A defense of Strong Atheism

[juliod]

I promised Harv a defense and apology of Strong Atheism. Here it is. Keep in mind that this is only supposed to be an outline. Each point could be the subject of several full threads. And I'll be happy to go into each one in irritating detail, but I don't want anyone jumping in with "you haven't proved anything!"

Also, the standard I am arguing for is the "reasonable observer". I do not aspire to the fiction of absolute proof. I only mean that a reasonable person would conclude that this point of view is the correct one, and that it is unreasonable to believe otherwise.

A strong atheist is a person who makes a positive claim that there is no god. In other words, that to believe in god is an unreasonable action.

In order to be a strong atheist it is necessary to conclude that there is firm evidence against the existence of all concepts of god. This is not as hard as it may appear. In reality we need only rule out a few general categories, and the specific gods of the mainstream views of the major religions.

So here are the arguments, in no particular order.

1) Major religions.

This is the easiest one, since there are well-known refutations of all the major religions. For example, the free-will/omniscience paradox which rules out any god that is claimed to have those properties. Combine these arguments with the fact that neither YHWH, nor Allah, nor any Hindu deity has ever been spotted and we have a pretty convincing case. Followers of the major religions make all sorts of claims that would be obvious if they were true. God is said to be all-powerful, but can't do anything. Prayer is said to work wonders but can't be seen to work by any means. Most importantly, god is said to have specific wills and specific purposes, but these can never be seen to operate in the real world.

Instead, the world religions change and mutate as the societies that invented them change. That's the point. Societies invent religions for specific psychological, political, or social purposes. The religions can be seen to operate in that way, and can be seen to change as the social needs change. This distinguishes the religions as they actually exist from the religions as they are described by their own doctrine. The existence of the deity is unnecessary for these functions, and in the absence of evidence it is unreasonable to believe that any of them exist.

2) Minor religions.

Minor religions that are held by only a tiny, usually marginalized, group are a special problem. It's impossible to examine all of their claims. But it's not necessary. We can take it that any being, even if it were to exist, that interests itself in only a tiny group rather than the plurality of mankind, is not qualified as a god. It's impossible for a god, in the meaning we in the west use, to be limited to such an extent.

OTOH, I am not rigid in this. If someone wants to debate the existence of any of these special beings, I am willing to look at it, providing they can tell me enough about it to allow me in principle to decide if the being exists, and if that being is a god.

Keep in mind, in this context, that most "gods" through history have been little statues worshipped by only a few hundred people at most.

3) New Age, modern mysticism, etc.

New religions can usually be ruled out simply because they are new. It's not reasonable to think that the all-powerful, all-seeing, all-wise creator of the universe, etc, with a plan, etc, has only just be discovered, and then only in Southern California. Or rather, if that is so there had better be a very very good explanation for it. But these modern faddy, trendy religions never come with good explanations, and usually disappear as soon as their leaders discover a new scam.

Again, if anyone wants to debate one of these in detail it is necessary to provide sufficient information about the actual claims in order to decide if the claims are true and if there is a god involved.

4) Newly discovered beings.

This is a general argument against any claims about a specific god-being that is not in identity with any of the traditional gods. Imagine an alien being coming to earth. Imagine also that this being has abilities usually attributed to the supernatural on earth. For example, lets say the alien can actually do telepathy. Now, if that being is actually present, and we can actually see a demonstration of the power, that being won't be a god, but just an alien (with powers). It is assured that many people would immediately begin worshipping that being as if it were a god, but a reasonable person should see that as fallacious.

In order to qualify a new being as a god there will need to be a very good explanation. And that assumes that the being is actually here to be observed in the first place. Which none are.

5) Undefined things.

People sometimes demand that we strong atheists prove that something undefined doesn't exist. The claim is "X exists". Where X is not defined. It has no properties. It's not animal, vegetable, mineral, energy, or any other thing real or imagined. It's not large nor small. It has no color and is neither visible nor invisible.

In this case, the claim "X exists" is a nonsense. It's not false. It's logically or rhetorically invalid. No response is necessary.

6) Hypothetical what-ifs.

