Positive Atheism

[TruthWorthy]

Why do you write god like "god? I thought it was a typo but every instance of god in your post is written that way. Curiousor and curiousor.

Because I can say with all my might there isn't a god in reality (that which can be seen, etc) only when it comes to this "other place" which may or may not exist I have no evidence. I'm annoyed that "god" doesn't need a supporting argument based in reality, just that "he's there" needs to be disproved.

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Yeah, positive atheism is logical. Only imaginary ideas keep the "god argument going.

If you think positive atheism is logical, then you haven't accepted agnosticism's possibility. The two are incompatible.

I know agnosticm is a possibility. When something's unknown, anything can be made up. The difference being that I don't accept "god as a probable answer. When hypothesizing, why would I come to accept the least likely explanation to another things cause without anything to support that?
btw "god exists" is not a logical statement, belief in "god is less logical than dismissing a false premise. That's my opinion.

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We can be 100% certain of mathematical truth, since it's an entirely human invention. We made it, we control it. That's the difference here.

No, we cannot. Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem has shown that not all of the mathematical framework might be provable. Also the fundamental assumption is implicitly made that deductive reasoning is conclusive. How can we be 100% sure of that?

Why shouldn't deductive reasoning be enough?
All you can do is make up your own mind about it. If you can work out everything it wasn't and find out as much as you can in an action-reaction cycle before you're left with something you need to discover, such as the first triggering action, you only need to hypothesize. When everything else runs off principles of science why throw the possibility of invisible intelligent magic forces into the mix?!

I regard it as irrational.

[Violet]

We can be 100% certain of mathematical truth, since it's an entirely human invention. We made it, we control it. That's the difference here.

Gods (whilst also being inventions of man as I believe), are defined outside of the boundaries of humans. We don't have control over them as we do with mathematics. Thus there is always going to be the possibility that such beings exist, and that maybe the men "inventing" them were doing so because these gods acted through them.

Can you prove that it is an entirely human invention? Math is the beyond us mere mortals... it is the magick of GODS! (/silly)

Math appears to work within the bounds of logic. But because there are things that are not logical... i hardly think mathematics aren't relative to the universe we are attempting to calculate for.

That it has worked every single time before and will thus always work is an argument from circumstances (As most arguments about circumstance should be?)... and we couldn't be "100%" certain that math will always hold true to our universe unless we were omnipotent. And at the same time, it is possible that math could be right 100% of the time in every universe (if there is more than one, as seems likely?) and the nothingness beyond! We can rule out math being wrong... but should we find reason to doubt its unfailablity: we should be open to a new interpretation of it, or perhaps even a scrapping of it if someday it proves to be that bad :S

[Rhizomorph13]

Why do you write god like "god? I thought it was a typo but every instance of god in your post is written that way. Curiousor and curiousor.

Because I can say with all my might there isn't a god in reality (that which can be seen, etc) only when it comes to this "other place" which may or may not exist I have no evidence. I'm annoyed that "god" doesn't need a supporting argument based in reality, just that "he's there" needs to be disproved.

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I read your reply several times trying to see what I am missing. If you wrote "god" I would understand but you always write "god without the sensible other """ (<--that makes me laugh) by which I mean the other quotation mark. Just shorthand? or does it have some esoteric meaning that I am not privy to?

Most sensible people realize that there DOES need to be an argument supporting the existence of god, and there are several that I have seen on here although, obviously, there are none I agree with. This forum is packed with people who share your view (the existence of god needs a good supporting argument), theist and atheist alike. When a theist comes around spouting too many bare assertions and not answering questions, we call that preaching and they are banned.

Rhizo

[Purple Rabbit]

We can be 100% certain of mathematical truth, since it's an entirely human invention. We made it, we control it. That's the difference here.

I don't think the human origin of math guarantees anything. For one thing, it means math is relative to man, not an absolute. And what about human fallibilty? Has it evaporated overnight? Furthermore, math is based on axiomas, basically premisses we take for granted but have no proof of.

Math appears to work within the bounds of logic. But because there are things that are not logical... i hardly think mathematics aren't relative to the universe we are attempting to calculate for.

Math and the reality are separate things that do not necessarily relate to one another. You cannot find one perfect mathematical circle in the whole universe as we understand it now for instance. Math essentially makes no statements about reality at all. It just happens to be so, nobody knows why really, that some math is applicable to our reality (someone called it the ''unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics''). And when it doesn't fit we go looking for other math that does fit. So can reality be illogical? Dunno.

And at the same time, it is possible that math could be right 100% of the time in every universe (if there is more than one, as seems likely?) and the nothingness beyond! We can rule out math being wrong... but should we find reason to doubt its unfailablity: we should be open to a new interpretation of it, or perhaps even a scrapping of it if someday it proves to be that bad :S

Math is not absolute truth, since it hinges on axiomas (unproven assumptions) and because of Gödel's Incompletenes Theorems (GIT). It will always have undecidible statements.

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NB: Found this rather nice article in NYT on math versus reality.

[TruthWorthy]

I think the concept of godel's incompleteness has been taken out of context. Godel doesn't say that the entire system wouldn't be accurate, just that it would have limitations due to being based on a system of devised rules which would be limited by implication.
radioactive decay clocks work to the greatest acuracy because they are based on the law of averages, that of probability and standard deviation. ie. There's no way of telling how many particles will be ejected during any given second but that the expected amount of decay over a given half life will be very near to what's expected.

[Edwardo Piet]

Hence the infinitely long discussion of proof I didn't want to get into

Oh really? I almost 60 percent believe you.

EvF