Nature's Laws

[Cyberman]

F4M, if you are truly willing to learn about subjects you're struggling to understand, will you do us a big favour and watch this short video, as a sort of primer?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8nYTJf6...KFWKjtMhTe

After that you might want to work throught the rest of the series.

[Iroscato]

I am saying that the second law is not relevant in discussions of abiogenesis, and it certainly isn't the only consideration to be made here; for one, you don't exactly seem to know what entropy even is. Entropy is what the second law discusses, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the fate of your baseball glove; entropy simply discusses energy, and how it disperses throughout a closed system over time. The example you're giving isn't even applicable to what you were originally talking about; do you seriously know that little about the subject you brought up, that you'll drift off somewhere else entirely without knowing it?

Secondly, you cannot even draw a proper comparison between the pre-biotic Earth and your baseball glove, because they are completely different things; you could probably disprove the idea that ice melts if the only examples you're willing to consider are of liquid water, or fire, but the fact is that examples generally have to be applicable to the discussion, which yours are not. The state the Earth is in now is radically different from how it was at the time of the original abiogenetic event, whatever that may be, and so of course the effect it has on matter will be radically different too. What you're doing is akin to stating that ice can't melt, because you don't see the ocean melting. There's a few factors different between what you're talking about, and the example you're giving against it.

And frankly, I think you probably knew that, and are being facetious. It's not a great look for you. You may want to try conversing honestly.

I hate to admit it Esquilax, but I really am that ignorant, especially regarding science.  I'm not being facetious, I'm just not very well educated.  And I'm honored to learn from you and all of the other good and well educated people here at AF.  If it appears that I'm struggling with the concept of increasing entropy, it might be because there are certain things that you and others here have pointed out to me that I simply don't understand. 

I do understand that the pre-biotic earth must have been extremely different than anything that I can imagine.  But I still think that open system or closed, prebiotic or post, whatever the second law says, it is basically saying that even if I run my baseball glove up a flag pole and keep it there for millions of years ...so nature (lightning?) can act on it, the baseball glove will completely disintegrate LONG before the unpredictable forces of nature ever get a chance to change it into something vastly more ordered.  Where am I wrong?  And thanks for being so patient with me!

I'm not claiming to be any kind of specialist in biology, but my answer to where you're going wrong is 'everywhere'. However, props for admitting your ignorance.
So here is my explanation, as I understand it.

Life cannot form from inanimate objects such as a baseball glove. There are no components within such an object that can form the basic building blocks for life, and so nothing can ever come from it. For life to form, it needs to be from the 'ground up' so to speak. So you need amino acids and other shit, exposed to catalysts to speed up chemical reactions and a VERY long time, geologic timescales that the human mind is not equipped to imagine. Eventually you are pretty much guaranteed to end up with a precursor to DNA that is complex enough to self-replicate, and the spark of life has taken hold.

It took a VERY long time, but the Earth was already a billion years old at that point, with countless billions of chemical reactions happening every day, their fires being stoked by all kinds of outside influences like lightning, meteorites and of course the sun. Life was...inevitable.

That such an event could come about by natural events is far more impressive than any creator. Luckily though, impressiveness is irrelevant, as we now can say with almost total certainty that this is what happened.

[The Grand Nudger]

Baseball gloves probably aren't the best example..as they -are- biological material which has been cured, sterilized.  No one thinks that life came from a baseball glove...right? 

The inanimate nature of the glove is not what prevents life from arising from it any more than the inanimate nature of organic materials would prevent life from arising -from them-.

[YGninja]

First i'd like to point out that you've dropped/ignored the argument concerning the origins of your definition of atheism. If you allow that your definition was only imagined a couple of decades ago, brought into existence as part of a social engineering agenda to redefine atheism so as to make it a default position, with no other historical or logical grounding, then any later defense of that definition without first addressing its origin is specious and intellectually bankrupt.

It's simple: you say every law has a lawmaker, but in doing so you're ignoring that the word has two definitions, and that we have only ever observed laws of the first type having lawmakers. Laws of the second type, statements of facts deduced from observation, have never been observed to be made, and hence of course have no lawmaker. In fact, given that that type of law refers exclusively to the product of observations, the idea that it might have a maker is entirely nonsensical.

