What are the strongest arguments for atheism?

[harvey1]

You know, come to think of it. I haven't seen any arguments that support the atheist claim that God doesn't exist. Why is that? So, let's turn the tables for a second, and ask, what are the strongest arguments in support of atheism?

Btw, don't bother answering if you either don't have an argument or don't feel that you are required to support your philosophical position.

[harvey1]

I try to use words to clarify meaning. If I call myself an agnostic, however accurate in a technical sense, I might convey the unintended meaning to someone that I believe that their concept of a christian anthromorphic loving personal suffering trinitarian jealous vengeful sacrificial God is in my mind has more than an infinitesimal possibility of existing. So within the definition of what most people that I know accept as god, I am an atheist. However, very strictly speaking, if you define a pantheistic type of god then you may call me an agnostic. I don't believe that you can prove the existence of such a god and I know that I cannot disprove it.
But the existence or non-existence of a loosely defined pantheistic god has very little or no relevance to debating christianity, since christians seem to reject the pantheist definition of god, excepting perhaps the progressive christians whose beliefs are less definite.

I understand what you are saying, however there are just as many pantheists in the world as Christians, and there's probably a large number of Christian pantheists too. So, I don't think you promote your real stance on the issue of theism appropriately by labelling yourself as an atheist. All that does is confuse matters since people such as myself think that you are an atheist and I find it curious as to why an atheist would take a negative strong position on what pantheists believe since I happen to think that pantheism is based on well-reasoned arguments of nature. If you let others push you into a label that you really aren't, then you are in fact letting others define your beliefs which I think is a mistake to all those who might read your comments and might find appeal in the way you see the world had you not mislabelled yourself.

[harvey1]

In a figurative sense, QED. As I said, God is the laws of physics

Why is this not simply begging the question? Even if you are entitled to make this claim, I consider it impossible that laws of physics have an intent to operate in the way they do.

Why do you find it impossible that the laws have an intent to operate as they do? Upholding a consistent reality is a perfectly plausible reason to operate according to specific rules.

You can figuratively say that gravity intends to make apples fall, but that is equivocation. I said many pages ago that you are putting the cart before the horse. I say that intent comes from mind which comes from matter. You say that matter comes from mind that comes from intent.

Mind and intent are interwoven concepts. Intent is the divine will, and mind is the comprehension of criteria and the fulfillment of criteria. This fits in perfectly with a mathematical truth to the world since, as I've said, truth--in order to be truth--must be comprehended. If truth is not comprehended (i.e., satisfied), then no relation exists.

You cannot deny that all the attributes you assign to god are familiar characteristics of human minds. You would no doubt care to remind me that god made us in his likeness. I would of course remind you that we have often made god in our likeness. Thus the symmetries persist, yet I remain compelled by the notion that the sequence of mind from matter is a universal principle.

God takes on "human qualities" only because we are taking on properties of the laws themselves. This is to be expected since the world over time is simply reflecting the full complex nature of the universe itself. This is why I think the universe is moving toward complexity and intelligence, and eventually superintelligence. The end state is invariant to the beginning state. Symmetry is one of the most fundamental concepts in physics, so it is no wonder that we see nature acting fully symmetrical in the aspect of intelligence and consciousness.

Note, this makes a lot more sense than some random (extremely lucky) beginning state that just happens to be complex enough to cause inflation universes, and just happens to show similar patterns of complexity in totally different fields (e.g., physics, biology, ecology, economics, etc.).

[harvey1]

Following this reasoning then neither can a universe without the existence of God be ruled out.

It can be ruled out since it is not reasonable to ask that the universe have a unique class type which is able to show algorithmic explosive behavior. It is not reasonable because we know of too many algorithmic behaviors that would not show this kind of explosive behavior, and in fact, we know of no algorithmic behavior that can readily generate the world that we see. That's not to say such an algorithmic behavior doesn't exist, just that there's many, many others that do not have this behavior and the uniqueness of the solution indicates that it is not likely that this is a random consequence. If it is not a random consequence as predicted by atheism, then atheism must be wrong.

In point of fact, all your assumptions are incorrect as God is really a Super Conducting Ashtray who demands devotion as a means of powering the universe by an overflow of spiritual ash. This has been proven beyond doubt by the fact that such a theory cannot in any way be disproved.

