User talk:Fuhghettaboutit/Archive 5

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[edit] User page

Hi again, just thought I'd comment on the spelling error guide on your userpage. It's not really relevant to me as my method is different, but I'm sure there are other people who will find it useful. No spelling errors, anyway (apart from the intentional ones!) I like the new design of your userpage, at least. Nice to see that someone is capable of using userboxes without going over the top and having 50 of them. I should really set up a toolbox like that of my own, it would save me the minutes I spend each day hunting for pages.

Just in case you weren't already aware of this, there is an option in the user preferences that allows you to mark edits as minor by default. I usually turn this on if I'm going to do any mass-correction, as it saves having to tick the box every time.

Anyway, congratulations on reaching 10000 edits – though I'm sure you'll be making many more. (Here's my 10000th edit – representative of the first 9999 I think) – Gurch 22:17, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I was actually thinking of leaving a message on your page to check out the "guide." Thanks for looking. I know the preferences issue (I say in the guide, "to remove the default checkmark there, if you have it turned on in preferences"), but I know I would forget to watch the articles I want to watch if I take that off default. It's much easier to see the ones on your watchlist that you don't want, than to have no record if you forget! Yeah, I hate all the cluttered userbox crazy pages. Holy shit Gurch, 7,826 edits so far this month? That's got to be a record. That list you have up of corrected errors on your subpage is great. I imagine you did that with the software you are using. If I wanted to do the same it would take me hours and hours and hours. Feel free to drop me a note anytime. --Fuhghettaboutit 00:27, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, thanks for the barnstar! To be honest, you probably deserve one as well, perhaps when you've made 8000 corrections or some arbitrary figure like that. Thanks for the feedback on my subpage, if you have any suggestions, feel free to comment.

You are right – when I first started doing these corrections, I tried to compile a list by hand, and that took forever. Fortunately my programming skills are (just about) up to the task of automating that bit. I have now extended the offline version of the list (not yet the version on my subpage) so that, as well as counting my corrections, it tracks (but doesn't count) corrections made by others. At the moment I have to enter these manually, but if I can figure out a way of parsing Special:Contributions pages, I can probably automate it. I'm adding this feature so that I can see which typos have been checked recently by someone other than me, and avoid duplication of effort, but it sounds as though you would also find this useful.

At any rate, your atheism argument has certainly convinced me, though I think you may need to archive your talk page again soon -- Gurch 13:08, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Good news! Figuring out that parsing stuff didn't take as long as I thought it would. You can find your own personal correction summary at User:Gurch/Spelling/Fuhghettaboutit. It's not completely accurate, it misses off quite a few edits for reasons I haven't yet determined, but it should give you a rough guide. (It thinks you have made 6677 corrections altogether, I guess there are 400 or so missing).

The next step is to adapt the parser for some of the spellchecking bots (such as JoeBot and CmdrObot), then finally, to merge all the summaries into one, allowing you to see when a typo was last checked, and who checked it. I'm not sure how long that will take, though -- Gurch 16:43, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the list! You're right that the software is missing quite a few. I think I'm closer to 7,500 than 6,677 based on my total edits and how many I know were spelling corrections. To give you a for instance, a very recent edit of liason (liaison) was in 33 articles; the software picked up 8. I'm now going to correct it by hand, and remove all the 1 counts--a process that will take me one hour rather than 15 hours now that I have the list in place!And now that it's in place, I can simply manually add to it as corrections are made. Hmmm, instead of editing it in place on your page, I'll make it a subpage of mine, not normal to spend time editing another user's page. After I take it, guess you should remove it (course I'll provide the provenance on the top listing your authorship). Thanks again. --Fuhghettaboutit 18:12, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I think you've identified where some of the missing corrections went: "corrections made during copyedits, solo corrections, or corrections of multiple instances of the error in one article." Thanks for that; unfortunately there's no way to generate a 100% accurate list without checking the "diff" of every single edit. Twenty pages of contributions at 500 a time took long enough to deal with, I don't think loading and checking 10,000 pages would be a good use of time!

