Abiogenesis (Origins)

by broken_cynic , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 01:05 (4854 days ago) @ dhw

Dhw: Atheism therefore expressly rejects the existence of a designer and hence the theory of design.
>KENT: Agreed. (Wednesday 3 August at 18.21)->>>dhw: "If you categorically reject deliberate design..."
>>KENT: I do not. (Thursday 4 August at 23.29)-> dhw: I hope you will understand my confusion. Are you an atheist or not?-Even as I begin to try and simplify the pages of discussion currently standing between us, this bit deserves a direct response.-1. I am indeed an atheist.
2. I do not see everything, even questions like this, through some kind of lens of atheism. 
3. If I were to be really pedantic I could say that no, atheism does not expressly reject the possibility of a design/er, only the silly/impossible/limited human formulations of gods. An intelligent being in an 'outer' universe intentionally creating this universe isn't out of the question. But that would be a discussion more about definition than (conjectural) substance and likely not worth having.
4. (most relevant answer) Due to my own take on the context of each, I answered the first question as if it were a question about atheism and the second as if it were a question about science. Atheism does reject the designers that religions posit, full stop. From a scientific perspective, no hypothesis that doesn't contradict the data is off the table until one has enough evidence to cobble together a good theory (and even then, it remains happily vulnerable to an improved theory with greater accuracy and predictive power.)