Living Dead Chipmunk

Hawkingfan:
*sigh* The existance of said little goblin is falsifiable. I can take apart your engine and discover that this goblin, as you've defined him, is not present.

Similarly, a god, depending on how you define it, can be shown not to live up to said definition, to have said definition be shown contradictory.

Synaestheisa:
First of all, my analogy was to PET rocks. You know, those things they sold back in the 80's that were rocks, but you treated them like a pet? Completely unnecessary and useless, yet they existed. Chia pets are unnecessary and useless, yet they exist. Cicadas, the things that sleep for 7 years, emerge, breed, and go back to sleep? Those things? Useless and unnecessary. There's no ecological niche that only needs to be filled once every 7 years. Yet the little suckers exist.

NECESSITY and USEFULNESS are not good rhetorical criteria for predicting the existance of a thing, even natural things. There's not a single critter on this planet that is so essential it can be considered completely necessary. There are lots of useless, unnecessary things that exist.

And that's assuming the uselessness of a creator-power isn't debatable.

Thomas Metcalf:
<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> Only if you define "agnosticism" as "not sure if the CHRISTIAN GOD exists", rather than "not sure if ANY god(s) exist". For the second time: Religion is not a binary choice. Rejecting *all* religion because *Christianity* is unarguably contradictory is like rejecting all meat because beef is unhealthy.

Yes, you can prove beef is unhealthy. But chicken is still meat, and you haven't said anything about it. I should just reject chicken based on your analysis of beef?

I reject that supposition. You're going binary on me again. There's at least one religion/philosphy that believes in a mindless creator-force.

If you have to say the word "probably", you're still treading on agnostic ground.

[ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: Living Dead Chipmunk ]</p>

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Living Dead Chipmunk:

"Only if you define 'agnosticism' as 'not sure if the CHRISTIAN GOD exists', rather than 'not sure if ANY god(s) exist'. For the second time: Religion is not a binary choice."

Agnosticism is the position that one does not know whether any gods exist. If I have demonstrated that the god of Christian theism does not exist, I have disconfirmed agnosticism, because there is at least one god that we know does not exist. I have done so, and agnosticism is therefore incorrect.

"I reject that supposition. You're going binary on me again. There's at least one religion/philosphy that believes in a mindless creator-force."

I don't acknowledge a mindless entity as a god. But go ahead and define "god in general" for me.

"If you have to say the word 'probably', you're still treading on agnostic ground."

Knowledge is (roughly) a justified true belief. Strong probability provides justification; this fact is recognized by almost every epistemologist.

Darkblade

Read the quotes. The existence of the goblin is not falsifiable. Are you consistently agnostic, neither believing or disbelieving in the existence of the goblin, as you do regarding the existence of god, or not?

Living Dead Chipmunk

Metcalf: One more time - disproving Yahweh is NOT disproving the concept of a creator, anymore than disproving Lamark is disproving evolution.

Darkblade: My bad. I missed the original goblin post.

However, I still contend it's at least moderately testable, in that if the goblin makes the engine run, removing a couple parts of the engine shouldn't have a significant effect on it (since the critter is massless, invisible, etc, it wouldn't have the sensory capability to know the pieces were removed).

But if you're going to get onto the Sagan's Dragon analogy, I'm going to get onto aliens again. After all, there's absolutely no evidence beyond anecdotal evidence from nutcases that aliens exist (just like god), the theory of aliens is both unnecessary and useless (just like god), and even if they did exist, we have no way to detect them (just like god). Furthermore, the Scientologist's alien being Xebu (or whatever) is logically inconsistant with itself (just like Yahweh is), therefore no aliens exist (according to Metcalfian logic).

Darkblade

I agree with this. I do not strongly assert that there must not have been a creator. Personally, I could believe in a creator if said creator could prove its abilities to me. This would be, however, difficult, as possessing the technology to create a universe would exceedingly strongly suggest the ability to alter my perception of reality. I don’t believe in any gods, because of no evidence, and because I wouldn’t define a god as something that has technology as the source of its power (and I don’t believe in omnipotence or the supernatural). I also don’t believe in any creators, again because of no evidence, and because it does not appear that one must have existed for any reason. But there is no evidence against a being technologically advanced enough to create universes.

But the goblin was claimed to be a supernatural being. So it could have sensory capabilities while being massless, et cetera. And we don’t know if it only chooses to make the engine run when the engine is fully assembled. So it doesn’t appear testable to me whether or not the goblin exists. I suppose you could then be agnostic about it, but I am a weak agoblinist (respective to this goblin, at least).

I never said anything about aliens (maybe you weren’t talking to me). Anyway, belief in aliens seems irrelevant, as they don’t appear to have any effects on the world, and there is no evidence in them. I suppose that a (very?) weak belief in them is not illogical, due to the theoretical statistical probability of their existence. But to strongly assert their existence seems illogical. In any case, I don’t find being agnostic regarding the existence of aliens illogical.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Living Dead Chipmunk:

"Metcalf: One more time - disproving Yahweh is NOT disproving the concept of a creator, anymore than disproving Lamark is disproving evolution."

Show me where I asserted the denial of that proposition, or apologize for wasting our time, please. This whole "message board" thing works best when you actually read the posts to which you're replying.

[ December 13, 2002: Message edited by: Thomas Metcalf ]</p>

Living Dead Chipmunk

Metcalf: Now I think you're just trying to piss me off.

You said:
Which boils down to:

Thomas Metcalf

Living Dead Chipmunk:

I'm just hoping you'll cease posting until you actually engage my posts. The latter statement in no way is equivalent to the former.

Jayhawker Soule

No. Agnosticism with respect to the Christian God(s) would be, in this case, incorrect. Agnosticism towards the existence of white ravens is hardly "disconfirmed" by demonstrating that the raven stuffed on your mantle is black.

Living Dead Chipmunk

Let me make it more obvious to you, Trollas Metcalf...

So if you prove the Christian god to be nonexistant, you've disproved all agnosticism.