You're not getting this argument from me since I have never stated that an argument is valid unless proven wrong. Actually, this is what atheism is in fact doing by saying that until it is proven that something is unlikely, it must considered likely. That's absurd reasoning as you are quick to point out. If only the atheists would listen to you...

[harvey1]

In an argument where reason, evidence and experience play a central part, claiming knowledge for something you believe is incredibly frustrating.

What specifically do you think I am doing wrong in this discussion? I am giving reasons for my beliefs, something that we can both share and discuss. I ask the same of others, is that so bad?

Events only carry subjective meanings. If I point to a cow and say "food", that's a meaning and purpose created for the cow. If the cow understood what I meant, it would be horrified, because, being alive, it values its own life, and what carries a meaning of a pleasurable meal for me is, for the cow, something exceedingly horrible.

Okay, this issue keeps coming up and I've pushed it off long enough. I'll pick up the thread that Spetey started and respond to your comments there.

I haven't read all of the exchange between you and QED, only skimmed a bit. At a whopping 45 pages, and seeming to grow a page every day, skimming the topic is all I can do. If I can't keep up with the arguments, then I apologise. So, tell me what questions you posed to QED that he did not answer and I'll see if I have any solutions.

Rather than me repeating this discussion, let me send you to the point to where you can pick up from our discussion. The only thing you have to know at that point is that the magnitude problem is any problem that can be solved by having enough random chances at something so that eventually you get it right for whatever the obstacle it is that you are trying to explain. So, for example, the evolution of flying birds from winged dinosaurs can be readily solved by evolution if there are many opportunities for this kind of evolution to take place. Eventually evolution will get the mechanism of flight to the point to where evolution of flight has occurred. There's no premeditated "design" since this magnitude problem is solved by having so much time and so many evolutionary opportunities that natural selection is able to adequately explain such features of the universe.

The class problem is a little different. It says that in order to solve a magnitude problem, the background environment must be such that the opportunities which arise will be able address the issue. For example, we don't expect stellar evolution to immediately produce intelligent creatures. The reason is that the class of stellar evolution is not the kind of class that produces intelligence (at least from what we know). However, stellar evolution can produce the class that eventually produces the class that can produce (biological) intelligence, and that's what we can call an exploding class. It explodes to the point that other classes are produced and finally the magnitude problem which we are interested in solving is finally explained.

The discussion I have had with QED concerns the beginning state class. It is the exploding class that is supposed to account for all the class states we see in the universe, and the one that solves all magnitude problems (e.g., why we have an inflationary universe, etc.). What I have shown is that an exploding class behavior can be adequately simulated by algorithms, and all known algorithms do not exhibit the kind of exploding class state which is capable of generating all the other classes we see in the universe. We can visualize that there are many, many different class states that the beginning could have been, but those class states do not result in inflationary universes like our universe. That being the case, we must consider the class state that "began" our universe as somewhat unique and unlikely. However, the universe had only one-time to get the class state right. Had it been a class that did not explode to sufficient complexity, then there would have been no chance for the universe to produce inflationary universes. Based on this conclusion, we can safely say that other mechanisms are at work in why the universe is the way it is, and therefore this is not a random function. Atheism depends on this being a random function, hence atheism must be wrong.

QED objects to this because he believes that we don't know enough about the beginning state to say what the class state must have been to produce a solution to the magnitude problems we see, and therefore we must not consider the class of the beginning state as an obstacle to atheism. I respond by asking him for reasons why the class states that we can visualize (e.g., 1D universes that do not explode into complex features) must be ruled out, but he cannot give me a reason. Since he cannot give me a reason, we are compelled to think other class states were in fact possible, and therefore an exploding class state that brings forth our universe was exceedingly unlikely given the large number of what the beginning class could have possibly been, and therefore atheism is unreasonable.

I understand you are talking about a minimum definition of god, but as I stated earlier, even if one accepts the minimum definition of god as a possibility, that does not mean one should accept the existence of gods in actuality. One can accept that gods are possible in principle and still be an atheist by not believing any such creatures to exist. Read over my post again if you want this explained in more detail on entirely reasonable examples. That's why we should now be questioning specific types of god.

Well, I assume that everyone believes anything is possible. What I assume to be the case is that everyone is basing their belief on what they feel is reasonable to the point of actually being the case. The minimum definition of God is put forth to show that a belief in such a minimal God is reasonable to the point of actually being the case, and therefore atheism is wrong since it is based on the argument that a belief in God is not reasonable to such a point.

