Apikorus

Oftentimes when I tell someone I am an atheist, he will respond critically, asking questions such as, "How can you be absolutely sure God doesn't exist? Shouldn't you rather be an agnostic? Atheism is itself a form of faith."

In this thread I'd like to explore distinctions within and between atheism and agnosticism. Let me begin by stating my position.

I am an atheist because I hold there is no rational reason to believe in God/gods. This is not to say that I categorically deny the existence of divine entities - indeed I think the God concept itself is pluriform at best and ill-defined at worst. I would only express absolute surety over my own experiences and abstract reasoning. If someone tells me that I had rabbit for lunch yesterday, or that 8 is a prime number, I would be absolutely sure they are wrong. If on the other hand someone were to claim that Alexander the Great was in fact a woman, or that Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected, I could only voice incredulity and rational skepticism.

The reason I find agnosticism problematic is that consistency demands that one also profess agnosticism in regard to an uncountable infinity of notional beings or states of affairs. For example, can anyone conclusively prove that a giant extraterrestrial blue rhinocerous is not controlling his thoughts? (My rhino gave poor theophilus fits in another thread.) Or that Kjuvva the Magnificent ensures the permanence of the laws of quantum mechanics by playing the music of the spheres on a 112-keyed piano in six-dimensional space?

These examples are intentionally absurd, so surely the probability that such beings exist outside of my imagination is infinitesimal, but is it rigorously zero?

Problems arise when one multiplies infinitesimal probabilities by infinite payoffs. The resulting answer is, of course, anything you please. Suppose, for example, that belief in the aforementioned rhinocerous (let us call him "Jesus") were necessary and sufficient for one's eternal salvation! Well, you can see where this is leading...

To those individuals who do profess agnosticism, I would ask: Do you find there to be any rational reasons to believe in God? In the "God of the Bible"? If so, what are they?

[ December 21, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ]</p>

Orpheous99

I see that you don't know exactly what an Agnostic is. All an agnostic is is someone who believes that there is no verifible evidence to prove or disprove the existence of god(s). All that other stuff you mention is irrelevant nonsense.

Apikorus

So petulant!

Is there verifiable evidence to prove or disprove the existence of the extraterrestrial rhinocerous?

NialScorva

Nope. But guess what, I'm going to assert that unless you can show me evidence of one, then they don't exist. I might be wrong, but it doesn't really matter until there's a way to show that their existence affects me. Which is why I reject agnosticism, because it's just a publicity stunt for atheism. "Not enough evidence to say it exists" is no different than concluding "it doesn't exist" except that the former allows for a person to claim that they were never wrong, and it's a way of not pissing off theists too much. Neither of which are a particularly rational stance on the truth value of the god hypothesis. Though I must admit it is of some utility in a social context as a white lie.

[edit: can't grammar]

[ December 21, 2001: Message edited by: NialScorva ]</p>

Foxhole Atheist

Apikorus:

I agree with your concept. I think Nialscorva rounds it out a little more effectively.

“Which is why I reject agnosticism, because it's just a publicity stunt for atheism.”

I don’t know exactly how to interpret that statement though I think agnostics may be closer to theism than atheism. They’re simply reluctant to let go entirely.

“Though I must admit is of some utility in a social context as a white lie.”

This is where I think your coming from in that I also believe an agnostic would prefer the lie as to be deemed a societal outcast.

Agnostics, done get me wrong, as I can understand your position. However, I myself, with the evidence available, would prefer to make the “leap of faith” to put me on firmer footing.

Detached9

Agnosticism... I know this sounds bitter, but I think it's just an atheist still in the closet. One afraid to face the stigma of labeling themself as an atheist.

All agnostics are inherently atheists anyways, just a subset of atheism. Usually agnostics aren't as confident about their disbelief as ones who proclaim they are atheists.

Faith is belief in something that doesn't require evidence or reason.

The lack of belief in deities tends to be for logical reasons as well as an absence of evidence. How can that be faith? I made a thread earlier on the difference between faith and confidence. When you are confident in something, like this chair won't collapse, you are confident in it for logical reasons, such as: you don't see any cracks in the chair, you don't hear any sounds that would lead you to believe it is falling apart, and it hasn't collapsed on you yet.

Okay I'm done for now.

Gurdur

People must be getting really bored if we get to see this dead horse being flogged unmercifully yet again.

Is there any point of value to this dispute at all?

