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Except that in my experience, those who are 100% certain will never change their mind. After all, they are 100% certain. Those who are truly and literally 100% sure they are right need never reexamine their stance or pay attention to inconvenient truths.
That said, I agree with you at the practical level, just not the epistemological level. And I think epistemological humility is important. If one lacks it, that lack ends up permeating everything and tends to lead to bellicose flogging of pet ideas. Even when those ideas happen coincidentally to be correct, they lose whatever chance they have to be transmitted to others.
I live my everyday mundane existence as if I were 100% sure there were no deities whatsoever, because I see no reason to do otherwise. I don't however argue my position as if I were 100% sure. Because that would speak to knowledge claims I don't hold to. On the other hand, belief is binary; one doesn't half believe something, not really. And I 100% don't believe in any deities at all.
So once again it comes down to knowledge claims vs belief claims.
I think you are saying you 100% don't believe, and with that I heartily agree.
If you are saying you 100% know there are no gods, then to an extent you are playing into the theist trap of the "arrogant atheist who knows it all". And maybe you don't care. I'm not sure I do, or should. But from an argumentation standpoint I like to chip away at their stereotypes rather than feed them.
Well, some people maybe, but I don't necessarily see it that way.
I look at this from a sort of scientific standpoint, in that, in science, there are no universal truths, just views of the world that have yet to be shown to be false or until a better theory comes along.
Take Newtons Law of Gravitation for example. As brilliant as Newton's Law is it does nothing to explain what gravity actually is, it just provides us with a mathematical approximation of gravity. Then Einstein comes along and blows that all apart with his theory of general relativity which provides us with both an accurate equation and a convincing explanation of what gravity is.
There are many many other examples, like how many of us grew up with the 'fact' that Pluto was a planet? Or that Brontosaurus was a dinosaur genus in its own right, before being de-classified (and now it seems reclassified back to being Brontosaurus again). Or that the universe is 12 billion years old, now upgraded to 13.82 billion years?
The trouble is 'facts' change. A really good book on this subject is 'The half life of facts' by Sam Arbesman.
We can only accept what we believe to be true based on what is presented to us at the time. We make judgements about whether those 'facts' seem feasible to us. Unless anything appears contradictory we can accept those as 'facts' for the time being.
What would be arrogant, as well as extremely pig headed and stupid would be then to dismiss the presentation of the new and improved information and stick with the old facts.
I guess I'm contracting myself somewhat in that what I'm probably demonstrating here is that you can never be 100% sure about anything, so I'm going to go with Grandstander and say that I life my life with a sort of defacto certainty, so while I'm not convinced about any evidence of a god existing, I'd have to accept it should undeniable evidence be presented.
Really we are back to just an argument about semantics.
I did, did I? Well, it is a question that needs to be asked every time a God -(or not) debate comes up.
Note your post;
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arach Angle
Originally Posted by Arach Angle yeah, I want the state to do this. 100% for sure. I think. Plus you need a little thing like a describing what god you are talking about.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Continuum
The ultimate God is the Ontological God, i.e.
God is a Being than which no greater can be conceived - St. Anselm and others.
All other definitions of 'God' are inferior to the above.
I agree in such a debate/discussion it is critical we should define what we meant by 'God.'
I think the 'ontological' definition of God [raised by theologians, not me] is the best main definition as it covers all other sub-definitions.
I have a problem with it as it is too broad and vague. Like saying: "God is everything that exists". It effectively tells us nothing and gives us nothing to discuss or debate.
Until you start making some meaningful descriptive claims for God, or a god, you have nothing meaningful to discuss.
I think Anselm and the others were simply expanding the god that has already been described in the Bible to cosmic size. Then, the description has meaning. As in 'Krishna is limitless' or 'Buddha is everything in existence'. Then the debate is not about whether reality or the cosmos exist, but whether the specific Book - described being who has been identified with the whole of existence merits being believed.
I have a problem with it as it is too broad and vague. Like saying: "God is everything that exists". It effectively tells us nothing and gives us nothing to discuss or debate.
Until you start making some meaningful descriptive claims for God, or a god, you have nothing meaningful to discuss.
I think Anselm and the others were simply expanding the god that has already been described in the Bible to cosmic size. Then, the description has meaning. As in 'Krishna is limitless' or 'Buddha is everything in existence'. Then the debate is not about whether reality or the cosmos exist, but whether the specific Book - described being who has been identified with the whole of existence merits being believed.
I thought I could avoid going through the stories.
If God is a Being than which no greater can be conceived, then such a God would still have those usual Omni-qualities that are attributed to such a god.
If God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and Omni-whatever then such a God is all powerful to do what he wants.
So how can you say it effectively tells us nothing when such a God can be predicated with anything as claimed by theists.
But my point is despite it is claimed it can tell us anything, it will not pass the '100% certain God do not exists as real' test as supported by the Critical Philosophical Framework and System I am proposing.
I don't see how that alters anything. A greater than which nothing can be conceived God -claim without anything else becomes as meaningless as 'God' = 'everything'
As soon as you make any claims about God (or gods) that are specific (if not testable) then there is something to discuss and the 'everything' claim I suppose become meaningful but just another claim about a specific entity.
There is still not 100% certainly about any of this, though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Continuum
I thought I could avoid going through the stories. ..
