A word about agnosticism. A lot of folks get really bent out of shape about this possibility of ‘not knowing everything.’ “You can’t know everything, so you can’t say there is no god.” But you do not see them expressing this same degree of adamancy (a word, apparently too big for the breeches of our spellchecker) about certain other notions, ideas, or beliefs. Say, for example — these folks will NOT loose any sleep over their belief that Santa, fairies, leprechauns, and the gods of other religions do not exist.
How we approach this idea of knowledge though, is wrong headed.
There is NO SUCH thing as knowing everything. What do I mean by this? What I mean is that ALL knowledge is by definition, provisional and ever changing. There are quite a lot of truths which you KNOW because of their high probability of certainty — and that is what makes them your current truth, or knowledge.
It is HIGHLY probable that gravity is a thing. It is definitely possible that gravity is not a thing, and that tomorrow, science will update what you thought you knew. But for today — you have no problem declaring that gravity is a fact.
Similarly, you might be pretty damn sure that there is NO fresh-baked cake in your kitchen, right now. There is a possibility that you are wrong — but sometimes, absence of evidence IS evidence of absence, and so, you KNOW there is no such thing as a cake in your kitchen, right now.
Now, we KNOW that the ideas humankind has put forward about how a ‘god’ is are incompatible with science, logical argumentation, history, archaeology, physics, biology, etc. Not a SINGLE current anthropomorphic god, or god concept DEFINED by humankind, can pass the test of reason and logic — they self implode.
And we could say ‘what about a god who doesn’t participate in human affairs, who you can’t see, who doesn’t do anything demonstrable in the world, who doesn’t intervene in our lives, who is just energy, and the universe itself?’ And to this, I say — show me how this is different than an imaginary, or nonexistent god, or a universe with NO god at all. And how RELEVANT would such a possible god be, to anything? “Something we don’t know what it is, could exist.” Okay. It could. So what? Lots of things COULD exist. Their probabilities for existence are VERY low — lower than the probability of gravity not existing. Heck, I could have a fire breathing dragon in my pants’ pocket, for all you know!
We could get SO bogged down in ALL the possible things that COULD exist! But THANK GOODNESS that possibility is NOT the same thing as probability, nor will it ever be!
The fact of the matter is… that science is in the business of PROVING that things exist, because NO ONE can prove that something does not exist. And if we claim something exists — we are automatically making a claim about the factual world. A testable claim. A godly, interventionist being, such as is most commonly defined, should be able to have a CLEAR signature on the world, like for example, a book with foolproof answers on everything — from curing AIDS, to how we should time travel. And it would logically CARE if people were perverting ‘their words’ and going around and hurting each other, based on those perverted words. However, all we have are books with the primitive scribbles of men who did not know where the sun went at night… Much less, that the mind is a product of the brain.
Someone, very well could have baked a cake in my kitchen, and had it there… But when the oven isn’t even warm… well? And if a long time had passed, and there was nothing at all as proof of anything…? How would it matter? How would it change my life, in any way?
The answer is… IT WOULD NOT.
THERE IS NO GOD. THERE HAVE NEVER BEEN ANY GODS. AND THERE WILL NEVER BE ANY GODS.
You can confidently state this as a fact… until it is no longer, evidently, a fact.
