Atheist struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself

[mordant]

Nothing about atheism requires this "negative stance" if by that you mean taking up a knowledge position that there are no gods. It only requires seeing no valid reason to afford belief to any deities.

A proposition is either true or not true. So with respect to the proposition "God(s) exist." there are only two options. The proposition is either true, the theist stance, or it is not true, the atheist stance. The meaningful definition of atheism I have given does not force atheists to claim metaphysical knowledge; but rather asks them to own where they stand with respect to the question.

(Well, maybe there is a third option called 'I don't care' but I do not seriously believe any AF member falls into that category.)

No, you're confusing knowledge claims with belief claims. And "I don't care" isn't the third option.

As to any knowledge claim, we either know a thing is true / exists, or that it's untrue / doesn't exist, or that there's insufficient data to determine either one. The latter situations obtain with invisible beings the live outside the natural order (or in religion-speak, are supernatural). Inherently, no creature in this universe can observe or remark on anything or have any knowledge of something outside this universe. The instant we have any actual data about a god, that god then is part of the natural order, and can be observed / debunked. 100% (not 99.999%, but 100%) of everything claimed about gods are simply asserted without valid and admissible evidence, and can therefore be dismissed without consideration of this non-evidence.

That we have no knowledge about gods, that they are beyond examination, verification or contemplation* means we have no basis to form beliefs about them. So we do not believe.

It is possible, but in my view intellectually dishonest, to say that one knows gods do or do not exist. It's a valid semantic shortcut for an atheist to say "there is no god", but exposes you to the un-nuanced sensibilities of fundamentalists, who will then say that's an arrogant stance. And indeed, unless you want to claim to have been everywhere and everywhen, and have scoured all of spacetime and whatever lies beyond it for a god and not found it, there's some point to that. Although theists never seem to realize that it applies equally to them ... they have no evidence of god, have not personally seen him or even mounted a credible search for him, so to claim he exists as a matter of fact, is also "arrogant" as they put it, or "stupid" as I'd put it.

Focusing on beliefs allows us to to patiently insist that theists simply present their evidence so that we, too, might believe. They never, ever do. Making knowledge claims, even if it were supportable, allows theists the luxury of feeling existentially threatened and aggrieved and invites them to counter with their own equally unsupportable knowledge claims.

* Ironically religion even admits (when it suits its purposes, usually to deflect from some logical conflict) that god is ineffable, his ways past finding out.

[Sterben]

i'm wondering if you can help me im an atheist but am struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself it goes something like this.....

If you see an ant crawling across the ground, to the ant, you are his god that could wipe him out at time, he has no intelligence of you or that you exist, for the ant he is as intelligent as he is going to get, and can't even comprehend we exist.

So could we be in the same position as the ant? as far as we can see humans right now are as intelligent as we can get, but growing up we do not have the intelligence capacity to comprehend our surrounding. As children, take a 1 year old or any age under 3-4 we are also at that point, (The same as the ant) as intelligent at THAT time as we are going to get and cannot comprehend to world around us intelligently.

So just the same as the ant, adults at our height point of intelligence, to the toddler we are the Gods. What if we, right NOW are at this point in time, at our current level of intelligence are in the same position as the Ant and Toddler? Could there be an unknown Force, Entity, that just the same as we are unknown to the ant and the toddler to his or her world, that is looking at us as we look at the ant?

As its happening right now to the ant and toddler, this is proof it can, and is happening, It doesn't seem that extraordinary something is looking at us in the same way,

Would love to hear what you think,

Thanks

         You pose a very interesting question, but at the same time an irrelevant one. The major issue I see is that we've looked for answers about the how it happened, this line of inquiry has caused so many problems over the centuries. How many must die in pointless conflicts over such arguments?
               
          You answered your question when you said "So could we be in the same position as the ant? as far as we can see humans right now are as intelligent as we can get, but growing up we do not have the intelligence capacity to comprehend our surrounding. As children, take a 1 year old or any age under 3-4 we are also at that point, (The same as the ant) as intelligent at THAT time as we are going to get and cannot comprehend to world around us intelligently."

        In essence, as we grow and gain intelligence we become our own gods. If you do not wind up brainwashed, you realize the power you have. If you wanted to steal a van and crash it into your ex's house, that sounds like a power of god to me in many ways. There is no ultimate creator, If your a really smart god, you realize the currency of power is fame, the currency of influence is being famous, and the final currency that runs the universe is control. It's the crypto currency know has science that is so often abused.

