Strong Atheism and what it REALLY means to be an atheist

[minotza]

"This is my first post here and I just want to share some of the stuff I've been thinking recently sorry if I may be rambling a bit..I consider myself a weak atheist by the way.."

I thought that was a good introduction lol, what else am I supposed to say?

My purpose in asking those questions was to see where people disagree with me. If you think people would disagree, please, tell me where and on what basis so that I may learn where I went wrong in making my argument.

Well, think if you started a conversation IRL that way. It isn't an introduction. It used to be a requirement to start off with an introduction in the "Introduction" thread but is not required any longer. It IS nice to at least tell us a little bit about yourself rather than just jump into a discussion. Anyway, welcome to the forums.

Here is s thread discussing the topic of levels of belief that you might find interesting. The definitions were hashed out between an atheist (Adrian) and a Christian (Arcanus AKA Ryft). I find value in their definitions and you might also.

http://atheistforums.org/thread-3817.htm...+of+belief

Thanks for that link, I'm reading through it now its very interesting. So far from the first two pages I got that Gnostic Atheist = Strong Atheist and Agnostic Atheist = Weak Atheist? I didn't see much a difference from Dawkins definitions with those two...I'll finish reading it later though since I have some work to do, and I'll put in an introduction after I'm done reading that =D

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due to the objective things we know about our universe

Such as?

Chocolate is a good anti-depressive


I consider myself a strong atheist, but i don't absolute certainty that there is no god, not 100% but about 99%, and i made my objective of peacefully oppose the negative parts of religion, and try to passively and non-obstructive spread atheism

Who's definition of "strong atheist" do you go by? If your going by Dawkins definition then your contradicting yourself..

I cannot claim with absolute certainty anything, we could exist as you see, or i could be a crazy guy in asylum imagining you or the reverse, or we could all be a dream... or a nightmare,

In essence, i cannot claim absolute certainty only the omniscient can.

In order to continue I need to know your definition of "strong atheist"

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Well, in rationalizing the jump from Pure Agnostic to Weak Atheist I would say that the probability of god's existence/non existence is dependent on the logical things we know about our universe (whatever those things may be) Am I right in thinking this way? For example, (lets imagine we haven't seen or heard of a black swan yet) the probability of a black swan was extremely low because we have never seen one or heard of one, therefore it is rational to assume that swans were ONLY white..right? So basically I'm saying that based on our current knowledge, it is rational to make the jump from Pure Agnostic to Weak Atheist..and if its rational to do that then it is irrational to actually be a Pure Agnostic, due to our current knowledge.

What do you think about this?

I think you hold to rather too many assumptions. For one, you assume that God's existence is a matter of probability. On Christian theism, God is a necessary being, which means that either the Christian God must exist or cannot exist. Two, you assume that "we" (all humans?) have not experienced God or have awareness of any arguments in favour of God's existence. Three, you assume the principle that "If something hasn't been observed, then it probably doesn't exist." Try telling that to the guys at CERN. Four, the big one, that the laws of logic and universal epistemic principles that you wish to apply exist, and that there is a plausible atheistic account of their existence.

The fact that we cannot conclusively prove or disprove god's existence means that there is a probability for his existing, right? I'm not talking about the God in the traditional sense, you can replace "God" with "supernatural being" or whatever pleases you. To prove you have experienced god you would have to prove god exists first which has yet to be done. No human being has any awareness of any GOOD arguments in favor of God's existence, otherwise we wouldn't be atheists, right? I never said if something hasn't been observed it probably doesn't exist, I said that if something hasn't been observed then it is only rational based on our knowledge to not believe that it exists. I have no idea what you mean by your last point =[