Born again Atheist

I have always considered myself a straight forward, "hard core" (pun intended) Agnostic. I was the epitome of fence sitting. I have thought to myself 'This is the only correct logical position to hold with regard to supernatural entities', due to, what i felt was a lack of evidence on both parts. In fact i have gone out of my way to support this position throughout this blog. I have made it clear that i feel the existence of god(s) is unknowable. However recently I've read a few fantastic books, one of which is "The God Delusion" by famous Atheist, Richard Dawkins. Richard classified Agnostics by two categories:

TAP
Temporary Agnostic in practice

This means: only agnostic about a hypothesis until the verdict is in and the evidence confirms its truth or fallacy.

PAP
Permanent Agnostic in Principle

This means: Permanently Agnostic due to the belief that the hypothesis in question will always remain unanswerable.



Upon recent reflection and "soul searching" i have realized that my position as a PAP is a paradox. I have decided (logically i hope) that claiming that a thing is unknowable is in essence making a claim about the unknown outcome of future knowledge. Summarize in less philosophical mumbo jumbo:

If-

One claims that gods existence or non-existence will forever be a question without an answer.

That sentence in itself is a statement of knowledge.

I cannot know that it will forever be an unanswered question.

Thus to be a Permanent Agnostic in Principle is a paradox.

So....I changed my position to that of the TAP, a wise position to hold if uneducated about matters of religion. For most who are uninformed, this is the only "safe" or logical position to hold. However in light of my recent education via Richard Dawkins, i can use the shading of probability to determine whether or not there is a high, low or neutral probability of god(s) existence. I can safely say that i now share the atheist point of view on matters of the supernatural, due to what i have found is a high probability of god(s) non-existence.

Here is an example of what i mean by the shading of probability and how it changes our perception of what is reality:

One could say that i should not go outside because i might be killed by a satellite falling out of orbit and smashing me to a pulp. I know that the probability of that event happening to me is very, very, slim to none (for the record i feel the existence of god is less probable than this example) though i cannot with 100% certainty say that such an event is impossible, no one would hold the opinion that this as a real danger. Nor should one logically base any bit of their life on this possibility.

If you claim there is a god, i cannot prove that you are wrong with 100% certainty, However with the shading of probability i feel confident that you are almost certainly wrong.

I will be updating The Revolution with many new blogs on the subject of Atheism and the logic behind this position. I will also be updating past posts, where i feel i was holding an incorrect position. Please keep that in mind while reading any post prior to this date. Hopefully readers will continue to add there wonderful comments, and we can continue to debate and discuss the subject.