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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm not the "I don't believe in atheists" poster, but she has a point even though I'm not sure she realizes it. Like another PP said, Darwin, Einstein and Dawkins have all said they can't rule out a deity 100%, so they call themselves agnostics rather than atheists. Well in Dawkins' case he calls himself a practical atheist because he acts like God doesn't exist even though he can never be 100% sure, but I'll let you guys unpack his definitions. In any case, if these 3 undeniably smart people don't call themselves atheists, then do they exist? A theological question for the day....[/quote]

This is because no person who calls himself or herself a scientist will make a declarative statement about something that is not (a) observable and (b) subject to experimentation (i.e. repeated observation).

The basis of modern science is based on theories put to repeated observation.  And even then, conclusions are never absolutely certain.  It's like Hume wrote, we observe the sun rise and fall every day.  Over an extended period of time, we can reasonably assume the sun will rise and fall because it is something we have observed over time.  But we can never know with absolute certainty that it will indeed rise and fall every day.  This is the basis of modern science.  We make conclusions based on the information available to us, reason, and then repeated observation under various circumstances.

We reach a point where we feel confident enough in a conclusion to act based on that conclusion.  But no scientist worth his salt will ever claim certainty about something we can't even observe and subject to experimentation.  He/she will barely commit to certainty about the things we can observe and subject to experimentation.

The idea is that to function in this world, we have to make conclusions about things even though we *never* have all of the information and can *never* really have absolute certainty about anything.  So we make reasonable assumptions and test them and then act based on the repeated success of those assumptions put to the test.

It is foolish and arrogant to claim certainty either about the existence of a god or the lack thereof.  This is why those scientists you mention identify mainly as agnostic -- the existence of a god simply cannot be known by humans.  the practical atheist position is basically that we can't know for sure, but we can act based on an assumption[/quote]

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