What interests me most, of course, is the actual errors that you have corrected, I'm not bothered about how many you have actually done. So having the wrong number isn't too much of a problem. The reason for this is that I can use the table to extend the one I built from Wikipedia:Lists of common misspellings, adding the errors that you corrected that aren't already on there. Which makes it more likely that someone else will remember to re-check them in the future.

I'll have the version on my user page speedy deleted now that you no longer need it -- Gurch 17:16, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Wait. you might not want to have it speedily deleted. You said you want the page to see the corrections I'm making so you can add them, but the way I'm updating the list is destroying your ability to do it. I'm taking out all the endings--so you won't be able to see all the words (example, i'm listing the misspellings of assassin, assassination, assassins, etc. just under "assassin (+). Instead of deleting it, if you want to use it for the purpose you stated, just erase all the provenance and keep the list of words there. Oh and btw, since I modified the db-author template, you can now use if for this deletion (before it was only for pages that were accidentally created). --Fuhghettaboutit 17:26, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh I meant to tell you: I think I picked up on why the program is missing certain corrections by inference from what it missed on my edits. Anytime where I left something in the edit summary other than the straight format: Incorrect--->correct it appeared not to catch it. In certain edits I modified that format. For example, for alot (a lot), the edit summary I used was alot--->a lot (a lot is always two words). Or for followup' (from memory)': followup--->follow up (follow up is always two words, and is hyphenated when used in its adjectival form). I have not finished vetting the list, but it appears that in every instance where I used a nonconforming edit summary, the program failed to find the changes. --Fuhghettaboutit 17:35, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

The speedy deletion is not a problem. The spreadsheet in which I store all this information is linked to my correction software, and is stored in the same folder on my computer. Anything that I put on Wikipedia is simply a copy of part of this spreadsheet. In fact, I don't currently have a local copy of your corrections, but I can generate one if I need it. (It's a bit like the edit counter; the data produced looks "personal", but anyone with enough time can go through the contributions pages and extract it).

As far as the problem with my program is concerned, yes, you are right about why it's missing edits. I tell my program to look for edit summaries of the form Incorrect--->correct, and any that don't fit don't get picked up. Actually, I did change it so that it worked however many hyphens you used in the arrow, (so Incorrect---->correct) would work as well. Unfortunately I'm too lazy to extend it to deal with every special case, and if I make it any more general, it will catch things that aren't typos. As I say, it doesn't matter, as (a) I'm not concerned with how many edits you've done and (b) you know roughly how many edits you've done. Since everyone uses a different style of edit summary, I have to write a separate parser for each person, which takes long enough. As my edit summaries (and JoeBot's) are generated automatically, they are picked up more accurately.

Of course, using the exact same style of edit summary all the time would make this much easier, but that would be completely the wrong thing to do if you were making other edits to the page – the whole point of an edit summary is to clarify exactly what you're doing. In other words, sorry it's not completely accurate, don't worry about it -- Gurch 21:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

You've saved me a million hours. You can stuff your sorries in a sack mister! (Seinfeld quote). Again, much appreciated. --Fuhghettaboutit 23:10, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User Page

This might be a helpful distinction in vital terms. On your user page, you generated a tag that labels you as an athiest, but defines you as agnostic. Among other resources, Oxford American Dictionary offers this etymology of atheism: Greek a- (without) + theos (god), and defines it as "the theory or belief that God does not exist." It is the belief that we are 'without God.' An agnostic, according to the same source, believes "nothing is known, or can be known of the existence or nature of God," which is consistent with the tag's description of one who "puts no credence in the hypothesis that there exists such a being to deny." The Wikipedia entries for both terms corroborate these senses. If you are absolutely sure that there is no God, then you are an atheist, but to be absolutely sure of something, one must rely either on proof or on faith (commitment to a belief for which there is no proof). You indicate that you are aware that there is no more proof for the nonexistence of God than for the existence of God, so what the tag seems to assert is that, until you see convincing proof that there exists such a being to deny, you will neither totally deny nor confirm the hypothesis of God's existence. This equivocation is very intelligent, but it is not atheism. You would have to assert that there is in fact no God to be an atheist, which you appear to be too smart to do, since such a statement would of course be strictly faith-based, thereby opening you to the claim that you have a religion ("a faith”).

