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A website espousing the virtues of agnosticism seems incomplete without a discussion of Russell's (in)famous 'teapot' analogy -- perhaps the most cogent (and popular) argument against the agnostic postition. I.e. to what extent is it reasonable to adopt a neutral position on beliefs for which there is no evidence? - Atheism is often portrayed, by both agnostics and theists alike, as having an unjustifiable certititude in the non-existance of God. This is a mischaracterisation. Of course, in the absence of convincing proof for God's existance, we are all agnostics in the literal sense of "not knowing". However, this does not mean that the arguments either way are equally reasonable. - An atheist is simply someone who has applied probabilistic reasoning to the question of God's existance and decided that, as LaPlace is famously quoted, "I have no need of that hypothesis".

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A website espousing the virtues of agnosticism seems incomplete without a discussion of Russell's (in)famous 'teapot' analogy -- perhaps the most cogent (and popular) argument against the agnostic postition. I.e. to what extent is it reasonable to adopt a neutral position on beliefs for which there is no evidence? - 'Russell's teapot' calls into question the idea that the burden of proof lies on the sceptic to disprove unfalsifiable claims (e.g. that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot, which is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes, revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit). It can be similarly deployed against the equally unfalsifiable claims that God exists and that God does not exist. The burden of proof lies with those who make such assertions, not with those who doubt them. - I'm also doubtful of the claim that atheistic conclusions are more reasonable than theistic conclusions. Reasoning is the process of making correct inferences from a set of premises to a set of conclusions. Atheistic conclusions may be perfectly reasonable on the assumption of one set of fundamental principles and theistic conclusions may be just as perfectly reasonable on the assumption of a different set, depending on the quality of the inferences that string each argument together. - The most cogent argument I know of against the agnostic position is the pragmatic argument made by William James in The Will to Believe, which was written in reply to W.K. Clifford's The Ethics of Belief. There's a succinct summary of their dispute here

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Russell's Teapot is more than an appeal to shift the burden of proof. Essentially it is asking us 'how reasonable is it to be agnostic about celestial crockery?' -- and, by extension any beliefs for which the truth-claims are out of proportion with the evidence provided for them. The analogy is an example of Bayesian inference. Although the non-existence of the teapot cannot be known beyond all doubt, we can justifiably infer that it doesn't exist based on our understanding and experience.

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Russell's Teapot is more than an appeal to shift the burden of proof. Essentially it is asking us 'how reasonable is it to be agnostic about celestial crockery?' -- and, by extension any beliefs for which the truth-claims are out of proportion with the evidence provided for them. The analogy is an example of Bayesian inference. Although the non-existence of the teapot cannot be known beyond all doubt, we can justifiably infer that it doesn't exist based on our understanding and experience. - Sorry, I have to disagree with you there. The conclusion Russell draws from the teapot analogy is 'that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology', not that there is therefore positive reason to believe their contraries ... e.g. that God doesn't exist. Here is the relevant passage from Russell's article: - Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. It is customary to suppose that, if a belief is widespread, there must be something reasonable about it. I do not think this view can be held by anyone who has studied history. Practically all the beliefs of savages are absurd. In early civilizations there may be as much as one percent for which there is something to be said. In our own day.... But at this point I must be careful. We all know that there are absurd beliefs in Soviet Russia. If we are Protestants, we know that there are absurd beliefs among Catholics. If we are Catholics, we know that there are absurd beliefs among Protestants. If we are Conservatives, we are amazed by the superstitions to be found in the Labour Party. If we are Socialists, we are aghast at the credulity of Conservatives. I do not know, dear reader, what your beliefs may be, but whatever they may be, you must concede that nine-tenths of the beliefs of nine-tenths of mankind are totally irrational. The beliefs in question are, of course, those which you do not hold. I cannot, therefore, think it presumptuous to doubt something which has long been held to be true, especially when this opinion has only prevailed in certain geographical regions, as is the case with all theological opinions. - My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity.

