I have some questions for the posters here.

[Frank Apisa]

Hi Frank, welcome to the forum. Thanks for turning off the font. Word is probably not your friend in that respect. If you need to use it then you can go into the BBCode and strip the formatting as I have done below.

You Wrote: Fair enough, and what you know determines whether you are gnostic or agnostic, a fairly useless label IMO. Every time you use it you have to qualify it with the concept that you are being gnostic/agnostic about. But what do you believe?
 
RESPONSE:  I do not use labels. I am not labelling myself an agnostic. (Except that in order to join this forum, I had to answer that descriptor question.) My take has been presented. I’ve live with that. The use of descriptors sucks in my opinion…so I try to stay away from it.
 
As for what I “believe”…I have been participating in Internet forums for over 20 years now…and except for one item, I have never said, “I believe…ANYTHING.”
 
I do not do “believing.” If I make a guess, I call it a guess; if I make an estimate, I call it an estimate; of I offer an opinion, I call it an opinion.
 
Lots of people make guesses. People who call themselves theists guess that there is a god; people who call themselves atheists often guess there are no gods. They tend to call those things “beliefs.” I call them guesses.
 
You wrote: I'll let you decide. My stance is that all deities are either:
- Incoherent. The Abrahamic god that's a confusion of mythologies and painfully laden with tribalism and bigotry.
- Inconsistent. A god that is self-refuting by virtue of having characteristics that are contradictory.
- Ineffable. A god that could conceivably exist but cannot be apprehended by mortal minds.
- Irrelevant. A god that is indistinguishable from natural phenomena in every way, shape and form.
- Insufficient. A god that we can't discuss properly because it lacks definition.

On a good day you can manage to hit all five of those in one go.
 
RESPONSE:  My guess: You are guessing there are no gods.
 
You wrote:  It's a good start but this falls to insufficiency. This is a statement of a single act, not a proper definition. I'm not trying to be picky here, but what you have outlined could describe any of a number of very different deities. One theist might believe in a deity who wound up the universe and let it go and then buggered off into the void never to be heard from ever again. Their neighbour might believe in a deity that created the universe but is an active, personal god that demands the sacrifice of our firstborn child. Without further information how can we debate the merits of chucking little Timmy into the volcano? Yes, that's a deliberately silly example to highlight the fact that you need to flesh out your definition. Start with power, knowledge, and intent. Those are the big ones that commonly trip deities up.
 
RESPONSE:  I appreciate your position and I thank you for sharing it. However, I will stick with I said. When I use the word "god" I mean "The entity (or entities) responsible for the creation of what we humans call 'the physical universe'...IF THERE IS SUCH AN ENTITY." Some people may be unwilling to have discussions with me because of this...and I will lives with that.

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I don’t assert any of your three bullet points.

Thank you, LFC. I appreciate that.

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I was not upset when you pointed it out...although I realized it had happened without your assistance. I thank you for it anyway.

Two completely different things. Sorry you do not see that. There is absolutely no concrete evidence that there is no sentient life on any planet circling the nearest 15 stars to Sol...but that does not = no sentient beings on any of those planets. That is not a reading comprehension problem...it is a logic problem.

Don't lose your cool yet. We've got a long way to go..

I don't have to supply evidence of no sentient life or god, I'm not making the claim.

Argumentum ex Silentio: http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/EN...lacies.htm

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Good looking dog you've got there.

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Pink Unicorns with gills and 3 dicks may exist as well, but they don't.

And you point is???