Atheism: a faith based belief.

[swansont]

Atheism is a lack of belief in god or gods. It has nothing to do with science, and has nothing to do with believing god or gods don't exist. That's what it means.

 

 

Tackling this from another angle, religious scientists exist. So any premise that scientist = atheist is trivially falsified.

[Phi for All]

Note: I'm not an atheist. I say that omnipotent and omniscient beings (gods) don't exit, because they can't exist (you can't do everything, and you can't know everything).

 

While this is part of what bothers me about the god(s) people envision, I can't make this assertion. It's actually part of what I can't possibly know for sure. Saying omnipotent and omniscient beings CAN'T exist is beyond what anyone can know for certain.

[Thorham]

Why couldn't such a thing exist?

 

Because:

 

1. Being able to do everything includes impossible things (being able to make a mass you can't lift, and other such simple logical impossibilities).

 

2. The true nature of reality is unknowable with 100 percent certainty. A little hard to explain for me, but seems obvious.

[imatfaal]

 

Because:

 

1. Being able to do everything includes impossible things (being able to make a mass you can't lift, and other such simple logical impossibilities).

 

2. The true nature of reality is unknowable with 100 percent certainty. A little hard to explain for me, but seems obvious.

 

Why would a supernatural being be hampered by our logical systems and our human inadequacies - just because we imagine things impossible that really does not mean that they must be impossible? This is a silly argument against the supernatural - which by definition is outside the scope of our science and rationalism; "I don't believe in something which transcends human understanding and knowledge because a quintessentially human rational logical argument denies the possibility of it".

 

I don't believe in god because I have seen no evidence whatsoever for her existence. This situation is made worse by my well-evidenced distrust of many of those who claim to have evidence of her existence.

[dimreepr]

 

Because:

 

1. Being able to do everything includes impossible things (being able to make a mass you can't lift, and other such simple logical impossibilities).

 

2. The true nature of reality is unknowable with 100 percent certainty. A little hard to explain for me, but seems obvious.

 

 

The point is:

 

1. How do you know what's possible, without evidence?

 

2. How do you know what's knowable?

 

As AJB stated in post #3 "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

[Strange]

2. The true nature of reality is unknowable with 100 percent certainty. A little hard to explain for me, but seems obvious.

 

I would say that we can't know anything about reality. [Edit: Or, perhaps, given dimreeper's post, I mean we can't know that we can know anything about reality. But that is a bit too meta for me.]

 

Which is odd because I am what is known as a "naive realist", so my belief that the "real world" is pretty much as we perceive it is, as the OP says, an act of pure faith unsupported (and unsupportable) by any evidence or reasoning.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Strange

[Thorham]

Why would a supernatural being be hampered by our logical systems

Because logic is logic. It's not our logic system, it's just logic, and we've learned how to use it.

 

This is a silly argument against the supernatural - which by definition is outside the scope of our science and rationalism

 

And I say that that definition makes no sense. Even simple humans can understand certain things. To say that humans simply can't understand these things is just a cop out.

 

1. How do you know what's possible, without evidence?

I don't, but I do know that some things are impossible. The notion of being able to do everything creates impossibilities.

 

If you can do everything, then you can't write a book you can't read, because you can read every book. You can't create a mass you can't lift, you can't make a world you can't understand, you can't be immortal and at the same time die, etc.

 

2. How do you know what's knowable?

I don't know all that's knowable.

 

Perhaps everything is knowable when you're an infinite being whose infinity size is the largest possible, so that it's impossible that there exists anything beyond your knowledge, because there simply isn't any room for anything else but you.

[Phi for All]

Note: I'm not an atheist. I say that omnipotent and omniscient beings (gods) don't exit, because they can't exist (you can't do everything, and you can't know everything).

 

It seems odd that you can assert this, and then in a few posts suggest:

 

 

The true nature of reality is unknowable with 100 percent certainty.

 

I take words like "don't" and "can't" in this context to mean "with 100 percent certainty". Am I misunderstanding you here?

[Thorham]

I would say that we can't know anything about reality.

We know that it exists. That's something.

 

Which is odd because I am what is known as a "naive realist", so my belief that the "real world" is pretty much as we perceive it is, as the OP says, an act of pure faith unsupported (and unsupportable) by any evidence or reasoning.

