if you can't prove that something does not exist, you don't have to accept that it does, but, to me at least, you have to accept that there is a REMOTE possibility |
I accept that as well. The only thing we can know with absolute certainty is that we exist, as well as perhaps some mathematical and philosophical concepts. Everything else we believe about objective reality comes from evidence and our memories (our mental storage of evidence), and since there could be technological or supernatural ways to falsify either evidence or memories, we can never know for certain that they’re accurate.
However, having said that, we don’t believe in things because they’re possible; we believe in them because of evidence. For all you know, it’s POSSIBLE that I’m God and I created the universe two minutes ago. I made it with the appearance of age, including all living things, and gave you detailed memories of an older life. Being all powerful and all knowing, I created everything EXACTLY as it would be if it was billions of years old, down to the very last detail. Now, can you prove that this didn’t happen? No, you can’t. But I’m guessing you also don’t believe it happened.
Perhaps Loki, the Norse God of mischief, framed OJ Simpson for the murder of his wife using his supernatural powers or perhaps we’re all in the Matrix right now. I could list off a near infinite number of things that you can’t disprove, but which you don’t believe in. We humans base our beliefs on evidence because it’s the only tool we have to figure out what’s real out of that near infinite number of possibilities, and because it appears to work.
So to sum it up-
1) There are very few things we can rule out with absolute certainty.
2) Nonetheless, we base our beliefs on evidence.
So if a Christian told me; The evidence points to an old earth, but I believe in a young earth anyway, my first question would be why, since everyone bases the vast majority of their beliefs on evidence, would they make a special exception when it comes to their religious beliefs? My methodology for determining what is real is consistent, while theirs is not.
so my conclusion is that I am agnostic |
Traditionally, atheist is defined this way-
Atheist- doesn’t believe in God
Agnostic- not sure
Theist- believes in God
However, those definitions are very imprecise. I prefer these ones. They treat one’s position on Gnosticism (knowledge) as a separate category from theism (belief).
Agnostic (weak) atheist- doesn’t believe in God but doesn’t know with absolute certainty.
Gnostic (strong) atheist- doesn’t believe in God and knows with absolute certainty.
Edited by zoetherat, : No reason given.