What if God is real but quiet to max out your free choices?

[laklak]

"Never another Volvo engine again. The next one is going to be a Merzedes."

Among the pleasure trawler set Volvos have a poor reputation as breakdown prone and difficult to find parts for. Haven't seen a U.S. boat with Mercedes power. We had a couple of rules when we were looking for a boat - no Volvo engines, no Westerbeke generators, and no hand-pumped toilets.

[Hermit]

Yes, I was told by the captain a little later that Volvo engines were a lot cheaper to buy but a lot more expensive to keep running. Their lack of reliability would have made them a huge safety hazard at sea. The unforgivingness of the sea is legendary and in regard to an immobilised boat particularly brutal. My experience did not even involve anywhere near storm conditions.

That was almost half a century ago, though. I would not be surprised to find that the differences in price, running cost and reliability are nowhere near as large now.

[JimC]

Dad and I trusted a 3.9 HP Mercury outboard for a long time...

[Hermit]

Dad and I trusted a 3.9 HP Mercury outboard for a long time...

Safe enough for visiting Edna in Moonee Ponds, I suppose.

[JimC]

[Brian Peacock]

Can you give an example of a non-hypocritical, rational argument for atheism.

Sure.

Does God exist?

I don't know.

That's not an argument for atheism,

Um, that is the ONLY non-hypocritical, rational argument for atheism that there is

Read your own words, 'Does God exist?'/'I don't know' is clearly not an argument for atheism, in fact it's not an argument at all, it's a declaration, a statement, a proclamation, an affirmation of an opinion or point-of-view: it is not not an argument in support of that opinion or point-of-view nor does it address the claim 'God exists' which must necessarily precede it. The question was can you give an example of a non-hypocritical, rational argument for atheism, not can you give an example of how an agnostic would answer the question 'Does God exist?'. A simple and straightforward 'No' would have been enough, though that would have exposed you to the challenge of explaining exactly why we must defend the rights of the religious and discount and disqualify the views of anybody who disbelieves their claims and assertions.

and that's the whole point

No, that's just the point you've painted yourself into over the years in your eagerness to avoid the issue and avoid what atheists are, and have been, saying to you about their atheism. You have nominated yourself as the sole champion of reason in matters of religion and the sole validating authority for atheism, where you apply a validation scheme that automatically disqualifies anyone who takes it and passes.

Any other argument immediately becomes irrational and hypocritical the moment some argument against the existence appears

The appearance of 'the argument against the existence' [of God] is, in point of fact, an argument against the argument for the existence [of God]. Address this or ignore it as you will, but this just how things go. No sane and rational person would ever embark on arguing against the existence of a putative, supernatural entity, as variously; the creator and operator of the universe; the designer of the biosphere and the micro-manager of everything in it; the ultimate law-giver, moral arbiter, prosecutor, judge and jury of every humans' every thought and deed, etc, if those arguments were not already afoot.

even an implication created by an insult directed at theistic believers

In common with many apologists you are far too quick to raise the spectre of the presumed insulting nature of 'the argument against the existence' [of God], and then to use that presumed insultation to justify ignorance and decption. While you might be operating within a culture that has traditionally gone to some lengths to affirm a self-asserted de facto (and indeed, God-given) right to never have their self-declared authority criticised or challenged invoking it here does not afford your views any extra weight or force - nor does it immunise your apologetics from due criticism or challenge. Either swallow that herring or throw it back into the sea, it has no plaice here.

because there is zero evidence meeting the standards Atheists demand of theists of the truth of the claim that God does not exist.

You can try and shift the burden all you like but it does not change the fact that there is no rational basis for requiring the evidential failure of a claim to be validated evidentially. Just think about that for a moment - a claim with no evidence requires evidence that there's no evidence to support it? Really? Get real. The arguments for the existence of God stand or fall on their own merits and in this regard they fail, woefully and abjectly, evidentially: that is a simple and singular truth that requires no further qualification. If you don't think that is the truth all you have to do is provide some evidence that those claims do not fail evidentially! Your requirement that atheists may only 'logically and rationally' and 'non-hypocritically' validate the evidential failure of 'the argument for the existence' [of God] by providing evidence for the non-existence of a thing for which there is no evidence of existence is 'logically and rationally' flawed, it is incoherent and epistemologically bankrupt. It is, in other words, an arbitrary condition you apply to discourse in order feather your own nest - an unholy reliance on shifting the burden and special pleading.

but a declaration of agnosticism, and vast majority of atheist would probably count themselves as agnostic on epistemological grounds, perhaps even qualifying their views, when pushed, as agnostic-atheism.

You do not correctly identify agnosticism.

Well this is somewhat uncharitable. If you had taken the trouble to digest the whole of the paragraph, let alone the whole of a sentence, before jumping in you'll have seen that I qualified my point quite clearly, having stated that agnosticism pertains to knowledge, specifically knowledge of God, a knowledge which is both discounted and negated by that prefixed 'a'. Agnosticism is not merely a doubting or the withholding on a decision in the manner of a simple-minded fence-sitter, although I'll grant that it may betaken to stand for those things, in part at least. Neither does it stand for a local agniology specific to a particular region of enquiry, for a declaration of ignorance, even of the most egregiously wilful kind, does not automatically render one an agnostic. As a term it is rooted in representing positions antithetical to those encompassed by the tradition of Christian gnosticism. In this discussion then you cannot so readily foreclose on the broader context the term implies, nor with any claim to reasonableness seek to narrow and limit the term to only that which suits your purpose. Nonetheless, it quite reasonable, and indeed entirely factual, to state that many self-declare atheist do and would strictly identify their position as being one of agnostic-atheism: agnostic with respect to the existence of deities as being currently unknown or essentially unknowable in general, and atheistic with regards to disbelieving the claims and assertions of religions in particular.

Agnosticism specifically claims that we can NEVER KNOW whether God exists or not.

For some people, like yourself, it may very well represent exactly that sort of explicit claim, in which case, by your own erected epistemic standard I expect you to now validate that claim evidentially. If you dodge this quite reasonable challenge then it will simply demonstrate that you are operating a double-standard, which as I am sure you are aware is commonly referred to as bigotry or hypocrisy. But still, you are wrong, for as I have just outlined the agnostic may simply, and quite legitimately, maintain that the existence of this-or-that claimed-for supernatural entity is currently unknown. In this regard the agnostic is also an atheist in the sense that they are non-theists and un-theistic.

That is a prediction of the future that amounts to a position statement on the existence of God.

Putting aside the fact that the self-ascribed predictive power of your declaration does not elevated it to the level of a scientific Theory, consisting as it does in an unsupported, unevidenced declaration indistinguishable from a blind assertion or the arbitrary pleading by fiat typical of many brands of makingshitupism. That said, if you wish to secure the predictive power of this 'theory' please provide the relevant evidences in accord with your own epistemic standards.

"I don't know" is simply and only a statement of fact.

Forgive me for having to labour the point, again, but it is clear and obvious to those with a modicum of education and literacy that a self-affirming statement of ignorance is not a statement of fact in any sense other than it declares or reports, truthfully or otherwise, the opinion or point-of-view of it utterer. I find it curious that 'I don't know' is apparently permissible here where 'The facts contradict you', or, 'There is no evidence to support your assertion' or 'No, your private institution should hold no sway in public affairs' are not. However, such curiosities are not something that any atheist is obliged to take as absolute, definitive, or authoritative - so you'll forgive again if I simply put them aside for the chickens.

It neither implies that God exists or does not exist and it neither claims that we will inevitably know or can never know whether God exists.

Being as you've just asserted that an agnostic's 'I don't know' amounts to a prediction about the existence of God, to wit that God's existence will not and cannot ever be proven evidentially--which I'm sure you'll grant only further bankrupts the dodgy conditions you seek to place on atheists by obliging them to support evidentially the evidential failure of claims and assertions for God and gods--then clearly you must also be of the opinion that theism also amounts to a set of unsupported and unsupportable claims and that theists are irrational hypocrites as well. This at least is good to know because it means that you are an atheist. Unfortunately, as an atheist you are now obliged by your own epistemic standards to justify your non-belief in God with appropriate evidences - if you have a genuine desire to provide a non-hypocritical, rational argument that is.

For an "atheist" who has "no belief in the existence of God" as commonly expressed here (a lack of belief) this lack of belief can only be based on a paucity of evidence of the existence of God that is convincing enough to generate a belief in the existence of God.

Don't be silly, there's no 'only' about that, other than the one which exists in your own mind, unless that is you are to maintain that the failure of claims to support themselves in their own terms is no good reason to withhold proportioning assent to said claims. Oh, please forgive the lapse, how remiss of me - why Madam, that is the entirety of your position: the failure of a claim to support itself is no good reason not to believe it. You should get that on a t-shirt.