There is no need to consider gods that are invented as philosophical exercises. At the very least, any being with a claim to be a god must have a sincere core group of followers. If a god-concept is not the focus of an actual religion I won't waste time considering it.

OTOH, if you have a pet god that you insist I discuss, you will need, as in the other cases, to provide sufficient information about it for us to decide if it exists or not, and if it is a god or not.

Conclusion

That pretty much sums it up. Tons and tons of writing could be done on each of these. I don't expect that this outline will convince any theist to become a strong atheist. But the question is, do you have good reason to believe any of these gods exist. If you don't it is a sign that you are not a Reasonable Observer.

DanZ

[juliod]

If it's reasonable to believe that some god exists, then you'd be a fool not to believe in him, right ?

We make no judgement whether weak atheists are fools. They only claim that they don't believe.

Well, according to Wikipedia, atheism is more of a continuum:

...showing that Wikipedia is not the Font of Knowledge.

The author of that piece is badly confused. They've confused strong atheism for weak atheism, and weak atheism with agnosticism. Here's a summary of how I see it:


Strong atheist: God does not exist.

Weak atheist: I don't believe in god.

There is a subtle but important difference.



When a theist comes into view:

Weak atheist: Prove to me your god exists.

Strong atheist: Here, let me show you why your god does not exist.



An agnostic says "I'm afraid to make up my mind because then people won't like me."

DanZ

[ST88]

We know as much about aliens as we know about the physical nature of God. We have this book that lets us in on what we're supposed to do about this God, but precious little about how we might go about Godspotting.

But godspotting should not be a problem. The theists all claim to have direct, personal, unambiguous, and continual contact with "god". But we can see that these claims are bogus. Their god-concepts aren't even plausible, much less supported by evidence. And since they aren't plausible, we need not even show evidence that they are false.

(bold mine)
Not all theists claim to have direct contact with God. The relative bogosity of those who do claim direct contact is based on... From what I can tell it's based on the circular reasoning of there being no God. The plausibility test seems to be based on this also.

Come on now, you can't deny a proposition that by its very nature defies evidence.

Oh yes, I can. Any proposition that cannot, even in theory, be verified or falsified is a nonsense. Some questions cannot be answered at the current time (Are there aliens on Pluto?) but they can in principle be answered.

If you have a proposition that you know can never be answered, by any means, then... well, don't bother me with it. I don't want to hear that sort of nonsense.

Do you see the contradiction between your two paragraphs? There are, of course, some propositions with in principle can be answered, and we can wait for that evidence to make a deterimination. But the nonsense propositions? You would first have to figure out which ones are nonsense. And you can't do that without answering the question. But you can't answer the question until you know if it's nonsense or not...

And I'm not talking about the 5-10% reasonable doubt that defense lawyers like to bring up -- you're talking about an absolute, a definitive statement that says you are absolutely, metaphysically ( ) certain that strong atheism is correct.

But that standard of proof doesn't exist for anything. It's entirely mythical. So demanding it of strong atheism is unreasonable.

But that's the definition of strong atheism. If you state that there is enough evidence to make a determination that there is no God, then you must have enough evidence to refute every claim that there is.

And no one does live like that. By that standard you cannot know that the meaning of red/green light hasn't switched. But that would be so important that you could not defer investigation. Do you study traffic lights everyday? No. Why not? Because t's an unreasonable proposition that you need not consider.

And yet, we really do have evidence of the red/green paradigm.

In this light I see agnoticism as a philosophical game of "Is not, is not!"

That's your right to see things that way. I'm merely pointing out that your position is untenable. You wish to state a certainty about that which we can't be certain, in principle.

There are plenty of examples in history where unreasonable beliefs turned out to be true.

I'm not sure I see this. Except by using the word "unreasonable" in a casual context. I can't think of any examples.

"Unreasonable" in this case means that human thought had not progressed to the point where such a claim would be reasonable. But this is not a major issue.

You mean we are smart enough to apply statistical methods to strongly suggest that most prayers are not answered.

Noooooo... We are smart enough to use statistical methods to show that the prayer claims of theists are false.

Aren't you looking in the wrong places? Why would you expect to find evidence of God in a scientific study?