Misuse of the term "rational". It can be quite rational to believe in putative deities; it depends what evidence you possess.
Simply branding theists as irrational won't win no cupcakes.
Personally speaking, after long experience of the Political Discussions forum here (just for example), I sometimes greatly wonder as to the irrationality of my fellow atheists here - but as long as it's sex and politics, or even sport and nationality (so long as it's not God[s]), it's OK to be irrational?
So you can either conclude (as I do) that the existence of putative deities is at such a low probability that it essentially consitutes proof of non-existence, or you can conclude (as some agnostics do) that the question is as yet unanswerable.
Both positions are equally tenable in practice.

A nastily loaded question that.
To start with, it misrepresents the agnostic position.
Bill Schultz did an essay, <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/bill_schultz/justified.html" target="_blank">A Formal Justification of Agnosticism.</a>
Why not start with that as a position?

And Martin Gardner - that skeptic who has accomplished far more than many atheist ideologues - wrote a great book, The Whys Of A Philosophical Scriviner, which details some rational reasons for an amorphous fideism.


Humbug.
You might as well claim that fundamentalist atheism is just as much a publicity stunt for agnosticism, since a fundamentalist atheist rigorous insistance on toeing the correct party line makes the agnostics look rational.

Whooo-hooo, wow. What a loaded judgment. So it's stand up to salute the flag time and take the loyalty oath?
You know, I am a hard atheist, but I acknowledge that the logic can lead two different ways, according to which further argumentative premise you choose.
So I'm not going to criticise others for taking quite a defensible other road.
Woooo-weeee. Subtle, subtle. Cowardice and irrationailty being implicitly imputed?
What rubbish.

You're right, it sounds bitter. And it's also wrong.
Since when in the USA or Great Britain is it easier to be a militant agnostic than an atheist?
More crap insinuations of cowardice.

Crap. Read Bill Schultz's essay and other info.

Oddly, I myself am in the middle of stringently defining faith, trust and delusions for the sake of Metacrock at the moment, over in <a href="http://ii-f.ws/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=8&t=000007" target="_blank">my formal debate with him</a>.
But so?

For everyone else's information, this particular topic (hassling the agnostics) was done to death already over <a href="http://ii-f.ws/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=002220&p=" target="_blank">in this thread here in August</a>.

Sorry to disappoint those who think the agnostics must march in lockstep to the fundamentalist atheist demands; sometimes a question just has no fully determinate answer, and it's personal choice where you go from there.

[ December 21, 2001: Message edited by: Gurdur ]</p>

Orpheous99

Irrelevant. Is there verifible evidence that you're not seem disembodied brain in a lab somewhere being fed certain stimuli? Mind games like this are meaningless and prove nothing.

Apikorus

Gurdur, the "no rational justification to believe in God" position is essentially identical to that of <a href="http://www4.ncsu.edu/~dmjphi/cv2.pdf" target="_blank">Douglas Jesseph</a>. (See the Jesseph-Craig debate.) Maybe he's also misusing the term?

I found the Schultz essay to be mostly hot air. (Hope this does not offend you.) Very few people who are agnostics would explain their beliefs using such abstract formalism. Invoking Goedel and Heisenberg seemed positively silly -- Goedel because most knowledge is empirical and not deduced through formal logic, and Heisenberg because - well, if you must rely on quantum mechanics to defend agnosticism then you must have quite a story to tell. (Besides, most theists would say that God exists "outside" of physical law and physical time. Ergo no laws of nature, no matter how bizarre, are going to lure many theists to agnosticism. I think QM does teach us that we must be prepared to think creatively about causation, but indeterminacy itself of the popular Dp*Dx ~ h variety seems the wrong tree to bark up, at least to me. I think superposition of states of reality is a more promising direction to explore in this context. Superposition and the UP are of course related, but I'm not sure Schultz understands all this.)

At any rate, the essay was rather a non-starter for me, since I do not hold for P1 anyway. (Incidentally, why call it P1 when you have no P2? I imagine Schultz must be borrowing his sigla from Luntley.)

Incidentally, I've been quite favorably impressed with a number of things you've posted here. Nice work!

Orpheous, "irrelevant" is a good fallback when you don't want to risk a "yes" or "no" or further explain your position. I maintain that there is no rational reason to believe I am a brain-in-a-box. If you think there is, I should be glad to hear it!

[ December 21, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ]</p>

Liquidrage

Hi!

My name is Rob.
And I am an atheists and an agnostic.

While definitions have been warped to many I will always consider an atheist as someone who is without belief and an agnostic as someone who does not deny the possibility.

I meet both definitions.