The a priori argument of atheism is, as has been stated here many times, that in the absence of critically robust scientific evidence of the existence of God, God cannot be said to exist and therefore the only rational thing to believe is that God does NOT exist, unless and until such evidence is provided. This common claim attempts to place the burden of proving the existence of God on those who believe God exists.

First you must accept and acknowledge that some claims for God must come first. I say 'must' there because atheists do not imagine God and other putative supernatural entities out of thin air do they? Indeed not, for what would be the point of conjuring a fantasy as an unnecessary explanation for the unknown only to declare it a fantasy that does not explain anything, and in fact is an explanation which raises far more questions than if can ever answer? No, one must accept that the existence of a claim is a necessary precondition for assessing it, forming a conclusion about it, believing or disbelieving it. It's just how causality works. Not only that, but the claim 'God exists' falls into the category of objective claims, that is; claims that some-thing is a real and actual thing with unique and particular properties and attributes, some-thing every bit as real and actual as any other real thing that actually exists. If the objective existence of God can not be supported evidentially, which you say it will not and cannot ever be, then the claim 'God exists' cannot be said to be true, and under the most basic logical principle of all, that which we cannot say to be true we can say to be false, or, if you wish...

• not-true == false
  not-false == true

This is the basic logical expression of non-contradiction. Yet still, we can account for the middle-ground maybe-position here by charitably granting that this isn't necessarily a closed or settled matter, and allow that perhaps some or any evidence may be brought to the claim at some later point. In the meantime however we certainly cannot proportion assent to the claim 'God exists', and so it is quite reasonable, logical and rational not only to discount the claim but to declare its falsity. This is how claims work in general, and how objective claims work in particular.

The problem is that just as (arguendo) there is no evidence that God exists

Correct, we can agree that there is no evidence that God exists, and therefore for the time being the claim 'God exists' remains false. No reciprocal counter-claim is required to validate the manifest failure of the claim - the claim fails in and on its own terms.

there is also no evidence that God does not exist.

Now why should we expect there to be? What possible evidence could we provide for the non-existence of a thing other than the lack of evidence for the existence of that thing? This is not a rhetorical question. Having said that, an awful lot of what was formerly asserted by religion in terms of the world and the cosmos as structures, processes, and events ordained and ordered according to the whim of this-or-that supernatural entity can be, and are, toppled evidentially. In this post-Enlightenment period your God of the gaps is running out of places to hide.

That being the case, the only rational claim that an atheist can make with respect to the question is "I don't know." This is not an agnostic position, it's a statement of logical fact.

Non-sequitur and nope, an atheist is still free to disbelieve, to withhold proportioning assent to the claim made on behalf of putative supernatural entities, and to challenge those who assert the existence of such entities to support their claims. If they don't or can't meet challenges to their claims' justification there really is no reason to believe them anyway - and we call that disbelief, and we call those who disbelieve god-claims atheists.

Of course, the agnostic is an atheist too, in the sense that they are not a theist and in the sense that they do not claim or accept the kind of special knowledge so many seem so absolutely sure about. But that wasn't the question was it(?) Can you give an example of a non-hypocritical, rational argument for atheism, bearing in mind that there first has to be some sort of claim or assertion for some sort of putative supernatural entity to begin with? Indeed, do you think that there can ever be a non-hypocritical, rational argument for atheism?

Now you're shifting the goalposts.

No, I'm qualifying my question and you're still ignoring it. Nothing in addition here changes the context of the question, and the follow up question just, erm, follows up on the first as an invitation for your to qualify your response, which you did, though poorly I'll grant.

On what basis do you add the condition "there first has to be some sort of claim or assertion of some sort of putative supernatural entity to begin with"? The existence of God clearly does not hinge on there being a predicate claim

Not that I haven't gone to some lengths previously to explain this quite simple, straightforward, an non-controversial fact about causality to you before, but let me try and explain it to you agin, in explicit terms, with an example you can relate to and which will, or at least I hope it will, help to enlighten you about the order of things and the principles that underpin them. We'll take this as our example...

Q: Does God exist?

A: I don't know.

For the purpose of this explanation I suppose I better be as clear and unambiguous as possible, to avoid future misunderstandings as much as to give you a chance to catch up, so let me start by describing that what we have above is a semantic binding of a question (Q)(Does God exist?) with a nominated answer to that question (A)(I don't know). We'll say that the question is put forward by the 'questioner' and the answer is given by the 'respondent', and that both are bound by the terms of a hypothetical relationship which is defined by the semantic roles imposed by a question-answer pairing.

We also need to be clear that the questioner and the respondent are not real people, they are a convention which we adopt for discursive convenience only, and although I actually did ask a question of you (if you could give an example of a non-hypothetical, rational argument for atheism) in the role of questioner, and you did offer the above by return in your role as respondent, for the purposes of this explanation the presumed semantically bound hypothetical parities have no real, everyday substance or relationship, and as such they carry no baggage and bring no personal concerns to their roles, that is; we will assume that the questioner here has not been led or obliged to ask the question as the result of some unknown force or circumstance, that the questioner has no particular view about or motivation for asking the question beyond the context of this explanation, that there is no correct or incorrect response to the question, and that the respondent has no interest in providing purchase for any subsequent, antecedent, or wider view or position. Indeed, these abstract parties do not even exist outside of the bare minimums required by discursive convention.

Now that this has been stated we can proceed to say that the question 'Does God exist?' acts as a motivating challenge aimed at eliciting information which is relevant to its context. I say 'a motivating challenge aimed at eliciting information' here because the questioner is not making an explicit statement or making a rhetorical question - and besides, what's the point of asking a question if one is not seeking to elicit a response by return(?). All that is being said here is that the questioner, by their question, aims to motivate the respondent to give an answer pertaining to, and relevant, to the context of the question asked. However, of this all important context we know very little.

For example, we do not know if the questioner is asking for a factual response, that is; that the questioner is in ignorance, or wishes to asses the possible state of ignorance of the respondent, about the existence of God and therefore is seeking the kind of definitive response which amounts to a declaration of assured epistemic certainty, or knowledge, or if the questioner is simply seeking out the opinion, point-of-view, or beliefs of the respondent in the face of some purported or presumed epistemic uncertainty, dispute, or controversy. Nonetheless, what we do know of the context here is that the word-token 'God' is of pivotal importance if we are to accept that the questioner and respondent remain bound within the same semantic context. If we cannot accept that they are bound within the same context then we cannot say if the answer pertains to or is relevant to the question - after all, within the terms of the convention there is nothing to be gained by maintaining that the answer may not pertain or be relevant to the question, that is; that the respondent might as well be responding to a different question or is simply uttering their response by accident or at random as addressing the question asked.

OK, so the ground work is now laid. If the question-answer binding and the convention of the questioner-respondent relationship is to retain its discursive cohesion then we have to accept that the object nominated by the word-token 'God' is something that is relevant to both that particular binding and that particular relationship, and by that we must presuppose that whatever object is represented by the word-token 'God' it is clear enough within that semantic binding to provide the necessary context for both the question and its accompanying answer. I think we can safely take this as read here - after all, when the questioner asks 'Does God exist?' the respondent does not reply with 'What is this 'God' thing you speak of?' or 'I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about'. No, the object represented by the word-token 'God' is quite rightly presumed to be clear to both questioner and respondent, not least because the question specifically addresses the existence of that object and not the definition of that object or the principles or notions that may or may not be inherent in or embodied by it. By this we must accept that the very idea of God, of what God is (or at least what God might be) is not disputed (for the purposes of the question-answer binding), and by this that the idea of God must pre-exist the question - for without that idea being something the questioner and respondent can (for the purposes of this explanation) tacitly agree on the meaning, semantic cohesion, and context of the question 'Does God exist?' would be impossible to decipher (beyond, that is, the fact that the proper-noun status of the word-token 'God' nominates a specific, one-of-a-kind object).

So if we wish to secure and preserve the meaning, semantic cohesion, and context of the question 'Does God exist?', along with the relevance of the answer 'I don't know', or any given response for that matter, as pertaining to that context, then at the very minimum we must accept that some sort of claim or assertion for the existence of God (or, more broadly, some putative supernatural entity) must first have be put forward and that this is at least understood by both sides of the paring even if it is or might not be accepted by one or either side. The claim for God must pre-exist any and all question about the existence of God.

In short, pretending you don't get this does not help your case, it merely involves you holding forth on the epistemic status of God's existence as being reflected by a truth statement while back-peddling away from the necessities of causalit. I put it to you that it is quite reasonable to point out that for any conclusions to be drawn on the existence of God or any similar putative supernatural entity "there first has to be some sort of claim or assertion for some sort of putative supernatural entity to begin with," and indeed in the broader context of the theism-atheism paradigm it must follow that for any theist or atheist to draw any conclusions on the existence of God, gods, and/or supernatural entities claims and/or assertions for that or those things' existence must first be placed before them.

