[split] a discussion on origins sparked by "The Order of Things"

[Torkelburger]

So it is the "atheist position" I am addressing and am unsure how it became about your own personal level of honestly. (there is a big difference)

Can you re-write this in a more clear and apprehensible manner?  With the grammatical and spelling errors, I'm not sure if I'm getting the right syntax.  And why did you write "(there is a big difference)"?  Can you elaborate what you are talking about?

Obviously, I never said we are not all liars.  The context of what I was asking should have been clear--in this instance, and this instance only, are you saying I'm lying about my beliefs (in my case, my lack of belief).

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Not at all. I was only picking a counter example to show that someone in the modern age could reconcile their faith in a deity and their science, since your argument was that Newton didn't know about DNA (effectively).

 
Incorrect.  I never said they couldn’t.  Please note that at the bottom of that same post, I acknowledged that in a (relatively) recent and famous poll of a scientists, 33% of them believed in a personal god as opposed to 41% not believing in any god of any kind (while 18% believed in some kind of “higher power” as in a deist-type “watchmaker” sort of being or what George Carlin calls “The Great Electron” or something).

The point about Newton is that you are comparing apples to oranges because nobody knows what his beliefs would be TODAY, were he alive.  Yes, he could be in the 33% as in your counter-example, but he could have been in the 41%, given the new information available to him.  We don’t know.  That’s my point.  So, to mention some centuries-old super-popular scientist we all love and respect doesn’t mean much to me.  They are completely ignorant of too many things.  Just because we have a minority of scientists today who believe in a personal god, doesn’t mean he would too.  It's an Appeal to Authority anyway, and doesn't matter at all.

Why should I accept that the null hypothesis is 'there is no god'? The null hypothesis can be anything.

I never once said to accept the null hypothesis that “there is no god”.  In fact, I’ve said the opposite (that no one is saying “there is no god”).  I’ve stated I think more than once that the assertion that there is no god (a positive claim) and lacking the belief there is a god are two separate things.

You are wrong that the hypothesis can be anything.  It is a two-prong proposition.  Either a god or god(s) exist(s) or a god or god(s) do not exist(s).  A or not A.  One of those is, in fact, in reality, true.  If you assert one or the other, then you have to have evidence for it.  Otherwise, it’s just a baseless assertion believed to be true on faith alone.

Again, you have arbitrarily chosen a null hypothesis that 'there is no god' and need evidence to abandon that hypothesis. That is your choice.

I have done no such thing.  I have argued against doing that very thing over and over in this thread.  I am an agnostic atheist.  I do not know if there is a god.  That is exactly why I do not believe one exists.  I do not know if there is NOT a god either.  That is exactly why I do not believe a god does NOT exist.  I lack both beliefs.  That is an agnostic atheist.  BTW, saying you lack a belief is “weak” atheism as opposed to “strong” atheism, which would state that “no gods exist”.  In some cases, which you’ve mentioned earlier, this is satisfactory.  Some atheists use this in certain instances as in denying the existence of the Biblical Christian God as defined in the Bible on the basis of the definition leading to logical contradictions, so it cannot logically exist.  Or in your example of the Olympus gods.  However, I do not take that stance.
 
I’ll have to address your other points later tomorrow or later this week.