My question then is to discover what is a "logical" statement about anything?

AH wants to know how we can, if we are not perfect, how can we know perfection. I'm curious to hear a logical answer.

Atheism makes the positive statement,"There is no God."  Statements require proof.  There is no proof that there is no God, because it is logically impossible to disprove God empirically, just as it is impossible to prove God empirically.  Then the common objection is, "Well, you could believe in purple dancing hobbits on the planet jupiter."  Well, yes you could, but that belief would not be justified by any evidence or inferences.  That is, we can choose to ignore whether or not these dancing hobbits exist.  We can  choose not to believe in them, but we cannot logically say they do not exist.

Hi, David.  My first reaction to your post was that you didn't really understand atheists.  Very few atheists actually believe, or will say, that they can disprove the existence of gods.  Most will only say that they have no belief in the existence of gods.  And they will expect those who do have such a belief to provide support for their belief.  A lesser number will actually admit to a positive belief that gods do not exist.  I am among that lesser number.  Still, though, very few of that lesser number will claim to have a logical proof that gods do not exist.  At best, they will offer logical proofs that some version of the Christian God cannot logically exist.

Now your remark about the purple dancing hobbits (PDHs) on Jupiter was right on target.  You don't believe in PDHs, but you don't pretend to have a logical proof that they don't exist.  You merely point out that belief in them is not justified by any evidence or inferences.  So you are an a-PDH-ist in precisely the same sense that I am an atheist.  Just as your PDHs can logically exist, I am perfectly happy to say that gods are a logical possibility.  There is just no reasonable evidence to license such a belief.

No, I am not an atheist towards the dancing hobbits.  I am an agnostic towards them.  Atheism makes the positive statement.  Agnosticism merely claims that all belief in God is unjustifiable.  Part of my point in making this thread is to point out how few atheists actually know what they believe.

I don't think that any of us can claim absolute knowledge of anything other than direct experiences.  But you misunderstand the difference between agnosticism and atheism, which are not mutually incompatible points of view.  Agnosticism is about what we 'know'.  It is reasonable to say that we cannot know for sure whether gods or purple dancing hobbits exist.  Atheism is about what we 'believe'.  Even though I cannot know whether God exists, I can certainly have an opinion.  My opinon is that he does not.  I can list a lot of different reasons why I hold that opinion--e.g. that brainless minds don't seem very plausible or that we don't seem to live in a universe where gods are useful explanations of anything or that there are too many incompatible beliefs about gods to make any such beliefs reliable.  The point is that atheists do not claim to have logical proof that gods don't exist, but they don't need such proofs to hold such an opinion any more than you need logical proof against PDHs to reject belief in their existence.

Your post also confuses me.  You say "I am perfectly happy to say that gods are a logical possibility"(which, by the way, is an agnostic position) but then before that you make the positive statement that God does not exist.

I also consider it a logical possibility that unicorns exist, but I believe that they don't exist.  And I don't deny agnosticism.  I merely point out that agnosticism and atheism are not the mutually incompatible positions that people think they are.  One is a position on what we know.  The other is a position on what we believe.

So you admit that he could exist logically, but then you say he doesn't, and the only proofs you could ever possibly offer would be logical, because empirical proofs are out of the question to begin with.

Empirical arguments are not out of the question.  A lot depends on how you define gods.  But we can certainly examine the plausibility of belief in gods, can't we?  I don't find gods plausible beings, because the reality I live in just isn't what I would expect if gods did exist.  I could be wrong, but I see no reasonable evidence that I am.  Do you have a logical proof that Santa Claus does not exist?  You can certainly come up with a lot of good reasons to reject belief in a magical being that delivers Christmas presents to children, but does your disbelief in Santa require logical proof?  Or maybe you just count yourself an agnostic on the subject of Santa's existence.  

That being said, lets hear your 'proof' that the Christian God does not exist.

There are several of them in the philosophical literature.  More recently, a book entitled The Impossibility of God enumerates a number of them.  Very often people bring up theodicy as a logical conundrum for God's existence--the incompatibility of omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, and the existence of evil.  But I have some other favorites.  One is the paradox of omnipotence--an all powerful God that can experience vulnerabilities.  In principle, if God were truly omnipotent, he could never suffer in any way.  Only beings that have the potential to experience danger can suffer.  Yet Christians often deptict God as a being that suffers.

Cop, I want you to read this carefully.  We must agree on this before we can move on, and certianly before I can convince you of my position.

Here is the definition of "atheism" according to dictionary.com:

1.Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
The doctrine that there is no God or gods.

Here is Webster's College Dictionary definition:

The doctrine that there is no God.

Here is dictionary.com's definition of "doctrine":

1A principle or body of principles presented for acceptance or belief, as by a religious, political, scientific, or philosophic group; dogma.
2A rule or principle of law, especially when established by precedent.
3A statement of official government policy, especially in foreign affairs and military strategy.
4Archaic. Something taught; a teaching.

Here is the definition of "principle":
A basic truth, law, or assumption

Therefore, atheists believe that it is a "basic truth" that there is no God.

Here is the definition of  "agnosticism" according to dictionary.com:

1The doctrine that certainty about first principles or absolute truth is unattainable and that only perceptual phenomena are objects of exact knowledge.
2The belief that there can be no proof either that God exists or that God does not exist.

(1=the basic truth that certainties about basic truth is unattainable, only sensory perception matters)

Here is the definition of "agnosticism" according to WCD:

1One who holds that the ultimate causes, such as God, are unknowable.

