Are Agnostics Welcome Here?

[Hellbound]

It has? I wish.

Eh, I'd say it has, but no one's bothered to clear away the rubble

 

[abaddon]

Is there a difference between "not running to the store" and "running not to the store"?

No, there isn't. You left out the all important comma which would make the sense of the second phrase different.

"running not to the store" implies you are neither going to the store nor running.

"running, not to the store" implies you are in fact running, but not to the store.

Ain't grammar fun.

 

[Trent Wray]

You might as well say that it's a "matter of faith" that Chuck E. Cheese is a fictional character.

But here's the kicker.... Do these unfalsifiable definitions also allow meaningful assertions of those gods' existence or reality?

I think you'll find the answer is no.

I think you are looking at this the wrong way around and in effect answering the wrong question. Theist is having a belief in a deity, the question to see if you are an atheist i.e. someone without that belief is "Which god or gods do you believe in?" not "Do you think there could be a god?".

Apparently it takes faith to non-believe.

ETA: not believing in god = believing in god therefore not believing = believing. With god all things are possible except defeating iron chariots.

-------------

Okay .... so lets say that 75% of the people in the world says Chuck E. Cheese is a god.

I say Chuck E. Cheese is a fictional character, and not a god.

However, I take my child to eat the pizza at the restaurant, play the games, and seeing the robot version of Chuck makes him happy. When he was about 1 year old, he was afraid of Chuck. When he was 3, he thought Chuck was a real, megafauna mouse. Now he smiles and laughs and plays with him, knowing that he's only a robot and that it's fun to play with a big furry robot that makes a fool of itself and lets him let lose of his inhibitions or whatever.

So looking now to the "definitions", in regard to Chuck E. Cheese ....

1* What was my son defined as before he ever was introduced to Chuck in the first place ? How about when he was 1 and feared CEC ? How about when he was 3 and thought he was real ? And how about now ?
2* What am I defined as ?
3* What is the 75 % defined as ?
4* Is Chuck E. Cheese "real" ? I mean look at the effect CEC has on believers, non believers, children, adults .... does it matter how real he is or not real ?

Finally .... suppose that whilst I think Chuck E. Cheese is a fictional character and not a god ..... suppose my neighbor allows for the possibility that perhaps mice exist on some planet, somewhere, where they are sapient and able to speak language and they are capable of psychic communication (which we aren't here, we are only capable of receiving the transmission at this point in time) and they are responsible for putting the idea of Chuck E. Cheese in our minds through some version of mind control. Perhaps one day we will be able to communicate in return, but for now, we just receive the psychic messages as those few who claim to be able to communicate with the mice have no way of verifying it ... they only seem to believe they are receiving the messages and that one day, human beings will be able to not only verify this psychic ability, but also we will be able to both receive AND transmit ... and even farther into the future, we will be able to ask the mice to show us a sign they are real. The only catch is that it will take 300 years for the sign to arrive to earth ... we merely need to wait for it, patiently.

5* What would you call those who believe in that possibility ? And also .... IS IT a possible explanation and if so, in what way ? After all .... we do have Chuck E. Cheeses all over And the "cop outs" are there to explain why we can't verify the existence of the alien psychic mice .... "yet".

 

[fuelair]

With all due respect and civility (see sig), I side with the premise that if a thing exists, it's natural, so supernatural is a meaningless term.
I apologize for disagreeing. It is, apparently, uncivil.

Only in the lesser social circles, my dear!

 

[fuelair]

No, there isn't. You left out the all important comma which would make the sense of the second phrase different.

"running not to the store" implies you are neither going to the store nor running.

"running, not to the store" implies you are in fact running, but not to the store.

Ain't grammar fun.

grampa too!!!

 

[abaddon]

grampa too!!!

Surely you meant "Grandfather, also"

 

[Comrade Raptor]

I'm an atheist, and never tried to hide it, but I'm a mellow atheist. I don't believe any gods exist, but I don't much care if somebody does believe that or if they just say they don't know.

I don't much like being hectored about religion and how I'm going to hell, but I imagine the people who believe in god(s) don't much like being hectored about how stupid they are to believe in an imaginary being. So I figure so long as nobody's being a jerk, why be a jerk?

I just don't especially care that much about what side of the theological fence people sit on. Decent people are decent people, jerks are jerks. If I'm not being preached to and somebody wants to talk about their beliefs, I'll listen. Sure, why not? Helps me understand them a bit better, I guess. I don't see it as much different than them telling me about their hobbies, or how much they like jazz music.

I'll participate in church-organized good works, too, if I think they're good works. Community stuff and so forth. And I don't get my undies in a bunch if somebody says I'm in their prayers or god bless you. Whatever. I'm not gay, either, but if a guy says I'm good looking I'll take it as a compliment.