If you believe that you do not have a religion, it might be more credible to call yourself agnostic. Contrary to media fabrications, Einstein privately confided that he was agnostic. However, it is worth a note that even agnosticism might arguably be faith-based, because it relies upon the belief in material evidence as the ultimate determinant of what does and does not exist—a belief for which there is no proof, and which is consequently a faith! --Projection70 00:37, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

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Ha! I like your spirit in taking that statement and running with it but I am not an agnostic; I am, have been and will remain a strong atheist. Your interpretation of the statement makes sense (it's so easy to bend philosophical statements to many purposes), but I intend it for another meaning, or maybe the word is not meaning but purpose. A common (accusatory) manner with which atheist beliefs are characterized by theists is as "denying the existence of God." This form of statement, at least to my thinking, puts at issue that there is a God to be denied. The intent of the statement is to remove that implicit subtext of the language. You can read the statement, or at least I intend it as meaning: "not only am I an atheist, but I object to the statement that atheists deny God's existence, rather as an atheist I don't believe in God and therefore there is no being, ab initio, to deny."

Turning to other matters, I do not agree at all that "there is no more proof for the nonexistence of God than for God's existence itself." In fact, I think there are reams of proof that god does not exist.

Rather than reinventing the wheel, this is the text I wrote at another forum:

There is no affirmative proof that God does not exist. Yet by the same token there is no affirmative proof that Santa Claus does not exist. The same can be said of ifrits, Mother Goose, invisible pink unicorns, astral projection, and that my gerbil is the secret ruler of the universe. I can propose an infinite series of things that are unprovable because they are incorporeal, invisible, unsmellable--unfalsifiable.

If I am asked whether I believe the statement, "Mickey Mouse is a real person," is true, I, and I think most sane people, would not say the jury is out because it cannot be disproved. I'm not absolutely certain of anything, but I'm damn sure enough to unwaveringly make the statement, "Mickey Mouse is not a real person," because there is no proof he is a real person and lots of evidence that he is not, in fact, a real person.

Note also that if I declare that Mickey Mouse is indeed a real person, it is not the skeptical person's burden to show that I am wrong, it is my burden to prove that I am right. If this wasn't the case, any absurd statement would be substantiated by the fact that it was posited, rather than by what evidence exists for why it should be believed.

Ultimately it all goes haywire when we start debating "proof" because, at least in my experience, people in general use this word very loosely, without the logical rigour that is demanded by scientists and philosophers when they use the word.

Nothing can be absolutely proven, even by affirmative evidence, except possibly the kind of logical proof we talk about in mathematics. In both philosophy and science, we can never absolutely prove anything. What we usually mean by proof are those things which cause us to say: "it is very likely that..."; "all these things tend to show that..." X is the case, or is not the case.

So no, I can't prove God's nonexistence absolutely and deductively. But inductively, I can offer a legion of evidence which tends to show that God's existence is very likely not the case.

Just a few of the numerous threads of evidence: Insoluble contradictions in the manifestos of religion (omnibenevolence verses monstrous accounts of evil in religions' own guidebooks, unjustifiable suffering, innumerable inconsistencies of facts from one part of a religion's manifesto that are soundly contradicted in another place in the manifesto, etc.); accounts of the physical makeup of the world that are at odds with the makeup of the world that no one but the lunatic fringe would deny (age of the earth, heliocentrism, round[ish] earth, fossil record and archeology showing age of humanity, etc.); that the various religions are mutually exclusive and each one's adherents believe they have the real grapevine to he correct god; Occam's Razor; Arguments from Divine Hiddenness and Nonbelief; Argument from Evolution; Argument from Physical Minds; and so on. This is quite an abbreviated list.

