So the question is: Seeing as he�s already posted it on his own site should I bother releasing it as a post here?

I KNOW THE ANSWER - pick me.
IT’S THE SAME ANSWER AS THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION: IS THERE A DOG?
AND JUST FOR THE DUMB ARSES ON THE FRINGES OF SANITY THE ANSWER IS ... oh shit. What was it I learnt in Atheist School as well as at the Atheist Church and Atheist belief study?
Ah, got it. The answer is �
no.  :ol:

Brock, “atheism is a religion” is something that the tu quoque school of apologists likes to push—it’s just another attempt to shift the burden of proof.

Elwed, yeah, I didn’t know that Ad Hominem by it’s formal name: I just defined Bong’s method as “I know I am but what are you?” It seemed appropriate at the time.

Les, I say theres no need to put his rebuttal here. It’s just more of the same old same old already contained here; lots more.

LG, you’ll never be insignificant Incomprehensible, to me now and then, but never insignificant.

Elwed: it’s just another attempt to shift the burden of proof.

And such attempts are improper with the weak atheism that you profess Elwed, but the burden does shift, and rightfully so, for those who profess strong atheism.

the burden does shift, and rightfully so, for those who profess strong atheism.

Consi, are you a strong a-Thor-ist?  How certain are you that Thor is not the deity that matters most?  If someone buttonholed you on the street and started preaching Thor to you, how would you feel?

Then you get some idea how the rest of us feel.

Consi, first and foremost, the theist has to meet the burden of definition of exactly what a god is…

DOF: If someone buttonholed you on the street and started preaching Thor to you, how would you feel?

Then you get some idea how the rest of us feel.

What do feelings have to do with the burden of proof? 

...the theist has to meet the burden of definition of exactly what a god is…

No.  How a particular theist defines her god is irrelevant to the assertion by the strong atheist.  The strong atheist makes the unequivocal statement that there is no god, no matter how god is defined. 

The same may not be said for the weak atheist.  As regards the weak atheist, you are correct, which is what I was pointing out.

What do feelings have to do with the burden of proof?

Well in your case (you are apparently a Vulcan, and do not have feelings), you’d have to substitute think.  What would you think if someone started preaching Thor to you?  Where would the burden of proof be?

How confident are you that Thor is not the RealDeal™?  Why?

What would you think if someone started preaching Thor to you?

DOF, if she was hot, I’d think I’d like to get in her pants no matter what she is yammering on about with respect to Thor.  If she was a fatty or she was a he, or just a he, then I doubt I would pay enough attention to the preacher to even know what was being preached. 

Where would the burden of proof be?

The burden would of course rest with the preacher.  The burden would also rest with the strong atheist who buttonholed me and started making their assertions.  The same may not be said for the weak atheist yammering away on the street corner.  Though, if she was a hot weak atheist, by golly, I’d still be thinking about how to get in her pants.

(Predicting Consi won’t answer this question no matter how directly it is asked...)

Consi, are you a strong a-Thor-ist?

Consi, are you a strong a-Thor-ist?

Please reread the article Les posted on atheism and tell me how there could ever be a strong a-thor-ist.  The short answer is there can’t be, not even theoretically.  There is no such thing.  So my answer is of course, no, I’m not a strong a-thor-ist.

Wouldn’t a “strong a-Thor-ist” be someone that says, “Thor is definitely a god?” You know, like saying, “I believe so strongly in that I KNOW it/he/she/whatever exists.”?

Amazing.  One of the few direct questions you’ve ever answered.  So you do admit the possibility that Thor could be the RealDeal™.

Yet, while admitting that possibility, would I be correct that you believe it is so extremely remote that it is hardly worth considering?  That if you weren’t splitting logical hairs (your favorite sport) you’d just say; “No, Thor is not God”?

Because in a practical (as opposed to fine-feathered semantic definitional) sense, that is what we “strong atheists” mean when we say “ain’t no god”.  However one might say “Yes, it’s possible” we believe the chance of it being so is vanishingly, extremely remote.

Whoops, Tafks, I missed your reply.  In this construct a- negates that to which it is attached.  So as a “theist” believes there is a god, an “a-theist” believes there isn’t.  And a “strong atheist” believes there is no possibility that any god exists. 

Seems to me that all beliefs are probabilistic.  If an atheist admits the possibility of a god, he may assign different weights to that possibility.  “There’s no god”, says one atheist, “I’m 90% sure”.  Me, I’m more sure than that - I think the probability is on the order of; “If I drop this rock, it will fall down instead of up”.  Sure, it could fall ‘up’, but…

So I’m a “pretty darn strong atheist” and may not fit Consi’s hairsplitting “strong atheist” model.

So you do admit the possibility that Thor could be the RealDeal

I didn’t say that.  I also did not say that I wouldn’t endorse that statement.  What I did say, and please focus on what I do say rather than what you think I’m saying, was this with respect to a strong athorist:

There is no such thing.

That is why I said of course I’m not one.  The reason there is no such thing is because you have misapplied the definitional base for a strong atheist.  Your point misses the point when you do that.

Elwed, thanks for mentioning tu quoque.
Julian Baggini has a site Bad Moves, “detailing the various ways in which arguments or points are made badly, but often persuasively”.
At some time or other I’ve used most of them without knowing they were categorisable let alone definable.

DoF, you know it’s pretty hard to draw a picture of Consi - all we can do is colour in said picture as best we can.
What we do know though that he’s the Master of Bad Moves ... he uses every trick in the book to win - cos winning is the only thing.