I don't know whether God exists or not; therefore I remain agnostic in relation to the matter. At the same time, relative to the current state of my understanding and experience, I have no reason to believe 'the dogmas of traditional theology'; therefore I withhold my assent to those dogmas. But, just because I have no reason to believe the dogmas of traditional religion, this by itself gives me no good reason to give my assent to their opposites.

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So, are you saying that the teapot analogy doesn't apply to the agnostic position? The spell it out as clearly as I can, permit me the following substitution: - "I don't know whether [an orbital teapot] exists or not; therefore I remain agnostic in relation to the matter." - Is this a sensible position to take? - Of course, without the benefit of omniscience, we are all de facto agnostics, but that doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't make a judgement either way. In this example, even though we are, philosophically speaking, teapot-agnostics, we are for all practical purposes a-teapotists. Anyone proposing that we take seriously his tale of orbital crockery would be laughed out of town. - Despite your apparent disagreements, it seems as though we're largely on the same page. Whilst you declare yourself to be an agnostic about the concept of 'God' (whatever that might be), you are effectively an atheist when it comes to any specific examples of what God is -- at least as far as "traditional dogma" is concerned. If pressed, I imagine most self-declared atheists would say the same thing. - That given, you are presumably an atheist with regards to Osiris, Athena or Jehovah. So all that's left for us is to find a definition of "God" about whom you can remain agnostic :-) . All of which rather begs the question of whether a wholly unknowable "God" really deserves to be called "God" at all?

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I hope you won't mind my joining in, not to comment on the immediate disagreement, but to put a slightly different handle on the teapot. First, though, I have to say that whitecraw's conclusion to his 2 Feb. entry echoes my sentiments precisely, and I found myself mentally ticking all his comments on Clifford v James. All of this amounts to an illuminating discussion on the problem of believing/disbelieving propositions that can't be proved or disproved, but I wonder if in some ways it doesn't distort the main issue. - My starting-point is not whether to believe in a god (or an orbiting teapot). On the assumption that we and the world around us are real ... debatable I know, but we wouldn't be communicating with one another if we didn't share this assumption ... I begin with the question "How did we get here?" By this I mean the origin of life itself ... Darwin's few forms or one, Dawkins' "first hereditary molecule" ... and not evolution, which I do believe in. I then ask: "Could it have been by chance?" I ponder the fact that it has taken the most brilliant conscious minds to unravel the code of an organism that came to life, reproduced itself, and held within itself the potential for infinite variations ... even now we can't replicate it ... and I find that I am unable to believe that unconscious chance could create such a mechanism. My next step is to look for an alternative explanation, and it can only be some kind of design. And so I look at as many versions of design theory as I can find. They are a rich source, since they entail looking at areas of human experience beyond the purely physical, but ultimately I find that all the versions that are offered by the various religions have great gaps in their reasoning and in their plausibility. They demand from me a faith that I cannot muster. At this point, I opt for agnosticism. - The teapot analogy leaves out all the initial stages of my reasoning, and makes us focus exclusively on belief in God, thereby emphasizing the weakness of the theist case and distracting us from the problematical nature of the alternative. It's unbalanced ... hence my misgiving that the teapot discussion provides too narrow a focus. It ties in, of course, with Mark's description of an atheist as "simply someone who has applied probabilistic reasoning to the question of God's existence" and decided that he has "no need of that hypothesis", which seems fair enough if we stick rigidly to the dictionary definition. But I would like to ask if you have also applied probabilistic reasoning to the question of whether unconscious chance can create a mechanism so complex that our conscious minds have only just begun to fathom it out. If you can honestly answer that this hypothesis is acceptable to you, then there is no more to be said. That is your belief. I might even say your faith. But I can't see why this judgement in itself should be regarded as "reasonable". - In passing, there is one other point I would like to raise in relation to the Russell article. He says: "practically all the beliefs of savages are absurd", and goes on to say that "all theological opinions" have only prevailed in "certain geographical regions". Even if in Russell's day his reference to "savages" might have been acceptable, this seems to me a misleading generalization. The stories, details, names and rituals may vary enormously, but from the fence on which I am sitting, the basic belief in supernatural powers that have put us here in the first place seems remarkably similar from one region and from one historical age to the next. It is not "presumptuous" to doubt something long held to be true, but the fact that the same powers are called God here, Allah there, Jehovah, Zeus, Madonna or Babagaga doesn't alter what they stand for. Belief in some kind of deity or deities, even if it's irrational, is common to many if not most human societies.

