I once asked a similar question, except more "symmetrical" if you will:

In case one of the common religions is right (about their deity), then what would it take to think otherwise?
Conversely, in case they're wrong and there aren't such deities, then what would it take to believe otherwise?

I feel like the answer to this is already made apparent by the fact that any one person has their own set of beliefs, and likely still will unless they can be proven wrong. So in the event that the Christian deity actually does exist but we don't know it, those who do not currently believe that deity exists would more than likely require physical proof of His existence in order to develop a belief in Him, and vice versa.

My point for this post was simply to indicate what probably brought about the concept of God as we know Him, and I believe that it is true since it makes sense on so many levels. For instance, the first people to experience the natural human sensation that I described probably first used the term "God" to define this sensation, and they ultimately decided to give praise for it since they did not realize that the sensation was perfectly natural and happens to all people. This likely led to the first semblance of a religion, and others likely followed.

This is actually the very first time that I have had a concept make perfect sense to me, and I believe that the problem up until now was that I wasn't aware that people would feel any instinctive sensation or presence if there was no such thing as religion, probably because religion has pretty much always been a part of my life since I was a child. But now that I know what I know, the idea that I have described does in fact make perfect sense to me, and I also feel like it solves the question that I have been trying to answer for so long regarding whether "God" exists. You don't have to agree with what I have said here, but I feel like it is irrefutable and makes perfect sense given the premise.

If experiencing the thing in question sensorily is all that's required, surely some religious folks--and often the ones who wrote religious texts, claim to have sensorily experienced god

This could very easily be the case, but to argue that is to say that those who wrote the religious texts had themselves only had ideas or witnessed things that would cause them to believe they had experienced God sensorily. This still does not change anything about my initial argument, though, which was that Gods are not tangible things whose presence has ever been physically seen.

If those who wrote religious texts claimed to have experienced God sensorily, that is no different than them suddenly claiming that there is a being that exists which they decided to call God (or whatever name you want to apply), then writing texts over a period of time about this being and things that He supposedly did. But how does any of this make it any more likely that the being exists? In general, to experience something by sight is to prove that it exists, but God cannot be experienced in this manner, or any other manner for that matter. I.E. God cannot be heard, touched, smelled, etc. so by this logic no human could truly have experienced God sensorily in spite of their claims.

It seems like you are stating a conclusion. I read the post and it seems like it is presented as deduction, when in fact it is just a conclusion.

It is more like a deduction that is being used to come to a conclusion, but yes, you are correct.

Why wouldn't your argument work for something like the sun, or Mount Olympus?

Because unlike Gods, the existence of the sun or mount Olympus can be established by their physical presence since they can be seen. There is no disputing their existence in spite of them being defined by someone at some point, because they can be said to have existed by pure nature of the fact that they can be seen, and therefore whoever identified them knew of their presence by seeing them. Meanwhile, because Gods cannot (and could never) be physically seen, this poses a challenge as to what their existence is contingent upon, or how their existence was conceptualized by those who initially defined them.

Also, I think you’re 1) conflating atheism and agnosticism and b) presupposing that atheism is an argument for God’s nonexistence. The latter would be limited to “hard” atheism; atheism (a-theism) per se is simply (defined as) an absence of theistic belief (theism), not an affirmative belief that God doesn’t exist.

That is, everyone is born an atheist.

This is actually indeed part of the point that I was trying to make. As you say "everyone is/(was) born an atheist," and that includes those who were born prior to the founding of any religion and the defining of their subsequent God.

On the other hand, if, as you say and as I agree, everyone is born an atheist, then it automatically follows that no one has or will have any concept of a defined God without being introduced to the concept, and from this we can conclude that no human was aware of any Gods before they were defined or identified by their respective religions, and as such Gods as we know them may as well have not existed prior to that since existence is relative, not absolute, and there is nothing to define Gods other than their alleged existence (I.E. they cannot be physically seen).

Of course this does not eliminate the possibility that Gods could still have existed prior to being defined by their respective religions, but this argues against the relative existence theory, as this theory also necessarily applies to and does not forgo the people who defined or introduced the concept of Gods in the first place. These people, in other words, could not have truly had any concept of Gods to give them identities, since it has been established that no human could have been aware of a God's hypothetical presence in order to define them or give them a name/identity, and so it follows that the presence of Gods is itself undefined/undetermined for that reason.