Because theists make claims that if true would be easy to verify.

Some theists.

Even if radar works just .01% of the time, you can't say it's false, it's only statistically ineffective. To say it's false would deny that .01%.

Bzzzt! Wrong. You are suggesting random results 99.99% of the time, and a "real" result 0.01%. If we made 10,000 trials, we would expect 5000 yes's and 5000 no's regardless of the presense or absense of an airplane, and only 1 "real" result which we wouldn't know whether was on a yes or no trial. If the results are not better than chance, then the device is doing nothing at all.

Again, you're only looking at the statistics. It only takes one claim to be true for you to be wrong. The theistic idea behind these studies is that medical prayer is always effective for the Christians who practice it. That is the only idea that has been refuted.

Prayer about a medical condition, sure. That has been proven to be ineffective. But you've got a long way to go to equate that to "absolutely no God".

It forms part of my argument. The failure of prayer wipes out whole swathes of theism. Any theist you see praying is practicing a religion known to be false. Agnosticism doesn't apply.

Whole swaths is a bit strong, don't you think? Medical prayer strikes me as falling to the sin of Pride. Save me, God, because I'm praying. I think you've successfully proven that particular claim false. Only 8 million to go!

What's the difference between what you said and what I paraphrased?

I merely said that there is no evidence to look at. It would be a problem for strong atheism if there were evidence, since it would then (perhaps) be reasonable to believe in god. But I make not claims relating to this lack of evidence. That's what weak atheists are for...

So let me get this straight... You claim that because there is no evidence, strong atheism is correct. That's just as unreasonable a position as theism. Certainty with no evidence = irrational belief system.

In order to deny a nonsensical proposition, you have to say, "Of course that's not true, and here's why..."

No! That's precisely what you can't do for a nonsensical position. By nonsensical I do not mean "badly wrong". I mean unformed, gramtically flawed, gibberish. Possibly all three.

How do you decide which propositions are unformed/gibberish and which are worthy of being addressed?

How do you respond to this claim: "Make since god to green have nonsensical for strong there fibble fibble."

You can't respond since it means nothing.

That's true. There is no argument with this.

It's the here's why that gets strong atheists into trouble. If the proposition is truly nonsensical, then you won't be able to give a reason as to why it's false. To do so would be circular: "It's false because the idea is preposterous."

That's why I didn't give a response in my original outline. Undefined things are automatically false. A proposition only acheives the status of "possibly true" once someone has stated it clearly.

BZZZZZT! You are contradicting yourself with that one. Undefined things aren't false, as indicated above. They merely remain undefined.

Where in the definition of God's green God would this be unreasonable? You're assuming a nature of the God described to you and giving it your own interpretation of how it would act. What in the world for? You're assuming how such a being would act... based on...?

My basis is the claims of theists (you know, the subject we are supposed to be debating). Any being that is not personally interested in the earth and it's inhabitants is not god, regardless of whether it exists or not. Religions just made up by someone do not acheive the status of "possibly true" in my view.

No. No. No. No. You do not have the position to claim that any being you can't see or interact with has no personal interest in what goes on here. In fact, you can't make any claims at all and not sound like a theist in reverse.

You don't even know if it exists or not. You may be channeling Quixsnax right now, and it's trying to break through. How did that idea get into your head? OOOOH! Spooky!

Thanks for the demonstration of the unreasonable observer....

Heh heh. I have nothing to go on beyond your claim of untruth. Once you make the proposition, it no longer belongs to you. What is the sound of one hand clapping? What color is Quixsnax?

My point here is not that such a being could exist. My point here is that it is not reasonable to state anything about such a being: existence, non-existence, color, vocal range, tastes like chicken, etc.

The basic Cartesian fact is that the only being I know anything at all about is myself. Everything else could be my solipsistic illusion.

Fiine. But...

a) That's an unreasonable position to take.

Sez juliod. It's only unreasonable if I am privy to someone else's thoughts in real time.

2) Even if this is all illusion, the religions, the theists and mysellf are all part of it. So you have to deal with the facts as they appear to you, and agnosticism is still unreasonable in your own fantasy.

