A case for positive atheism

[The Omnissiunt One]

Oh dear, you've already failed.

Agnosticism and Atheism are not mutually exclusive.

I do not believe that the existence of god can be proved or disproved, so i hold no belief in god. This makes me both an atheist and and agnostic.

Yes, I'm well aware that agnosticism and atheism aren't mutually exclusive. That's why I call myself an agnostic atheist. What I'm trying to do is justify agnostic atheism as opposed to just agnosticism (if agnosticism is taken as claiming that God's existence is not just unknowable, but that his non-existence is as likely as his existence).

I agree - statistically speaking even. Out of all the possible outcomes god is just one of many many different proposed ideas. That alone makes it probabilistically low. Then you consider the fact that there is not a single shred of evidence nor a single logically valid argument for his existence.... Even super-out-there string theory is at least logically coherent.

So we're agreed?

My brain has a limited capacity for storage and a limited capacity for processing data, therefore it cannot possibly conceive of an unlimited number of things... So from this point on i approach your argument through the statement "the human mind can conceive of a very large number of things".

Actually, I'd argue that we can think of an infinite numberof things. We can think of a leopard with one spot, two spots, etc. and, as we can conceive of infinity mathematically, we can keep varying the attributes up to infinity.

3) Only if there is evidence for a particular idea is its existence in reality probable.

This statement assumes we have the knowledge required to make such claims, which imo is entirely naive.

The fact that we know of no evidence for a particular something does not make the something improbable. All we can say is what explanation is best supported, considering the total information available . It is exactly akin to saying "we have no evidence for the cause of inflation therefore the cause of inflation is improbable"... That's garbage, as you can see.

No, it's not exactly akin to that. We do have evidence for a cause of inflation, because phenomena (apart from perhaps quantum events) are never uncaused, in our experience. Just because no one particular cause has evidence for its existence, that doesn't mean the claim that there's a cause is inherently improbable, either. Either there is a cause, or there isn't. Only once we assign attributes to the cause does it become less probable. If that explanation is 'best supported', then that makes it more probable.

Example: Of the 20 or near abouts explanations i have conceived of for the cause of inflation, none are supported by evidence, therefore we cannot logically conclude that one is more likely than any other. God is one such explanation therefore is just as likely as all any other individual explanation.

Since no explanation is any more supported than any other, the only logical position is to withhold judgement - This is agnosticism.

Specifically excluding God as an explanation is irrational.

But if they are suggested by what we know, or if they fit with our background scientific knowledge, that makes them at least more probable than God, who is an unknown quantity and totally different from anything we have ever experienced.

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I don't understand the first point. The differences between "infinite" and "very large" are staggering, so why the reference to both? It should be quite obvious that the human mind cannot conceive of an infinite, given that our minds are finite. That we can understand concepts of infinity doesn't mean we can imagine what an infinite amount of something looks like. Indeed, human minds can only imagine around 6 objects before we have to start grouping them (i.e. for 7, usually the groups are 3 and 4). No amount of finite groups can ever add up to an infinite.

As I've argued above, we can conceive of an infinite number of things. That doesn't mean we can store all these objects in our memory, just that we can conceive of them. But it'snot necessary to prove that for my argument anyway.

How do you know? How can you tell there isn't a giraffe on your desk, or skunks, or perpetual motion machines, etc? To go further, how do you even know there is a desk in front of you?

If you go into that degree of epistemological scepticism, then all science and reasoning is invalid. I'm going on the premise that empiricism is a valid means of determining truth.

Not true. Before people even had ideas about pulsars, they existed in reality (at least that is what our science tells us). Existence isn't based on the evidence; existence is or it isn't. You can have as much evidence against something as you like; it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Same with having evidence for the existence of something.

That's true, but our only way of determining the existence or non-existence of many things is through the amount of evidence. Deny that, and most scientific discovery goes down the pan, as well as most everyday reasoning. All that we can prove to exist (perhaps) is the self.

Non-sequitur. Simply does not follow that because we can think of a lot of things, the chances of them being real is very low. Us being able to conceive of things has no effect on their existence, or even their probability of existing.

No, our thinking of things doesn't have an effect on their existence. But, given that we can only discover things' existence through evidence, the fact that we have no evidence for something when we think of it renders it improbable, insofar as we can tell, until evidence is acquired for it.

Not true. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There is no evidence that the Higgs boson exists; absolutely none at all. The only reason we are looking for it is it's existence would fix some holes in the standard model, but there is no direct evidence it exists. This doesn't mean it is very unlikely to exist, nor does it mean it is very likely to exist. All it means is that as of this moment in time, we do not know if it exists. Existence isn't a probabilistic thing.

But it is the best explanation we have for the scientific phenomenon of mass (if I've understood what I've heard about the Higgs). That counts indirectly as evidence for it. If something is the best explanation available and is compatible with current scientific knowledge, that makes it more probable. God fulfils neither of these criteria.

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[quote='fr0d0' pid='83282' dateline='1280302828']
1. Good. then we are in agreement.
2. A believer doesn't believe in the existence of God, they just believe in God. You are adding the existence bit. That's a scientific consideration which never ever applies. To science God doesn't exist. Period. You can't argue with that. Theology should never attempt to.

The only way I conclude 'God' is via faith. Any other way would be dishonest. This is an explicit condition of Christianity.... not knowing.

How can you believe in God, but not his existence? Saying 'I believe in God' is equivalent to saying, 'I believe in the existence of God'. That's what most people assume it to mean. What else can it mean?