Positive proof?

[Svartalf]

I keep open about the possibility, but don't believe... if there's a god, it's not good

[rainbow]

If you're undecided as to whether or not you think there is a God, then isn't it accurate to say you don't believe?

No. I simply lack any belief in the non-existence of gods.

[Hermit]

If you're undecided as to whether or not you think there is a God, then isn't it accurate to say you don't believe?

Of course it is - if you insist on a black and white world. Less primitive minds allow for shades of grey between opposites.

[Blind groper]

I don't think those diagrams really contribute much, if anything. Personal beliefs follow a spectrum of possibilities with an infinite range of ideas.

You can be extremist theist, claiming that the existence of the favored deity is absolutely 100% certain. You can be an extremist atheist, claiming that there is 100% certainty no deities exist. Or you can be anything in between.

[Seth]

All of Seth's very long winded arguments boil down to a suggestion that it is more rational to be an agnostic than and atheist.

The two aren't mutually exclusive. It doesn't help our side of the argument when you make posts like this. In fact, the vast majority of atheists are agnostics. Seth knows this, but refuses to acknowledge it as it destroys his idiotic biases.

T.H. Huxley coined the phrase 'agnostic' to reflect an epistemic position which was antithetical to those whom declared knowledge of God; to denote not that God was simply unknowable, but that knowledge of God was absent and to deny even the possibility of such knowledge. Though nowadays the term reflects a position of essential uncertainty, doubtfulness, non-committal, or even general ambivalence on the question of the existence of God or gods, being agnostic renders one a default atheist - for all those who are not counted as theists are necessarily a-theists; no-theists, not-theists.

Huxley's construct fails on the premise that God is unknowable because God is not a "material phenomenon," which is not a rational conclusion because a) he bases his presumption on human descriptions of God(s), which is the Atheist's Fallacy in a nutshell, and b) because he has no evidence that God(s) are as described by humans. Because it is possible for God(s) to be both material phenomena not yet detectable or quantifiable by humans and for human descriptions of God(s) to be inaccurate, and because humans can have no "exact knowledge" (according to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle) "agnosticism" is an irrational conclusion.

The term agnostic was coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge.

The problem for Seth's point of view is that it is a political position (about granting people a right to be left alone to believe anything they want - which is something many, if not most, atheists would agree people are entitled to do even though he chides us for denying it if-and-when we challenge religiosity in the public square) which he merely asserts as a 'rationally and logically' necessary epistemic practice in order to bolster his self-declared authority on this matter.

The problem is that you are assuming a political agenda exists that drives my argument. You are incorrect. It is my argument that drives a social/political agenda. You are assuming the cart goes before the horse. In this case the horse is Atheist irrationality masquerading as reason and logic, and the cart is the arrogant presumption of intellectual superiority that goes along with that masquerade that drives the Atheist political and social agenda of extirpating religion from the public sphere.

If Atheists were logically and rationally correct, then it would be rational to have a political and social agenda of suppressing and eliminating religion from the human psyche. But Atheists are not correct, they are wrong, as I have shown, and therefore their insistence on suppressing religion is also wrong.

The core argument here is reason and logic. If one professes to be basing one's actions and arguments on reason and logic then one should actually be doing so. Atheists are not.

They are basing their agenda in an irrational antipathy to some particular negative secondary social effects of religious belief while ignoring the larger fact that religion exists for a reason, and that for the most part it makes life better for those who believe.

It is perfectly rational to excoriate those specific instances where religious belief leads to antisocial actions, but it is irrational and bigoted to tar the entirety of the religiously-believing human population with that particular brush.

[Seth]

If you're undecided as to whether or not you think there is a God, then isn't it accurate to say you don't believe?

Don't believe what? That God exists or that God can exist or that God does not exist or that God cannot exist?

If you are undecided, you are placing confidence in the proposition that the existence of God is undecided, which is the definition of belief. It's not a belief IN God, it's a belief ABOUT God. And how you follow or manifest that belief is what does or does not define you as an Atheist religious believer.

If you hold that belief and do nothing to manifest, follow or advance that belief towards others, you cannot necessarily be said to hold that belief religiously.

