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Existence/Nonexistence of Deities - How Certain Can We Be?

I, as an atheist, have rejected any and all theistic and deistic concepts.

I do not believe in the existence of any god or gods. I do not believe in any supernatural phenomena at all, for that matter. But the fundamental question is this: how certain can I be in my disbelief? Just as theists believe very strongly that god(s) do exist, correspondingly, I believe that god(s) do not.

Therefore, what are the qualifiers that make me more certain of my position than a corresponding theist? Personally, I utilize elements from science, social science, and philosophy to give myself a level of certainty wherein I am comfortable that my position is the correct one. But I'm deeply interested in what you guys do to give yourselves confidence in your disbelief.

Thank you for your feedback!

Tags: Atheism, Belief, Certainty, God, Theism

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Permalink Reply by Kara Smith on July 3, 2010 at 7:15pm

Ha! Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at. Kind of like the supernatural clothes I *may* be wearing. And yes; I did make a video about that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyC10d7Bcsc

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Permalink Reply by Johnsky on May 28, 2010 at 12:32pm

You can be QUITE CERTAIN actually.

Because of statistical anomalies... or rather, the utter absence of in relation to a deity.

You see... if there was something, anything, manipulating this world and it's occurrences that is not simply us doing it ourselves, it should have shown up as some form of statistical anomaly. Statistically, those who this deity agrees with / likes should be leading statistically abnormally good lives that those who practice otherwise do not.

Things not making mathematical or statistical sense is how we've found a great deal to study we weren't aware of before.
An intervening deity would have shown up as a blatant in-your-face "This just shouldn't be frakking possible" anomaly.

The ratio of attempted acts that this deity dislikes should be completely askew from the completion of those acts.

Something... anything.

Nothing.

Everything that is occurring to this existence is being caused by that which is here already.
There are no statistical anomalies standing out like a sore thumb pointing to some intentional external interference.

Which means : there's nothing powerful and conscious paying any attention to this little rock.

The Christians would understand these statistical anomalies as "miracles".
Show me one.
They don't exist. "Miracles" would be some form of divine intervention that defies logical explanation.
Can you think of anything like that?

Of course not. It only exists in books. Fictional books.
And that is precisely what religious scripture is.

I'd say my lack of belief in a deity is pretty damn certain.

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Permalink Reply by Herk on May 28, 2010 at 6:38pm

And yet, every Christian who thinks they need to defend their faith has anecdotes about how God proved himself to them. One more obvious example was a forumite who told me that he knew God was real because God told him what songs would be on the radio next, completely ignorant of how DJs cue up the next song and sometimes the studio mic is still on, or the fact that many stations simply play the same songs in the same order, pre-recorded, every day at the same time.

For us, such things are just silly, but to each believer these are the stories they tell themselves as proof.

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Permalink Reply by michelle Hokka Lundberg on July 3, 2010 at 2:23pm

I was lucky enough to have a christian friend who started challenging me on the differences of our beliefs. Through that, I introduced my self to the world of apologists who try to explain away bible questions. While you must always be careful of conformation bias. Their arguments were incredible. to say the least. In my opinion you would have to have been born and raised in a church or else have an IQ of the sort that requires velcro shoes. There are so many books to read. Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchins, and Harris. I recently started on research of a theology I had never even head of before (I have been doing this a long time). Textual criticism of the bible, is amazing in that it brings to light really disturbing (to christian) facts about the "god inspired" bible. Try looking up some of the great atheist authors.

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Permalink Reply by Jo Jerome on July 3, 2010 at 5:18pm

Rene Descartes is my god (pun fully intended). In particular, the philosophy of approaching everything from the standpoint that almost nothing can be 'proven' with absolute certainty. I am certain for instance that Barack Obama is the United States president, and George W Bush the president before him.

But those facts can not be proven with 100%, absolute certainty. There is no foolproof unit of measure that can be applied. Eye witness testimony can be wrong or falsified, as can video and photo documentation. I've never met either man but if I did I could have hallucinated it.

What are the odds though? We are as certain as we possibly can be with no existing means of absolute proof that Obama is the current president and Bush the president before him.

So in that context, I am as certain as I can be there exist no gods.

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Permalink Reply by Rudy Ruddell on July 3, 2010 at 6:14pm

It is helpful to me to think of rational thinking as evaluating claims based on evidence and then assigning a probability of truth to the claim. For example, after examining the evidence, I conclude that there is about a 1% chance there was a creator being that created the universe, a .005% chance that that creator listens to prayers and intervenes on our behalf, and .000001% chance that that creator is the Abrahamic God of the Old Testament. So, yes, there could be a god, but probably not.