I'm of the opinion that a lot of the hay that gets made just comes down to people, atheist or not, putting great emphasis on their own points of view. They're right, right, dammit, and everybody needs to know!

*shrug* Whatever. Me, I just figure everybody's different and so long as they're not up to major mischief I'm pretty cool with whatever they do or believe. I won't lie about my atheism, and I won't hide it, but I don't make a point out of it.

It is what it is, accept it or don't, and I've found that makes it pretty easy to get along with people of all sorts of beliefs.

 

[Piggy]

How does our point of view in any way influence what exists (existed in this case) and what doesn't (didn't)?

You can always take an imaginary point of view, which you seem to have done in this case -- i.e., one outside our timespace -- but by doing so, you again make real = not real, and exists = doesn't exist.

Well obviously you know I wasn't talking about a usual monkey or a usual fart or you wouldn't have put them in quotes. Tell me then, how does it clearly disagree with our understanding of the very early universe?

So now fart = not a fart, and monkey = not a monkey.

Adding it all up....

God may be a real monkey that farted the universe, if and only if we accept that "real" and "not real" can mean the same thing, and "a fart" and "not a fart" can mean the same thing, and "a monkey" and "not a monkey" can mean the same thing.

In that case, can I beat you with a baseball bat and call it giving you a million dollars?

 

[wollery]

That's not a necessary question since there is no evidence to begin with that even remotely suggests I should ask that question.

The question I think is appropriate is, what best explains god beliefs? We have lots of evidence god beliefs exist among people.

I don't dismiss the principle in the scientific process that "proof" is not the goal. I could have been certain in the 1800s, if I were alive then, that the Earth's crust was solid. It might have cracks but I would have still been certain the crust was solid.

As recently as a few decades ago, I was certain bacteria did not thrive in the extremely acidic gastric juices, let alone be the cause of ulcers.

It is a standard part of the scientific process to operate with a presumption of 99.99999999...[to infinity]% certainty for some things for which there is enough evidence to have confidence in that level of certainty. But even the conclusion, I need O₂ to survive, which has one of the highest degrees of certainty you can achieve, is subject to the same uncertainty as the god question you disagree I could be certain about.

Is it certain you need O₂ to survive? You could test it over and over and always get the same result. But in science, you would still never achieve 100% certainty. It is obvious to us we need O₂ to survive, so we never think about the issue of 100% certainty when discussing that conclusion. But it was just as obvious to most people in the 1800s that the Earth's crust was solid and just as obvious to most physicians in the 1970s that bacteria were not the cause of gastric ulcers.


I prefer not to confuse the two issues, the matter of how one treats certainty within the scientific process, and the certainty of the evidence that gods are fictional human inventions. I am just as certain there are no real gods as I am certain I need O₂ to survive. The evidence gods are fictional creations is that overwhelming IMO.


The problem I have with your approach, "you can't know for sure", is that this is applied with a double standard to god beliefs. We don't apply it to the theory of evolution or gravity. We especially don't apply it the the conclusion we need O₂ to survive. We don't really apply it to invisible pink unicorns or invisible garage dragons even though many scientists pay lip service to the uncertainty invisible dragons and unicorns could exist.

On the face of it that sounds like a reasonable argument, but it neatly sidesteps one of the problems I raised earlier. As you point out, in science we deal with probability and this always leaves open the possibility for advances in knowledge. For instance, you give the example that in the 1800s you would have been certain that the Earth's crust was solid. You would have been wrong. Your certainty would have been worthless. The evidence was there to be seen and understood, but nobody had a concept of what to look for, and wouldn't have understood what it was if they did see it.

Your other example is that of the necessity of O₂ to human life. This is in a different category, since we understand the chemical processes necessary for human life we can actually be 100% certain that that is the case. We know what happens in the absence of O₂, and we know that there is no other chemical that can do the same job.

The god question does not fall in to that category, as you admit, we cannot be 100% certain of either the existence or non-existence of god. It's perfectly valid to say that no concept of god yet offered is logically consistent and that there is therefore no reason to believe in any of these gods. However you cannot make the blanket statement that no possible concept of god could be logically consistent, or say that there is no possible concept of god that you could believe in, or that there is definitely no god of any sort. You even say as much.

You also bring up the invisible pink unicorn and the invisible dragon. Again, these fall into a different class. They are specific examples that have been dreamed up for no other reason than to demonstrate the futility of believing in something which has specific qualities that make its existence indistinguishable from its non-existence. In this instance it is impossible to disprove the existence of such entities, but only because they were specifically designed to have properties which render their existence untestable.

