Cegstar, let’s make this easy. From the OP –
Define “God.”
So in other words, this whole thing is based on semantic contortions on your part. In common parlance, saying that someone believes that something does not exist is the same as saying that they don’t believe it does exist. You seem to want to impart different meanings to those two statements.
This forum is entitled “Great Debates.” Now, because it was a question on religion I agree it was appropriate to place it here rather than in General Questions. But if all you intended to do was ask a question, then that question has been adequately answered. I must assume that the fact that you continue to post means that you either didn’t understand the answer, or you wish to dispute it. If you wish to dispute it, you need to actually make some valid points.
Once again, most people here have been talking about strong atheism. You have by and large ignored those posts. A quick word search through this thread shows that this is the first time creationism has been brought into it, and you were the one who did it. Most people have been talking about atheism and theism.
I didn’t say an atheist may not ask the question, but rather they would not. Atheists in general know the answer, and the answer is “no.”
I would say by the way you have been responding that it is obviously necessary to answer it differently than one would to an atheist, since you are coming from a different framework of beliefs. It is clear from other threads you have posted here that you are either a scriptural literalist and Young Earth Creationist, or pretending to be one. (And I should mention, in case you were unaware of it, that the latter - pretending to be something you are not in GD - is against board rules.) You have mentioned you are in school, so I would guess you are rather young. You evidently are not very familiar either with scripture, theology, or philosophy.
You would therefore seem to have some highly ingrained beliefs that are contrary to large bodies of empirical evidence, and thus faith plays a very large part in your belief system. For that reason, you find it difficult to believe, and refuse to admit, that others may base their belief systems on something other than faith. This, I think, explains in large part why you are resistant to accepting the answers you have been getting.
No, that’s not what you have been stating. You have been claiming that faith includes the lack of belief in the absence of evidence. This is false. Evidently it is necessary to remind you of what you yourself have said.
I do understand the OP; it’s based on a load of misconceptions and logical fallacies that many people have pointed out to you. But it seems at this point we are all wasting our time, since you refuse to address most of the points that have been raised.
We can be thankful for small favors, then. 
Why do I have to define God? How do strong and weak atheists define God?
Point out to me what definitions I contorted. They do have different meanings. Do you not agree with the classifications given for strong and weak atheists? They are frequently used even by pro-atheist organizations.
Some arguments have also been made by others that do think that being a strong atheist takes faith. Which particular answer would you like me to dispute? It becomes a little difficult when I have to respond to every post, especially when many still think I’m attacking weak atheism, or attacking anything at all.
I have explained many times that I understand weak atheism does not require faith and that it is not a belief system at all. What’s it going to take to get this through to you? If you’re saying that I find it difficult to believe that beliefs based on evidence don’t require faith, you’re underestimating me.
I don’t think it’s that simple. I find that most atheists are weak atheists, and are most likely so because of their acknowledgement that they don’t believe that God/gods don’t exist, i.e., they don’t have that type of faith.
That’s a pretty intellectually dishonest way to go about answering a question. The question is valid and should be answered based on that alone. Who is asking should not be of any relevance.
Because i’m in school, it’s evident that i’m not very familiar with scripture, theology, or philosophy? I haven’t pretended top be anything, btw.
Are you joking? I have tried to make it clear several times that that is the definition of weak atheism, and I have never claimed that lack of belief in the absence of evidence involves faith. Point out to me where I stated this.
How is my OP based on misconceptions and logical fallacies? Point out to me exactly what points you’d like me to respond to, and I will. I may not be able to get back to you until after the weekend.
Sorry, Cegstar, this really is hopeless. Have fun.
Cegstar, do you believe that other gods do not exist, or are you unsure? If the former is true, then you can answer your own question to your own satisfaction.
It is your OP. You frame the debate. If terms are unclear, it is up to you to clarify them. “What do you mean when you say God?” is a perfectly legitimate question, based on your premise.
Absent a definition of God, the concept of atheism is incoherent.
I have responded to your post point by point, and also have told you that if you point out exactly what argument you’d like me to dispute, I would, and because of this, you find it pointless? I think I have shown you that I am doing my best to give you exactly what someone would want when it comes to responding to his post. Unless of course you’re quitting because I pointed out that your accusations were unjustified and have asked you to point out where I said something I didn’t after you accused me of saying it, and you’re too proud to face up to it.
I quit too, folks. I tried to keep this based on one question and one question only, and I am continually being asked to answer questions that have nothing to do with OP, or be talked down to, even by moderators.
I asked a question in the hopes that it would be discussed based on the question as it stands. It has been taken by many as a personal attack of their atheism, as if I’m trying to equate atheism as being equal with being a Christian, or something along those lines.