I am dealing with the facts. The fact is, there are no facts.

Wrong. Present claims are not "tied" to past claims, they are only influenced by them.

What I mean is that theists make claims about both past and present for their god. They use their god to explain past events that may or may not have happened. If we falsify their good in the present, then he is also false in the past, and the explanations fail. If someone wants to say that their good was alive then, but dead now, that's fine by me...

You're stuck in the Heads I win, tails we flip again scenario. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

in order to show falsification, you would have falsify every single claim made,

No. We would only have to falsify one important claim. They might alter their doctrine in response, but then we are back to people just making up religions.

This has already been done. Catholics, for example, have ceased believing in transubstantiation. It's not because they believe that this aspect of Jesus has changed, only that their original interpretation was incorrect. There's nothing wrong with that, as it does not alter the basic idea of Jesus. Neither does medical prayer, or any of the other anti-scientific, pro-selfishness ideas about Man interacting with the metaphysical.

I notice, BTW, that none of the theists here are jumping all over this thread to defend their beliefs. Scared, do you think?

Well, I think harvey1 is reading this with a big grin on his face and doesn't feel the need to intervene. Yet.

[Bugmaster]

This has already been done. Catholics, for example, have ceased believing in transubstantiation.

Wait, have they really ? When was that ?

[juliod]

ST: I'm going to try to shorten this by not replying to extraneous matter that isn't going anywhere. If you think I have omitted anything important by all mean bring it up and expand on it.

But the nonsense propositions? You would first have to figure out which ones are nonsense. And you can't do that without answering the question. But you can't answer the question until you know if it's nonsense or not...

No. If a proposition comes with the proviso that it cannot under any circumstances be verified, then it is already nonsense. There are no "real" thing like this.

Let's say I tell you that there are pixies under my front porch. You look and don't see them. I then say, "Oh, you can't see, hear, touch, or otherwise detect them by any means." Is it reasonabel to think they might be there?

When it comes to existential claims, a claim that cannot, even in principle, be verified is the same as the nonexistance of the thing in question.

I said:

But that standard of proof doesn't exist for anything. It's entirely mythical. So demanding it of strong atheism is unreasonable.

The you bleated:

But that's the definition of strong atheism. If you state that there is enough evidence to make a determination that there is no God, then you must have enough evidence to refute every claim that there is.

You've changed your stance from "enough evidence to refute" from "an absolute, a definitive statement that says you are absolutely, metaphysically certain".

I am claims enough evidence to refute. Not the metaphysical certainty, which doesn't exist.

I said:

By that standard you cannot know that the meaning of red/green light hasn't switched. But that would be so important that you could not defer investigation. Do you study traffic lights everyday? No. Why not? Because t's an unreasonable proposition that you need not consider.

You blurbled:

And yet, we really do have evidence of the red/green paradigm.

But when you get up in the morning you have no evidence that it has not sitched in the night. And since it's so important you can't say it's of no consequence.

What I'm trying to say is that no one can live by the philosophy you are presenting. In the real world you do not accept unreasonable possabilities. But here, in this discussion, you will not acknowledge this concept. It seems to me that while you can claim to be an agnostic, you can't live as one. Whereas atheism and theism are livable. The theists are just wrong.

You wish to state a certainty about that which we can't be certain, in principle.

Your italics.

I don't aspire to "certainty". That's unattainable by any belief system. I merely wish to establish the falsity of all existing theist positions, to the standard of a reasonable observer.

I wrote:

Because theists make claims that if true would be easy to verify.

You screeched:

Some theists.

All theists other than those already ruled out by other parts of my outline. In principle I am talking about the major religions here, which all make easy-to-verify claims.

Re: Prayer disproving religion.

Whole swaths is a bit strong, don't you think?

No. There is sufficient evidence to show that prayer doesn't work in any context it has been applied. So any religion that uses prayer is false.

I am excepting those who claim that the only acceptable form of prayer is whoreship. Sorry, worship, I mean. for those, they don't claim that prayer "works".

So let me get this straight... You claim that because there is no evidence, strong atheism is correct.

