(January 13, 2014 at 7:07 am)FreeTony Wrote:(January 13, 2014 at 6:47 am)max-greece Wrote: Well there's always Agnostic if you're really not sure.
Yeah, he can call himself an Agnostic if he wants, though he wouldn't want to bound by their rules and dogma.
I don't think you can be both not a Theist and not an Atheist, from my definition, but there are those out there that say you can have a neutral position. I often think this is because peope assume if you disbelieve one statement, you must believe the opposite, so they don't want to be seen to be doing this. The coin analogy was meant to show why this can become absurd, though I guess you can say you have a neutral believe in both the Head and Tail claims. I'd argue in this case the "nuetral belief" and the disbelief are actually the same thing, as both acknowlege the fact that the coin could show a heads, but it isn't 100% certain to.
It all hinges on this concept of neutral belief and whether one can have one. I guess coming from a scientific background, disbelief is very normal, and all experiments start that way. If the experiement is succesful, it doesn't mean you were wrong at the start by disbelieving the hypothesis. You have to start from disbelief ( or belief in the null hypothesis).
I suppose a lot will depend on accepting the coin toss analogy. In my experience agnostics tend to approach this issue as:
God demands faith.
Faith denies evidence.
I do not know if God exists.
Often accompanied by - but I think there is "something" up there and that something has varying degrees of god-like qualities ranging from a deist position to all but the Christian God.
As for the OP I can understand the desire to avoid the label but membership of the atheist club isn't exactly onerous. If you do not believe there is a God you are somewhat in the club - whatever you want to refer to that as.
Kuusi palaa, ja on viimeinen kerta kun annan vaimoni laittaa jouluvalot!