As I argued earlier, I don't think pantheism should be considered because the label of atheist was not meant to cover uses of the word god outside of its current meaning of "a super being".

I disagree since atheists reject the pantheist belief in God. They think that no such entity exists. They think that a reasonable person completely dedicated to logic and reasoning of the evidence would rightly reject a pantheist belief as being an unreasonable belief about what is true of the World.

Before atheism was actively taken up as a label of belief, it was an pejorative used by Christians against anyone who didn't have faith in the God, being even used against the deists during the Enlightenment. Atheism in the west has a tradition of being about the rejection of the judeo-Christian god, probably because westerners commonly reject the rest as nonsense spirituality anyway.

The word has a long history, but since the 19th century the word has pretty much been held to be a belief that no God exists. Today we can extend that to a strong atheist who thinks that no God could exist in principle given the kind of evidence that exists today, and a weak atheist who thinks that the evidence we have currently points to God not existing, but there's nothing in the evidence that we have currently which dictates that a God cannot exist in principle. A strong agnostic would be someone who believes that in principle we can never know that God exists (e.g., an extraterrestrial or some other feature of the universe can easily be misinterpreted by us), while a weak agnostic would be someone who believes that the evidence is mirky on whether there is a God and we need to collect more data before we can say "yes" or "no" to the God hypothesis. A weak theist is someone who believes God exists based on the evidence at hand, but thinks that further evidence could turn up that could rule out a God existing. A strong theist, such as myself, is someone who thinks that the evidence is strong enough to rule out a "no God" world and that we must face the very reasonable fact that there is a God.

[QED]

In a figurative sense, QED. As I said, God is the laws of physics

Why is this not simply begging the question? Even if you are entitled to make this claim, I consider it impossible that laws of physics have an intent to operate in the way they do.

Why do you find it impossible that the laws have an intent to operate as they do? Upholding a consistent reality is a perfectly plausible reason to operate according to specific rules.

I can't figure out what you mean by that last sentence. I find it implausible that physical laws are deliberately working towards a goal. This is tricky stuff I'll grant you. I can see how one might imagine that they are steering the universe towards a state of ultimate intelligence but why think taht this is deliberate in some way?

Deliberate actions come from minds that can visualise a goal. Minds come from matter:

The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn’t need its brain any more so it eats it!

What I haven't yet heard is a convincing account of how all this intent and deliberate action could in-fact be a pre-cursor to any material reality. Software runs on hardware in my world. Hardware is what we are trying to account for here.

The end state is invariant to the beginning state.

When you say invariant, do you mean stays constant regardless of other variables i.e. superintelligence is inevitable? I don't see what this gives us other than the fact that it makes it rather likely that we are some sort of cosmic laboratory experiment. This still doesn't provide us with the origin of the first hardware.

Symmetry is one of the most fundamental concepts in physics, so it is no wonder that we see nature acting fully symmetrical in the aspect of intelligence and consciousness.

I don't know what you mean by this. These are both properties of mind. They are software running on hardware.

Note, this makes a lot more sense than some random (extremely lucky) beginning state that just happens to be complex enough to cause inflation universes, and just happens to show similar patterns of complexity in totally different fields (e.g., physics, biology, ecology, economics, etc.).

You are still just saying that it requires too much luck for a beginning state to evolve into anything capable of leading to a universe such as ours through a series if cosmic gear-changes. I simply disagree. For example, I can visualise a cosmic nursery consisting of nothing more than randomly oscillating dimensions -- from which some collide and lead to new geometries and so on. This of course is all conjecture, but you seem to think you can pin a probability to it and I don't think you can.

One of the reasons this debate has run over so many pages is we keep repeating ourselves. I may be too dim to latch-on to this point you keep making, but to me there is no logical limit to the possibilities for a beginning state even if there is a beginning state. It should be a brain-stretcher for everyone as far as I can tell. At some point we must confront the brute fact of the existence of something. Why, I ask, is it so unreasonable to ascribe the most minimal imaginable property to this initial state. To suggest that it comes replete with a goal in mind adds a greater improbability to it.

[harvey1]

I can't figure out what you mean by that last sentence. I find it implausible that physical laws are deliberately working towards a goal.

