I'm an ABSENTHEIST. Are you also? (page 11)

cofty

How can an atheist make such a huge claim as "no deities exist"

Once again, atheists don't say that. How many times will you ignore things that don't suit you?

I agree this is all a matter of probability. I think the issue here is that you can accomplish what you set out to obtain by simply applying the standard tools of scientific inference. Suppose you have the following hypothesis:

H : God exists.

Now you gather evidence and that affects your belief* in H. Suppose (say) H becomes very unlikely on the evidence, then one way to quantify that is to say the probability H is true is very low. In facts, on this view, claims of certainty about non-analytical statements are merely approximating probabilities very near 0 or 1 with 0 or 1.

The point I am making is you should distinguish between two things: 1) the hypothesis (god exists, unicorns exist, seashells exist, the Higgs bosone exists) and 2) the degree of belief in these statements which is principle never 1 (total acceptance) or 0 (total acceptance of the negation).So you don't need to alter your original hypothesis H to

H' : God is absent

to allow for the remote possibility god may exist -- it is build into the framework of inference that such a remote chance might exist.

* Belief has various meanings and i am not using the religious one.

EdenOne

Show me a reference in context where an atheist has said "no deities exist".

Since you asked for it:

From Wiki:

"Positive atheism (also called "strong atheism" and "hard atheism") is a form of atheism that asserts that no deities exist.The strong atheist explicitly asserts the non-existence of gods. Some strong atheists further assert that the existence of gods is logically impossible, stating that the combination of attributes which God may be asserted to have (omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, transcendence, omnibenevolence) are logically contradictory, incomprehensible, or absurd, and therefore the existence of such a god is a priori false. Metaphysical naturalism is a common worldview associated with strong atheism."

Once again, atheists don't say that. How many times will you ignore things that don't suit you?

Say that again...?

Eden

cofty

Thank you.

Wiki refers to a god that is defined as "omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent" .

This god does not exist.

This is not the same as saying "no deities exist".

Now define another deity and we can deal with that one and so on.

EdenOne

Bohm,

You propose a very reasonable approach to the issue here, and I appreciate that. The whole point of my little discussion here isn't about me finding the wheel, or having a revelation when I woke up yesterday [Jonathan Drake totally fell for the "it downed on me" thing ... LOL]. The point I argue is that BOTH claims "god exists" and "god doesn't exist" are logically unsound because both are unsupported by evidence and therefore, dogmatic assertions such as those should be avoided and a position of skepticism with room for reasonable doubt should be left open. The aggressiveness that modern atheists display in their crusade against theism, as Cofty plainly keeps demonstrating, is unwarranted, and should be seasoned with some respect for those who hold different beliefs. Aggressive atheists sometimes make an ass of themselves and alienate people who might be inclined to re-evaluate their theist positions simply because they don't want to become this kind of jesters on a crusade type of people, the extreme opposite spectrum of fanatical evangelists that alienate people of reason. That's all this thread is all about, in fact.

Eden

EdenOne

Wiki refers to a god that is defined as "omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent" .

Wrong.

"The strong atheist explicitly asserts the non-existence of gods." - Wiki

This isn't dependent of a definition of a deity as "omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent". I'm sure you CAN read.

Eden

cofty

should be seasoned with some respect for those who hold different beliefs

I respect people who hold different beliefs. I don't respect their superstitions.

I see you have changed the subject yet again.

bohm

EdenOne:

Okay -- obviously we agree out of principle one should not say that so-and-so is 100% true, but it is not a very common think to meet atheists who believe so, especially those with scientific training. For instance Dawkins has his "Belief scale" (or what it is called) where he score himself as 6 out of 7 in terms of "unbelief".

EdenOne

I see you have changed the subject yet again.

Nope, I'm explaining why this thread was started. My argument still stands:

a) "What can be said about God (or deity) is that it's absent".

b) The definition of absent was given: something for which no evidence of presence has been found.

c) This definition of absence has not been refuted yet. It does NOT presuppose existence.

d) Both claims that "God exists" or that "deities don't exist" are so grandiose, that demand extraordinary and unequivocal evidence.

e) Theists provide evidence for the existence of deity that can be debunked, while atheists don't provide any evidence for the non-existence of God.

f) Therefore, the most sound assertion is that God is absent, or not present. This is verifiable and adheres to reality more closely than theism or atheism, and reflects the skeptical approach more accurately.

Eden

EdenOne

Bohm,

there are things that one can say "so-and-so is 100% true". Simply put, the existence or non-existence of deities isn't one of them, for the reasons stated before. If one wants to measure the amount of belief in a scale, fine. I wouldn't know how to grade such scale, so I refrain from it. Dawkins probably does it better.

Eden

I'm an ABSENTHEIST. Are you also?

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