There is no special pleading involved, just a recognition that the word has two meanings, where theists sometimes want to pretend that everyone is using the first meaning all the time, even when they're clearly not.

The definitions are only distinct arbitrarily, by what is man made and what is unknown, which i have already covered.
A law is a standard of expected behaviour, it is the same whether we are talking about legal or natural law, you are making a distinction without a difference.

2: I've not mentioned my God, or whether i even have one. I spoke about atheists ridiculing the "the concept of God", which is pretty well understood unless you are determined to be facetious: An all powerful prime-mover of all things.

I don't know that I've ever seen an atheist mock "an all powerful prime mover," mainly because that claim is so devoid of characteristics that it would be near impossible to make fun of, period. I've seen plenty of atheists make fun of specific gods, or point out that we simply have no evidence for a prime mover of any stripe, but it is not my position, nor is it the position of any atheist I've come into contact with, that the generic deistic prime mover could be categorically ruled out as a possibility. So appeals to some group of atheists that isn't this one, or nebulous mocking of the concept of god, doesn't particularly hold much water here.

Nor, I might add, does this claim you have that making fun of a thing denotes a denial of its existence, either, because that's patently absurd on the face of it. Comedians build their careers making fun of things that definitely exist, after all, so the idea that mockery denotes denial is falsified. You can mock things without denying they exist, and hence simply pointing to mockery from atheists, even if you were actually capable of doing so, does not prove the point you're trying to make.

Your original claim was "You're making the mistake of thinking that your god is the only possible god, so therefore mocking your specific conception of god is denial of all gods.", which i'd like to point out you've dropped and this entire section is just a red herring. What you claim to have seen is really irrelevant. I've already given you quotes: "We're all atheists here. We're convinced, and rightfully so, that there is no god."
There is no specificity here. Whats more is their use of small g god denotes that they are not specifying, rather talking about the very concept already outlined (to which you can add other generally accepted characteristics such as all-good, conscious, eternal. )
About comedians, i never said that you must believe something doesn't exist to mock it. Atheists mock the concept or belief in an existing God, this mockery denotes their contrary belief. Comedians mock the nature of things already accepted to exist, the two are completely different.

3: I'm not dictating my opponents position, (and why is he necessarily an opponent?) i am objecting against the miss-classification of his position.

When somebody says that they disbelieve in god, and you say that no, actually they believe there are no gods, then you are dictating their position to them. Doesn't matter what you appeal to as justification, that's factually what you are doing; they are stating one thing, and you are asserting that you know better, for X reason.

Nobody said that they disbelieve in God, and i certainly didn't tell them what they believe. I said "Well its really simple, if you don't believe either way or don't care enough about the question to bother, you are an agnostic. If you believe to any degree of certainty that there is no God, you are an atheist." I am advising how they should refer to themselves depending on what their position is, i am not telling them their position.

4: Agnosticism, since its first use and always since unless used in a non-standard, metaphorical kind of sense, has always pertained to belief of Gods existence.

Laughably, easily disproven: the term was first coined by Thomas Huxley, who had this to say on the subject:

Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle ... Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.

"In matters of intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated." That's referencing claims to knowledge, not belief.

More relevantly he had this to say on the subject:
"So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of "agnostic". It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the "gnostic" of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant. ... To my great satisfaction the term took." - Huxley

This pretty much covers everything. My initial statement concerning its first use stands. As for its general use, even wikipedia agrees;

Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims – especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether or not God, the divine or the supernatural exist – are unknown and perhaps unknowable.[1][2][3] According to the philosopher William L. Rowe: "In the popular sense of the term, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of God, while a theist believes that God exists, an atheist disbelieves in God".

And the primary definition in dictionaries

: a person who does not have a definite belief about whether God exists or not

: a person who does not believe or is unsure of something
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agnostic

someone who does not know, or believes that it is impossible to know, if a god exists
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/agnostic

Aswell as philosophical dictionaries:
"The term is used especially in reference to our lack of knowledge of the existence of god. In this, the agnostic, who holds that we cannot know whether or not god exists, differs from the atheist, who denies that god exists."

What you are trying to argue is plainly false; the term agnostic has always pertained to the existence of God, other uses are secondary and practically metaphorical, irrespective of the etymology of its constituent parts.

