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I have a question for the people that are 100% certain that no gods exist. How are you THAT certain? I’m not 100% certain of anything. There is always the possibility that evidence will come to light that supports the opposing opinion. Do I think there’s a god? No. Am I open to the possibility that I don’t know everything? Absolutely. A negative can’t really be proven. What makes you so sure that your belief is the correct one?

Leeshi 7 July 21
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94 comments

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1

How can you be certain that none of us actually exist and that we are all not actually a dream of some alien being acting out as it’s mind directs us? How can you ignore the tons of evidence that we were not only visited, but created, by alien beings as a science/genetic experiment? There are far more reasons presented by evidence for this than there is of a god. And why concern yourself? If you lead a decent life and there is a god and some form of afterlife, you should be fine. If your god is the Abramic god of jealousy and fear, then why would you want to associate with such an evil entity? When someone can point to a spot anywhere in our galaxy or in or on earth, where there is billions of “souls” residing maybe I could believe. If religious people didn’t suffer the exact same fates as non believers, if Christians did not die just as often as Jews and Muslims, maybe you could make a point. Given modern science and what we as humans have been able to accomplish, (which if there was a god, why did it take so long?) I see absolutely no reason to believe in anything as silly as an invisible friend with unknown powers in a place no one can see, except in hallucinations.

I am absolutely not trying to make a point for the existence of a god. I don’t don’t believe in a god. I was just curious about what makes people 100% certain. I just feel like there is nothing that I wouldn’t question if presented with compelling evidence to the contrary, which is why I didn’t answer 100%.

@Leeshi, and I explained why I am 100% sure. Saying that you leave the question open in case someone finds more than allegorical proof is the equivalent of saying you can’t believe anything because there is some minute chance that some how you might be proven wrong.

@Barnie2years you’re right, I can’t believe it 100%

8

Here's the deal. I do not say that God does not exist, but I THINK that God does not exist with the same confidence that I THINK ghosts, vampires, werewolves, poltergeists, ice monsters and other things that go bump in the night DO NOT EXIST. This certainty approaches the limit of ZERO, just like you would use it in mathematics to divide by zero. Gods are as close to zero as you can get.

6

Without evidence, there is zero reason to behave as though its a possibility. present evidence of existence, and I will consider it, until then its mental masturbation.

dellik Level 6 July 22, 2019
6

There is very much we cannot be certain. We can't be absolutely certain that the external world exists, because all any of us are ever aware of is the contents of our own minds. Much of what most of us believe we know with absolute certainty, is in fact only very probably or likely to be true.

We are constantly being compelled to form conclusions which are in fact only highly probable. But a very high likelihood of correctness is often good enough for practical purposes.

6

When you say “there is always the possibility” I don’t believe that at all. Sometimes there is no possibility. Humans made it up, at its best it’s literature and at its worst it’s a governmental tool for control. It is possible to be certain. Religion is nothing but deception and Gods are nothing more than fantasy. However, if it would stay out of science and government I wouldn’t care what people believe, but it doesn’t.

6

As an ex Catholic I got tired waiting for the Bible God to help me with injustice. She - He as God never never have the courtesy to answer my calls. What I learned in my life is that human has the power of choice between being good or evil.

6

Well, I don't really care if there is one or not. I do not believe that it is so, especially a god from the bible.

6

I believe it's simply commitment to our disbelief rather than an expression of mathematical probabilities. I always wonder about people with various percentages on their profiles like "Huh? Guess they just can't commit yet?". lol

But I put the exisitence of god(s) right up there with the existence of unicorns. And I'd be way less pissed off if a unicorn were found.

God would have a shit ton to answer for. Wouldn't they?

Can we all just start praying to unicorns? They seem so much more reasonable.

@Leeshi I'm down with that plan.

@Kafirah @Leeshi I'm ready.....

I agree 100% 😁

@RavenCT oh sweet, I already worship that god, so this’ll be easy.

6

There is no evidence of any gods. Given the history of man, the length and scope of our research both scientific and philosophical, the likelihood that there would be a god or gods AND no observable evidence of same is statistically insignificant. So, while there is a chance and, as Mr Nye says, my mind can be changed by evidence, the likelihood of deity is so low that it’s not really worth our time. So, okay not 100%, but 99.99999% seems a ridiculous thing to base one’s life on.

I agree. Good thing I’m not basing my life on that 0.00001% 😉

@Leeshi Right. That way. That’s what I meant.

