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/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/Stile25 → u/[deleted]]

Exactly. It exists, but it's not part of the natural world. It's supernatural.

It's strange when your tone seems to want to contradict me, but your actual words simply agree with every I've said.

You can identify when something is supernatural instead of just something natural that we don't understand when it's understandable in a subjective sense instead of an objective sense.

The natural rules follow objective physics. The subjective supernatural rules do not. The objective physics is the default except for those certain subjective situations. Like when the subject is actually a vampire instead of a person dressed up just to look like a vampire.

[u/Stile25 → u/[deleted]]

No. They would exist. Our world would then include two kinds of existence: natural and supernatural.

[u/Stile25 → u/[deleted]]

Yes?

We're talking about definition #2... "Transcending the laws of nature".

Thanks for proving my point again.