Now I know that the religious may counter, "but what about the evidence and proofs for God's existence?" The problem is that all such "proofs" I am offered are logically baseless. Most beg the question by assuming the validity in the first instance of the Christian Bible or the Koran or the O.T. etc., or make an appeal to authority, or engage in post hoc ergo proptor hoc argument, or a host of other logical fallacies. Such arguments, thus, offered as evidence of God's existence, are no evidence at all.

There are certain assumptions that are implicit in what constitutes proof. An argument that provides logical evidence for some postulate cannot, by definition, engage in a recognized logical fallacy for the very reason that the fallacy has been recognized by the world at large (including philosophers that are theists) as a fallacy, i.e., as worthless and logically baseless in providing substantiation of the logical position being taken.

(snipping out five paragraphs)

So what are we ultimately left with? A host of disparate lines of evidence which tend to show that it is very likely the case that God does not exist, opposed by no evidence or extremely weak evidence that God does exist-- and this latter claim, offered by the people who refuse to provide any evidence to back their extraordinary claim when they have the burden of proof. When we combine all this together, the result is proof--not absolute proof--but strong inductive proof that is very likely that: The Christian God does not exist; the Judaic God does not exist; The Islamic God does not exist; The Sikhism God does not exist; The Jainist God does not exist; The Zoroastrian God does not exist; The Hindu Gods do not exist; The Osho God does not exist; The Animist/shamanist Gods do not exist; The Wiccan Gods do not exist; the Confucian Gods do not exist; The Shinto Gods do not exist; The Taoist Gods do not exist; The Vodun Gods do not exist; The Asatru Gods do not exist; The Druidist Gods do not exist; The Caodaism Gods do not exist; The Damanhur Gods do not exist; The Druse Gods do not exist; The Eckankar Gods do not exist; The Hare Krishna Gods do not exist; The Lukumi Gods do not exist; The Macumba Gods do not exist; The Mowahhidoon Gods do not exist The Native American Gods do not exist; The New Age Gods do not exist; The Romani Gods do not exist; The Santerian Gods do not exist; The Scientology Gods do not exist; The Thelema Gods do not exist; and Santa Claus does not exist.

Of course, If I'm wrong, but any one of the above religions that is not a particular theist's religion is right, or in the case that they're all wrong, that theist's chosen "true" god vanishes in a puff of logic.

Many people at least somewhat understand the weak atheist and agnostic stance on the almighty, but cannot understand the strong atheist position because since "anything's possible," saying "there is no God" is an untenable position.

Let's talk about the reality of Mickey Mouse again. If I am asked in the hypothetical, "will you concede that it is possible that Mickey Mouse is a real person?" I will say yes. This does not render me a Mickey Mouse agnostic. This is simply a concession to a philosophical triviality, only necessary to state when actually asked this question. Do I now need to alter the way I speak about Mickey Mouse as a fictional character or to include the possibility that I am wrong that he is fictional however absurd that notion is? We can't (and we don't) go around changing the way we speak of things to concede to such niggling "possibilities." If we did we would have to go around making this type of "possibility concession" for every statement we make. For instance, we would never be able to say with equanimity, "my car is in the shop." We would have to say "I believe my car is in the shop, although it's possible it isn't because all of reality may simply be an illusion." Thus, when I say "THERE IS NO GOD," I say it with the same level of confidence that a theist or anyone else in the world would say "I am sitting in a chair" or "the Mets lost last night" or "my refrigerator is broken."

With regard to the appeal to authority, citing Einstein, it's just that, an appeal to authority, but let's set the record straight:

Einstein in a letter to a fan:

"I get hundreds and hundreds of letters but seldom one so interesting as yours. I believe that your opinions about our society are quite reasonable. It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. "

"The religious feeling engendered by experiencing the logical comprehensibility of profound interrelations is of a somewhat different sort from the feeling that one usually calls religious. It is more a feeling of awe at the scheme that is manifested in the material universe. It does not lead us to take the step of fashioning a god-like being in our own image-a personage who makes demands of us and who takes an interest in us as individuals. There is in this neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being. For this reason, people of our type see in morality a purely human matter, albeit the most important in the human sphere."

"I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science. My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance-but for us, not for God."