You might also consider that existence is binary, I.E. something either exists or it doesn't, even though existence is not contingent upon whether or not the thing has been defined.

For those of you who don't want to read the entire post and just want a summary, it basically comes down to you would have no way to know about any God if they had not been defined by anything (such as religion), since you also cannot physically see them. So therefore how would you know they existed in the absence of religion? If you would not know that they exist in the absence of religion, then defining/connecting them religion only shows that they supposedly exist, but you still have no way of knowing since you can't see them.
It would be like if I said a creature exists and I called him Seymour but Seymour cannot be physically seen, you would not have any concept of Seymour or any way to know about him if I had not defined him since you can't see him.

The particular God definition, as a Christian-type God, didn't exist before it was defined, but that type of God might well exist before anyone defines Him.

In that case, let's assume for instance that the object that we know of today as the Rosetta Stone was not defined as such until the 7th century, even if it existed and was known about prior to the 7th century. The stone could have existed and humans could have been aware of it prior to it being defined as the Rosetta Stone, but it cannot be assumed that the stone does not exist or it was simply made up as a story regardless of whether humans had witnessed or were aware of it prior to its defining, because the stone is tangible and can and has been witnessed by multiple humans since its defining, and therefore it does clearly exist in spite of anything. But the same argument cannot be made for any God. Unlike the Rosetta Stone, it can indeed be assumed that any God does not exist or was made up in conjunction with their respective religions, and the reason why is because Gods are not tangible and cannot be physically witnessed, and for this reason we also don't know if humans were aware of or considered the presence of any given God before the God was defined in conjunction with its religion. On the other hand we have to assume that this was not the case, because I don't know how anyone could be aware of something that cannot be seen or witnessed physically unless this thing (God) is defined. How else would any human have been aware of its presence?

To add to what I have said, consider that Islam was founded as recently as the 7th century, and Christianity only 600 years prior. From this it should be relatively easy to establish that humans were not aware of the presence of a God for either of these religions specifically until the religions themselves were founded, which means that no one among us can prove that the Gods don't exist solely in conjunction with the founding of their religions. This would indicate that they in fact only exist as a result of their religions.

Just think of it like this.
Before the Bible or any other religious text was written, or more specifically before its respective religion came about, did that religion have a God as far as humans knew? You could argue that no one knows the answer to this, but more than likely the answer is no, since the God of any religion only necessarily came to fruition or came to be recognized in conjunction with the onset of that religion. In other words, before Christianity came about, there may as well have been no Christian God. I will not argue that there could have been a Christian God even before Christianity came about, but unless humans were aware of His presence before the onset of Christianity (which is impossible to determine, but again very unlikely) then no one among us can argue that He existed before then. The conclusion that we would have to draw, therefore, is that this God is only a result of the development of the Christian religion, or in other words only exists in conjunction with the Christian religion.

I might also add that in my experience, most people who are not devoutly religious do not attend a church of a particular denomination for any reason other than because their family or friends adheres to that denomination and attends a particular church. This pretty much eliminates the idea that anyone is truly fond of a particular denomination over another, but have merely been indoctrinated into a church of that denomination without knowing any different or being given a choice. My mother-in-law would be a good example of this because she was raised catholic, attended a catholic church, and now continues to adhere to catholic concepts such as giving things up for Lent and celebrating Easter Sunday at church.

Another question we could ask is "If this is the case, why are we typically having such boring sex with each other?" Maybe we should step up our game.

I think there is more to it than this, otherwise so many people would not have the same problem of getting excited by porn but not as much by regular sex after the fact. It's like if you take 100 people who have watched porn and all of them believe that having regular sex isn't as exciting as porn. The point is that porn is what caused them to believe that sex is boring.

considering all the money hungry pastors out there i can see why some people dismiss all the coincidences this world displays. That being said some believe organized religion came about when populations got concentrated in city states such as ancient sumer/mesopotamia. I believe religiousness and religions predate humans and actually goes back to Apes and chimpanzees and even monkeys.

