Boy, she can squash 'em pretty well, can't she?

Many, many years of Usenet experience.

Ah, the ol' weak/strong atheist/agnostic debate. It's a shame the discussion was so full of hissing and spitting...it's an interesting topic.

David, you describe yourself as an atheist because you say your working hypothesis is that there is no god, right?

So how would you answer the question: Is there a god?

a) No.
b) I don't think so.
c) I don't know.

It's (b), I think, that so many atheists and agnostics fall into, and when they use a term to describe themselves, they have a lot of their identity tied up in that term. I would guess you would say (b), yes?

David - Teresa's got more than mere years of usenet experience. *I've* got years of usenet experience and can whack a troll right good, but i'm in awe of her powers of dismissal. :)

Derek - i'm tripping up on your question because I don't have a clue what you mean when you say "a God". "God" is sort of like "liberal" or "conservative", a vacuous generalization that interferes with, rather than promoting, conversation.

I mean what most people say when the use the term conversationally, and what my dictionary lists as the most common definition:

"the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshiped as creator and ruler of the universe"

Of course, yes..."god" could mean a million different things to a million different people. But if those conceptualizations are so vastly different and it's such an illusive concept, then we could never have a conversation about it, or ask questions about it to one another.

By the way, are you liberal or conservative?

Derek - I have no idea what most people mean when they use the term conversationally. I've always assumed they mean what I thought they meant when I was an eight-year-old child taking bible study classes in San Antonio, and I've never asked them if they mean anything different.

Do I believe in that image? No.

Do I believe in a Being perfect in power and goodness who is the creator of the universe? Yes, sort of; but what I believe in is the Universe itself, which *is* perfect in power and goodness, and which created itself. Do I call it God? No, but I could.

Am I liberal or conservative? Yes. Liberal and Conservative are labels which seek to pigeonhole people in stereotypes in a way which then allows us to relate to the stereotype rather than the person. Which do you think I am?

Derek — my answer’s (b), yes. Or even (b'), “I think not,” which is a little stronger. If the only choices were (a) and (c) . . . well, I’d think it was a stupid way to phrase the question, but I’d probably choose (a).

I run into a lot of self-identified agnostics whose thinking on the subject is much closer to Rob’s belief than to my absence of belief.
That’s a gulf that, intellectually, I don’t find much easier to cross than the one that separates me from the idea of transmigration of the soul, or the idea that Christ died on the cross for our sins, or the idea that we’ll all be reincarnated as simulacra in the virtual worlds of future civilizations with infinite computing horsepower. They’re all ideas that I don’t see the evidence for and that I don’t feel are useful tools for me to understand how the world works.

So, while I don’t have a lot of my identity tied up in the terminology, I do take some care to describe myself as “atheist” rather than “agnostic” because it generally seems to be less misleading. If instead of agnostics I spent most of my time around theists (or around militant evangelical atheists) I might describe myself differently.