5

What is also amusing is that people who are the most convinced their preferred g_d exists are also full certain that people believing in other g_ds are fools or doomed to eternal hellfire.

Right? “Everyone is wrong but me and I know this because feelings” doesn’t make much sense

5

I think that few such people actually exist. And I do think that it is wise to be a little sceptical about everything including doubt. But while I can not disprove the existence of god in some form, there are some things which I feel confident can not exist, because they are self contradictory. One such being the biblical god.

5

Then why don't we still believe in Santa Claus. Easter Bunny, or Tooth Fairy. God has the Bible and Santa has The Night Before Christmas. It's a first hand account of seeing Santa.
I was a teacher. I liked to tell our receptionist that if Michelle Phifer called for me to put it through to my room quickly. She had a puzzled look. I said, Hey it could happen. Never did.
I am 100% certain that god does not exist.

@Sierra4 Personally, I don’t believe in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, or the Easter Bunny because, when I was around 5 or 6, my brother and I found some teeth (the ones the “Tooth Fairy” had been collecting) in my mother’s room and so began to work out why/how they could’ve gotten there. We had suspicions that the “Tooth Fairy” was actually my mom, so we confronted her about it and she admitted that it was, in fact, her buying our teeth. Naturally, this made us question the others, as well, so we asked and she told us the truth. It was our Scooby Doo unmasking moment.

@Leeshi one of my Atheist moments 62 years ago ...glad we are on the same comic book page....cute stories the xians can learn from...laugh along with us Atheists....thank you for sharing....did you refuse candy eggs laid by boy easter bunnies on dogshit lawns ??

@GreenAtheist We never got Easter baskets or a present from Santa after that.

@Leeshi Similiar story with me and Santa. Caught parents bring toys to the tree after we had gone to bed. No harm done. I enjoy the holidays. Thanksgiving to New Years Day. One holiday to me. I enoy the feeling and ignore the religious part.

@Sierra4 same here. Holidays are about spending time with the people I love, not about religion.

Can I just say that I’m a little disappointed that no one replied with, “And she would’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those meddling kids!!!” 🤪

@Leeshi
You just did. Your second Scooby comment in this post. 😂

5

being open doesn't mean believing. if i had to reserve a little space in my brain for the possibility of the existence of a god for which there is absolutely no evidence, then i would have to reserve a little space in there for santa claus, the tooth fairy and trump's heart. there is just no evidence for any of that, the same amount of no-evidence as there is of a god. do you need proof that your spaghetti hasn't been poisoned? you don't even think about it. you cook it, you eat it. every little silly thing doesn't need proof. lack of evidence and lack of reasonability can add up to enough certainly to make uncertainty statistically insignificant. my lack of beiief in any gods is secure enough that if a god did appear to me i would call on mental health experts before submitting to it.

g

I always think if I see god my first words will be to the people around me” hey! Do YOU see that?”

@JacobMeyers lol if i were in company, sure! though ergotamine can cause mass hallucinations too. (i have not been exposed to that.) but i spend a lot of time alone with my cats; my guy sleeps a lot. if i were confronted with a god i might have to make a phone call and "do you see that" would only be good in a skypish communication. since i don't wear clothing in the house, i do tend not to skype. oh, the details, it's all in the details! hey, wouldn't we also first tend to pinch ourselves? hmm.

g

5

Just as I am positive there is not an invisible dinosaur in the room with me.

Ridiculous notions are ridiculous notions.

Gods are ridiculous notions from the minds of petty people.

Quit denying my faith in Barney...my daughter beliefs about that big purple dino ARE SACRED

Just because you can't see Barney does not give you the right to spoil our savior leading us into eternal Fred Flintstone land

5

Are you 100% certain the sun will rise tomorrow? Are you certain you can not jump to Saskatchewan? It’s possible that we are about to get knocked out of orbit and our rotation halted so there will be no sunrise. It’s entirely within the realm of known physics that a wind of perfect force could carry you to Saskatchewan the next time you jump. Are you really certain that you can’t jump there? If you’re talking about a .00000000000001 chance that something might happen as a valid reason to accept its possibility then no one can be sure if a silent god like being exists. I think that’s ludicrous though. You absolutely do not have to pretend bunnies might lay eggs because you are not sure of anything 100%.

