I Know That God Does Not Exist

But the Sun isn't a god.....It's a big flaming ball of hydrogen. If anyone thought the Sun was a god they were simply wrong. Either that or they are using a definition of god that includes mindless balls of flaming hydrogen.

Do you know that there isn't an undetectable unicorn looking over your shoulder as you type? If undetectable and over my shoulder are omitted we are left with something looking. My wife is looking.As for being "related to the universe, life, or people sufficient to call that thing god" - Well you are going to have to explain what you mean by that for it to make any sense here. Well equally we could say that gods are human inventions because this is what is observed too.

Were they even a concept before anyone had found them?

What makes you think that gods are even a possibility other than our ability to imagine them as such?Why are gods to be considered any more of a possibility than immaterial unicorns or any other baselessly conceived entity I can pluck from my humanly-imaginative-arse?Seriously - Why are they worthy of any more consideration?

Well if no-one had conceived of elephants before finding them they would be discovered before being conceived of.Duh!

Evidence. Methods of knowing that have proved successful in the past. Really?The Higgs Boson (for example) wasn't just plucked out of the air. Nor was anti-matter. Space-time curvature. Evolution. Etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.These were proposed based on evidence. Then tested. Can you give an example of a fruitful scientific investigation conducted on something for which there was absolutely no evidential reason at all to even consider possible?Why are gods even considered a possibility? Nobody here is saying the existence of gods is impossible. Any more than I am saying the existence of immaterial unicorns is impossible. You are going down the absolutist path again.I'm saying it's more likely to be a product of human invention than a real thing. Knowledge is fallible and tentative. I've already said that. What is your point?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

OK. So we know that similar creatures (other mammals etc.) actually exist so the discovery of a new type of the same sort of thing isn't that shocking.How many godly or supernatural entities have we come across such that we think the existence of gods is similarly possible?Look Ringo - If the world were full of ghosts and demons and angels and whatnot the claim that gods don't exist would be pretty weak.But the whole idea of supernaturality seems (based on all the evidence) to be a human construct designed to fulfill very human internal needs with nothing external to support it.

Are you suggesting that gods are just aliens with super-advanced-technology rather than genuinely supernatural beings?

In the absence of certainty what can we ever have but estimations of likelihood?I know that the Sun will rise tomorrow.But in philosophical terms I have to admit that this knowledge is tentative and fallible and that I am effectively saying that, based on the evidence it is very unlikely that the Sun won't rise tomorrow. Do you know that the Sun will rise tomorrow?Is it absolutely certain in philosophical terms?How likely is it that the Sun will rise tomorrow

Well one is able to be explained by natural laws and phenomena whilst the other cannot be because it genuinely isn't natural. It is supernatural.That is the distinction in principle.So how are you concluding that gods are anything other than a case of mistaken identity combined with the human idea that there actually exists beings that can defy natural reality in some way?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Then the standard you are applying to the term 'knowledge' is pretty silly. Well you could get up before dawn and watch out of the window. You can competently follow the procedure for baking a cake and short of all the laws of chemistry mysteriously changing you will end up with a cake.But you can't know with absolute certainty that the laws of chemistry won't suddenly change.So your cake baking example is not really any different to the Sun rising example. Both are likely to the point of knowledge, both can be repeatedly demonstrated to occur but neither warrants certainty in some absolutist philosophical sense.But if you read the OP Stile quite clearly defines what he means by knowledge and (unsurprisingly) both cake baking and the Sun rising qualify.It is you who is idiotically equivocating the term "knowledge".

The difference is between that which is genuinely supernatural and that which is mistakenly believed to be so.Humans have a long history of mistakenly concluding that things are supernatural when in fact they aren't. We've invented supernatural beings to explain all sorts of phenomena which on closer examination have turned out to be entirely natural. Then you are talking about non-supernatural gods. Given that gods are, by any common definition, supernatural beings this is just oxy-moronic nonsense on your part.

How can you demonstrate that your knowledge of how to bake a cake is correct before the fact of baking the cake in question?Every past instance of cake baking may have ended up in a cake as every previous morning has seen the Sun rise.But how do you know your next cake bake will result in a cake any more than you know that the Sun will rise tomorrow?You are making a very false distinction here.

So you can't demonstrate that you know how to bake a cake until after the fact of baking it any more I can demonstrate the rising of the Sun until after it has risen.So your distinction is, by your own terms, a false one. How do you know you didn't dream either (or both) of these things? Then you don't know how to bake a cake you only know how to bake the cakes you have already successfully made.That is a fucking silly way to use the term "know"......Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

I want to pick up on this idea of yours that non-existence is somehow unknowable. I put it to you that there is an immaterial unicorn looking over your shoulder as you type.Do you know that I have just invented this proposition? If so - How do you know this? What are the chances that I did invent this but that by some miracle of co-incidence it also happens to be true?Whilst we can't claim certainty I think it perfectly reasonable (and rational) to say that this immaterial unicorn almost certainly does not exist and is nothing more than a product of human imagination.Given that nothing is absolutely certain it seems silly to restrict the term "know" to such certainty. So - Again - It is perfectly reasonable and rational to conclude that we know said immaterial unicorn does not exist."Knowledge" has the proviso of being tentative and potentially fallible. But beyond that where is the problem in the non-existence of aforementioned immaterial unicorn being known?