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dhw writes: <i>I begin with the question "How did we get here?" By this I mean the origin of life itself ... Darwin's few forms or one, Dawkins' "first hereditary molecule" ... and not evolution, which I do believe in. I then ask: "Could it have been by chance?" I ponder the fact that it has taken the most brilliant conscious minds to unravel the code of an organism that came to life, reproduced itself, and held within itself the potential for infinite variations ... even now we can't replicate it ... and I find that I am unable to believe that unconscious chance could create such a mechanism. My next step is to look for an alternative explanation, and it can only be some kind of design.</i> - So we are back again at the problem of abiogenesis. See my first post under the heading "origin of life", where I gave links to various sites discussing the latest scientific hypotheses. It seems to me that significant progress has already been made in finding sequences of events that could lead to the origin of life. There is much more to be done, but there is nothing in principle that makes it impossible, except your incredulity. - The reason I find the origin of life likely to have occurred through some sequence of chemical processes is that it is a matter of a relatively few elements being combined in a relatively few ways, like a combinatorial problem in mathematics, and there is sufficient time for such a process to have emerged, step by step. The individual steps are not improbable, but to suppose it all happened at once is of course impossibly improbable (you multiply together the improbabilities of the component steps). - The postulation of a "designer" to guide these processes is just so over-the-top in improbabilities as not to be worth considering.

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Wikipedia lists well over a dozen hypotheses and models. One of them may be right. Maybe none of them are right. Leslie E. Orgel, a research professor of biology, discusses most of them. His account is full of comments like: "(we) still have to explain...", "this scenario is attractive but has proved hard to confirm", "it is not easy to see how...", "all these problems are worrisome". On the subject of RNA, he says: "It is harder to conceive of the steps by which RNA might have begun to replicate in the absence of proteins," and "after years of trying, we have been unable to achieve the second step of replication... without help from protein enzymes."
 Arthur V. Chadwick, a professor of geology and biology, also runs through the various models, with similar reservations. On the subject of RNA he writes: "In addition to the problems of synthesis of the precursors and the polymerization reactions, the whole scheme is dependent on the ability to synthesize an RNA molecule which is capable of making a copy of itself, a feat that has so far eluded strenuous efforts. The most devastating indictment of the scheme, however, is that it offers no clue as to how one gets from such a scheme to the DNA-RNA-Protein mechanism of all living cells."
 Professor Orgel, who died last year, was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. The conclusion of his detailed scientific analysis reads: "As we have seen, investigators have proposed many hypotheses, but evidence in favor of each of them is fragmentary at best. The full details of how the RNA world, and life, emerged may not be revealed in the near future. Nevertheless, as chemists, biochemists and molecular biologists cooperate on ever more ingenious experiments, they are sure to fill in many missing parts of the puzzle." It's a pity, from your point of view, that he cannot bring himself to say "all the missing parts", but at least he shares some of your optimism. He does not mention a creator or chance, and this is as objective an article as I can find.
 Professor Chadwick, on the other hand, is a Creationist, and so not unexpectedly the conclusion of his detailed scientific analysis is that the whole thing is so complex that a spontaneous origin of life is impossible, and creation is the "only reasonable alternative".
 You, on the other hand, are an atheist, and so not unexpectedly you consider that the "relatively few elements being combined in a relatively few ways" make a spontaneous origin perfectly possible.
 Where does that leave the amateur sleuth? I agree with you that there is nothing in principle that makes it impossible for scientists to find sequences of events that could lead to the origin of life. No-one can deny that life originated or that there must have been a sequence of events that led to it. I am uncertain, though, as to why, if scientists do eventually work out how it all happened, that will prove that it happened by chance, but my mind remains open. If in my lifetime they do prove that unconscious matter COULD spontaneously take all these "not improbable" steps to assemble a self-replicating mechanism capable of infinite variations, then I will gladly jump down on your side of the fence. As I have made clear at the end of the passage you have quoted, I cannot subscribe to any of the design theories either. But at the moment, since specialist scientists themselves acknowledge so many gaps and uncertainties in the theories/models/ hypotheses you want me to believe (though I'm not quite sure which one you want me to believe), I am unable to take a decision based solely on your assurances that eventually it's going to happen. I realize that this must be extremely frustrating for someone like yourself who has already seen the light. I have the same problem with friends of mine who are devout Christians.