Lack of knowledge being the reason for having no belief, as no belief is only possible when there is a lack of knowledge. "An agnostic atheist believes in no gods, without claim to knowledge. A gnostic theist believes in a god and claims to know that one exists". You cannot believe in no Gods without a claim to knowledge, you cannot believe in anything without first assuming to be in possession of relevant truths.

Why? Because you say so?

Is that your argument? Can you demonstrate how a belief comes into existence in the absence of any knowledge or assumed truth (same thing) pertaining to the subject of the belief?

Those "relevant truths", might not be enough to ground a certainty, but they constitute knowledge and hence become the grounds for the belief.

And if the claim to knowledge that grounds my atheism is knowledge that theists have not provided sufficient evidence to justify belief in any gods? Then what?

See, it's possible to do that, you know. Knowledge works in more ways than the two that are convenient for your argument.

We're talking about grounding beliefs. You are defending having a nonbelief, which is defence of agnosticism. Your calling it atheism is just a word-game, unless you believe that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

This is why agnostic atheism is fundamentally incoherent, and the agnostic prefix is only ever used by atheists  (you never hear about agnostic theists) who want to wear the atheist label because of the perceived intellectual 'go faster' stripes, without actually inheriting any burden of proof requiring them to have a clue what they're talking about.

Incoherent in false dichotomy land, surely. Thankfully, I live in the real world.

Incoherent.

If i believe in God only on the grounds of a pretty rainbow, i have to assume knowledge in order to relate that rainbow back to the idea of God. If an atheist believes there are no Gods because it rains on him one too many times, he must assume knowledge to be able to relate the rain back to the question of God, namely, the assumed truth that "if there was a God, he wouldn't let it rain on me so often". Even the weakest belief necessitates knowledge, hence is not compatible with agnosticism. That you aren't certain of Gods existence or not is irrelevant, and not grounds for claiming agnosticism.

My knowledge claim is this: it is unwise to believe in things without sufficient evidence, and theists have not provided sufficient evidence in favor of gods. This knowledge claim is sufficient itself to not believe in any gods, without outright rejecting them, as the first part of the knowledge claim allows for one changing their other beliefs as new evidence arises.

Put short, you don't get to tell me what my knowledge claims are, nor should you mistake the two you're able to think up in the moment for convenience, for the only two in existence.

This is your earlier statement:

theism and atheism refer to belief, gnosticism and agnosticism refer to knowledge, hence the root word "gnossis," which means knowledge. Agnostic is a modifier that can be applied to both atheists and theists, depending on the degree of certainty that they place on their beliefs, which are dictated by the first label. An agnostic atheist believes in no gods, without claim to knowledge. "

So we are examining the coherency of having a belief that there are no Gods, in the absence of any knowledge: "agnostic atheism". My position is that it is incoherent because you cannot have a belief without assuming to be in possession of relevant knowledge. Your defence is insubstantial: "it is unwise to believe in things without sufficient evidence, and theists have not provided sufficient evidence in favor of gods. ", as you are not defending a belief, only a non belief, and playing a word game by calling it atheism. You need to demonstrate how a belief can exist in absence of any knowledge pertaining to the subject of the belief, to have any grounds for asserting the coherency of "agnostic atheism". All you've done is rationalise why you have a non-belief, and arbitrarily called it atheism, even though you acknowledge twice above that atheism refers to belief.

[Bad Wolf]

I'm going to put the old sweet jar analogy to use here.
Imagine a jar full of sweets like the ones you get at the fair where you have to count how many sweets are in the jar and the closesnt number wins.
Now, the number of sweets in the jar is either even or odd, those are the only two possiblities.
My friend tells me the number of sweets in the jar is even.
I tell him I don't believe him. There is no possible way for him to have counted all the sweets, so there is no way he could know whether the number is even or odd. That is all the justification I need to not believe his claim. And my disbelief in his claim, does not mean that I think the opposite is true, that the number is odd.
The reason I am an atheist is because theistic claims have not been met with appropriate evidence. And that's all the justification needed. That's why atheism is the default position. Because this is how every other claim should be approached. If you don't, then you are put in the absurd position of believing every claim you hear until it is proved false.

[Freedom4me]

F4M, if you are truly willing to learn about subjects you're struggling to understand, will you do us a big favour and watch this short video, as a sort of primer?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8nYTJf6...KFWKjtMhTe

After that you might want to work throught the rest of the series.

