I Know That God Does Not Exist

I'm sure in their mind there is a difference.... But I doubt they can coherently state what that difference is to themselves never-mind anyone else. And this is just a word kebab. Some skewered verbiage wrapped up in a sentence.

Can you tell us something you do know? Something based on evidence rather than deductive definitions.Do you think 'scientific knowledge' is possible? Or is the notion oxymoronic in your view?

Anything else? Then an example of such would be helpful....

You have said previously that you are convinced such things exist. So you tell me — What is it you are convinced of the existence of? Except that there comes a point of ambiguity well before zero where the thing under discussion cannot any longer meaningfully be called a god.If you ask an atheist whether he believes that reality contains unknowns I expect you’ll find widespread agreement that there are all sorts of unknown (and quite possibly unknowable) phenomena out there. But when you start applying attributes like supernaturality, consciousness, intelligence, creativity, omnipotence, omniscience etc. etc. to these unknowns the atheist will role his eyes and point out that you are just inventing anthropomorphic-super-beings in the way that so many have unsuccessfully done before you.It seems that many theists want to take the idea of unknowns, impose their personal beliefs on top and then blur the distinction between the two in order to defend their beliefs from critical analysis.Either that or you literally have not the foggiest idea as to what it is you believe in.

Well with all due respect I don't believe you.I think you and most other theists have a pretty consistent albeit vague idea of what they believe in.It's something along the lines of a conscious intelligent being who is inherently unable to be investigated or understood by any material means and whose intellect and abilities are so super-human as to be effectively incomprehensible to us necessarily limited mere mortals. This being is generally deemed to be the creator of the universe (and anything else which might exist).Sure - The details will fluctuate. But that's the core idea. That's the sort of thing we are talking about here.Am I wrong?

In what sense does the thing you believe in qualify as a god?It sounds more like some mysterious unconscious/mindless "force"....

Isn't that all we ever have?Can you give an example of something you think we can legitimately describe as "known"....?Because beyond "every feasible effort" I'm not sure what else we can take into account with regard to the possibility that any specific piece of knowledge is wrong.I know this will inspire groans but.... We can say we know that life on Earth evolved without taking into account philosophical possibilities like omphalism. So why can't we say we know that God does not exist without dismissing equally pointless undetectable possibilities?

Stating something as a fact and it being an actual fact are two different things.'You are a buffalo' is an example of something being stated as a fact. But given that you are a human-being and not a buffalo it would be ridiculous to describe the statement 'You are a buffalo' as a fact. It is not a helpful convention. I suggest you drop it.

I think those objecting to your statement in this thread (i.e. "I Know That God Does Not Exist") need to give a concrete example of something that they do consider to be genuinely 'known'.Because any knowledge can be questioned by invoking evidenceless-unfalsifiable-philosophical possibilities of the sort many are putting forward as some sort of counter-argument here.As you have pointed out, if we are to take into account such things we cannot actually know anything at all and knowledge becomes a redundant word.That doesn't seem a very effective approach to epistemology.....

And everytime we have repeated them we have got the same result. But how do you know that some unexpected anomolous result isn't around the corner? How do you know that when you attempt to bake a cake tomorrow you won't end up pulling a lasagne out of the oven because the laws of chemistry are suddenly different in some very specific way?This is the equivalent response to your examples that the invisible snakes and gods that have yet to reveal themselves are to Stile's and Tangle's examples. Because it is always philosophically possible that some anomolous result is around the corner waiting to blow away everything we think we know. Beyond accepting that all knowledge is tentative and fallible I see no reason to actually deny that we can know things because of this.

Exactly. And I also have a high level of confidence that god isn't going to turn up anytime soon. Are these snakes also hiding their poo and eliminating all other forensic evidence of their presence in Stile's garden? Clever snakes. Unless you are claiming to have been to this certain planet orbiting this certain star or are claiming some other indirect evidence of god's presence there, we know for a fact that this proposition of yours amounts to you plucking 'what-ifs' from your humanly-imaginative arse. Whilst your imagination could have stumbled across some deep truth of reality by sheer random flukey chance this is, to say the least, unlikely.

It's as rational as saying that you know there isn't an undetectable unicorn looking over your shoulder as you type.Do you know that?Can you give an example of something that you do know?

Yes it could. Which is why absolute certainty is a stupid measure of knowledge.We can know things based on evidence. But that knowledge may be wrong. All we can really say is that evidenced conclusions are more likely to be correct than unevidenced propositions.

Every cake baking process you've ever undertaken has resulted in a cake.Every route to France you have taken has resulted in you ending up in France.Every god we have ever investigated has turned out to be a product of human invention.Now it might be that the next time you follow a cake recipe you end up with lasagne. This is some sort of philosophical possibility. But I doubt it will happen. In fact I know it won't by any sensible standard of "knowledge".Now it might be that the next time you follow the route to France you end up in Timbuctoo. This is some sort of philosophical possibility. But I doubt it will happen. In fact I know it won't by any sensible standard of "knowledge".Now it might be that the next time we investigate somebody's concept of god that we actually find a god at the end of the rainbow (or wherever). This is some sort of philosophical possibility. But I doubt it will happen. In fact I know it won't by any sensible standard of "knowledge".

We know elephants do exist. So the chances of an elephant parade through your front room would seem considerably higher than the product of your imaginings actually existing. Actually I thought he had stipulated that he had....

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Suppose I suspect that there are snakes in my garden. There are a number of things I could do to prove it; I could lay traps, I could turn over stones, I could search for discarded skin, I could look for snake poo, I could call in an expert etc etc.

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But suppose I spent an entire year and used every known test for snakes - including stripping everything down to bare soil - but found none, the absense of evidence is then evidence of absense.

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Then we are back to Immaterial Unicorns and ethereal squirrels and suchlike. Because we haven't scoured the universe for these either. But still we know they are human inventions rather than real things. I know you've made-up this god-behind-a-planet. And so do you. Do you think your random imaginings are really likely to actually exist?