No no NO! I said that IF there were evidence for theism (any form) then strong atheism would not be viable.

(See how reasonable we strong atheists are? We tell you how to falsify our beliefs...)

How do you decide which propositions are unformed/gibberish and which are worthy of being addressed?

That's the duty of the reasoonable observer. If you really can't tell, then you are probably an unreasonable observer.

You are contradicting yourself with that one. Undefined things aren't false, as indicated above. They merely remain undefined.

But for existential claims (at least) they are false. If I say "This is an undefined claim about a being under my porch", you look and say there is nothing there. I repeat the claim as "proof". It's a false claim, since you can see by evidence that there is no being there, and nonsense nature of the claim does not give you reason to question the simple, direct conclusion.

You do not have the position to claim that any being you can't see or interact with has no personal interest in what goes on here. In fact, you can't make any claims at all and not sound like a theist in reverse.

Perhaps "theist in reverse" is a good way to describe strong atheism. I am only intent on demonstating the falsity of theist claims. Claims not made by actual theists (the hypothetical section of my outline) are of no interest to me as a strong atheist (...but I am also a rationalist and naturalist, with the implied beliefs).

Well, I think harvey1 is reading this with a big grin on his face and doesn't feel the need to intervene.

Piffle. They are all just scared of being 0wn3d by my mad skilz....

You know what I've learned in this thread? Never argue with an agnostic. You both get irritated and the agnostic likes it...

DanZ

[ST88]

[MAJOR DIGRESSION]

This has already been done. Catholics, for example, have ceased believing in transubstantiation.

Wait, have they really ? When was that ?

In 1968, Pope Paul VI said this: "We believe that the Mass which is celebrated by the priest in the person of Christ in virtue of the power he receives in the Sacrament of Order, and which is offered by him in the name of Christ and of the members of his Mystical Body, is indeed the Sacrifice of Calvary sacramentally realised on our altars. We believe that, as the bread and wine consecrated by the Lord at the Last Supper were changed into his Body and Blood which were to be offered for us on the Cross, so likewise are the bread and wine consecrated by the priest changed into the Body and Blood of Christ now enthroned in glory in Heaven. We believe that the mysterious presence of the Lord under the appearance of those things which, as far as our senses are concerned, remain unchanged, is a true, real and substantial presence."

While many have taken this to mean that he supported transubstatiation by referring to the Council of Trent, I don't think that's what he was doing. Instead of the blood and the flesh as we understand blood and flesh, he's calling it the "substantial presence" of Christ. To me, this says something akin to: Shut up and eat your cracker. You will find many Catholics who are on either side of this, but my own personal opinion is that this particular doctrine has been abused by radical traditionalists.
[/MAJOR DIGRESSION]

[ST88]

Let's say I tell you that there are pixies under my front porch. You look and don't see them. I then say, "Oh, you can't see, hear, touch, or otherwise detect them by any means." Is it reasonabel to think they might be there?

When it comes to existential claims, a claim that cannot, even in principle, be verified is the same as the nonexistance of the thing in question.

I don't believe this is true. For a true/false dichotomy, there need not exist weights on either side of the scale. An unverifiable claim is not automatically false for the same reason it is not automatically true.

I said:
But that standard of proof doesn't exist for anything. It's entirely mythical. So demanding it of strong atheism is unreasonable.

The you bleated:

But that's the definition of strong atheism. If you state that there is enough evidence to make a determination that there is no God, then you must have enough evidence to refute every claim that there is.

You've changed your stance from "enough evidence to refute" from "an absolute, a definitive statement that says you are absolutely, metaphysically certain".

I am claims enough evidence to refute. Not the metaphysical certainty, which doesn't exist.

Baaa! Baaa! Enough evidence to refute and absolutely, metaphysically certain are the same thing in this case. If you feel you have enough evidence to refute claims that can't be investigated then more power to you. You should be an economist.

I said:
By that standard you cannot know that the meaning of red/green light hasn't switched. But that would be so important that you could not defer investigation. Do you study traffic lights everyday? No. Why not? Because t's an unreasonable proposition that you need not consider.

You blurbled:

And yet, we really do have evidence of the red/green paradigm.

