I am not making that statement. I am making the positive claim that given its track record when tested, there is sufficient evidence to safely conclude that the supernatural is very likely to not exist.

I would change 'many' to 'most' (generalizing here, of course, grouping numerous claims into one category, like telekinesis, ghosts, prayer, etc.). As for the last sentence, there has never been a thorough investigation which was able to reasonably conclude that a supernatural explanation is anywhere near the top contenders for plausible explanations. This is the other aspect of the 'no evidence' argument. While many experiments have shown that most claims of supernatural origin are false, there have not been any which come anywhere near concluding that any supernatural explanation is among the best of potential explanations.

If guilty represents not true and innocent represents true, I am claiming there is enough evidence to conclude guilty.

If you conclude that it is unlikely that a god exists, why is it not safe to assume that one does not? Remember, we are not talking about absolute certainty. Given the same argument, we would conclude that it is unlikely to be true that leprechauns exist. But most of us have no problem then assuming that they do not. Why is the case for a god any different? Is there more compelling evidence that leprechauns do not exist than a god?

Edit: added last quotation as my last paragraph addresses it as well

You slimy bastard Dragon! I couldn't figure out why I kept getting a blank message box when I was clicking the quote button

how is this thread this long?

OP, Alex, other "strong" atheists....do you believe there is no god with the same amount of certainty as your belief that the sun will rise tomorrow?

if no, then you're just like all the "soft" atheists you're talking about.

if yes, i'd ask how you can be that sure when you've seen the sun rise thousands of times (not seen, but you know what i mean ldo), but have nothing even in the same ballpark as far as "evidence" when speaking on the origin of the universe.

pretty sure you guys are just mixing words, but you're all really smart, so maybe i should read the entire thread. just started to get tilted like halfway in.

these two posts should have been within the first five itt lol.

pretty much every reg "weak/soft" atheist on this board simply admits it would be ridiculous to say you know with 100% certainty there is no god/creator, but they believe the odds of one actually existing based on the lack of evidence OP alludes to multiple times to be so low that most christians would think they're satan after a convo about religion with them.

for myself, if i put a percentage on how strongly i disbelieve the christian god is real, i'd give you 99.9999%.

if you ask me if don't believe there exists any personal god. by that i mean one similar to the christian god, but different. i would again be in the 99th percentile, but it would be lower than my answer about the specific god of christianity.

if you ask me if i believe there exists a creator of some kind..even one that just created matter and let things run its course without any intervention, it would again be high nineties, but again lower than the previous question.

thing is, i'm curious as hell how we got here, but the only thing i can picture creating us ends up back to it having a brain/mind similar to ours. like if it isn't in the form of a human body, then what? let's say it is just a blob of goo. well, it still has to have a "brain" to think with, and create things, right? what else can we picture having this power if they don't have what we would consider a "brain"?

so i just feel like we're so limited in how we can even think about the question of "where did all this come from?", that i don't think we'll ever know the answer until we're dead, or that god/creator provides evidence. my money is on no human ever knowing what happens to them after they die, and my money is also on permanent sleep for all.

So the minimal level of confidence required before one can claim belief that something is true is equal to that of the level of confidence one has that the sun will rise tomorrow? Do you believe that William Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet? Do you hold this to the same level of confidence that the sun will rise tomorrow?

One of the interesting revelations of this thread is that we all seem to be using varying/cloudy definitions of 'strong' and 'weak' atheism. I thought the distinction was pretty clear cut before I started it. To reiterate, I am not using a definition of strong atheism which implies absolute certainty. I reject the notion of absolute certainty almost entirely as unattainable. What I am saying is that I believe a god does not exist. This means that given the evidence (or lack thereof, as the case may be), I am confident assuming that a god does not exist in the same way that I am confident assuming that leprechauns do not exist.

That there has been relatively little attack on either my evidential argument (that no studies have concluded a supernaturalistic explanation is among the most likely of potential explanations for anything) or its conclusion (that this means the supernatural is likely to not exist), but rather we have spent much of the time discussing the definition of 'strong' and 'weak' atheism I think speaks to the strength of my argument itself. I keep posing this question and nobody seems to want to answer it, so I will pose it to everybody here:

Does anybody have a problem claiming that they believe leprechauns, the loch ness monster, and pixies do not exist? If not, why is replacing any of these things with a god any different? (This question is mostly for atheists as theists obviously believe that the probability of a god existing is much higher than the probability of any of these other things existing)

What I find in the Bible, which I take on faith without proof.

That is nonresponsive. I'm still waiting for your answer.

Non sequitur. Recognizing the universe as designed could (you have not proven otherwise) reveal something about the Designer. In fact, I would suspect recognition of design and knowledge of its intent will go together when the science is finally done. Regardless, saying that knowing the universe was designed is irrelevant to "theism" is a big assumption which requires either proper labeling as such are some sort of logic to be shown.

That is nonresponsive. You just repeated yourself.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. At least not until the search is exhaustive, which in this case it is nowhere near.

Why?

For that matter, why do you think the things you do?

Do you think you would have been a muslim and said the same thing about the koran if your parents were also muslim? If no, why not? If yes, you agree you are deterministic in at least some way that defines your religion. If that's so, why are you so sure you are right?