It is clear to many here that the reason your are so eager to back away from the blindingly obvious fact that conclusions, views or positions about supernatural entities are necessarily dependant on the pre-existence of some sort of claim or assertion on behalf of said entities is because you do not wish to accept that i) claims for God are weak, that is; that even accepting such a claim does not amount to very much (a point you admit by asserting that no claims for God etc are supportable and will never be supportable) and that the claim itself is so easily toppled by its own failure to support itself, and ii) you wish to maintain the fiction that atheism necessarily involves a stand-alone claim that is wholly aside from, and devoid of the context of, any and all pre-existing claims for putative, supernatural entities that theists (and similar) have or might put forward. The position of atheism cannot be excised from the context of theisms' claims even if you are prepared to go to the illogical and irrational lengths of doing so simply to maintain the primacy of your self-declared authority in your own eyes. It's time to let it go.

or assertion with respect to God any more than the existence of subatomic particles such as muons and quarks hinges on a predicate claim or assertion that subatomic particles exist.

Our understanding and acceptance of the existence of subatomic particles is predicated on observation and experimental evidence and our conclusions about their existence can be supported or refuted on that basis alone. When you have some experimental evidence for the objective existence of God you might finally have a point, so be sure to provide that evidence if you have any. Until that point, 'Meh'.

This is exactly the sort of illogic that is commonly used in presenting the Atheist's Fallacy, and that is exactly what you are doing here.

Your strawman aside, all I'm doing is defending the reasonableness of disbelieving the claims and assertions of theists and their supernaturalist chums. If you truly wish to understand the reasonableness of that position you should try supporting a claim for the existence of God, gods, or the kind of intentioning supernatural entities commonly proposed by religious authorities. Yeah, see how that goes for you. But it is apparent your are not interested in that. Instead you only seek to apply exclusionary conditions to atheist and have fallen into the habit applying the grand title of 'The Atheist Fallacy' as if it is a self-evidence reality, while you yourself go to great lengths to fallaciously declare that that for which no evidence exists must only be disputed on the basis of evidence that it does not exist. This, along with the eager bankrupting and misappropriation of logic and reason deployed in disingenuous and uncharitable misreadings of what self-declared atheists actually say to you about their atheism, all of which passes for what you laughingly call an argument, does not amount to very much. Your assertions are not bolstered by repetition nor is declaring all criticism, challenge, and disagreement a condition of necessary disqualification serving your point well, either as an individual or an unapologetic defender of a right for the religiously inclined to be taken seriously at their word and granted some automatic respect on that basis and on the basis of their willingness to identify as voluntary members of a nominal club.

Beliefs about God or claims about God, either affirmative or negative, have nothing whatever to do with the objective fact of God's existence or non-existence.

And yet you work so tirelessly to bind the two together, and indeed your whole schtick relies on such a binding which you obviously believe is shored up by repetition. Why is that? Why do you insist that disbelieving the claims and assertions of theist etc amount to an objective claim about the extant status of an unevidenced, unnecessary, religiously self-authorised supernatural entity when all it necessarily entails is a cold, logical, rational appraisal of the claims made for such entities? What do you fear in atheism so much that you would disavow its very existence and deny its legitimacy as as reasonable response to religious assertions and insistences?

The only rational, scientific predicate claim with respect to God that can be made is "Either God exists or God does not exist."

Of course, but the objective truth status of God's existence does not stop us from examining the claims and assertions made on behalf of God scientifically, nor from proposing far more coherent and rational explanations, nor of rooting those explanations in observation, experimental evidence, and rigorous thinking. But, as I said upstream, as you have just made a claim about the supposed true extent of a scientific appraisal of God's purported existence I expect, by your own self-declared epistemic standards, some evidence by way of support for that claim. You won't support it though will you, you will simply fall back on the point that atheists are obliged to provide evidence for God's non-existence if they wish to validate the failure of claims for God.

That's it.

That's it?

And absent critically robust scientific evidence supporting one or another of those predicate claims no rational conclusion can be drawn by anyone.

Other than the conclusion that in admitting that all claims and assertions put forward on behalf of God etc are unsupported, and by your own prediction will remain so forever, provides us with no logical or rational grounds for accepting them, for believe them; that such claims and assertion are logically and rationally unbelievable. Forming this conclusion is all that is required to render one an atheist, whether one self-identities with it or not Seth.

Therefore the only rational response to both questions is, and can only be, "I don't know." That is a rational, non hypocritical argument both for and against atheism.

But after all that it's still not an argument, it's statement of opinion, a point-of-view, or belief for sure, but it does not consist of anything more than a declaration or report in the face of a question. After all your years of bluster and taking issue with atheists all you have constructed is a justification for avoiding coming to a conclusion about the objective claims made on behalf of putative, supernatural entities. And yet, even in highlighting the essential futility of playing what-ifs when it comes to unevidenced supernatural entities you still seek to maintain the primacy of your position over atheists by taking issue with them when they say that it is futile to play what-ifs with unevidenced supernatural entities. Basically your whole point is predicated on your personal drive to take issue with atheists for being atheists, and your output increasingly appears to consist of little more than expanding the variety and scope of the rhetorical devices you are prepared to deploy to that end. This indeed marks you out as a Troll of the Grand Order and it's exactly the sort of thing that gets you ignored here and banned elsewhere.



For those who scrolled past all this on the grounds of tl;dr, be assured that its just a longer way of saying that there are no good reasons, in fact no reasons at all, for the uncritical acceptance of blind assertions - and have a nice day.

[Scot Dutchy]

[cronus]

[Hermit]

For those who scrolled past all this on the grounds of tl;dr, be assured that its just a longer way of saying that there are no good reasons, in fact no reasons at all, for the uncritical acceptance of blind assertions - and have a nice day.

I must admit that I have only read the first third of your post, skimmed the middle third and skipped the last one entirely. To me you nailed the central point very early on, when you wrote

The appearance of 'the argument against the existence' [of God] is, in point of fact, an argument against the argument for the existence [of God].

Trap sprung. The rest is elaboration.

You obviously had fun, though, so that is good. Seth won't get what you are driving at, and that isn't.

[Seth]

For those who scrolled past all this on the grounds of tl;dr, be assured that its just a longer way of saying that there are no good reasons, in fact no reasons at all, for the uncritical acceptance of blind assertions - and have a nice day.

I must admit that I have only read the first third of your post, skimmed the middle third and skipped the last one entirely. To me you nailed the central point very early on, when you wrote

The appearance of 'the argument against the existence' [of God] is, in point of fact, an argument against the argument for the existence [of God].

Trap sprung. The rest is elaboration.

You obviously had fun, though, so that is good. Seth won't get what you are driving at, and that isn't.

Of course I get it, nor do I disagree. What you don't get is that the rational response to blind assertions is not to use those blind assertions as a premise in your rebuttal argument. If someone says "I make the claim that there are fairies at the bottom of my garden" the appropriate response is not to say "There are no fairies at the bottom of your garden because fairies are mythical supernatural creatures that do not exist" because by doing so you are irrationally (fallaciously) basing your rebuttal on the unsupported claim that what is at the bottom of her garden are indeed "fairies" and further you are making specious and unfounded assumptions that the object which is claimed to be a "fairy" is a mythical supernatural creature that does not exist when in point of fact she could be referring to "fairy shrimp," which do happen to exist and are entirely natural.

The same thing is true of god claims. You cannot base a rational rebuttal on the description of a theist of the supernatural character of god because you have zero evidence that this "god" spoken of is either supernatural or that the "supernatural" is not actually the "natural" that you simply do not understand.

This particular debate is not about what theists say or believe, it is about your faculties for critical thinking and reasoning. In short, you cannot make a rational counter-claim about something you have absolutely no evidence about. The best you can say is that the original claim is unsupported and therefore you simply don't know if it's true or not. You may of course always refuse to give such claims further consideration, but that's entirely different from trying to say that the claim is false, because you do not know that it is false, you are assuming that it is false, which is not a rational thing to do.

[Hermit]

Of course I get it, nor do I disagree.

Well, that is really good.

What you don't get is that the rational response to blind assertions is not to use those blind assertions as a premise in your rebuttal argument.

WTF? Please link to posts where I used blind assertions in my rebuttal argument - or even just a rebuttal argument. In case you used the plural "you", please link to posts by others on this forum doing so. I suspect the closest you will come to one are expressions to the effect that Yaweh's existence is as probable as the existence of the flying spaghetti monster.