       Let me ask you something, would mind being a part of hypothetical thought experiment?

        Five people are given a village of twenty very uneducated each, your are given time period twenty years to raise your village as you fit. The setting is decent size island with limited resources. How do you carry yourself along side your village? Also please be honest, even it's interrupted as immoral actions.

[Little lunch]

If we were like ants to god, we could swarm him/her, drop down into the holes and crevices and eat him/her from the inside out.
Ants have done this before.
But if this analogy were correct, then there would be many gods and a super god that thinks of them as ants.
Lots of super gods looked down upon as ants by the mega gods and so on.
I can also smite ants at will but could never create one.
And if a god exists outside of time and space then we can assign anything to it.
It's a naughty cat playing with the world like a ball and string.
The universe is a steaming pile of shit freshly created by a mega super god.
Why worship something that you don't have a clue about what it is?
Why worship anything and what does the need to be worshipped say about the worshipee?
All religion is bullshit and you don't have to think too hard or be smart to realise it.
In fact, thinking too hard is probably what got us into this mess.
Rant over.
Rhythm (Can't remember new name) said something about someone the other day that I realised actually pertains to me.
I've got a sloppy mind.
It's all over the fucking place. Haha. :-)

[Ravenshire]

Quick answer: yes, there could be such an entity and yes we could be as beneath it as an ant is to us. There might be any number of things beyond our understanding and imagination. But life is short; don't waste time cowering in fear of what might be. Find out if there really are such things, if you like. But pragmatically, withhold believing in them until there's reason to do so. Certainly don't prostrate yourself in worship of them - even if they exist, worship has to be earned.

Oh im not cowering in fear of what might be, quit the oposite, and worship doesn't even come in to the equation, im happy with my current beliefs in the logical world and science, its just this makes my mind race.

Ask yourself two questions:

Do you care if that ant jerks off?

Why would a being as far above us as we are to ants care if we jerk off.

[Thumpalumpacus]

To point out some limits to reason is hardly the same thing as concluding the world is not intelligible.

Of course there are epistemological limits to what reason can and cannot reveal. My point is about the efficacy of reason as a tool. i.e. that there are truth preserving forms, such as syllogisms, and inviolate rules of thought, such as the principle of non-contradiction. You cannot rationally prove these are valid, you either recognize them as self-evident and believe they are true or you don't. Similarly, you either believe that the world has a rational order or you don't. No one can prove that it does; the world could be absurd.

Nevertheless, both of these foundational beliefs are fundamental to Christian theism.  Believers' reliance on these as absolute principles is repeatedly attacked when atheists dispute the main logical demonstrations for theism, such as First Cause and Necessary Being. And indeed those objections work because the absolute principles on which those demonstrations rest are beyond the epistemological limit. But that kind of victory comes at great cost. In so doing, the skeptics are either denying reason's efficacy and/or asserting absurdity. Both approaches are nihilistic in nature.

The fact that axioms are accepted doesn't not imply that your god is why they are axiomatic. Arguing otherwise is a non sequitur.

Also, the world is absurd ... especially if you regard it as the creation of a beneficent god.

[The Grand Nudger]

Rhythm (Can't remember new name) said something about someone the other day that I realised actually pertains to me.
I've got a sloppy mind.
It's all over the fucking place. Haha. :-)

Don't feel bad, we all do.  Poor thing is hopelessly overworked and underqualified for the task at hand.  One minute it;s difgging up roots on the savanah and hitting rocks with other rocks and bam, next thing you know it's trying to infer the existence of a super-intellect somewhere in the far reaches of the cosmos or between the cracks in reality or just hiding out behind the dryer with all the socks. May as well hand a toddler a push mower. We all know he's going to end up under the thing rather than behind it.

[Astonished]

Quick answer: yes, there could be such an entity and yes we could be as beneath it as an ant is to us. There might be any number of things beyond our understanding and imagination. But life is short; don't waste time cowering in fear of what might be. Find out if there really are such things, if you like. But pragmatically, withhold believing in them until there's reason to do so. Certainly don't prostrate yourself in worship of them - even if they exist, worship has to be earned.

Actually it's unwise to admit the possibility of something until the possibility has been DEMONSTRATED. So until such time, we can't even genuinely say 'yes'.