On the other hand, if you use that belief as a foundation and springboard for advancing a social or political (or both) agenda against those who hold a different belief, and you do so as a matter of conscience or ethics (as most vocal self-professed Atheists, including most of the members here) then you are engaging in a religious practice in support of your beliefs.

"I don't know" is a statement of secular fact not rising to the level of a belief.

"God does not exist" is a statement of religious belief.

The former is a rational statement, the latter is not.

[JimC]

What about "there being no evidence that a god of any type exists, I will live on the working assumption that there are no gods, until such evidence is presented"?

[pErvinalia]

That makes you a Marxist.

[Seth]

What about "there being no evidence that a god of any type exists, I will live on the working assumption that there are no gods, until such evidence is presented"?

Irrational statement. You do not know, and have not shown that there is "no evidence."

[Blind groper]

There is a possibility that some material being exists with God-like power, like in another galaxy????, but has no contact with humans and no interest in humans. If that is the case, in what practical way is that different to there being no deity?

[JimC]

What about "there being no evidence that a god of any type exists, I will live on the working assumption that there are no gods, until such evidence is presented"?

Irrational statement. You do not know, and have not shown that there is "no evidence."

I, and all those interested in the issue, have never, ever seen any objective evidence for the existence of a god. Personal statements of belief based on faith do not count...

I do not have to conclusively prove that there is no evidence.

Theists are making extraordinary claims about the nature of the universe (most of them contradictory - is it Allah, Jehovah, Bramah, Zeus or Odin?). Let them present real evidence, available to all, that can be checked by robust means, and I'll reconsider...

[Seth]

There is a possibility that some material being exists with God-like power, like in another galaxy????, but has no contact with humans and no interest in humans. If that is the case, in what practical way is that different to there being no deity?

What's your critically robust scientific evidence that such a being "has no contact with humans and no interest in humans?"

[JimC]

There is a possibility that some material being exists with God-like power, like in another galaxy????, but has no contact with humans and no interest in humans. If that is the case, in what practical way is that different to there being no deity?

What's your critically robust scientific evidence that such a being "has no contact with humans and no interest in humans?"

Where is the robust evidence that it has?

[Seth]

What about "there being no evidence that a god of any type exists, I will live on the working assumption that there are no gods, until such evidence is presented"?

Irrational statement. You do not know, and have not shown that there is "no evidence."

I, and all those interested in the issue, have never, ever seen any objective evidence for the existence of a god.

Your ignorance does not transform an irrational statement into a rational one.

Personal statements of belief based on faith do not count...

Why not? Do you have critically robust scientific evidence that these statements are merely beliefs and are not factual recitations of factual events?

I do not have to conclusively prove that there is no evidence.

Sure you do, if you are making the claim that there is no evidence. If you make the claim that you are unaware of any such evidence and therefore reject the claim, that is a rational statement, but that's not what "no evidence" claims. When you make a positive assertion about the non-existence of evidence of any kind whatsoever then the burden of proving your claim lies with you.

Theists are making extraordinary claims about the nature of the universe (most of them contradictory - is it Allah, Jehovah, Bramah, Zeus or Odin?).

They are indeed, and irrationally so it seems. That doesn't excuse your irrationality. You're supposed to hold yourself to a higher standard of rationality, being a putatively "rational" atheist. If you want to admit that you are merely an irrational religious believer in the non-existence of God then we can end the debate. Otherwise I'll continue to analyze your reasoning

Let them present real evidence, available to all, that can be checked by robust means, and I'll reconsider...

Nobody's asking you to reconsider. All I'm asking is for you to demonstrate your rationality by making rational claims rather than irrational ones. You ought to be setting a higher standard of reason for yourself than the same sort of irrationality demonstrated by most theists.

[Seth]

There is a possibility that some material being exists with God-like power, like in another galaxy????, but has no contact with humans and no interest in humans. If that is the case, in what practical way is that different to there being no deity?

What's your critically robust scientific evidence that such a being "has no contact with humans and no interest in humans?"

Where is the robust evidence that it has?

I am unaware of any such evidence, and cannot make a rational conclusion about such a being, therefore I don't know.