Being brainwashed into a belief is not a good reason to hold said belief.

Great Debates
61

[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
Not that you asked me, but I attribute it to different styles and not wanting to rock the boat.
[/QUOTE]

Obviously it’s about different styles. It’s also about varied perceptions of what is inflammitory or rude. Rather than being too timid to rock the boat it might be that they see a too aggressive style doesn’t promote an exchange of ideas or a productive debate. Where we see the line drawn between aggressive and too aggresive has to vary a lot from person to person.

I have no problem with an aggressive no nonsense style. Over a period of posts though I get a vibe about the motives of the poster.

62

The value of early “brainwashing” has been known for some time:

Proverbs 22:6

63

[QUOTE=Bob Bobford]
Secondly I fail to see how my argument is circular. I believe Christianity not just because of some nebulous “faith”, but because I am convinced that Jesus really lived and he really did rise from the dead. That is the evidence that I accept that makes me believe that Christianity is true. You may not accept that as evidence as valid, but my belief is based on more than just some wish for it to be true.

[/QUOTE]

(my italics)

Are you a shepherd living around the first century AD?

Or are you a member of 21st century Western civilization with access to a computer, the Internet, and education in the subject of biology?

The only “evidence” you have that Jesus rose from the dead is that four people said so. What is the rational basis of your acceptance of that evidence?

Do you understand what happens to a body after death? Do you understand the organisation, or lack thereof, of a three-day-dead brain? Do you understand how a conscious being is dependent upon the intricate microstructure of their brain? Do you understand how a rational, non-religious person like myself is astonished when somebody declares their religious belief is “based upon more than just some wish for it to be true”, and then provides four accounts of a zombie as “evidence”?

64

[QUOTE=Nancarrow]
(my italics)

[/QUOTE]

Bollocks to that. Well I assume the bit I was referring to is clear.

Meanwhile let’s hear from Jesus:

[QUOTE=Jesus]

Braaaiiinns. BRAAAIIIIINNS!
[/QUOTE]

65

[QUOTE=Nature’s Call]

Further: beliefs in the form of traditions help hold communities together. One can ask wouldn’t it be better to hold communities together on the basis of truth rather than myth? Sure it would, but that doesn’t detract from the community building value in the belief.
[/QUOTE]

True, and let’s look realistically at the nature of man. The myth is a natural part of social and individual growth. We needn’t attack it simply because we consider it a myth. We need to examine the real life consequences of a particular myth and decide which ones might be dangerous and the level of danger.

Sometimes there’s a place where the suppression of our beliefs or questions about beliefs is on a subconscious level. We accept a justification about something or an easy answer because a serious challenge is too frightening or the consequences of changing our belief or accepting another belief seem too difficult.
Other times a belief isn’t questioned because there no compelling reason to question it. Life goes on in a similar fashion whether or not a belief is true so there’s no real motive to take a hard look at it.

66

[QUOTE=Nancarrow]
Do you understand how a rational, non-religious person like myself is astonished when somebody declares their religious belief is “based upon more than just some wish for it to be true”, and then provides four accounts of a zombie as “evidence”?
[/QUOTE]
Heh…maybe christianity is really voodoo dressed up a bit.

67

[QUOTE=Mangetout]
You should pay closer attention; I have already stated that I am not an atheist; the statement to which you responded above was saying nothing of the sort; it was describing the logical conclusion of accepting everything as undetermined in the absence of proof.

I think that’s a pretty poor example; given that the means to verify the existence of platypuses actually existed.

But you say there are many such examples. Pick another.
[/QUOTE]
Granted, all one needs to do to prove a platypus exists is to see one. But this is true of everything, and some things are impossible to see without certain types of technology. Before there were atomic microscopes, did atoms not exist? Or were humans just limited in their ability to prove that they existed?

68

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
Before there were atomic microscopes, did atoms not exist? Or were humans just limited in their ability to prove that they existed?
[/QUOTE]

You think that we’ll see God once we master optics, maybe?

69

[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
Granted, all one needs to do to prove a platypus exists is to see one. But this is true of everything, and some things are impossible to see without certain types of technology. Before there were atomic microscopes, did atoms not exist? Or were humans just limited in their ability to prove that they existed?
[/QUOTE]

When I apply for a job, I don’t stand there at the boss’s desk saying “Prove I can’t do the job.” It’s up to me to prove I can. Witnesses to that effect will have written letters of recommendation detailing my talents.

