Who's afraid of atheism? (and agnosticism)

I find it curious how many people accept the agnostic claim that there is no way to find out. I can imagine any number of ways that a god of any significant ability could clearly demonstrate its existence.

They may implicitly mean "no way to find out in the absence of God putting on a demonstration" when they say "no way to find out". I.e. not that confirmation can't occur, but that there's no test guaranteed to provide confirmation (or even good evidence falling short of confirmation) of existence or nonexistence.

I frequently find agnostics more dogmatic and annoying than theists. Their insistence that nothing is knowable is the nemesis of discovery, learning and progress. It's like they worship laziness and want to indoctrinate everyone else so that nothing ever gets done.

I, personally, am a stone-cold, ex-christian, fighting tooth and nail, atheist. I have some friends (really good friends) who are so deep into New Age mysticism, I could say "BOO" to them and they'd immediately ask me what spirit I was channeling. I actually celebrated Mabon with them last night, because they're my friends and I'm grateful for them and their friendship, and I'm a good sport. Really, it was sort of worth brushing off the well-meaning accusations of being "really spiritual" and "connected below the level of my consciousness," whatever that means.

My point is that it's possible to legitimately identify as an atheist and indeed to fulfill all of the baseline conditions (I do not believe in God or spirits), but nevertheless confuse people who are trying to finger you as one thing or the other. On the other hand, they're the easily confused set from the get-go, aren't they. :)

The agnostics who are dogmatic that you can't know anything are channelling Hume. And they're right. Such "knowledge" as we have is all based on unprovable assumptions for which there's no good reason they should be right, and which are justified entirely after the fact because they've worked so far. And the fact that they've worked so far in no way implies that they're valid.

This doesn't mean that the assumptions can't be right, of course. So you might as well make them and proceed, because there's not going to be a better strategy.

Except for those caveats, though, it is possible know things. They might not be certain by philosophers' standards, but for everyday tasks it's good enough.

I'm an atheist and a hard agnostic. Would I be a .5?

There are lots of gods that can be shown not to exist, but the deist one is (pretty much by definition) unknowable (and might as well not exist).

I'm pretty sure that none exist, though.

I think "spirital" is code for "religious lazy"

when someone says they are "spiritual" what I hear is "I want to believe, but not make the effort to learn about any particular beleif, go to meetings, conform to any behaviour code that is effort or have any restrictions on what I wear, eat, or do"

My problem with surveys on religious belief is that the definitions have become vague. Show me two people who say they have identical religious beliefs and I'll show you one or two liars.

qy3 (@ #2) :

Even then you can't be certain it's some omnipotent supernatural being -- how do you distinguish such performance from one given by sufficiently potent natural beings (perhaps aliens technologically far in advance of ourselves).

If a booming voice comes from the sky, and says "Behold!", and lo, 13013 stars rearrange themselves to say "B O B !", do we immediately conclude that the doctrines of the Church of the SubGenius are literally true, or do we consider alternatives, such as we've had way too much to drink, or maybe even that hyperintelligent alien space-bats with a wicked sense of humour are having a joke at our expense?

The point being that even if a supposed omnipotent supernatural being (some god in some sense) appears to manifest and do nifty tricks, should be immediately accept that conclusion, or should we consider less patently ridiculous alternatives first?

Set god and set space alien are not mutually exclusive. Any intelligent god that wasn't born on earth would be, by definition, an extraterrestrial intelligence. If an alien race has godlike powers, then why not call them gods?