Atheism certainty

[lrkun]

I wonder how certain most atheists are about there being no God.

I believe there is no god, but I accept I could be wrong, there's always a chance all the scientists were wrong, that God is real or that I'm actually just dreaming. It's highly uncertain, but possible in a certain sense.

I find that to be a true atheist, you have to accept the chance of being wrong, to doubt everything, even yourself, that's what seperates (I think) most atheists from religious people that KNOW there is a god. And that's the whole problem with religion, if everyone doubted everything, we would seek answers, expanding our knowledge. But instead most people just accept there is a God and don't think about it. I find it quite irritating.

How certain are you?

1-10 : 6

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

I used to believe that therewa a hint of possibility that God might exist (but I don't believe it), but then again I was once a christian to and precepts does follow you arround for a while. Now I put it at the same level of leprechauns, knowing what I know now there is no reason to make an exception for God, and it is disingenuous to think that I have to. You want to convince that God exist and you are serious about it, fine show me a really good evidence, the same kind I would requier to be convinced that leprechauns exist.

 

[Squawk]

I wonder how certain most atheists are about there being no God.

I believe there is no god, but I accept I could be wrong, there's always a chance all the scientists were wrong, that God is real or that I'm actually just dreaming. It's highly uncertain, but possible in a certain sense.

I find that to be a true atheist, you have to accept the chance of being wrong, to doubt everything, even yourself, that's what seperates (I think) most atheists from religious people that KNOW there is a god. And that's the whole problem with religion, if everyone doubted everything, we would seek answers, expanding our knowledge. But instead most people just accept there is a God and don't think about it. I find it quite irritating.

How certain are you?

I agree with your first point, but not with the second. A "true" atheist is simply one who doesn't believe in a God (the way you defined it). There is nothing to say that an atheist can't be a raving lunatic. You're describing either a person who would identify as an agnostic atheist, or maybe simply a skeptic. Atheism is the natural resting place for a skeptic.

 

[Leçi]

Ok, it's just that I think it's better to doubt everything as it's the foundations of greater knowledge. A true atheist might just be a person that doesn't believe in God, afaik it's better to be skeptical about everything, including your own view on the world. I just wanted to know how certain most atheists are .

 

[Squawk]

Ok, it's just that I think it's better to doubt everything as it's the foundations of greater knowledge. A true atheist might just be a person that doesn't believe in God, afaik it's better to be skeptical about everything, including your own view on the world. I just wanted to know how certain most atheists are .

I'd suggest most atheists aren't anything, I bet most have at least one superstition or similar.

 

[Independent Vision]

For me an atheists is simply someone who does not believe in gods/goddesses/deities.

As for doubting everything and that being the road to greater knowledge. I highly doubt it. If you doubt everything, and don't actually accept anything as the most logical and reasonable explanation, usually I think a human being will go insane.
I also would like to know how that would work in relation to gravity...

 

[Leçi]

I doubt everything I come across, but that doesn't mean I can't accept the information given. When in a discussion, I look up information about that subject and I form my oppinion based on that information, I still have doubts about it as the information might be wrong. That didn't stop me from using it, the opponent will most likely check the validity of my statements, if he's able to show that my information is wrong by showing proof I will change my oppinion after checking the validity of his proof. But even then I'm not 100% sure of everything. Doubting everything doesn't mean you keep looking for answers and doubt reality itself the whole time, it's just the thought that you might be wrong and you will try to get enough information from reliable sources.

 

[australopithecus]

I'll just leave this here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism

 

[MRaverz]

The issue here is what one describes a god to be.

I'm sure that certain gods cannot exist, for example a god who answers all prayers. As such, I believe you can expand this to those described in holy books and leave us with testable claims - prayer being the classic example.


Yet if someone were to describe their god as love or something similarly vacuous, it would be harder to disprove.

 

[Mafiaaffe]

Ok, it's just that I think it's better to doubt everything as it's the foundations of greater knowledge. A true atheist might just be a person that doesn't believe in God, afaik it's better to be skeptical about everything, including your own view on the world. I just wanted to know how certain most atheists are .

If by god you mean: "a. A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
b. The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.
2. A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.
3. An image of a supernatural being; an idol."(American Heritage,® Dictionary) , then i am exactly as certain that a god doesn't exist as I am certain that fairies don't exist.

Yet if someone were to describe their god as love or something similarly vacuous, it would be harder to disprove.

Same thing counts for fairys if you describe them as: "little things with wings". That's why we should stick with the common definition.

 

[kittehprimo]

i think you will find that most atheists will take the following position: a concept of god could exist, but all current god concepts are not likely to exist. while a god may be conceptually possible, all current models fall short of proof.

 

[CosmicJoghurt]

I wonder how certain most atheists are about there being no God.

I believe there is no god, but I accept I could be wrong, there's always a chance all the scientists were wrong, that God is real or that I'm actually just dreaming. It's highly uncertain, but possible in a certain sense.

