This is sort of a circular argument. The question could then be asked, “Why would God hid his/her/its existence” And then the answer could be, “how can we presume to know the ways of God”
This is a very good example of why I am an agnostic. No one has the answers, and I’m not sure we’re supposed to.
You are a fluke
Of the universe…
You have no right to be here
Whether you can hear it or not
The Universe
Is laughing behind your baaaaack…
I’m not an atheist as I do believe that there is something out there, a progenitor, first cause, what have you. But I also believe that the nature and will of God (if any) is pretty much unknowable in our frame of reference, so why worry about it?
If we look at how God acts in our world today, we pretty much have to either assume that the supreme being is suffering from a serious multiple personality disorder with strong chaotic overlay, or has simply set things up in a certain way and is sitting back and letter the chips fall where they may. That old joke about the thermodynamics exam answer that proves that God is exothermic is not too far from the way I feel, i.e. if there are multiple religions that all feel they are the “one” way, then it’s likely that at least some of them are wrong (then again, who am I to limit a supreme being’s power by saying that any of them are wrong; they might all be correct). How the hell am I supposed to know?
Anyway, it seems that our universe is set up to make it practically impossible to actually “know” that there is or is not a god in any objective sense. The subjective proof of a god, the “he spoke to me” nonsense, is all contradictory. What’s a self-respecting skeptic to do? Agnosticism seems to be the answer.
CJ
I really don’t understand what your difficulty stems from. The agnostic position seems to make the most sense to me. You might strongly believe that God does(n’t) exist, but you can’t truly know. Maybe your miracles were put in motion by aliens, or maybe we just haven’t found the proof yet to show that there is a God or Gods.
Partly. We can prove or disprove information in religious books. We can also wonder if the traits given to God by man can really all exist in one being. I don’t see how we can’t really honestly say “no this just isn’t possible” though. The whole idea of God might be something beyond our current understanding.
Well, I basically live as an atheist. I don’t currently worship any God, or believe in any of the ones that are part of a religion. I can’t say for sure that they don’t exist though. This is an interesting question, and I do think about whether or not God exists sometimes. For Ghanima, once. I tried sending out a prayer once to anyone/anything that might be listening during a difficult time. I was looking more for the comfort that theism once brought than for a miracle. Didn’t get comfort out of it, so that was the first, and most likely last time.
Believing that the explanation for the universe is unknowable requires as much faith, it seems, as believing that there is no god.
My agnosticism = We don’t know. There may be a good explanation for all of this wonderful universe, but there may not be. We just don’t know. We might find out one day, or maybe we’ll never know, but we don’t know right now as far as I can tell.
For the duration of our existence, one of three things will certainly happen:
We will discover the/an explanation for the universe,
We will discover there is no explanation or purpose, or
We will never discover an explanation for the universe, nor will we ever discover that there is no explanation. The purpose (or lack of) will forever remain unknowable.
Now, every bit of evidence I’ve even seen points to #3. Evidence and faith are inversely proportional; more evidence=less faith required.
In fact, I really can’t imagine a future situation in which condition #1 or #2 would be unequivocally satisfied. Such a situation would fall outside the realm of science; science is structured to explain how, not why.
So, a question from a strong agnostic: How could condition #1 or #2 possibly be met unequivocally in this world?
Well, strictly speaking atheism means lack of belief in any god. Strong atheism is belief in no god. So being a (weak) atheist is perfectly defensible, and being a strong atheist depends on what your definition of god is.
I believe that the God of the inerrant Bible does not exist, since there is ample evidence the stuff in there is wrong. I have no belief in the god of Zltotzy 12, but I don’t believe it doesn’t exist - in fact I have no belief in it at all. Who knows, he might have inspired a Bible that got the creations story right.
Agnosticism, defined as the belief that the answer is unknowable, seems hard to defend. While it is true that you cannot prove the existential negative of there being no god (especially since the term god is not well defined) it should be possible for a real god to demonstrate its existence, at least to the level that we know tables, chairs and people exist.
BTW, you certainly can prove a negative - it is done in math all the time. You can’t prove the non-existence of something, which is different.
How could a god demonstrate its existence conclusively?
Certainly, I’ll agree that a superior being (say, someone from a scientifically advanded alien race) could demonstrate its existence, but what about “god” as the/a creator of the universe?