As for evolution and gravity, no double standard is applied. Evolution happens, of that we can be 100% certain (it has been observed in the lab), although the precise mechanism is not 100% certain. The same applies to gravity, we know it exists, but not how it works with 100% certainty. As scientists we are happy to accept that more evidence, new theories and better knowledge could be discovered in the future, so the double standard here is yours, in not accepting that there is a possibility of an improvement of knowledge in the future in respect to the concept of god.

 

[HansMustermann]

For all the chatter here, there's one topic which no one really addressed.

It was established fairly quickly that Nicole isn't really agnostic, because she has a pretty firm handle on exactly which beard-in-the-sky she questions the existence of. She's not a real theist either, because historically this particular beard in the sky tends to get a mite tetchy when you voice doubts as to its existence.

So what's that make her? What possible labels exist for the Doubting Thomas territory between theism and ietsism?

TBH, I don't see why that would fall in between. While a lot of people do have more of a problem with one particular god -- e.g., because some family member fell for that one -- it doesn't mean they take the others as proven or disproven.

Sometimes one just doesn't have the time, energy or interest to fight all imaginable battles. Some things are more interesting or more painfully close to home, while others just seem a waste of everyone's time.

I mean, you don't see me starting threads about whether there is reason to doubt that Sol Invictus is the one true god either. I mean, everyone would just agree that yes, there is, and that would be it. Plus, I don't actually know anyone who actually worships the sun -- the late George Carlin notwithstanding -- nor anyone who was convinced by a bunch of sun worshippers that he/she/it was a horrible person and must kiss their butt to be saved. So it's not particularly close to home to be a major topic.

Way I see it, the same seems to apply to Nicole. And at any rate, she said repeatedly stuff like that the FSM is equally unprovable, or that she wanted evidence for everything. So I'm not sure where the spoon do you get this idea that it's in between or doubting just on god.

 

[Piggy]

Of course there's no doubt. The situation is entirely different with supernatural entities that are unknowable. I'm not so arrogant as to assert that nobody could come up with a god definition that I could not falsify. In such a case I would be forced to admit I was wrong, and I would. What would you do?

If it's unknowable, it can't be "real" or "exist", because in that case the world with and without it is identical.

And no, there's no justification for special pleading just because you're talking about a god. "Real" and "exist" have to retain their meanings for the statements "God is real" or "God exists" to be anything but nonsensical.

And since it's unreasonable for you to demand that I believe nonsensical things -- because, after all, there's nothing to believe in that case -- this type of non-claim doesn't change things a bit.

 

[Piggy]

Firmly grounded in reality? Let's try this: I'm not confident enough in my knowledge of reality and its laws to be able to assert there is no god of any kind. How's that sound?

Sounds like a perfectly plausible confession of someone who hasn't given it sufficient thought to come to a conclusion. Which is fine. But of course, it has no effect whatsoever on the conclusions I reach.

 

[gph]

I'm an atheist, and never tried to hide it, but I'm a mellow atheist. I don't believe any gods exist, but I don't much care if somebody does believe that or if they just say they don't know.

I don't much like being hectored about religion and how I'm going to hell, but I imagine the people who believe in god(s) don't much like being hectored about how stupid they are to believe in an imaginary being. So I figure so long as nobody's being a jerk, why be a jerk?

I just don't especially care that much about what side of the theological fence people sit on. Decent people are decent people, jerks are jerks. If I'm not being preached to and somebody wants to talk about their beliefs, I'll listen. Sure, why not? Helps me understand them a bit better, I guess. I don't see it as much different than them telling me about their hobbies, or how much they like jazz music.

I'll participate in church-organized good works, too, if I think they're good works. Community stuff and so forth. And I don't get my undies in a bunch if somebody says I'm in their prayers or god bless you. Whatever. I'm not gay, either, but if a guy says I'm good looking I'll take it as a compliment.

I'm of the opinion that a lot of the hay that gets made just comes down to people, atheist or not, putting great emphasis on their own points of view. They're right, right, dammit, and everybody needs to know!

*shrug* Whatever. Me, I just figure everybody's different and so long as they're not up to major mischief I'm pretty cool with whatever they do or believe. I won't lie about my atheism, and I won't hide it, but I don't make a point out of it.

It is what it is, accept it or don't, and I've found that makes it pretty easy to get along with people of all sorts of beliefs.

You're entitled to your opinion. I don't think that view is helpful but that's also just my opinion.

- Retardation of science.

- Oppression of women.

- Children being abused with fantasy as fact

- Inevitable extinction weapons produced by a species with a majority opinion that death is better than life.

I'd like to see that sort of stuff change. Will we still make a mess of it? Maybe, maybe not but I'd sure like to see an obvious cancer removed.

That and I've never had much patience for people that believe nonsense.

 

[corbin]

If you can call yourself agnostic only because you don't think you've proved that God doesn't exist, then very, very few people are actually atheist and everybody is agnostic.