I don’t look at it that we have to prove god exists. *He’*s the one who has to prove it. So far, he’s done nothing in his own defense.

70

[QUOTE=Uzi]
All this is being done in the name of religion or because of people’s religious beliefs.
[/QUOTE]

True, but for your list of harms to support the OP, you would have to show that without these beliefs societies, on the whole, would be better. Outside of belief structures societies exhibit harmful behaviours. One example: Capitalism - really good idea, with the unfortunate side-effects of rampant consumerism and harmful pressure on the environment. A better example: Santa Claus. I’ve wavered on whether or not to introduce S.C. to my kids. In the end, we did the S.C. thing because there is fun of the ritual itself, plus we avoid awkward misfit-ery when the kids swap notes with their classmates.

Critical thought and scientific method are our best tools to winnow the truth from the clamour of superstition. No doubt. When applied to myth, they clearly challenge any assertion that the stories behind any religion are factual. Does that mean they are without value? Does that mean they are harmful? Perhaps, but it should be demonstrated not assumed - especially in light of the apparent comfort practitioners report and the apparent good done in the name of religion.

Originally I posted just to play (heh heh) devil’s advocate. On reflection, there is a fine line between, “remove all religion from the world and we’ll solve all the world’s problems” and “burn the heretics.”

71

Damn… I attended a meeting at work while posting the above. On returning I tacked on that Santa Claus thing. Of course that’s not an example of a non-belief based societal harm. It’s a counter example of a myth doing more good than harm.

72

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
You think that we’ll see God once we master optics, maybe?
[/QUOTE]
You are cute. I doubt we will ever be able to prove that God exists, at least from our vantage point here on earth. My only point is that it seems kind of foolish to assume that nothing exists that we can’t see (or, for that matter, use any of our 5 senses to detect).

73

[QUOTE=Bob Bobford]
The main problem with this thesis is that it starts from the assumption that the beliefs in question are false. In saying that the beliefs are accepted only because they have been around for a while implies that they are not true, else this would be an additional reason to believe them. So it essentially boils down to “we shouldn’t believe things that are not true”, which is hardly startling. I think some work needs to be put into why the beliefs are wrong in the first place rather then just assuming that they are as the starting point of the thesis.

Another problem though is the connection implied between the age of a belief and the truth of it. While not directly stating it there is an underlying assumption that any belief that has been “handed down” is necessarily wrong, and that any belief that we form based on our experience and reason must be right. This is also not true. Age of a belief does not determine its truthfulness. There are some things that have been believed for quite a long time that are nevertheless true, and many modern beliefs that are false. Taken to an extreme this results in sophistry, since anything that we believe today will be the recieved wisdom in a few generations, and therefore must be false, in essense meaning that we cannot know anything true. It also runs counter to academia, where the age of a belief actually makes it more likely to be true. The longer a belief can stand to scrutiny in general the more likely (although not certain by any means) it is to be true.

Bob
[/QUOTE]

I think this is very well put. However, at the risk of boiling this down to semantics, I think there are a few flaws.

First (and I’m sure I’ve read discussions of this nature on the boards before), it could be argued that ‘belief’ and ‘truthfulness’ (which I take to mean, ‘the degree to which the belief is an accurate assessment of things as they are’) are really things that coincide only by chance.

The nature of belief is such that it operates independantly of provability or direct observation. I don’t believe that my shirt is blue, it is. I don’t ‘believe’ in the fact that one-celled organisms reproduce via cell division, it actually happens.

If a thing is provable and observable, then belief doesn’t factor into it, unless you choose to believe something that does not follow from said observations.

Which is why your reference to ‘academia’ is a little faulty. Academia isn’t about ‘belief,’ except when individuals hold onto theories in the face of new evidence/analysis because they have emotional (or financial) investment in sticking with what has been shown to be incorrect or flawed theories.

Beliefs don’t stand scrutiny in the scientific world, theories do, which are very different animals.

[QUOTE=Bob Bobford]

While we can get bogged down in semantic issues of what qualifies as a religion and what doesn’t (and there is no concrete definition anyway), I would consider Atheism a “worldview” the same as different religions. In the end Atheism is a set of answers to the fundamental questions about the reality of the world, such as the existence of Gods and the supernatural, what happens after death, the nature of man, ect. Atheists have a set of answers to those questions the same as religious people do, and in that sense Atheism and religions are the same.