Humans creating intelligent life (or watching life spontaneously come about) in a controlled experiment/environment would be enough proof of the non-existence (or at least, a very likely non-existence) of g/God for me. Either that, or the generation of a “pocket universe” in some kind of hyperspatial dimension. Proving that life can have a non-magical/supernatural origin isn’t quite the same thing as proving that it is so; however, I think that if it can be proven that life can spontaneously come into being, or be coaxed into being by entities no smarter than humans, I’d consider that to be a far more likely scenario than saying a deity did it. Right now, creation essentially is “extra-natural” in that we can’t figure out how to replicate it. If somebody absolutely without a doubt can figure out how life was formed or how the universe came about, and prove it in an experiment replicating creation, then I’d buy the possibility there’s no deities.
On the flip side, if g/God manifested itself in a way that Mankind couldn’t ignore, then I’d be likely to go in the other direction, believing in the existence of a supernatural force. But it would have to be really strong evidence; g/God speaking to me alone wouldn’t do it, nor would an isolated miracle witnessed only by me. I’m talking something like the Earth changing its rotational spin and every person simultaneously hearing the voice of God saying “yeah, I did it, now worship me.”
Well, it depends on what your definition of god is. (Being an atheist, I don’t really have one.) I don’t even agree that it is a universe creator, since a clever and advanced grad student might be able to make a singularity some day. I’d suppose it would involve at least the violation of physical laws. But I agree that, as a corollary to Clarke’s Third Law, we might say that a being with a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from god. One would hope that such a being would also be morally advanced enough not to claim to be god, though.
I don’t know if I fit into either of your definitions.
Since there is no evidence of a Creator, I don’t believe in one.
My position may become clearer if I ask for more information about which God we are talking about.
Presumably nobody believes in the Egyptian Sun God Ra any more. Yet an entire civilisation built massive Pyramids by hand because of such Gods. When did people decide this God doesn’t exist?
Either Judaism or Christianity must be incorrect. Is Jesus the Son of God, or not?
Is the Pope God’s representative on Earth, or not?
Is the Earth about 6,000 years old? Will we atheists burn in Hell forever?
Does God answer prayers?
How much money should you give to your Church?
When the Catholic Church forced Galileo to recant the belief that the Earth orbited the Sun, why did God lead them to do this?
Should priests be celibate?
Now you will realise why I ask these questions. There are a large number of religions / sects / beliefs. None of them have any evidence, yet they are all convinced they are correct. How do they know?
I can cause things to die, but that does not mean things do not die of natural causes. If someone can cause things to live, that doesn’t mean things can not spring to life out of natural causes. If something can spring to life naturally, who can say whether or not “The Hand of God” was required?
A violation of (known) physical laws would certainly be impressive, but, to me, that wouldn’t prove the existence of a Creator (which is what the word “god” means to me). Maybe our knowledge of physics is limited (in fact, I’m certain it is). Maybe it was cause by superior alien mortals. Or, maybe the event didn’t happen at all, maybe some superior mortal (non-god) entity created a mass hallucination.
I don’t think it’s all that difficult, really. Somebody posits the existence of a Being that is everywhere, can do anythining, isn’t bound by any physical restricitons, could manifest in any form, etc. It’s pretty clear that it’s impossible to disprove the existence of such a thing. One might obviously argue that the definition of this Being is so vague as to be completely meaningless, and I tend to agree, but all these other qualities get heaped on besides (it’s a Creator, it’s loving, it cares about you personally). Well, when faced then with the question of such a Being, what is a skeptic to do? This strong agnostic basically shrugs and goes about his business unconcerned. Given that the answer to the question of its existence is completely unknowable either way, I’ll acknowledge it as such and devote my time and energy to things that are at least knowable in principle.
FTR I’m athiest: ie. I say it looks like there’s no evidence for God, and hence I think he doesn’t exist. (I’d change my mind if evidence does appear, as with everything else.)
But I’d like to mention an argument someone made to me: it might be possible to craft convincing illusions in the manner of Descarte’s Demon without being god. in which case even sky-writing saying “I exist” could equally well be done by either. Given that, making it impossible to tell the difference, how could you possibly ever be convinced for or against?