Story Behind The Story

Let me present my analysis on this topic (I created it).

Normally, I have defended atheism over here rigorously in three topic (one of them exceeded a thousand posts).

I still defend atheism against 'non-sense', 'pseudo science', and unintelligible arguments. I do so on humanitarian grounds and since I believe that sincerity (genuineness) in belief is vital.

Anyway, here is my analysis on atheism:

Concepts that I have used rigourously:

The Veil of Perception

Almost all of our knowledge comes from sensation (sense-experience i.e. experiencing colors etc), and the data that is experienced (perceived) is called sense-datum i.e. colors. Our perception is limited by our senses and the metaphor used to illustrate this limitation is called ‘the veil of perception’. It is as if, a veil or some sort of covering is thrown over our perception and therefore, our knowledge is limited to the empirical or phenomenal world.


The Empirical (phenomenal) world

The word empirical means experiential—that which can be experimented, but it has a deeper meaning than this. The empirical world is the observable (scientific) world which deals with phenomena—that which appears to us. The phenomenal world or the physical world is the empirical world. It is this world that our minds are restricted to and it is this world to which science provides explanations through scientific theories and laws. The world beyond is likely not assessable to us because of the veil of perception and therefore attempts made to speak of the non-empirical world may not be legitimate.


The Non-Empirical World or the Super Empirical world

This world is beyond (meta) the physical (physics) world and is therefore metaphysics (beyond physics). It is also not phenomenal; nevertheless, attempts are made to somehow go beyond the veil of perception, from the empirical to the non-empirical world. One of the methods includes faith.


Faith

Faith is the least useful tool used in order to have some beliefs about something. But when other means i.e. logic, reason, etc. are not possible; the only method left is faith.

Theism

Theism is fundamentally a faith concept and the faith hypothesis is as follows: “There exists God”. God is not a scientific concept since it is not falsifiable or principally verifiable. It is not falsifiable because it is beyond the empirical world i.e. non-empirical world. This is why the hypothesis is also not a scientific hypothesis but rather a faith hypothesis.


Scientific hypotheses

A scientific hypothesis is an empirical or phenomenal hypothesis. All scientific hypotheses are only probable hypothesis. There is not a single hypothesis that if accepted or rejected is an absolute truth. This means that if I accept a hypothesis then there will always be the probability that I am wrong despite the evidence in favor of acceptance. Scientific hypothesis are of factual significance since they are genuine—falsifiable and verifiable. They strictly deal with empirical concepts and not concepts that go beyond the veil of perception i.e. non-empirical hypothesis.


Non-empirical hypotheses

Non-empirical hypothesis concerns concepts that go beyond the phenomenal world or beyond the veil of perception (if that is even possible). A good example of a non-empirical hypothesis is as follows: “There exists God”. The hypothesis is not empirical (non-scientific) because it concerns the concept of God which is not falsifiable nor verifiable and therefore non-empirical. This concept thrives on faith; another example of a non-empirical hypotheses is as follows: “There exists no God”. It too is not empirical (non-scientific) because of the non-falsifiable concept—God.