Do you believe; and why?

[Dill]

(05-17-2019, 01:15 PM)Lucidus Wrote: When you say you are not agnostic, that would imply that you think it can be "known" that there is or isn't a God. I'm curious as to how we can have knowledge beyond the phenomena of our experience within reality? That is to say, how can we "know" anything about the supernatural if we can't observe, examine or evaluate it? It would seem to me that we can't. If it can't be known or is yet to be known, it would seem that agnosticism would be your parent category, with atheism as the the chosen subset. Unless you're asserting that there is, or can be, knowledge of the supernatural that we can access to determine whether a God exists?

I would agree that there are certain evidences that seem to demonstrate a God is not necessary, and others that suggest that the actual concept of God is highly unlikely to be possible. However, I would not go as far as to say there is any  evidences that prove a God doesn't exist or can't exist. 

Answer to your first question: yes, I think we can know there is no god in the same sense we "know" there is not a McDonalds on the far side of the moon: who would have built it? How could they do so with no one tracking the construction and supply logistics. What customers would it serve? But I cannot "prove" there isn't one, in the same sense I can prove/disprove a claim there is a dragon in your garage. The likelihood there is a god or supernatural realm is impossibly remote, while the human need to believe such things, whether true or not, is incontrovertible.

Breech is right to reject the "prove a negative" requirement in this case. 
Absence of evidence, after centuries of inquiry, IS eventually evidence of absence.

If we cannot observe or examine "the supernatural," then how are we justified in talking about a supernatural at all? For the sake of argument, let's suppose there is no supernatural.  The form of the agnostic's argument would remain the same, still constructing propositions around the ontological status of an "it" which cannot be observed (because it doesn't actually exist), and then arguing about their logical consistency and the likelihood of their truth or falsity.  This only differs from the alternative, in which there is a supernatural, in that it is the questioning/discussion alone which keeps "the supernatural" alive as referent of discussion. Nothing else.

I think we should reject demands for "proof" of god's existence in apodictic form. That was a metaphysical exercise proper to classical and medieval philosophy.