[Seth]

Read your own words, 'Does God exist?'/'I don't know' is clearly not an argument for atheism, in fact it's not an argument at all, it's a declaration, a statement, a proclamation, an affirmation of an opinion or point-of-view: it is not not an argument in support of that opinion or point-of-view nor does it address the claim 'God exists' which must necessarily precede it. The question was can you give an example of a non-hypocritical, rational argument for atheism, not can you give an example of how an agnostic would answer the question 'Does God exist?'. A simple and straightforward 'No' would have been enough, though that would have exposed you to the challenge of explaining exactly why we must defend the rights of the religious and discount and disqualify the views of anybody who disbelieves their claims and assertions.

Nobody said you have to discount and disqualify anyone. I merely point out that disbelief is a belief, and beliefs are founded on faith, and that practices and observations of faith almost always qualify as the exercise of religion. More to the point, you are correct, there is no rational, non-hypocritical argument for atheism other than "I don't know." It's an argument for atheism, even the narrow definition of atheism that claims "lack of belief in god or gods" because not being able to rationally support any other argument, pro or con, is inherently irrational. "I don't know" is an argument "for" atheism, which is to say it's an argument that supports the fundamental premise of atheism, which is a "lack of belief in god or gods" because not knowing is the core of atheism.

and that's the whole point

No, that's just the point you've painted yourself into over the years in your eagerness to avoid the issue and avoid what atheists are, and have been, saying to you about their atheism. You have nominated yourself as the sole champion of reason in matters of religion and the sole validating authority for atheism, where you apply a validation scheme that automatically disqualifies anyone who takes it and passes.

Hardly. I may be the only person here who has the balls to view atheism rationally, but that's just because nobody else has the balls to do so. It's a dirty job but somebody has to do it lest the forum wither away completely. As to what atheists say about their atheism, I have long pointed out that what atheists say about their beliefs and how they actually manifest their beliefs in words are almost universally polar opposites. Only when forced to defend their routine excoriations of theism do atheists (and Atheists) resort to dodging their own words and the plainly obvious meanings thereof. I note such irrationality and focus upon it, but I don't claim any "authority" at all. I merely respond to an argument presented with a rational analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of that argument.

You see, "atheism" does not have an anti-theist agenda nor does it even have anything at all to say about theistic claims. It is (supposed to be) simply and exclusively a "lack of belief in god or gods." The moment that a person who has no beliefs about god or gods articulates an argument derogating god or gods that person has proven conclusively that they are not in fact an "atheist" but rather they are most likely an Atheist and a member of the cult of Atheism. If a person truly has no beliefs about god then that person cannot have an opinion about the fundamental question about god, which is whether or not god exists. This is why the two categories of atheist exist; the implicit atheist and the explicit atheist.

You cannot form, much less articulate an opinion on something that you have no belief in because "no belief" requires utter ignorance a a prerequisite.

In order to form an opinion and then articulate that opinion you must necessarily examine the subject and examining the subject dispels the ignorance required (in this case) to claim to have a "lack of belief" about god or gods.

Any other argument immediately becomes irrational and hypocritical the moment some argument against the existence appears

The appearance of 'the argument against the existence' [of God] is, in point of fact, an argument against the argument for the existence [of God]. Address this or ignore it as you will, but this just how things go. No sane and rational person would ever embark on arguing against the existence of a putative, supernatural entity, as variously; the creator and operator of the universe; the designer of the biosphere and the micro-manager of everything in it; the ultimate law-giver, moral arbiter, prosecutor, judge and jury of every humans' every thought and deed, etc, if those arguments were not already afoot.

Another iteration of the Atheist's Fallacy. It doesn't matter what other arguments are "afoot," what matters is whether the argument the Atheist makes is a rational one or not. You have just pointed out exactly what I'm saying about how the argument against the existence of God is not an argument based in "atheism" (lack of belief) but is instead a carefully considered rebuttal argument based entirely on an entirely unevidenced claim that is cited as the factual basis for the rebuttal argument. That is the Atheist's Fallacy in a nutshell.

You are correct that the "argument against the argument for" would not exist had the argument for not been made. But what you do not understand is that the argument against the argument for is not rationally justified merely because the argument for has been made. In order for the argument against the argument for to be rational that argument against must be something other than a mere dismissal of the argument for utilizing the fallacious argument that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. If the argument for presents no evidence for, but is merely a bald assertion without foundation in fact, then an argument against that argument for is just as unfounded and irrational as the argument for.

It is irrational to state that the argument for God is wrong merely because the argument for God includes a claim of a "supernatural entity, as variously; the creator and operator of the universe; the designer of the biosphere and the micro-manager of everything in it; the ultimate law-giver, moral arbiter, prosecutor, judge and jury of every humans' every thought and deed, etc." This is true because what a theistic believer says or believes about the thing he calls "God" is not critically robust scientific evidence describing that thing. That theistic claim is, as you so staunchly maintain, nothing other than a baseless declaration of the existence of a "putative, supernatural entity, as variously; the creator and operator of the universe; the designer of the biosphere and the micro-manager of everything in it; the ultimate law-giver, moral arbiter, prosecutor, judge and jury of every humans' every thought and deed, etc." Therefore saying "no such entity exists" is an argument that is itself based on an unsupported assertion, which makes it irrational.

even an implication created by an insult directed at theistic believers

In common with many apologists you are far too quick to raise the spectre of the presumed insulting nature of 'the argument against the existence' [of God], and then to use that presumed insultation to justify ignorance and decption. While you might be operating within a culture that has traditionally gone to some lengths to affirm a self-asserted de facto (and indeed, God-given) right to never have their self-declared authority criticised or challenged invoking it here does not afford your views any extra weight or force - nor does it immunise your apologetics from due criticism or challenge. Either swallow that herring or throw it back into the sea, it has no plaice here.

I don't raise a spectre of anything, I base my comments on the observed behavior of theist-hating bigots who call themselves atheists. I have never demanded or even suggested that my statements are immune from criticism or challenge. In fact I consistently challenge Atheists to do just that, and then I rebut, as I'm doing here. Nor do I anywhere suggest that theistic claims are immune from criticism or challenge. Ever.

What I do is to examine those critiques for their logical and rational strength and I go to great pains to point out the logical and reasoning errors I find. If you don't like the criticism, make better, more rational arguments. It's just that simple.

because there is zero evidence meeting the standards Atheists demand of theists of the truth of the claim that God does not exist.

You can try and shift the burden all you like but it does not change the fact that there is no rational basis for requiring the evidential failure of a claim to be validated evidentially. Just think about that for a moment - a claim with no evidence requires evidence that there's no evidence to support it? Really? Get real.

You still don't get it. This has nothing whatever to do with theistic claims or the evidence, or lack thereof, supporting them. This is and has always been about the rational thought processes, statements and conclusions stated here by those claiming to be atheists. Your synthesis of "a claim with no evidence requires evidence that there's no evidence to support it" is begging the question, which is NOT that "a claim with no evidence requires evidence that there's no evidence to support it" at all. The point I keep trying to get across is simply that the atheist cannot draw a rational conclusion, much less make a rational counter-claim about such an unevidenced claim. To try to do so is an oxymoronic bootstrapping circular argument that can be nothing other than irrational. If the argument starts out as an irrational one it does not become rational merely because one of the arguers disputes the premises of the argument. It only becomes a rational argument if the rebuttal presents some argument based at the very least in logic and reason, which requires more than a fallacious appeal to incredulity.

A rebuttal to the claim "God exists!" of "I don't believe it" does not constitute a rational rebuttal, it's merely a statement of incredulity and opinion. Which is not to say the atheist is not free to state such opinions, merely that such opinions do not comprise a rebuttal of the claim.

The arguments for the existence of God stand or fall on their own merits and in this regard they fail, woefully and abjectly, evidentially: that is a simple and singular truth that requires no further qualification.

Which arguments? What merits? What failure? Simply dismissing the subject is not a rebuttal argument, it's a statement of opinion, and in this case a bald attempt to simply dismiss the entire subject.

If you don't think that is the truth all you have to do is provide some evidence that those claims do not fail evidentially!

No I don't, I merely have to refrain from drawing irrational conclusions based on your claims.

Your requirement that atheists may only 'logically and rationally' and 'non-hypocritically' validate the evidential failure of 'the argument for the existence' [of God] by providing evidence for the non-existence of a thing for which there is no evidence of existence is 'logically and rationally' flawed, it is incoherent and epistemologically bankrupt. It is, in other words, an arbitrary condition you apply to discourse in order feather your own nest - an unholy reliance on shifting the burden and special pleading.

Not really, because that's not what I'm actually saying. What I actually said is not what atheists "may only" do, it's quite simply that atheists cannot logically, rationally and non-hypocritically base their conclusions about the existence of God on the unevidenced claims of theists. All they can rationally do is say "I don't know."

but a declaration of agnosticism, and vast majority of atheist would probably count themselves as agnostic on epistemological grounds, perhaps even qualifying their views, when pushed, as agnostic-atheism.