The problem with this is that it is effectively saying that religion is a man-made creation, which I believe is possible since it has taken thousands of years to develop to the point where it is now and also the average human will probably live less than 100 years, which isn't nearly enough time to see evolution occur on a large scale. However, my problem is that people such as pastors are getting paid and money is being made in the face of religion even in spite of what it is or what it supposedly is. It would be like if someone was being paid to tell stories and told everyone who heard the stories that they are true, although (obviously) there is no way to know if they are actually true. But the person is getting paid regardless, and in my opinion it is immoral to be paid when there is even the possibility that something might not be authentic, or when it is being presented as unmistakably authentic to those who are funding the payment. If people were not getting paid millions of dollars then it might be different, but a million dollars isn't exactly chump change, especially if it is based on a sham.

I don't know if life after death exists, nor does anyone else. It is one thing to believe in something, but this will not change what actually happens when someone dies. There may or may not be an afterlife, but if there is not one then this will not change simply because people believe that one exists, and likewise there will be one if there is one even if people do not believe that one exists. I don't have an opinion though because I don't know either way.

So it's not about existence, it's about human knowledge/awareness of that existence. And since we can act on information regardless of proof, it settles the matter because people can choose to use the information however they wish including using it to create a new reference point for their activities, mental, moral, social, etc, call it belief or whatever.
Humans are not breaking any code of conduct/integrity just by believing, it is when the actions born of that belief become improper that we lose our fundamental bearing as humans who should be masters of their own faculties of consciousness and corresponding activities, instead of being ensnared by them into committing atrocities against fellow life or against the balance of nature/reality.

When we don't know, we just don't know, whether it's about the existence of God(s) before our knowledge of them. And we should be willing to admit that too. — BrianW

Let's just take any particular religion and acknowledge that religion has a God or Gods. Before that religion came about, no human thought or believed that there was that religion, let alone a God that represented it. For instance: Before the Islamic religion came about, there was no Islamic religion to speak of. Like any religion, though, Islam was created by humans at some point, and therefore it "exists" only in the sense that it was created in the first place. For this reason, we can effectively say that Islam (or any religion) did not "exist" until it was created or developed by humans, which in effect means that there could not be any knowledge or awareness that the religions existed until they did exist. Moreover, we are aware that Islam essentially did not "exist" until it was created by humans, but when ducks were discovered by humans it can at least be assumed that they existed prior to their discovery by humans since they were actually discovered at some point and not just created. In any case, the God(s) of any religion could ultimately only be defined or identified in accordance to that religion AFTER that religion was created by humans. Granted this does not automatically mean that the Gods themselves were also just created or made up by humans, but it does beg the question of why it is that Gods only seemingly came about or had any identity in conjunction with the creation of their respective religion. This certainly does seem to suggest that Gods were just created or made up in conjunction with the creation of their religion by humans, or if not then I actually have no idea how it is to be explained, that is, how exactly do you explain the presence of Gods in conjunction with their respective religions when the religions themselves were merely created by humans? Obviously a God did not just come out of nowhere when a religion was created, or at least those who follow a particular religion would deny this, and a God also did not just suddenly come to represent a religion when a religion was created, so there is really no clear explanation of the process other than that God(s) was also just made up by humans at the same time when humans created the respective religions of those Gods. I know that this is difficult for most people to accept, but at the same time what other plausible explanation is there?

PS: I also understand that my theory might not be true just because there is no other plausible explanation, but I am merely pointing out the fact that no other plausible explanation seems to exist.

What was anything before we discovered it? What were atoms before we discovered them? Why should God(s) or anything else be any different? — BrianW

Does God exist without religion?
Well, do you exist if someone has never heard of you?

If it's possible anyway, it's possible spiritually. — Shamshir

That is different though, because I do exist even if someone has never heard of me, and so do you. Furthermore, everything that has been discovered at any point in history did exist from the time it was created, it was simply that it had not been discovered by humans until a particular point (take Papyrus 1 or the Rosetta Stone for instance). But with God(s), the general implication is that they should have been discovered or that their presence should be known in conjunction with the religion that they represent, in spite of the fact that no one actually does know if God(s) exist. To put it simply, if no humans knew that ducks existed, but then someone was the first person to see a duck and showed it to a bunch of other people and they took pictures of it and so on, then it would become widely known that ducks did exist, especially if other people actually saw ducks later on. In terms of God(s), however, the God of any particular religion did not exist as far as any human knows until the onset of their respective religion, and even now no one knows if any of said God(s) exists, which is why anyone can only provide strong evidence for or against the existence of God(s) and not actually prove it. But for instance, people do know if ducks exists and can prove that ducks exist.

