Philosophy is detrimental to the analysis of religion

[chatpilot]

I am convinced that Jesus never existed and about the non-divine authorship of the bible.I dont really need science or philosophy to disprove either of those two things since I think all it takes is a little bit of common sense.

[athoughtfulman]

As am I, however I cannot say I am 100% sure, with no element of doubt, that god is not real. Unless god can be proven to not exist, then I will always entertain the idea that he might be there, though for all practical purposes I believe and live as though he is not real and never will be.

[Edwardo Piet]

Total lack of evidence and the sheer improbability of God can lead some to being absolutely convinced that God does not exist.
But being absolutely convinced that God does not exist does not not remotely mean that he absolutely doesn't exist
- You can't prove a negative.

He's still simply just extremely improbable and totally lacks evidence.
Strong probability/improbability can add to strong certainty - but strong certainty itself does not add to the probability/improbability itself.

I.e: Evidence (or lack thereof) is reason to be certain one way or the other - but certainty does not add to the evidence.
A belief/disbelief can be strong because of evidence/lack of evidence. But the sheer strength of the belief/disbelief itself doesn't add/retract from the evidence/lack of evidence in anyway (in and of itself at least).

So since the certainty itself does not make the certainty any more true - that would kind of be circular I guess - then what reason have you got logically to believe that you absolutely KNOW that God doesn't exist?

You can still be almost infinitely certain but still know that God isn't disproved because you can't prove a negative - and that he's basically extremely improbable to the near infinite degree - he's practically 100% non-existent in terms or probability but it's still a fallacy to say he's disproved. Because he isn't - how is he? How has he been tested to be absolutely disproved 100%? And what God are we talking about anyway?
Once again, it's still a fallacy - you can't prove a negative. You don't need to be 100 gnostic strong and say God is disproved and absolutely doesn't exist - if that's not true and simply not possible you are certainly not weak-minded or uncertain to believe that God is simply about as improbable as the Flying Spaghetti Monster - despite neither of them are disproved - that's not weak!

That's what I think.
Thoughts?

EvF

[athoughtfulman]

You just summed up what I believe.

In the end it works out to be a question of: are you an agnostic atheist or a gnostic atheist?

However, I think the agnostic atheist is the more sensible and reasonable position. To be a gnostic atheist requires the assertion that god is 100% non-existent, which like EvF said, is a fallacy. To be a gnostic atheist requires faith, that is, a belief that you can know something certainly without the observable proof, which would put you in the same camp as a christian.

Which are you?