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Atheism / Agnosticism
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Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Maybe this was mentioned and I missed it -- I only skimmed the thread -- but gnostic means something completely different than everyone here is using it.
Secondly, the names are pretty arbitrary to the debate I'm seeing. You can quite systematically lay out all the possible beliefs, and as long as whomever you're talking to understands how you're naming them, you can call them whatever you want.
Knows for a fact there cannot be a God, and does not believe in one.
Knows for a fact there cannot be a God, yet has no personal belief about it.
Knows for a fact there cannot be a God, yet believes in one (pretty unlikely combination).
Has strong evidence that there cannot be a God, and does not believe in one.
Has strong evidence that there cannot be a God, yet has no personal belief about it.
Has strong evidence that there cannot be a God, yet believes in one.
Has weak or subjective evidence that there cannot be a God, and does not believe in one.
Has weak or subjective evidence that there cannot be a God, yet has no personal belief about it.
Has weak or subjective evidence that there cannot be a God, yet believes in one.
Has no evidence about the existence of God, yet does not believe in one.
Has no evidence about the existence of God, and has no personal belief about it.
Has no evidence about the existence of God, yet believes in one.
Has weak or subjective evidence that there is a God, yet does not believe in one.
Has weak or subjective evidence that there is a God, yet has no personal belief about it.
Has weak or subjective evidence that there is a God, and believes in one.
Has strong evidence that there is God, yet does not believe in one.
Has strong evidence that there is God, yet has no personal belief about it.
Has strong evidence that there is God, and believes in one.
Knows for a fact there is God, yet does not believe in one (pretty unlikely combination).
Knows for a fact there is God, yet has no personal belief about it.
Knows for a fact there is God, and believes in one.
You can add other variables, but that covers the main two variables being discussed here: knowledge and belief.
One person might define 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 20 as agnostic. Another person might only define 10, 11, and 12 as agnostic. That's really arbitrary as long as people understand what underlying categories you're talking about.
Post by
Squishalot
Glad you could make it, Hyper.
Actually, seeing as the discussion came about from me disagreeing with what DoctorLore called 'agnostic', the arbitrary difference is really the point of what we're debating over :P
Post by
124027
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Post by
204878
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Post by
44284
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Post by
Hyperspacerebel
And I'd be #11. There is no evidence that there is a god, nor is there evidence that there is not a god. It cannot be proven. Secondly, I see no reason to worship a god when I have no evidence that he has any influence on this world, even if he does exist.
Note, it's a question of knowledge, not reality. Saying there is no evidence, is not the same as saying
you
have no evidence.
Post by
44284
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Post by
Hyperspacerebel
Well I meant the latter then. As in, there is no evidence that I've seen so far that can conclusively lead me to the conclusion that there is or is not a god. That evidence might exist, and I may have just not found it.
Exactly. To say that there is no evidence itself would require evidence.
Post by
240135
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Post by
Hyperspacerebel
actually, refuting the claim that there is no evidence requires evidence, the claim itself can be made without evidence.
also, you cannot have evidence for a lack of something, for example, I cannot prove that there are no elephants in Antarctica, but I will make that claim, because to prove that this is absolutely true, I would have to be able to see every single part of Antarctica at once and show that there absolutely are no elephants there. On the other hand, for you to prove that there are elephants in Antarctica, all you would have to do is bring me there and point at an elephant.
likewise, for me to prove that there are no gods, I would have to simultaneously view all that exists, and see that there are no gods, but for you to disprove the claim that there are no gods, all you have to do is show me proof that I cannot dismiss.
I don't think you understand the issue.
Knowing that something doesn't exist, and it not existing are two completely different things.
however, if I were to go by your logic, I could say that there is a small pink teacup orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars.
Uh...yeah...you aren't understanding anything.
Post by
Monday
I'm #18 =D
Although I guess most of my evidence is anecdotal, other is personal but not anecdotal.
Hm.
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44284
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57943
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Post by
gamerunknown
Huh, looks like this has been gone over before, but I'd like to inveigh myself.
No, he describes himself as being as close to an atheist as he possibly can be without being one. He clearly acknowledges that a '6' on his scale of 1-7 is an agnostic, who might as well be atheist for most intents and purposes, but is technically agnostic. There isn't any such thing as an 'agnostic atheist', because you can't 'make no claim' about theism (agnostic) and also claim that god doesn't exist (atheist).
Well, as DoctorLore pointed out in the beginning of the thread, gnosticism and agnosticism are confidence claims, whereas theism and atheism are binary belief states (well, I hope we don't disagree on the latter at least).
I prefer to view one's position on the topic somewhat similarly to the way political compass maps political positions, with intersecting axis allowing beliefs to fall into a quadrant. This way, people could be characterised as gnostic atheists or agnostic theists. There are several beliefs such a scale fails to cater to. The first I'm willing to acknowledge is that of an "igtheist": one that holds that no coherent definition for God has ever been offered to them in order to determine whether they believe in it or not (AJ Ayer adopted this stance for a time). The second is solipsism: lack of belief (at least lack of a strong positive belief) in any external reality. The third is pure agnosticism: holding that it is impossible to assign a confidence value to something that cannot be experimentally demonstrated.
