religion, science-and-religion, agnosticism, strong-atheism, metaphysicsI’ve recently been arguing with a friend of mine on this topic. First, some background:
We are both skeptical of fundamentalist beliefs of any kinds, take great amusement in theists who believe all manner of literal claims from their religious texts, and have argued extensively with more educated and informed believers, whose beliefs (though not provable) have been at least refined to not conflict with basic facts (e.g. none of the nonsense about literal 7 day creations or 5000 year old earth etc.).
Our argument began regarding the distinction between Atheism and Agnosticism (and there’s an interesting question with some lively discussion here:). My view is that while on the basis of the scientific method, observable phenomena, and empirically falsifiability theism is unjustified, so are all metaphysical beliefs. As such, what we are left with are theists who believe in a metaphysical God who, if he interacts with the physical world at all, does so through some metaphysical process (they call them miracles) that are not scientifically testable or empirically falsifiable. Now again, the natural response here is that a belief that is not testable or empirically falsifiable is thus unjustifiable and we are justified in rejecting it as the burden of proof lies on those who advance such beliefs.
My question is that isn’t the rejection of that belief (as categorically false) i.e. holding the belief that such a God does NOT exist, also a belief that is neither testable and empirically falsifiable?
If so, then we must remain at best agnostic and skeptical, as ANY metaphysical beliefs (about any metaphysical creature - God, the blue spotted cow on mars, what have you) are not falsifiable or testable and thus, not justifiable.
If this is the case, is strong atheism any more defensible than any other metaphysical belief? And is the best we can really hope for, just a really strong version of agnosticism?
The claim that “God does not exist” itself, absent any other characteristics, is indefensible. But that claim is never what is intended by Atheists in reality. It is impossible to disprove the claim that a God (however defined) which exists outside of Nature and exerts no influence on it whatsoever is possible. But that is at best Deism, not Theism.
Atheism is not aDeism. Theism makes a number of claims which can be disproved empirically, to at least as much of a degree of certainty as any other claim. Chief of this is the fact that the theistic Deity acts in the world. One has the right, then, to ask: where is the evidence of action of a theistic Deity in the world. If such a Deity existed, and acted in the world, there should be some evidence of that action. The fact that no such evidence has ever been unearthed confers a high degree of probability to the statement that such a God does not in fact exist.
There is no way of “proving” a negative. Absence of evidence is never proof of absence. But it is, where it can be shown that the evidence should exist, evidence of absence. The confusion on this point usually rests in confusing evidence and proof.
All human knowledge is contingent knowledge. Even Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” is subject to probability (it’s only true if there’s such a thing as consciousness, which can be questioned). So one is as justified in saying that God does not exist, based on the absence of evidence which should reasonably be expected to exist were God to exist, than to say anything else about the world.
It is true. I can’t logically prove that it’s impossible to float. Really, I never said it was impossible to begin with. It’s just that based on what I know of how the world works, it simply is not so. If you jump off a bridge, you will fall. I say this with absolute certainty though of course I must always admit that it is a logically indefensible position. I’ve always considered that a rather pedantic point though.
http://crazyeddiesbrain.blogspot.com/2010/07/just-my-opinion.html
Dawkins handles this with his scale of belief, where 0 is full believer and 7 is completely positive there are no gods of any kind ever. He puts himself at 6.9 since he believes it is part of science that there is always something unknown, something we can’t disprove, something we just don’t have data on yet.
He also points out that as an argument for a particular god, this is terribly weak. All you have done is stated that anything can be true. So now, there is an infinitesmal possibility that the god of the Bible is true. Unfortunately, that makes the same case for the god of the Quran. In the case of this question, I don’t think it is the proper use of the term “metaphysical”. Either way, it just doesn’t say much of anything at all.
According to Hume knowledge derives from our experiences. Even science is seen to be contingent upon “the sensations of man.” If we are to search for things that are absolutely true or absolutely false then that search will bring us outside of our experience. Furthermore it seems that if we are to ask such questions they immediately lie outside our understanding. For what we understand are beliefs- that validity of them being in our own personal experience. So if we are honest then we must put atheism and theism on equal grounds. These are beliefs that are held by human beings where proof of disproof is solely a matter of how we choose to understand the world. A man’s “spiritual awakening” can have no more or less validity than another man’s assemblage of logical evidence disproving the existence of God. Boo if you will- but for me atheism is about honesty- and we cannot inflate ourselves into the very deities that we so passionately deny.
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