How can you be so sure?
I'm not 100% sure. I'm 99.99% sure. In other words I acknowledge that it is impossible to prove the non-existence of something.
What if there is? Changes nothing. It's lazy, incompetent and/or malicious. Epicurus was on point so long ago.
Exactly. By all appearances is indifferent to us, and likes playing hide and go seek, it would not be worthy of anyone's worship. A few examples: many animals must eat other animals to survive, the horrors of the slave trade, the Holocaust, innocent children dying of starvation, innocent children suffering in excruciating agony from terminal cancer, every adult, child, infant, and animal being deliberately drowned in a flood because it messed up.
When I say I'm 100% sure, I'm saying I'm 100% certain that there's no physical, verifiable evidence that even remotely suggests the possibility much less proves the existence. If we're really going to say we aren't 100% sure because a little book says otherwise, then you may as well say you're not 100% certain that Superman exists and reversed the rotation of the earth at some point.
if there was I would have killed the motherfuker a long time ago.
I'll help!
The idea of God is a human construct to give people power, comfort, fear, etc. The Christian God is no different than Thor, Athena, and so on. If you embrace the concept of one, might as well embrace them all.
However, there is no incontrovertible evidence to support the claim of the existence of any deity. Hence, I am 100% sure.
Well, to make the existence of god possible, even with the smallest probability; one must have distended the meaning of the word "god" so much that it won't be different from alien or an extraterrestrial being.
The gods described in various religious texts are so ridiculous that one has to completely close his eyes to logic just to make their existence possible.
Those of you 100% certain there are no purple winged polka dot dragons that orbit the earth. Or, is that reasonably possible? Or is this something that a reasonable human intellect "cannot know".
God can be a mushy topic where you need to define what your definition of god looks like -
is it the 'my person jesus who I talk to and who answers my prayers' then I would say 100% no.
If it is the 'distant judging father figure' version then I would again say 100% no as he would be a pointless uncommunicative bastard.
If it is the 'power of the universe' sort of impersonal amorphous blobby power thing then I would say meh not sure.
Whether or not I'm 100% sure or not depends on how "god" is defined. If it's an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, timeless, spaceless entity, then yes I am 100% certain that does not exist because that definition is self contradictory, and at times meaningless. Omnipotence alone is self contradictory. omnipresence makes no sense when combined with timelessness and spacelessness.
Those of you who are 100% certain of anything but your own existence...
How can you be so sure?
?
Honestly, how can you be 100% sure of your own existence, in the first place?
@dellik By definition. Something that has thoughts must exist. You are free to make your own definition, but then we would be talking about something different.
@indirect76 You have no way to know if you are actually having thoughts, or its all eddies in the void. Its equally feasibly you only exist in the context of anothers perception. Thoughts alone do not existence make. Cheap google AI's think they are people, when they are just running a moderately complex algorithm. I admit its mostly mental self flagellation at this point, but greater philosophers then we have pondered this. =D
@dellik We are talking about separate things then. Each of the examples you cite I would consider to be existing.
God is a fairytale and nothing more ; where is the proof that he does exist? We have a lot more evidence of evolution just from the fossil records and the layers of limestone.
Nobody asserts that. They assert they have 0% belief in a god, the same way most 'believers' lack any belief in the thousands of gods of other religions.
One of the questions that may come up when filling out your profile is "How certain are you that there are no gods?" to which many on this site respond '100%'. It is an assertion, and not the same as 0% certainty that god does exist.
@zing I took your question to be directed at all Atheists in general. In a more precise mood I would have said "almost nobody" or "a minority of Atheists". So if your question was directed only at Atheists who claim 100% certainty there are no gods, then I am interested in hearing their responses myself. I suspect that in many cases, they are using language in a semantically loose manner.
@Rossy92 You can read through the answers here. Some of the people made good points but nobody answered the question. I wasn't necessarily expecting a good answer, though I try to stay hopeful that one day this can be settled. It was more a thinking exercise, and my way of trying to get people to realize that to say with absolute certainty that there is no god is equally as imprudent as it to say there is one.
Perhaps I'm a weaker atheist here. If someone were to ask me if any god(s)/supreme beings exist I say: I don't know, but do not believe they exist because I have seen no compelling evidence to suggest that they do. If they were to ask me if the god(s) of all of the religions known to man exist, I'd say no or highly unlikely. As there is no good evidence or good reason to believe any of those exist, and highly faulty definitions of their own gods. Freewill for one cannot exist if a god is omniscient, that's just one example of how the christian god, as an example, is self-defeating. To add on to that, they all use the same justification for their existence. None have more evidence than another. Not all religions can be right, but they all can be wrong. What does the tell you about the faulty reasoning used for all these gods? If all gods existence (the greek gods and the christian god, as an example) can be proven on the faulty method of faith, then how reliable is faith? Why believe any exist when there is not enough or no evidence, currently, to suggest that they do? I'd say believe something after it has met its burden of proof and not before.
You can't be sure but you can't be sure about many things.