Finally, with regard to your equivocation of the word belief, as I also posted in another forum (partly quoting in one sentence another user there):

An untenable position. Atheism is a belief only to the extent that all knowledge is hypertechnically a belief. We do not mean this use of the word "belief." when we apply it to religion. In fact, used in this context, its really very similar to the oft-abused theistic notion that atheism is a religion. Atheism has no tenets; no belief system; no book of revealed truths; no moral code. By disbelieving some matter one is not 'saying' anything about that thing. "I don't believe in faeries." That's all atheists are saying, except that the thing in question is god, whom to us atheists, the not believing in is exactly the same as saying I don't believe in ____. The old aphorism (I used a variation before) goes: 'saying atheism is a religion is like saying baldness is a hair color.'

This misleading, loose use of the word "belief," reminds me very much of the way theists often use the word faith when talking about atheists, i.e., atheists have to have faith to not believe in god, therefore atheism is just as much a belief system or a religion. Quote:

faith:

1. noun: complete confidence in a person or plan, etc.

2. noun: a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny

When a Christian speaks of his faith, he refers to the second definition. When he wishes to assert that "atheists have faith, too," he must perforce mean the first, but his argument implies the second definition, nonetheless. Just because the English language uses the same word to denote both meanings is not license to use those meanings interchangeably.

Feel free to come by http://iidb.org/vbb/index.php and debate with us.--Fuhghettaboutit 01:41, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

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When you cite as evidence of nonexistence the precept of “omnibenevolence verses monstrous accounts of evil in religions' own guidebooks, unjustifiable suffering,” you probably are aware that you refer to theodicy. There is more written on that subject than can be read, but let it suffice to say that few who have seriously tackled the realm of theodicy would agree that the objection makes God the obvious write-off that your brief assertion suggests.

“Innumerable inconsistencies of facts from one part of a religion's manifesto that are soundly contradicted in another place in the manifesto” arise more frequently in the teachings of some religions than others. You would find it insanely frustrating, for example, to try pinning down a single biblical contradiction in debate with an erudite Christian theologian, because, as you put it, “it's so easy to bend philosophical statements to many purposes,” and the words of the Bible are a case-in-point of this phenomenon. Some Christians would say that God made it this way on purpose. In any event, such an exchange with the Christian would not necessarily convince you that all of your proposed contradictions are invalid, but you might end up less inclined to contend that they are “soundly” contradicted than you are now.

Actually it's incredibly easy to pin down biblical contradictions in rather vast numbers. The problems come from the fact that most apologists refuse to comport themselves with the rules of logic. What you end up with is goal shifting, begging the question, appeals to the inexplicable and on and on. The failing is not in providing rather devastating contradictions/problems with the bible but in convincing theists to exercise the same logic and smarts that they do every day of their lives, that go out the window when rationalization and compartmentalization are necessary when it comes to their beliefs. I enjoy debating, but you know this isn't really the right forum. I'm not going to respond at length as I would if this was at a debate forum, but please understand that I have spent many hundreds of hours debating with theists and nontheists of all stripes, including very learned Christian scholars, and I am quite convinced of the soundness of the contradictions/problems. I am also equally convinced that debating religion, probably more than in any other area of debate, has almost no effect on the beliefs of those participating, and for that reason, I have grown somewhat less interested in continuing. --Fuhghettaboutit 06:21, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

“That the various religions are mutually exclusive and each one's adherents believe they have the real grapevine to he correct god” cannot prove God’s nonexistence, and isn’t necessarily evidence to that effect. It can prove that all but one of the monotheistic faiths’ gods are nonexistent, but not that God is nonexistent. Consider this: if the last piece of candy that was in a jar is missing, and each of three kids tells you that he is the one who has the piece of candy, their conflicting statements of exclusive possession do not prove that no piece of candy exists. Sure, it is possible that all three statements are incorrect and that none of the kids really has the piece of candy, but it is by no means inductively proven by their claims. The only thing that is proven by the contradiction is that at least two of the three are making an incorrect statement.

