PE,
I'm not sure here but does being agnostic in order to maintain logical purity not lead to the inescapable conclusion that you have to be agnostic about absolutely everything?
In a very real sense, yes. If you aren't in possession of contradictory evidence, then don't rule it out.
I have a friend who always accuses me of sitting on the fence as an agnostic, I tend to see it as a sliding scale. I am not 50/50 undecided, I am 99.99% recurring on the side of no God.
if saying that the existence of God is about as likely as the three-headed mongoose king of Neptune, then you're really saying, what you're really communicating here, is that you don't think God exists.
Not at all, & I realise I'm being absolutist about what I've previously written, but I mean it when I say I have no evidential obligation to accept that a God exists. This is different from postively asserting that none exists.
Atheism, as sometimes defined by atheists uses the etymology of the word "a-theist", without God or Gods i.e. a lack of God belief. This is perfectly logically sustainable........If the definitons above hold, can I persuade you to come back into the atheist fold? Go on, you know you want to
That's true, I have no belief in God, & under this definition I am an atheist (satisfied
), but at the end of the day, we're quibbling about definitions. Whatever definition you choose, I'll happily slot into it, as long as it is consistent with, "I have no evidential basis to accept God, but neither can I rule Him/Her/It out, therefore I'll continue as if there isn't one."
Mark
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Occam's razor is not for shaving with.