RE: Finally an atheist proper, with views and questions
June 2, 2024 at 5:23 pm
(This post was last modified: June 2, 2024 at 5:25 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Me neither. Though..the commitment to empiricism you mention above is a philosophic position and an explanation for your state of belief.
I think a stronger formulation of that position isn't that we haven't seen any evidence of gods, but that we've seen so much evidence that gods are not, as posited by theism, personal and intervening agents operating within our universe. The evidence we have, all of it...and alot of it.... points to them being human misattributions which may, at least according to a naturalist account of swinburnes divine authority, actually be owed to nature. Deference to the volcano god on account of it's volcano-ness, it's volcano-ness being a legitimate reason for deference even if it's god-ness is a false premise, for example.
I think a stronger formulation of that position isn't that we haven't seen any evidence of gods, but that we've seen so much evidence that gods are not, as posited by theism, personal and intervening agents operating within our universe. The evidence we have, all of it...and alot of it.... points to them being human misattributions which may, at least according to a naturalist account of swinburnes divine authority, actually be owed to nature. Deference to the volcano god on account of it's volcano-ness, it's volcano-ness being a legitimate reason for deference even if it's god-ness is a false premise, for example.
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