Your choice of words imply a sense of temporal existence to the laws. This is wrong, I think. The laws are timeless and eternal. The laws of nature (i.e., God) exists outside of time, in fact time is a structure that exists as a result of the laws. The events in time are in conformance with this eternal structure, and the "goals" pursued by the laws appear as goals to temporal beings such as ourselves, but from the perspective of timelessness, these "goals" are merely consistencies in the structure of time. So, for example, the emergence of galaxies from our perspective might appear that the Creator is sitting around saying, "hmm... let me make some galaxies and then I'll figure out what I'll do next." That's incorrect. Instead, God's existence entails certain events happen to accomplish a consistency of the laws of physics, and this divine act of bringing forth galaxies is simply a law of gravitation, or law of inflation, etc., acting out the overall requirement from a timeless perspective that must conform to the nature of God's existence.

Deliberate actions come from minds that can visualise a goal. Minds come from matter:

You are thinking in temporal terms. In timeless terms, that's not the case. Actions derive from eternal requirements. There simply is no other way for things to move other than that which is consistent with God's mind. God limits the degree of freedom in the world. There's freedom in the world where randomness and "free will" run at will, but they cannot go outside the boundary conditions, which is God's will.

What I haven't yet heard is a convincing account of how all this intent and deliberate action could in-fact be a pre-cursor to any material reality. Software runs on hardware in my world. Hardware is what we are trying to account for here.

All software is algorithms, but software reduces to nothing but a configuration of matter (e.g., quantum states inside a semiconductor, etc.). When we are talking about the configuration of matter, now we are talking the laws of quantum physics. The wavefunction determines the state of matter, and therefore what exists are wavefunctions (i.e., according to a platonist interpretation of the laws). These wavefunctions exist "out there," and according to quantum cosmology, the universe itself is nothing but one large wavefunction.

You are still just saying that it requires too much luck for a beginning state to evolve into anything capable of leading to a universe such as ours through a series if cosmic gear-changes. I simply disagree. For example, I can visualise a cosmic nursery consisting of nothing more than randomly oscillating dimensions -- from which some collide and lead to new geometries and so on. This of course is all conjecture, but you seem to think you can pin a probability to it and I don't think you can.

I'm glad you can visualize a scenario for the beginning state. Now, can you also visualize a 1D universe with just indivisible stuff doing nothing interesting? How about a 2D? 10D? 100D? 1000D? If you can, then tell me why we should give precedence to the universe that you imagine versus these others that others can imagine? This is where probability comes to play. If there is no algorithm that decides one beginning class over another, then it means that the beginning state that "starts off" the universe is a random choice. Now, if it is random, what are the chances that one in particular is favored (i.e., that is the one you can imagine) versus the multitude of others where nothing interesting happens? The chances are very, very small since the non-starter universes will exceedingly outnumber the select number of universes that have the beginning state that you can imagine.

At some point we must confront the brute fact of the existence of something. Why, I ask, is it so unreasonable to ascribe the most minimal imaginable property to this initial state. To suggest that it comes replete with a goal in mind adds a greater improbability to it.

Yes, we have to accept something as brute fact. But, notice, the reason we say that is because we ascribe causality to the world. The mere fact that we accept causality of some type is all that is needed to show why there is a universe (or so I believe) because causality implies an infinite collection of mathematical and logical theorems and the means by which to decide what those theorems mean (i.e., distinguish them from gibberish). So, it is not necessary to try and make believe that somehow the universe got it right the one and only time it could make an attempt, that's just wishful thinking to believe that is the case. It is much more reasonable to say that the nature of causality is enough in itself to introduce the right class at the beginning state. We don't need to depend on random luck, which doesn't reasonably account for the universe.

but to me there is no logical limit to the possibilities for a beginning state even if there is a beginning state.

I don't want to quibble, but I think this is the third time we discussed this point, so I hope we can avoid repeating it. If the universe is infinitely old, then there are other cosmologies we can also consider (i.e., visualize or imagine as being the case) that also introduce their own structures that are infinitely old too. The beginning state does not refer to a finite period time ago, it simply reflects the cosmology that must exist in order to distinguish which infinitely old (or finitely old) cosmology that existed to bring forth our universe. Since the universe could have had other cosmologies besides the one it had, the beginning state would be the one it actually had (regardless if time extends into the infinite past or not). If you have questions about this, let's discuss it now. I would like to move beyond certain points since it makes me think that we are not in sync when we are discussing the ramifications of these issues. Thanks!