I don't think this "there is a 1% chance that God exists" definition is a good definition of agnosticism though. My definition of agnosticism is the belief that God has an equal chance of existing or not existing, and it our lack of knowledge, whether this knowledge is impossible or merely not yet known that necessitates the agnostic position. Agnosticism is the neutral ground between believing in God and not believing in God, and if your definition is anything less than either you don't acknowledge this neutral ground or you have some other word for it.

"Agnostic atheist" is poor wording in my opinion. The dichotomy is like this:

{Ath.----weak ath.-----------agnostic-----------weak believer----believer}

The atheism at the far left is illogical since you can't prove a negative. Most atheists are weak atheists.

 

[Piggy]

I have said, “Gods don’t exist”. No qualifications, end of story.

This is the so-called “strong atheist” position – not merely a position reflecting the absence of a belief in gods, but rather a position which positively affirms that no such things exist.

And I’ve been asked how I can make such a statement.

Well, here’s why....

In summary:

1. Gods are mythological.

2. Centuries of progress have now debunked the mythological worldview which not only produced but supported the notion that gods exist, even if relatively few people are sufficiently informed of this situation.

3. As all substantive claims about gods have been disproven, claims about god which do not merely contradict fact have either been removed from space and time (which makes the terms “real” and “exist” when used in relation to God absurd) and/or God itself has been de-defined (which makes any statement about God absurd).

4. The current tested-and-confirmed non-mythological worldview explains why people should continue to believe in gods, even though they are not real.

Taken as a whole, the only conclusion I can reach is that gods aren’t real.

Now, that’s an overly neat synopsis that creates false distinctions among interrelated ideas, so I won’t take them point-by-point in order, but to expand....

Belief in what we call supernatural beings dates from a time when humankind had no inkling of what we now know to be true about the universe. And while a few made some insightful guesses (e.g., that everything is made up of atoms) there was no actual knowledge of astronomy and cosmology, relativity, quantum mechanics, most of physics in fact or geology or biology, certainly not genetics or neuroscience or evolution.

So it made sense to attribute the weather, the motion and existence of heavenly bodies, the creation of the earth and its creatures, diseases, reproduction, even emotions to the activities of any number of beings who lived in the celestial realm, or in the underworld, or in the wild places, or in animals, or in dreamworlds or parallel realms.

Why did this make sense? For the same reasons that it makes sense to so many people today – because the human brain is built to seek out human intentions and agencies, to generate notions of meaning and purpose, to conceive of other people in terms of unified souls dwelling within bodies, and to think in narratives.

The combination of circumstance and natural mental inclination was (and is) bound to produce belief in gods, demons, angels, spirits, ghosts, and other such things which we now call supernatural.

But the reason we now classify such things as supernatural is because we have explored the natural world to such an extent that we can debunk all of the necessary planks that once supported those beliefs.

This is no small thing, and not to be taken lightly.

There is no realm of celestial beings in the sky, just more stars like our sun (well, not exactly like it, but of a type), more planets revolving around them, various rocks and gas, a lot of nearly empty space, matter exploding and colliding... stuff like that.

There are no souls, just the activity of the brain. We know this because we can manipulate conscious awareness through drugs and probes and magnetic fields, and we can identify the physical processes associated with various mental states (although not yet with anything like the precision we’d prefer).

Archaeology, paleontology, and astronomy and cosmology have debunked the old creation myths and origin myths. Except in some cases where the myths coincidentally got things right, such as Hindu beliefs in astronomical timeframes.

Biology and genetics explain reproduction, inheritance, mutation, disease, and death.

And on it goes. In every case in which the old mythological, god-populated world has come up against the current scientific view, it has lost. Which is why we had to create a separate category, the “supernatural”, for all these now homeless ideas.

Now, for your average rational (and informed) person, this should be enough. But the psychological and cultural hold of some of the old ideas can be hard to shake off, so it’s no wonder that many intelligent, educated folks don’t look into it too deeply, and simply accept the supernatural. Not surprising at all.

But their belief doesn’t change the fact that it’s been debunked.

So here’s where we are....

If we define God in terms of what is known to be true – in other words, if we say that God is any sort of originating force, for example, or the mere matter and energy of the universe itself – then God ceases to be what anyone ever thought God was, and becomes simply the mechanistic forces of insensate nature. Which means God has at the same time become not-God and become a mere redundancy. And either of these situations is sufficient to send it off to the realm of the unreal, along with phlogiston, the cosmic ether, and Santa Claus.

Some have attempted to salvage God by the so-called “deistic” solution, which explains God’s indetectability – and resulting lack of any qualities, features, behaviors, and characteristics – by claiming that God merely created the universe and then stopped meddling with it.