I don't particularly care for other stances, namely the shifting burden of proof (belief in something due to a failure to provide evidence for non-existence) nor the possibility to lack a belief (rather than faith) in something one acknowledges there's sufficient evidence for. I have no problems with personal revelations, nor absolute certainty based on what appears to be sound evidence for either preposition, though I don't share either of those views. There are probably a few other objections I missed.
Onto how Dawkins describes himself: in this
video
, he claims 6 is "de facto atheism", or an atheist in practice. He also describes "what finally made into an atheist"
here
.
Post by
MyTie
gamer - no chomsky? no hitchens? Are you feeling alright?
Post by
gamerunknown
Chomsky would perhaps be useful as a rebuttal to my post, since he calls Hitchens and Harris religious fundamentalists. Hitchens brings up another somewhat useful point about "anti-theism", not only disbelieving, but being hostile to the very principles of theism. Neither were really releant to what Squishalot wrote though.
As for whether Dawkins only uses the term "atheist" colloquially and refrains from describing him as such in his treatise, when asked whether he is an atheist, he says he points out:
... that the questioner is
also
an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo...
Theist: someone who believes that a god exists. Therefore, Atheist: someone who believes that a god does not exist. Turn it around - atheist: someone who does not believe that a god exists.
This has been done to death, but it's not true when considering a scientific hypothesis. There is a specific language used when discussing confidence levels, evidence and hypotheses. For example, our uni conducted an experiment which failed to demonstrate the "Other Race Effect" in one of the groups. Does that mean that we no longer believe in the "Other Race Effect"? Quite the contrary, we merely accept the null hypothesis: we have no reason to believe that we obtained the results we did due to the "Other Race Effect". However, all previous research lends credence for its existence. In other instances, for an experimental hypothesis with no previous grounding that fails to achieve the requisite confidence rating, we can adopt more strident language and say that there is no evidence to support the hypothesis. That's quite different from saying that the phenomenon
cannot
exist, merely that under experimental conditions it was not observed. This way of viewing science largely came about with Popper's disprovability.
There are two criticisms I am aware of. The first is that the very notion of God may not be a scientific principle. That's fine, but most people are going to hold to the materialist conception of evidence as currency. If one claims that
something
has an effect on the universe, if one can demonstrate the effect and come up with a theoretical framework for explaining why the effect takes place, then one's argument will hold more weight. If one is unwilling to do that, then personal beliefs in the effect are still reasonable, but one shouldn't expect to convince others.
The second is whether God needs to correspond to logic at all: it may be possible to posit a God that contravenes logic, since logic is a tool humans use to describe the universe. For example, one may be able to declare that God is not subject to parsimony or a null hypothesis (so that there is no criteria where God could not exist). This is completely internally consistent to the best of my knowledge, but unlikely to convince anyone.
family is a good thing
It may be a bit unfair to bring this up several months after the fact, but saying that because death is a part of life it is a good thing is a naturalistic fallacy. We aim to increase the things that make us feel pleasure in our life (I can't support this through logical positivism, btw), a loved one dying decreases our pleasure. We shouldn't have to cede that it is a good thing, though it is probably better for our sanity to come to terms with the fact that it happens (Terror Management Theory). I can imagine a universe where there was no death and the world constantly expanded to meet the needs of the expanding population.
As for the contention over the etymology of Gnosis to refer to spiritual matters: I think it's a genetic fallacy. Appropriately, the definition of "evolution" has shifted from its inception, where it referred to a preformationist view where life unravelled according to a divine plan, to almost the opposite, where "chance" (developmental noise and environment) has a huge effect on the survival and reproduction of any individual. Likewise, "gnosticism" and "agnosticism" now encompass widely different things than they were originally intended for.
Post by
Squishalot
Theist: someone who believes that a god exists. Therefore, Atheist: someone who believes that a god does not exist. Turn it around - atheist: someone who does not believe that a god exists.
Where did you get this quote from? It's not true.
"Someone who believes that a god does not exist" =/= "someone who does not believe that a god exists".
One is a positive statement - "I think 'God does not exist'".
The other is a negative statement - "I do not think 'God does exist'".
Now, the negative statement makes no assumption about what the person does think. We only know that they do not believe 'God does exist'. We can colloquially
infer
that they believe that God exists, but we haven't logically demonstrated it conclusively. They might not believe anything. That is why the first statement represents atheism (the belief that God doesn't exist), and the second statement is representative of one type of agnostic view (in particular, the lack of belief in anything in particular).
You say that theism and atheism are binary states. I disagree - I agree that they're mutually exclusive states, but I don't think they're binary. I believe they represent two ends of a spectrum - 100% belief in a god, and 100% belief in a lack of a god. Agnosticism represents range of probabilities of belief in between those two positions. People like yourself and DoctorLore like to argue that 'agnostic atheists' are the ones who are between 0-100% belief in a lack of a god.
Post by
asakawa
Agnosticism is the view that something is unknowable.
That is an entirely separate thing to belief in a deity. I think you do agnosticism a disservice to place it in the grey area between theism and atheism. Someone who isn't firmly decided on their views on theism is just that, they may or may not also be agnostic just as a theist or atheist might also consider themselves to be agnostic.
Post by
Squishalot
If you have belief in a deity, isn't it, by definition, knowable? After all, you have knowledge of its existence, hence your belief.
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