[QED]

I can't figure out what you mean by that last sentence. I find it implausible that physical laws are deliberately working towards a goal.

Your choice of words imply a sense of temporal existence to the laws. This is wrong, I think. The laws are timeless and eternal. The laws of nature (i.e., God) exists outside of time, in fact time is a structure that exists as a result of the laws. The events in time are in conformance with this eternal structure, and the "goals" pursued by the laws appear as goals to temporal beings such as ourselves, but from the perspective of timelessness, these "goals" are merely consistencies in the structure of time.

I can't extract any real meaning from this statement. I'm tyring to understand how things get to start out wit a God that has a desire. You're telling me that this is an illusion because we see things happing in temporal order. But regardless of Gods relationship with time, surely everything is still a product of desire.

I'm glad you can visualize a scenario for the beginning state. Now, can you also visualize a 1D universe with just indivisible stuff doing nothing interesting? How about a 2D? 10D? 100D? 1000D? If you can, then tell me why we should give precedence to the universe that you imagine versus these others that others can imagine?

We're stuck on this one. I'm guided by the general trends in nature. I think that regressing the class and magnitude issue back to an infinite (or sufficient) degree will yield us a viable beginning state from whatever constitutes a minimal brute fact.

Yes you can attempt to pour ridicule on it by talking in terms of "duds that do nothing" building an insurmountable wall of odds against it, but you already accept that this class/magnitude problem has been solved by nature countless times before in order to arrive at us today. I am just extrapolating this in the opposite direction.

I don't want to quibble, but I think this is the third time we discussed this point, so I hope we can avoid repeating it. If the universe is infinitely old, then there are other cosmologies we can also consider (i.e., visualize or imagine as being the case) that also introduce their own structures that are infinitely old too. The beginning state does not refer to a finite period time ago, it simply reflects the cosmology that must exist in order to distinguish which infinitely old (or finitely old) cosmology that existed to bring forth our universe. Since the universe could have had other cosmologies besides the one it had, the beginning state would be the one it actually had (regardless if time extends into the infinite past or not). If you have questions about this, let's discuss it now. I would like to move beyond certain points since it makes me think that we are not in sync when we are discussing the ramifications of these issues. Thanks!

I don't want to quibble either, and it's not for me to criticize your style, but I do find it very difficult ploughing through monolithic blocks such as the one above. I'm not even sure you check them through for readability. I apologise for bringing this up, but I fear I'm losing some of your important arguments because of it. Please accept my apologies if you have found any of my replies hard to read. I do understand that clarity can be a luxury when time is limited.

[harvey1]

I can't extract any real meaning from this statement. I'm tyring to understand how things get to start out wit a God that has a desire. You're telling me that this is an illusion because we see things happing in temporal order. But regardless of Gods relationship with time, surely everything is still a product of desire.

Desire is a purely emotional state of a human being. God's existence brings forth a "desire" in that there exists an Omega attractor that everything is mathematically/logically compelled to evolve into becoming. This attractor satisfies a truth relation, and therefore, the degree of freedom seen in the universe is based on whether we are tending toward this attractor. If a conceivable event would take place that would push us away from that attractor, then this conceivable event is just not a possible event. The will of God moves the universe toward this Omega attractor.

We're stuck on this one. I'm guided by the general trends in nature. I think that regressing the class and magnitude issue back to an infinite (or sufficient) degree will yield us a viable beginning state from whatever constitutes a minimal brute fact. Yes you can attempt to pour ridicule on it by talking in terms of "duds that do nothing" building an insurmountable wall of odds against it, but you already accept that this class/magnitude problem has been solved by nature countless times before in order to arrive at us today. I am just extrapolating this in the opposite direction.

Well, then you're just begging the question. You assume your atheism is correct, and therefore you eliminate any reasonable objection that would invalidate your atheism.

I don't want to quibble either, and it's not for me to criticize your style, but I do find it very difficult ploughing through monolithic blocks such as the one above. I'm not even sure you check them through for readability. I apologise for bringing this up, but I fear I'm losing some of your important arguments because of it. Please accept my apologies if you have found any of my replies hard to read. I do understand that clarity can be a luxury when time is limited.