Thanks, Stimbo.  I watched the video, but I probably need to watch it again.  The guy has a cool British accent and he seems to know chemistry.  I don't. For now, I'll just say thanks.

---

I'm going to put the old sweet jar analogy to use here.
Imagine a jar full of sweets like the ones you get at the fair where you have to count how many sweets are in the jar and the closesnt number wins.
Now, the number of sweets in the jar is either even or odd, those are the only two possiblities.
My friend tells me the number of sweets in the jar is even.
I tell him I don't believe him. There is no possible way for him to have counted all the sweets, so there is no way he could know whether the number is even or odd. That is all the justification I need to not believe his claim. And my disbelief in his claim, does not mean that I think the opposite is true, that the number is odd.
The reason I am an atheist is because theistic claims have not been met with appropriate evidence.  And that's all the justification needed. That's why atheism is the default position. Because this is how every other claim should be approached. If you don't, then you are put in the absurd position of believing every claim you hear until it is proved false.

This might seem like a minor point but in your example of the jar of sweets, if the number is quite large (let's say over 300) then it is probably safe to assume that you are justified in assuming that he couldn't have counted all of them, therefore there is no way he could know whether the number is even or odd.  But the unstated assumption you are making about atheism vs theism is that there simply isn't any evidence around us that would rationally support theism, and thus atheism is the default position.  But that claim is itself, just another assertion.  

[ignoramus]

Me again.
If we said science is the work of the devil to turn people against god, would this make a bit more sense?
Would you feel a compulsive need for us to prove it to the level of granularity you ask us of other claims we bring forth.

Be true to yourself.
It is common and expected for indoctrination to skew your reality.
You need to reset and calibrate and approach all evidence the same way our justice system works.
Blindly and impartially.

[Esquilax]

First i'd like to point out that you've dropped/ignored the argument concerning the origins of your definition of atheism. If you allow that your definition was only imagined a couple of decades ago, brought into existence as part of a social engineering agenda to redefine atheism so as to make it a default position, with no other historical or logical grounding, then any later defense of that definition without first addressing its origin is specious and intellectually bankrupt.

I don't really care about its origins, though in my opinion having greater granularity within the terms we use to describe ourselves is reason enough to accept it, because you're not going to be able to suddenly change what my position is, simply by demanding that we use a different definition. I believe what I believe, and I choose to call myself an atheist because that is what best encapsulates what I believe. What you're attempting to do here is little more than slimy sophistry.

The definitions are only distinct arbitrarily, by what is man made and what is unknown, which i have already covered. A law is a standard of expected behaviour, it is the same whether we are talking about legal or natural law, you are making a distinction without a difference.

So you basically either didn't read the second definition, or don't want to deal with it, so you're dismissing it by fiat because it's inconvenient. Gotcha. But your assertion that it's arbitrary doesn't change the fact that what we're talking about, with regards to natural law, is fundamentally different from the legal definition, being that the former is derived from a series of observations about reality and not from a personal lawmaker like the latter definition. This is a non-trivial distinction, one that reveals your position here for the tawdry argument from analogy it is, and your simple dismissal does not constitute a rebuttal.

Your original claim was "You're making the mistake of thinking that your god is the only possible god, so therefore mocking your specific conception of god is denial of all gods.", which i'd like to point out you've dropped and this entire section is just a red herring. What you claim to have seen is really irrelevant. I've already given you quotes: "We're all atheists here. We're convinced, and rightfully so, that there is no god."

This is hilarious: "What you claim to have seen is irrelevant, but what I claim to have seen is just super duper important, so there!" Double standard aside, there's really nothing to respond to: you give quotes from people that aren't connected with this board at all, and expect them to be binding to us for some reason, and then you make vague assertions as to what else you've seen with nothing at all to back them up, as though that means anything... what exactly is there to respond to? You aren't talking about us, so what does that matter, where our positions are concerned?

There is no specificity here. Whats more is their use of small g god denotes that they are not specifying, rather talking about the very concept already outlined (to which you can add other generally accepted characteristics such as all-good, conscious, eternal. )

And now you're just nitpicking over spelling. You must have a terribly compelling argument, to be reduced to this.

About comedians, i never said that you must believe something doesn't exist to mock it. Atheists mock the concept or belief in an existing God, this mockery denotes their contrary belief. Comedians mock the nature of things already accepted to exist, the two are completely different.