Perhaps I’m missing something here. To me, it seems like the OP asked a valid question. Look at it from this point of view:
I was raised in a Christian family, and was presented with a great deal of evidence for the existence of God as I grew up. Much of it, I dismissed as having no solid backup data. Some of it is inconclusive at this point: is a “miraculous” recovery from a disease valid evidence of the existence of God? I don’t know. That left me with three possible positions when I grew up:
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Become a Christian, taking it on faith that the evidence presented by my parents and their church is valid. This is theism, and it obviously requires faith.
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Become an agnostic, deciding that there simply isn’t enough hard, cold, fact to take a position. No faith required.
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Become an atheist, taking it on faith that all evidence provided by my parents is wrong. Again, faith is involved because I’m dismissing their explanation for unexplained phenomena, even though I have no better explanation other than “stuff happens” or “those guys must have been wrong.”
Where is the hole in this point of view? Isn’t agnosticism really the only non-faith-based position possible?
Faith is a part of science, although it’s generally not presented by that name. When a theory is presented that seems to fit all the facts, you take it on faith until it’s proved or disproved. It’s even a part of the way we’re taught growing up. I had 100% faith that you couldn’t take a bigger number from a smaller number until they taught us about negatives. Then I had 100% faith that you couldn’t take the square root of a negative number until they taught us about imaginaries. Now I don’t have faith in math teachers anymore 
For the record, I am “agnostic” on the existence of aliens, ghosts, and many other things. Generally speaking, I don’t think there’s enough data to disprove the evidence I’ve seen for the existence of ghosts. Although I personally don’t feel that it’s valid, and I can debunk most of it, I can’t debunk all of it.
My last post in this thread:
I’ll repeat this again. Maybe some don’t read through the entire thread?
What you listed in #2, is not the generally accepted definition of agnosticism. It’s the definition of weak atheism.
What you listed in #3 is when you went from a weak atheist to a strong atheist.
That’s all I wanted to get to the bottom of. I wanted opinions on both points of view which might help me make up my own mind, but the thread’s turned into something else.
I wouldn’t go that far.
All your points (and **Invisible Wombat’s, **too) have been addressed multiple times, and at this point we are just going round and round. The discussion therefore has become pointless and a waste of time, certainly for me. (Actually it did some time ago.) I’m not quitting not because my accusations were unjustified, but because you appear to not even understand what your own words mean.
If you wish to believe that atheism is “equal with being a Christian,” go right ahead. You certainly believe many other things contrary to facts and evidence, so one more won’t hurt, I suppose.
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You have the option of choosing any god at all. Why do you say the Christian god is your only option. Can *you *provide a definition of God?
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Actually, an agnostic believes that whether God exists is unknowable.
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Evidence is neither right nor wrong. It is either sufficient or insufficient. It requires no faith at all to say “What you have presented as evidence has left me unconvinced of your assertion.”
Theories require no faith. Theories are working models. They are an attempt to explain phenomena. As new facts emerge, theories change.
Mathematics require no faith. What you describe as absolute faith in the non-existence of negative numbers was simply ignorance.
Evidence is neither proved nor disproved. Something that is presented as evidence of X may turn out not to be evidence of X. It may turn out to be evidence of Y. Or it may turn out to be an illusion, or dream, etc.
What evidence of aliens, ghosts, et. al. have you seen that you feel remains unchallenged?
How about responding to post #66 before you go?
Okay, then I’ll make this my last post.
It doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t be up to me what God/gods weak atheists don’t have belief in or what God/gods strong atheists have a belief about. Why don’t you ask some atheists what God/gods their talking about when they call themselves atheists?
Wow! Some people you just can’t get through to.
Again, it is up to you if you open it to debate. But, if you decline, so be it. The point is that you seem to misunderstand just what atheism means. You are forcing a definition and expecting everyone to fall in line.
I am an atheist. Strong, weak, up, down, charmed, whatever. Call it what you will. This is all it takes for me to be an atheist – Someone says “God X exists.” I say “Show me.” Evidence is offered. I find it insufficient. Therefore, I proclaim that with respect to God X, my belief system assigns him the same level of existence that it assigns every imaginary invisible non-physical being; that is, no level of existence at all. You seem to think that for an atheist to be an atheist, he must define the god he disbelieves in. There is no need; and, as have stated before, it would be incoherent.
There were no atheists before there were theists. Atheism is a response, no an affirmative belief.
As has been alluded to in this thread, all mono-theists are atheists with respect to every god but their own. No Christians believe in Zeus, for example, and for exactly the same reason that I do not believe in the Christian God. I have no reason to.
Okay, I’m back. But I won’t be able to respond for the rest of the weekend and if this thread continues to be about something other that the OP, I’m probably not going to want to continue.
I understand what atheism means and as I pointed out several times, I understand the definitions of the two broad classifications- weak and strong.
Then according to the definitions supplied by Colibri’s source, you are a weak atheist. If you don’t want to be classified, that’s another story. For the purposes of this thread, I am discussing strong atheists as already defined.
