Depends on what God you’re talking about. A generic God who created the Big Bang - sure. Our understanding of the universe is inconsistent with the God who created the universe according to the creation myths of several religions.
If by strong atheist, you mean someone who claims to know that god does not exist, sure. If you use the proper meaning, someone who **believes ** God does not exist, then I disagree. It is a perfectly tenable position given that we have no evidence of any god, and none that he has interacted with humans, just a lack of evidence that a generic god does not exist - which is actually predicted by strong atheism. Even a strong atheist will acknowledge that an existent god could create a universe that makes it look like he doesn’t exist, after all.
It’s easy to disprove specific gods, but you can’t disprove that which is undefined. I can’t prove that there isn’t an intelligent entity that exists outside of our universe. But I don’t need to. I simply don’t give undefined gods any more consideration than I give any other undefined thing.
This is just semantics. Semantics doesn’t interest me much. I don’t call that strong atheism; you do. Tomato, tomahto.
The reason I object to the knowledge based definition of strong atheism is that in my three decades of discussing this on various boards and news groups, I’ve run into fewer than half a dozen people who claim they know God does not exist - but hundreds that believe it. I’ve most often seen it as a strawman used by theists to demonstrate that the atheist position is foolish - typically with the “Prove that God does not exist” challenge. I was suckered into this definition for years, until someone pointed out the belief/knowledge dichotomy to me, after which I saw how foolish I had been.
gonzomax nails something I wanted to say (but didn’t since I had posted so many times in a row already)
The OP is displaying a very bizarre misunderstanding of atheism. Atheism doesn’t need to “work.” It isn’t an ideology: it’s the lack of a particular ideology. Atheism doesn’t claim, in and of itself, to explain anything at all. It just is unconvinced of the religious explanation.
This is the part of your input that seems strange to me, and others.
You appear to think that if there must be some known explanation for the universe and if there isn’t any other then it’s Aquina’s by default.
Not so. For century upon century there was no explanation for the movement of the planets, as seen from the earth. Then along came Copernicus who described the motions using a simple model and Newton who showed the model was predicted by use of a simple formula.
He can’t. Again I go back to then premise that you are unable to argue logically vs faith.
All bets are off unless you can get your adversary into a definition of “god” as they understand it. Problem is, man-made gods are fairly easy to dismiss by there very illogical contradictions.
Faith however, is hardly open to debate by its very definition.
Rather boring if someome were to ask me. Zeus, Huitzilopochtli et al, have pretty much the same mythical standard today as Jesus-son-of-God (Christianity) have the mainstream currently.
Give them a century or less, and I’m guesstimating the other relics. Which, btw, Christians have no problem being atheistic about.
Guees I just happen to believe in one less god than they do.
Are you sure about that? I rarely hear an atheist say, “I believe God does not exist”. In every case I can remember, it has been worded as “I don’t believe in God”, or “I don’t believe God exists”. I have heard it stated flat-out, as in “There is no God”, or “Gods do not exist.” I consider that strong atheism.
But that trap is just as easily avoided by changing to a passive wording. Having the dichotomy be between active and passive makes much more sense than having it be between knowledge and belief. I would think that most atheists would also be rationalists, and for a rationalist, knowledge and belief ought to go hand in hand. Why would I believe that which I had no knowledge about? For me, knowledge and belief are identical. If I say, “I do not believe in God”, rather than “I believe God does not exist”, I remove the burden of proof from my position without compromising the position.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard this knowledge/belief dichotomy used as the definition of strong/weak atheism before.
The first cause argument is one of a class of arguments that essentially either contradicts its central premise (that everything must have a cause) or weakens it to the point of uselesness (all such and suches must have a cause). The latter is a little more complicated, but still fatally flawed. The basic problem is that because we don’t know enough about what sort of thing “the universe” is, the only way to categorically require it to have a cause is to make it a universal requirement for all things. But once you’ve done that, you’re back to contradicting your first premise again when you propose god.
These were in serious discussions, the kind you find here. I’ll accept that many people will toss off “God does not exist” in conversation, but would refine this position to belief if the discussion goes deeper. It all depends on the context also. I’m pretty confident that the God of the inerrant Bible does not exist - but that is only one of many gods.
No, I’m not distinguishing knowledge and belief - the distinction you made, between lack of belief and belief in no god, is the same I use in distinguishing strong and weak atheism. I’m not aware of a specific term for supposed knowledge that no gods exist - this category is a subset of strong atheism (which is a subset of weak atheism). Since agnosticism is about knowledge, maybe someone who know Latin can come up with something? Antignosticism?
Yes, that’s a good point. I’ll concede that, I think. Religious bias, I guess.
What triggered it? The passage of time? Another physical influence? By definition, those could not have. What’s left?
Well, that’s a different question, and I didn’t think that was what you were trying to get at. All I meant was that an intentional act could be good, evil or neutral, if such things exist.
Again, I’m betraying my ignorance of physics here, but is that accurate? Atoms decay just with the passage of time, and not because of any physical influence?
I don’t think that’s the notion of “movement” he was trying to discuss. I think he referred to the inexorable regression of cause and effect one could trace back through time.
I don’t think that’s what I said. I offered as possibilities that there’s an infinite regress, an unmoved mover, or a flaw in the proof. Seems pretty tautological to me. Did I leave an alternative out?
I was referring to the next to last sentence inthis post
I read this as saying that if no other explanation is found you think we have to go with Aquinas. If that’s not your meaning, then what was it?
The “Or something else?” would, of course, be that we’ll never find a physical explanation and Aquinas supposed proof is wrong.
It seems to me to have been amply demonstrated that Aquinas proof is faulty and that there’s no need to have faith in anything. The history is that with continued study and investigation, scientists have managed to arrive at explanations that can be verified as explaining the event in question and are fruitful of other areas to investigate. That might not be true in the case of the beginning of the universe because if there was a cause it is outside our universe and inaccessible to us.
Why automatically assume it’s dyslexia? There’s no evidence one way or the other. Maybe it’s dyslexia, maybe it’s poor spelling and grammar skills, maybe it’s bad typing skills, maybe it’s typing too fast in the heat of the moment, maybe it’s a sticky or otherwise recalcitrant keyboard. Is it de rigeur “on the Board” to go right for the PC and pomo explanation about everything, first time and every time?
I am attacking the B premise, that nothing may move itself. Aristotle’s argument seems to rely heavily on these statements:
I argue that statement 1 requires proof, yet none is given. Statement 2 would seem to be contradicted by our current understanding of the universe; namely, that time began with the Big Bang and may end with the heat death of the universe.
Aquinas’ argument, on the other hand, doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. If you can make sense of it, I’d be greatly interested to know. Here it is in two different translations:
In other words, the assertion that nothing may move itself has no basis, rendering the conclusion that there must be a first mover invalid.