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Originally Posted by Biochemist
Given my knowledge of Tormod, he usually falls much more closely into the agnostic category.
Tormod, please feel free to correct me. I don't think you would defend that God absolutely does not exist (even if you suspect it is true).
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He he. I knew someone would say this.
Using empirical knowledge I cannot disprove a God. I do, however, not accept that I am by logic required to *believe* that something *does not exist*.
Therefore I am an atheist - I have no God, and I do not have non-faith.
To claim otherwise is to say that I must believe that everything that does not exist, in fact might exist, and as such everything I believe is both right and wrong. The only way out of this conundrum is to prove that something *exists*, because a proof of non-existence will not be acceptable proof according to the three bullet points in Bio's post.
This is flawed logic. I accept the logic of the scientific method, which means that I can assume that what best describes the world is *currently* a reasonable thing to place my bets on. I don't need to "believe" that there is no planet between Earth and Mars. I *know* there is no planet there.
By reason I accept that the scientific theories we currently have for the birth and evolution of the universe overwhelm the beliefs of any religion, and therefore I accept those theories. I do not *believe* in them in the sense that I have *faith*.
I can thus safely state that no, there is no God just the way I can say that no, there is no planet between Earth and Mars. I am an atheist. There are no gods.
I cannot, however, claim that there will never *be* a god. But that is acceptable logic: I cannot determine what can happen tomorrow. Nor can I prove that noone will ever be able to create a universe and be god for the beings in that universe.