Anyone here a Category 7?

[I_am_not_mafia]

I feel like I'm as positive as I can be that there is no god. That should br 7, not 6, no? The idea that "we can't know for sure" is giving in to one of religions' many logical exemptions. Would you really say the same about other things besides God?

I don't think it's a logical exemption. Nor is it "giving in." It's reasonable to approach unknowns with a skeptical attitude. Skepticism is neither denial nor belief, but suspension in between until solid evidence is provided.

Claiming certainty where there is insufficient evidence is for theists. I'd like to think we're better than that.

I think the problem is that there is an equivocation about the word 'know'. This word is context dependent. Like I could know where I put the car keys, but I don't really know 100% because I don't know that someone hasn't stolen them from my handbag last time I went to the toilet. But if we only ever used the word 'know' when we had that level of certainty then we'd never actually use it. The word has to be useful. So my argument is that saying that we do not know that a god exists is to use this non-useful context of the word 'know'.

Because whatever commonly held definition of god you decide upon will violate or contradict what we know to be true even more so. Therefore I am happy to say that I know that gods do not exist. In the same way that I also know that (spoiler alert) Santa Claus and the tooth fairy does not exist.