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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It would be a lot easier to tolerate your labeling Dawkins "Agnostic" if he hadn't written a whole chapter of his book about "The Poverty of Agnosticism".[/quote]

Time to repost from this link (http://www.investigatingatheism.info/definition.html):

"Dawkins' central argument against religion is probabilistic, and his scale of belief reflects this, ranging from 1: 'Strong theist. 100% probability of God' to the equivalent 7: 'Strong atheist'. He doesn't see 7 as a well-populated category, [b]placing himself as 6: 'Very low probability, but short of zero.[/b] De facto atheist'.[6] Again, this terminology suggests that [b]he sees atheism as strictly requiring certainty. [/b]It should not be taken for a lack of certainty in a practical sense, however: Dawkins states 'I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden'."   If you read the rest of the piece, it goes on to say that Dawkins "divides agnosticism into TAP (temporary agnosticism in practice) and PAP (permanent agnosticism in principle), identifying the first as Sagan's stance on alien life...." According to this piece, all but categories 1 and 7 are TAP.

Summary: Dawkins sees atheism as strictly requiring certainty. He himself is not 100% certain because the probability is "low, but short of zero." He is therefore not an atheist (he is a 6,not a 7 on his scale), either by his own definition, or by his own assessment of where he belongs on his own scale.

You're welcome.
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