Anytime you have a question, please mention it. I'm assuming that you understand my blocks of drudgery if you don't pipe up. In the case of that paragraph, all I am saying is that even if the universe is infinitely old, there are an infinite number of universes that could show a different infinitely old structure. You can't just assume the structure that the universe took happened to be the one of the few that works so well. You have to give a good reason why the universe happened to have one that could be so sophisticated as to have an exploding class instead of an infinitely old universe that does nothing interesting at all. You can't just say, "I'm going to pretend those other chances just didn't happen." That's not good enough because if you depend on random luck, then you should give give reason why the universe is so lucky when we are not so lucky on trips to Vegas. I believe luck is valid if your chances are 1/3, but if there's many more junk universes that don't explode, I scoff at that kind of luck. I'm looking for a mechanism at that point. You need to look for a mechanism if you need to use luck to instantiate an infinitely old universe.

[Corvus]

In an argument where reason, evidence and experience play a central part, claiming knowledge for something you believe is incredibly frustrating.

What specifically do you think I am doing wrong in this discussion? I am giving reasons for my beliefs, something that we can both share and discuss. I ask the same of others, is that so bad?

I think, if, in an ongoing debate, you ask the same of others, and the others present you with answers that may not necessarily be satisfying to you, you don't have the license to make the call that they are indulging in wishful thinking. I also don't think people should do the same to you (which I know that they have, but I'm not addressing their posts). One shouldn't be making assertions about motives without extensive evidence, and one shouldn't be attacking motives in a civil debate at all. This is why I'd rather we drop this particular topic.

I haven't read all of the exchange between you and QED, only skimmed a bit. At a whopping 45 pages, and seeming to grow a page every day, skimming the topic is all I can do. If I can't keep up with the arguments, then I apologise. So, tell me what questions you posed to QED that he did not answer and I'll see if I have any solutions.

<snip>

The discussion I have had with QED concerns the beginning state class. It is the exploding class that is supposed to account for all the class states we see in the universe, and the one that solves all magnitude problems (e.g., why we have an inflationary universe, etc.). What I have shown is that an exploding class behavior can be adequately simulated by algorithms, and all known algorithms do not exhibit the kind of exploding class state which is capable of generating all the other classes we see in the universe. We can visualize that there are many, many different class states that the beginning could have been, but those class states do not result in inflationary universes like our universe. That being the case, we must consider the class state that "began" our universe as somewhat unique and unlikely. However, the universe had only one-time to get the class state right. Had it been a class that did not explode to sufficient complexity, then there would have been no chance for the universe to produce inflationary universes. Based on this conclusion, we can safely say that other mechanisms are at work in why the universe is the way it is, and therefore this is not a random function. Atheism depends on this being a random function, hence atheism must be wrong.

Firstly; I don't see how it's wrong based merely on a probability factor for a result that you feel is remarkable in some way.

Secondly; why are you so certain atheism depends on the mechanisms for the universe's existence being entirely random? As far as I know, atheism, though frequently taken up by skeptics, does not rule out explicitly in its definition spirituality, mysticism and the supernatural. Couldn't atheists believe in a creator-being that isn't a god? Couldn't they believe that the universe exists entirely in the mind? More importantly, can you imagine how a universe might not have a deity but could still exist for a reason not dependent to its creation by deities? Earlier you questioned my attacking the particulars of theism before addressing the minimum. I redirected the charge back at you, but I think the answer got lost in the mail somewhere.

Thirdly - I've also mentioned this before - wouldn't this also rule out every god that isn't a creator if only gods that can be creators can account for the existence of the universe?

I understand you are talking about a minimum definition of god, but as I stated earlier, even if one accepts the minimum definition of god as a possibility, that does not mean one should accept the existence of gods in actuality. One can accept that gods are possible in principle and still be an atheist by not believing any such creatures to exist. Read over my post again if you want this explained in more detail on entirely reasonable examples. That's why we should now be questioning specific types of god.

Well, I assume that everyone believes anything is possible. What I assume to be the case is that everyone is basing their belief on what they feel is reasonable to the point of actually being the case. The minimum definition of God is put forth to show that a belief in such a minimal God is reasonable to the point of actually being the case, and therefore atheism is wrong since it is based on the argument that a belief in God is not reasonable to such a point.

