When it comes to God, my beliefs on can be classified as strong agnosticism and weak atheism. I’ve already written one essay, plus a couple of addenda, on this topic. It was mostly arguing the idea that “God probably doesn’t exist” (the atheist side). This essay focuses on the agnostic side of things: the idea that “we will never be able know whether God does or does not exist”.
The relevant Wikipedia article, which I linked to above, has a good definition of strong atheism:
Strong atheism is a term generally used to describe atheists who accept as true the proposition, “gods do not exist”.
To put that more clumsily, strong atheism is the belief that “there are no gods”. Weak atheism (which is what I believe in) is simply the lack of belief in god(s).
Once again, Wikipedia has better words than I for strong agnosticism:
Strong agnosticism or positive agnosticism is the belief that it is impossible for humans to know whether or not any deities exist.
This is different to weak agnosticism, which is the belief that the existence or nonexistence of deities is currently unknown, but not necessarily unknowable. I’m a strong agnostic, because I believe no-one will ever be able to know whether or not there is a God.
I now offer a pseudo-argument for strong agnosticism, which is meant to demonstrate that the whole issue of the creation of the universe is fundamentally illogical (to us) regardless of whether you’ve got a creator God, and that you can’t explain things away so simply (or explain them at all, in fact).
There is no satisfying answer to the question of creation. Either the universe has always existed or it was created out of nothing; neither option is logical. Adding God to the equation doesn’t give you a third option to choose from—either God has always existed (which would be the theist’s normal response), or God was created out of nothing.
If you can say “God has always existed”, and consider that a perfectly logical explanation, why can’t the same be said for the universe? The fact is, when you think about it, it’s not a logical explanation. The possibility of something always existing, without a starting point, is fundamentally illogical. With or without God, the same dissatisfying dichotomy applies.
Let’s say there is a God. He’s outside of our universe, our reality, the limits of what we can understand, but if there is a God, he certainly exists.
So, God exists. If something exists, but was never created, then it has always existed. By definition, if nothing created God, he has always existed. This has nothing to do with God being able to make his own rules. My argument is about our logic. This logic is the only kind we have, it’s the only thing we can use to assess and discuss the situation, and it’s the only thing that matters here.
Logically, the idea that God has always existed doesn’t make sense. To us. It can’t be comprehended. It’s like perpetual motion or something—it goes against all the laws of nature and the universe that we have.
At this point, you may point out that “God is not bound by these laws”. And of course, that’s right. I’m not trying to say “science says God can’t exist therefore God does not exist, QED”. I’m saying God doesn’t make sense.
A creatorless universe doesn’t make sense either. The universe being created out of nothing? Totally illogical. The universe always existing, having no starting point? Also uncomprehendable.
Obviously, I’m not now trying to say “science says the universe can’t exist therefore it does not exist, QED”. My argument, if you could call it that, is that, no matter the scenario, the creation of anything and everything, in the universe and beyond, is illogical.
And that’s the long-winded explanation for my strong agnosticism. Here’s some simpler reasoning:
If God exists, and he’s omnipotent, he will always be able to make it seem like he does not exist. This means we can never prove God does not exist. There is also no way for God to prove to me that he does exist: every sign could be explained with something else, since there’s the possibility that I’m mentally ill and imagining things.
As for the weak atheism, that’s essentially the default, faithless position to take. I can’t be a strong atheist (believing that “gods do not exist”) because strong agnosticm is the belief that we can never know whether that’s true. I could be a theist, but that requires the faith that, although we can never know whether it’s true, God does exist. I don’t have any reason to have that faith, and to me the idea of God just complicates things without offering any solutions. So, I’m a weak atheist with no specific belief in God.
In conclusion, I have no idea what my point is (perhaps “it’s just too much to comprehend so I might as go with the simplest explanation”), except that writing is so much more fun when I’m not being forced to do it.