Short response: they're all equally as silly; the problem is that there's absolutely no reason to believe in a particular one unless your indoctrinated into it (no surprise: most Christian were raised christian, most hindus were raised hindu); only from the outside of a religion can you see how silly it all is; you're an atheist with regard to the religion in africa that believes the world was created out of hippo dung aren't you? Exercise that same skepticism with regard to your own. --Fuhghettaboutit 06:21, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Do the age of the earth, heliocentrism, round[ish] earth, fossil record and archeology showing age of humanity, etc. really prove that there is no God? Even inductively, they only prove something about the wording of the texts with which they appear to conflict. The chain of induction that you would have to link to God from there is awfully long, and every link can have a chink.

Short response: The bible is the inspired word of god according to it, but yet reveals that all its knowledge of the world is exactly what stone age sheepherders knew. --Fuhghettaboutit 06:21, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

“Occam's Razor; Arguments from Divine Hiddenness and Nonbelief; Argument from Evolution; Argument from Physical Minds; and so on. This is quite an abbreviated list.” This sounds a little like an argument from preponderance of evidence. As meritorious as may be the intellectual efforts behind such dogmata, I doubt that you would go so far as to claim that, even if the recorded reasoning of sophisticated intellects were to constitute valid evidence for or against theism, which is unlikely, there has been a preponderance of refutation over support. Many times more of the latter has surely been said and written by all manner of thinking men and women. Again, however, this would not prove anything about a deity’s existence, one way or another.

We will have to disagree. Remember that when you make an extraordinary claim, the burden is on you. Your religion is just as extraordinary as that of all the thousands throughout history whose believers were just as fervently convinced of the truth and real magic behind their magical flights of fancy. As Bertrand Russell once wrote:

I wish to propose for the reader’s favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.

A host of logical fallacies can indeed render invalid any supposed evidence of God. The Abrahamic God is said to have made humankind after his image, which is thought by many to mean he gave humans free will, like that of God. According to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, God manifested physical evidence on many occasions, and some believed, yet most disbelieved. Why? Because they had free will. If God were to impose upon even one man or woman some kind of proof that is somehow supernaturally impossible to deny, then would not that be a revocation of free will? So what is left for humankind, in the realm of proof for the existence of God, becomes a matter of drawing lines between relative degrees of believability. I don’t know about Islam, but the other two Abrahamic faiths posit that God intentionally draws the line a long way from what the average person would consider conveniently believable. Here is an interesting parable in which Jesus is shown to invoke this tenet. Note the final line—it asserts that a certain measure of evidence has already been set forth for the characters to use as the basis for belief, and if it was insufficient then they will reject any additional evidence as well. The ease with which any supposed evidence for God may be escaped is also portrayed, from the standpoint of the book of Genesis, as a paramount gift from God. Atheists who have an evangelistic commitment to their belief in disbelief especially cherish that natural gift, because atheism appeals to the universal human taste for intellectual independence and, to a large extent, cultural rebellion. It did for me, at least.

The God of Abraham is portrayed as desiring acceptance through faith and hope, not through proof. Hope for what is seen, according to one of the Christian apostles, is no longer hope. Irritating argument, isn’t it? Too slippery, which is what makes a faith a faith and not a science. Like you said, there is no deductive proof. Inductive proof can be veraciously construed to be a matter of faith, beyond a certain point, since it relies upon the particular thread of deductions one is inclined to draw from the given evidence. Finally, if there is no proof, then who bears the burden of proof is moot.

That, my friend, is what is known as sophistry. I must, unfortunately beg off. I will read the rest of your response, it would be rude of me not to, but as I alluded to earlier, I am afraid I have little taste lately for this debate.