So far as the ‘strong atheist vs weak atheist’ goes - I’m a strong atheist cos I’m 100% sure there’s no invisible man who takes an interest or even cares about the affairs of humankind on earth, let alone individuals.
If an invisible man like the one Xians are fond of deluding themselves with did exist, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Shrub never would have.
I know xian apologists have countered that with the ‘free will’ concept but, as far as I can see, which isn’t far, there can only be free will if there’s no god.

And thanks to you, LuckyJohn, for calling our attention to that site. It’s great reading, and now I have a new name to add to my list of authors I want to check out.

...you know it’s pretty hard to draw a picture of Consi… Why?  I’m in my little avatar. 

...as far as I can see, which isn’t far…

Oops, I missed this part.  My apologies.

LJ, I would guess Consi is a member of the legal profession in some capacity.  But every once in a while he acts like a human being, so I don’t completely ignore him.

I’m guessing a State’s Attorney.

...there can only be free will if there’s no god.

Excellent point, LJ. It’s like God needs a Geneva Convention-style treaty to keep him benevolent. Bottom line - God’s a profiteer.

But every once in a while he acts like a human being, so I don’t completely ignore him.

Yeah, I know what you mean - sometimes I get him mixed up with a human too, but I’d never ignore him either … even if he wasn’t one.
The only time he’s been (seemingly) open is when he did that meme thingy in the latter part of 2006 which included the question about sitting on a roof and an answer he gave to another question about sleeping on a couch.
Having said all that we all, to a greater or lesser degree, keep things hidden even from those who ‘know’ us – shit I even keep things hidden from me. 

I’m guessing a State’s Attorney.

You’re probably right even though I’m not sure what one is cos we don’t have them (with that title per se … looks like it equates to a Prosecutor) in Oz - what I am fairly sure of is that he plays it all close to the chest cos he does have some sort of visibility or reputation to uphold and quite obviously doesn’t want the two (Attorney[?] and Consigliere) to mix or clash (especially by being associated with something called stupidevilbastard).
Mmm, that almost describes Multiple Personality Disorder.
Nah, he couldn’t be … but … nah. 

We’re all a little nuts. We all have shadowy, unacknowledged psychic hitchhikers … We are all … made up of fragments of memory and experience and wishful thinking; everyone is, to some extent, a multiple personality.

I read this novel by Matt Ruff about MPD last year and loved it; one of the best/most interesting books I’ve ever read … “pure literary fiction at its best” and I’ll definitely read it again one day.
If you decide to read it there will be one time you will definitely say:
WOW !! I wasn’t expecting that one.
One of the many good lines said by ‘one of the personalities’ about the others: “They aren’t even real, they’re just...delusions with egos.”
This well describes some people we’ve all known. 

God’s a profiteer.

Mmm, it sounds good but it falls down in reality UNLESS he’s really the devil (which in fact he ‘is’) cos he’s making an absolute killing in the ‘You’re wrong; I’m right’ stakes cos no one knows which horse is Right but there are plenty staking their lives, here and now, on knowing which one is Right.
Yeah, Brock. God’s a profiteer. He can’t loose … even if he tried. 

Brock, I must admit I hesitated before posting that opinion on free-will cos I hadn’t spent any time thinking it through (and that may not have helped in any case) – it was one of those “where the fuck did that come from – is it really as good as it sounds?” flashes I’m sure most of us have had – some more often than others.
When it happens to me I sometimes think it wasn’t me; it was inspired by a temporary attachment to something outside of me and that makes even less sense although it does make sense if I suffered from a version of MPD. 
I wish I could be more like Roger Federer and just admit: I made some good shots today, or in my case: I had a flash of simple brilliance today. 

Consi: I’m in my little avatar.

Yeah, I know (I’ll qualify that by saying I believe what you’ve told) and if memory serves, from an answer you once gave GM, you are not the one in white but you are in the left half of the photo. My memory often gets amnesiatic (spell-check wanted to replace that with ‘amnesia tic’ which may have worked too). 

Wow - It’s after 5pm and I’ve been playing with this since about 10am - not only this of course – I’ve been ‘not smoking’ too and I even looked up coupla things on conservapedia.com for some light entertainment.
How the fuck do those stupid bastards (present company excepted, of course) expect to be taken seriously? 
UH! I forgot; they’re the fuck-knuckles who think the earth’s only 6k old and the devil has a factory which mass produces fossils and plants them so’s non-believers can get sucked in to taking the wrong road.
They couldn’t have said less about Australia if they’d tried; Oceania did not “have social structures common to nearly every society, with a military class and the rich and poor” especially in Oz cos the aborigines did not have a military class and they definitely did NOT have rich and poor AND I have grave doubt about the veracity of any part of the one-lined sentence about NZ.
Geez, I’m glad they belong to you - I’d be too embarrassed; I’d have to emi-fucking-grate.

Consi writes…

I didn’t say that.  I also did not say that I wouldn’t endorse that statement.  What I did say, and please focus on what I do say rather than what you think I’m saying, was this with respect to a strong athorist: There is no such thing.

That is why I said of course I’m not one.

By that logic then I must not be an atheist for there ain’t no god.

Les: By that logic then I must not be an atheist for there ain’t no god.

Only when you twist it intentionally or unintentionally.  My statements are not premised at all on the existence or lack thereof of Thor as a god. 

LJ: 

Your memory appears to be better than your eyesight.  That may make old girlfriends and you happy.

I think of all the long posters, LJ is one of the few that get away with it.