A case for positive atheism

[fr0d0]

1. theists aren't claiming existence - atheists are claiming the opposite and trying to hang the accusation where it wasn't claimed. It's nothing more than a distraction.

You conclude that God exists.

I am of the position that there is no logical way to reach that conclusion, nor the conclusion that he does not exist, and the only rational position is that of withholding judgement.

((This is the part where you try to demonstrate why my position is wrong))

Existence in your terms means strictly observable, where God cannot be observable. Therefore God cannot exist.

I am also of the position that there is no logical way to reach that conclusion either way, except via faith. (faith = trust in information I accept to be true and act upon).

So your judgement of my position relies on a non philosophical position. If you weren't making a philosophical statement I'd have no issue with this. My worldview works logically, in that I assume positivity in God. You have no solid reasoning to the contrary, only a spurious insistence on the observable.

2. agnostic atheism may be strictly rational - given 'rational' is then defined as strictly observable. To be comprehensively correct you can only say that agnosticism is actually rational. Atheism alone has no convincing argument, as theism doesn't.

1. Rational is not and never has been defined as "strictly observable".

2. One is an atheist if they do not hold belief in the existence of God(s). Because agnosticism concludes that a conclusion cannot be reached, an agnostic does not believe in God and is therefore an atheist.

Agnostic Theism, as stated in your "religious views" is an oxymoron as it by it's very definition concludes the existence of a God (theism). Your individual case is even more innacurate as you have concluded that not only is there in fact a god, but that he has a son called Jesus. Can you please explain where the agnosticism is in that conclusion?

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.

[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?

[Tiberius]

I see what you are saying, but are they not coherent? One is a judgement about the limitations of the logical application of our total knowledge, the other is that a final logical conclusion regarding god's existence cannot be reached.

I don't know what you mean by "coherent" in this circumstance. Yes, there are two different forms of agnosticism, weak and strong. Strong agnosticism is the position that God's existence cannot be known, weak agnosticism is the position that God's existence is currently unknown.

Do you not first have to conclude that we do not have the information required before you can say that conclusions to the contrary are invalid?

On a personal level yes, but that is true of all beliefs. One bases their position on what their current level of evidence suggests is true.

Also, how is it possible for one to conclude that the existence of god is "unknown or unknowable" (not just "unproven") and still believe that a God exists? If the individual believes that God exists then they claim to know is some way, such as claiming to have "emotional", "spiritual" or "intuitive" knowledge of god, which they deem sufficient in arriving at a conclusion.

There is a very big difference between having a belief and having knowledge. I suggest you read up on the philosophical state of knowledge if you honestly think that someone who believes claims to "know". A belief is by definition, a state in which a person holds a certain proposition to be true; it does not guarantee that the proposition *is true*. Knowledge was described by Plato as "true, justified, belief". In other words, for something to be knowledge, it must be a belief that is both justified, and (more importantly) true.

You also make the mistake of grouping all theists together into one group that claims emotional / spiritual knowledge. These people do exist, I grant you that, but as such they are gnostic theists. The group that do not claim such knowledge are agnostic theists.

I disagree, if you have a positive belief in a proposition then you have concluded that it is real. You cannot hold positive belief in something that you do not think can be known.

Firstly, you ignore weak agnosticism in the above; it is an important omission. Not all agnostics are of the variety that say "God cannot be known". Regardless, your statement that you cannot hold a positive belief in something that you do not think can be known is ridiculous. A belief doesn't require anything but your own subjective reasoning; a crazy person can believe the sky will fall on them, without any evidence other than their delusions, yet it is still a belief. Knowledge simply doesn't come into play with beliefs, because as soon as it does, that belief ceases to be a belief and becomes knowledge.

To demonstrate via a useful example I came up with years back, imagine you are in a room that is sealed so you cannot possibly escape. You hear the sound of rain on the roof of the room, and I think most of us would have no trouble believing that it was raining on the roof. We've heard rain before, we know how it sounds, and despite not being able to see it, we can quite easily believe that it is raining. However, due to our circumstances, whether it is raining or not is an unknown, and if we cannot escape from the room, it is unknowable. It doesn't stop the belief, only the possibility of knowledge.

The issue here is not what knowledge the theists really have, it's the knowledge they claim to have.

...and I agree, when theists do claim knowledge, they are gnostic and not agnostic. However, not all of them do this, and to paint every single theist with the same brush is intellectually dishonest.

They do not meet our standard for 'proof' i agree, but they also believe thing like emotions and intuition are sufficient forms of knowledge for believing positively in a proposition. If you "do not know" then you "do not believe", thus you are an atheist.

Again, painting with the same brush. Intellectually dishonest.

Your statement "If you do not know then you do not believe" is completely false. I honestly don't know if I'll be alive tomorrow; how could I know? A myriad of things could happen to me that cause my death. However, do I believe I'll be alive tomorrow? Yes. Why? Because the chances of me dying are very slim. I would imagine most people are the same, or we'd have people constantly re-doing their Last Will & Testament as a daily chore. So yes, you can "not know" and also believe. Knowledge implies belief, but belief does not imply knowledge.

Being illogical does not make one potentially agnostic.

No...and I fail to see how this is relevant.