But when you get up in the morning you have no evidence that it has not sitched in the night. And since it's so important you can't say it's of no consequence.

What I'm trying to say is that no one can live by the philosophy you are presenting. In the real world you do not accept unreasonable possabilities.

[Blurble]Again, for the nth time, I do not accept these propositions. You are the one who is accepting the proposition by responding to it. The traffic light is a poor example, because the definition of red/green having switched really is an unreasonable idea since it would require months if not years of public debate -- and I subscribe to a newspaper.

My stance is not that these subjects deserve consideration -- precisely the opposite. You are the one who says they deserve enough consideration to answer in the negative. You say that I will not acknowledge the concept of complete unknowing, since you apparently believe that agnosticism is the inability to come to any conclusions. I assure you that this is not the case. The only claim that I make is that there are some questions for which we can't come to any conclusions; whereas you state that we can come to conclusions for every question.

You wish to state a certainty about that which we can't be certain, in principle.

Your italics.
I don't aspire to "certainty". That's unattainable by any belief system. I merely wish to establish the falsity of all existing theist positions, to the standard of a reasonable observer.

According to me, that's not good enough. It can't be held to the standard of "reasonable observer" for several reasons:
A) You are not liable to get sufficient agreement on what a reasonable observer is.
B) "Reasonableness" is not a standard of proof.
C) Even if you were able to construct an argument such that no one on the planet would be able to refute it, you could still be wrong; since spirituality & metaphysics defy logic, logic cannot be used to describe them.
D) The distinction you are trying to make between "certainty" and "falsity" is not there. "False" is a certainty.

I wrote:

Because theists make claims that if true would be easy to verify.

You screeched:

Some theists.

All theists other than those already ruled out by other parts of my outline. In principle I am talking about the major religions here, which all make easy-to-verify claims.

Eeeeeeee! We're talking about two different parts of the Venn diagram here. You're saying that all theists make claims that can be verified. That's fine, but it's not the whole picture. Not all of the theistic claims are verifiable/falsifiable. I think you're trying to say that to disprove one claim is to disprove all claims, and I don't think you can state that. You can refute entire classes of claims with a good experiment (e.g., medical prayer), but you can't refute all claims with just one study. This is because many religions have readily admitted that previous beliefs are no longer true, and appeal to their sacred texts for re-interpretation. It's an ingenious strategy because the sacred texts are usually written in such a way that makes definite interpretation impossible.

But beyond that, you can fully state that evangelicals are wrong when they say that medical prayer works. What you can't say is that this proves that there is no God. All you are proving is that they are wrong about this particular aspect of God.

So let me get this straight... You claim that because there is no evidence, strong atheism is correct.

No no NO! I said that IF there were evidence for theism (any form) then strong atheism would not be viable.

Now I'm confused. Are you trying to state that strong atheism is "reasonable"? or are you trying to state that it is "correct"?

If "reasonable", then you would have to admit that theism is also reasonable for exactly the same reason. If correct, well, the standard of "lack of evidence to refute" isn't enough to accept.

How do you decide which propositions are unformed/gibberish and which are worthy of being addressed?

That's the duty of the reasoonable observer. If you really can't tell, then you are probably an unreasonable observer.

Consider the question: Is there a God? Is that gibberish? If not, how is it a reasonable question?

You are contradicting yourself with that one. Undefined things aren't false, as indicated above. They merely remain undefined.

But for existential claims (at least) they are false. If I say "This is an undefined claim about a being under my porch", you look and say there is nothing there. I repeat the claim as "proof". It's a false claim, since you can see by evidence that there is no being there, and nonsense nature of the claim does not give you reason to question the simple, direct conclusion.

I'm sure you realize that Sight is not a direct enough proof. The nonsense nature of the claim does not imply that there is a valid answer to the question, quite the opposite.

You do not have the position to claim that any being you can't see or interact with has no personal interest in what goes on here. In fact, you can't make any claims at all and not sound like a theist in reverse.

Perhaps "theist in reverse" is a good way to describe strong atheism. I am only intent on demonstating the falsity of theist claims. Claims not made by actual theists (the hypothetical section of my outline) are of no interest to me as a strong atheist (...but I am also a rationalist and naturalist, with the implied beliefs).