Huh? Isn’t it you that thinks this?
What did I say to give you the impression that an atheist must define the god he disbelieves in?
It would not be possible to be a strong atheist before there were theists. Please, please, please, can we keep this discussion confined to strong atheists as I and Colibri’s link has defined them?
Terrific, I’m happy for ya. Now can get back to the OP?
We agree on perfectly on that.
I don’t say that the Christian God is my only option. It’s the only one I’ve been presented with evidence for, though. My point here was that I, personally, have not had the time, energy, background data, inclination, nor money required to debunk every piece of evidence for the existence of the only god I’ve been exposed to. I can take a position that I doubt the existence of God, but I don’t feel I can reasonable take a position that I deny the existence of God.
If this is, indeed, the commonly-accepted definition of agnostic (it doesn’t match what I was taught 30 years ago), then my entire post has just collapsed around me, and I recant my position that the OP’s question makes sense.
The remaining points (except for the final one addressed below) come down to semantic piddling about what faith means. I understand faith to be a belief in something without having all of the facts. Clearly, when I was in 2nd grade I believed that you couldn’t subtract 5 from 3 because I had faith in what my teacher told me. I didn’t have all the facts. I discovered later she was lying to me. The belief that I held back then was unsupported by facts, therefore it was faith, right?
Oh, it’s all been challenged. I don’t believe any of it. It’s just that I haven’t personally investigated all of them, and I haven’t seen sufficient data to declare every single one of them incontrovertibly false. I base my lack of belief on ahem faith in the people who have debunked them, and the fact that ghosts don’t fit in my worldview.
I can easily declare that there isn’t enough evidence for me, personally, to believe in the existence of God (what I understood to be “agnosticism”), but I can’t ever imagine having enough information to flat-out declare that there is no such thing as God (what I understood to be “atheism”).
The simple answer is that we don’t really. All we have to know is that no belief in concept we call God, or which we know anyone else would call God, exists in our mind. Theists are the ones that define God, because they are making up the claims.
Cegstar. You’re never going to get the answer you want because you haven’t made a clean distinction between strong and weak atheists and your question contradicts your definitions.
You cite the wikipedia article which states the following about strong atheists:
You define strong based on selected bullet points one and two.
In an attempt to clear up your definition you say this about weak atheists
So a weak atheist would say “After looking at the evidence on the existance of god I have decided there isn’t enough proof to warrent belief in it.”
And then this about strong atheists
Or - “I believe there is no god after looking at the evidence on the existance of god I have decided there isn’t enough proof.”
Those two points pretty much say the same thing.
You point out the following on stong atheists;
In both cases the atheist believes something.
Weak atheist: “After looking at the evidence on the existance of god I have decided there isn’t enough proof to warrent belief in it.”
Strong atheist: “I believe there is no god after looking at the evidence on the existance of god I have decided there isn’t enough proof.”
Both say the same thing, the only thing different is HOW you say it.
You also point out the following about strong atheists
That also fits with your bullet point on weak atheists. They, in fact, claim god does not exist because they’ve decided that the evidence doesn’t warrant belief in his existance.
Now, you might argue that I added “in his existance” at the end of the sentence above. But you can’t have a belief in a god if you don’t believe it exists.
You question is:
That question doesn’t make sense to me when you define a strong atheist as someone who believes God does not exist based on current evidence.
Perhaps you’d like to ask the question again in a different way.
Would you not dismiss Parson Weems’ story about Washington throwing a dollar across the Potomac for the same reason? With just a little bit of research you’d find there is scant evidence for a historical Jesus, and no evidence at all for most of the NT stories. As for “miraculous” cures, you’d need to explain why non-believers get cured miraculously also.
As I said above, no faith is required for atheism - just a provisional belief that a particular god does not exist because of lack of evidence or evidence against or from the failed predictions of his adherents. If you are operating out of ignorance - lack of knowledge, not a perjorative term - maybe you shouldn’t believe anything until you get some data.
Would those of you who don’t know diddly about how science works not make statements like “faith is a part of science?” It is not. You have confidence in a hypothesis that is provisional, and is based on both evidence for and attempts to falsify the hypothesis that have failed. People disagree about how much credit to give to a hypothesis because they disagree on the validity and interpretation of evidence. Your incorrect beliefs about imaginary numbers have nothing to do with how science is done.
Not to mention, your example is faulty. Math is not science, and doesn’t even require evidence. We don’t know that 2+2=4 from counting out lots of stones - we can prove it from the axiomatic definition of addition and integers. Science can’t prove anything, math can.
Those who believe by faith discard or ignore evidence against. In science, what gets discarded is the falsified theory. Consider the very rapid adoption of relativity when Newton’s Laws were gospel (and rather better supported than gospel) for centuries. If religion operated on the principles of science, there wouldn’t be a church left standing except as a museum or Gap outlet.