(October 7, 2016 at 5:57 am)ray3400 Wrote: robvalueOkay, fair enough.
Not many people are asserting that. You're arguing with gnostic atheists only.
Interesting that you don't even think I should care about your God, though.
(October 7, 2016 at 5:15 am)robvalue Wrote: I'm not saying there must be a degree of uncertainty. I'm saying you can claim to be certain, or just to believe. That's the difference between being agnostic and gnostic.
You're using the word "faith" in many different ways, I'm not sure what your aim is. What is your aim, anyway? Like I said, you're only even arguing with gnostic atheists, of which there are very few. Are you saying faith is a good or a bad thing?
In my opinion, absolute certainty, about anything, is unrealistic. We can just be certain beyond reasonable doubt.
The theist is 50% uncertain? I think this is highly unlikely. If they feel it's a coin toss, they are an atheist. You don't have a positive belief in god if you think it's that up in the air.
"You're using the word "faith" in many different ways, I'm not sure what your aim is."
In this case what I mean by faith is "one's ability to hold a belief despite a degree of uncertainty".
If one knows something for certain there is no need for faith. If one does not know something for certain, faith is required to varying degrees to hold a belief as true.
"In my opinion, absolute certainty, about anything, is unrealistic. We can just be certain beyond reasonable doubt."
This position makes sense, my purpose is not to doubt everything to the point of not knowing anything for certain. Many atheists (but not all), do express that they believe with 100% certainty that God does not exist.
"The theist is 50% uncertain? I think this is highly unlikely."
The point is, despite the extreme values given, faith is still required for the strong atheist position.
My aim is to show that what you call a "strong atheist" requires some degree of faith. Here is a refined version of what I'm proposing given what you've stated so far:
Proposal:
The strong atheist position requires faith.
Given:
Question 1: Do you have an active belief there are one or more gods?
Question 2: Do you have an active belief there are no gods?
Position 1: Y, N: Theist (could be agnostic or gnostic)
Position 2: N, N: Weak atheist (agnostic) - since this position makes no claims of belief, it cannot claim to "know for sure".
Position 3: N, Y: Strong atheist (could be agnostic or gnostic)
Everyone is in one of those 3 positions by definition.
Conclusion:
Position 2:
Position 2 is logically consistent with not requiring faith because it makes no claims.
Positions 1 and 3:
God has not been formally proven or formally disproven, so there is a degree of uncertainty with positions 1 and 3.
Do to this uncertainty, positions 1 and 3 do inherently require faith.
Example:
Let's suppose the amount of faith required is proportional to the degree of uncertainty involved.
If the strong atheist has a 0.0001% uncertainty and the theist has a 50% uncertainty, then the theist requires 500,000 times more faith than the strong atheist.
The strong atheistic position requires faith nonetheless. The only way for the strong atheist position to be logically consistent and not require faith is to bring the uncertainty level down to 0%. This is impossible without a formal disproof of the existence of God.
Also, if it is impossible to formally disprove the existence of God, and we cannot assume that all things impossible to disprove are automatically false, then the uncertainty level will never reach 0%.
I will let a good man answer that better than I ever could:
https://youtu.be/QkhBcLk_8f0