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Can we just sort out these threads? George Jelliss's reply to DHW belongs to Origin of Life, so I've posted my comment there. Let's leave Mark and whitecraw to fight over the teapot.

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If you're making one mistake here, it's in thinking that your doubts and scepticism about current, scientific hypothesis about abiogenesis have some bearing on the issue of God's existence. These are two entirely separate fields of discussion. Science does not rule out God (although specific claims about the nature of God may come under the firing line), but neither does it give us any good reasons to believe in Him/Her/It. - Ultimately it is and issue of belief (or the lack thereof), rather than an issue of knowledge.

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You're quite right that science does not rule out God or give reasons to believe in him/her/it. Science itself is or should be an objective method of acquiring knowledge. However, if I'm trying to find out how we got here, and must choose between chance and design, then abiogenesis certainly has a bearing on the issue of God's existence. Therefore the two fields of discussion are not "entirely separate". - They are also brought together by people who use science to promote their beliefs or disbeliefs. You can't separate science from scientists, and you can't stop scientists (or non-scientists) from drawing conclusions that go beyond science. There are professors of biology who claim that their study of science makes it impossible to believe that life originated other than by design. The claim itself is not scientific, but again it brings the two fields of discussion together. Perhaps you mean that they OUGHT to be separate, but even that is suspect when science comes into conflict with religious beliefs. - Naturally I agree with you totally that the existence of God is ultimately an issue of belief and not knowledge. I don't, however, agree with some of the things you say about "popular agnosticism" in your reply to whitecraw. Firstly, perhaps you could look at the regrettably short thread on the subject of atheism. I would take theism and atheism as the absolutes ... the 100%, if you like (= belief or disbelief in a god). But most reasonable people will stop short of the 100%, so we can say that perhaps Mr X and Mrs Y are 90% one and 10% the other. When an agnostic argues against theists or atheists, he actually argues against their 90% and not their 10%, but I can't see any way round this problem. - You regard agnosticism as "intellectually impoverished", and go on to say "either you believe or you don't, there is no middle ground." I would question both statements. You say agnostics (type 2) "erroneously attribute absolute certainty to the positions of both atheism and theism." If this is erroneous (and I think it is with regard to most theists and atheists ... see above), then both positions are open to doubt. In which case you can't argue that either you believe or you don't. It's not absolute. Your belief takes on a percentage value, and the side you come down on will constitute a percentage proportionate to the degree of conviction and the degree of doubt. Your judgement is that you know enough to be, say, 90% certain (with 10% doubt). My judgement is that I don't know/believe enough yet actually to make a judgement (= middle ground). My doubt ratio is simply much larger than yours (and also fluctuates). Why is this "impoverished"? I am looking around, asking questions, expanding on the doubts you already have, speculating on all kinds of possible scenarios (which you might like to exclude, though they are still there in your niggling 10%), receptive to new ideas...I can't see why my open-mindedness is intellectually poorer than saying: "I believe/don't believe in a God."

