I had recently argued with a professed atheist (An atheist being defined as a person who states that ‘there is no God.’) that it was impossible to be an atheist. He has wrote and stated that, ‘there is absolutely no god or gods.’ Could he make that statement with absolute certainty? No, no he can’t. Why? Because he does not have absolute knowledge. He most definitely has some knowledge, but not all knowledge.
How much knowledge does the average adult person have?
Well, that’s hard to say. We have a system to determine intelligence, it’s called an IQ test. So let’s look at that for a moment.
If we were to equate average intelligence to an IQ number then the average adult person has an IQ of about 100-114. Certainly not genius level by any means. IQ’s from 115-129 are considered above average and an IQ score of 144 or more finally gets you to the genius stratum. In 1989 Marilyn vos Savant was featured in the Guinness book of world records with an IQ of 228. But even with an IQ of 228, how much knowledge could she have?
Lets say, for arguments sake, that my atheist friend is as smart as Marilyn. And lets also say that he knows 5% of all the knowledge that could be known (and that’s being very generous too). Think about how much you would have to know to have knowledge of just 5% of all that could be known? Why you would need to know even crazy little things like; how many ants were in my neighbors best friends sisters yard two years ago? And what about; how many camels have more than 250 fleas at any given time? Or know things like the exact count of fibers in my parents shag carpet we had in the 70’s. What about all the grains of sand on all the beaches? What about thoughts from other people?
Now your starting to get the idea that even 5% of all the knowledge that could be known is really too high a percentage. But we will use 5% for our argument.
Would it be safe to assume then, that in the 95% of the knowledge he doesn’t have, that it’s quite possible that he hasn't yet come across ample evidence to prove that God exsists? The rational mind, at this point, would have to concede that yes, in the 95% of knowledge that I don’t have, it’s quite possible that there may be evidence that there is a God.
Simple, rational reasoning would go like this;
By saying that one is an atheist, they are stating that there is no God.
By stating that there is no God, they are making an absolute statement.
In order to make an absolute statement, they must have absolute knowledge.
In order for them to have absolute knowledge, they would have to be God.
And since you know that they’re not God, they can't have absolute knowledge.
And since they don't have absolute knowledge, they can't know that there’s no God.
The Bible says in Psalm 14:1, ‘The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God…..”
So my friend is really an agnostic. An agnostic is one who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
Which leads me to a whole new direction. Is it impossible to know whether there is a God?
Stay tuned for part 2
Freedom
3 years ago
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