I think my question should’ve been, “Do the people that say 100% mean that nothing could convince them otherwise, or are they saying that there is nothing to date that gives them any reason to believe in the existence of a god?” Personally, I fall into the latter group. I just see that 100% and it says unchangeable to me. That’s what my question is

@Leeshi yes that WOULD have been a better question, because it does not mean the same thing as what you asked, and is less ridiculous. one hundred percent may mean unchangeable to you but it doesn't mean that to everyone else. if you ask a certain question, then that is likely to be the question that is actually answered. no one can guess that you mean something else.

g

And now I am mind fucked by a song by a ridiculously cute red-headed little girl.

@Leeshi I see now. I’m mot sure about everyone of course but for me it’s a given that 100% certainty can change with the introduction of new evidence. If you want to know how people can be so sure they can never change their minds you’ll prolly have to ask some evangelical apologists. I believe Kent ham is preaching the very idea that when confronted with new evidence that contradicts the sacred scripture you should ignore the evidence. I don’t think you’re gonna find many people like that here. Not many people come to agnostatheism without the questioning of and respect for evidence.

, @BufftonBeotch are you 100%sure about that? What’s the song

@JacobMeyers You will hate me forever if you click that.

@JacobMeyers I meant "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow"

But don't tempt me.

@BufftonBeotch ohhhhh! That’s awesome. Good one.

@BufftonBeotch grrrrrr. I clicked.

5

I also don’t believe that I know everything...nor do I see a time that I will know ‘all!’ But, even that I can’t be absolutely sure about!

Hehe nice thought freedompath. Yeah Leeshi how are you so dang certain you’re not 100% certain of anything? 😀

@JacobMeyers I guess I can’t be certain of anything anymore. Now I’m just waiting for Absolem to come in with his hookah and ask me, “Whooooo arrrrrrrrreeee yoooooooouuuu?”

5

For me, it's simply a matter of statistical analysis. Take any field of study, theology included, and include all subsets and specializations and you can clearly see that every single field has shown some sort of advancement in their particular area of expertise... except theology within the last twenty years (one generation). Now, with that in mind, let's extend the timeline to one century ( five generations), and it becomes clear that every legitimate field of study has made leaps and bounds of advancements... except theology. And, when you expand the timeline to that of a millennium (fifty generations), the statistics are astronomical and almost overflowing with advancements... except theology. Double the timeline again... same thing, and on and on and on... In the entire existence of human recorded history, theology has yet to produce a single solitary piece of circumstantial evidence to support their theory that any sort of anything supernatural exists, let alone that supports such an outlandish claim as an omnipotent being that goes around creating universes exists. But, that isn't all. When combined with the fact that every other field of study has turned up zero evidences, even by mistake, to support their theory... that is what I consider "Conclusive".

I guess I’m just seeing that profile question answer of 100% as saying that nothing could convince the person that their belief is wrong. That’s where I’m seeing the problem. Do the people that say 100% mean that nothing could convince them otherwise, or are they saying that there is nothing to date that gives them any reason to believe in the existence of a god. Personally, I fall into the latter group. Also, thank you for a well thought out and respectful answer.

@Leeshi I also fall into the latter category, as I suspect that most others do also. No problem. You asked an honest question, and I gave you my honest answer 🙂

@Leeshi I know when I say it I mean "100 percent non belief as there is no proof right now". And if some proof shows up tomorrow in the form of deity? We're gonna have words anyway. 😉

4

Anyone claiming anything about god, positive or negative, first has to define what they mean by god. When I say I’m 100% sure that god doesn’t exist, I mean with the caveat that, more specifically: no god described by humanity’s religions so far exists, because they all contain enough logical inconsistencies to be impossible. Omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence and infinite grace or any sort of good will toward humanity can’t possibly exist together in one entity with the amount of evil that is left unchecked to operate in the world. If god were all those things, people would get what was coming to them a lot more often than not. I also don’t believe in free will in a true sense because everything we see scientifically playing out so far about our biology and brain chemistry points to an often unfortunate pattern of determinism. If god is the one designing and determining it, he’s either entirely incompetent or intentionally sadistic more than half the time.

I’m an agnostic atheist. Agnostic describes what I know and atheist describes what I believe. I 100% don’t believe in any god I’ve ever heard described by mankind’s institutions, and the things I do or might believe in like love, or spinoza’s “god” I feel can’t rightly be defined as gods in the same sense of deism or monotheism. I freely admit the gaps in my knowledge. The closest thing to a god that I can imagine possibly existing is a programmer designing an ancestor simulation that we might be a digital part of, or if aliens ran a zoological experiment to give intelligence to apes. Those “gods” might have a small probability of existing, but that’s more than any traditional thing called god can say. If you define god as any mono or polytheistic deity mankind has described to date, I’m 100% sure there is none.

