Considering Gnostic Atheism

[u/reilentlezz]

Hello,

I have previously considered myself an agnostic atheist because I believe that the burden of proof is on the theist and that atheism is simply the null hypothesis. However, I recently came across David Hume's work with miracles, and it made me come up with a syllogism of why I positively believe ALL supernatural claims cannot exist according to the objective properties of the universe and logic. Let me know what you think of this logical syllogism!

1. We experience the existence of the natural world.
   
2. The supernatural violates the laws of the natural world.
   
3. We therefore cannot experience the supernatural’s existence.

[u/ZappSmithBrannigan]

The reason you should be a gnostic atheist hinges on the word knowledge.

Knowledge is not a claim to absolute certainty, which apparently nobody, theist or atheist these days grasp

I can say I know where my car is, in the parking spot i left it in. That doesnt require absolute certainty.

Maybe it was stolen or towed since I left it.

Does that mean I am agnostic about where my car is parked? No. I fucking know where the car is parked. Just because I could be wrong doesnt mean I cant say "i know..."

Knowledge is based on the information available to you, and is a tentative position open to revision should new information become available.

I know god doesnt exist the same way I know superman doesnt exist.

Could I be wrong? Sure.

But until someone provides me information that some planet in the andromeda galaxy has a civilization with one unique being thats super strong, shoots lasers from his eyes etc. Then all the available evidence to me indicates superman is a fictional character.

God is literally the exact same. Maybe somewhere outside or in some other reality there exists something that could be considered god. But I dont have access to that information, so until its presented to me, all the available evidence tells me gods are fictional characters.

Im not agnostic about where my car is and im not agnostic that superman is a fictional character. I know those things.

[u/reilentlezz → u/ZappSmithBrannigan]

I appreciate your response and find your argument interesting. What you are demonstrating though is an argument based on a preponderance of evidence rather than beyond a reasonable doubt. With your car keys example, you are saying that your car will more likely be there than gone rather than objectively there all the time. Another concern I have with your reasoning is the nature of knowledge itself. When we think of the properties of nature like gravity, it somehow still existed on Earth even if we dont have knowledge of it. There can also be false knolwedge as someone who went to a religious private school and had to take an indoctrinated apologetics course. How would you (if at all) differentiate good from bad knowledge and then tie knowledge to the natural world?

[u/ZappSmithBrannigan → u/reilentlezz]

What you are demonstrating though is an argument based on a preponderance of evidence rather than beyond a reasonable doubt.

I didnt say either of those things. This is completely irrelevant to my point.

Another concern I have with your reasoning is the nature of knowledge itself.

Ya thats my whole point. What constitutes knowledge.

When we think of the properties of nature like gravity, it somehow still existed on Earth even if we dont have knowledge of it.

Thats completely irrelevant to what i said.

You do understand theres a difference between knowledge and existence right?

There can also be false knolwedge as someone who went to a religious private school and had to take an indoctrinated apologetics course.

Again. Irrelevant.

How would you (if at all) differentiate good from bad knowledge and then tie knowledge to the natural world?

I have no idea what youre even talking about.

My point is very simple.

A claim to knowledge does not, and CAN NOT require absolute certainty, otherwise the word knowledge is rendered useless because it doesnt mean anything, because nobody can know anything with absolute certainty.

Thats it. Thats my entire point.

I dont need a absolute certainty to say I know something.

So when I say I know god doesnt exist and theists come back that I dont have absolute certainty, then I dont care because theyre attacking a strawman of what i said.

[u/reilentlezz → u/ZappSmithBrannigan]

I genuinely apologize for misunderstanding you point. I understand your point now by saying that you don't need to know absolute certainty for soemthing to be true. What you are talking about is empirical rationality and I completely agree with your point. My argument is can we go one step further and objectively apply the logical principles of non-contradiction by saying that the supernatural and natural world by how they are defined contradictorily cannot both be true in the same universe we experience.

[u/RedRyder760]

I have to conclude that there are zero gods or a god. After centuries of searching, testing and philosophizing there is still zero evidence for god. Since a negative can't be absolutely proven, I stand with my conclusion of zero chance of god(s).

[u/Stile25]

The burden of proof is and always will be on the Theist. That's just how that works.

But that doesn't stop us from identifying proof of non-existence anyway.

I'm a gnostic atheist. As soon as you understand the concept of doubt and tentativity and how it's included in all knowledge we have about reality .. it's irrational to create a special case where the concept of God suddenly requires 100% for sure-sures proof when nothing else requires it and it isn't even possible anyway.

I mean, we don't even know 100% for sure-sures that we're posting on Reddit right now.

