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It is my understanding that atheism is based in logic, a main idea essentially being that anything other than atheism asserts God and that assertion is illogical. When I first heard this approach, I dismissed it with the claim that it defies the idea of probability. However, I was compelled to think about it further and refined my stance to the following rebuttal and support for agnosticism.
Atheism is fueled by the limitation of language. It traps itself with words that have no substance — more specifically, by the use of the terms God or a god. Those terms are completely meaningless; they have virtually no definition, whatsoever. Philosophically, one cannot argue against an idea that has no specific definition. Rather, one must attempt to form conclusions based on concepts that do not depend on language, a good example being the idea of cause and effect. One cannot argue, with our current understanding of reality, that everything is a cause and has a cause and that everything is an effect and has an effect. This applies with equal validity to the "universe as we known it." Toss the idea of "a god" out the window and, instead, replace it with "cause of the universe." This makes more sense and is a very logical assertion. Now that we have an unknown cause, we can understand that, by its very nature, it is infinite. It is infinite because the nature of it cannot be defined; it has not been observed and facts for induction do not exist. From the perspective of ignorance, the potential chain of cause and effect that effected the present is infinite. This brings us back to the atheistic approach. If someone subtracts a value of one from infinity, he or she is left with infinity. If someone adds the value of one to infinity he or she is left with infinity. Such action has no outcome. This is what is happening when one attempts to define the cause of the universe that, logically, has an infinite number of possible manifestations. In that sense, atheism does what organized religion does: defining the cause that cannot be defined. They decide that which should not be decided. Agnosticism says, that the nature of the cause of the universe has infinite possible manifestations, ergo Christian thought may be right, Jewish thought may be right, Hindu thought may be right, atheism may be right, but believing in any one of them is ridiculous because it has no merits beyond another. They are all infinitesimal and equally worthless. What now? Until science discovers that which has no cause, forget about defining the cause of the universe as we know it and seek the knowledge that can be sought, all the while knowing that you know practically nothing.
Atheism is fueled by the limitation of language. It traps itself with words that have no substance — more specifically, by the use of the terms God or a god. Those terms are completely meaningless; they have virtually no definition, whatsoever. Philosophically, one cannot argue against an idea that has no specific definition. Rather, one must attempt to form conclusions based on concepts that do not depend on language, a good example being the idea of cause and effect. One cannot argue, with our current understanding of reality, that everything is a cause and has a cause and that everything is an effect and has an effect. This applies with equal validity to the "universe as we known it." Toss the idea of "a god" out the window and, instead, replace it with "cause of the universe." This makes more sense and is a very logical assertion. Now that we have an unknown cause, we can understand that, by its very nature, it is infinite. It is infinite because the nature of it cannot be defined; it has not been observed and facts for induction do not exist. From the perspective of ignorance, the potential chain of cause and effect that effected the present is infinite. This brings us back to the atheistic approach. If someone subtracts a value of one from infinity, he or she is left with infinity. If someone adds the value of one to infinity he or she is left with infinity. Such action has no outcome. This is what is happening when one attempts to define the cause of the universe that, logically, has an infinite number of possible manifestations. In that sense, atheism does what organized religion does: defining the cause that cannot be defined. They decide that which should not be decided. Agnosticism says, that the nature of the cause of the universe has infinite possible manifestations, ergo Christian thought may be right, Jewish thought may be right, Hindu thought may be right, atheism may be right, but believing in any one of them is ridiculous because it has no merits beyond another. They are all infinitesimal and equally worthless. What now? Until science discovers that which has no cause, forget about defining the cause of the universe as we know it and seek the knowledge that can be sought, all the while knowing that you know practically nothing.
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