Some speculate when the human population on earth reached the millions and cities formed there was a need for organized religion. The book Sapiens by Noah Harrari attests to this. Ofcourse i don't agree with this but i do find this an interesting subject to study. — christian2017

That is fair, however I am assuming that there was no God to speak of prior to the advent of any organized religion. Therefore my point is that a God is not just suddenly going to come out of nowhere when a religion is formed, nor is one going to become affiliated with a given religion without any integrity in the unlikely event that they already existed in the absence of that religion. Moreover, if they did exist in the absence of that religion, then (in my opinion) there is at least the possibility that their presence would still been acknowledged during that time, as opposed to them having no presence to speak of until a given religion was adapted. Of course I don't know what the case was, as I was not around prior to the advent of any major religion, nor was anyone alive today, but it can certainly be presumed in a hypothetical scenario that no God had any presence to speak of prior to the advent of their corresponding religion.

..I do not do "believing."

If that bothers you...deal with it.

You will never hear me say, "I 'believe' anything."

If you are asking me if I make guesses, estimates, suppositions, or the like...I do. But I always specify that I am guessing, estimating, supposing...

...I never hide what I am doing by saying, "I believe any of those things — Frank Apisa

^My problem with that statement is that ANYONE can make a "guess, estimate..." and use that as a safeguard to say they do not believe this or that, if they wish to do so. Nonetheless, having a guess is pretty much the same thing as a belief, as to say that "I'm making a guess that this happened or that so and so exists, because..." would in the grand scheme of things be the same as saying "I believe this happened because..." in that you are giving reasons in both cases. On the other hand, if you were to say "I'm making a guess that this happened," it would pretty much be a moot point unless you gave a reason why, since anyone can guess when given two binary options such as "this did or did not happen" or "this thing does or does not exist." Unless you give reasons for something, then it really does not matter if you say you guess, estimate, etc." something as opposed to saying you "believe" it, because the implication is the same regardless and varies only if you give reasons to support it.

Some ask for evidence of God's existence because some like to require evidence to believe that anything exists. — creativesoul

So then would such a person not believe that George Washington existed because they don't have any "evidence"? I mean look, the fact is that life in general requires at least some measure of trust in spite of other things that can be questioned, so if you are one who is just going to question everything that has happened or everything that is said to have happened, then there is basically no reason to live. It would not even be worth the level of paranoia that you would regularly experience.

Plantinga's reformed epistemology assumes there is such thing as a sensus divinitatus that informs all proper-functioning humans of God's existence. Analogously: you can KNOW you're holding a rose in your hand, but you cannot prove to me that you are doing so (if I'm not seeing it myself). Same with the Sensus Divinitatus: either you sense it or you don't . — Relativist

The problem I have with this is that trying to prove that someone or something exist is vastly different than trying to prove to people that you are holding something, and there are and continue to be many examples of this throughout history. Perhaps the best way to describe it is that for example there could be a radio show host who says "I am holding a rock right now," and that is very likely to be believed, first of all because no clear incentive for anyone to say "I am holding a rock" and be lying about it. After all, what difference would it make if he or she is holding a rock? There are of course similar instances where people may have an incentive to lie and may or may not be lying, for instance if they say "I am holding a bag that contains a million dollars right now"; but generally speaking, the concept is still the same, which is either that they are lying or not, or holding something or not, with no possible in-between. Let's compare that now with saying that someone or something does or does not exist. The consequences of this are obviously far more severe, as no one is likely to have an unfavorable opinion of you if you insist that you are holding something that you are actually not holding, as opposed to claiming that a particular person or thing exists, which can lead a person to be deemed as psychologically challenged at the very least. This is probably because in theory it can be proven if you are holding something by someone who may see you holding it, but even for example if you were to tell someone that you were holding a rock yesterday, chances are that they would have a cavalier attitude about it and would not likely give a thought as to whether it was true, even if you went on to describe the experience in detail. If you were to say something such as "I saw God" or the Easter bunny, tooth fairy, bigfoot...yesterday, then chances are that the person you told would immediately dismiss you as being a little off in the head, and would certainly have this attitude if you were to describe your sighting in serious detail. So you can see that there is a big difference between saying that you were holding something and saying that someone or something exists and/or that you saw it. It's interesting, though, that only things whose existence is ambiguous seem to take the heat when it comes to suspicion of someone having seen them. Perhaps, then, it is unwise to compare a plausible scenario to one that could actually be true, especially if it involves a sensitive subject such as the existence of God.