I don't see how that alters anything. A greater than which nothing can be conceived God -claim without anything else becomes as meaningless as 'God' = 'everything'
As soon as you make any claims about God (or gods) that are specific (if not testable) then there is something to discuss and the 'everything' claim I suppose become meaningful but just another claim about a specific entity.
There is still not 100% certainly about any of this, though.
I agree and you are right on the above from the atheistic point of view.
But there is the concept of an antinomy;
From the theist point of view, they claim the ontological god is not meaningless and they produced arguments to support their point. Then theists and atheists will argue till the cow comes home.
Generally the atheists will just disclaim the ontological god as meaningless unless and until theists can bring evidence to support their claim [ontological and others]. But this request for evidence do not hold water, i.e. not water-tight at the higher levels of philosophical deliberations. The philosophical point is the atheist cannot get pass the dilemma of the 'antinomy.'
What is disappointing is many atheists just put up their hands, surrender and accept a 3/4-baked-counter to theism and make no attempts to traverse the antinomy.
What I am proposing is a philosophical approach to get pass the antinomy to get assurance the atheist has a solid foundation to assert 'God do not exist' with a highest possible degree of certainty. To establish such a sold foundation, we need the relevant Critical Philosophical Framework and System [CPFS].
So far, I have not got into explaining in details of the CPFS.
I will give examples and analogies to give an idea what the CPFS is about.
Last edited by Continuum; 09-09-2015 at 11:13 PM..
Reason: antinomy not antimony
Ok. You have a good point there. There was a good you tube on why God in not the best (or more probable) argument, but I recall that it was more based on the physics arguments rather than the Philosophical ones.
Antimony is unfamiliar to me outside the periodic table - the one thing I ever did learn in the science class - and i will have a look and get back to you if I feel I have anything worthwhile to say....
Ok... Kant's argument of logically contradictory claims and the fourth 'God as a necessary being' is the relevant one here. Aquinas seems to have come up with the argument in the first place and it was a good one for his time, just as Socrates (or Plato, at least) was good for their time but they were limited in lack on information about the universe. Succinctly evolution and cosmology has provided an alternative explanation to the Necessary God idea.
There is less excuse for the rehashing of these arguments by Lane Craig, Plantinga and others, since they are trying to apply the arguments without the a priori Creator -God that Aquinas had. But it boils down to the same thing - unvalidated claims. I feel it is stronger and more correct position to throw up the hands, as you say, and say 'You have not produced any valid evidence that this is so'. "This is presupposing a god exists", "this is just based on what you personally prefer to believe".
I think that showing these arguments worthless, no matter how cleverly they are draped in Philosophical jargon, is a better and more logically correct position that trying to prove that a god cannot possibly exist. I would not touch that one with a barge pole.
But kudos for addressing what I don't dare to. I still think it is making assumptions about gods which the theists can evade by reinventing God to be other than what falls under the objection. But I'll have another look at your argument.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 09-10-2015 at 06:52 AM..
I feel it is stronger and more correct position to throw up the hands, as you say, and say 'You have not produced any valid evidence that this is so'. "This is presupposing a god exists", "this is just based on what you personally prefer to believe".
Where is the evidence? Stronger?
There is a possibility you could be standing on merely 'air' above a 3000 meter chasm and the God idea is resting on air within a 6000 meter chasm. Both have the potential to drop to the bottom of the canyon.
Are you aware of ALL the known limitations you are facing when you hold on to that flimsy 'Where is the evidence' stance? Done a SWOT on that?
There is a possibility you could be standing on merely 'air' above a 3000 meter chasm and the God idea is resting on air within a 6000 meter chasm. Both have the potential to drop to the bottom of the canyon.
Are you aware of ALL the known limitations you are facing when you hold on to that flimsy 'Where is the evidence' stance? Done a SWOT on that?
pre ps. The 'evidence' such as it is, is that it is the stronger logical or presuppositioning position based on the lack of evidence - either way. Thus reserving belief until there is something to go on (evidence) is a logically more sound position. I hope that I don't need to draw you an exploded diagram of the reasoning.
I do not deal in 'possibilities'. I have convincing evidence (1) that reality is real, quite apart from what our perceptions are. And the effects of that reality repeat, predictably. Therefore, as I posted to some one on Christianity who asked(2) whether it was possible that I did not exist, I replied that it was possible, but as I could not imagine how, let alone think it probable or even a plausible suggestion, I did not worry about it.
Thus I do not worry or even care much about the myriad undisprovables, but take the verified results of science as the only facts worth believing. That is in fact what we all do - even those who profess to claim that they do not. We rely on reality and the work of science every day of our flippin' lives.
p.s If I have got you wrong and that image was merely an analogy, then you had better explain the verified fact that it is an analogy of as, if it is merely an analogy of an unverified claim, it was not worth posting.
(1) what I call the 'cheeze sandwich' test. Or you may call it it the 'absent chair' verication.
(2) it was a nice question and I recall it with pleasure.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 09-10-2015 at 10:07 AM..
I love that one. When one does not understand the evidence science provides the only logical stance is "I don't believe ya." I think the logical answer when one does not understand the data is to say I don't know. But since when is a religious belief (one that ignores raw data in favor of personal need) ever concerned with "understanding". That might crush the little world view.
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I think. Plus you need a little thing like a describing what god you are talking about.
I thought I could avoid going through the stories. 
You dragged Anselm into it.
of ALL the known limitations you are facing when you hold on to that flimsy 'Where is the evidence' stance? Done a SWOT on that?
