Belief and Knowledge

[Mister Agenda]

God probably exists.
God probably does not exist.

I don't know if God exists. That is me making a statement about my knowledge. Nevertheless, I have committed to one of those propositions. Have you? If you have I don't think you can hide behind, "I simply lack belief in God or gods". Lack of belief is lack of commitment. Taking on the label "atheist" and participating in the atheist community certainly suggests to me some sort of commitment.

I think God probably does not exist. If you call willingness to change my mind at the drop of a hat in the presence of a convincing miracle or even the right words from the right person, 'committment', I feel like you're trying to manipulate me in some way. Like slipping in a redefinition of 'lack of belief' as a 'lack of committment'. A belief is what you think is true. It doesn't require committment. I don't even think there is a choice involved, we HAVE to believe what we think is true. I don't believe God is real. I think God probably doesn't exist. I lack a belief that God is real. I lack a belief that God probably exists. I know you don't like the term, but you're never going to get us to agree to use different language as long as we think it's true that the language we're using describes our position the most conclusively and accurately. My mind has been changed before at least twice about the best defintion for atheist, through the introduction of new facts. Unless you have one of those, your choice is to suck it up and move on instead of dwelling on this sticking point, or keep going around in circles chasing your tail trying to get us to define ourselves in a way that pleases you.

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We simply have no experience with lineages of life coming into existence via some natural process.....none....zippo.

I can't see any way in which this cannot be interpreted as an argument from ignorance.