothetical physical beings who can be tested for through physical means. All I need to do to discount Nessie is drain Loch Ness, or mow down all of the forests in NA to find Bigfoot. Fairies are in between the physical and supernatural. They are supposed to be ongoing physical manifestations, so they should be amenable to testing. But then again, the absence of fairies can be explained away through supernatural mechanisms, so fairies aren't exactly like Bigfoot or Nessie.God, or any deity or hosts of deities, are completely supernatural. They act on the physical world through supernatural mechanisms (I know, I know, if it affects the physical it is a physical mechanism, but just humor me for the moment). Due to the supernatural mechanism, their effect on the world would be indistinguishable from an unknown, or undiscovered natural mechanism.I am agnostic simply because I have not seen evidence, but would not be able to distinguish the evidence from unknown or undiscovered natural mechanisms. I can't know if I am truly experiencing a religious event. Atheists take this lack of knowledge and transfer it to a lack of a deity/deities. I, as an agnostic, prefer to leave it at "I don't know".

My question is: Why don't all atheist consider themselves agnostic?

purpleD writes:Now if you ask me to categorize my parallel universe beliefs or disbeliefs (pick a specific camp so to speak), I would choose a category closest to my feelings, but I would say that parallel universes are a non issue since my thoughts don't truly fit into the choices given. Plus when the conversation is over, I won't think of parallel universes again, until the subject is brought up again.It doesn't avoid the question, it explains their position. Understand their position and adjust your paradigm.

schraf writes: The Greeks and Romans ruled much of the world for around 3,000 years.

... the Chinese culture which sustained all three is hundreds of thousands of years old.