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Are you certain? Are you 100% sure? This is of course after answering no to the question "Do you think 1 or more gods exist?"
I've brought this tangent up in a few threads, I'm giving it a home here.
I am 99.99% sure that god(s) do not exist. I'm being hyperbolic, and keep in mind 97% of all statistics are made up on the spot. At any given time I'm in the 90+%, but for the sake of making a point, I will sit at 99.99% and ponder how to achieve the goal of 100%, how to get past that last .01%.
You can take the position that it doesn't matter, because practically speaking, it doesn't. Every day I assume that gods do not exist, as I go through my work day, come home and play with my kids, or surf internet forums. Being 99.99% sure, I'm comfortable making that assumption and basing decisions on it.
But when it comes down to being gnostic or agnostic, I find that being 100% certain is a lofty goal indeed when dealing with something that so little is known about. That last .01% is in fact impossible without resorting to definition twisting, defining god in a way that he can not exist. But even this will result in the same problem theists run into when they do the opposite: the gap problem (Connecting the thing you proved/disproved to some meaningful definition of god). But there is no way to assert anything about what exists in the universe when we haven't even managed to get an unmanned space exploration probe into .... something close to ..... 99.99% of it. Nevermind the existence of a being who could deceive us so thoroughly that we would be completely unaware of them standing next to us. Given 5 minutes I could come up with a handful of theories and hypothetical entities that would be impossible to disprove with certainty.
So unlikely the possibility can be ignored? Sure, in the practical sense. Impossible? 100% certainty? It turns out 99.99% is light years away from 100%.
Are there any 100%ers out there that can explain how they got past the last .01%?
I've brought this tangent up in a few threads, I'm giving it a home here.
I am 99.99% sure that god(s) do not exist. I'm being hyperbolic, and keep in mind 97% of all statistics are made up on the spot. At any given time I'm in the 90+%, but for the sake of making a point, I will sit at 99.99% and ponder how to achieve the goal of 100%, how to get past that last .01%.
You can take the position that it doesn't matter, because practically speaking, it doesn't. Every day I assume that gods do not exist, as I go through my work day, come home and play with my kids, or surf internet forums. Being 99.99% sure, I'm comfortable making that assumption and basing decisions on it.
But when it comes down to being gnostic or agnostic, I find that being 100% certain is a lofty goal indeed when dealing with something that so little is known about. That last .01% is in fact impossible without resorting to definition twisting, defining god in a way that he can not exist. But even this will result in the same problem theists run into when they do the opposite: the gap problem (Connecting the thing you proved/disproved to some meaningful definition of god). But there is no way to assert anything about what exists in the universe when we haven't even managed to get an unmanned space exploration probe into .... something close to ..... 99.99% of it. Nevermind the existence of a being who could deceive us so thoroughly that we would be completely unaware of them standing next to us. Given 5 minutes I could come up with a handful of theories and hypothetical entities that would be impossible to disprove with certainty.
So unlikely the possibility can be ignored? Sure, in the practical sense. Impossible? 100% certainty? It turns out 99.99% is light years away from 100%.
Are there any 100%ers out there that can explain how they got past the last .01%?
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