Atheism,
(Short answer for now, because the market is opening for an interesting day).
To understand why I say I know there is no God, it has to start with three axioms or definitions if you like.
What is God? - I define that as more than a creator, but a guiding force which intentionally brought mankind to a level of self awareness. Whether good or bad, the God acts with a goal and purpose, and therefore with intelligence.
What does it mean to know? I know this in the same way I know the Earth orbits around the Sun. That is to say it simplifies and makes sense of the solar system if this is true. I fully acknowledge that Newton and Einstein could have been wrong and perhaps the Earth and Sun both revolve around Pluto in some bizzare and hyper complex way, but I choose to believe, if that is the right concept, that the simpler more obvious explanation is true. (I always sound a little ambiguous because truth in science never has a certainty of 1, it is always a limit of probability approaching one.
The third axiom, and the one which really falls into the realm of faith, is that the future is not fixed. I don't believe I was predestined to write these words or to think the way I do. I believe this only in the most pure form, that is to say an awful lot of the future may be well beyond my, or anyone's control, but not every little spec and particle and energy field is already layed out from the time of the big bang to the present and beyond.
From these 3 concepts I derive that a God intelligence (axiom 1), regardless of magical powers, cannot not have the ability to control events sufficiently to reach the goal in axiom 2, without violating axiom 3 (a determined future).
Not only ethics, but reason itself
Reason is a product of self awareness and a recognition of time causality, that is to say that cause preceeds effect. It says nothing in itself about how that ability is achieved.
TP |
