Atheism's Definition - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

[Darkstar]

About 30 minutes ago someone on skype was grilling me about my views on the supernatural. She asked me "Do you believe in fortunetellers and psychics?" I remembered this thread and laughed.

I told her "I believe they exist, but not that their supernatural claims represent reality."

In the real world, belief in vs belief in the existence of are so different.

But, one could argue that fortuneteller and psychics do not exist, only people falsely claiming to be such.

From my epistemological perspective, knowledge = justified true belief. So whether you know something or merely believe it (what you call "think so"), I think it puts you in the same boat.

This is where the question of strong atheism vs weak atheism fits into the puzzle perfectly. Is your belief that God doesn't exist a justified true belief? Or is it merely a justified belief, but the question of truth or falsehood isn't sufficiently established?

For the question of god, I don't think that falsehood can ever be established, even in theory. As science advances, god is pushed farther and farther back. Unless humanity becomes omniscient, there will always be gaps for theists to hide him in.

I realize you might think philosophy, theories of knowledge, etc are all bunk. A lot of atheists think science is the only valid field of study in the universe.

I don't think philosophy is bunk, but I don't understand why some people think god is philosophical. God is an entity, not a mere philosophical concept; even if he is non-physical, his effects on the world are physical (supposing there are any) and they can (in theory, if he exists) be measured in some way.

But on the off chance you see the value in epistemology, you'll see that from an epistemological perspective, my view has something going for it, even if it may not be perfect.

To what view do you refer? (Also, I find epistemology extremely annoying. This may have less to do with epistemology itself than the fact that Jstrodel dropped this word frequently into fallacious arguments. If I'm lucky, he just happened to not know the second thing about it, and his usage doesn't reflect badly on the field itself.)