Bob.
[/QUOTE]

Athiesm is an answer to no fundamental question. To athiests (at least to me), the existance of the supernatural isn’t a fundamental question at all. What happens after death isn’t a question at all. Saying that ‘athiests have an answer to the question of what happens after death’ presupposes that a person believes there is a soul that exists independantly of the body, without which ‘after death’ has no meaning.

Can you see the logical issue here? ‘After death’ to an athiest means, ‘after I cease to exist.’ Nothing happens to us after we aren’t. Only unsubstantiated (not invalid, just not supported by anything factual) belief supports the idea that when you die you are not really dead, you just lose your body.

Like I said above my ‘worldview’ that I breathe oxygen is not really the same sort of ‘worldview’ that believes in the soul or the virgin birth.

[QUOTE=Bob Bobford]

A few points:

  1. Atheism is a spiritual belief. Agnosticism is a lack of belief. Once you assert that there is no god (the core of Atheism) you are making a positive statement. If you merely believe that there is no proof or disproof that there is a God, then you have to accept that you don’t know if there is a God or not. Given no information the logical default position is not “it does not exist”, the logical default position is “I don’t know whether it exists or not”.

  2. There are many different belief sets that fall into the category of atheism, just as there are for theism, depending on what you affirm about the world around you. For instance there is naturalistic atheism, existentialist atheism, nihlist atheism, communistic atheism, anachic atheism, utilitarian atheism and the will to power stuff that Nietzsche came up with. Atheism is not a “one size fits all” belief. It is also possible to interconvert between forms. For instance a naturalist atheist could become a nihlist.

[/QUOTE]

Your point #1 has already been addressed pretty well. As soon as a person suggests the existance of anything, the logical position is not necessarially ‘I don’t know whether it exists or not.’ For some things the logical position is, ‘that’s ridiculous, of course it doesn’t exist.’

Point #2 is confusing the issue. You’re mixing ethical codes and belief in God. The two do not necessarially go together. All those variations are descriptions of how people choose to act ethically, which, in the case of an athiest, has nothing to do with a spiritual belief.

I had a few other posts of yours to quote, but it really boils down to this:

You first state that the ‘logical’ response to any statement is that its truth is unverrified (which I’ve already addressed above). You then state that belief in one unverrified thing means that you can then ‘logically’ believe that other unverrified things are false.

Can you see how this gives validity to none of the beliefs? It’s not logic that makes any sort of sense; you can come to no valuable conclusion using this ‘logic’.

[QUOTE=VarlosZ]
“Pretty much alone”? “Christian bullies”?

Look at this thread, or any other like it. More atheists show up to these religious discussions than theists, and it’s very rare that the atheists are the ones asked to justify their beliefs. badchad and a few others are basically atheistic proselytizers, and in my experience they’re seldom polite about it.
[/QUOTE]

sigh

Athiests don’t have beliefs. How would an athiest ‘justify’ his or her lack of belief in Odin? You can’t, and you shouldn’t have to. There is no way to ‘justify’ in any sensical way a lack of belief in something, when there is no way to ‘justify’ a belief in in a factual way.

Because other people choose to believe in something, an athiest must justify or support his or her choice to not believe in it? That’s a little mixed-up, IMHO.

74

[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
When I apply for a job, I don’t stand there at the boss’s desk saying “Prove I can’t do the job.” It’s up to me to prove I can. Witnesses to that effect will have written letters of recommendation detailing my talents.

I don’t look at it that we have to prove god exists. *He’*s the one who has to prove it. So far, he’s done nothing in his own defense.
[/QUOTE]
I think you have your analogy backwards. I think going by the typical definition of God, he is the one who is the boss. We are the ones who have something to prove to him, not the other way around.

75

sigh

Read the whole thread before responding; I’ve already addressed your objection twice this morning.

76

Kalhoun:

There are those of us who consider ourselves theistic but who nevertheless have to endure religious persecution in our everyday life. Mainstream christianity in the US is very often smugly oblivious to nonchristian folks (theistic or otherwise), never mind the activities of the zealous fundamentalist horde I think of as the Christian Taliban.

When you rise to defend your rights, you’re defending mine as well, and I’m grateful and appreciative, believe me.

