Does anyone have the right to claim they KNOW without doubt that god/s do or do not exist?

Question

Seriously... what evidence do we have that incontrivertably proves that any god/s do or do not exist? As far as I can tell there is no evidence whatsoever to support a statement of I KNOW god/s do/dont exist.

How can we claim the right to absolute knowledge when such knowledge does not exist?

I do not claim the right to say "I KNOW" I only claim the right to say "I BELIEVE" and I also claim the right of everyone else on this planet to BELIEVE in whatever they want to...

What I dont understand is how anyone has the right to say they KNOW something which has not been conclusively proven either way.

I do not "believe" god exists, but I admit I do not "know" if he really does/doesnt exist.
That's why I can be described as "agnostic". To me both theists and atheists are claiming absolute KNOWLEDGE of something that neither can really support with scientific evidence.

there is some confusion, I did not SAY that people dont have the right to SAY they know something... what I ASKED was do people have the right to CLAIM they know something without proof.

Answer 1

Kelly, I agree with you to a point. The problem is that once somebody believes something, they tend to think that they know it. Personally, this is why I try to make a philosophical distinction between belief and opinion.

It's might seem like semantics. But I think it is an important distinction that we often lose sight of.

Answer 2

Now, it is this.

Your questions center more on the aspect of Free Will and that of Rights generally, divine or not, and not on a proof of whether God(s) does or does not exist.

Such a line of questions as yours here does not necessarily address the cosmogony, cosmology, or ontology of the subject of God's existence or non exisxtence nor touch on the incontravertability (boy what a mouthful) of the argument or consequential debate if any, directly.

You do have a spark, you do see that there exists a question needing asked, and this is great... I mean here, you have a context (container) but not yet the content (the substance that the context will contain).

But you are heading in the right direction...

Everybody has the right to claim they know or do not know. But Life or people, or God certainly, is not obliged to abide that claim --that's the central point to your question here. Yours addresses the precept called Rights...

Second, I ask you this... How do you know that absolute knowledge does not exist?: what evidence do 'you' have? How can you "claim" that?

You do already state here that you "don't understand how anyone can presume to know that which, according to you, cannot be made a conclusive yield.

If the Mind does not catch the glimmer of light, then such does not exist -- according to your line of reasoning.

I know, I know, 'gets rather heady, doesn't it? Now, that is the way of the Mind -- ever looping and circling...no true forward movement toward the truth...

Now, here is the twister... Nothing wrought from the Mind can conceive of that which so far surpasses it to conceive or create in the first place, which creator and conceiver in this instance is, according to your line of inquiry, would be God Itself or God-like.

What says that God is something that reasoning has the sole province and means of direction by which to know what God is or does or is not or does not? What in and of the Mind lends you to believe that such a tool as thought would be the key to that secret world of insights and answers and truths?

I would not get too bogged down with this sort of thing, no matter who posed the question to you or dared you to divine the truth of it all.

I might import this little treasure: no one who has little truth can be convinced in God, and one who has truth needs little convincing.

Answer 3

Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, heck we are in America.


Ok, heres the deal. No one can know 100% that there is a god for sure, thats why religion requires FAITH. you can be 99.999% sure that something supernatral is true, but you won't know a compleate 100% unless you have shear faith in your religion.


To me, I believe in Jesus Christ, because I see all of the detail in the earth, and how history and the Bible seem to be going with each other. There has not been ONE find in Israel, or anywhere else that could prove there is not a God. If the moon OR the Sun were just a LITTLE bit off, we would either freeze or fry to death. If one thing was different in our bodies, we would die within minutes. So much as the skin protects you, without the epidurmis, you would die within hours of bacteria infections.


Anyway, the list goes on and one, and there is not one find that proves that Christianity is wrong. And there is not any finds saying that there is not a God.

Anyone is intitled to what they think, just like if you think a Dell computer is better then a HP computer, you are still intitled to what you think, and even though someone might disagre, you still are free to speak your mind.


God bless.

Answer 4

Anyone who has actually experienced the presence of God has the right to say they know He exists. Lets look at something that not to long ago was thought to be a myth, the Gorilla. Not to long ago when we started to explore the interior of Africa we, there were stories of furry ape men in the jungles.the scientific community thought it was just a fairy tail, until either one was captured or they acquired other concrete proof. Lets look at another example, the duck billed platypus who's existence was also called into question even when bodies were sent to Britain because the scientists of the day called it a clever fraud.
Both are now recognized as actual organisms. so the question here is are we those who deny the possibility because we have not seen it with our own eyes and it does not fit our world view, or have we seen it and nothing can change our minds?