I find that to be a true atheist, you have to accept the chance of being wrong, to doubt everything, even yourself, that's what seperates (I think) most atheists from religious people that KNOW there is a god. And that's the whole problem with religion, if everyone doubted everything, we would seek answers, expanding our knowledge. But instead most people just accept there is a God and don't think about it. I find it quite irritating.

How certain are you?

I'm pretty certain. I could be wrong, but I don't live my life as though there's any real possibility of a god or gods. I don't see any particular reason to pretend to a feeling of doubt that I don't have. I can't say for sure that there's no such thing as zombies either, but I don't have a stash of weapons and emergency rations or a block wall around my home. "Possible" is a pretty useless standard to use, since from a certain perspective just about anything is possible.

I think some atheists avoid the issue of certainty because they feel like it puts them on shaky ground in debates, especially since I employed the same tactic at some point. You don't want to sound like you're carrying beliefs that are impossible to back up with evidence, because you'll run the risk of equivalence with theists, but that's a false equivalence IMO. The natural and rational thing is to reject the existence of things when there is no evidence for them, and especially if there's some evidence to the contrary. So I have no problem saying that I'm certain that there's no god or gods, barring any new evidence to contradict that certainty.

I concur. But I've been thinking about something: given the infinite number of possible gods, how does that number affect the chance of there being one? This one's for you math nerds, I'm too lazy to think.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I concur. But I've been thinking about something: given the infinite number of possible gods, how does that number affect the chance of there being one? This one's for you math nerds, I'm too lazy to think.

One divided by infinity is zero, so the odds of any specific god existing is also zero... right?

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Yet if someone were to describe their god as love or something similarly vacuous, it would be harder to disprove.

Deepity?

 

[CosmicJoghurt]

I concur. But I've been thinking about something: given the infinite number of possible gods, how does that number affect the chance of there being one? This one's for you math nerds, I'm too lazy to think.

One divided by infinity is zero, so the odds of any specific god existing is also zero... right?

This seems impossible, yet makes sense...

 

[xman]

One divided by infinity is zero, so the odds of any specific god existing is also zero... right?

This seems impossible, yet makes sense...

I think that's because the possible gods are merely notions and an infinite number of imaginable gods can be forwarded. If imagined then they are zero by proxy even before the calculations have begun. The premise destroys the outcome of anything else. These are Thought Experiment in the first place and that doesn't matter, but it sure seems right.

-----

A good thinker will always cede the possibility that there is a chance he/she is wrong and that's the best way to begin answering this kind of question in my experience. It's what separates the sceptic from the faithful. The believers show they value the message by supporting it whereas sceptics doubt it and let message's value live or die on that merit.

That said;

I am quite sure there are no gods. We all know why. I rarely say 'certain' even though it's true. I would say I'm as certain as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow, that the moon is there even when obscured by clouds, that we grow, live, love and die. All of those things seem about equal in certainty to me because they all display the same level of verity.

 

[kittehprimo]

I concur. But I've been thinking about something: given the infinite number of possible gods, how does that number affect the chance of there being one? This one's for you math nerds, I'm too lazy to think.

One divided by infinity is zero, so the odds of any specific god existing is also zero... right?

i think it would be more accurate to say that it is extremely, extremely close to zero.
think about it. 1/2 is farther away from 0 than 1/3, which is farther away than 1/10, which is farther away than 1/10,000 ad infinitum.
that is to say, as the denominator approaches infinity, the value becomes infinitely close to 0.
while there is an extremely, extremely small chance that a god exists in some sense, the odds of that god being any of the ones worshiped by modern humans is basically 0, so i feel confident in saying that there is no god, in the sense that we have not discovered any in the entirety of human history. I would even go so far as to argue that the nature of the universe, or nature if you prefer, suggests that there is no divine force acting within our reality.

 

[CosmicJoghurt]

But I've been thinking. Maybe all the possible Gods, I mean, infinity, are "grouped" into a percentage that shows the probability any God exists. Like if there's a 1% chance, the infinite Gods would be divisions of that 1%. That seems fair, does it not?

 

[lrkun]

But I've been thinking. Maybe all the possible Gods, I mean, infinity, are "grouped" into a percentage that shows the probability any God exists. Like if there's a 1% chance, the infinite Gods would be divisions of that 1%. That seems fair, does it not?

A creationist would say, because the universe exist, there must be something out there that created it so. They might further allege that such a being, a.k.a. god, is beyond the contemplation of man.

Well, to my mind, this is not something I can answer with absolute certainty, but only with reference to a biblical god because we can observe from the bible that their god really did show himself to his people, assuming the stories are true. But since in this era, such a god no longer shows himself, I can only conclude that such a god might have died, does not wish to be seen, again assuming he has such powers, or never existed in the first place.

In the light of probability, I can't compute it. I just firmly believe that the biblical god does not exist because he fails to show himself anymore.