Strong/Gnostic Atheism and Weak/Agnostic Atheism

[Mudhammam]

I agree partially, except that I'll make a positive claim of knowledge. I don't see reasons to treat god differently from other hypothesis who have zero evidence. If someone says 'Look there's a dragon over there' and I can't see one, I won't say 'I lack belief but I can't disprove it', I'll say 'No there isn't any dragon'. Now I'm applying this to the god hypothesis, and for me it suits the issue well... But thanks for your interesting reply!

The problem with this analogy is that the idea of god, at least the one worth contemplating, isn't an empirical notion, but rather a rational one; I think it would be more fair to compare god with say, the law of non-contradiction, or numbers, as opposed to material objects (though a dragon may be nothing more than an abstraction, its constituent parts are no less derived from empirical concepts). So, I can say, the law of non-contradiction is true, but can I provide material evidence? Can you point to any tangible object in the Universe that is a number? You can surely create a symbol that you call "5," and have it represent a quantity of similar objects, but you cannot define what "5" is apart from appealing to other numbers--and those are not in-of-themselves sufficient for conceptualizing the meaning of "5." Numbers, I reckon, exist purely in the abstract, and cannot established as actual "things," as is, say, a "cat," yet we never doubt their necessity or meaning in framing our empirical experience of the world. I think "dragon" is in the category of the latter, with "cat," while something like god would have to be akin to a principle, a law of logical necessity, that is, of an immaterial existence. Does that make any sense?

So, the question, "Is god a 'real thing'?" would find an answer similar to the inquiry: Are the 'laws of logic' 'real things'? Are numbers 'real things'? Or are they merely mental tools by which all else is made (to appear) real?