Not all things that are true can be proved. If I had a thought yesterday I cannot prove it. But it is true that I had that thought.
— EnPassant

True, but in this case we are talking about the existence of someone or something that has been expressed by millions of people, which is binary and cannot be compared to something that a single person or even a few people claim to have done but can't prove it. To put it quite simply, something either exists or it doesn't; there is no in-between, and this is true whether or not you or anyone else knows whether or not the thing exists. The funny thing about this particular argument, though, is that it continues to be had even in spite of its clearly binary nature, which should be enough to have long since put an end to the conversation. The way I see it, if you are gnostic and on either side of this argument, or for that matter even if you are a full-on atheist or theist, you do not know if God exists. If there is any difference in the gnostic stance, it is that they are at least willing to admit that God may or may not exist, which is the next best thing to saying that they don't know if God does or does not exist. Regardless, though, no one knows if God does or does not exist no matter what they believe, and perhaps more importantly, God either does or does not exist.

Why? It is not question of proof either way. It is a question of providing the most convincing arguments. That is all that can be done. — EnPassant

I may be wrong, but it sounds like you are effectively saying that it is not possible to prove that God(s) exist, so in essence all anyone can do is provide a convincing argument. Granted I am at odds with this theory, as I have never heard it presented before and therefore it sounds more like an opinion rather than something that should actually be applied, but in any case it begs the question of why do you think that atheists ask for actual evidence of God(s) as opposed to accepting that a convincing argument is all that can be expected. Meanwhile it appears that theists don't believe that actual evidence is possible or can be provided, but they are also at odds because atheists won't accept anything less than actual evidence (perhaps) because they don't understand or believe that a convincing argument is all that be expected. Simply put, if that is all that can be expected, then you would have to convince atheists of this and they would actually have to accept and believe it, but I don't see that happening. I feel like atheists will just see the convincing argument expectation as an excuse for failure to provide actual evidence.

If it helps, perhaps I can provide an example that might put things into perspective (I hope). Islam is a fairly new religion, and before it became mainstream there was essentially no "Allah", or at least none to speak of. This is not to say that Allah may not have existed prior to the development of the Islamic religion, but it's also a bit of a stretch to say that nobody knew about Allah or that his presence was not felt or recognized until the Islamic religion came about. Simply put, there should at the very least have been some knowledge or recognition of Allah even in the absence of the Islamic religion in the event that he actually does exist. Let me stress again that I am by no means trying to prove or disprove the existence of any God(s), as opposed to making the point that no one know if any God(s) does or does not exist. The example that I just gave is one way to see this, but having not seen God(s) or recognized their presence up until a certain point certainly does suggest that you don't know if God(s) exist, or if they were only said to exist after that point, such as after the development of the Islamic religion.

I DO NOT KNOW IF GODS EXIST OR NOT.

Those are the first words of my position on the issue. I have no idea of what you are talking about, Maureen.

HERE IS MY POSITION:

I do not know if gods exist or not;


I see no reason to suspect gods CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that gods MUST EXIST...that gods are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...

...so I don't — Frank Apisa

Exactly, which is why my point is and has always been to just say that you don't know if God(s) exist or not and leave it at that. Giving any reasons why this is the case is to suggest that those reason(s) is the basis for why you don't know if God(s) exist, which is entirely unnecessary since no one knows if God(s) exists or not. You or anyone else could simply say: "I don't know if God(s) exist or not," and it would be exactly the same as saying "I don't know if God(s) exist or not," and then giving reason(s) for this. Whether you do or do not give reasons for it, the fact will still always be that you, nor anyone else knows if God(s) exist. I won't even bother to explain again why it is that no one knows if God(s) exist, because I feel like it would be hypocritical of what I just said, not to mention monotonous and repetitious.