No no, remember we already agreed that the argument from design only implies a designer, not anything specific about that designer. When I started to raise objections about assigning attributes to that designer, you said

We should drop the argument from design from the discussion anyway. It is irrelevant with respect to my argument as I have already explained. Continuing to discuss is only going to lead us in circles. You accept it. I do not. It is irrelevant if for no other reason than that; if I do not accept your argument then I cannot reject my own argument because of it. Maybe we could make another thread about it in a few days. I'll think about it.

If the laws of nature, as they are, are the only possible 'setting' for those laws, then they must exist in their current state for any reality regardless of whether or not there is a creator. But maybe I am misunderstanding your question. Perhaps you could rephrase it if this is the case.

Why ask why? I take the Bible on faith without needing reason to tell me it's okay. Since reason does not have reason behind it, no reasonable person puts ultimate stock in it. I suppose saying the Bible feels like the Truth from a vital intuitional perspective is in the ballpark.

It is evidence of absence if we do not find evidence where we would expect to find it. The more we search for evidence of the existence of something in places that we would expect to find such evidence and subsequently fail to find it, the less likely it is that that something exists. This is still, of course, up for review upon the arrival of new evidence to the contrary.

It's not.

and you don't see a problem with this? you claim to know something about the creator of the universe and claim that i do not. neither of us have any knowledge of this subject, so your guess is just as good (by that i mean terribly bad) as mine.

God is a giant orangutan with 5 heads, each one being that of a member of the Jackson 5. he revealed himself to me personally in my backyard, while no one else was around.

how can you say that I am wrong? what evidence do you have?

remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Then you don't have a problem claiming that you believe a god does not exist?

In that sense, no.

Ha, that's what I was thinking. I haven't read most of the thread cause it's too burdensome to go through it when you already know the final answer. Hint: Everything Tame Deuces says is correct. Those who think strong atheism is a tenable position are either making philosophical mistakes or language mistakes. I assume it is mostly the latter.

Okay. That's pretty much my stance as well.

I have posed this question throughout the thread and think it is essentially the core of why I consider myself a strong atheist:

Bad science. Your conclusion would follow only if there was a dependency between the presence of the supernatural where you expected to find it but didn't and where you'd expect to find it and have not yet looked, which has not been demonstrated.

No, I do not see a problem with it since unproven premises are an inescapable part of any logical point of view.

It looks like you're not going to answer my question about what you know about possible creators of the universe that causes you to assume such an entity "would not go around being invisible and not interacting with anyone or anything in any verifiable way."

well i don't feel that such a view is at all compatible with any logical thinking. taking one book with some verified facts but far more verified falsities at face value is not logical. assuming that it is true because you were told it is true is not logical. if you were raised in a family who believed Harry Potter novels were divinely inspired and raised you to believe that, you likely would. and you likely would find that logically sound. or if you won't accept that example, replace Harry Potter novels with Scientology.


i did answer your question. i made it clear that there is no way for me to know anything about the nature of any possible creator of this universe, and neither do you.

what extra evidence do you have that I don't? has this creator revealed himself to you personally? if so, then what makes you special? why do you get privileged with this special evidence that allows you to be so sure of any god, let alone a very specific one, and i do not? especially when this evidence could mean the difference between eternal paradise for me vs. whatever new place christians have made up this century?

i have read the bible, and i assume that you have too. i went to church for many years and studied the religion, and i assume you did too. so i think we are working off of pretty much the same evidence here. you find that evidence sufficient for belief in the Christian God, but I do not.

No, sorry. If the claim is 'X exists' and we go look for X where we would expect to find it, and find no evidence of it there, then the claim 'X exists' becomes less credible.

Then, if you do not "know anything about the nature of any possible creator of this universe," on what basis do you "assume that the creator of the universe would not go around being invisible and not interacting with anyone or anything in any verifiable way"?

I don't know. Yes. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

no he didn't. he revealed himself to me personally and said you were a treacherous snake and a liar. this is 100% true simply because you can't disprove it.

No, but it's higher than my level of certainty that I won't die in the next year. Or about what I ate two weeks ago. I have strong beliefs about all of these though, and I've already made a bunch of similar analogies in this thread.


I'm not talking about the creation of the universe. I'm talking about a theistic, personal god who interferes with nature. I've spent a lot of days on Earth, and I haven't experienced a single supernatural event and haven't encountered any credible people who have done so either.

I'm having a hard time D figuring out whether we are still saying something different or have narrowed the gap sufficiently that its essentially the same thing? I need to understand if your position is really different then mine before really answering that last question since I suspect were only different semantically at this point. I may be wrong though...

It's not fun when you spend time evaluating a position and describing your thought process only to be reassured that you're wrong with no explanation whatsoever. Especially since I've already acknowledged that this is likely a language game, but I still don't see which words I'm misusing.

I'm just wondering what happened to madnak, vhawk, and all the times I was told that atheism = belief, agnosticism -knowledge, weak atheism = lack of belief in god, strong atheism = belief no god, and all the times that theists have been mocked for coming in here and misunderstanding atheism. Have I getting the wrong information the whole time or why do we keep arguing about 100% certainty with a term that concerns belief?