Pseudoskepticism and logic

Well, I think you're right, but your reasoning is slightly flawed.It's the "teapot orbiting mars" conundrum - you could easily SAY that there is a teapot too small for the most powerful telescopes and equipment to detect orbiting mars, but you cannot prove it. You also cannot prove there isn't.In this case, the rational viewpoint would be to say that it doesn't exist, but you would still say yes, it is possible.Atheists give the chance of god (given his/her apparent lack of presence in the world) is as likely (or less) than the teapot - i.e. everything works so exceptionally well *without* god that the evidence (of no interference) is so great that the logical position is that there is no god.of course, even the hardest skeptic would say it's possible, but that's nonsensical to assume it's true just because it may be.

Nope, I think it's pretty accurate. Where teapots come from has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of a teapot orbiting Mars.You cannot prove there is not one.Therefore I ask you, do you believe there is? Hmm, I thought it was obvious and straightforward...If your default position is "maybe, maybe not" then you fill your world with maybe's.Maybe there's a teapot orbiting mars.
Maybe there's a boogeyman under your bed
Maybe ghosts exist, you just haven't seen one
Maybe pink unicorns are real
Maybe, maybe, maybe...Somebody who says you MUST believe it if you can't prove IT IS NOT would be forced to admit there must be all of those things.Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think that we need to fill our world with maybe's.

I heard a great quote by Sagan the other day - and it went (something) like this:...people have often created a god or gods to tell us how the universe came into being. They say that god created the universe. That forces us to ask the question "what created god?". If you assume that god came from nothing, and created the universe, why not save a step, and say the universe came from nothing?

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Some people say god always was, and then created the universe. Why not save a step, and say the universe always has been, and requires neither a creator nor a beginning?...I think he gets it - don't unnecessarily complicate matters (occam's razor).If all the world apparently works as well as it does without divine interference, why would you still put a god high on the list of things you believe in without evidence?Either you do NOT believe that everything could exist without a god, or you are fooling yourself for some other reason.As I said with the teapot - it could be there...but belief in it is rather pointless because it is not provable. It makes more sense to assume there is not until such time as there is evidence. there's lots of things you can't disprove - santa claus, fairies, unicorns, elves, bogey monsters, demons, witches, spirits, ghosts, clairvoyance...are you really, really sure you want to seriously entertain their existence?If you are, it's fine - I mean most people will to some extent say it could be possible, they just don't hold it very likely.Or am I missing the point of this thread?

True.I personally am agnostic because I can't be sure - but then I think that every atheist is an agnostic because if you pressed them they'd have to agree they can't be sure - but that they think it so unlikely that the logical course for them is to disbelieve until there IS proof (that is, the "absence of evidence" is "evidence of absence" ...for them).I happen to think that IS logical, but I apparently lack the ability to say why any better than saying "occam's razor".That is to say that an atheist might be wrong, most I think would say it is possible, but that they do not believe.Are you talking about "mere" un-belief, or are you talking more about those who say "it is impossible" ?That's two different things, I think.Edited by greyseal, : No reason given.

Hi,thanks for the welcome, and you've got it right, I think.The null hypothesis - you'd have to prove it was a logical fallacy.

I'm sorry, you'd probably gone over just that question before.The point is (and you seem to agree) that you think those questions "silly" - you don't believe in those maybe's. By a similar token, it sounds as if believing in god could be just as silly, ergo non-belief is a rational stance.It's possible, but not very likely, ergo disbelief is logical.I don't think there's a contradiction with saying both "I don't know" and "I don't believe".I'm not well-equipped enough with the vocabulary to debate how near to sure you have to be before you can "know" something that is an unproved negative.I think you could say you "know" we won't suddenly go flying off into space, but you would probably admit you can't be 100% sure. 99-point-lots-of-nines sure, yes - so where on that scale can you be about an unproved negative?Anyway, you don't have to respond.Cheers.