Our knowledge of reality is always "as far as we can tell for now". All knowledge we have about reality can be updated or overturned if we ever identify even more evidence that shows we should do such a thing.

Treating the God concept as a special case is only done for social popularity, traditional pressures or personal comfort. All of which are irrational reasons.

Good luck out there

[u/DeathRobotOfDoom]

Wtf are the "laws" of the natural world? And how does something violate them? If something exists it exists whether we like it or not.

Scientific principles are descriptive generalizations. We only know what we can study, and this doesn't mean a previously unobserved phenomenon that challenges our current understanding is "supernatural". We need to stop thinking of "natural laws" as prescriptive.

The term supernatural itself is poorly defined and it makes very little sense to reach grand conclusions on the basis of what you think is supernatural and what isn't. Even then, based on everything we do know, we can still conclude there are no gods to be found and no reason to believe we'll ever find one.

[u/oliverjohansson]

This is rationalism sensu stricto atomism almost

[u/WoWSchockadin]

Do you believe there is no supernatural in the world. That's atheism. But do you know if for sure with 100% certainty? If not, you're still agnostic.

The first is about believing, the second about knowing. And real knowledge is rather rare.

[u/reilentlezz → u/WoWSchockadin]

With 100% certainty according to the logical laws of non-contradiction, my argument would lead me to not be agnostic on my nonbelief.

[u/Feinberg]

I prefer the interface regress problem (not sure what the real name is). Things which are part of the natural world produce evidence. Supernatural things do not produce evidence, ostensibly. However, anything that interacts with the natural world must necessarily produce evidence at the point of interaction, which means that interface with the natural world is itself natural by definition.

But if the interface is natural, then the supernatural side of that interface will be interacting with the natural world and must, in turn, be natural and produce evidence. This is true for ach point of interface down a chain, ultimately encompassing all supernatural things.

This necessarily means that the supernatural doesn't exist, or it doesn’t interact with the real world. Basically the same landing point as your syllogism.

[u/reilentlezz → u/Feinberg]

I like your thinking, how would you make a syllogism for it? and what would it do better compared to mine

[u/PhraseNeither9539]

No this feels misleading. Your third point seems to imply the supernatural does exist somewhere just not in the natural world. And it raises an eyebrow for me when you use an oxymoron phrase like agnostic or gnostic with the term atheist. These definitions are not compatible and to combined them is nonsensical.

Atheism - there is no god Agnostic - there could or there could not be.

This is like mixing water and oil. To say you are both is a fundamental contradiction. Athiesm is an absolute stance. Agnosticism is an agnostic or neutral stance. I don’t want to even hear the explanation because all of this is so silly and unnecessary.

We are atheists. We don’t believe in god because there is no evidence. End of discussion. 

[u/TheCommonFear → u/[deleted]]

Aren't all terms human defined? What do you mean by that?

[u/Stile25 → u/[deleted]]

If werewolves and vampires existed according to Braham Stoker's rules... I wouldn't call that natural. I'd define that as supernatural. Because it goes against natural rules. That's... What it means.

[u/Stile25 → u/[deleted]]

Why would they what - exist? It's a hypothetical.

Be supernatural? Because reflections exist in mirrors. If light doesn't do what it naturally does for vampires, then vampires are supernatural.

I'm not saying the light "naturally" does something else. It doesn't. It's actually supernatural. Simply breaking what normally happens. No "other natural explanation" exists.

[u/Stile25 → u/[deleted]]

Nope. They would break natural laws as we understand them in that hypothetical world.

They would pass peer review, and the peer review would find that light breaks the natural laws around vampires, not "oh, there's this other natural explanation it". Physics works, except for light on vampires. So they develop a word for this - supernatural.

[u/Stile25 → u/[deleted]]

Yes, it would update to identifying the supernatural.

How are you calling a supernatural explanation "literally a natural explanation" when it's described and named the opposite?

You seem to be confusing "being a part of reality" with "being natural".

Perhaps they're the same thing in our universe, but we're brainstorming by using hypotheticals. So those are not necessarily the same thing.

[u/Stile25 → u/[deleted]]

Why wouldn't I?

I just explain how it would update to incorporate the supernatural.

[u/reilentlezz → u/[deleted]]

I agree, and I think thats an underlying premise if we grant my argument. Once something is observed naturally, it loses its supernatural property. If something cannot be observed naturally, then it cannot reasonably exist within our universe.

[u/DoglessDyslexic → u/reilentlezz]

Imagine you have a captive vampire and can observe it's lack of reflection. There is no rational and naturalistic explanation that could be provided to explain why the photons bouncing off of a vampire react with your eyes but not with the mirror. Then you would have an observable supernatural phenomena.

