(July 26, 2017 at 8:47 pm)KevinM1 Wrote: It should probably be noted that the potential god that agnostic atheists concede might exist isn't the Christian god. At all.Exactly. But theist's "understanding" of atheism is generally so rudimentary and distorted that they really don't understand. To an evangelical, generally, atheism is disbelief in the evangelical god specifically, and involves some form of resentment, hatred or rebellion against it. So that Dawkins is saying there's 0.1 chance out of 7 that there is a god sounds to them like Dawkins is starting to "crack", the scales are about to fall of his eyes about THEIR god.
So, no, Dawkins saying "I'm 6.9 out of 7.0 convinced there isn't a god (and that if you know me, I reject the Christian god (among all the rest I've encountered))" isn't really the point of favor someone like DropShip thinks it is. And as an agnostic atheist myself, I can't help but chuckle.
It's been my experience that evangelicals are attracted to these inaccurate tropes about atheists and atheism because it eases their own cognitive dissonance. If they think atheists are atheists because they're just "bad and mad" then they avoid having to accept, even theoretically, that our position could be rational and have some sort of evidential and philosophical basis. It's easier to consider us irrational and reactionary and resistant to what they believe is inexorable Truth.