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The issues are wholly separate. Evidence of design (if it existed) would still not provide evidence for a supernatural creator deity. Supernatural entities by definition cannot be proven by the natural sciences. Furthermore, if God is unknowable, then the idea of God becomes meaningless, being neither true nor false; an empty concept. - Agnosticism is "intellectually impoverished" for the reasons discussed in my original post here. Namely, how reasonable is it to be "sceptical" about things for which there is no evidence whatsoever? Assuming that you don't actively speculate about the about the (non)existence of fairies, unicorns or extra-terrestrial teapots, why is it then okay to single out 'God' for special treatment? At the very least it is inconsistent, at worst it is patently ridiculous. - Atheism and theism are not rival schools of belief. Neither do they do not exist on an imagined scale of belief / unbelief, leaving "agnosticism" to occupy the happy middle ground. This is a common mischaracterisation. Atheism is not the "opposite" of theism, just as "no tomatoes" is not the opposite of "some tomatoes". To put it plainly; atheism is the absence of belief, not the belief in absence.

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'Furthermore, if God is unknowable, then the idea of God becomes meaningless, being neither true nor false; an empty concept.' - What is at issue in agnosticism is whether of not we can know (i.e. decide beyond the possibility of doubt) the truth of the claim that God does/does not exist. Now, according to one theory of meaning, if this question is undecidable, the claim is meaningless. I wouldn't go as far as this, because I think that there's more than one kind of meaning that an utterance can have; and, just because an utterance can't be meaningful in a true-or-false kind of way, it can yet be meaningful in other ways. But I do agree that the truth or falsity of the claim that God exists/doesn't exist is undecidable, and this is chief reason to be agnostic in relation to that claim: the undecidability of its truth or falsity; its being 'empty' of any truth-value. - Regarding how reasonable it is to be sceptical about claims for which there is no evidence: scepticism is the policy of suspending one's belief in relation to claims the truth of which one cannot know, the suspension of belief being a refusal to commit oneself one way or another to its truth or falsity; and this policy ... like any policy ... is just as reasonable as the validity of the inferences by which it is arrived at from the premises on which it's based. - 'Atheism and theism are not rival schools of belief. Neither do they do not exist on an imagined scale of belief / unbelief, leaving "agnosticism" to occupy the happy middle ground. This is a common mischaracterisation. Atheism is not the "opposite" of theism, just as "no tomatoes" is not the opposite of "some tomatoes". To put it plainly; atheism is the absence of belief, not the belief in absence.'

If you define atheism as the absence of belief in God, then atheism and theism are not commensurable belief positions and there can be no meaningful dispute between them. However, atheism is one of those very imprecise terms which is claimed not only by people who don't believe in the existence of God but also by people who positively deny God's existence, which is the opposite of theism or the affirmation of God's existence. - But I do agree that agnosticism doesn't occupy some 'middle ground' on a 'sliding scale' between atheism and theism. Agnosticism is a different kind of thing entirely: it's a position on whether the truth of falsity of the claim that God exists/doesn't exist can be known; as such it can be theistic or atheistic and, of itself, entails neither and is entailed by neither.

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On second thoughts, your definition of atheism (different from mine) makes it clear why you say atheism and theism are not rival schools of belief. I just need your definition of theism to find out why you think the two are not opposite. But it's already pretty clear that our disagreement on this part of the subject does actually boil down to definitions.