Also the situation is not comparable whatsoever to that of the ant. We're perfectly capable of contemplating the existence and attributes and motivations of a higher being while an ant is often largely unaware that we even exist until we start pulling out the magnifying glass on a hot day. People seem to never STOP thinking about their invisible sky daddies whether they can see them or not. It's no exaggeration to say that there are as many different god concepts as there are people who believe in them. We are capable of devoting time and resources, developing technologies and methodologies to try to detect and find these higher beings. We invite them to reveal themselves, we expect them to, we mistakenly believe that they do this at all times everywhere. We're simply too evolved to not be prepared for or cognizant of the existence of a higher being should one exist and care to reveal itself.

Also, before we evolved into homo sapiens, we were exactly the sort of toddlers/ants as described, so that's already happened, come and gone.

[Ravenshire]

I see Chad's trying to logic his gawd into existence again.

[Magilla]

i'm wondering if you can help me im an atheist but am struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself it goes something like this.....

If you see an ant crawling across the ground, to the ant, you are his god that could wipe him out at time, he has no intelligence of you or that you exist, for the ant he is as intelligent as he is going to get, and can't even comprehend we exist.

So could we be in the same position as the ant? as far as we can see humans right now are as intelligent as we can get, but growing up we do not have the intelligence capacity to comprehend our surrounding. As children, take a 1 year old or any age under 3-4 we are also at that point, (The same as the ant) as intelligent at THAT time as we are going to get and cannot comprehend to world around us intelligently.

So just the same as the ant, adults at our height point of intelligence, to the toddler we are the Gods. What if we, right NOW are at this point in time, at our current level of intelligence are in the same position as the Ant and Toddler? Could there be an unknown Force, Entity, that just the same as we are unknown to the ant and the toddler to his or her world, that is looking at us as we look at the ant?

As its happening right now to the ant and toddler, this is proof it can, and is happening, It doesn't seem that extraordinary somthing is looknig at us in the same way,

Would love to hear what you think,

Thanks

The ant ~ "Human-God" analogy is a bit weak, as some other posters have noted. We don't know how ants perceive us and the world. Someone has already said that ants can have physical contact with you, and bite you etc. It is likely that they can see you, (albeit as a giant 'something').

Many gods have been proposed and worshipped over the millennia. If you happened to be a Christian, or a Muslim, or a religious Jew, you would reject all but one of those gods as being fictitious. You'd only accept your own god, and probably only your own version, of the generic version, of your preferred god. The question is: "HOW can the monotheistic religious person reject the other gods?" When asked, I find that their response tends to be something like: "Because there is no evidence for them"; (ironic !!!)

As an agnostic atheist, a good question to ask oneself, is: "Do I want to be an intellectually honest, truth-seeking individual?" I would hope that everyone would answer 'YES' to that question.

Now unlike the ants, I have no convincing evidence that any gods exist. The intellectually honest, truth-seeking response ought to be IMHO, that one ought not to accept as true, that which is lacking in any kind of convincing evidence. So if you find no convincing evidence for the existence of any gods, then one ought NOT to accept such propositions as TRUE. This is NOT the same as finding that the propositions are FALSE.

Speaking for me, I count myself as an agnostic atheist. I'm atheist, because I believe in no gods, whilst not going so far as saying that I know to a certainty that no gods exist. This lack of absolute certainty exists because I can't prove the universal, that there are no gods whatsoever. Thus the agnostic part of my self classification. This means that if in the future I find some convincing evidence for the existence of a god, then I'd change my position.

Note that atheism is a state of belief, (or more accurately, a lack of belief). Agnosticism is about knowledge, (knowledge being a true accurate understanding of ontology; ie. of reality).

If I were a wise ant that could think, I would stick to what I had good convincing evidence for, and not go inventing epistomologies, (which seems like a contradiction anyway). I would be like humans are, with some knowledge based on convincing evidence, analysis and testing, plus some propositions without convincing evidence, on which I'd be agnostic.

As for myself, on the "God" question, there are many things which are proposed by theology, about "God", which make no sense to me, and some are contradictory or incoherent, IMHO. I put those those in the b*llsh*t basket, and think to myself that those B.S. propositions are really signs of the absence of any better, more convincing evidence for the existence "God".

[The Grand Nudger]

I see Chad's trying to logic his gawd into existence again.

If only he had the faintest of ideas as to how to employ logic to begin with.........