Herb26

Using existance of random claims(even thor I'd toss that claim) as analogies to existance of God in my opinion is a fallacy. Specifically a false/weak analogy (http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/falsean.php). Basically the analogy is only good as far as I agree God is like one of those random claims. . .I've tried to explain in this thread once or twice. . .and in another thread or two. My second post in this thread explains one place where I find the analogy fails.

I'm (pretty much)atheist to all gods except the agnostic theist/deist level God. Without a most basic level God as a possiblity you've now completely removed a possible explaination of the universe(assuming it exists, which btw assumes your mother to exist as a consquence). The only analogies you could make that would be valid would also have a similiar consquence(your mom, invisible unicorns, and thor don't cut it). . .the only valid one I can think of off hand is the combined big bang and quantum theory stuff. Which is in general better supported, but not well enough(exspecially when it comes to why they are the case)..

The only truely good strong atheist agrument I've heard is Occam's razor. But we can't simplify reality like math. So it's not enough. . .maybe not even applicable at all. Volker's something must be uncaused agrument(from this site) is the only thing that makes me think Occam's razor might apply. . .

R.M.S.

I've reread your second post, but I still don't get how specifically why 'existence of random things' would be a false analogy concerning the existence of God. In at least some sense, God would have to be 'something', or do you disagree?

But a point where we differ is that I'm mainly concerned here with the Christian God meddling with our lives. For various reasons there is no argument whatsoever to believe in Him. (Logical consistency, theodicy, whatever - that is not under discussion in this thread.) So then the reply of many agnostics is: "Yes, you're absolutely right. But one has to be skeptic: we'll never know for sure unless we could somehow 'see for ourselves', and even if God isn't necessary to explain any kind of phenomenon that doesn't make it impossible that he does exist." My postings are a reply to that type of agnosticist positions.

When speaking about "How did the universe come to be?", I'll agree with you that a deist god is a possibility (albeit still a bit antropomorphic) and that we can't say that we know. To me and to many others, however, this is a much more remote issue than the God in it's full glory influencing our lives. Just like yourself, one that issue I'm a strong agnostic: we really don't know. Even talking about possible explanations is silly, since we really won't ever know. I can't speak for anyone else, but I wouldn't be suprised if even the staunchest naturalists (or "Brights"?) would agree to such an agnosticism.

So, I believe those are two different problems.

Volker

Here is my approach to strengthen the point and to explain why Occam's razor is such a worthy principle:

Assume that you are searching for a theory to explain something. You have two conflicting theories that both do very well. But in any theory you'll have premises that you don't know for sure are true. And you don't know how probable your premises are true, you'll have to attach the standard a priori probability to them (0.5 or 50%).

Theory A has four premises with an unknown truth-value. Theory B as two premises which are uncertain. How likely is it that these premises are all true?

Theory A: 0.0625 or 6.25%
Theory B: 0.25 or 25%

So the higher probability clearly ist with the theory which makes less assumptions, and it is a far more safer bet that this theory is true. But say, you can calculate that one of the premises for theory A must be true with a probability of 90%? How then? In this case the overall probabilty is 11.25%, still not enough.

And what if two of the premises of A have a probability 0f 0.9? Still we have only 20.25%, which is less than 25%.

This, of course, makes the assumption that the premises are not logical connected to each other (if premise 1 is true, it is more likely that premise 2 ist true, too). With god and all his attributes and all things we don't know about him - and especially if he is not bound by logic - I see, with god, no reasons to assume that the premises support each other.

So, statistic is one more good reason to apply Occam's razor. The more premises you need, the less will be the probability that your conclusion is true.

Herb26

I agree.

As for the false analogy. Figure out exactly why you think a deist type God is a possibity dispite seemingly being a random claim. And you should figure out why(or at least that it must be, but your not sure how). It does apply to almost all world religions though. . .they all claim to have a knowledge not only of God but of his nature as well. Which goes much to far and is at that point is as likely as invisable unicorns.

mirage

A deist god is no more likely that any other. I'm sick of Deist ones getting some sort of free pass. If all that is meant is "the universe" or "the laws of nature" then it isn't a god and we should stop calling it one, if not, then the Razor applies as usual.

R.M.S.

It's a good reason to use it, but it is not in itself a good reason to explain your disbelief in God. If there is (a little) chance of something existing, one should doubt (a little).

I think there is reason enough to say all "proofs" of the christian God have turned out false and new arguments will turn out false in the future. But if there is a chance of God existing, the natural position would seem a strong agnosticism. ("All arguments pro are silly, but there isn't a definite answer con.") So my point is that even strong atheism does not exclude such a 'fundamentally not knowing' position we would normally only ascribe to strong agnosticism. My conclusion is, then, that strong atheism and weak and strong atheism are really quite similar positions and differ only in their epistemology - and that all are quite far from weak agnosticism.

John A. Broussard

This is a "god" problem I run into over and over again. It makes sense to argue for the existence of something. It also makes sense to argue for or against those arguments. It makes no sense to argue for the non-existence of something.

Let's use the time-tested "unicorns" for example. Would there be any sense whatsoever for anyone to argue for their non-existence?

For an atheist's view to make sense, it has to be "There is no god of the variety you describe." If anyone wants to describe god as being the force of gravity, I would suspect that the atheist would then say, "Fine, if you want to describe the term 'god' in that fashion."