The problem here becomes evident if we try the same trick with something new and unfamiliar, because ideas we hear about all our lives tend to take on a certain thingyness in our brains, which can blind us to the error of claims which sneakily leave them undefined. Our brains unconsciously fill in the void.

For example, let’s say I have this conversation with my friend Amicus....

Piggy: “I was reading up on flurb the other day, when—”

Amicus: “Flurb?”

Piggy: “Yeah, I was reading this website about flurb and—”

Amicus: “What’s flurb?”

Piggy: “Oh, it’s what causes the various bodies in the cosmos to move in relation to one another. Anyway—”

Amicus: “You mean gravity and inertia and universal expansion, all that?”

Piggy: “No, no, flurb. Flurb isn’t just the laws of nature.”

Amicus: “Okay, what is it then?”

Piggy: “I just told you. It’s what causes the various bodies in the cosmos to move in relation to one another.”

Now, have I really told Amicus what flurb is? No. I’ve simply claimed that it’s responsible for something that is already understood naturalistically. Amicus can have no idea what flurb is supposed to be. For all intents and purposes, I’ve left flurb undefined.

By the same token, the deistic excuse is an equally empty argument. We’re left to ask, “What, exactly, are you saying created the universe then stopped meddling with it?”

It’s a non-claim. And to ask anyone to accept a non-claim as a claim is unreasonable and absurd.

We cannot simply non-define God as an I-don’t-know-what, residing I-can’t-tell-you-where, doing I-couldn’t-say-which.

But in fact, in light of the debunking of the mythic worldview, that’s all that’s left for God. All that could possibly be left for God.

So if God is something that does have features, qualities, behaviors, and characteristics (which it must, if the claim “God exists” is to be anything but an absurdity) and God is also not simply redundant with the natural world described by science (because to define it that way is to make God equivalent to not-God) then God is a thing which is contrary to fact.

Which, in a nutshell, means it doesn’t exist.

In other words, in the current climate, any claim for the existence of God must either be non-sensical, or contrary to fact.

But wait... how can I say God doesn’t exist if I haven’t explored the entire universe?

Well, that’s simple. It’s because God never has been the kind of thing that hides away off somewhere in the deep and has no contact with us. And if we decide to develop a novel definition of our own, we’re guilty of Humpty-Dumptyism, a fallacy named after the character from “Alice Through the Looking Glass” who declared that “when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean”.

But of course, if we go that route, suddenly it becomes acceptable to say that Richard Nixon was prime minister of Great Britain, or that people normally wash themselves by bathing in razor blades.

But how do I know that someone will not someday invent a definition of God which does correspond to something we can accept as real?

You might as well ask how I know that someone will not someday invent a definition of a “galaxy” which allows it to climb trees.

All sorts of dodges can be dreamed up, but none of them can get around the simple fact that gods have been looked for in every place we would expect to find them doing the sorts of things that gods do, and they have not been there... instead, we find other very non-godlike things doing all of the stuff which the gods were supposed to be responsible for.

But what if God is simply beyond our comprehension?

If that were so, then there would be nothing to talk about, because no one would have ever thought of a god.

But what if I’m wrong? I do have to admit that I might be wrong, don’t I? I mean, we could always be wrong, couldn’t we? About anything.

This is the final refuge of the anti-atheist, whether theist or agnostic. But it’s no refuge at all.

Some things, after all, are certain.

The earth is round like an orange, not flat like a pancake. Even the ancient Greeks were able to figure this out with their crude tools and methods. And we have put men on the moon. I’ve flown around in airplanes, and seen the lovely curve of the earth myself first-hand. I buy my gasoline with a credit card at pumps that don’t work if an orbiting satellite is knocked out of commission.

There can be no doubt about it. The earth is round, not flat.

But what if some “new evidence” is presented? Surely, I have to remain open to new evidence.

Actually no, because all evidence must be evaluated on the basis of observations which confirm or disconfirm it. So whatever “new evidence” anyone comes up with, it will be sized up against our direct observation of a round earth – everything I’ve just mentioned and more – and disconfirmed. New evidence for a flat earth that will be confirmed by observation is not possible.

The same is true for the existence of God, because it’s already been debunked.

But doesn’t that violate the premise that we must always be open to new evidence?

I suppose so, but that is not a fact established by evidence and reason... it is mere dogma. What’s more, it’s dogma contradicted by direct experience.

If I were to accept this dogma, then I would have to accept that Chuck E. Cheese might be a real live anthropomorphic mouse, that I might one day catch a unicorn and be granted a wish in exchange for letting it go free, that leprechauns might roam the hills of Ireland, and that Tolkien’s Middle Earth might be history rather than fiction.

