muso wrote on Feb 8
th, 2009 at 9:06pm:
.....As for me, I know that there are no gods. (that's another category) I know this through a very life changing and personal experience while sitting watching the sky in a very peaceful bushland location - a moment of epiphany and resolution of amazing clarity. I know in my mind that this is the truth.....
Positions on the existence of God, [appended with muso's personal determination]....
1. There are people who believe that there is no God.
2. There are people who believe that there may be a God. But hey, they don't know.
3. There are people who believe that there is a God, and they pray to him.
4. There are people who
know there is a God.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
5. There are people who know there is no God.#5. There are people who know there is no God. ???muso,
Every human being on the planet can accept / select one of the 1st four propositions above, and accept one of them as a valid proposition.
But not one human being on the planet could take on proposition #5, as a valid proposition.
Why not?
Because no human being is omniscient, or omnipresent.
For us to be certain [that within the 'confines' of an 'infinite' universe
] that there was no God, a human being would need to be omniscient, or omnipresent.
Dictionary,
omniscient = = knowing everything.
Dictionary,
omnipresent = = present everywhere at the same time.
Human beings don't possess such knowledge or 'presence'.
I would postulate, that most human beings who [for example] are the parents of teenage children, barely know where their children are, from one moment to the next, and certainly do not know what their teenage children are 'doing'.
The only way a human being can know for certain that there is no God [in an 'infinite' universe], is if that human being possesses knowledge of 'all things'.
I would go so far as to postulate, that no human being alive today is omniscient, or omnipresent.
Dictionary,
postulate = = suggest or assume the existence, fact, or truth of (something) as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or belief.
++++++++
Tasmanian Tigers [thylacine] are thought to be extinct.
Dictionary,
thylacine = = a doglike carnivorous Tasmanian marsupial with striped hindquarters, probably extinct.
Q.
Can you, or anyone else, prove conclusively, today, that Tasmanian Tigers are extinct?
A.
No.
The extinction of the thylacine could be a
likely proposition.
BUT AT THIS TIME, IT IS A PROPOSITION WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PROVE [because of the vastness of the Tasmanian wilderness].
Logical proposition....
In an infinite 'universe' it is not logically possible to prove a negative proposition [i.e. to prove that something does
*not* exist].
Whereas, in an infinite 'universe', it is logically possible to prove a positive proposition.
FURTHER....
Q.
If God has NOT revealed himself to a certain individual, can that individual, in an infinite 'universe', have a certain knowledge that [a] God does not exist?
Well apparently, you can muso.