Evidence for Believing

[Simon Moon]

My disbelief in gods has nothing to do with the Bible being a book of mythology, that, in any important ways, does not reflect reality.

I never claimed, with absolute certainty, that a god do not exist. My position is, that the case for the existence of a god has never met its burden of proof, therefore I have no warrant of justification to believe a god exists. My atheism is a product of correctly applied skepticism and critical thinking, and is a provisional position, not a dogmatic one.

I will stop being an atheist, as soon as the case for the existence of a god has met its burden of proof, with demonstrable, verifiable and falsifiable evidence, and reasoned argument.

Can you illustrate how it's possible for something that is not within the limits of our natural epistemology to meet this standard of proof?

I never said it could.

But then, if a god exists, that is outside of our natural epistemology, then I aren't I still justified in disbelieving it exists?

If said god exists, but cannot be demonstrated to exist, how is such a god distinguishable from a god that does not exist?

Maybe there isn't anything that caused things to be. Maybe it is a brute force fact, that existence has always existed. Even before our local presentation of the universe expanded.

Please describe the state of nothing, as in nothing being. How can absolute nothing even "be"?

That's just it, though, there must be something that must exist, always, and the argument is that anything that could conceivably not exist, cannot be that something. So any particular being or collection of entities that can be otherwise arranged, such as our natural universe, are not necessary in and of themselves. The brute fact that anything exists without reason or explanation is arbitrary and irrational, and not consistent with how we investigate reality. We can admit that something is beyond our epistemology, but that gives us no reasonable grounds for saying our epistemology is the limit of everything that exists.

Please explain, why the possibility that something may exist without reason or explanation, is arbitrary and irrational. Besides your discomfort with that possibility, of course. Or the necessity for a god.

And just to clarify, I am not claiming, that it is a brute fact that anything exists without reason or explanation. I am just trying to figure out how you eliminated the possibility? Besides your discomfort with that possibility, of course.