I disagree. A definition can't give one reasons to believe that the thing the definition describes actually exists. Being reasonable to believe or reasonable to disbelieve is far different from having reasons for believing or reasons for disbelieving.

Also, you seem to be saying is that two contradictory beliefs can't both be reasonable to the point of being true. I say of course they can. If I have a coin, and I say that it's reasonable to the point of being true that if I fling it into the air it will land on heads, and you say that it will be reasonable to the point of being true that it will land on tails, then we've done exactly that. Both beliefs are reasonable to the point of being true, both can't be true at the same time, and it's entirely reasonable to hold either view.

As I argued earlier, I don't think pantheism should be considered because the label of atheist was not meant to cover uses of the word god outside of its current meaning of "a super being".

I disagree since atheists reject the pantheist belief in God. They think that no such entity exists. They think that a reasonable person completely dedicated to logic and reasoning of the evidence would rightly reject a pantheist belief as being an unreasonable belief about what is true of the World.

It depends what version of pantheism one is talking about. Some pantheists simply say god is nature, but I consider meaningless, like saying "pie is duke". They aren't adding any additional properties to nature, but redefining god so that it only has some connotations of divine sublimity or something. Atheists know nature exists, and those pantheists aren't setting up any entity to reject. Other pantheists do believe nature is a intelligent super entity, and that would probably cover the sort of claims atheists reject.

Before atheism was actively taken up as a label of belief, it was an pejorative used by Christians against anyone who didn't have faith in the God, being even used against the deists during the Enlightenment. Atheism in the west has a tradition of being about the rejection of the judeo-Christian god, probably because westerners commonly reject the rest as nonsense spirituality anyway.

The word has a long history, but since the 19th century the word has pretty much been held to be a belief that no God exists. Today we can extend that to a strong atheist who thinks that no God could exist in principle given the kind of evidence that exists today, and a weak atheist who thinks that the evidence we have currently points to God not existing, but there's nothing in the evidence that we have currently which dictates that a God cannot exist in principle. A strong agnostic would be someone who believes that in principle we can never know that God exists (e.g., an extraterrestrial or some other feature of the universe can easily be misinterpreted by us), while a weak agnostic would be someone who believes that the evidence is mirky on whether there is a God and we need to collect more data before we can say "yes" or "no" to the God hypothesis. A weak theist is someone who believes God exists based on the evidence at hand, but thinks that further evidence could turn up that could rule out a God existing. A strong theist, such as myself, is someone who thinks that the evidence is strong enough to rule out a "no God" world and that we must face the very reasonable fact that there is a God.

I don't believe we can know whether god exists, but I don't believe in god. Categorise me.

[Curious]

Following this reasoning then neither can a universe without the existence of God be ruled out.

It can be ruled out since it is not reasonable to ask that the universe have a unique class type which is able to show algorithmic explosive behavior. It is not reasonable because we know of too many algorithmic behaviors that would not show this kind of explosive behavior, and in fact, we know of no algorithmic behavior that can readily generate the world that we see. That's not to say such an algorithmic behavior doesn't exist, just that there's many, many others that do not have this behavior and the uniqueness of the solution indicates that it is not likely that this is a random consequence. If it is not a random consequence as predicted by atheism, then atheism must be wrong.

But it is reasonable to reason on the basis of assumption???
I am not sure what you mean by explosive algorithmic behaviour in this context. All of the things we see around us exhibit algorithmic behaviour which is why we are able to simulate within a computer or work out complex interactions. Would the detonation of an atomic bomb in this case constitute an explosive algorithmic behaviour.( IF particle (Xa OR Xb) hits Y THEN Y releases particle Ya + Yb) etc.

In point of fact, all your assumptions are incorrect as God is really a Super Conducting Ashtray who demands devotion as a means of powering the universe by an overflow of spiritual ash. This has been proven beyond doubt by the fact that such a theory cannot in any way be disproved.

You're not getting this argument from me since I have never stated that an argument is valid unless proven wrong. Actually, this is what atheism is in fact doing by saying that until it is proven that something is unlikely, it must considered likely. That's absurd reasoning as you are quick to point out. If only the atheists would listen to you...

Actually isn't that precisely what they are not doing? In my experience, atheists disbelieve because they have no evidence to support that it does exist. You seem to be taking the view on the other hand that unless they can prove it impossible then they must accept it as a possibility. In which case they would have to claim agnosticism.