Answer 5

Very well spoken. I have no time for dogmatic theists of any colour who haven't even bothered to read their own texts. Most atheists have done a lot of research and introspection to get to the point where they declare "I have found only lies and delusions." and should be applauded for that, but they forget that science also has not got a clear picture of the universe yet, and that just because you can't find evidence yet, doesn't mean there isn't any.

I don't think of myself as an agnostic, because I have a strong belief that there is a more spiritual aspect to reality than most of us think, and that we can gain direct knowledge of this. That would make me a gnostic instead.

On god though, my jury is still out, because our current level of understanding just cannot prove its existence either way. I'd have to describe myself as a gnostic agnostic... Hmmm. I think the labels we use to define our faith or lack thereof are way too narrow.

Answer 6

No one can mathematically or scientifically prove the existence of God, but there numerous philosophical arguments that give strong support to his Being.

We can claim the right to partial knowledge because you can't have a fraction without a whole. You are saying wholeness does not exist, but fractions do. This is illogical.

How do you KNOW that the War of 1812 really existed? Is that a belief? How do you KNOW there are icebergs in Antartica, have you seen them? Is that a belief? How do you KNOW Columbus sailed to the Americas? What you KNOW to be true is the first stage of belief, not the last. Everything you know comes to you by the testimony of others.

Faith is just this process. It is not conjecture, nor is it credulity. It means assenting to the truth of certain facts on the evidence of a reliable witness, the witness in this case being God Himself. That the facts (e.g., the Trinity, Incarnation, the Real Presence ) are beyond our ken and cannot be directly tested by us is no more a difficulty to our accepting them (when the evidence is sufficient) than my inability to investigate icebergs at Antartica of the landing of Columbus.

Faith and reason are complimentary, not contradictory.

Answer 7

Why do you insist that people must have proof of the existence of God in order to believe? People believe in God because they can feel in their hearts that God does exist. They do "KNOW" and "BELIEVE" because of what they feel. It is you who needs evidence to believe in God.

I can tell you from personal experience that God does exist. However, you would probably never believe me anyway since you want tangible evidence to support the claim.

I can also tell you that serpents exist too. Check out my question "Do you think the birth of the Red Heifers born in the 1990's is proof that the Messiah is coming soon?" Read my comment section. There is an important message for everyone.

Answer 8

No human being can say either way for sure. We all have our own beliefs and that is ALL we can say...I believe (insert your belief here).

I'm an atheist but if there were complete physical, irrefutable evidence of a god...then I could believe. And that evidence would be the almighty coming to earth him/herself and showing everyone. And I BELIEVE that is not likely to happen.

Answer 9

i think you are correct in your theory. I do believe in God and have faith in him. But have NO actual proof. Some things have happenned un my life though that are also unexplainable. Let me recount a story for you that happenned to me when I was about 13.
I had several warts on my left hand and fingers of the same. I tried all kinds of stuff to remove them. Some OTC and some prescription. This went on for months. We went to visit my aunt who lived about 60 miles away and my mom was telling her about them. She said she could get rid of them with a saying from the bible. I asked her what saying and she explained she couldn't tell me since we were both female. She would have to tell it to a male and the male would have to tell me. It had to be passed on in this manner. I was skeptical as all get out, but I figured I may as well let her try. Nothing else had worked. She made me turn my head away from her, she held my hand and whispered these words under her breath so I couldn't hear them. I found out later from my younger sister that she also spit on her finger and rubbed the spit on the warts as she said whatever she said. They disappeared in about a week and have NEVER returned. I am now 51. I did not however find out what she spoke from the bible.
Miracle.....who knows. I just know it worked.
My dad told me a similar story about a kid he knew when he was younger that had a severe nosebleed and some lady up the street from where they lived said something from the bible and it stopped immediately as if someone turned off a hose.
I want to see someone prove through science what happenned to these warts. (I had stopped ALL medication at least 2 weeks prior to visiting her)

Answer 10

It depends on what you mean by "knowledge". If you mean you have a logical proof, that is only required of someone making an affirmative claim, and requires that one have faith in logic. If you mean that you have empirical reason to hold a bleif, then only the Atheists have an argument.