I do need clarification here. "God" broadly in this discussion refers to a conscious creator and overseer of our reality and posthumous fate. At least, that is what I mean. What did you mean by "Yahweh"? I truly do not understand what you are trying to ask here.

Also, I did not mean to say that the statement "God does not exist" is irrational. I said it was "not rational on an empirical basis" meaning that it was not a logically supported statement based on available empirical data. I meant no offence. "God does exist" is also not a logically supported statement based on empirical data. They are both beliefs. Which I thought was tame's original point.

No

Those atheists are wrong to do so.

Eh? I'm dealing with it by spending a proportion of my time pointing out where they are mistaken. But given that you find it (justifiably!) annoying when atheists do it to you, don't do it to atheists. Apparently there was some guy who said something about "Do unto others..."

Yeah, sorry. LZ was asking you about that analogy, and you said it was only okay, my question is that if you think the problem is with the analogy itself, because unlike God, you can just peer into the garage and discover there is no elephant? Or the conclusion of the analogy?

So he said that in one case someone "doubts something 100%", and the other case someone simply has disbelief about something. Is this accurate in your view?

My follow up question is that, wouldn't your disbelief still have room for doubt somewhere in it, making you a weak atheist, in the sense that you're not guaranteed to be right?

That's kinda what I was getting at in a much more daft approach.

edit: seemed strange after much of what you said, to agree with that analogy and where it takes you.

Fair enough. But I will point out that this thread was started by an atheist using his terms and stating his point of view, so blaming it all on those pesky theists is not quite fair.

You are confusing me with the guy I was responding to. I agree with the guy that theists sometimes do what he said they do. I also (as is perfectly obvious given my posts in this thread) believe it applies to sub-groups within atheism. Here is my comment again:

It's frustrating when people who don't self-identify as X tell those who do what X "really means".

OK cool. But I have become involved in this discussion to some extent so I am interested in getting a clear definition of the terms. Everyone should feel free to simply state their point of view directly if the terminology is troublesome for them.

I disagree with the analogy because I feel that, if the prayer-answering god of Abraham exists in the manner described by the theology of the major religions, it generates several testable predictions which have failed. A failed prediction is a failed hypothesis. Therefore it is false that the god of Abraham, as described the theology of the major religions, exists.

Incidentally, I find it much more convenient to write/say "God" instead of "the god of Abraham, as described the theology of the major religions", but given that I've got a Catholic claiming not to know who I mean by Yahweh/God, I don't know what to do anymore

As I said early on, I reject absolutely certainty (and absolute doubt) so this isn't a helpful way to distinguish between my position and a weak atheist.

LDO. But there's a big difference between stating one's POV directly in order to clarify and gain understanding, and insisting that one's own definition of someone else's position is the "true definition" on and on and on over hundreds of posts.

Are you saying I did the latter, because I will need a link to some of those. I threw out a definition after I realized that there was some confusion, at least in my mind, but that was to support my answer.

In any event this is a sideshow. I am still waiting for some clarification on that "Yahweh" issue because that is the subject that holds some interest for me.

Fair enough Zumby, I'm really just trying to grasp all the views, not debate them. I'm enjoying the discussion you guys are all having, I don't want to intervene, just to understand more clearly.

Just to absolutely understand you clearly, you wouldn't argue that you know God(s) do not exist, is this correct? Rather you believe God does not exist, as opposed to simply doubting the existence of God?

I haven't said you've done either! Jesus Christ man.

Much as this has been a delightful conversation so far, don't hold thy breath.

OK, sorry. Misunderstood the flow of the discussion.

Suit yourself.

No problem chap, and I agree it wouldn't be productive (in this particular thread) for us to debate whether I'm actually right about the existence of God.

There's a whole other debate about what it means to "know" something, but in the sense you almost definitely mean it, yeah you seem to have a handle on what I mean.

I posted this earlier:

"Ignosticism" (wiki: "the view that any religious term or theological concept presented must be accompanied by a coherent definition. Without a clear definition such terms cannot be meaningfully discussed"), also called theological non-cognitivism.

Or, you can't say anything about your beliefs about something's existence if you don't have a clear understanding of the definition of whatever you are being asked about.

I think the term can be used not just in a manner consistent with the topic of the thread, but also that the definition of specific gods (typically God, of the Bible) are too incoherent to make sense of, perhaps because of subjectivity in interpretation, contradictory aspects of the definition, vagueness etc.

Depends on what you mean. I don't think it is true that Poseidon does not exist, I only think it is a justified statement. I can't prove that it is true that Poseidon does not exist and nor can I falsify that "Poseidon exists", as absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It

All I can do is reject or accept deductive claims. Something ala "If Poseidon exists, you will find a grand palace on Mount Olympus that is home to the gods". I can do something similar for the Judeo-Christian God, for example "If Jehova exists, you would find evidence of the toppling of the walls of Jericho".

For Poseidon such musings become trivial. It is a dead religion and a very specific one with that, with many descriptions of actual measurable implications. As such most people will readily accept my simple setup as sufficient.

