What kind of atheist are you

[MRM]

I also chose the first option.

First point. If there where a god that created us and wanted to be worshiped - then we would have the same religon all over the world right from the start.

Second point, a god as creator don't explain anything. If nothing could exist, without being created, then who had created god ?

 

[Fifty]

@Fifty: are you reffering to "God" as the religions, Bibles, Q'urans, etc..., percieve it? If so, ARE YOU KIDDING? First option.

Hmm I suppose I should have been more explicit in that regard... I'm generally referring to God in the sense of a creator, not a specific religion's god. For example, I would consider a deist's God to fall under the definition of God for the purposes of this thread.

The main distinction I wanted to make (and I should have made the poll options clearer maybe) is between those who are believe that there is ABSOLUTELY DEFINITELY no God, versus those who are more of the "well, there is no evidence of God, so I'm going to go ahead and not believe in God until evidence is found" type.

Personally, I'm one of the latter, and I've always been curious as to the stance of the former.


People who say that there is DEFINITELY no God (I think CurtSibling would be the most well-known example around here) generaly disdain the notion of faith just as every other atheist. However, it seems to me that unless you could physically or logically prove that God could not possibly exist under any circumstances imaginable, wouldn't it take something of a leap of faith (well maybe more like a tiny hop of faith in this case) to say that God definitely does not exist? Of course, if one of the people who chose option one believes they have physical or logical proof that God could not possibly exist under any circumstances imaginable, I'd certainly be interested in hearing that as well, because most of the atheist arguments I have been exposed to are of the "no evidence, no reason to believe" type.

 

[Mise]

If you want a "philosophical" "disproof" of "god", there are many, and most stem around the properties (or combinations of properties) of god being logically impossible or absurd.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Such disproofs tend to work against "religious" Gods, but I never saw one that killed a deistic God.

 

[Mise]

Well, it depends on how you define "God". Normally, in arguements where one attempts to logically disprove God as defined by religion, the concept of "god" is normally reduced to some formless being who lives in "another plane" whose actions we cannot detect (i.e. who can't do anything in "our plane of existance"). To my mind, such a "god" is a completely useless concept and "included for completeness"; a footnote. I don't know if that constitutes a disproof of deism though (the two concepts of God sound the same to me).

 

[Lozzy_Ozzy]

A mix of the first two.

There is no God, but if one was somehow (impossibly) proven, I mean REALLY prove, then of course I would believe there was a God.

But I would NOT worship it.

Well, at least how it currently stands, but no one can foretell the future...

 

[The Last Conformist]

I quite agree that a deistic God would be irrelevant to us. But that gets us back to the "no evidence" position.

 

[Mise]

I quite agree that a deistic God would be irrelevant to us. But that gets us back to the "no evidence" position.

I disagree. If it is fundamentally impossible to detect something, then it does not exist. A lack of evidence is a merely practical obstacle which could in principal be overcome. If there is some fundamental reason why something cannot be done, then no amount of practical knowledge or ingenuity can overcome it. Otherwise, logic goes out the window and anything becomes possible.

 

[Mark1031]

I am the first kind. Althought I could be wrong .

 

[Fifty]

To my mind, such a "god" is a completely useless concept and "included for completeness"; a footnote. I don't know if that constitutes a disproof of deism though (the two concepts of God sound the same to me).

I completely agree about a deistic god seeming to be, as you say, "included for completeness".

I guess it boils down to your concept of existence:

You could either say that a deistic God is possible and may exist, because there is no specific way to prove that it cannot. You would, of course, never worship or even really think about this creator because by definition it would be beyond the realm of proof or disproof. You would still, however, acknowledge that its existence is a possibility

or,

You could say that although disproof is probably not possible of a deistic God, we can say that it definitely does not exist simply by virtue of the fact that it would not alter our concept of reality in any way whether it existed or not, so we can just throw away the concept of its existence because whether or not it exists doesnt matter at all.


If you take the first concept of existence, it does require a small measure of faith to assert that there is definitely no god. If you took the second, however, I wouldn't necessarily see a problem with saying that there is definitely no god.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I disagree. If it is fundamentally impossible to detect something, then it does not exist. A lack of evidence is a merely practical obstacle which could in principal be overcome. If there is some fundamental reason why something cannot be done, then no amount of practical knowledge or ingenuity can overcome it. Otherwise, logic goes out the window and anything becomes possible.

Imagine there's a bunch of 2D people living in a brane embedded in our universe. Being confined to their brane, they can't ever discover us we sticks something into their brane. You seem to be saying they would not merely be jusitified, but right, if they concluded we don't exist.

 

[Mise]

Imagine there's a bunch of 2D people living in a brane embedded in our universe. Being confined to their brane, they can't ever discover us we sticks something into their brane. You seem to be saying they would not merely be jusitified, but right, if they concluded we don't exist.

Actually, what I'm saying is that they don't exist. You have invented those 2D people, and then changed the rules to allow for their existance. We have no evidence that your rules are correct, but there is physical evidence to suggest that things (e.g. lengths, speeds, etc) which are fundamentally impossible to detect (or achieve) do not (or cannot) exist.

 

[thetrooper]

Imagine there's a bunch of 2D people living in a brane embedded in our universe. Being confined to their brane, they can't ever discover us we sticks something into their brane. You seem to be saying they would not merely be jusitified, but right, if they concluded we don't exist.

You sound just like my philosophy teacher.

 

[Masquerouge]

Well, I voted for the second option. If there is a proof of God of course I will believe in God, but then that would not be a belief anymore, and it won't be a faith anymore for that matter.
More importantly for me, I don't believe in God because I don't see the point/need/benefit/reason.
Plus right now religious people all around the world do not make a pretty and enticing portrait of God and religion. Religion is a cause of division, not union.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Actually, what I'm saying is that they don't exist. You have invented those 2D people, and then changed the rules to allow for their existance.

What rules have I changed?

Anyway, I was invoking a hypothetical. Wether the premise is actually true is besides the point.

We have no evidence that your rules are correct, but there is physical evidence to suggest that things (e.g. lengths, speeds, etc) which are fundamentally impossible to detect (or achieve) do not (or cannot) exist.

Are you refering to the "missing" information about systems that Bell's theorem says doesn't exist?

If so, that's a quite different sort of undetectability. If a deistic god isn't detectable, it's not because the relevant information doesn't exist, but because he's not left any traces visible to us inside his creation. He'd be unknowable to you in a matter similar to your relativistic Elsewhere.

 

[Mathilda]

The other kind.
In all likelihood any gods don't exist anywhere else but in people's heads.
Should any one of the ones I've heard about exist, I wouldn't want to have anything to do with him / her.

 

[Kal'thzar]

one that doesn't care.

 

[Pyrite]

The other kind I suppose. I really see no relevance to the fact that there is or is not a god, if he's a nice god, he'll be like hey, what's up, after I die, and if he would damn me to hell for not guessing a god correctly, well, he's not really worth worshipping.

 

[Blasphemous]

I also tend to agree that any feasible kind of god would either be totally irrelevant or altogether apathetic to humanity. This is why I don't even begin to buy into stupidities like Pascal's Wager.

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Eh. I'm a sort of Deist: God wrote program UNIVERSE. Came out as Big Bang. Took nap. Hasn't woken up since.