Your example is perfect for how you missed the truth. If all those people can find out what truth is, there is no reason you can not either, truth is available for you to know.
Truth is not that at least 3 out of 4 must be lying, that is just logic. Truth is in their identity, who they really are, not worldly humans, but soles on a process of self discovery. This is the reason that truth can not be know in this world and transcending it is needed, in this world the basic foundation of identity, who you are, can not line up with truth.
But a hard atheist by this definition must know that no Gods of any type exist. Even theist claim to know that some subset of gods do not exist. Many Gods throughout our history were not bi-omni, and so would not be covered by the logical impossibility of a bi-omni god.
Theists often get confused between not believing in their god and not believing in any god.
Ask the other person for some examples of ‘absolute truth’ and share the results with us. The likely result is some kind of nonsense like “God is Love”, or some reality-based thing like “gravity”. IMO, neither is absolute truth.
It’s logic and truth that at least 3 out of 4 must be incorrect.
Imagine one tells me that, when next I open my hand, I’ll see a penny; and another says, no, that’s incorrect; you’ll see a nickel; and a third says no, they’re both lying; you’ll see a dime; and the fourth says those lunatics are all in error; you’ll see a quarter – well, look, by logic I now know the truth: at least 3 out of the 4 are incorrect. And if I open my hand and see a silver dollar, I’ll then know that all 4 of 'em are incorrect: not “just” by logic this time, but by observing the evidence.
So if I first say that At Least Three Of You Are Incorrect – and then, upon checking, say that You Were All Incorrect – well, then I’d be knowledgeably telling the truth both times: the first time by logic, and the second time by observing the evidence, but with no transcendence needed for mere accuracy.
Except, if you reduced everything in the universe into a paint bucket, that would not leave you with a paint bucket + nothing, it would leave you with a paint bucket + an enormous tract of empty space. “Nothing” is dimensionless and timeless, kind of like “god” only moreso (“nothing is greater than god”).
We can only understand “nothing” from a philosophical or mathematical perspective, it cannot be observed or studied because we do not have any of it. Physicists have suggested that “nothing” is homogenous and isotropic, maximal characteristics that are by their very nature unstable, so “nothing” would almost certainly drop off its peak state and spontaneously become “something”. If it even has a state, its atemporal aspect makes that kind of problematic. But if you have absolute nothingness, yeah, the laws of physics say that it would tend to develop stuff, because of its natural instability.
Of course, we are born, we die, nebulas collapse to form stars, stars eventually explode or burn out, everything we observe has a progressive existence. But it is all within the framework of the universe, there is no reason to believe that the universe itself (the framework) would also be subject to the rule of progressive existence. The stuff in it, yes, but why would we assume that the universe has not, within the scope of our understanding, always existed? A “creator” is a bit superfluous, it dies with a stroke from Occam.
There are probably half a dozen differing explanations of what “nothing” is, and most of them don’t encompass what the common understanding of “nothing” is.
It is not contextual. If there was space and time out of which the creator made the universe, it was something, not nothing. If there was a creator, then there was literally not nothing (cf. Great Green Arkleseizure). If there was truly nothing, then the creator must somehow have recursively created itself in the process of creating creation. Or Nothing created the creator so that it could proceed.
I still cannot envision a scenario where the creator is not superfluous. Maybe that is because of my puny mortal mind.
It is contextual. If you send me out with a basket to fill with apples and I return with an empty basket, then within context, I’ve brought you nothing.
So I’m willing to cut some slack to the bible text that says, “In the beginning there was nothing”. I think the original author meant ‘nothing’ to the extent that he understood the implication of the word given his knowledge of the physical universe.
I’m saying, the definition of “nothing” has changed somewhat over time. Still doesn’t make god probable or necessary.
I don’t know of any believers that would claim their god is “nothing”. He is after all, the alpha and the omega.
There are plenty of ways that the concept of an ultimate being and absolute truth might not coincide.
Perhaps the most powerful sentient being in the universe is the same entity as the most powerful human on Earth. This might be the POTUS, or the Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, or Bill Gates, or the Pope. There may literally be no more powerful being in the universe, if there is no life elsewhere and no sentient deity.
Perhaps there is an infinite regression of ultimate beings, each having created the ones below in the numinous pecking order. If we are ignorant of the existence of our own creator, then our creator might be ignorant of the entity that created it, and so on ad infinitum. In an infinite, eternal universe this is not impossible.
Perhaps the entity that created us is also bound by the strictures of relativity, and cannot communicate with other parts of the universe at speeds that are faster than light. In this case the creating entity would be split up by the expansion of the universe into innumerable - perhaps an infinite- number of segments, none of which can communicate with each other.
In none of these cases can the so-called ultimate being be considered to be omniscient, and so has no relationship with absolute truth.
Technically, the book of Genesis is tacit on the subject of “nothing”, it just says that jehovallah created the heavens and the earth. Not sure how it reads in Hebrew, or whatever the original language was, but I think most texts by themselves tend to be pretty vague on the precedent details, just something like Kāne put it together.
Which is to say, from what we understand about stuff, relying on literal religious doctrine (which is typically, I think, not how the original poetry and dudgeon was meant to be taken) simply puts one out of context.