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'So are you saying that the teapot analogy doesn't apply to the agnostic position?' - No, the point I am making is that your interpretation of Russell's Teapot goes beyond the evidence of the text. The analogy illustrates a logical point about unfalsifiable claims and the burden of proof; that's as far as it goes. This is not to say anything about whether it is or isn't applicable to the claims that constitute the agnostic position in relation to the question of whether God exists or not. - '"I don't know whether [an orbital teapot] exists or not; therefore I remain agnostic in relation to the matter." - 'Is this a sensible position to take?' - Any other position would be absurd, since anyone who doesn't know whether the teapot exists or not is by definition an agnostic with regard to its existence or non-existence. That's just what the word 'agnostic' means. - Of course, without the benefit of omniscience, we are all de facto agnostics, but that doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't make a judgement either way. - This is true. But it takes us away from the matter of our knowledge-claims and into the realm of the ethics of belief, where Russell's Teapot does have immediate relevance. The outcome of Russell's argument from analogy is the logical point that the fact one may not be able to disprove the existence of the teapot (or any other unfalsifiable claim) does not provide one with good enough reason to give one's assent to ('believe') the claim that it does exist. Only positive proof or evidence of the existence of the teapot would do that. He then goes on to assert the ethical principle that one ought to give one's assent to only those claims that one finds reasonable in relation to one's own understanding and experience. - I find neither of these points objectionable. If a theist claims that God exists and an atheist claims that God doesn't exist, the onus lies upon each of them to make good their respective claim. The fact that I can disprove neither does not thereby make either claim any more 'believable'. A claim is believable, according to Russell's article, only to the extent that it appears reasonable in relation to ('fits') one's own understanding and experience; which fits my own current understanding of moral autonomy. - 'Despite your apparent disagreements, it seems as though we're largely on the same page. Whilst you declare yourself to be an agnostic about the concept of 'God' (whatever that might be), you are effectively an atheist when it comes to any specific examples of what God is -- at least as far as "traditional dogma" is concerned.' - Regarding my own personal position: I don't know if God exists or not; therefore I am by definition agnostic in relation to the existence or non-existence of God. However, I find the claim that God exists (at least, in the same sense that the table at which I am sitting exists) unreasonable in relation to my own understanding and experience (though I've no problem with the claim that God exists as an object of belief or as a fictional character or as a concept or as a symbol). So, with regard to the claim that God exists (at least, in certain modes), I am an atheist. But my understanding and experience is open to change. - Interestingly (or not!), I know several Christians who are agnostic. In a memorable passage in Graham Greene's novel, Monsignor Quixote, the hapless village priest remarks to the Communist mayor that of course he (the priest) doesn't know whether God exists or not; if he did know, he wouldn't have to have faith. He hopes and trusts and commits himself to the belief that God exists because, if He didn't exist, the shittiness of life would be too terrible to bear. (And it turns out that the mayor believes in the Revolution for the same reason.) - Monsignor Quixote exemplifies William James' pragmatic ethics of belief. But there are also Christian agnostics who exemplify Russell's rationalistic ethics; that is, who admit (like me) that they don't know whether God exists or not, but who (unlike me) give their assent to the claim that God exists because it is more reasonable in relation to their understanding and experience of the world than the claim that God doesn't exist. - Agnosticism can be atheistic or theistic. It isn't a 'third way'.

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Perhaps it would be useful to separate out the two uses of the word 'agnosticism' used so far. - 1 - "Philosophical" Agnosticism - A philosophical position that holds that truth claims regarding the existence of God are unknown (or unknowable). - 2 - "Popular" Agnosticism - A "middle-ground" position situated somewhere between atheism and theism. It is most used in this sense by individuals who erroneously attribute absolute certainty to the positions of both atheism and theism -- hence, given (1), the only intellectually honest response is to remain "open-minded" about God's existence, without committing to a judgement either way. - As mentioned previously, without something close to omniscience we are all agnostics in the first, philosophical sense (theist and a-theist alike). Agnosticism is a plain statement about the imperfect nature of subjective experience ... it has little bearing on the issue of how reasonable (or ethical) it is to believe in certain things. - My point here is that the second use of the word 'agnostic' to denote someone who is functionally neutral towards the issue of God's existence is intellectually impoverished ... either you believe, or you don't, there is no middle ground. Given your previous posts on this subject, it seems that we are probably in agreement on this one. This was the point I was trying to address with Russell's Teapot (although not featured in Russell's text, the interpretation I gave has be described by large number of prominent atheist commentators, so I felt it worth addressing).

