'There Is No God', or 'I Believe There Is No God'?

[widdershins]

Well, not necessarily.  I have as often gotten the "you can't say you know" from our side as from theirs -- but that's because in the main, we do care about evidence, and we do care about logic and we do care about real values of truth and knowledge.  So this is about honing the argument, looking for the weaknesses and gaps in it, checking its solidity and validity, and having it in hand for the intramural debate as well as the external one.

And for some reason, I am reminded of a guy I knew in college who described himself as a 'militant agnostic' and was fond of telling people "I don't know and NEITHER DO YOU!"

Unfortunately our arguments are only better in "reality", which is not where these beliefs are based.

[Mike Cl]

But one can plant seeds of doubt.
That's what happend with me.

Yeah, there is that hope.  But that does not happen very often.  And congrats to you for having a brain and using it. :))

[trdsf]

Unfortunately our arguments are only better in "reality", which is not where these beliefs are based.

Again, this is the point that I'm trying to get at: getting the "you can't know" from someone on the reason side, not the belief side, for reason reasons.

Everyone's taking a whack at the low-hanging fruit of the believers and that's not at issue here. 

[Baruch]

Epistemology ... how do we know what we know?  Some of you believe in physics minus metaphysics ... but even Aristotle has you beat there.  For Aristotle, physics was natural philosophy, the philosophy of a nature minus gods or G-d ... though he had an impersonal Unmoved Mover ... to avoid infinite regression.  We are more comfortable with infinite regression, so we can dispense with an impersonal Unmoved Mover.  And I don't propose a personal one in its place.  PS - Aristotle wasn't a materialist like Democritus, Democritus tried to solve the same problem of infinite regression (thanks to Zeno of Elea) by his atoms.  Atoms weren't known to exist for sure until the early 20th century (thanks Einstein for a paper people forget, on Brownian Motion).

Santa Clause does exist ... as a meme, a marketing ploy, and as a spirit sometimes seen in the actions of parents.  The question isn't does Santa Clause exist, but in what form he exists.  There are also department store Santas.  So Santa can exist as a person, just not as The Santa.

So as go gods or G-d ... gods or G-d do exist ... but in what forms?  One form of course is as a belief.  How about any other forms?  That depends on your metaphysics ... but one can avoid that by sticking your head in the sand and Just Say No To Metaphysics.  Thanks Nancy Reagan.

[Mike Cl]

Again, this is the point that I'm trying to get at: getting the "you can't know" from someone on the reason side, not the belief side, for reason reasons.

Everyone's taking a whack at the low-hanging fruit of the believers and that's not at issue here.

Most of the people who have doubts about there being a god who I've talked to mostly say that it is unlikely or that it cannot be proven one way or the other.  And I think there is a way to prove it.  God is in the realm of fictional characters.  One cannot prove with empirical evidence that Paul Bunyan did not exist.  But there is not a shred of evidence that he did.  That is proof of nonexistence--at least for me.  If one cannot prove something with evidence, then it simply isn't.   

[Gawdzilla Sama]

But one can plant seeds of doubt.
That's what happend with me.

I call that "awakening the reasoning mind".

[Hydra009]

Also if you say "there is no god" as a statement of fact when the overwhelming majority of people in the world believe in some kind of god it is reasonable for the theist to ask for evidence why your extraordinary claim is true.

Yeah, but if you said that Zeus is a fictional character or that unicorns don't exist, no one would ask for evidence of this assertion.  This requirement to disprove the belief stems entirely from the popularity of the belief.

[DeltaEpsilon]

I wish to argue that the former is correct.  Well, both are, but there is sometimes some blowback on the flat statement "There is no god" because someone inevitably says, "You can't prove that!"

True enough.

Of course, proving there isn't a god isn't my problem -- the onus is on the believers to prove there is since it's their assertion.

Moreso, I posit that one can legitimately make the claim that there is no god, on the simple basis that the god hypothesis has no empirical support.

By analogy, I am not expected to say that I "believe" there is no phlogiston, or luminiferous aether, or caloric.  These are deprecated theories, long since superseded by better explanations of phenomena, and while there is an infinitesimal chance that some observation might lend them some support, no one expects me to be agnostic about them.

I argue that the same applies to the god hypothesis.  It is an ancient theory of how the universe works, long since obsoleted by better observations and better evidence, and I should not be expected to pay it even lip service anymore.  If evidence turns up, we'll contend with it then, but after ten thousand years or more of human observation, not one single solitary concrete and incontrovertible shred of evidence has appeared.

As such, I shouldn't need to 'believe' there is no god any more than I should have to 'believe' there is no Planet Vulcan between Mercury and the Sun or that the Earth isn't the center of the universe.  I can legitimately say, pending an actual offer of evidence, that there is no reason to accept the hypothesis in the first place -- to wit, there is no god.

Thoughts?

Asking whether god exists is just a silly question. It is likely that god doesn't exist, but it is something that is not able to be proven for absolute certain. The only things able to be proven without a shadow of a doubt are mathematical truths derived from a set of axioms.

[Baruch]

Most of the people who have doubts about there being a god who I've talked to mostly say that it is unlikely or that it cannot be proven one way or the other.  And I think there is a way to prove it.  God is in the realm of fictional characters.  One cannot prove with empirical evidence that Paul Bunyan did not exist.  But there is not a shred of evidence that he did.  That is proof of nonexistence--at least for me.  If one cannot prove something with evidence, then it simply isn't.

You and I are fictional characters, and not just on this site.  You are an unnamed actor playing the part of Mike, and I am the same or different actor playing the part of Baruch.  Unlike the morons of the West, the Hindus address this.  It is called atman vs brahman.  Your atman is your soul, but that is not your ego.  Your ego is the part you play, which you mostly ad lib.  Atman is who is playing that part.  In theory at least, all the many atmans are one, and are one person, called the brahman ... not the same as the Hindu god Brahman.  Even if you are completely convinced you are Mike (the guy behind your postings as your alter ego here ... you are just deluded as much as any believer).  You believe that your ego is you ... but if you have enough skepticism about that ... then you are on your way beyond where you are now.

[Baruch]

I call that "awakening the reasoning mind".

If you don't have as much doubt as David Hume, then you don't doubt enough ;-)

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If you don't have as much doubt as David Hume, then you don't doubt enough ;-)

I doubt that.

[Baruch]

Asking whether god exists is just a silly question. It is likely that god doesn't exist, but it is something that is not able to be proven for absolute certain. The only things able to be proven without a shadow of a doubt are mathematical truths derived from a set of axioms.

People use language loosely.  Proof and demonstration are not the same.  Proof only applies to mathematics ... and is less correct than people believe.  Foundations of Mathematics people have found over the last 100 years, that lots of math are conventions, not even completly consistent, but only relatively consistent.  Demonstrations mean empirical evidence.  I have empirical evidence that I have a right hand ... and if you were here, I could demonstrate that for you.  So people really say, demonstrate that G-d exists ... but the standards for evidence vary ... that is where the rubber hits the road ... standards for evidence.  For me ... the existence of my right hand is proof that G-d exists ... and not because it is well designed ... it isn't.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Your god is incompetent?

[Baruch]

Your god is incompetent?

Duh, even Genesis makes that clear.  Greek theological ideals are total ouzo induced.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Duh, even Genesis makes that clear.  Greek theological ideals are total ouzo induced.

Not a god then.