I may rise to do battle here on the SDMB against fervent atheists in Great Debates from time to time, but in the larger context the skeptics and atheists are the ones with whom I find myself most often in alliance.

**badchad’s[/b] opening premise in this thread is exquisitely well-stated. I would build a church and in the center on a stone tablet on a shrine would appear that very sentiment. If there is to be any meaning or validity to the experience spiritual, religion, I think has to embrace the perception that you cannot claim to know things to be true simply because those things were taught to you, no matter how much authority is attached to the teacher thereof.

I would add that you can’t even claim to know things to be true with absolute conviction even when your own experience, reason, deliberate experimentation, and internal consistence with all else that you believe to be true completely supports it. Even then you need to retain the awareness that absolute certainty is not an option; that even while common sense dictates that you must necessarily continue to live your life on the assumption that what you think you know is correct, you need to suspend that sense of certainty from time to time and question it anew, especially when dealing with people who believe other than you do.

And at the bottom of the tablet it would say: If you have come here for the secure feeling of possessing absolute certainty, go find another church.

re: the atheism as a [spiritual, or equivalent-to-spiritual] belief system —

If an “athwigznot” is defined by dictionary as a person who believes there is no “thwigznot”, the term is pretty useless without an operational definition of “thwigznot”. It’s not the same as being a person who “does not ascribe to ‘thwigznotic’ beliefs”. We are all, right now, in the latter category, insofar as I invented the word yet didn’t invent any belief systems for the word to refer to. Those beliefs are irrelevant to us, we’re oblivious to them, the world for us is understood by us completely without reference to those beliefs.

The word “atheist”, if it were construed to mean “does not ascribe to theistic beliefs”, would not itself refer to a belief system. But generally “atheist” is held to mean “believes that there is no God”, while “agnostic” is held to mean "does not believe in God but doesn’t actually have any belief about ‘God’ ", or, perhaps more common but less usefully phrased, “does not know whether or not there is a God”.

So much of it all boils down to terminology and communication. From the standpoint of a theistic person there’s a difference between “I have no belief about anything called ‘God’ and so your utterances that include that word are meaningless to me”, on the one hand, and “I know what you mean when you say ‘God’, and what you refer to when you do so is something that does not exist” on the other. If you want to call the former “agnostic” and the latter “atheist”, that’s fine; or if you prefer to call the former “weak atheist” and the latter “strong atheist”, that’s fine, too. Since the terms are being used to describe your perspectives, you should pick the terms and those of us discussing things with you should get on board with your terminology-use, especially if we’re going to turn around and ask that we be the ones to define this term ‘God’, which you don’t use to refer to anything that’s real to you, in the course of describing phenomena that are real to us.

77

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Piffle.

I know several atheists who lack a belief in a god simply because they were raised in a family where there was no belief in a god and they accepted that situation as uncritically as any theist accepts a god. I also know a few people who “critically” came to atheism, then abandoned it and became believers in a god (often one radically different than the one worshipped by their family, so it was not simply a matter of “going home”).

[/quote]

Possible, but unlikely in our society. The young atheist is surrounded by theistic influences. I’d suspect the influence of an atheistic family is more likely the realization that not going to church or believing is not a dreadful thing. I suspect that many families who don’t go to church every Sunday are at least guilty about it.

My kids’ “indoctrination” consisted of my reading Genesis to them, pointing out the contradictions, scientific and logical inconsistencies, and the evidence of multiple authorship, and teaching them to reason logically. They were both exposed to lots of religion through their friends (and even a nursery school in a local church).

Your second example kind of contradicts your first, since it is unlikely an atheist would become a theist without exposure to religions.

In the old Soviet Union your point would be a lot more cogent, since there was little official or press talk about god. In the US we’re awash in it.

I thought guests couldn’t search. He should pay his money, do some research, and get back to us if he has anything new.