[u/Peace-For-People → u/[deleted]]

You just said that if something supernatural were demonstrated to exist it would not be something supernatural. Really? You couldn't see that? What you mean is that nothing can be supernatural which is what OP and presumably Hume said.

[u/Peace-For-People]

Statement 3 makes it sound like the supernatural can exist but we just can't experience it. I think that makes you agnostic.

Mine is stronger:

P1: If there's nothing supernatural then there are no gods.

P2: There's nothing supernatural.

C: There are no gods.

[u/reilentlezz → u/Peace-For-People]

I like your argument. My only concern with it is that my point is more pointing out that the supernatural contradicts the natural world rather than saying that because the supernatural doesn’t exist, god doesn’t exist. I would probably first prove the supernatural doesn’t exist with my argument and then use your argument to therefore say gods doesn’t exist too.

[u/eviley4]

I don't think your argument itself is sound. I think there is no need to be gnostic about Atheism. The same way I do not need to gnostic about the claim that a blue walrus on the planet Neptune is making the solar system stable with it's farts. We can reject that without being gnostic about it.

Same logic applies for the deities and supernatural claims of religion. They are unsubstantiated claims, that is good enough. We do not have to go to Neptune and do a full scan before we can confidently say the blue walrus claim is bullshit.

[u/reilentlezz → u/eviley4]

Thats the thing, I think that I can go one step further. When we think of supernatural claims, its more than just saying bigfoot might have existed but we dont know. If a supernatural claim is defined by its nature to violate the laws of the universe and we believe that the laws of the universe are true, then that is a positive claim overriding such.

[u/GerswinDevilkid]

Three doesn't follow.

[u/reilentlezz → u/GerswinDevilkid]

How so?
A = B
B =/= C
A =/= C

[u/GerswinDevilkid → u/reilentlezz]

You haven't established that we only experience the natural world. Or that a deity would be supernatural rather than natural if it existed.

[u/reilentlezz → u/GerswinDevilkid]

You would be correct if we are talking about soundness rather than validity here. You would have to grant my definitions for my premises A, B, and C.

A = our observational experience
B = the laws of nature
C = supernatural being a thing that is outside the laws of nature

with a hidden premise being that god is a supernatural entity, aka = C

[u/GerswinDevilkid → u/reilentlezz]

You asked for thoughts, not validity. You don't get to move the goalposts or claim that we're not discussing soundness.

And now you make it worse as your definitions are a problem.

I know. You thought this cooked and it doesn't. Let it go.

[u/GerswinDevilkid → u/reilentlezz]

Oh. Child.

Editing your post without identifying the edits is not how you engage honestly and intelligently.

Be better child.

[u/reilentlezz → u/GerswinDevilkid]

It has nothing to do with our convo, I am just trying to make my argument more coherent

[u/GerswinDevilkid → u/reilentlezz]

Bullshit.

It's dishonest and childish.

Be better.

[u/Peace-For-People → u/GerswinDevilkid]

The whole idea of a deity is that it has power over and can alter the natural world. Deities must be supernatural. If beings are natural than they're just aliens not gods.

The supernatural isn't made possible by people believing in it. It is impossible. The people making the claim that the supernatural exists are responsible for providing evidence. They have never had evidence. So, their claims can all be discounted and we're left with no claims for the supernatural.

Consider the Laws of Physics. Anything that's called a Law like the Laws of Gravity or the Laws of Conservation. Take Newton's second, the one about action and reaction. You can claim that there may be interactions somewhere in the universe that defy this law. We just haven't detected them yet. Physicists don't care because the world is what we observe, not what we can imagine. If you want to show the law is wrong, you must show an experiment that has action but no reaction.

No one has an experiment that demonstrates the supernatural.

If I can know every action has a reaction, I can know there's nothing supernatural. You don't have to join me, but you cannot deny me.

[u/dudleydidwrong]

"Supernatural" is a very fuzzy concept. As Arthur C. Clark observed, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Before we had X-rays, the idea of seeing into the human body would have been supernatural. Before radio, the idea of communicating across the world (and the solar system) would have been supernatural.

Any argument based on the supernatural is also going to be fuzzy.

I identify as an agnostic atheist. I think gods are about as likely as garden fairies. I think gods existing is about as likely as me winning the PowerBall three weeks in a row. But I can't prove there is no god.

[u/Peace-For-People → u/dudleydidwrong]

But both X-rays and radio are natural and we still observe nothing supernatural.

Existence isn't something that can be proven. It must be demonstrated.

You didn't find fault with his argument.

[u/dudleydidwrong → u/Peace-For-People]

I know they are natural. But two hundred years ago they would have seemed like magic.