I am not talking about beliefs. You and anyone else can believe whatever the hell you want. I can believe that there is an island full of pink unicorns in the middle of the south pacific, but I do not know if there is an island like this. I have read what you said about not seeing any evidence that there needs to be a God(s) or that the presence of a God(s) would necessarily make a difference, but none of that changes the fact that nobody knows if God(s) exist, nor does the fact that you do not accept or deny God(s) existence. To not accept or deny that God(s) exist based on the reasons that you gave is to say that you are using those reasons as the basis for your stance, rather than admitting that you don't know if God(s) exists, plain and simple. You can obviously give reasons for why you don't know if God(s) exist, but this will not change the concept.

Update: I am using a touchscreen laptop and the mouse pad no longer works properly which is inhibiting my ability to quote texts. I know that this is possible, but I just wanted to explain why I haven't done it or haven't been doing it.

With that said, You are assuming that any Gods exist. It would not matter which God or Gods anyone was referring to in a conversation unless some Gods or one particular God exists among the one(s) being referenced. But as I said before, no one knows if any God(s) do or do not exist. If no one had ever seen elephants before or knew about them and they existed but only lived on another planet, then they would exist but you would not know that they exist. I don't even know that there would be any theories about their existence, it would more than likely simply be that they exist and you don't know it. This example is empirically no different than God(s) since no one has seen God(s) and therefore theoretically no one knows if He or they exist. But as in the example that I gave, God(s) could exist and we just are not aware of it for whatever reasons, just as elephants could theoretically be confined to another planet and we might not know that they exist as a result. With that said, I am particularly irritated by the idea that anyone INSISTS that God(s) absolutely does or does not exist, when as I have just explained NOBODY knows this. It seems as if there are so many people on this forum and elsewhere who cannot think or understand that you don't know whether God exists, or either you just refuse to admit this. It's one thing not to admit that God(s) does or does not exist, but please at least accept that you DO NOT KNOW either way. I find it hilarious that we have spent 11 pages arguing this simply because people refuse to accept the initial point that I made.

I posted this mainly because someone messaged me asking me if desire unending life, and I felt like they were trying to make a judgement based on my response and possibly ask other people the same thing subsequently. The fact is that I could desire unending life, but I know that I will still die at some point along with everyone else and therefore I do not have an opinion either way. There is simply no reason in my opinion to desire unending life or place judgement on those who do, when at the end of the day we are all doomed to die at some point regardless of what anyone desires or feels.

I'm not taking up for that guy, but with regards to living forever, I don't think he was asking for an explanation, I believe the question was simply a "yes" or "no", do you want to live forever? The fact that eternity is not guaranteed is really irrelevant, because if you take that out of the equation then odds are that you would want to live forever if it was possible. Frankly I just think that gnostic christian guy is trying to scare people by bringing up the inevitability of death, and I think he feels like someone will be afraid of death if they say they want to live forever, so in that sense I see where you are coming from. However, there is a difference between accepting death and wanting to live forever, and that is you can have the desire to live forever, but still accept that death is inevitable and we are all going to die at some point. Moreover, we are all going to die whether you accept it or not, so it really doesn't do any good not to accept it.

Yes you're not; but you are saying that you can't prove the non-existence or existence of something. Of course you can that's silly.

^That also depends on exactly what it is that you are trying to prove exists, as well as what means you are using to determine if it exists. Example: If someone says that there is a colony of little people on the island of Galapagos, and you go to that island and do a thorough search but do not see a colony of little people, do you determine that the colony simply does not exist, or that it does exist but you just didn't see it, or that it may or may not exist, but you don't know if it exists? You could conclude any one of these things, but nothing that you conclude will change anything about if the colony does exist or does not exist, or the probability that it does exist.

Yes you're not; but you are saying that you can't prove the non-existence or existence of something. Of course you can that's silly.
— SethRy

Not just something, something in particular, namely God. But Maureen hasn't made clear the meaning she intended for this discussion, and until she does, we are at risk of talking past each other.