You do not correctly identify agnosticism.

Well this is somewhat uncharitable. If you had taken the trouble to digest the whole of the paragraph, let alone the whole of a sentence, before jumping in you'll have seen that I qualified my point quite clearly, having stated that agnosticism pertains to knowledge, specifically knowledge of God, a knowledge which is both discounted and negated by that prefixed 'a'. Agnosticism is not merely a doubting or the withholding on a decision in the manner of a simple-minded fence-sitter, although I'll grant that it may betaken to stand for those things, in part at least. Neither does it stand for a local agniology specific to a particular region of enquiry, for a declaration of ignorance, even of the most egregiously wilful kind, does not automatically render one an agnostic. As a term it is rooted in representing positions antithetical to those encompassed by the tradition of Christian gnosticism. In this discussion then you cannot so readily foreclose on the broader context the term implies, nor with any claim to reasonableness seek to narrow and limit the term to only that which suits your purpose. Nonetheless, it quite reasonable, and indeed entirely factual, to state that many self-declare atheist do and would strictly identify their position as being one of agnostic-atheism: agnostic with respect to the existence of deities as being currently unknown or essentially unknowable in general, and atheistic with regards to disbelieving the claims and assertions of religions in particular.

Fair enough, if that's what they actually did and that was how they actually approach theistic claims. But they don't, by a vast and immeasurable margin. That they don't is precisely why I am here, and was at RatSkep and RDF before that. If atheists by and large weren't actually Atheists who manifest grossly bigoted anti-theistic beliefs and practices I wouldn't bother, but that's not the case, so I choose to call such hateful bigots out and point out the fact that their religion is no better than the ones they disparage and demean. If that doesn't include you, I'm fine with that, but you're an exception to the rule.

Agnosticism specifically claims that we can NEVER KNOW whether God exists or not.

For some people, like yourself, it may very well represent exactly that sort of explicit claim, in which case, by your own erected epistemic standard I expect you to now validate that claim evidentially.

Well, that would be the textbook definition, so it's hardly my standard at all.

If you dodge this quite reasonable challenge then it will simply demonstrate that you are operating a double-standard, which as I am sure you are aware is commonly referred to as bigotry or hypocrisy. But still, you are wrong, for as I have just outlined the agnostic may simply, and quite legitimately, maintain that the existence of this-or-that claimed-for supernatural entity is currently unknown. In this regard the agnostic is also an atheist in the sense that they are non-theists and un-theistic.

Yes, an agnostic may hold the opinion that the existence of God is currently unknown. That's exactly what i've been saying. But if that fully rational opinion is actually the true belief of the self-labeled agnostic or atheist then no other opinion on the subject is rational, particularly any sort of claim that supports the conclusion that God does not exist, much less does such an opinion justify (render rational) attacks on those who believe otherwise.

"I don't know" is simply and only a statement of fact.

Forgive me for having to labour the point, again, but it is clear and obvious to those with a modicum of education and literacy that a self-affirming statement of ignorance is not a statement of fact in any sense other than it declares or reports, truthfully or otherwise, the opinion or point-of-view of it utterer.

Exactly! And if you (the abstract atheist/agnostic/whatever) state anything else about the existence or non existence of God then you are not making a rational claim.

I find it curious that 'I don't know' is apparently permissible here where 'The facts contradict you',

What facts, specifically?

or, 'There is no evidence to support your assertion'

What is your critically robust scientific evidence that there is no evidence supporting "my" assertion?" Remember, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

or 'No, your private institution should hold no sway in public affairs' are not.

Why shouldn't it? Why should YOUR opinion or private institution hold sway over mine?

However, such curiosities are not something that any atheist is obliged to take as absolute, definitive, or authoritative - so you'll forgive again if I simply put them aside for the chickens.

Denial and evasion.

It neither implies that God exists or does not exist and it neither claims that we will inevitably know or can never know whether God exists.

Being as you've just asserted that an agnostic's 'I don't know' amounts to a prediction about the existence of God, to wit that God's existence will not and cannot ever be proven evidentially--which I'm sure you'll grant only further bankrupts the dodgy conditions you seek to place on atheists by obliging them to support evidentially the evidential failure of claims and assertions for God and gods--then clearly you must also be of the opinion that theism also amounts to a set of unsupported and unsupportable claims and that theists are irrational hypocrites as well.

I don't know. I say this because I don't know what evidence theists might have that convince them of the claims they make. I do not have the arrogance to assume that I know everything about everything as Atheists consistently demonstrate they feel is the case.

This at least is good to know because it means that you are an atheist. Unfortunately, as an atheist you are now obliged by your own epistemic standards to justify your non-belief in God with appropriate evidences - if you have a genuine desire to provide a non-hypocritical, rational argument that is.

I may be atheistic, but I don't know whether that is a rationally justifiable position to hold.

For an "atheist" who has "no belief in the existence of God" as commonly expressed here (a lack of belief) this lack of belief can only be based on a paucity of evidence of the existence of God that is convincing enough to generate a belief in the existence of God.

Don't be silly, there's no 'only' about that, other than the one which exists in your own mind, unless that is you are to maintain that the failure of claims to support themselves in their own terms is no good reason to withhold proportioning assent to said claims. Oh, please forgive the lapse, how remiss of me - why Madam, that is the entirety of your position: the failure of a claim to support itself is no good reason not to believe it. You should get that on a t-shirt.

Yes, there is an "only" involved and that is because the predicate premise of "no belief in the existence of God" demands a personal ignorance of the very concept of God in order to be true. Once the individual has been exposed to theistic concepts he automatically and axiomatically assigns a degree of confidence about the truth of the concepts. This weighing of evidence cannot be avoided because it occurs as a function of human thought. Exposure to the claim "God exists" automatically drives an evaluation process that weighs the claim against evidence the individual has already gained. The first iteration is "What is God?" That only occurs in people who have absolutely no exposure to theistic concepts, which is practically no one on earth with the exception of mental defectives and children too young to understand the meaning of the words. Indeed, understanding the meaning of the word "God" is sufficient exposure to theistic concepts to turn the implicit atheist into the explicit atheist who does not have "no belief" but instead has formed a belief, provisional or otherwise, by assigning either positive or negative confidence to the proposition that God exists.

Every self-professed atheist has a firm belief about theistic claims because to be a self-professed atheist, particularly one who posts in this sort of fora, one has to have given the question more than cursory examination and therefore must have assigned a high degree of confidence in the proposition that the theistic claims are false.

And you're right about the tee-shirt, that is a great aphorism...for scientists. It's the basis of the entire scientific process: an unevidenced proposition that requires scientific investigation to either confirm or deny the truth of the proposition, as in "I think the universe began with a Big Bang." The proposition (that the universe began with a Big Bang) was entirely unevidenced, but there was no good reason not to believe that it could be true. Claims do not have to support themselves to be valid or even true.

The a priori argument of atheism is, as has been stated here many times, that in the absence of critically robust scientific evidence of the existence of God, God cannot be said to exist and therefore the only rational thing to believe is that God does NOT exist, unless and until such evidence is provided. This common claim attempts to place the burden of proving the existence of God on those who believe God exists.

First you must accept and acknowledge that some claims for God must come first.

Chicken and egg dilemma. Did God come first or did the claim of God come first? Many arguments here make the false presumption that the claim of God not only comes first, but that the claim itself defines or creates the particular god in question, either directly or by necessary implication.This is like saying "which came first, the proton or the atom?" You cannot deny that the argument here is that the Abrahamic God of the Old Testament is a right bastard and that's who the critic is referring to in maligning, for example, Christianity. One might argue that IF God is as is described in the Old Testament, then drawing a moral conclusion about that particular iteration of God might be rational. But as I have laboriously tried to explain to you and everyone else, the claim does not create the god. The claim may not even accurately describe the god. If there is a god, but he/she/it is not as described in the Old Testament, then the claim "God exists" is true even if the description of god is not accurate. The point being that the existence of God is not dependent on, nor created by, nor constrained by mankind's beliefs and understandings, and no unsupported description of God can be rationally used to deny the existence of God for that reason. That is why doing so, as is so often done here by first insisting that the "god" being considered is a "supernatural entity" of some kind is a fallacy. It's such a common fallacy that I have coined the term the "Atheist's Fallacy" to describe the logical disconnect involved.

So no, you are wrong, the claim does NOT have to come first because God can preexist and exist independent of any human belief or claim.

I say 'must' there because atheists do not imagine God and other putative supernatural entities out of thin air do they? Indeed not, for what would be the point of conjuring a fantasy as an unnecessary explanation for the unknown only to declare it a fantasy that does not explain anything, and in fact is an explanation which raises far more questions than if can ever answer?

