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[quote=RantingAtheist][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You can't claim With 100 percent certainty that there aren't green fairies dancing around me right now, it doesn't make it any lesS ridiculous. Look up "the scientific principle".
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You make a valid philosophical point. And it cuts to the very heart of the atheist/agnostic hairsplitting. Unfortunately, PP will miss the point entirely, and rather than addressing the underlying epistemological question, will take this as a personal, below-the-belt attack on her personal beliefs.[/quote]

Actually, the issue here is the way you use ad homimen attacks when you don't have a good answer! Trust me, my "belief system" can stand hearing a reasoned response instead of a silly ad hominem attack like this one.

Here, why don't you try again, go for it! Explain how your labels below make sense. Because, on the face of it, these labels DON'T make any sense:

- PERSON OF FAITH: 100% sure God (or fairies) exist. Includes Tea Party and other fundamentalists (and people who believe 100% in fairies).

- ATHEIST: 1% to 100% sure God doesn't exist. Includes Mother Theresa, people who currently call themselves agnostics and might be unhappy that you are relabeling them, Richard Dawkins, and all people who are 100% sure God doesn't exist and can ignore the intellectual failure of such a position. (Also, anybody who believes with less than 100% certainty in fairies is an "atheist.")

[/quote]

Maybe I'm being clueless, but I'm not sure why you're so keen on this point, as though you've found some sort of deep philosophical inconsistency rather than a meaningless debating point. It's pretty clear when you read Dawkins that he's making a point about what sorts of positive assertions one can make about the world--not just about metaphysical phenomena, but about whether the sun will rise tomorrow, or whether water will run downhill. So when he says he's a "six out of seven" on the Atheist Scale (or whatever), he's not expressing some sort of 1% likelihood that the Christian hypothesis of "God" is true. He's saying that rational people don't make those kind of assertions.

It's in line with saying "We know the Earth is round." It's not, it's an "oblate spheroid". Can we say this with 100% certainty? No. (Perhaps the concept "round" is meaningless in if we were to see things as they "truly" are. Does that mean we're open to the possibility that it's flat disk?

And "the Earth is round" is a positive assertion. The problem gets even thornier with the question of supernatural beings for whom there is no *positive* evidence, because proving a negative is a logical impossibility. Which is why arguments like the "Teapot Hypothesis" or "Flying Spaghetti Monster" are essential to understanding the critique.

A theist who is interested in having a good-faith debate about the issues would make an attempt to grapple with that critique. One who is arguing in bad faith will ignore it or get pissed off and disengage from the argument claiming "ridicule of my beliefs".[/quote]

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