For some reason, she has decided to completely ignore this problem, instead of addressing it.

^I have said this numerous times, but it seems that people like you and Frank like to ignore things that are posted here for which you have no argument or either pretend that you don't know or understand what is being said. So I will say it again, in plain English. If there is a 0.01 percent that God does exist and a 99.9 percent chance that God does not exist, then you DO NOT KNOW if God does or does not exist. Period. I don't know, you don't know, and in fact NO ONE knows. In the scenario that I have presented, I will agree that God probably would not exist, but you still do not know either way, especially since nothing is known with 100 percent certainty in spite of the likelihood or percentage to which it is known. I'm not sure exactly what is so hard to understand about any of this, but the ONLY point that I am trying to make is that no one knows if God does or does not exist. If you can agree that no one knows if God does or does not exist, then there should be no need for further discussion or argument on this post, and frankly I'm not even sure I have any idea why anyone here continues to argue or what point they are trying to make with regards to something so simple.

Someone else even asked me if I would agree that I don't know if I have a third hand, and I would in fact agree with this since I don't see 3 hands on my body and therefore I don't know if I have 3 hands since nothing is known with 100 percent certainty.

Yes, I do not know if I have a third hand, and neither do you or anyone else know if you have a third hand either.

I am not talking about intuition or reasonable expectation though, I am simply talking about the fact that no one knows whether or not God exists, just as no one knows anything at all with 100 percent accuracy, even if there is a 99 percent chance that something is true or you can reasonably expect that it is true. The 99 percent may or may not apply to the existence of God, but there is a possibility nonetheless that God does or does not exist, regardless of any evidence or percentage that supports either side of the argument.

Let me put it this way:
If there is a 1 percent chance that God exists, then you do not know if God exists.
And...
If there is nothing to suggest that God exists, and you also have every reason to believe that God does not exist, then you still do not know if God exists, since there is nothing at all that is known 100 percent to be true.
This is the only point that I am trying to make, that no one knows if God exists for the reasons that I have described, even in spite of any evidence and in spite of how sure they might or might not be.

"if your justified belief corresponds with reality then it is true and then it is knowledge."

^What is reality though? Is reality that earth revolves around the sun or that gravity causes objects to fall to the ground? The truth is that these things are NOT "reality", nor is anything else, because there is NOTHING that is known to be 100 percent "true" or "real." Even if something is known to be 99.9 percent true, you still do not know if it is true, because there is a 0.01 percent chance that it is not true. That being said, we are not even talking about percentages here or HOW sure anyone is that God exists, we are simply talking about the fact that God MAY exist, even if there is a very strong possibility that God does not exist. So all I am doing is admitting that I don't know if God does or does not exist, and neither does anyone else since nothing at all is known to be 100 percent true or real. It does not matter if you argue about evidence or how likely it is that God does not exist, this does not and will never change the fact that no one knows anything at all with 100 percent certainty, including whether God does or does not exist.

"I do not know if gods exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect gods CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that gods MUST EXIST...that gods are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...

...so I don't."

^Correct me if am wrong, but it sounds like you are just admitting that you don't know whether or not God exists. So is there a reason why you can't just admit this without an explanation? Keep in mind that if I had written this post and I had simply said "nobody will admit that they don't know if God exists," this would sound like I was just making an assumption that nobody knows if God exists without anything to base it on. Therefore I had to explain that there may be every reason to believe that God does not exist, but that God may still exist even in spite of this, so therefore nobody knows if God does or does not exist. Otherwise it wold sound like I was just saying that nobody knows if God exists just because I wanted to believe this, not because there is an actual legitimate reason why nobody knows this like the reason that I explained.

Also, you are not correct in claiming to know that there are no Gods if there are indeed Gods in spite of the absence of evidence. It would be like if there was no grass anywhere on earth today, but there were texts from thousands of years ago that told of a "robust colored shrub" that covered a great deal of the ground in many places. You could claim to know that this "robust colored shrub" did not exist since it is no longer present and therefore there is no evidence that it ever existed, but you would not be correct in claiming to know that this shrub did not exist if the shrub did indeed exist in spite of the absence of evidence. This is no different empirically than claiming to know that that there are no Gods just because there is not any evidence; if you can claim to know that there are no Gods simply because there is no evidence for their existence, then you can also assume that the theoretical "robust colored shrub" did not exist if there is no evidence that it existed, even if it did exist.

