I am never given reason to doubt it. Evidence is never provided and arguments like the ontological and cosmological are rationalizations and can only be intellectually satisfying to those that already accept the idea of god.

(August 16, 2014 at 3:46 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "putting the feelers out" but no, I'm not suggesting God as a theory in any sense but as a title that properly encompasses the infinitely incomprehensible that our philosophy and sciences seem directed towards as the source of everything (I don't think that can be captured by a scientific theory, btw), this substance or whatever you may have it being: unconditioned, necessary, free, and in some way separate from the physical, spacetime Universe.

It's just an idiom. So, not so much a theory as the sum total of what we do not know that has those attributes? I'm not sure why we would conceive of that as a substance or even something that could can be encapsulated by a singular title, why it would be some singular -whatever- instead of many different things (especially in the case of necessity), why it would be separate- or "free" (what does that even mean?), or unconditioned- or, why we would conceive of it at all. How does one go about describing something after claiming that it is "infinitely incomprehensible"? That's wholly and entirely entirely illogical, so I don't see how a case for it could be mounting (either in philosophy or in science). Seems like you might have twisted yourself into a conceptual knot in an attempt to salvage a word and some choice attribute claims.

So, I guess, more specifically, no- I do not wonder whether or not what someone might (incomprehensibly) describe as "infinitely incomprehensible" is a god, I don't wonder whether "it" has those attributes, or that anything has those attributes in some singular sense. I do wonder about the sense of the claim though. How did you arrive at such a place?

Having come at the issue from the other end (strict, literal fundie Christian) I can say that I am as convinced in my atheism as I once was in my theism. The difference being that my conviction as a theist was shaken as I continued to test it. Since I became an atheist, I really haven't seen anything that I hadn't already heard or used to try and support my theistic beliefs. Perhaps the most compelling being that a large part of theism (especially these days, IMO) consists of finding ways around the fact that god just won't reveal himself. I went through that phase in my life, and in the end it's very insensible and unsatisfying. I felt like Yahweh's secretary, telling people "he's been in a meeting since 33AD, and he'll be out in just a minute" for some 30 years.

My atheism is a byproduct of my skepticism.

It is a provisional position that is open to be changed by evidence and reasoned argument.

As long as there continues to be insufficient evidence and reasoned argument to support the god claim, my atheism will continue.

So, in effect you are asking if I doubt my doubt that a god exists.

No doubts.

How about fucks, any given?

-and nary a fuck was given...lol.

Doubt? No. Do I re-examine my beliefs? Constantly.

(August 16, 2014 at 10:46 am)Rhythm Wrote: It's just an idiom. So, not so much a theory as the sum total of what we do not know that has those attributes?

Yes, but an idiom that has historical significance as philosophers have long referred to this simple sum total (simple seems to be what we're striving at) as "God," though perhaps a name change is justified given the attributes superstitious minds have unfortunately heaped upon this incomprehensible source.

Quote:I'm not sure why we would conceive of that as a substance or even something that could can be encapsulated by a singular title, why it would be some singular -whatever- instead of many different things (especially in the case of necessity),

That's a fair point; it could consist of multiple necessary parts.

Quote: why it would be separate- or "free" (what does that even mean?),

Free as in not bound by the laws of causality--which we can only deduce as a principle that applies to finite, empirical objects, because otherwise it would simply be another part of the series and must then itself have a cause--I think QM has shown that this is in fact the case with certain quantum particles coming into existence seemingly without cause, free in the correct sense.

Quote: or unconditioned- or, why we would conceive of it at all. How does one go about describing something after claiming that it is "infinitely incomprehensible"?

It's infinitely incomprehensible in this way: If we examine "the logic of logic," we find at bottom certain paradoxes, for example, how a thing might be necessary and unconditioned, upon which all contingent and finite things depend upon, because otherwise nothing could have initiated the series; how space would seem to be infinitely divisible and yet finitely traversable between two given points, etc. While reason can lead us to concepts such as these, and in fact depends on them, it doesn't help us to comprehend them--whether it's a something that is non-spatial and non-temporal--or has existed for all eternity. I agree that it may appear

Quote: wholly and entirely entirely illogical,

But that just might be the essence or sum-total we can arrive at being incapable of conceiving anything outside of our experience (aided by the light of reason, which can only understand objects in experience, but by doing so depends on a logic that itself depends on incomprehensible categories of existence).

Quote:How did you arrive at such a place?

Fucking Immanuel Kant.

(August 16, 2014 at 2:22 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: At what point of understanding does true religion earn the respect that its name is supposed to represent?

When it surmounts the obstacle of proving itself empirically true.

That obstacle is often trivially crossed in many cases by the mere slightest use of just a fraction of the small powers of average members of the unexceptional race of alleged sinners, but yet apparently presents overwhelmingly daunting challenge to the omnipotent.