And I would be lying to you if I were to say that I accept any chance whatsoever that these things might be real. What’s more, aside from the dogma, there’s no reason for me to accept that they might be real. And since the dogma is not supported by evidence and/or reason, I have no need to.

But isn’t this arrogance?

Well, humility is certainly a virtue, but it’s a strange view of humility to insist that it include accepting any chance of Tolkien having accidentally written history, when archaeology and paleontology show us plainly that he did not.

The human brain has certainly evolved some strange quirks and illusions. But it could not have evolved, because individuals could not have survived, if it were prone to error about everything.

But can't we accept intellectually that there's some chance that gods exists despite everything, while behaving as if it were true that they don't?

This is a meaningless Nicean compromise, in which, to preserve the accepted orthodoxy, two contradictory assertions are merely tossed in bed together and told to sleep tight. We either accept that there's some real chance of God existing, or we don't. This business of thinking one way and behaving another is... well, it's just what it sounds like.

But what if we’re in a Matrix? What if we’re brains in vats?

If so, then the Matrix or vat-world in which we live doesn’t have gods in it.

What if the controllers add gods?

If they do in the future, that will not change the fact that gods do not exist now.

And in any case, once we get to the Matrix arguments – aside from using them as mere thought experiments – we’ve descended from reasonable discussion into the morass of dorm-room smoke sessions. It’s the kind of pseudo-philosophical cud that gets ruminated endlessly in tail-chasing philosophy threads, doomed to go nowhere.

No one ever made any progress pursuing pointless discussions like that.

What has made demonstrable progress is the very scientific worldview that overturned irrevocably the old, incorrect mythic view of the world.

The very presence of this forum, depending as it does on computers and electronic infrastructure and synthetic materials, is itself part of the proof that not only are there no gods, but there can be no gods.

And I have not one shred, not one iota, not one quark of doubt about that. Just as I have no doubt that the earth is round, that Tolkien wrote fiction, and that unicorns don’t grant wishes.

Nor should I.

 

[Trent Wray]

I have said, “Gods don’t exist”. No qualifications, end of story.

This is the so-called “strong atheist” position – not merely a position reflecting the absence of a belief in gods, but rather a position which positively affirms that no such things exist.

And I’ve been asked how I can make such a statement.

Well, here’s why....

In summary:

1. Gods are mythological.

2. Centuries of progress have now debunked the mythological worldview which not only produced but supported the notion that gods exist, even if relatively few people are sufficiently informed of this situation.

3. As all substantive claims about gods have been disproven, claims about god which do not merely contradict fact have either been removed from space and time (which makes the terms “real” and “exist” when used in relation to God absurd) and/or God itself has been de-defined (which makes any statement about God absurd).

4. The current tested-and-confirmed non-mythological worldview explains why people should continue to believe in gods, even though they are not real.

Taken as a whole, the only conclusion I can reach is that gods aren’t real.

Now, that’s an overly neat synopsis that creates false distinctions among interrelated ideas, so I won’t take them point-by-point in order, but to expand....

Belief in what we call supernatural beings dates from a time when humankind had no inkling of what we now know to be true about the universe. And while a few made some insightful guesses (e.g., that everything is made up of atoms) there was no actual knowledge of astronomy and cosmology, relativity, quantum mechanics, most of physics in fact or geology or biology, certainly not genetics or neuroscience or evolution.

So it made sense to attribute the weather, the motion and existence of heavenly bodies, the creation of the earth and its creatures, diseases, reproduction, even emotions to the activities of any number of beings who lived in the celestial realm, or in the underworld, or in the wild places, or in animals, or in dreamworlds or parallel realms.

Why did this make sense? For the same reasons that it makes sense to so many people today – because the human brain is built to seek out human intentions and agencies, to generate notions of meaning and purpose, to conceive of other people in terms of unified souls dwelling within bodies, and to think in narratives.

The combination of circumstance and natural mental inclination was (and is) bound to produce belief in gods, demons, angels, spirits, ghosts, and other such things which we now call supernatural.

But the reason we now classify such things as supernatural is because we have explored the natural world to such an extent that we can debunk all of the necessary planks that once supported those beliefs.

This is no small thing, and not to be taken lightly.

There is no realm of celestial beings in the sky, just more stars like our sun (well, not exactly like it, but of a type), more planets revolving around them, various rocks and gas, a lot of nearly empty space, matter exploding and colliding... stuff like that.

There are no souls, just the activity of the brain. We know this because we can manipulate conscious awareness through drugs and probes and magnetic fields, and we can identify the physical processes associated with various mental states (although not yet with anything like the precision we’d prefer).

Archaeology, paleontology, and astronomy and cosmology have debunked the old creation myths and origin myths. Except in some cases where the myths coincidentally got things right, such as Hindu beliefs in astronomical timeframes.

