RE: Gnostic Atheism? WTF?
June 10, 2014 at 10:54 am
(This post was last modified: June 10, 2014 at 10:58 am by Whateverist.)
(June 9, 2014 at 7:47 pm)JimmyNeutron Wrote: I heard someone say the other day that they were a "Gnostic Atheist." To start with, I didn't know that there was such a thing, because that is completely illogical. He went on to say that "I'm a gnostic atheist because I know for sure that there is no god." This form of belief defies all logic, and here's why: It is impossible to prove a negative. This is a well known logical principle. Therefore, you cannot be logically sure that there is no god. That would be completely absurd.
You may not be able to prove a negative but does one really require such proof in order to hold such belief in the highest regard? Apparently not. I also tend to save "know" for those beliefs for which there is substantial support. Of course most theists are not as careful. I will go on dismissing the left handed rhino, ass inhabiting pink aliens and your god as the silly stuff they appear to be .. at least until some reason arises to think otherwise.
(June 10, 2014 at 10:51 am)Clueless Morgan Wrote: Epistemically speaking, there is some non-zero chance about being wrong about everything we ever claim to know, even if that non-zero chance were 1x10^negative-trillion, so IMO anyone claiming to be a gnostic anything is overstating their claim to knowledge.
Fortunately we are not logical robots. As organisms which have evolved to act with certainty in response to certain propositions but not to others, the concept of "knowledge" is not a very good approximation of what we actually do with information.