Evidence points to us not seeing reality how it really is. We see a representation in our minds.

 

I take words like "don't" and "can't" in this context to mean "with 100 percent certainty". Am I misunderstanding you here?

No, that's what I mean. It doesn't mean you can't know anything.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Thorham

[dimreepr]

I don't know all that's knowable.

 

 

Yet you chase it down the rabbit hole.

[Thorham]

Yet you chase it down the rabbit hole.

Did you even read my post? I already admitted that it might be possible to know everything

 

 

 

Perhaps everything is knowable when you're an infinite being whose infinity size is the largest possible, so that it's impossible that there exists anything beyond your knowledge, because there simply isn't any room for anything else but you.

[dimreepr]

Did you even read my post? I already admitted that it might be possible to know everything

 

 

 

Perhaps everything is knowable when you're an infinite being whose infinity size is the largest possible, so that it's impossible that there exists anything beyond your knowledge, because there simply isn't any room for anything else but you.

 

 

 

Drink this...

[Thorham]

Drink this...

What is that supposed to mean?

[dimreepr]

What is that supposed to mean?

 

 

http://aliceinwonderland.wikia.com/wiki/Drink_Me_Potion

[Strange]

We know that it exists. That's something.

 

No, we don't know that. We know our perceptions and that's all. We don't know they correspond to any sort of reality. (There are some who would argue that we don't even know they are our perceptions.... But that is far too rabbit-holey for me.)

[Thorham]

http://aliceinwonderland.wikia.com/wiki/Drink_Me_Potion

I don't need no stinkin' potion

 

No, we don't know that. We know our perceptions and that's all. We don't know they correspond to any sort of reality. (There are some who would argue that we don't even know they are our perceptions.... But that is far too rabbit-holey for me.)

 

Sure we do. Everything that exists, whatever that might be, is reality, and to say that we don't know that reality exists is the same as saying that we don't know wether or not anything exists at all. Makes no sense.

 

And what's up with all the rabbit holes anyway?

Edited March 30, 2016 by Thorham

[Strange]

Sure we do. Everything that exists, whatever that might be, is reality, and to say that we don't know that reality exists is the same as saying that we don't know wether or not anything exists at all.

 

How do we know that it exists? From our perceptions. How do we know that they reflect any external reality? We can't. The only way we could know that is if we had some access to "reality" other than through our perceptions.

 

Makes no sense.

 

Oh well, that's it then.

 

 

And what's up with all the rabbit holes anyway?

 

Lewis Carrol was a logician.

[dimreepr]

And what's up with all the rabbit holes anyway?

 

 

It means you're out of your depth, read this.

[Thorham]

How do we know that it exists? From our perceptions.

 

Yes, and because of that we know that something exists.

 

How do we know that they reflect any external reality? We can't. The only way we could know that is if we had some access to "reality" other than through our perceptions.

 

Even then it might still be a problem. However, I said that everything, whatever that might be, is reality. We're not required to know what anything is to realize that everything that exists must be reality.

 

Lewis Carrol was a logician.

 

Right, didn't know.

[EdEarl]

Cogito ergo sum -- René Descartes.

 

It is so common one rarely thinks about it, yet it is astonishing to awake and be.

[dimreepr]

Even then it might still be a problem. However, I said that everything, whatever that might be, is reality. We're not required to know what anything is to realize that everything that exists must be reality.

 

 

 

Are your dreams real?

[Thorham]

It means you're out of your depth, read this.

Which part?

[dimreepr]

 

Which part?

 

 

Cogito ergo sum -- René Descartes.

It is so common one rarely thinks about it, yet it is astonishing to awake and be.

 

[Thorham]

Cogito ergo sum -- René Descartes.

 

It is so common one rarely thinks about it, yet it is astonishing to awake and be.

If that means "I think, therefore I am" then that's not necessarily true, because we can't be certain that we are the ones doing the thinking. One possibility is that we're information in our brains, and that our brains are doing the thinking.

 

Are your dreams real?

 

Of course. They exist, so they're real, and if they're just made of information being processed by the brain, then they may even be measurable (in principle). Everything that exists is real, although the true nature of things may be different from how it appears.

[dimreepr]

When I wake up, my dreams, cease to exist, yet a square has four corners and a ball is still round.