Why Agnostic?

[Tiberius]

Hey, I like that scale ... it has potential! OK, I STILL don't like the work "Gnostic" but the scale is simple and if you changed "conclusively established" to "inferred" (especially on the science adherent side) and then added a mid "I don't give a sh**!" position you might have something.

It also strikes me that the two of you could try getting together and developing a scale ... it seems tio me there will ALWAYS be problems when an atheist or a theist develops a scale solo.

Kyu

Is that meant to be sarcastic? I mean, it didn't come across as so, but you do realise we already developed a scale between us in this very thread...

@Arcanus,

Perhaps I haven't explained myself clearly.

1) Person X has attribute Y.
2) Attribute Y is impossible / has been disproved.
3) Therefore Person X cannot have attribute Y, and the description of Person X in (1) is false.

Ergo, the Person X described in (1) does not exist.

If you cannot disprove an attribute associated to someone, then this scenario never comes up (as your James Scott example goes). This only applies to attributes that can be disproven, since if they are disproven, the subject canot posses them in the first place, and the description of the person is false (making the person described by the description false).

If you remove the attribute from the description, and there are no more disproved attributes, then the description holds, and the person described by the new description cannot be disproved. The new description is wholly different (and describes an entirely different entity) than the old description.