Your problem, once again, is that you are ascribing fantasy status without any credible evidence that this is the case.

No, one must accept that the existence of a claim is a necessary precondition for assessing it, forming a conclusion about it, believing or disbelieving it. It's just how causality works.

Not so. Let us consider the question properly, as a postulate: "Does God exist?" Setting aside for a moment the question of what the word "god" means, we can see that no claim is necessary in order to assess that postulate any more than a claim is necessary to the assessment of the postulate that the universe was created in a Big Bang. The question need only be framed and asked. But the one essential component of forming a rational conclusion about any postulate is evidence pointing towards either the truth or falsity of the postulate. Without evidence, no valid and rational conclusion can be drawn and the question remains unanswered, with the only rational statement with respect to it being "I don't know."

Not only that, but the claim 'God exists' falls into the category of objective claims, that is; claims that some-thing is a real and actual thing with unique and particular properties and attributes, some-thing every bit as real and actual as any other real thing that actually exists. If the objective existence of God can not be supported evidentially, which you say it will not and cannot ever be, then the claim 'God exists' cannot be said to be true, and under the most basic logical principle of all, that which we cannot say to be true we can say to be false, or, if you wish...

First, I do NOT say that the existence of God "will not and cannot ever be" supported evidentially. That is the agnostic claim and I am not an agnostic. In fact I make the claim that man can (but not necessarily will) know the answer to the question "Does God exist." The remaining question is merely a matter of when. My personal position on that subject is that, logically and rationally, for mankind to know whether God exists or not one or both of the following must occur: God must reveal him/her/itsself by providing critically robust scientific and falsifiable evidence; or, human knowledge and understanding of the nature and contents of the universe(s) becomes perfect.

Second, you are right, it is an objective claim. From the scientific perspective, as Dawkins says, God either exists or does not exist and it is quintessentially within the province of science to determine the answer to this question, which will not happen unless and until science is willing to remove it's ideological blinders and set to critically examining the question. But what the pseudo-science dweebs here and elsewhere in the Atheist cult do is to simply deny that it is a scientific question by invoking the Atheist's Fallacy to deliberately move the issue outside of the realm of science by proclaiming that God is a supernatural being and therefore outside the realm of science, which claim is based on nothing more or less than an irrational theistic claim that God is supernatural. Atheist's Fallacy.

It's a tautological argument "God does not exist because God is supernatural and nothing supernatural exists because everything is natural." How do they know God is supernatural? By uncritically accepting as a given that theistic descriptions of God are true and accurate. How conveeeeeeeenient that is to dodging the issue.

• not-true == false
  not-false == true

This is the basic logical expression of non-contradiction. Yet still, we can account for the middle-ground maybe-position here by charitably granting that this isn't necessarily a closed or settled matter, and allow that perhaps some or any evidence may be brought to the claim at some later point. In the meantime however we certainly cannot proportion assent to the claim 'God exists', and so it is quite reasonable, logical and rational not only to discount the claim but to declare its falsity. This is how claims work in general, and how objective claims work in particular.

It may be basic logic, but it's not applicable because it assumes as a premise that "not-true" is, in fact, not true, which is not something one can say about either God or god claims, and therein lies the flaw in your logic. You falsely presume that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence, and this is not the case at all.

The problem is that just as (arguendo) there is no evidence that God exists

Correct, we can agree that there is no evidence that God exists, and therefore for the time being the claim 'God exists' remains false. No reciprocal counter-claim is required to validate the manifest failure of the claim - the claim fails in and on its own terms.

Wrong. You are setting an improper binary resolution to the analysis. There is a third conclusion to be drawn, and that is "undetermined." If the premise "not-true" is false, then the logical statement fails. If you cannot demonstrate with critically robust evidence that the "not-true" premise in the logical argument is in fact not true, then either your analysis falls of its own weight (which it does) or, most charitably, you must accept the third conclusion of "undetermined." Or in other words, "I don't know."

there is also no evidence that God does not exist.

Now why should we expect there to be? What possible evidence could we provide for the non-existence of a thing other than the lack of evidence for the existence of that thing? This is not a rhetorical question. Having said that, an awful lot of what was formerly asserted by religion in terms of the world and the cosmos as structures, processes, and events ordained and ordered according to the whim of this-or-that supernatural entity can be, and are, toppled evidentially. In this post-Enlightenment period your God of the gaps is running out of places to hide.

That being the case, the only rational claim that an atheist can make with respect to the question is "I don't know." This is not an agnostic position, it's a statement of logical fact.

Non-sequitur and nope, an atheist is still free to disbelieve, to withhold proportioning assent to the claim made on behalf of putative supernatural entities, and to challenge those who assert the existence of such entities to support their claims. If they don't or can't meet challenges to their claims' justification there really is no reason to believe them anyway - and we call that disbelief, and we call those who disbelieve god-claims atheists.

The atheist is free to believe whatever he wants, but that does not make his beliefs, nor his claims related to his beliefs, rational conclusions, it makes them irrational expressions of religious doctrine every bit as much as the theistic claim he is challenging.

On what basis do you add the condition "there first has to be some sort of claim or assertion of some sort of putative supernatural entity to begin with"? The existence of God clearly does not hinge on there being a predicate claim

Not that I haven't gone to some lengths previously to explain this quite simple, straightforward, an non-controversial fact about causality to you before, but let me try and explain it to you agin, in explicit terms, with an example you can relate to and which will, or at least I hope it will, help to enlighten you about the order of things and the principles that underpin them. We'll take this as our example...

Q: Does God exist?

A: I don't know.

For the purpose of this explanation I suppose I better be as clear and unambiguous as possible, to avoid future misunderstandings as much as to give you a chance to catch up, so let me start by describing that what we have above is a semantic binding of a question (Q)(Does God exist?) with a nominated answer to that question (A)(I don't know). We'll say that the question is put forward by the 'questioner' and the answer is given by the 'respondent', and that both are bound by the terms of a hypothetical relationship which is defined by the semantic roles imposed by a question-answer pairing.

We also need to be clear that the questioner and the respondent are not real people, they are a convention which we adopt for discursive convenience only, and although I actually did ask a question of you (if you could give an example of a non-hypothetical, rational argument for atheism) in the role of questioner, and you did offer the above by return in your role as respondent, for the purposes of this explanation the presumed semantically bound hypothetical parities have no real, everyday substance or relationship, and as such they carry no baggage and bring no personal concerns to their roles, that is; we will assume that the questioner here has not been led or obliged to ask the question as the result of some unknown force or circumstance, that the questioner has no particular view about or motivation for asking the question beyond the context of this explanation, that there is no correct or incorrect response to the question, and that the respondent has no interest in providing purchase for any subsequent, antecedent, or wider view or position. Indeed, these abstract parties do not even exist outside of the bare minimums required by discursive convention.

Now that this has been stated we can proceed to say that the question 'Does God exist?' acts as a motivating challenge aimed at eliciting information which is relevant to its context. I say 'a motivating challenge aimed at eliciting information' here because the questioner is not making an explicit statement or making a rhetorical question - and besides, what's the point of asking a question if one is not seeking to elicit a response by return(?). All that is being said here is that the questioner, by their question, aims to motivate the respondent to give an answer pertaining to, and relevant, to the context of the question asked. However, of this all important context we know very little.

For example, we do not know if the questioner is asking for a factual response, that is; that the questioner is in ignorance, or wishes to asses the possible state of ignorance of the respondent, about the existence of God and therefore is seeking the kind of definitive response which amounts to a declaration of assured epistemic certainty, or knowledge, or if the questioner is simply seeking out the opinion, point-of-view, or beliefs of the respondent in the face of some purported or presumed epistemic uncertainty, dispute, or controversy. Nonetheless, what we do know of the context here is that the word-token 'God' is of pivotal importance if we are to accept that the questioner and respondent remain bound within the same semantic context. If we cannot accept that they are bound within the same context then we cannot say if the answer pertains to or is relevant to the question - after all, within the terms of the convention there is nothing to be gained by maintaining that the answer may not pertain or be relevant to the question, that is; that the respondent might as well be responding to a different question or is simply uttering their response by accident or at random as addressing the question asked.

OK, so the ground work is now laid. If the question-answer binding and the convention of the questioner-respondent relationship is to retain its discursive cohesion then we have to accept that the object nominated by the word-token 'God' is something that is relevant to both that particular binding and that particular relationship, and by that we must presuppose that whatever object is represented by the word-token 'God' it is clear enough within that semantic binding to provide the necessary context for both the question and its accompanying answer. I think we can safely take this as read here - after all, when the questioner asks 'Does God exist?' the respondent does not reply with 'What is this 'God' thing you speak of?' or 'I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about'. No, the object represented by the word-token 'God' is quite rightly presumed to be clear to both questioner and respondent, not least because the question specifically addresses the existence of that object and not the definition of that object or the principles or notions that may or may not be inherent in or embodied by it. By this we must accept that the very idea of God, of what God is (or at least what God might be) is not disputed (for the purposes of the question-answer binding), and by this that the idea of God must pre-exist the question - for without that idea being something the questioner and respondent can (for the purposes of this explanation) tacitly agree on the meaning, semantic cohesion, and context of the question 'Does God exist?' would be impossible to decipher (beyond, that is, the fact that the proper-noun status of the word-token 'God' nominates a specific, one-of-a-kind object).