"Knowledge is defined as "justified, true belief." I believe there are no gods. It's justified for me to claim there are no gods. And if there are no gods then my belief is true as well."

^This is actually an inaccurate definition, since nothing at all is known for certain. Even scientific "facts" such as the nature of the earth's rotation are not known with 100 percent certainty to be true. With that said, it may indeed be justified for you to claim that there are no Gods, but there is still a possibility that there are Gods nonetheless. I know a man on youtube who is an atheist but will even attest to the fact that Gods may exist, and I feel like this man is highly intelligent.

I would not say that I don't know if there is a refrigerator in my kitchen, because I do know this. If I go into the kitchen and I see a refrigerator, then I know that there is one there, but if I go in the kitchen and do not see a refrigerator, then I know that there is not one there. Moreover, if you can in hindsight present me with a name or a description of any person, object, or item and inquire if I know if the person/item/object is in any given location, then in theory I can and should be able to determine if the person/item/object is in your suggested location by looking in your supposed location and seeing if it is or is not there. If it is not possible to do this, then I would indeed be willing to admit that I do not know if the person/item/object is in the location that you suggested since it isn't possible to determine this. If the scenario that I described were to be applied to God, then I suppose the premise would be that you have an indiscriminate location and want to determine if God is in the indiscriminate location, which I don't know because I can't go to the indiscriminate location and see if God is or is not there. If the indiscriminate location was "Heaven," I can't go to "Heaven" and see if God is there or not, so I would admit that I do not know whether God is there or not.

You are confusing being agnostic with being an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist. The difference is that someone who is purely agnostic tends to take a neutral stand regarding whether or not God exists, because they do not want to take either side of the argument when they don't know either way. Meanwhile, an agnostic atheist does not believe that God exists, although they are still willing to acknowledge that God might exist, and an agnostic theist believes that God does exist, but is still willing to acknowledge that God might not exist. In any case, having any belief about God's existence is completely different than choosing to have no belief since you don't know the truth, although in both cases it still stands that no one knows whether or not God exists. Even in the case of gnostics who believe that God either does or does not exist, no questions asked, they still do not know if God does or does not exist, it's just that they are not willing to admit this on any level.

Yes, except that I said the truth is that nobody KNOWS if God does or does not exist, which is entirely different from BELIEVING something or having a belief. You can believe that God does or does not exist, but that is the extent of what anyone is doing when they are part of a theistic religion or when they are an atheist, unless they are still willing to acknowledge in spite of this that they do not KNOW if God exists.

As for agnosticism-- there are people who are atheists, and people who are theists but who also accept that God might exist or might not exist even in spite of their own belief. In any case, THIS is different than being an agnostic, which is someone who has no opinion either way but pretty much takes a neutral stance regarding whether or not God exists. Meanwhile, there are also some atheists who believe that God does not exist, no questions asked, and some theists who believe that God does exist, no questions asked, in addition to those who accept that they don't know either way.

tim wood- Forgive me for being blunt, but I feel like you are trying to defend anyone who does or believes anything at all, as potentially thinking that it is "morally right" to do that thing or to have that belief. I feel like you are saying that anything that anyone says or does is simply what they believe or how they feel, which is essentially downplaying the severity of certain actions or beliefs that may or may not be a result of what a person has been conditioned to believe, or what they actually feel is "morally right." Granted I am NOT saying that some people may not do or believe things that actually are a result of what they feel is morally right, but I feel like on some level this is being used as an excuse to explain why some or all people believe what they do or do what they do, when this is in fact not the case for everyone. Believe it or not, there ARE people out there who do bad things despite feeling that it is morally wrong to do these things, and so it is not fair accurate to assume that everyone's actions have been based on their morals, because that simply isn't the case.

There are atheists and theists who admit that they do not know if God exists, as well as those who say that God absolutely does or does not exist, no questions asked. I believe that the latter is entirely stubborn and stupid due to the fact that they are not even willing to consider the possibility that God may or may not exist, as opposed to holding fast to one end of the spectrum when they don't even actually know the truth.