Biology and genetics explain reproduction, inheritance, mutation, disease, and death.

And on it goes. In every case in which the old mythological, god-populated world has come up against the current scientific view, it has lost. Which is why we had to create a separate category, the “supernatural”, for all these now homeless ideas.

Now, for your average rational (and informed) person, this should be enough. But the psychological and cultural hold of some of the old ideas can be hard to shake off, so it’s no wonder that many intelligent, educated folks don’t look into it too deeply, and simply accept the supernatural. Not surprising at all.

But their belief doesn’t change the fact that it’s been debunked.

So here’s where we are....

If we define God in terms of what is known to be true – in other words, if we say that God is any sort of originating force, for example, or the mere matter and energy of the universe itself – then God ceases to be what anyone ever thought God was, and becomes simply the mechanistic forces of insensate nature. Which means God has at the same time become not-God and become a mere redundancy. And either of these situations is sufficient to send it off to the realm of the unreal, along with phlogiston, the cosmic ether, and Santa Claus.

Some have attempted to salvage God by the so-called “deistic” solution, which explains God’s indetectability – and resulting lack of any qualities, features, behaviors, and characteristics – by claiming that God merely created the universe and then stopped meddling with it.

The problem here becomes evident if we try the same trick with something new and unfamiliar, because ideas we hear about all our lives tend to take on a certain thingyness in our brains, which can blind us to the error of claims which sneakily leave them undefined. Our brains unconsciously fill in the void.

For example, let’s say I have this conversation with my friend Amicus....

Piggy: “I was reading up on flurb the other day, when—”

Amicus: “Flurb?”

Piggy: “Yeah, I was reading this website about flurb and—”

Amicus: “What’s flurb?”

Piggy: “Oh, it’s what causes the various bodies in the cosmos to move in relation to one another. Anyway—”

Amicus: “You mean gravity and inertia and universal expansion, all that?”

Piggy: “No, no, flurb. Flurb isn’t just the laws of nature.”

Amicus: “Okay, what is it then?”

Piggy: “I just told you. It’s what causes the various bodies in the cosmos to move in relation to one another.”

Now, have I really told Amicus what flurb is? No. I’ve simply claimed that it’s responsible for something that is already understood naturalistically. Amicus can have no idea what flurb is supposed to be. For all intents and purposes, I’ve left flurb undefined.

By the same token, the deistic excuse is an equally empty argument. We’re left to ask, “What, exactly, are you saying created the universe then stopped meddling with it?”

It’s a non-claim. And to ask anyone to accept a non-claim as a claim is unreasonable and absurd.

We cannot simply non-define God as an I-don’t-know-what, residing I-can’t-tell-you-where, doing I-couldn’t-say-which.

But in fact, in light of the debunking of the mythic worldview, that’s all that’s left for God. All that could possibly be left for God.

So if God is something that does have features, qualities, behaviors, and characteristics (which it must, if the claim “God exists” is to be anything but an absurdity) and God is also not simply redundant with the natural world described by science (because to define it that way is to make God equivalent to not-God) then God is a thing which is contrary to fact.

Which, in a nutshell, means it doesn’t exist.

In other words, in the current climate, any claim for the existence of God must either be non-sensical, or contrary to fact.

But wait... how can I say God doesn’t exist if I haven’t explored the entire universe?

Well, that’s simple. It’s because God never has been the kind of thing that hides away off somewhere in the deep and has no contact with us. And if we decide to develop a novel definition of our own, we’re guilty of Humpty-Dumptyism, a fallacy named after the character from “Alice Through the Looking Glass” who declared that “when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean”.

But of course, if we go that route, suddenly it becomes acceptable to say that Richard Nixon was prime minister of Great Britain, or that people normally wash themselves by bathing in razor blades.

But how do I know that someone will not someday invent a definition of God which does correspond to something we can accept as real?

You might as well ask how I know that someone will not someday invent a definition of a “galaxy” which allows it to climb trees.

All sorts of dodges can be dreamed up, but none of them can get around the simple fact that gods have been looked for in every place we would expect to find them doing the sorts of things that gods do, and they have not been there... instead, we find other very non-godlike things doing all of the stuff which the gods were supposed to be responsible for.

But what if God is simply beyond our comprehension?

If that were so, then there would be nothing to talk about, because no one would have ever thought of a god.

But what if I’m wrong? I do have to admit that I might be wrong, don’t I? I mean, we could always be wrong, couldn’t we? About anything.

This is the final refuge of the anti-atheist, whether theist or agnostic. But it’s no refuge at all.

Some things, after all, are certain.

