Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dr. Terence Meaden on September 22, 2011 at 12:21pm

Both Johan Fruh and Karl Fuchs have put the case simply and to the point. 

This is why, fundamentally, I have supported the !00% positive level so positively. 

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Permalink Reply by Sandra Stott on September 22, 2011 at 4:06pm

I am 100% positive that a being, or set of beings, the way the Christians say god is (all-knowing, etc) cannot logically exist.  It's possible, in my opinion, that there are intelligent people "out there" that have higher technology than we do at the present time.  This does not make them gods, by any stretch.  Just smarter than we are.

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Permalink Reply by Russell Christian on September 23, 2011 at 2:56am

I am 100% certain that every god that is currently worshipped on the face of the earth does not exist.  100% certain, not a shadow or sliver of any kind of doubt what so ever.  That said, I am not 100% certain that some kind of god does not exist somewhere but I have seen zero evidence to support such an entity and until I do I will politely decline to believe in such a thing.  So put me in the 99.999999....... category.

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Permalink Reply by George on September 23, 2011 at 5:52am

1. 100% certainty is a straw man argument generally used against atheists.  An atheist no more has to be 100% certain of god's nonexistence than a theist needs to be 100% certain.   There are very few things that a thinking person can be 100% certain about, and there is a degree of agnosticism in any endeavor.

2. Another problem with this question is the issue of Theological noncognitivism. The noun "god" doesn't have a single clear definition, and many of the definitions tend to be incoherent, contradictory or obviously made-up.  

3. Even if there were an entity somewhere that looks like what we think of as a god, the question still remains, why call it god?  What type of phenomenon would actually deserve that title, with all the ramifications?  (An interesting set of characters from the Star Trek series were the Q and the Q Collective.  These were aliens who, for all intents and purposes, could be labeled gods - but clearly were not.)

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Permalink Reply by Johan Fruh on September 23, 2011 at 7:13am

Hello George,

your point 1. got me thinking about something..

Isn't a person who isn't completely certain about god's existence, techincally an agnostic? Even if he is leaning towards the non-existent possiblity.

 

I always thought that atheism was affirming the non-existence of god. And you can't really affirm it, without being 100% sure.

The strawman, in my opinion, is the percentages that are very close to 100%, without quite being 100%. It's a way of reminding that we are only human and can be wrong about our certitudes. While virtuous and very atheistic (I've never met a religious person saying he is 99.99% sure god exists), being 100% certain doesn't stop you from admitting a possibility of error.

 

Certitude comes in absolutes. You cannot be partly certain of something.. that would be, by definition, uncertain. Only if you were uncertain, could you be leaning for an argument in percentages.

So the question is.... are you 0.1% uncertain of god's existence? ;) I know I'm not :).

 

 

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Permalink Reply by George on September 25, 2011 at 3:41am

"Isn't a person who isn't completely certain about god's existence, techincally an agnostic?"

Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive.  One can be an agnostic atheist or agnostic theist.   I  like this diagram which illustrates the spectrum of theistic belief:

 

Not depicted in this diagram is the fact that the gnostic-agnostic axis is a scale which represents degrees of certainty in either direction.  Richard Dawkins placed himself at a 6 out of 7 on his own Scale of Theistic Probability, meaning "de facto atheist".  

 

"...being 100% certain doesn't stop you from admitting a possibility of error."

I'm pretty sure admitting the possibility of error indicates less than 100% certainty.

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Permalink Reply by Natalie A Sera on September 25, 2011 at 9:53am

I like the chart! On that, I can put myself in the agnostic atheist category. On Dawkins' scale, I can rate myself 5.5, because I'm definitely leaning toward the atheist side, but don't know that my probability notion is quite as low as as Dawkins' 6, but certainly not as high as 5. Nit-picky, I am!! :-)

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Permalink Reply by Trance Gemini on September 23, 2011 at 6:52am

1. Which god do you refer to? There are over 3000 gods claimed to exist or claimed to have existed.

2. No-one can ever be 100% positive about anything. There is no such thing as absolute truth.

3. If you are referring to the Abrahamic God, it can't exist because it's definition forms a logical contradiction.

4. If you are referring to the Deist God, it is meaningless and irrelevant because it can't be falsified.

5. It's most likely that the rest of the over 3000 gods claimed to exist or claimed to have existed have definitions which are either incoherent or falsifiable since it's the case with all of the ones that I've come across so far.

 

I don't have any personal concepts of gods since I was never indoctrinated but based on current knowledge and my comments above I believe that it's highly unlikely any exist.

 

Since I'm not omniscient I can't comment on the future and whether that might or might not change.

 

Theists love it when some atheists (very few) make the claim that "gods don't exist" because then they can sit back and demand that the claimer prove it knowing full well that the claimer can't. 

 

It allows them to shift the burden of proof onto the person making that claim and they are no longer required to provide evidence to support their equally unprovable claim that their favorite flavor of "god exists".

 

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Permalink Reply by SecularCortex13.x on September 23, 2011 at 7:59pm

this discussion will generate enough replies to surpass the theology forum amount of posts LOL
and for the last time on post-modern era Earth there's never going to be a god aside from yer brain; yer god

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Permalink Reply by Lois on September 23, 2011 at 10:25pm

http://www.godchecker.com/ 

 

Which of the 3000 gods listed at that link am I supposed to be in any confusion about? These are just the ones we know about because someone took the time to write about them, or left their names inscribed on stone temples and effigies. Think of the thousands more that we DON'T know about, because no records of them were left behind. I am 100% certain that NONE of them, known or unknown, exist. Is there one I missed because it hasn't been listed yet?

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Permalink Reply by MCT on September 24, 2011 at 10:51am

So many people look to science to prove or disprove the concept of god. This is silly. But god is actually 100% impossible. It an epistemological point that god is impossible. It is proper epistemology that allows for reason, logic and science to begin with and many many new age post-modern 'philosophers' who were brainwashed at modern universities to think that quantum theory shows us that entities can act random and that the fundamental base of our world is mystical. Steven Hawking coming out as an atheist is great, but I find it funny how people think he might be an expert. He's just a postmodern skeptical relativist, like many of the other people on this thread that aren't sure 100% because they wish to maintain some 'open mind' to allow for emotion pleasing magic somewhere. Not only does skepticism as a fundamental principle fail, because it is a blatant contradiction to say that fore sure, always, you have knowledge that certain knowledge is not possible, but god is 100% impossible because contradictions cannot exist and the concept cannot even be defined in any way. An existent must have identity. It must be some things and not others. Identity and noncontradiction are necessary properties for any thing to exist. Science depends on these concepts and so does all concept formation and thought. Way before science comes into the picture, there is no god.

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Permalink Reply by TNT666 on September 24, 2011 at 10:56am

Agreed

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