[lars512]

You do realize that you too are using Occam's Razor in your religious beliefs, since you implicitly believe in only a single "capital-G God". There might be numerous gods, but really, that's too complicated an explanation. One would be enough, hey?

Really though, you're railing at the scientific establishment because the idea of many universes is too strange for you. If you have a better theory that fits the data, advance it and you'll have an audience. Belief in a deity may be a personal substitute for you, but it won't advance the state of knowledge any further; it's instead giving up, choosing to believe that an answer is out of anyone's grasp.

Historically many people gave up on interesting problems. Many now have neat answers based on our better understanding of the world around us.

[electromagnetic]

I'm agnostic, which is why Dawkin's dogma annoys me so. He argues as blindly as the religious right wing, IE out of faith. His theories on god have not been proven, and as yet cannot be proven so he relies on faith that he is right.

The only reason God exists is because people respond to the idea of it. Dawkins like everyone else in the atheist religion of his is waging a crusade against something that will be forgotten with education, but they promote it with idiocy - if you make people choose sides, they'll choose the comfortable one over the rational one.

There's also a way to deal with the devout who are blindly substituting 'god' as a cover for their needs. Give them a few anti-psychotics and see if it clears 'god' up for them like the Schizophrenics who believe god is telling them to kill people.

[rue]

Do you believe in a god? If not, you are an atheist regardless of whether you are open to the option of one existing or not.

[electromagnetic]

No I do not believe in a god, I also do not believe in blind faith of which you blatantly have in the non-existence of god. I'm sorry but blind faith is still blind faith whether you're worshiping a deity or the non-existence of a deity.

I fail to see Dawkins as anything but an Atheist Pope. He speaks politely, he's literate and well read, he's a class act. Except they both command blind followers and make no attempts to educate or direct them.

Sorry, but the parallels are way too disturbing for me. I'm not atheist because I don't believe in god, I'm agnostic because I believe those behaviors of blind faith are what is destructive to our society and our sciences.

Blind unquestioning loyalty has led to nothing good. Dawkin's provides incredible literature on evolution, but I intend to be a logical person and question him, his motives and his work to no end, just like I have questioned the religious, their motives and their works to no end.

I'll remind you that the Scientologists fit the definition of an Atheist religion, and that is definitely the company I don't want to keep.

[rue]

> No I do not believe in a god, […]

Ergo, you are an atheist.

> […] I also do not believe in blind faith of which you blatantly have in the non-existence of god.

There is no proof of such beings existing, no phenomena require their existence to be explainable and assuming their existence may compromise understanding the actual nature of phenomena. Therefore until shown otherwise I have no reason to assume they do exist.

With respect, your "agnosticism" is a distinction without difference and just sounds like an attempt to raise yourself above some arbitrarily defined group of people. Perhaps there really is a significant number of people who somehow have a spiritual belief in Atheist Pope, science or whatever, but your approach is unlikely to change any of that.

[electromagnetic]

> Therefore until shown otherwise I have no reason to assume they do exist.

I'm sorry, you are an agnostic. If you are willing to accept the possibility of the existence of god, proof serving, then you are agnostic not atheist. Atheism requires faith that god does not exist.

Now please, stop trolling me with your ignorance and inability to understand distinctions.

[rue]

It is hard to argue with someone who creates their own definitions for words. For clarity: theism is a belief in a god or gods[1]. Atheism is lack thereof, both in modern usage and normal latin meaning of the a-prefix. (Ideally of course atheism would not need to be distinguished separately - only theists vs. everyone else.)

Agnosticism asserts that the existence or nonexistence is unknowable[2].

[1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theism [2] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/agnostic