Posted: May 14, 2014 8:22 am
TheHouseholdCat wrote:Paul Almond wrote:Sityl wrote:It's similar to saying "I'm not going to win the lottery 100,000 times in a row."
Sure, there's a chance, but come on.
But saying it because it's easier to say or because it very most likely, is different than claiming to have definitive proof that no possible god could exist.
Should there ever arrive a way to prove that there is no god, I'm sure the believers would just shift the goalposts again, as they've been doing for thousands of years.
But saying "There is no god" or "I know there is no god" does not necessarily imply a claim of proof: When we are very, very confident about something, normal language means we don't bother to qualify statements with the "residual" uncertainty. If we had to do that, we would have to qualify everything we said.
But it does imply a claim. And especially in the context of a discussion on atheism we have to pay attention to the "residual uncertainty". We have to go beyond what feels comfortable. Because some assumptions prove to be wrong or contradictory if we examine them in more detail.
A lot of things we are confident about do not necessarily reflect reality. I am confident about many things, but if I really think about them, then they are not really true. They are just what I have come to believe. And that's why people discuss things. Because we can't just think our assumptions are true. And I guess that is probably why Carl Sagan did not identify as "atheist". I can really relate to what he said. It just seems so tempting to choose atheism. Like a lot of people who have been raised as Christians, Muslims, etc are tempted to stick to that belief all their life.
Maybe it also depends on whether you have been raised Christian, etc. It's just something I keep asking myself. If you had to go through the whole process of destroying something that has been obvious to you all your life and reach a point where you are free of all that... It's all different. And then choosing something else... It just seems too easy. It's very black and white. And you create new things to distinguish yourself from others. This does not have anything to do with what you believe in. But it's still weird.
And if you choose to stay in a grey area where you can be attacked from all sides... It's more difficult. But that's the only place where you can challenge beliefs. Of course, if you want none of that, then you can consider yourself an atheist - the way that Carl Sagan understood the term.
What do atheist believe in?