I am curious as to Bradcube's exact theological position?
Also, I enjoyed your logic. Obviously, the default state then becomes agnosticism in respect to the knowledge of a recently born child. From that, I would ask what your position is then in regards to other gods (I'm assuming here you believe in the Judeo-Christian god)?
Let's take the god's of the Hindu pantheon for example, would you positively exert their non-existence (atheist) or do you retain an agnostic position here?
My answer is two fold:
In a strict sense of knowledge I would assert that I am agnostic about these Gods for which I have not considered or encountered - I lack a belief about them in its truest sense. I cannot positively assert the non-existence of a
particular God for which I know nothing about - I would have nothing to positively assert about.
On a more general level however, I can make the positive assertion that "
only the Christian God exists", in which case I have made a necessary, though accidental, positive assertion about the existence of other deities - namely, that they do not exist (
accidental here is not used as a synonym for mistake, but rather as a secondary implication). So how can I hold this assertion, whilst being agnostic about these other deities? Simply on the basis of the evidence I take as good reason for believing in a monotheistic God - and more specifically, the christian God. Monotheism wipes out the possibility of retaining belief in multiple Gods and so I am forced to choose one. Because of this, if the God I believe exists, all other Gods must not, and hence, I positively assert their non-existence in this more general sense.
Also, note that the above may be subject to change if found to be inconsistent when placed under scrutiny. I say this in an effort not to appear too ad hoc if my position were to change. I don't think I have had to answer (or even think about) this type of question specifically before
I recognise that most 'Western' people, probably retain an agnostic position from birth simply due to:
1) Ignorance of any knowledge of their theology (could blame cultural/educational factors here)
2) Lack of care/interest
From birth I would think that all babies are agnostic due primarily to an inability to positively assert anything on a conscious level. Once into later periods of life, I would think that most are agnostic due to the reasons you stated. In my experience in real life (that is, outside the internet) I find that most people seem to be agnostic due intellectual laziness, lack of care, interest etc. Why, I will never understand, but most people I encounter do not seem to care about topics such as these.
Although arrogantly, I would say I am an atheist with respect to all deities, simply through the lack of evidence I find in researching the Judeo-Christian traditions. I admit that in respect to your logic, this is an arrogant position, as can one use the lack of evidence for one faith to prove the lack of evidence for all?
Certainly labeling all beliefs in God as unfounded is dangerous when your basing you argument on your disproof of one particular version of God. That is of course, unless your disproof serves to nullify all conceptions of God. Based on what you have said, I am inclined to think that they don't. I am (naturally) interested in what sort of "lack of evidence" you are talking about in regards to the Judeo-Christian God. Do you mean evidence from the theists side is lacking, or do you mean to say you have lack of evidence that would serve as a positive evidence for Gods non-existence? If
only the former (that is, unconvincing theistic evidence), I would think that your leap to atheism for the Judeo-Christian God is unjustified. Unless you have some form of positive argument for Gods non-existence, what founds your atheistic belief? To me, you shouldn't be anymore than a skeptical agnostic.
On the other hand, if it was the latter and you do have a positive argument for the non-existence of the Judeo-Christian conception of God (argument from suffering, incoherent doctrines etc) then I'm all ears
I don’t believe in Amun-Re or Zeus (and positively assert their non-existence) but is this an ignorant position given that I have not done any research into lack of evidence with respect to these specific deities?
I also doubt I am highly alone in doing this.
Ha ha, you're certainly correct in saying that you're not alone in doing this! I would guess that from the understanding of these Gods you do have, there are reasons you find their existence unlikely. Possibly you don't agree with the idea of an imperfect God, interaction with humans or what have you. The reasons are not too important here (as long as they somewhat justify your jump to atheism)
However, I should also note that what you have mentioned here is slightly different from the "default" state of belief we were looking at earlier. In these cases, you have some knowledge of these Gods and are then able to positively assert their non-existence. In our case before, we had no knowledge of these Gods at all (no names, no character profiles etc) and as such it became impossible for our default state of belief to be "God x does not exist" and instead must have been "I lack a belief about God x". Hence in this case our default state is agnosticism instead of atheism. In your case however, as long as your reasons are sound for the unlikelihood of Zeus, then I would think your atheism is justified.
