I'd like to apologize for how unbelievably bad I am at sarcasm.

As a mitigating factor: I've been up for the last 25 hours trying to work on an essay and I am not feeling well. That probably contributed to my lack of clarity. Going to sleep now.

there! on the left! she has no EEEEEYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEESSSSSSS!

I wish I had the Cthulu Chick Tract to post. It got taken down the official site by Chick's lawyers though, and I never downloaded it.

So agnosticism is "we can't/don't know" and weak atheism is "I can't/don't know"? That's a fairly piss-poor distinction, IMHO.

Thank HBG you were being sarcastic. All is forgiven. To the extent that non-divine I can forgive, of course. Feel better.

A lack of evidence is not a proof.

Its funny when creationists try to use science.

I think there is an unnecessary rush of people of both persuasions to assume that faith and science are mutually exclusive concepts.

Sketch - I've been told that:

Agnostics believe that no one can truly know if God exists.

Atheists believe that God doesn't exist.

I think.

I'm pretty much on the same page. To put it another way

Does God(s) exist?
Theist: "Yes"
Atheist: "No"
Agnostic: "None of the above"

The link Borg posted states otherwise, and I'm trying to get in my head whether infidels.org is trying to place agnosticism as a subset of atheism (which I would be open to) or its own thing separate from "weak atheism," which incidentally would also answer none of the above (huh?).

Strong atheism: believing that gods do not (or cannot) exist.

Weak atheism: just lacking belief in Gods.

Agnosticism: believing that we do not know for sure whether God exists or that we can never know.

I'm not sold that weak atheism deserves its own cartegory. The more you differentiate it from agnositicism the more it sounds like strong atheism and vice versa.

OK, I see where my block is: I don't agree with this "lack of belief" business. I agree that if you don't believe X, it doesn't necessarily equate to belief the opposite of X (although that's very common). However, you have to believe something whether it's "not X" or "maybe X" or "maybe not X" or "there's not enough evidence to prove X" or "I don't know about X."

Speaking as an admittedly-biased theist, weak atheism is weak. I'll shut up now.

Let's say I lack a belief in invisible pink unicorns. Based on what you're saying, does that mean I also have to believe in something for my lack of belief to be valid?

EDIT: What I'm saying is that a lack of belief is not only invalid, it is impossible. What would be your response to "Do invisible pink unicorns exist?"

"I don't know."

That doesn't mean I believe we can never know whether invisible pink unicorns exist, but that I simply lack a belief in them until their existence is proven.

For them to be both invisible and pink seems problematic.

OK, I get it. What we have here is a very specified definition of agnoticism as "never knowable" vs. "unknown based on current evidence." Thanks for that. That being said, "unknown based on current evidence" is still a belief.

Hey, Scripture is paradoxical and self-contradictory. Why can't hypothetical analogies?

You know, I don't really buy scripture as unproblematic, either. But that's me

Hey, you're allowed. With that, it's passed my bedtime. Borg, I'll check back in the morning if you want to continue this chat. Good times.

You just blew my mind!

Agnosticism does not require or exclude an individual from claiming that something cannot be known, cannot ever be known, or that the individual him/herself simply does not know. It is a general epistemological category that only requires a disclaiming of knowledge. One might be advised to avoid adoption of non-cooperative thought sets within that framework, but agnosticism itself is terribly broad in its permutations.

I no longer believe in English.

I agree. That's how I've always interpreted/used it. Lacking a belief in the existence of God always points to a belief about the existence of God, whatever it is (not possible, not knowable now, not knowable ever, not important, etc.). The infidels.org link broadens the definition of atheism to the point where the line between it and agnosticism gets way blurry... assuming there's still a line there.

Max is funny. The question still remains what he believes about English.

He believes in a thing called love.