So, let me get your argument straight: you don't need to reject the existence of something to mock it, but atheists do reject the existence of god when they mock it, because you say so. Because I notice you haven't given anything resembling a justification for that statement of yours, beyond connecting the mocking of something with rejection of it in this one specific case, as a bare assertion, when you've already accepted that the two conditions are not necessarily interlinked. It's special pleading, resting on a fiat assertion: do you have any reason why you think atheists must reject god to mock it, rather than just not believing in it? Or is it just what's most convenient to you? What's different between that and other forms of mockery?

The other thing is this, though: I can mock god, gods, whatever, as much as I want, but that doesn't alter my state of belief one bit. If you provide sufficient evidence to believe in god then I'll believe in whatever god you've managed to prove, mockery or not, and you know what? That belief might not even halt my mockery, depending on how worthy of it I find that particular god to be. What you're doing here is directly falsified by what I know about myself; evidence will still change my mind, no matter how you want to phrase my position. All this desperate twisting to drag us down to your level doesn't change a thing.

Nobody said that they disbelieve in God, and i certainly didn't tell them what they believe. I said "Well its really simple, if you don't believe either way or don't care enough about the question to bother, you are an agnostic. If you believe to any degree of certainty that there is no God, you are an atheist." I am advising how they should refer to themselves depending on what their position is, i am not telling them their position.

Oh yeah? Gimme a minute...

Okay, so you're saying your very first comment on this topic didn't run...

2: Most atheists do believe there is no God, and this is evidenced wherever atheists are. Whenever atheists ridicule the concept of God, which is all the time, it belies their position that they actively believe there are none. What they say is another matter because they are just trying to have their cake and eat it: ridicule God without wearing a burden of proof. Posting your blog to support your definition is as bad as Christians saying the Bible is true because it says so in the Bible.

You didn't say that? That what atheists state their position as doesn't matter, because they really do believe there is no god? That's not literally your words?

More relevantly he had this to say on the subject:
"So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of "agnostic". It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the "gnostic" of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant. ... To my great satisfaction the term took." - Huxley

This pretty much covers everything. My initial statement concerning its first use stands.

Right, so Huxley clearly states he coined the term as an antithesis of the "gnostic" who professes knowledge claims on the divine... and somehow you think your statement about it concerning belief claims stands. Are you just not reading the quote, or does your mind just replace the word "know" with the word "believe" wherever it's most convenient for you?

As for its general use, even wikipedia agrees;

Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims – especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether or not God, the divine or the supernatural exist – are unknown and perhaps unknowable.[1][2][3] According to the philosopher William L. Rowe: "In the popular sense of the term, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of God, while a theist believes that God exists, an atheist disbelieves in God".

"Unknown or perhaps unknowable," and somehow you still think they refer to beliefs.

And the primary definition in dictionaries

: a person who does not have a definite belief about whether God exists or not

: a person who does not believe or is unsure of something
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agnostic

someone who does not know, or believes that it is impossible to know, if a god exists
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/agnostic

Aswell as philosophical dictionaries:
"The term is used especially in reference to our lack of knowledge of the existence of god. In this, the agnostic, who holds that we cannot know whether or not god exists, differs from the atheist, who denies that god exists."

Interesting: I guess dictionary definitions are only worthy of consideration when convenient to you, then?

Also, please note that the definition regarding knowledge is one of the ones in Websters, and also the only one used in the philosophical dictionary. You're doing my job for me, here.

What you are trying to argue is plainly false; the term agnostic has always pertained to the existence of God, other uses are secondary and practically metaphorical, irrespective of the etymology of its constituent parts.

Are you just not fucking listening? That the term pertains to divine or supernatural concepts was never the issue, but rather that you were insisting, against all etymological knowledge, plus the words of the very person who invented the term, that it discussed levels of belief, rather than levels of knowledge. In the end, I have the inventor of the term, the root word, one of the definitions in the dictionary and the majority of the quotes you yourself furnished to justify my interpretation of the word, and you have... one of the other dictionary definitions.

Hmm.

Is that your argument? Can you demonstrate how a belief comes into existence in the absence of any knowledge or assumed truth (same thing) pertaining to the subject of the belief?