78

Wow! This thread really picked up since my post last night. A lot of good points and perspectives brought up. I’ll try to respond…

[QUOTE=Bob Bobford]
This is entirely due to your own surroundings, in which presumably the majority of people arn’t atheists. There is no reason why if atheism was the dominant belief that people wouldn’t fall into that because of tradition or approval. Certainly there have been societies (communist Russia and China come to mind) where atheism (of the communist flavour) was certainly the dominant belief and people were coerced into accepting it, to the point of persecution. Secondly it kind of smacks of a sense of elitism. You seem to be saying that you and all atheists come to your beliefs through rigourous thought, which implies that everyone else comes to their beliefs lightly and that it is really only the atheists who put any thought into it. I know many people of different faiths who put a lot of thought into their beliefs. People come to different conclusions because of the premises that they accept, not because of their intellectual ability.
[/QUOTE]
But we’re not really talking about theoretical or controlled systems here, at least I’m not. I suggest that belief in an unsubstantiatable mythology is easier than to have a complete absence of belief. It’s a natural inclination of the human mind to attempt to ‘generate’ an answer to the unknown. I don’t deny that there are many who struggle with faith, but I suspect these struggles are a result of the mind fighting against itself when confronted with emprical data that contrasts that which has been ingrained through a period of reliance on non-evidentiary faith. Someone who truly struggles would be more inclined to ultimately accept religious faith than not, in my estimation.

[QUOTE=Bob Bobford]
Out of interest, do you consider anyone who disagrees with you on anything deluded, or is it just religious matters? Deluded seems quite over the top. Mistaken I could go with, but deluded has such a negative commotation that there is the implication that there is something wrong with the tought processes of someone that disagrees with you.
[/QUOTE]
Fair question. No, I’m not right about everything, far from it, but it really has nothing to do with whether or not someone agrees with me. 1+1 equals 2 or it doesn’t. Yes, I know the word ‘deluded’ has taken on a negative connotation, but I meant it in Webster’s first definition of someone who is misled, not as an insult, though I can plainly see how the word is taken as such. I have to stick with the word however, as it actually is what I mean, no insult intended.

[QUOTE=Bob Bobford]

While we can get bogged down in semantic issues of what qualifies as a religion and what doesn’t (and there is no concrete definition anyway), I would consider Atheism a “worldview” the same as different religions. In the end Atheism is a set of answers to the fundamental questions about the reality of the world, such as the existence of Gods and the supernatural, what happens after death, the nature of man, ect. Atheists have a set of answers to those questions the same as religious people do, and in that sense Atheism and religions are the same.

So I think your example of the coffee cup in this way falls flat. It would work if you were an extreme agnostic who claimed to have absolutely no beliefs about the world around you. In your definition of atheism however you do have your own set of beliefs, and therefore you could talk about what it is that you believe and why you believe it. A certain disbelief in something is still a belief.

Bob.
[/QUOTE]
Bob, I have to disagree with you here. Atheism is not a set of answers to questions. Atheism is a vacuum. It offers nothing. It provides nothing. It’s simply a label assigned to those who adhere to no mythological belief system. There’s nothing spiritual about it. A lack of belief is not simply another belief. I think you may be a bit confused with agnosticism.

79

Wow! This thread really picked up since my post last night. A lot of good points and perspectives brought up. I’ll try to respond…

[QUOTE=Bob Bobford]
This is entirely due to your own surroundings, in which presumably the majority of people arn’t atheists. There is no reason why if atheism was the dominant belief that people wouldn’t fall into that because of tradition or approval. Certainly there have been societies (communist Russia and China come to mind) where atheism (of the communist flavour) was certainly the dominant belief and people were coerced into accepting it, to the point of persecution. Secondly it kind of smacks of a sense of elitism. You seem to be saying that you and all atheists come to your beliefs through rigourous thought, which implies that everyone else comes to their beliefs lightly and that it is really only the atheists who put any thought into it. I know many people of different faiths who put a lot of thought into their beliefs. People come to different conclusions because of the premises that they accept, not because of their intellectual ability.
[/QUOTE]
But we’re not really talking about theoretical or controlled systems here, at least I’m not. I suggest that belief in an unsubstantiatable mythology is easier than to have a complete absence of belief. It’s a natural inclination of the human mind to attempt to ‘generate’ an answer to the unknown. I don’t deny that there are many who struggle with faith, but I suspect these struggles are a result of the mind fighting against itself when confronted with emprical data that contrasts that which has been ingrained through a period of reliance on non-evidentiary faith. Someone who truly struggles would be more inclined to ultimately accept religious faith than not, in my estimation.