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That's a useful distinction between the two uses. I'm a bit of a purist and tend to insist on its 'proper' use in denoting the view that one cannot have knowledge of God's existence or otherwise. Belief, of course, is another matter. Clifford would have us believe only what we know, Russell what 'fits' with our understanding and experience, and James whatever is 'good' or useful in the way of belief. Each would claim for his own view that it represents the most 'reasonable' ethic of belief. I've never been sure which is in fact the most reasonable position to take; each has its own strengths and weaknesses. - I agree that someone who is functionally neutral towards the issue of God's existence (which I suspect is today a majority of folk in the West) is for all practical intents and purposes an atheist (someone who lives as if God doesn't exist); though there is still a big difference in attitude between someone who positively disbelieves in the existence of God and someone who simply has no opinion on the matter or who sceptically suspends their belief/disbelief. If belief is an attitude of active assent towards a claim, then atheism as positive disbelief is an attitude of active dissent from the claim that God exists, while atheism as an absence of belief/disbelief is more an attitude of indifference towards that claim, and atheism as a suspension of belief/disbelief is an attitude of scepticism towards that claim. - I'm not sure how intellectually impoverished the view is that indifference and scepticism are attitudes it is possible to assume towards the claim that God exists/doesn't exist. It seems to me that, for many people, the theological question of whether God exists or not isn't a 'live' issue(as James puts it) on which they need to have an opinion one way or the other. Scepticism is a far more difficult attitude to assume; it certainly needs to be cultivated and requires a certain discipline to achieve; but it's hardly unknown. I think it's perfectly possible to maintain through indifference or scepticism attitudes which are alternative to belief and disbelief; to actively assenting to and actively dissenting from a given claim.

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You say that the issues of God's existence and the origin of life are "wholly separate", and yet we agree that the issue of God's existence is one of belief and not knowledge. The question then is not one of scientific evidence for the existence of a supernatural creator ... we both know that is impossible. The question is whether scientific evidence can influence belief. If science could show that life might have come about by chance, it would certainly influence some people to doubt God's existence ... just as some scientists have concluded from their studies that the first life forms are too complicated to have come about without a conscious designer whom they call God. The fact that "supernatural entities cannot be proven by the natural sciences" is irrelevant: on the level of belief, the two issues are interlinked. - Your question: "how reasonable is it to be sceptical about things for which there is no evidence whatsoever?" seems to suggest (if I've understood you correctly) that evidence has to be scientific. This may or may not be reasonable, depending on your beliefs, but for someone less committed than yourself, it might seem unreasonable to declare that thousands of years of cultural history, personal testimonies and experiences do not constitute some sort of evidence. Certainly many people claim that it is evidence, so why is it unreasonable to be sceptical towards it? This is where the teapot analogy (and your fairies and unicorns) becomes totally inappropriate. My starting-point remains: how did we get here? No-one would seriously argue that a teapot, or fairies or unicorns put us here. But countless generations, including some of the most brilliant minds in history, have believed in or at least not rejected the concept of a deity or deities that started it all off. And so of course the concept of a god is singled out for special treatment. It has underlain many of our civilizations, and it still holds sway in many societies. You will certainly not deny that it is also still causing enormous damage to our world. How much damage has the concept of the orbiting teapot done? To deny the special place of the God hypothesis is ... if I may quote you ... "patently ridiculous". - You say "atheism and theism are not rival schools of belief", and "atheism is not the 'opposite' of theism", and "atheism is the absence of belief, not the belief in absence." It all sounds very authoritative, but where does your authority come from? Who has laid down the definitions? We are entering into territory which makes all discussion pointless unless we can first agree on what we're talking about. Your definition of atheism would come far closer to my definition of agnosticism (your "popular" agnosticism, as opposed to your "philosophical" agnosticism). In all my arguments, I use "atheism" to mean disbelief in or denial of the existence of a god or gods; I use "theism" to mean belief in the existence of a god or gods. Unfortunately, there is no word in our vocabulary to denote the state of "not believing but not disbelieving", and that is why it has become more and more common to use "agnosticism" in this sense. Clearly, this causes some confusion because philosophers insist on the original meaning of the term, but we have no alternative at the moment. The definitions I am working with show clearly that atheism and theism are rival schools of belief, atheism is the opposite of theism, and agnosticism is the middle ground (though not necessarily as happy as you suggest). Since we are clearly talking at cross purposes, it would be helpful if you would give us your own definitions of atheism and theism to show why they are not rival or indeed opposite to each other.

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