That sounds like a semantic argument that I dont care to waste our time with. The definitions I use I think are more accurate, for what that is worth, but I think they have more 'symetry' if you will.
To me the first questionis whether one 'believes there is a God; Theists say 'yes', Atheists say 'No' and Agnostics say 'maybe, maybe not'.
The Fideist says 'yes' to God no matter what possible evidence one provides (evidence is by its nature insufficient to address the question of God existing), while the Apologist says he believes in God for reason of evidence (evidence relevant). The Theistic Existentialist claims no evidence, but chooses to believe in God because it suits him to (evidence irrelevant).
The Negative Atheist says that he disbelieves in God because of a lack of evidence (evidence relevant and wanting), while the Positive evidence asserts knowledge that God does not exist (evidence relevant and affirms a negative). MEanwhile the Agnostic says there is not sufficient evidence to warrant a decision in either direction. I think the Negative Atheist and Agnostic often seem squishily similar, but are different in the conclusions drawn from the void of evidence they claim is there.
The remaining atheists make an assertion that they know there isn't a God. That is faith based atheism and those people are..ahem..irrational..often rebellious kids
I suspect you are right in most cases, and I think there is a similar immaturity or insecurity on the part of many strident Theists.
I often hear an argument from ID proponents that ID is fit for schools because it is not based on religious belief. We are told that ID doesn't mention who the Designer is, it could be aliens, God, anything apparently. But everyone knows that in reality the Intelligent Design movement is the old Creationist movement in disguise. So it is quite funny that you accidently (?) reveal this by saying "theism will triumph" in reference to ID.
Maybe I misunderstand ID, but I thought it was more than the old argument from ignorance. My concept of their claim is that design is testable and that there are cases where it is necesary and not simply the best WAG for what happened. For instance, Irreducable Complexity is more than an argument based on ignorance, it is asserting that there are cases where complexity CANNOT be reduced, which is qualitatively different from asserting that there is 'no known method' to accomplish complexity.
I know that I am not sufficiently trained to thoroughly evaluate this claim, but I see that more people are coming to accept it as time goes on, and so I am wanting to see more debate on the issue and not see it stifled by some ideological process based on philosophical presumptions science cannot appropriately address.
The theory of evolution is currently strongest at the large scale level of fossils, species and populations and the general mechanisms for how they can evolve. This is essentially the kind of stuff Darwin produced. It is what convinces me.
Agreed, though I think as time goes on, Darwins original idea will be qualified and further defined much as Newtons physics were.
For example, I think Punctuated Equilibrium is a better model than a theory of uniform development, etc.
ID locks onto this lack of knowledge to claim it is evidence of intelligent design. But the lack of natural explaination is possibly due to the lack of understanding of the ties between genetics and embyronic development. People ask what are the genetic stages of say eye evolution, but noone is in a position to answer that yet. A lack of an answer now doesn't mean a lack of an answer ever.
Agreed, but this is not the case with ID *if* they are asserting a provable inability to randomly acheive a type of complex order that they have found in nature that is a small fraction of the cases known.
"Irreducable Complexity is more than an argument based on ignorance, it is asserting that there are cases where complexity CANNOT be reduced, which is qualitatively different from asserting that there is 'no known method' to accomplish complexity."
Yes you are right, I think I over simplified ID. There are interesting concepts in it that make sense and have potential applications such as irreducible complexity.
Science is going to have to continue for years to come figuring out how structures work while looking for natural paths for origin. There is a finite amount of knowledge to be found about biology so the work will be completed eventually. If it produces fruitless results to support the theory of evolution then intelligent design is the only remaining conclusion and only it will be intellectually impossible to deny intelligent design.
But until then all an Intelligent Design theory can do is comment on the lack of natural paths found so far. There is no way to conclude that a specific structure is not evolvable until all knowledge of biology concerning that structure is obtained and can be looked at. Even if Intelligent Design was accepted as a scientific theory, it is hard to imagine what kind of scientific pursuits it would encourage that are not already being done.