OK, here you go, Ron. I have precise questions I hope you'll answer precisely and thoughtfully, as I am trying to do here.

To boil this down to the essentials (obviously the nurse topic is long since beaten into the ground), let's go to the dictionary. Atheism: " disbelief in the existence of deity;" "doctrine there is no deity." - Well, gotta agree with the dead horse issue about the nurse, certainly. Also, I agree that "doctrine that there is no deity" would make atheism faith-based. However, "disbelief in the existence of deity" is the better definition, since "a-" means "none" and "-theism" means "belief in deity" - which also happens to be the kind of atheism we've mostly been talking about (we, in this case, being the atheists in question) - is not. It is a conclusion, not a faith. Antitheism, atheistic faith, I'm not sure what I'd call the other.

And what is this disbelief based on? Specious abuse of mathematics to play games with probability doesn't cut it, sorry. Thank you for reading my post. OK, if you're talking about lack of belief in gods, the use of statistical argument is no longer specious, not that it really was in the first place. What there is, first of all, is plenty of hard evidence that anything you might think was accomplished by deity was actually nature, physics, chemistry, biology, botany, or something now known, which had not been understood by the ancients. There is no need for a deity hypothesis, as LaPlace, I think, said. What in the world, literally, do you think requires a god?

It's based on....uh...uh...the belief itself. And nothing else. Since there is no conclusive proof or even solid evidence. You can't prove that there isn't any Flying Spaghetti Monster either. So what? Just because you understand a thing is possible, like the existence of a FSM or deity, doesn't mean that you believe it actually IS. If not, you don't believe in it, even though you understand intellectually that it isn't impossible. *Anything* is possible. But you don't believe in everything, do you?

Yes there is no proof there is a God. Great straw man, congratulations. But there is no proof there is not. Since obviously there can be no proof on a proposition which is by definition unknowable. As anybody who depends on empirical evidence realizes. All scientists or others who depend on empirical evidence know that all they can *have* empirical evidence is the knowable, and the unknowable is the realm of philosophy, not science. That is the very definition of the realms. So, um, that kind of takes care of that, and actually, I am kind of disappointed in the very impossibility of knowing the unknowable being raised as an intelligent, honest argument on this forum, where people tend to think things through. Basically, if you can't form a testable hypothesis, you can't test it, right, we know that. So we don't try to test the untestable. No thinking atheist (first definition or second, I would think) would try to say there is scientific proof of there being no gods. Again, what there is, is scientific proof that *myths,* or supernatural explanations for natural phenomena (e.g., Persephone is why we have winter), are false. Can you think of a hypothesis that would investigate the *non*-existence of deity?

Why do you suppose there are so few atheist scientists?   In contrast to agnostic scientists. Because they realize it's an open question. Actually, most scientist do not believe in deity, and refuse to call themselves atheist because, as I've said, there's a hoodoo on the term. It isn't fair to call people who don't believe in gods Agnostic just because they won't state that they believe there aren't any. Agnostics aren't sure one way or the other. People who don't believe in deity are atheists by the definition under discussion, even if they namby pamby out and call themselves agnostic. I am not as well-versed in philosophy as science, but we've got Dennett at least on our side. How many major scientists can you name who still aren't sure whether they believe in deity or not, in contrast to those (even those who, unlike Dawkins et al., don't write about their disbelief in particular)?

So the doctrine there is no deity is based on belief....i.e. faith. Atheists have faith there is no God. Just as Christians (and Jews and Moslems) have faith that there is. But there is a slight difference. Christians and other believers say directly their belief is based on faith. Atheists don't admit this about their belief. Actually, we don't have to, see above. And I have no issue with people of faith who know that their faith aren't rationally-based - that's the very definition, to go back to the dictionary, *of* faith - belief in the absence of evidence. I have friends of faith with whom I don't even argue theology, since they admit, in your term, that their faith is faith-based. The friends I do argue with, and we stay friends, are those who try to rationalize their faith. And we have lots of fun. Do you enjoy these kinds of discussions when they are limited, as I am trying to do, to specific statements expecting specific answers?

So, it seems, atheism and atheists, in addition to their other charms (especially on Mudcat)-- e.g. ignorance of history, refusal to do research before sounding off, etc.-- are in addition, intellectually dishonest. I assume the history point is about the unmentionable dead horse we will let lie like the sleeping dog it is. I know about the historical research we have both done in that vein. What scientific research have you done into the question of deity is not a valid question, as explained above, so I'm not asking that. Instead, I will ask you if by not asking that question, would you agree that I'm keeping this particular point of discussion intellectually honest?

OK, that's it for my answers to your specific points. I look forward to your answers.

Meanwhile, I'd like others to think about the sheer number of different religious beliefs which all preach that all *other* religions are false. Let's pretend there are, say, 100 beliefs, each of which could be summarized as "the 99 other religions are wrong." All of these beliefs are based on human interpretations of texts first written by humans long, long ago (or, in the case of L. Ron Hubbard, not so long ago), and recopied *and translated* and otherwise changed by humans down through the ages. What would make anyone able to pick one of these as "the" revealed word of "their" particular deity to "their" particular prophet?

I've heard it said that belief that 99 of these hypothetical 100 faiths being false is shared by theists and atheists alike. Atheists just go one god farther.