Someone's clearly never heard of probabilities, before. Assessment of the evidence suggests certain things in various probabilities, and the evidence currently at our disposal shows no sign of a god or gods existing, but also demonstrably shows that we are not nearly in possession of all the relevant facts regarding the areas in which gods are traditionally most present. Therefore, though one is not equipped with sufficient knowledge to believe in gods, he is also not equipped with sufficient knowledge to dismiss the notion out of hand, keeping in mind the obvious maxim that additional evidence should always change one's views to fit.

Hence, I do not need to know that gods do not exist to be an atheist, anymore than I need to know they do before I become a theist; we don't wait for certainties to form our beliefs, after all.

We're talking about grounding beliefs. You are defending having a nonbelief, which is defence of agnosticism. Your calling it atheism is just a word-game, unless you believe that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

No, I'm not playing a word game, I'm just using a more defined and granular set of terms than you're comfortable using. But your unwillingness to use anything other than simplistic labels is not binding on the rest of us, nor do you get to dictate labels for everything on fiat say so.

Incoherent.

Yeah, well, nah-nah-nah boo-boo, right back at ya.

This is your earlier statement:

theism and atheism refer to belief, gnosticism and agnosticism refer to knowledge, hence the root word "gnossis," which means knowledge. Agnostic is a modifier that can be applied to both atheists and theists, depending on the degree of certainty that they place on their beliefs, which are dictated by the first label. An agnostic atheist believes in no gods, without claim to knowledge. "

So we are examining the coherency of having a belief that there are no Gods, in the absence of any knowledge: "agnostic atheism".

Ha ha, no: we are examining the coherency of lacking a positive belief in gods, in the absence of knowledge. The whole point of the modifiers is that we no longer have to shunt just one type of atheism under that label, that we get to accommodate the shades of belief that one can hold within that label.

My position is that it is incoherent because you cannot have a belief without assuming to be in possession of relevant knowledge. Your defence is insubstantial: "it is unwise to believe in things without sufficient evidence, and theists have not provided sufficient evidence in favor of gods. ", as you are not defending a belief, only a non belief, and playing a word game by calling it atheism. You need to demonstrate how a belief can exist in absence of any knowledge pertaining to the subject of the belief, to have any grounds for asserting the coherency of "agnostic atheism". All you've done is rationalise why you have a non-belief, and arbitrarily called it atheism, even though you acknowledge twice above that atheism refers to belief.

Look, if you're not even going to address the terms of my position in your rebuttal of it, then don't even bother playing. But you don't get to strawman me by demanding I defend something I did not say, on the basis that you don't think my actual words are legitimate. Shockingly, "what YGNinja thinks" is not the yardstick by which I judge the validity of my every claim, nor is your word some binding force that obligates me to abandon what I'm actually saying in favor of what is most convenient for you.

Either rebut what I say, or stop talking.

[Cyberman]

Thanks, Stimbo.  I watched the video, but I probably need to watch it again.  The guy has a cool British accent and he seems to know chemistry.  I don't.  For now, I'll just say thanks.

No problem. Hope it helps.

This might seem like a minor point but in your example of the jar of sweets, if the number is quite large (let's say over 300) then it is probably safe to assume that you are justified in assuming that he couldn't have counted all of them, therefore there is no way he could know whether the number is even or odd.  But the unstated assumption you are making about atheism vs theism is that there simply isn't any evidence around us that would rationally support theism.  But that claim is itself, just another assertion.  

It's more accurate to say that evidence for theism has never been presented that stands up to scrutiny. And that's not just another assertion; it's a sad fact.

[Freedom4me]

Thanks, Stimbo.  I watched the video, but I probably need to watch it again.  The guy has a cool British accent and he seems to know chemistry.  I don't.  For now, I'll just say thanks.

No problem. Hope it helps.

This might seem like a minor point but in your example of the jar of sweets, if the number is quite large (let's say over 300) then it is probably safe to assume that you are justified in assuming that he couldn't have counted all of them, therefore there is no way he could know whether the number is even or odd.  But the unstated assumption you are making about atheism vs theism is that there simply isn't any evidence around us that would rationally support theism.  But that claim is itself, just another assertion.  

It's more accurate to say that evidence for theism has never been presented that stands up to scrutiny. And that's not just another assertion; it's a sad fact.

I'm not sure that this more accurate modification rescues it.  Sounds like the same sort of assertion to me.