I think so. Just to pick nits, though, I think much of the argument made by the strong agnostic is arrived at a priori, so evidence isn't really the point. They might be right or they might be wrong, bit it's a little unfair to say that it's entirely faith-based.

I guess the point I'm trying to make (and apologies if you touched on this already) is that with the exception of things established by strict logic (ie, given the following set of assumptions, the following conclusion must hold) all beliefs contain within them an element of faith. Some just require more than others.

Atheists would say "There is no God" and as this is a definitive claim, there must be a proof for it to be considered a true fact.

Wrong. For someone to be an atheist they only have to say "I do not believe God exists", just as the theist states "I believe God exists."

It's a bit much to demand that people prove the veracity of their beliefs. Justify them maybe, but not a full proof. Even the commonly held definition of the agnostic who chooses neither to believe or disbelieve because of insufficient evidence has to justify their stance. For all the infinite claims that are possible, must one really withold believe or disbelieve when there isn't a full proof? And if not, why is there a special dispensation made toward God?

The Merriam-Webster definition you're using (like many dictionary definitions of involved philosophical topics) is cursory and misleading. Anything that covers the subject in any depth will tell you that agnosticism involves what a person can know, and atheism what they believe (or not believe, as the case may be).

Agnosticism just says that the existence or non-existence of any god or gods is unknowable. An atheist simply doesn't believe that any gods exist. So, in fact, both an atheist and a theist can also be an agnostic. An agnostic atheist just takes the attitude that no amount of evidence can be used to support the existence of any gods, so it is pointless to believe that they do. An agnostic theist says that although there is no evidence for the existence of any gods, they choose to believe by faith.

The question to ask is which of the following two have more "faith": the atheist who sees no evidence in god and so does not believe in it, or the theist who also sees no evidence and does. I'd argue that one takes much more than the other.

You've allowed yourself to get hung up on the difference between whether they "lack belief" or "believe in the lack", but you'll note that I never addressed that in my previous comment, because regardless of which it is, there is still the fact that, as both you and I pointed out, atheists believe that the evidence is sufficient...which is founded on nothing but faith.

I don't think that's what is being claimed at all. The distinction between "lack belief" and "belief in the lack" is important.

It seems you are assuming that in order for someone to be an atheist they believe they have enough evidence to disprove the existence of gods. But the GP is saying that it is not necessary to be an atheist and believe that he has proof that no gods exist, only to believe that there is insufficient proof that any gods exist. There's a difference.

Why are you assuming that the burden of proof is on the person without theistic beliefs?

That's just it though. Does every elected official have to be dedicated to one or the other extreme? Can't anyone be more invested in finding what makes sense rather than blindly following some ideology?

Making sure someone is constantly busy in any intellectual field is a sure-fire way to kill any hope of creativity. The best ideas often come from moments when you can just clear your head completely or just play around with ideas on your own without worrying about your productivity. Modern society seems to have forgotten this.

Well sure, but then you'd also do away with any existing protections from disproportionate power of the wealthy and corporations. So you'd be trading something out of a George Orwell novel to the modern equivalent of a work by Charles Dickens.

There has to be a middle ground

Although long, this whole article is worth a read. This part is relevant...

Just two years earlier, Moore had retired from his wood-furniture-finishing business. A lifelong surfer, his hair still ungrayed, he'd built himself a boat and settled into what he planned to be a stimulating young retirement. Raised by a sailing father and certified as a captain by the U.S. Coast Guard, he started a volunteer marine environmental monitoring group. After his hellish mid-Pacific encounter with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, his group ballooned into what is now the Algita Marine Research Foundation, devoted to confronting the flotsam of a half century, since 90 percent of the junk he was seeing was plastic.

What stunned Charles Moore most was learning where it came from. In 1975, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences had estimated that all oceangoing vessels together dumped 8 million pounds of plastic annually. More recent research showed the world's merchant fleet alone shamelessly tossing around 639,000 plastic containers every day. But littering by all the commercial ships and navies, Moore discovered, amounted to mere polymer crumbs in the ocean compared to what was pouring from the shore.

The real reason that the world's landfills weren't overflowing with plastic, he found, was because most of it ends up in an ocean-fill. After a few years of sampling the North Pacific gyre, Moore concluded that 80 percent of mid-ocean flotsam had originally been discarded on land. It had blown off garbage trucks or out of landfills, spilled from railroad shipping containers and washed down storm drains, sailed down rivers or wafted on the wind, and found its way to this widening gyre.

I remember this was covered in the book The World Without Us. If I recall correctly it's not wishful thinking that organisms will evolve that can digest plastics but likely. The lignin that lifeforms were eventually able to digest are actually more complex than our plastics.

One would hope that when that happens the byproducts that are released aren't too toxic to whatever other living things are still around.

Slightly off topic, but I really don't see why convection is classified as being in the same category as conduction and radiation. The latter two are fundamental methods in which heat can be transferred while convection is essentially a specialized form of conduction.

Regardless of whether it is sensible or not, you are behaving in a manner contrary to the rules of the road as well as the expectations of everyone else you share the road with.

If the "pause" or going through a red light is done the right way, and nobody is close enough so that me not coming to a complete stop requires anyone to change what they're doing then it's irrelevant. The only people who get angry at such things are busy-bodies who should find more important things to worry about. (Breaking traffic laws is much more dangerous for everyone when cars do it, so it doesn't apply to them).

As a cyclist I'm almost certain you don't come to a full stop at a stop sign you're going to turn right at, un-clip, wait, re-clip and start pedaling again. The countless tail-gaters I see when I'm driving my car are far more deserving of your sanctimonious ire and anyone else who likes to bitch about sensible cycling that doesn't follow the law to a T . For cyclists the ones who tick people off are the ones doing flagrantly dangerous things like zipping right through red lights or ignoring stop signs outright.

Go pound sand.

Well when I'm out cycling I make a point of pausing at those things. (Unless I'm turning right and am on a nice wide shoulder).

And "pause" is most fitting for the situation, imo. Dead stops at stop signs are only necessary when you're going through a potentially busy intersection or you need to wait for other cars at an all-way stop.

I'll stop at red lights (again except when turning right). But when I know the coast is clear I'm not waiting for it to turn green to start going again. You could potentially wait a long time if sensors are looking for other cars.

Not sure if this is the legal way to do things, but it makes sense so fuck 'em.

Not only that, but it would actually be a genuine examle of a Catch-22 - a phrase that is often misused...

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

It's easy to believe that you're happy with what you have when you haven't experienced any other options.

Hmmm, "social underachiever". I kind of like the sound of that. "Why no, I don't suck at social situations. I'd be great at it if I tried really hard. I'm just what you'd call a 'social underachiever.' Yeah, that's the ticket!'"

I should start using that. :)