I Know That God Does Not Exist

That would be how I would define knowledge but Stile's definition seems to be slightly broader. He seems to be counting lack of objective evidence as objective evidence. I think that's valid in this case.Again, my only nitpick with Stile's position is that I'd say I'm "very confident" that God does not objectively exist (very small error bar), not I "know" that God does not objectively exist.

I agree.I have explained at one time or another that I would only use "know" for something that I can demonstrate - e.g. I know how to bake a cake, and when I show you the evidence, you will agree that I know.I would particularly avoid using "know" in a constroversial example like this one. This is the perfect place to be explicit about our confidence level.

What has believing in existence got to do with it? We could walk humbly with neutrinos before we knew they existed. We can walk humbly with leprechauns whether they exist or not. Ask Micah.Ask Jesus. According to Him, the ones who inherit the kingdom are NOT the ones that mouth, "Lord! Lord!" They're the ones who do the right thing, whether they think they're doing it "for Jesus" or not. And Jesus said that the commandments boil down to loving God and loving your neighbour as yourself.So, how do you go about loving God? Presumably, those who inherit the kingdom are those who love God - and those who inherit the kingdom are those who love their neighbours. How is it different? It's what Jesus taught, as I have quoted. You can ridicule Him all you want and you can claim that He's easy to refute all you want.

No. I don't acknowledge the possibility of "absolute" knowledge at all. I'm talking about objective knowledge. No, you don't. Stile's "knowledge" is based on an objective lack of evidence. Your belief is strictly subjective.

As I said, the lack of evidence is objective. If you think it isn't, show how it isn't. You have it backwards. Intelligent origin is not the default. Lack of intelligent origin is the default. You're turning poor Occam upside-down again.

I'm not trying to invalidate the argument. I'm just saying that you need to use a very finely-tuned definition when dealing with such a controversial subject. The definition you are using is fine for preaching to the choir but beyond that, it's value is much less. You might as well have just posted, "I know that God doesn't exist," and closed the thread.

And if I can know that unicorns exist, then I can know that God exists for the same reasons. You can make any argument "rational" by slapping an "if" in front of it and you can make anything exist by defining it as existing.But you're just rigging the game so you can't lose.

It doesn't have to be conclusive to be objective. On the contrary, all of the evidence points to natural processes leading to natural processes leading to natural processes leading to natural processes leading to natural processes leading to natural processes.... We are searching reality. There is always a default position: No unicorns without evidence for unicorns, no spooks without evidence for spooks. That's a good excuse for filling your argument with convoluted made-up nonsense but it isn't very useful when dealing with reality. Reality tends to confirm Occam.

I think he's made it clear that it's the current conclusion, not the "ultimate" conclusion. No objective conclusion is ever final in the sense that it can not be altered by new evidence. Evidence is not subjective.All of the evidence we have points only to natural processes. How could evidence ever point to something unnatural? Why? If you can say "the buck stops here" at your intelligent cause, why can't the buck stop somewhere else? There is evidence of human intelligence. And as I have said before, the evidence shows that intelligence can only manipulate natural processes. It can not create new processes except from existing processes. What we know about intelligence can not point to an ultimate origin of processes. There's no such thing as subjective evidence. You don't get your own private evidence. Evidence must be evident to everybody. We also have Treasure Island. We have the objective evidence that it exists. And furthermore, we have objective evidence of how it came to exist, in Stevenson's own words, which puts it well ahead of the Gospel stories in authenticity. The simplest solution is known processes, as opposed to speculation about the unknown.

Believers are pretty conclusive evidence that they have nothing special, no imparted wisdom, no exemplary morality, etc.

Every religion has adherents who are decent people and atheists can be decent people too. You keep claiming that believers themselves are evidence that the belief is valid; I'm saying there is no reliable correlation between belief and behaviour. Believers can use their belief to justify the vilest behaviour. Since the purpose of sermons is to inspire believers, that's hardly surprising. The logic of sermons? You might want to think a little longer about that.

But you have no evidence. That may work in a court of law where it is necessary to make a decision one way or the other. It's worthless in a scientific context where we're trying to determine the existence of something. Again, all of it. For one example, the evidence suggests that boiling water is caused by heat - take the heat away and the boiling stops. That's a "reason" with no reasoning behind it. It's empty speculation. It's an answer that answers nothing. That's because your "answer" is not an answer. It doesn't explain anything. It just adds another turtle to the stack. But it isn't an infinite regression. It's a network. One process causes another. If you want to admit that your god is created by another god, you have the same situation. If you want to claim that there's an ultimate god that causes all else, it's different.

Your experience is clearly not representative. If it was, there would be a notable difference in those activities between Christian and non-Christian nations.

I don't think you can even compare Canada and the US. The US is more fanatically fundamentalist but also less inclined to display love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance. And the Scandinavian nations are pretty secular but they're also pretty good at taking care of their poor and sick. If you measure goodness in terms of cash, the ones with the most cash will seem like the most good.

What on earth are you talking about? You said in Message 991, "I declare that I "know" God exists." and I replied in Message 993, "But you have no evidence." How on earth is a quote from NASA in any way related to what we were talking about? Nobody "believes" in string theory. Some people think it's the most promising current hypothesis. Are you suggesting that heat is not an explanation for boiling water? You asked for evidence that we can explain phenomena in terms of natural processes or "blind chance" as you call it. That's what I did. Now the goalposts have moved? But it isn't piling processes on processes. It's connecting known processes to known processes. As I said, it's a network, not a hierarchy. There is no ultimate beginning to the network of processes, so there's no need for an infinite regression - like there is for an intelligent cause. It looks like the fundamental forces interacting with each other.There's no need to speculate about "where it came from". If something "always was" - like your God - then the processes can just as easily be the something that always was.