The earth is round like an orange, not flat like a pancake. Even the ancient Greeks were able to figure this out with their crude tools and methods. And we have put men on the moon. I’ve flown around in airplanes, and seen the lovely curve of the earth myself first-hand. I buy my gasoline with a credit card at pumps that don’t work if an orbiting satellite is knocked out of commission.

There can be no doubt about it. The earth is round, not flat.

But what if some “new evidence” is presented? Surely, I have to remain open to new evidence.

Actually no, because all evidence must be evaluated on the basis of observations which confirm or disconfirm it. So whatever “new evidence” anyone comes up with, it will be sized up against our direct observation of a round earth – everything I’ve just mentioned and more – and disconfirmed. New evidence for a flat earth that will be confirmed by observation is not possible.

The same is true for the existence of God, because it’s already been debunked.

But doesn’t that violate the premise that we must always be open to new evidence?

I suppose so, but that is not a fact established by evidence and reason... it is mere dogma. What’s more, it’s dogma contradicted by direct experience.

If I were to accept this dogma, then I would have to accept that Chuck E. Cheese might be a real live anthropomorphic mouse, that I might one day catch a unicorn and be granted a wish in exchange for letting it go free, that leprechauns might roam the hills of Ireland, and that Tolkien’s Middle Earth might be history rather than fiction.

And I would be lying to you if I were to say that I accept any chance whatsoever that these things might be real. What’s more, aside from the dogma, there’s no reason for me to accept that they might be real. And since the dogma is not supported by evidence and/or reason, I have no need to.

But isn’t this arrogance?

Well, humility is certainly a virtue, but it’s a strange view of humility to insist that it include accepting any chance of Tolkien having accidentally written history, when archaeology and paleontology show us plainly that he did not.

The human brain has certainly evolved some strange quirks and illusions. But it could not have evolved, because individuals could not have survived, if it were prone to error about everything.

But can't we accept intellectually that there's some chance that gods exists despite everything, while behaving as if it were true that they don't?

This is a meaningless Nicean compromise, in which, to preserve the accepted orthodoxy, two contradictory assertions are merely tossed in bed together and told to sleep tight. We either accept that there's some real chance of God existing, or we don't. This business of thinking one way and behaving another is... well, it's just what it sounds like.

But what if we’re in a Matrix? What if we’re brains in vats?

If so, then the Matrix or vat-world in which we live doesn’t have gods in it.

What if the controllers add gods?

If they do in the future, that will not change the fact that gods do not exist now.

And in any case, once we get to the Matrix arguments – aside from using them as mere thought experiments – we’ve descended from reasonable discussion into the morass of dorm-room smoke sessions. It’s the kind of pseudo-philosophical cud that gets ruminated endlessly in tail-chasing philosophy threads, doomed to go nowhere.

No one ever made any progress pursuing pointless discussions like that.

What has made demonstrable progress is the very scientific worldview that overturned irrevocably the old, incorrect mythic view of the world.

The very presence of this forum, depending as it does on computers and electronic infrastructure and synthetic materials, is itself part of the proof that not only are there no gods, but there can be no gods.

And I have not one shred, not one iota, not one quark of doubt about that. Just as I have no doubt that the earth is round, that Tolkien wrote fiction, and that unicorns don’t grant wishes.

Nor should I.

Why did you choose the username Piggy and claim to be on "Ralph's side of the island" ?

 

[Piggy]

Why did you choose the username Piggy and claim to be on "Ralph's side of the island" ?

"I didn't vote for no ghosts!"

 

[Leumas]

And in any case, once we get to the Matrix arguments – aside from using them as mere thought experiments – we’ve descended from reasonable discussion into the morass of dorm-room smoke sessions. It’s the kind of pseudo-philosophical cud that gets ruminated endlessly in tail-chasing philosophy threads, doomed to go nowhere.
No one ever made any progress pursuing pointless discussions like that.

What has made demonstrable progress is the very scientific worldview that overturned irrevocably the old, incorrect mythic view of the world.

The very presence of this forum, depending as it does on computers and electronic infrastructure and synthetic materials, is itself part of the proof that not only are there no gods, but there can be no gods.

And I have not one shred, not one iota, not one quark of doubt about that. Just as I have no doubt that the earth is round, that Tolkien wrote fiction, and that unicorns don’t grant wishes.Nor should I.

Just one thing to add.....

The main reason IMHO that people still cling to any kind of warping of any definition of God is because they cannot accept that there is nothing else after death. This concept of not existing after they die seems to drive people totally bananas. Cognitive Dissonance then drives them to warp and contort the God hypothesis to try to overcome the facts against it in order to maintain the concept of life after death.

 

[Trent Wray]

"I didn't vote for no ghosts!"

 

[epepke]

Okay .... so lets say that 75% of the people in the world says Chuck E. Cheese is a god.

It's Ch-ck -. Ch--s-, blasphemer!