That's very courageous of you to admit something like that. Your atheism strikes me the same way it probably strikes harvey1, as a belief. You have very little to go on with your actual proposition, that there is no God, so you are instead trying to refute the claim piece by piece, which is exactly what you should be doing according to your beliefs. Very few of us have the fortitude to live that way.

You know what I've learned in this thread? Never argue with an agnostic. You both get irritated and the agnostic likes it...

That's very pithy. I think that should be a bumper-sticker. 8)

[juliod]

Let's see, where are we...

An unverifiable claim is not automatically false for the same reason it is not automatically true.

Perhaps not automatically, but nearly so for existential claims. For these claims, we can never be without counterevidence when the thing doesn't actually exist.

As I've said, god's not here, he's not over there. This is sufficient to form a firm initial conclusion that god doesn't exist (within whatever limits are set by the extent and form of your search).

For imaginary things (gods, picies, dragons, etc) we can always form this firm conclusion because the thing can never be found (regardless of claims of the believers).

It's only after the failure of these claims that the supernaturalists pull out the it-can't-be-detected-by-any-means explanations. But all it amounts to is zero reason to question out initial conclusion.

When we have good counterevidence, and the best that is offered by the other side is that if their god existed the universe would be completely identical to the case if their god didn't exist, then there is only one reasonable conclusion.

Enough evidence to refute and absolutely, metaphysically certain are the same thing in this case. If you feel you have enough evidence to refute claims that can't be investigated then more power to you.

Double piffle. Only agnostics believe in "claims that can't be investigated". Religions are full of claims that can be investigated, can be falsified, and in many cases, have been. In fact it has been a major facet of religion to stop investigations that threaten to falsify the religion.

The traffic light is a poor example, because the definition of red/green having switched really is an unreasonable idea since it would require months if not years of public debate -- and I subscribe to a newspaper.

But what if the meaning of red/green spontaneously changed overnight, and the meaning was switched in everyone's brain except yours. You cannot be "metaphysically sure" that that has not happened.

But I am glad that you (for the first time in this debate) accepted the concept of an "unreasonable idea". Soon you'll be a strong atheist...

but you can't refute all claims with just one study.

That's why I described my views of strong atheism as an outline. I don't think there are any gaps in my view that theism is conclusively falsified. If you think you know of a gap, let me know and I will consider it. But I don't think there is a single theist in the world with a doctrine that achieves the status of "possibly true".

Consider the question: Is there a God? Is that gibberish? If not, how is it a reasonable question?

It's not gibberish, as you can tell. It's grammatically well-formed and we all largely agree on what the words mean. It's also a reasonable question. But it is one for which we have a firm, conclusive answer: "no".

That's very courageous of you to admit something like that. Your atheism strikes me the same way it probably strikes harvey1, as a belief. You have very little to go on with your actual proposition, that there is no God, so you are instead trying to refute the claim piece by piece, which is exactly what you should be doing according to your beliefs. Very few of us have the fortitude to live that way.

This is the crux of strong atheism. It is a belief, obviously. And for some people it may be based merely on assertion. But it is my view that strong atheism is based on evidence. Theists make specific claims about specific beings. We can see, beyond reasonable doubt, that these claims are false.

Beyond false they are largely absurd, implausible, nonsensical, purely-metaphorical, or otherwise so obviously phoney that it is unreasonable to consider them. It is so bad that any new claims about "superbeing" must come with some serious argument as to why that thing should be considered a "god" even if it could be shown to exist.

DanZ

[ST88]

Beyond false they are largely absurd, implausible, nonsensical, purely-metaphorical, or otherwise so obviously phoney that it is unreasonable to consider them. It is so bad that any new claims about "superbeing" must come with some serious argument as to why that thing should be considered a "god" even if it could be shown to exist.

I guess the only thing I would edit here is the phrase "beyond false". My agnostic position is not so different from yours except for this particular assertion. I just can't get out on that limb with you because to do so seems too much like relying on a "gut feeling" rather than a rational argument.