minotza Wrote:Strong Atheism as defined by Dawkins belief scale (shown here: http://christophersisk.com/dawkins-belief-scale-images/) says "Strong Atheist: I am 100% sure that there is no God."
I think its safe to say that Strong Atheism is just as ridiculous as any religion (based on the assumption it makes) and may as well be considered a religion itself.
I've been exploring a lot of youtube clips lately of news channel and talk show interviews with atheists such as Dawkins, Hitchens, and various others and I've come to the conclusion that theists when structuring their arguments (usually) argue on the premise that all atheists are what Dawkins defines as Strong Atheists. This makes the theists look better then they are to the masses, because in reality its just two religions arguing with each other. I think that in order to show how religion is irrational atheism cannot be viewed in this way. I'm not saying that anyone is actually a Strong Atheist here (to be so is to be irrational and illogical I think), but whether we like it or not that is how the atheistic community is commonly viewed by theists. I think this mostly just stems from lack of understanding on the theists part..but the point I'm trying to make is why is Strong Atheism even mentioned at all? I think all the principles of rationality and logic go against Strong Atheism....right?
Strong atheist here.
Does it mean that I "know" that no gods exist?. No, but I find the idea so absurd that I'm not willing to put the brakes on when defining myself. I'm not going to say that "I'm merely 90-99% sure" just to satisfy nitpickers and people who aren't entirely finished with God.
We can't set up an experiment and test whether or not a god really does exist. However, the proponents of theism have always been religions and they have a really bad track record as far as knowledge of the world goes. Especially the future. Take Christianity, it's been going on for almost 2000 years and many of it's prophecies are testable (Jesus was going to return in the lifetime of his followers) and have failed a long time ago. A hypothesis that fails over and over again must at some point be thrown out of the window. We would do this with all other things. But it seems to be difficult with gods.