So if we wish to secure and preserve the meaning, semantic cohesion, and context of the question 'Does God exist?', along with the relevance of the answer 'I don't know', or any given response for that matter, as pertaining to that context, then at the very minimum we must accept that some sort of claim or assertion for the existence of God (or, more broadly, some putative supernatural entity) must first have be put forward and that this is at least understood by both sides of the paring even if it is or might not be accepted by one or either side. The claim for God must pre-exist any and all question about the existence of God.

In short, pretending you don't get this does not help your case, it merely involves you holding forth on the epistemic status of God's existence as being reflected by a truth statement while back-peddling away from the necessities of causalit. I put it to you that it is quite reasonable to point out that for any conclusions to be drawn on the existence of God or any similar putative supernatural entity "there first has to be some sort of claim or assertion for some sort of putative supernatural entity to begin with," and indeed in the broader context of the theism-atheism paradigm it must follow that for any theist or atheist to draw any conclusions on the existence of God, gods, and/or supernatural entities claims and/or assertions for that or those things' existence must first be placed before them.

You include a lot of semantic "musts" that simply do not apply. Granted, coming to a common understanding and agreement about the meaning of the word "god" is of course essential to drawing rational conclusions, which is something I've been saying all along. But once again, the meaning and interpretation of the words involved, "god" and "exist" are not contrary to your assertion, limited to what meaning you choose to "bind" to the noun based on your preferred definitions. That is the very basis of the Atheist's Fallacy. Atheists want "God" to mean "the Abrahamic god described in the Old Testament" or perhaps "the Muslim god described in the Koran" or perhaps some other commonly used descriptors such as "supernatural", but that is nothing more than a rhetorical trick to frame the debate in terms familiar to and friendly to your own position on the matter. (and remember I'm always using the "you" in the abstract debatorial sense of the word not meaning you, the actual person, just to avoid any hint of personal insult)

Theists do the same thing. The problem is that accepting an irrational and unsupported description of God as put forth by anyone and then using it as a premise in a logical syllogism is, as I have said, irrational thinking and an iteration of the Atheist's Fallacy because, as I have said, the human description of God, no matter what it is, may or may not be correct, but more importantly such a description, even if agreed upon, cannot and does not create, control or constrain God. God either is, or is not. Our understanding of what God is, or is thought to be, because it is unsupported by evidence, cannot be used as a rational premise in drawing any conclusions about the nature or existence of God.

It is clear to many here that the reason your are so eager to back away from the blindingly obvious fact that conclusions, views or positions about supernatural entities are necessarily dependant on the pre-existence of some sort of claim or assertion on behalf of said entities is because you do not wish to accept that i) claims for God are weak, that is; that even accepting such a claim does not amount to very much (a point you admit by asserting that no claims for God etc are supportable and will never be supportable) and that the claim itself is so easily toppled by its own failure to support itself, and ii) you wish to maintain the fiction that atheism necessarily involves a stand-alone claim that is wholly aside from, and devoid of the context of, any and all pre-existing claims for putative, supernatural entities that theists (and similar) have or might put forward. The position of atheism cannot be excised from the context of theisms' claims even if you are prepared to go to the illogical and irrational lengths of doing so simply to maintain the primacy of your self-declared authority in your own eyes. It's time to let it go.

Well, you have neatly proven by your own reasoning that atheists are part of a religion all their own, a religion that depends on the existence of other religions for its own existence. Many proponents of atheism vigorously argue, when challenged about their own belief/practice set and the fact that it has every appearance of being its own religion, that they don't believe anything, they merely have a "lack of belief in the existence of god or gods." So it is Atheists who rely upon theistic claims for their own orthodoxy, which you have shown above is nothing more than a sham intended to evade the consequences of the irrationality of Atheism's beliefs.

Either you "have no beliefs" about the existence of God or you depend on the claims of theists for your very identity as an Atheist and actually have negative beliefs about the claims made by theists. The two positions are mutually exclusive. Pick one.

or assertion with respect to God any more than the existence of subatomic particles such as muons and quarks hinges on a predicate claim or assertion that subatomic particles exist.

Our understanding and acceptance of the existence of subatomic particles is predicated on observation and experimental evidence and our conclusions about their existence can be supported or refuted on that basis alone. When you have some experimental evidence for the objective existence of God you might finally have a point, so be sure to provide that evidence if you have any. Until that point, 'Meh'.

Which came first, the subatomic particles or the observations? This is not about the existence or non existence of God, it's about your ability to think rationally and logically and come to rational conclusions.

This is exactly the sort of illogic that is commonly used in presenting the Atheist's Fallacy, and that is exactly what you are doing here.

Your strawman aside, all I'm doing is defending the reasonableness of disbelieving the claims and assertions of theists and their supernaturalist chums.

As I said, you may disbelieve anything you like, but the fact that you disbelieve it does not make it a rational conclusion.

If you truly wish to understand the reasonableness of that position you should try supporting a claim for the existence of God, gods, or the kind of intentioning supernatural entities commonly proposed by religious authorities. Yeah, see how that goes for you. But it is apparent your are not interested in that.

No, I'm not, because I have not seen any objective evidence of the existence of God and therefore I don't know if God exists or not, so why would I support those claims...something which I am not doing nor have I ever done.

Instead you only seek to apply exclusionary conditions to atheist and have fallen into the habit applying the grand title of 'The Atheist Fallacy' as if it is a self-evidence reality, while you yourself go to great lengths to fallaciously declare that that for which no evidence exists must only be disputed on the basis of evidence that it does not exist.

Well, yes. If you're going to claim that that for which no evidence exists means that that does not exist, because it is a logical fallacy to claim that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. This is a high-school level homily that applies to all of science, including this particular scientific question.

This, along with the eager bankrupting and misappropriation of logic and reason deployed in disingenuous and uncharitable misreadings of what self-declared atheists actually say to you about their atheism, all of which passes for what you laughingly call an argument, does not amount to very much.

Observational reality is observational reality even if the subject of observation finds it uncharitable.

Your assertions are not bolstered by repetition nor is declaring all criticism, challenge, and disagreement a condition of necessary disqualification serving your point well, either as an individual or an unapologetic defender of a right for the religiously inclined to be taken seriously at their word and granted some automatic respect on that basis and on the basis of their willingness to identify as voluntary members of a nominal club.

Well, this is nothing other than a blatant ad hominem falsity, as I have never said anything remotely of the kind you suggest.

Beliefs about God or claims about God, either affirmative or negative, have nothing whatever to do with the objective fact of God's existence or non-existence.

And yet you work so tirelessly to bind the two together, and indeed your whole schtick relies on such a binding which you obviously believe is shored up by repetition. Why is that? Why do you insist that disbelieving the claims and assertions of theist etc amount to an objective claim about the extant status of an unevidenced, unnecessary, religiously self-authorised supernatural entity when all it necessarily entails is a cold, logical, rational appraisal of the claims made for such entities? What do you fear in atheism so much that you would disavow its very existence and deny its legitimacy as as reasonable response to religious assertions and insistences?

You're making shit up again Brian. I don't "insist that disbelieving the claims and assertions of theist etc amount to an objective claim about the extant status of an unevidenced, unnecessary, religiously self-authorised supernatural entity" and never have. Never once, in all these years, have I ever said that theists are correct in their claims or that their claims represent the truth. And I have repeated told you that atheists are free to believe anything they like about theistic claims. But at the same time I point out that their beliefs are no more or less valid than the beliefs of theists because just like theists, they have no objective scientific facts upon which to base their conclusions.

The only rational, scientific predicate claim with respect to God that can be made is "Either God exists or God does not exist."

Of course, but the objective truth status of God's existence does not stop us from examining the claims and assertions made on behalf of God scientifically, nor from proposing far more coherent and rational explanations, nor of rooting those explanations in observation, experimental evidence, and rigorous thinking.

No, it does not, and I wish somebody would do so, for once.

But, as I said upstream, as you have just made a claim about the supposed true extent of a scientific appraisal of God's purported existence I expect, by your own self-declared epistemic standards, some evidence by way of support for that claim. You won't support it though will you, you will simply fall back on the point that atheists are obliged to provide evidence for God's non-existence if they wish to validate the failure of claims for God.