That's the long winded version of you explaining that you're an Agnostic.

@Soundwave I’m also equally an atheist. So what? I just explained why the two aren’t mutually exclusive and answer two different questions, so if you came here trying to argue agnostic vs atheist without absorbing what I said, sorry about the length but who made you read it? Or did you? 🤔

@Wurlitzer long winded and smug; nice combo.

@Soundwave I’m not the pedant telling people what they are and aren’t and complaining about the posts that irk my attention span but ok 😂 You must be new here, it’s cute. I admit it’s hard not to feel smug in the face of such unprovoked pettiness, you got me there. Did you stop by just to be an asshole or did you think you were being informative or useful at all or...?

Do you enjoy introducing yourself to a community by arrogantly taking down readers too, or just writers? I could give you some referrals if you wanna rent a space off my dick for a second.

4

I am open to being proven wrong, but the god has got a lot of explaining to do!

4

I have no reason to believe there is a god and truly give it no thought. I don't care either way. Changes nothing about how I live my life.

4

I agree with you except that negative assertions are as easily proven as positive ones. All proofs are based on assumptions and definitions however. How do you define God?

It should not be a matter of proof or disproof. The job at hand is to find out whether or not something exists. Before we begin we need to decide what is a “thing” and what “existence” means. According to modern physics those are not easy decisions.

My brain is tired already—I quit. I don’t even know what I am myself.

4

No one is 100% certain of anything. They may say they are or they conflate knowledge with 100% certainty but its an illusion. If you get riggt down to it there is nothing we can know for 100% certainty. Even the laws of logic and cogito ergo sum are axiomatic. Knowledge comes down to degrees of certainty and changes with new evidence. 60 uears ago we knew Newtonian physics was true and it got us to the moon but now we know relativity and that has changed the model.

So I am certain no gods exist. Much like I am certain no faeries vampires or dragons exist.

Interesting mistake there. I think it says oodles about this subject and how humans operate. We knew Newtonian physics were wrong well before we even planned a trip to the moon. Yet we used Newtonian to get to the moon. We knew it wasn’t 100% correct yet it was good enough to be certain we could make it to the moon. We were 100% certain the Newtonian calculations would work because there are realities you can be certain of.

i'd say the one thing we CAN be certain of is basic math. 1 of something plus 1 of something equals 2 of something. that, and "we exist" whatever that means

@JacobMeyers you can say they were 100% certain but they weren't. Thats not how logic works. You can't even be sure the laws of logic work because they are axiomatic. Literally all of science is pragmatism and levels of certainty never 100%. You simply can't get there outside of deductive logic and you can't get past cogito we go sum with that.

@Stuttrboy This only works in metaphysics. In actual reality there are certainties. As @Rooster128 mentioned math is a prime example.

4

I am 100% certain I exist.....just as certain that uni-corns, shape shifters, leprechauns, and gods, do not.....have they ever??....now that, I'm agnostic about....though of all them...gods are the ones I'm most doubtfull about ever existing

This is a bit nit picky but cogito ergo sum is axiomatic. Thats not the same as 100% certainty. You can't be literally 100% certain of anything when it gets right down to it.

What do you mean leprechauns don’t exist?! I did some crazy things for that pot of gold!

@Leeshi there you go

, @Stuttrboy a bit???

@HankSherman yeah a bit. Its as close too 100% certain as we can get.

@Stuttrboy and you sound 100% certain of that

@HankSherman nope, just as certain as I can be.

4

Could some sort of "gods" exist? If the answer to that question is ever "yes" we will certainly find that such beings have nothing to do with any of our "holy books" as well as find that the beings did not want to have any interaction with us. This negates the entire question to ideas coming out of our "holy books" coupled up with wanting to know where we came from. In a lame way that makes it a legitimate question but I see no way that it has a positive answer.

It is human nature to want to know things. Religion falls into the category of experience where others just keep making it up.

4

I am 100% certain there is no god or supreme being exactly as I am 100% cartain that 1+1=2. Now if somebody brings proof and evidence that 1+1 is not two, or that there is a god out there, well then and only then I will change my mind.

4

I am 100% certain that santa claus, the easter bunny and gods do not exist.

That doesn’t really answer my question.

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