One of the biggest problems with arguments of this sort is that it's easy to talk past someone because of slightly different meanings that the different terms hold for individuals. To try and nip this problem in the bud, I've put down some of the terms that would normally cause problems in a debate of this sort, and I'll keep the list updated as necessary.
theist: someone who holds a belief in the existence of a god or gods, esp. belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures
atheist: anyone who is not a theist (note that the belief that there is no god is not necessary for atheism although a minority of atheists may hold this belief)
dogma: a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true
faith: strong belief in god and in the doctrines of a religion, or a non-religious doctrine or entity based on inner conviction rather than inductive reasoning or empirical evidence
I haven't bothered to supply a definition for agnostic since the term agnostic, in the sense that most people use the word, is covered under my definition of atheism. I've never found the term agnostic to be terribly useful, after all we all are technically agnostic about infinitely many things. I'm a fairy agnostic - I can't disprove the existence of fairies - but I don't think that it's necessary to apply this label to myself. Similarly I'm agnostic with regard to the existence of Shivambu Street in Nairobi - I doubt there's one, I just made it up, but it's not knowledge that I claim, and in that sense I have to consider my self to technically be a Shivambu Street Agnostic. See what I mean about the uselessness of the term agnostic ?
Whether you like the rest of my definitions or not isn't really all that important, what is important is that the definitions above are what I mean when I use the terms in question in the posts on this blog.
Having dealt with the terminology, the next thing to clear up is related to the burden of proof. Some atheists are critical of 'new atheists', like Dawkins, being willing to engage in debate regarding the legitimacy of belief. They feel that by engaging in debate you implicitly lending some credibility to your opponent. I want to be clear that what I'm trying to do here is to put together a coherent intellectual defense of my own position - that the only way to any truth is through inductive reasoning and explanations that are inherently good (more of that in later posts), and that what you believe to be true matters.
I'm not trying to disprove the existence of God, or the efficacy of alternative medicines or to debunk any other dogma. I don't need to. The burden of proof lies with the people who make those claims and nothing that I or any other counter-apologist says can change that. If you want to make the claim that God is a real entity for example, it's up to you to provide the evidence to support your claim.
It's always necessary to place the burden of proof on a claimant. It's the ONLY way to build a useful model of reality. If we were to accept even one claim as true without evidence, on what basis could we reject another claim that lacks evidence ? If we accept all claims until they are disproved we'd live in pretty confusing world indeed. Noone can disprove beyond doubt the existence of Leprechauns, or faires, or wizards, or the river Styx. In short, when considering any claim, the proper default position is that of the sceptic, not the claimant.