Heeeyyy, whaddaya know theres even a little blurb set aside from the other definitions that says:

"The agnostic believes we do not have enough evidence to say whether or not God exists.  The atheist is certian God does not exist."

So to correct you, I am going to say that agnosticism is about what we DON'T know.  Atheism is a about what we "know".  Atheists know that God does not exist.  The agnostic says that there is not enough evidence either way to say anything for sure.  The agnostic can say " I don't believe in God, but they would say this because they believe that there is lack of evidence for God, not because there is evidence against him.  Lack of evidence does not equal evidence against.

To paraphrase more,

Atheist "know" there is no God through what they believe is proof against his existence.(which is the very thing I am attempting to undermine in this thread).  Therefore they don't believe in him.

To paraphrase even more,

Atheists know God does not exist, therefore they dont believe in him.
Agnostics don't know whether or not God does not exist, therefore they could reasonably say they dont believe he exists, but they could just as reasonably say that he does exist, because to them it doesnt matter one way or the other.  They will never know.

Cop, read this thread by Johnny.                                                                                                                                                                                                           http://www.sntjohnny.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1540                                                                                                                                                                                                         Then you will understand why empirical evidence is impossible to invoke on or against Gods behalf.  Forget about Jesus for now.  The point of this thread is to force every Atheist to admit that the statement "there is no God" is totally absurd.

...The point of this thread is to force every Atheist to admit that the statement "there is no God" is totally absurd.

Good luck.  

The statement "I believe" has no burden of proof.  The statement "I know" has a burden of proof.  Do you agree?

Not really.  I think that any positive assertion has a burden of proof, including the assertion that gods do not exist.  I have a very strong conviction that gods do not exist.  What is the evidence for this claim?  Here is a partial list:

[list=1]

• Minds require physical brains.  Gods are immaterial.
• Gods are not necessary to explain physical phenomena.  Historically, god-based explanations of natural phenomena (e.g. weather, earthquakes, solar eclipses, human origin, age of earth) have proven false.
• Most gods that humans have ever believed in are false gods, which means that no particular god is likely to be real.  
• Gods appear unable to communicate effectively with people. (Divine silence)
• Prayer and revelation are unreliable.  They usually fail, and no religious group seems more favored than any other (or even atheists).
• Belief in gods depends entirely on the serendipity of geographical location.
• Belief in gods can be explained as a natural tendency in humans to personify nature.
• Gods appear to be human-like entities that have created a universe in which is overwhelmingly hostile to human existence.
[/list:o]

These are just the ones that come to mind at the moment, but there are lots of observations that count as reasons to doubt the existence of gods.  They license the claims that gods in general, and God specifically, do not exist.  However, I do not need to take such a strong position in order to be considered an atheist.  The utter lack of evidence for gods is enough grounds to dismiss their existence.  Beliefs that do not require evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

Stop right there.  To know something is to claim it as being true.  To claim something as being true is a positive assertion.

That is true.  I was disagreeing with the first sentence, not your second one.  Your first sentence was The statement "I believe" has no burden of proof.  You misunderstood what I was disagreeing with.

Quote

I think that any positive assertion has a burden of proof, including the assertion that gods do not exist

 
Hmmm...  so what you are really saying is, "I agree."  Please don't take my points and try to pass them off as your own.

I hope that the matter is clarified now.  I was not trying to do that.  I was actually saying that your standard for "burden of proof" was too low.

So we agree that positive statements require proof.  

Did you read Johnny's post?

I skimmed the thread, which was quite a ramble.  I don't have time to go through it all and make guesses at which points you want to address.  To save time, it would help if you would paraphrase them here.

If not, read it.  If so, did you understand it?

Following sntjohnny's train of reasoning is quite a challenge for me, but I'm glad that you found it inspiring.  I don't see how it has much bearing on what we have been discussing, since it has mainly been over the meanings of "agnosticism" and "atheism".  My main point has been that one can reasonably believe claims that one cannot prove logically or in an absolute sense.  It is a matter of weighing evidence.  Evidential proofs use logic, but they are not in themselves logical proofs.

Read the part of Johnny's post where he talks about the creator and its relationship to the created.  He uses Shakespeare and Hamlet as an example.  Read that part.

OK, I read it.  The idea that Johnny expressed was that God could be seen as the metaphorical author of a fictional race of beings.  The author could reveal itself to the fictional characters, but they, not being on the same plane of existence as the author, were in no position to fully understand or perceive the author that created them.  As with all metaphors, it reveals similarities, and it fudges dissimilarities.  That is why metaphors, no matter how attractive, are not logically valid arguments.  Fictional characters are imaginary beings that have no real existence.  Humans really exist.  So the analogy breaks down.

...My point is that you cannot rationally say "God does not exist" because this statement requires burden of empirical proof which is out of the question to begin with.(read Johnny's post and you will understand why I say that).  You can also read the "Harry's Huckleberry" thread to get a sense of what I mean.

"Harry's Huckleberry" thread is still in progress, and I will continue to monitor it.  Sntjohnny, as usual, is promising to construct an argument.  Also as usual, the argument is slow in coming and getting bogged down in side issues.  I actually did list some reasons why I think that the statement "God does not exist" is a reasonable position to take.  It is reasonable to the extent that statements such as "Santa Claus does not exist" and "The tooth fairy does not exist" are reasonable.  Can you explain why I should consider those last two assertions reasonable, but not the statement "God does not exist"?