IS EVERYBODY 100% POSITIVE THERE IS NO GOD?

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Terence Meaden on October 28, 2011 at 5:55pm

Aaron concludes: "But it seems silly to take it from there and assert a belief in the lack of a thing, whether it's a god or a fairy."

On this reckoning, as soon as I posit the existence of something fictional that I have just thought up (like little red-faced six-legged space warriors landing a flying spaghetti-plate UFO craft from the planet Kolob on some deserted spot on Earth) you will still say that nobody can "assert a belief in the lack" of this possibility---nor even if instead "it's a god or a fairy" [which are only further inventions of the human mind]. 

By contrast, I am saying that when a concept has been invented inside the brain of man or woman, then that is the start and end of it. It is fiction.

So I'll repeat what I wrote elsewhere a few hours ago:

"Someone, somewhere, in the Palaeolithic prehistory of homo sapiens was the first to invent the baloney idea that purporting there was a god could explain a lot of things that were not otherwise understood.

Billions of people have accepted this baloney ever since. This does not make the baloney god any more believable than formerly---in fact no more believable than the many other fictional story inventions like pink unicorns and Bertrand Russell's solar orbiting china teapot between Earth and Mars.

That is why I cannot accept the baloney god idea, even to the level of 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% "

So I agree with Michael Jensen, Joan Denoo and others earlier in this long thread that I hold to the view that 100% is effectively the most satisfactory answer, on current knowledge, to the question of the original post.

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Permalink Reply by MCT on October 28, 2011 at 9:55pm

Are you suggesting here that we could possibly learn something new about reality that would allow the supernatural to exist within reality? Or that if we are not omniscient, then anything can happen? So, then A could be B, right?

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Permalink Reply by MCT on October 28, 2011 at 10:28pm

My convictions are nothing like WLC's.

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Permalink Reply by MCT on October 28, 2011 at 11:10pm

Nor is my manner of arriving at them.

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Permalink Reply by MCT on October 29, 2011 at 1:00am

Hey you claimed to call a spade a spade with that A=A business. Now, it seems as if you don't. I think you are an agnostic atheist, since you are in fact insisting that knowledge of the non-existence of a god is not possible. Put forth a definition of any sort of god that does not entail something inherently nonsensical. Unlikely that evidence of something that you cannot even define without self-contradiction? How about impossible? What's so bad about that? Are you just fundamentally opposed to certainty for skepticism sake? Are you sure A=A? All the time? Without fail? Not just 99.999% of the time? Why doubt what you have no reason to?

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Terence Meaden on October 29, 2011 at 3:03am

What I am 100% against is anything that speaks for the possibility of anything that can be construed as supernatural. 

I am a 100% natural philosophical scientist who allows for zero percentage with regard to the supernatural.

I accept all the proven laws of science, besides which there are likely to be further laws of science as yet unknown. Among them all, lie the answers to understanding the origins--or the endless existence--of the Universe. 

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Terence Meaden on October 29, 2011 at 3:34am

Further to these remarks I applaud that currently known physics, theoretical physics and cosmology with their applicable knowledge of quantum mechanics and fundamental-particle high-energy physics look quite capable of explaining the actuality of an ever-existing Universe.  

Professor Vic Stenger's excellent books summarise. 

I have written before in this thread about these matters--roughly one year ago and two years ago--where I briefly explain (as also in "Origins"). 

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Permalink Reply by MCT on October 29, 2011 at 10:19am

Again, you claimed to accept the law of identity. Why are you being so defensive? Grow some skin. I am suggesting what your statements imply. I am not pulling this out of thin air. Why won't you address the fact that any example of any essential aspect of a god will be invalid? I am not calling you a theist. I just think that the law of identity is incompatible with agnostic atheism. I am not creating your skepticism, you are putting down online and I am wondering how you square A=A with the belief that there might be a small possibility that a god, something contradictory or something that cannot be defined can actually be. Will you name one of these gods that don't have contradictory impossible characeristics? I think that anyway you look at it, the possibility of a god can be safely omitted from a proper worldview.

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Terence Meaden on October 29, 2011 at 10:54am

That's good Aaron; you and I really agree that there is 0% chance of some god having set the Universe in motion.

I view the whole world, i.e the Universe, as being wholly natural and devoid of any supernatural influences, and that this is the natural state of things.  

Those others on our Earthbound world who, in their simplicity, want to invent gods are the ones introducing fictions, and therefore they are the ones required to be the bearers of any proof for supernaturalism.  

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Permalink Reply by Secular Forces 2013 on October 29, 2011 at 12:59pm

seems racist and hijacking thing called 'god' is on the minds of many; shux the USA just sent support to Africa against the 'lords army' or some crazed thing... rapists etc.

http://www.atheistnexus.org/forum/topics/catholocism-mormonism-and-...

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Permalink Reply by Katherine Anderson on October 29, 2011 at 4:17pm

We don't have to have any awareness of an entity for it to exist otherwise it's existence would be dependent on our thoughts. How many people know that I exist? Does their knowledge or lack of knowledge affect my existence? If someone's knowledge affects my existence, then that means I exist/ed. Or am I thinking about this all wrong?

 

Philosophy can get really tangled up, backwards, etc. My ideas don't make things true or false. Maybe I made up something in my mind. Maybe the universe IS god. I don't think that would be a meaningful understanding to have personally. If something IS everything, then saying that god is the universe is the same as saying something like this: everything is everything. It doesn't explain anything.

 

Here's a wonderful Sagan quote: In many cultures, the customary answer is that a God or Gods created the Universe out of nothing. But if we wish to pursue this question courageously, we must of course ask the next question, where did God come from? If we decide that this is an unanswerable question, why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the Universe is an unanswerable question? Or, if we say that God always existed, why not save a step, and conclude that the Universe always existed?

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Permalink Reply by Richard Hendrikson Alfaro on October 30, 2011 at 3:08pm

it's impossible to be 100% sure of anything in our crazy mixed up world, but I can say that i'm at least 99% sure

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