(March 4, 2019 at 10:05 pm)fredd bear Wrote: However, the position of the hard atheist is problematic: Stating " I believe there is no god" is a positive claim, attracting the burden of proof. Just as much as the theist who asserts "I believe in god". It is also belief without knowledge. As far as I'm aware, nobody in recorded history has proved the existence of god, or his non existence. An absence of evidence is not proof of absence, although absence is implied, and may be the case.
I'm perfectly comfortable proving that specific gods do not exist. For example, omni-3 god is logically incoherent, and therefore I would be happy saying I'm gnostic on the non-existence of that god. The idea of an all-loving, all-powerful, all knowing god who lets babies get killed by malaria and teen boys get raped in churches absolutely does not exist, and I'm willing to claim that I know enough about this world to assert that positively.
I'm also quite certain that the Greek gods do not exist. I know what thunder is, and how it comes to exist, and Zeus isn't it. I will state that I'm a gnostic atheist about that god as well.