[QUOTE=Bob Bobford]
Out of interest, do you consider anyone who disagrees with you on anything deluded, or is it just religious matters? Deluded seems quite over the top. Mistaken I could go with, but deluded has such a negative commotation that there is the implication that there is something wrong with the tought processes of someone that disagrees with you.
[/QUOTE]
Fair question. No, I’m not right about everything, far from it, but it really has nothing to do with whether or not someone agrees with me. 1+1 equals 2 or it doesn’t. Yes, I know the word ‘deluded’ has taken on a negative connotation, but I meant it in Webster’s first definition of someone who is misled, not as an insult, though I can plainly see how the word is taken as such. I have to stick with the word however, as it actually is what I mean, no insult intended.

[QUOTE=Bob Bobford]

While we can get bogged down in semantic issues of what qualifies as a religion and what doesn’t (and there is no concrete definition anyway), I would consider Atheism a “worldview” the same as different religions. In the end Atheism is a set of answers to the fundamental questions about the reality of the world, such as the existence of Gods and the supernatural, what happens after death, the nature of man, ect. Atheists have a set of answers to those questions the same as religious people do, and in that sense Atheism and religions are the same.

So I think your example of the coffee cup in this way falls flat. It would work if you were an extreme agnostic who claimed to have absolutely no beliefs about the world around you. In your definition of atheism however you do have your own set of beliefs, and therefore you could talk about what it is that you believe and why you believe it. A certain disbelief in something is still a belief.

Bob.
[/QUOTE]
Bob, I have to disagree with you here. Atheism is not a set of answers to questions. Atheism is a vacuum. It offers nothing. It provides nothing. It’s simply a label assigned to those who adhere to no mythological belief system. There’s nothing spiritual about it. A lack of belief is not simply another belief. I think you may be a bit confused with agnosticism.

80

[QUOTE=Bob Bobford]
Ahhh, the old chestnut of “all religions are equivalent to believing something ludicrous”. Although I do give you credit for the originality of the entity :slight_smile:

Anyway what I would say that depending on what you do affirm about the world around you many things are demonstrably false through the use of logical contradiction. If something is true then that means that everything that is contradictory to that must be false. So in the example of the tiny orange mushroom people, from my Christian perspective I would say that I know that the vengeful killer doormat protecting worm doesn’t exist. I know this because the existence of such a thing is inconsistent with the existence of God, which I accept as true, and therefore through logical contradiction it cannot exist.

For the things that you can’t discount through contradiction you do have to make an assumption as to how you are going to live with that uncertainty. However you should never confuse your assumption with proof, and without proof you have to be open to the possibility that you may be wrong. Many (not all) of the “no proof of God” atheists I know are using their assumption of the non-existence of God as their proof and are completely dismissive of anything that contradicts it.

Bob.
[/QUOTE]

Your thinking is fuzzy in two ways. First, you need to carefully define God. Second, you are confusing truth with belief. I mentioned this predilication of theists in a thread about a week back, nice to see you have come as evidence of it.

First. which God are you referring to? There are many varieties of even the Christian God. The version believed in by the fundamentalists, who created the world in 6 days 6,000 years ago, can be easily disproven (beyond reasonable doubt). I assume you believe in a god of a Bible that is not literally true. You’d need to provide the basics for your belief, and what we could expect to see in history, to evalutate it. Did your god make a Garden of Eden? Jesus thought so. In that case, we can conclude your god is wrong.

Some gods have definitions which are logically inconsistent, such as being omniscient and omnipotent. In this case we can prove that this version of God does not exist.

Now, few if any atheists claim they can prove no gods exist - considering the near infinite number we can imagine, that would be quite a task. I’ve seen none who say that they believe there is no god, and thus since any god contradicts this “truth” none exist - which is what you are doing.

You’re confusing belief with knowledge. You believe in your god, and so believe that no other gods exist - but you can’t claim to know this. (Remember that the OT does not deny the existence of other gods in the older sections.) You are, by sleight of hand, going from believing in a god to acting as if you know a god exists.

My position, which is not unique, is that after careful consideration of the evidence at hand I see none to justify me believing in the existence of any god. I therefore lack all such belief, and lack belief in gods I may not have thought of, such as gods for aliens on other planets. Given my study I find it reasonable to believe that there are no such gods, but I’d consider changing my mind given reasonable evidence. (All the evidence I’ve seen has pushed me in the other direction.) I certainly don’t claim to know this. And I’m not an agnostic since I can easily believe that any god worthy of the name could provide convincing evidence of his existence if he so chose. There are plenty of examples of god doing so in the Bible - if there was evidence these stories actually happened you’d be somewhere.