I don't buy that for a second, you cannot believe in something that you claim cannot be known because to believe in something requires you feel there is sufficient reason for it, and reason is an application of knowledge. You seem to forget what an acceptable standard of knowledge is for theists...

There could be cases where someone says "i have a feeling that god exists" but does not consider their intuitions sufficient to hold positive belief, that is entirely different from being like fr0d0 and positively believing in God.

Reason is not an application of knowledge; reason is a mental process by which we take premises and propositions and generate conclusions based on them. The conclusions that we generate through reason are often completely wrong, and so they invalidate the first requirement of knowledge (that it be "true"). You can have justified beliefs that are completely wrong, which means they are not knowledge.

As for acceptable standards of knowledge, they are irrelevant. The big point here is that you *can* believe and yet not know, and that if a person claims to know, they must be gnostic. If a person does not claim to know (or claims that such knowledge is unknown) then they are an agnostic. It's really as simple as that.

I hate to bring up Dawkins' scale, or any scale for belief in God, but the one thing that is common on both Dawkins' scale and my own is the position of "Agnostic Theism".

For a better read on agnostic theism, I suggest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_theism

[Scented Nectar]

That would mean you are only disproving one definition of God... You just moved the goalposts forward like 200m. Ultimately god is defined by the person making the claim and backing up the claim that all gods are logical impossibilities is in my opinion an impossible task, the general definitions in Websters and oxford are only intended as summaries and generalizations, oxford and webster's are not an authoritative source on this subject.

As far as disproving a single definition of God, I'm pretty sure you will be able to do it.

I'm not going to narrow it down to just one of the definitions, or even to only definitions of personal gods or monotheisms. However, I am going to exclude made up new definitions, such as the atomic bomb one, since the bomb is just being renamed and called god. I am not going to tackle disproving bombs or cucumber sandwiches that someone worships, just all the dictionaries' definitions of gods. I'm not a subscriber to the whole 'god can be anything you want' mindset, since people do not only worship gods. No 'the universe is god' or 'all the unknowns in life are god' stuff. The same with 'god is all goodness' crap, since all they are really saying is that they worship and feel profound about things they think of as 'good'. The worship emotion gets applieds to all sorts of shit, anything a person feels profound about is a possibility there. I am only tackling the belief in gods as entities defined in the various dictionaries. Every def has something that totally kills it's possibility for me logically, and that's what I'll present, showing for each one why I'm a strong atheist.

Also, I'll be doing this not to disprove anyone's agnostic beliefs or to prove my own gnostic ones, or to tell anyone that they couldn't or shouldn't be whatever they are, but simply to counter the many people who keep telling that I can not possibly be a strong atheist, when in fact I am. It's also not really too much about whether my position is one others agree with since obviously they don't, but more a response motivated by wanting to tell everyone that they cannot possibly determine for me what I do or don't believe - only I can determine that. Too many have tried to tell me that I should call myself a soft agnostic atheist when I actually do fully fit into all the definitions for positive, 7 out of 7 atheism. I will also counter the argument that a few people have had, where they say that since I am always open to the possibility of having my mind changed about pretty much anything in life at a future point (being open to new evidence), that technically I must be agnostic right now.

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In my experience, Dictionary.com is a better resource than Merriam-Webster. I've found several flaws in their definitions which make me wonder how they ever became a proper dictionary...

I used to go there until I saw a youtube recently by a professor or something (insert total appeal to authority here!) where he talked about MW being the most official or accepted or authoritative or something like that, followed by Oxford, so I just added Wiki to the end of that to make it feel more complete to me. Maybe I'll tack on dictionary.com too for this. Couldn't hurt.

[Edwardo Piet]

I used to go there until I saw a youtube recently by a professor or something (insert total appeal to authority here!)

Total appeal to authority

[chatpilot]

I am of the opinion that like science; philosophy is completely an inadequate means of trying to determine the existence or non existence of god/gods. The belief in god is a subjective matter and is held entirely on faith and does not require to meet up to the standards set forth by empirical or objective evidence. The study of God is wholly the responsibility of theology. Scientifically there is no way to prove or disprove the existence of a deity, creator, first cause, or uncaused cause. Philosophical arguments fail in that they are just the intellectual mans gymnasium to try to make sense of nonsense.

Fr0d0 wrote: "Existence in your terms means strictly observable, where God cannot be observable. Therefore God cannot exist.I am also of the position that there is no logical way to reach that conclusion either way, except via faith. (faith = trust in information I accept to be true and act upon)."

Although fr0d0 and I rarely see eye to eye I completely agree with his statement in the above mentioned quote. The study of god is something that can only be made successful through faith and through the belief and or study of the paranormal or supernatural not traditional philosophy.

[Facejacker]

Hear hear. It's not the job of science to question faith on science's terms since faith and evidence are by nature mutually exclusive. I am therefore also of the opinion that theism has no burden of proof.

[Darwinian]

Hear hear. It's not the job of science to question faith on science's terms since faith and evidence are by nature mutually exclusive. I am therefore also of the opinion that theism has no burden of proof.

Spoken like a true theist!

[Facejacker]

What can I say, I'm married to one.

[Edwardo Piet]

Theism of course has the burden of proof because theism positively believes God exists.