Well, yes, that is how reason and logic work after all. You can't rebut a baseless claim with another baseless claim, don't you understand that simple fact? You may reject or ignore a baseless claim to your heart's content, but what you cannot (rationally) do is say that the claim you think is baseless is in fact baseless unless and until you have evidence that meets your own scientific standards of critically robust and falsifiable evidence to the contrary. Merely saying "it ain't so" doesn't qualify as rational discourse or a rational conclusion.

And absent critically robust scientific evidence supporting one or another of those predicate claims no rational conclusion can be drawn by anyone.

Other than the conclusion that in admitting that all claims and assertions put forward on behalf of God etc are unsupported, and by your own prediction will remain so forever, provides us with no logical or rational grounds for accepting them, for believe them; that such claims and assertion are logically and rationally unbelievable. Forming this conclusion is all that is required to render one an atheist, whether one self-identities with it or not Seth.

Again, you are falsely imputing arguments to me that I have never, ever made. Please either quote where I have said that the claims about God will remain unsupported forever or retract your statement.

Therefore the only rational response to both questions is, and can only be, "I don't know." That is a rational, non hypocritical argument both for and against atheism.

But after all that it's still not an argument, it's statement of opinion, a point-of-view, or belief for sure, but it does not consist of anything more than a declaration or report in the face of a question. After all your years of bluster and taking issue with atheists all you have constructed is a justification for avoiding coming to a conclusion about the objective claims made on behalf of putative, supernatural entities.

It's not avoiding anything other than irrationality because no rational claim can be made about such theistic claims at this time.

And yet, even in highlighting the essential futility of playing what-ifs when it comes to unevidenced supernatural entities you still seek to maintain the primacy of your position over atheists by taking issue with them when they say that it is futile to play what-ifs with unevidenced supernatural entities.

Well, that's the position I'm in because my reasoning and argumentation is sound.

Basically your whole point is predicated on your personal drive to take issue with atheists for being atheists,

No, for being Atheists.

and your output increasingly appears to consist of little more than expanding the variety and scope of the rhetorical devices you are prepared to deploy to that end.

So what? It improves my critical reasoning skills to try to find yet another way to show you the error of your ways.

This indeed marks you out as a Troll of the Grand Order and it's exactly the sort of thing that gets you ignored here and banned elsewhere.

Oh bullshit, Brian. You know full well that what I do is not anywhere close to "trolling." I provide detailed and carefully crafted rational rebuttals to posts made by others...that you just happen to disagree with. I don't just hurl epithets and start flame wars and you know it. You are just losing control of your temper, which is unfortunate because up until now it's been a lovely discussion, even if you don't agree with me. I wish you'd not gone down that road.

[Seth]

Of course I get it, nor do I disagree.

Well, that is really good.

What you don't get is that the rational response to blind assertions is not to use those blind assertions as a premise in your rebuttal argument.

WTF? Please link to posts where I used blind assertions in my rebuttal argument - or even just a rebuttal argument. In case you used the plural "you", please link to posts by others on this forum doing so. I suspect the closest you will come to one are expressions to the effect that Yaweh's existence is as probable as the existence of the flying spaghetti monster.

No thanks. I know what I've read.

[Brian Peacock]

For those who scrolled past all this on the grounds of tl;dr, be assured that its just a longer way of saying that there are no good reasons, in fact no reasons at all, for the uncritical acceptance of blind assertions - and have a nice day.

I must admit that I have only read the first third of your post, skimmed the middle third and skipped the last one entirely. To me you nailed the central point very early on, when you wrote

The appearance of 'the argument against the existence' [of God] is, in point of fact, an argument against the argument for the existence [of God].

Trap sprung. The rest is elaboration.

You obviously had fun, though, so that is good. Seth won't get what you are driving at, and that isn't.

Of course I get it, nor do I disagree. What you don't get is that the rational response to blind assertions is not to use those blind assertions as a premise in your rebuttal argument.

If an objective claim for the existence of a thing fails to support evidentially then the simply fails, and the rebuttal entirely consists of pointing this out.

If someone says "I make the claim that there are fairies at the bottom of my garden" the appropriate response is not to say "There are no fairies at the bottom of your garden because fairies are mythical supernatural creatures that do not exist"

Correct, if you want to be all formal about it. The better response is to say, "How do you know this? Show me the evidence." If the evidence does not support the claim then it is quite reasonable to say, "There are no fairies at the bottom of your garden," and perhaps follow that up with, "Fairies are mythical supernatural creatures common in European folklore and fiction. They do not exist outside of our imagination." But sometimes I'll grant we miss a step, or take it as read, because we've heard that kind of rubbish all too often. Cutting to the chase saves a lot of unnecessary arse-ache - but then again, it's not like atheist never put the work in to explicating their position or take it step-by-step is it?

because by doing so you are irrationally (fallaciously) basing your rebuttal on the unsupported claim

If atheism conformed to, consisted of, or was validate by your strawman then yes, you'd have a point. As it stands though, you just don't.

that what is at the bottom of her garden are indeed "fairies" and further you are making specious and unfounded assumptions that the object which is claimed to be a "fairy" is a mythical supernatural creature that does not exist

An understanding of, and a reference to, the relevant literature, an awareness of the development of certain cultural concepts, and a comparison with the myths of other societies, can all, singularly or in the round, give us an entirely supportable means of telling the poor sod that a fairy is not real. Whether they choose to accept this is private matter for them alone.

when in point of fact she could be referring to "fairy shrimp," which do happen to exist and are entirely natural.

In which case, when we refer to 'Faries" here we have to agree that we're talking about the same thing. As I put it before, the word-token "Faries" has to be mutually comprehensible to both questioner and respondent to give the question-answer binding proportionate and relevant semantic context. In you scenario, when we, in our role as respondents, say, "You do know that faries are mythical creatures don't you?" the questioner simply has to say, "Oh, I don't mean those kind of faireis, I mean the shrimp. We call them fairies round here," and we all have a good chuckle about the misunderstanding, and then we can reset and ask for evidence: "Show me your shrimp baby!"

The same thing is true of god claims.

Not it's not, because when theists talk about God we're all pretty clear about what they mean, not least because they tell us, earnestly and often. There is little confusion about what God represents, there is just no evidence of what God actually is.

You cannot base a rational rebuttal on the description of a theist of the supernatural character of god because you have zero evidence that this "god" spoken of is either supernatural or that the "supernatural" is not actually the "natural" that you simply do not understand.

Correct, and in the absence of evidence for the existence of a thing it is quite reasonable to not only withhold proportioning assent to the claim, but also to point out that that lack of evidence gives us absolutely no reason to believe the claim. To all intents and purposes all objective claims are false until demonstrated otherwise even if a hedge or a bet on the claim feels more comfortable or more consistent with what we've been taught or led to expect. The clue is in the word 'objectivity'. Check it out in your nearest dictionary.

This particular debate is not about what theists say or believe

Yes it is, because atheism is a direct response to what theists say, believe, do and insist.

it is about your faculties for critical thinking and reasoning.

You have absolutely no ground left to stand on here, so just let it go, or just go in peace. You are not the Grande Validator of atheism - get over yourself and start paying attention to what actual atheists actually say about their atheism, and what that actually means, rather than repeatedly insisting that what they really mean is what you say.

In short, you cannot make a rational counter-claim about something you have absolutely no evidence about.

But a counter-claim is not necessary. Do keep up. What you insist on calling a counter-claim is just a conclusion about the claims and assertions of others.

The best you can say is that the original claim is unsupported and therefore you simply don't know if it's true or not.

Please pay attention.

You may of course always refuse to give such claims further consideration, but that's entirely different from trying to say that the claim is false, because you do not know that it is false, you are assuming that it is false, which is not a rational thing to do.

But we know that the claim is not-true don't we? Eh? Please apply the logical faculties here you say you value and regard. We are entirely entitled to say that the objective claim is false until it can be supported evidentially, and we remain entitled to do so as long as a falsification for the claim remains regardless of its variations or dependant assertions until or unless that situation changes. This is the reasonable, rational thing to do.

Why not pop along to the reasonablefaith.com forum and tell them how you like sticking it to atheists. I'm sure they'll elect you Grande Validador do Ateísmo even if we wont.

EDITED by KLR on request to fix tags

[Hermit]

Of course I get it, nor do I disagree.

Well, that is really good.

What you don't get is that the rational response to blind assertions is not to use those blind assertions as a premise in your rebuttal argument.

WTF? Please link to posts where I used blind assertions in my rebuttal argument - or even just a rebuttal argument. In case you used the plural "you", please link to posts by others on this forum doing so. I suspect the closest you will come to one are expressions to the effect that Yaweh's existence is as probable as the existence of the flying spaghetti monster.

No thanks. I know what I've read.

So, another assertion you will not back up with evidence.