However it also goes one step further than mere disagreement about Jericho being a valid test of God'd existence. Most Christians aren't empiricists either (they might employ empirical method, but that is something else). They don't think their religion is merely "a useful, but perhaps temporary, way of seeing the world". For them truth is important and they think humans come equipped with the faculties necessary to determine truth. This is what I call the "faith aspect" of religion, and this is where I think strong atheism intersects with religious beliefs.

The problem is that it very likely becomes self-defeating as one will probably fail to ultimately give a coherent definition of ignosticism, and it is indeed a theological concept.

The ignosticist might respond: "But ultimately that applies to everything!"

And then of course one simply notes: "I agree, but you were the one claimed it was a problem."

It is by far not a dichotomy. I just use the proper (most oftentimes combined) method to work out an answer to a particular question.

I've already said that I cannot be sure I am not a super-intelligent shade of blue. I can add that I also cannot prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that my head is filled with chipmunks - those people at the MRI lab may just be a clever ruse to trick me.

I doubt that you would describe yourself as a "weak" no-your-head-isn't-filled-with-chipmunks-you-kook-ist. And, no, you can't check by opening my head. It is off limits for practical reasons. You will have to use your reasoning skills.

You seem to put some stock into the intuitive idea that empiricism isn't based on a purely rationalistic argument!

My rationalistic explanation is based on empirical data about people. No different than me going to the GM factory and seeing Chevy Impalas being built and rejecting the claim that there are Chevy Impalas of supernatural origin. I am a strong atheist in exactly the same way that I am a strong afreudian (to coin a term). I reject the theory. No different than any other rejection of theory.

Deep, deep down in the back of my head I keep in mind that maybe, just maybe there is a god and a supernatural Chevy Impala. I didn't watch all of the Chevy Impalas being built, of course. I still reject any claims that there are any Chevy Impalas of supernatural origin. The claim (if you were to make it) is that you are just making stuff up and all supernatural Chevy Impalas are simply fictions.

Math and logic work and are based on rationalist premises. You don't use them? Fairly sure that even social psychologists* depend on them. Are you a complete solipsist?**

*are clinical psychologists still mean to social psychologists?

**not an accusation. More of a check of mutual comprehension.

Weak atheism = agnosticism. Gods may or may not exist, but doesn't believe any of the stories told about them and has serious doubts to their veracity.

Strong atheism = Gods were created by man; just like Spiderman except with a better soundtrack by Bach.

No, solipsists presume the existence of a mind and self. I reject that assumption as unnecessary.

Maths and logic work on rationalist premises, they do not prove them. Truth is fine as a tool, like the letter "a" it allows us to describe experience. It doesn't make the letter a intrinsically meaningful, I have no reason to doubt it could have been replaced with some other symbol.

As for your absurdities, you aren't paying attention. You are so intent on winning the day by dialectic that you forget to extend the criticism you think applies to any empiric knowledge to your own absurd examples. "Why can't I be an intelligent color of blue" you ask, but you keep forgetting to ask "Why can't I be an intelligent human?".

Isn't this somewhat of a reductio ad absurdum, to compare the idea of chipmunks in the place of a brain to that of there being a deity? I understand you're trying to playfully bat away the empirical claims, but this particular method seems fallacious, or at the very least impractical to an honest examination.

You're taking something that's scientifically proven and making it into a metaphysical question. That's why the analogy doesn't work, because God has not been scientifically proven, whereas the fact that we have brains, has.

No, this isn't strictly speaking correct. Neither has been proven. We don't scientifically prove stuff, we merely corroborate theories.

And that is the gist and what Brian forgets: When we can't prove anything, what goes around comes around. Just like lack of proof for brains isn't proof for chipmunks, lack of proof for chipmunks isn't proof for brains.

Our criteria is for choosing the best theory is instead deductive. We choose the best model based on its explanatory and predictive power. Could we have called brains something else and described them completely differently and still had the same predictive power? I don't know, and I doubt it is very important.

While I agree with that, that we can't really know anything, when examining this debate, I was under the impression that we must look at things in a certain light. To reduce a scientific fact to an easily dismissed theory and say that we cannot know because we cannot know anything seems to be contrary to the nature of this debate. I mean, if we admit we can't know anything, then certainly we can't know if there is or is not a God, so the strong atheist stance seems unnecessary to me.

I brought up this point earlier, about knowledge and certainty, but I understood it wasn't crucial to this examination.

Edit: Or was this in fact your point, that because of the nature of knowledge and that we cannot be certain of things, that this leads us to weak atheism?

An understanding of people, not an attitude towards religions. I am all for religions.

Deism? We discovered God(s) during the 17th Century?!? Deism is just the conception of God(s) being put into an impenetrable box.

Oh, it isn't easily dismissed - that is the entire point. When you apply skepticism equally, then you must also apply it to contrary beliefs or alternative beliefs.

You can know stuff, it is more an admittance of the scope of knowledge.

This is why empiricism pretty much always wins. It is ideally chasing "the best fit", not seeking to affirm itself. You don't have to engage in 15-volume debates on the nature of truth and knowledge, but can instead go out into the world and try to make sense of it.

And you don't have to stop and question the terms "go" and "world" or everything that you know, because those are pages you can turn when somebody tries to come up with something better.

Empiricism is quite liberating.