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WillowOne's Positions

Hard Atheism

My Positions

  1. I cannot know that God does not exist.
  2. I therefore do not hold the hard atheist position, which asserts positive knowledge that no god exists.
  3. This is not a concession to theism. It is the same limitation that applies to any unfalsifiable claim, and it does not make the god claim any more likely to be true.

Notes

  1. Given common definitions of God, the existence of such an entity is inherently unfalsifiable. While I do not accept the existence of such an entity (that is, I am an atheist), I cannot know with certainty that such a being does not exist. This limitation applies to any claim that is, by its nature, unfalsifiable: I also cannot know that there is no teapot orbiting the Sun between Earth and Mars (Russell's Teapot; Bertrand Russell, "Is There a God?", 1952).
  2. There is an exception. Where a specific god is defined with attributes that are logically contradictory, or that entail claims which have been falsified, I can say that that god does not exist, in the same way I can say there are no married bachelors. A god that is both omnipotent and unable to lie, or a god who created the world in 4004 BC, does not exist. The vaguer the definition, the less this applies, which is why definitions tend to get vaguer under pressure (see Motte-and-bailey fallacy).
  3. The distinction between hard (or "gnostic", or "strong") atheism and soft (or "agnostic", or "weak") atheism is a distinction about knowledge, not about belief. Both are atheists; only the hard atheist makes a knowledge claim.
  4. Theists sometimes argue that soft atheism is "really" agnosticism, and that the atheist is therefore being evasive. It is not evasion. "I do not believe your claim" and "I know your claim is false" are different statements, and only the first is required to decline the claim. The burden of proof remains with the person asserting that something exists (Hitchens' Razor).

Also see