To object that “atheism is a belief only to the extent that all knowledge is hypertechnically a belief” might suggest that you rank a debate on the foundational topic of whether or not there is a God beneath the need for hypertechnicality. On the other hand, your considerable devotion to the cause indicates the contrary. I am under the impression that Socrates would demand all terms to be rather hypertechnically defined before he would deem them worthy of consideration (although a number of people reportedly didn’t like him for this, or so I am told.) According to more than one thinker, the question of God’s existence is less consequential to the individual human if God does not exist than if he does, but in the latter case it is of grave importance, for among other things it would mean that what happens after the individual’s death is infinitely longer in duration than natural life. Apart from personal safety, however, there would be a far greater concern of conscience. For one who values what is in common parlance “the right thing to do,” the existence of God would warrant an entire shift of loyalties and life priorities to the end of serving the purpose for which that God placed the person in a universe that God caused to exist. One cannot, of course, begin the search for God’s desire in earnest without at least some acknowledgment that there might be a God. Considering the potential magnitude that one end of the argument could bear, no position should be quickly dismissed on the grounds of hypertechnicality by a serious disputant.

If I were to take this argument to heart I would be just as likely to worship Harry Potter, a can of root beer or Zeus as I would your God. After all, they all could be real right? --Fuhghettaboutit 06:21, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Mmmmmm... root beer... that's real enough for sure -- Gurch 21:33, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Remaining on the subject of defining terms, I disagree that the first of your two definitions for faith is of necessity meant by the statement that atheists have faith. Atheists have faith by the following definition, from Houghton Mifflin’s American Heritage Dictionary: “Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.” The Oxford American dictionary supports this as well. This is the same faith to which Christians refer, since the biblical definition of faith is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” A sane atheist must hope that the positivism upon which he ultimately relies for the evidence of his unseen postulate will be borne out as true after he dies, because if he is wrong it is logical to expect more serious consequences than would be incurred through acquiescence to belief in God. I would hope that an honest atheist would be willing to concede that inductive logic might be a shakier foundation than deductive upon which to stake issues of eternal moment. In order to be an honest party to debate, there must be a willingness to yield on that issue in the event that one confronts a duly persuasive argument to the effect of their veracity. Otherwise the debate is based solely on pride or faith rather than on reason. I’m not a logician, so I don’t pretend to be capable of presenting that argument.

Sorry about Einstein. I didn’t intend his name to be an appeal for proof, but merely an illustration of one well-known agnostic generally regarded as thoughtful about his position. His famous letter, which you posted, was my own source, as well. You see that he does not label himself with the word, agnostic, but defines himself as such. I was prompted to write to you, not entirely because of either the label or the definition that you apply to yourself on the User Page, but because of the conflict between the two. Your reply includes a thoughtful defense for your personal theology of atheology, but it departs quickly from the discrepancy in your tag’s definition by referring to my definitions as interpretations that bend philosophical statements. Actually, my definitions were just definitions from a dictionary, and it is the Wikipedia page on strong atheism that sets out to mince concepts. It’s informative, though, and provides a realm of material from which might be extrapolated something close to your abbreviated definition, but I would say that yours still defines agnosticism.

Nevertheless, your reply does clarify what you meant: you do appear to place your faith quite squarely in atheism, so as long as you are positively certain that atheism is the only belief about God that is true.

No. I am quite certain that I have no belief of God, for which Atheism is the word that is used. No matter how many times you repeat it, atheism is still not a belief system, it is a lack of one. We wouldn't need any word if the world would stop building shrines to bugaboos. --Fuhghettaboutit 06:21, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Apologies for filling your talk page with all this text. Thank you for the invitation to engage the philosophy buffs at IIDB. I do not have a strong taste for debating at great length what can’t reach a definite conclusion apart from faith. My own faith holds that an idol is anything placed higher in priority than God, so, though I cannot prove it outside of the parameters of my faith, I will submit that one’s own intelligence, and the capacity of the human mind, are commonly idols that supplant God in the hearts of men and women. The problem, therefore, is spiritual rather than intellectual; a lifetime of devastating logical interchange can’t put God on a person’s proverbial throne until the idols are unseated from God’s place thereon.--Projection70 01:33, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Good luck to you sir. The problem with debate (and those of us who have a natural tendency to engage in it) is that the last word is always sought. If you respond to all my responses, however, I will let that put this matter to rest. --Fuhghettaboutit 06:21, 27 March 2006 (UTC)