If I were an Atheist

[Mister Agenda]

Your response is to various religious beliefs. Theism is philosophy about our existence if your angry about religion, take it up with theologians.

Theism is the opinion that at least one god or God is really real. It's not a philosophy.

Its hard to imagine how the existence of God can be such an obvious fairy tale and yet you can't convince those who call themselves 'weak atheists' that the fairy tale doesn't exist...how is that?

Lots of fairy tales exist. It's the fairies that are unlikely. Due to the 'fallacy fallacy', we can't be certain that a conclusion is false merely because the reasoning used to support it is fatally flawed. Someone who is precise in their epistemology will acknowledge that.

Secondly what alternate non-fairy tale explanation do you offer in place of theism?

No such explanation is required. If we have no explanation at all, it does not add a single nano-gram of weight to the odds that your position is correct. And mere theism explains nothing. It's not the kind of thing that is an explanation for anything, it's a binary positon on the issue of whether or not at least one god or God is real.

"You have an interesting habit of leaving out the identity of the person whom you're quoting. I'm a strong atheist towards the literally interpreted version of the God of the Bible, it contradicts physical evidence. I'm a weak atheist towards less problematic versions of God. It's not that complex of a position. And if you think a theologian can't be an atheist, I'd say you don't understand many of the terms you are using. There are several prominent atheist theologians." --Mister Agenda

I try to get to as many responses as possible is why I don't say who I'm responding to...

No what I am saying is those who have beefs with particular alleged holy writs, interpretations of such writs or doctrines of churches and so forth need to take it up with theologians not me. There is no theology of theism, church of theism or holy writs attributed to theism. Its the belief we owe our existence to a Creator.

No kidding. Yet you're the one trying to magnify it into some sort of philosophy. And this is entirely irrelevant to me being a strong atheist to some versions of deities and a weak atheist towards others. What are you even trying to argue with here? Are you under some impression that I'm trying to persuade you not to be a theist rather than just responding to your posts?

"Yes, we all know you think that, despite anything we might have to say to the contrary. The basis of your opinion seems to be that since it makes criticizing atheism more difficult for you, that must be the reason so many of us hold that inconvenient position. After all, if our position is that we are not convinced any gods exist and your position is that at least one does, the burden of proof is on you, and you know you can't meet that burden."--Mister Agenda

I have met the burden of making a case from evidence (facts) to justify my opinion we owe our existence to a Creator.

You've justified your own opinions to your own satisfaction. Perhaps a medal is in order.

The weak atheist position doesn't make a debate about the existence of God more difficult, it makes such a debate impossible.

It's really only a problem for a certain kind of person. Many people who want to argue for the existence of God, upon finding someone doesn't maintain absolutely that there is no God, might still be interested in learning why that person doesn't believe God is real or in presenting a case as to why they ought to believe God is real. Then there is the person who throws up their hands and decides a debate with someone who doesn't assert vigrously that there is no God is impossible.

As a theist I don't deny the existence of God but either do weak atheists. What's there to debate?

Do you think weak atheists are justified in not believing in God? The distinction between a weak atheist and a weak theist isn't THAT subtle that it's reasonable for me to believe that you really can't see it.

"You could simply take the position that you believe in your version of God regardless of whether you can support it empirically. It's a position you would be well-advised to take, if you think tactics are paramount. That puts us on equal footing, burden of proof-wise, if that's what's important to you."--Mister Agenda

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Ideally this debate would occur the way any debate is normally conducted. Each side respects the others view but disagrees with them.

Respecting the other's view is precisely where you're failing.

Each side presents evidence they believe supports there view they make their case and let the undecided decide who prevailed.

If you want a formal debate, there's a place for that. The mods can set it up, and all you need is a volunteer to take 'the other side'. The holdup seems to be not only that you want the 'other side' to be 'God definitely does not exist' but that your own side isn't 'God definitely does exist'.

"Are we the same in that we don't believe God is real and you don't either?"--Mister Agenda

Do things that aren't real possibly exist?

No. But there are definitely things that we think aren't real or don't know exist that will turn out to be real. It's happened before, it will happen again. People who believe in things they have no way of knowing are real have a tendency to define them in such a way that they are unfalsifiable. If a particular version of an entity is proven not to be real, they just add an ad hoc explanation for why it 'didn't pass the test'. You can 'maybe' anything, and it's a poor reason to believe something, but it doesn't make it inconceivable that you might be right. People who don't require absolute certainty about everything can acknowledge the small possibility that someone could be right that something apparently imaginary is real...though they would be right by accident, like a stopped clock having the correct time twice a day.

Do you merely lack belief in the existence of Santa Claus or fairies but concede they might actually exist?

It depends on how they're defined. If everything they do is undetectable by science and they never leave verifiable evidence, then I merely lack belief in their existence. That doesn't mean I wouldn't be surprised if I found out either or both were real, as I regard them as more improbable than our sun going nova tomorrow (and our sun isn't the kind of star that ever goes nova).

What you're doing is confirming that folks who call themselves weak atheists are disingenuous in that they do have the opinion God doesn't exist they merely prefer to say they lack belief in the existence of God.

The disengenuousness is entirely within you. We are accurately describing our postion: God is unlikely (how unlikely depends on the particular agnostic atheist, but I'd say most of us make it to be 'highly') but some versions are at least possible. We don't believe God exists, but don't maintain that God necessarily does not exist. Maybe you should ask yourself why you are having so much trouble grasping this.

"You can't possibly be claiming that you've found a shortage of people on this site willing to make a case for why they're skeptical of theism."--Mister Agenda

There are an abundance of those who are willing to share why there skeptical of theism. Mere skepticism and criticism of theism is never going to convince the teeming masses God doesn't exist because it leaves the existence of the universe and humans in limbo.

If so, we should care about that why? If the masses think an argument from ignorance is sufficient reason to hold a position, they need education on logic before arguing over the existence of God will do them any good. Unsupported assertions are not an honest alternative to 'limbo', they're misdirection.

What they would need to do to really persuade the teeming masses is provide some alternate non-god explanation that accounts for why we find ourselves in a universe that supports our existence.

There is an embarassing surfeit of such explanations. There must be dozens of plausible natural explanations for the origin of the universe, and not yet a way to discern the possible from the actual.

Your issue is both a made-up problem (there is no sound reason to believe the universe comes from a personal creator in the first place) AND an argument from ignorance (any answer is better than none).