nermal

'Bout time a "strong" atheist showed up. Been wondering if anyone out there considered themselves one.
Let's begin: If you can know there is no God, you can prove it. Proceed.

You are attempting to relegate knowledge to useless obscurity. You can know the color of your shirt, assuming you're not blind. If not, nothing means anything, and there is no point in any debate, much less this one. Reality becomes completely relative, and there exists no common perspective from which to argue. That leads to Solipsism as well, doesn't it?

Ed

Melkor

Wow, I didn't think an irritating discussion I was having with somebody else on semantics would turn out so interesting over here.

Keep going!

Bumble Bee Tuna

Nope. I just think the complete lack of evidence is enough to put the probability of God's existence extremely low. Just as I find the probability extremely low that my roommate is actually a robot in disguise. I say that I "know" he's not a robot, even though of course that's not technically the case. But if I don't get to say I "know" that, than I can't really say I know anything. As a result, I say I "know" that God doesn't exist, because I find it to be a very similar situation.

I would think those who say agnosticism is the only rational approach are the ones attempting to relagate knowledge to useless obscurity. I am pointing out that they do so, and thus I find it ridiculous. I can know the color of my shirt, assuming my eyes aren't somehow different from everyone elses, and that I'm not really a brain in a jar being fed my experiences by evil scientists. But since I can't know these assumptions, no, technically, I can't know the color of my shirt, just like I can't know about whether God exists or not. Nevertheless, since this line of thinking makes the word 'know' useless, I've recognized this and use the real definition: Recognizing the probability of something being so high as to warrant assuming it to be true.

BTW, I define God as a powerful supernatural entity that intervenes in some way in the world. A deity that doesn't intervene is unknowable and useless. I wouldn't waste my time even thinking about such a being, just as I don't waste my time thinking about the existence of goblins at the center of the sun. Call me agnostic on anything that doesn't leave evidence of its existence- because then there really is no way of determining any sort of probability- it truly is unknowable.

BTW, if you're really looking for a strong atheist, just invite Koyanisqaatsi in here. Baddest Strong Atheist in these here parts, y'hear?

-B

mike_decock

I agree with you that strong agnosticism is a useless position although I agree that it is technically correct. As you seem to be saying, it relegates "knowledge" to being a useless term altogether because there is no such thing. All knowledge is based on at least one unprovable assumption (I exist).

This means that knowledge is only useful in a practical sense to indicate the degree of certainty of your assumption. To state that you "know" your roommate is not a robot is not a statement of knowledge (I assume you haven't dissected your roommate), but it is safe to assume it as being true since there is no evidence to support that it is false. Also, your assumption can be proven by dissecting your roommate if the veracity of your knowledge is brought into question.

That is why I conclude that "I know my roommate is not a robot" is a perfectly tenable.

-Mike...

Bumble Bee Tuna

yeah, but even if I dissect him, how am I to know that it's really not a schizophrenic hallucination?

I agree that "I know my roommate is not a robot" is perfectly tenable. I also think that 'I know God does not exist" is perfectly tenable.

-B

mike_decock

Well, you don't know, but unless there is strong evidence to suggest you are a hallucinating schizophrenic, it is safe to assume your experience is real enough to be "practically true".

Agreed on both accounts.

The burden of proof is on the extraordinary claim because the claim is not ordinary. If you cannot prove within a high degree of certainty that your extraordinary claim is true, it is most tenable to state that you "know" the claim is false.

-Mike...

fando

Along the same lines as colloquial agnosticism being a pointless category, I would say that most of those who profess such agnosticism in conversation are really betraying a preference for theism and are held back mainly due to some mental or social stumbling block (say, living among a bunch of atheists and fearing to alienate oneself).

Sure, there are some that profess to have though deeply about the subject and claim to have good arguments for not being able to know that God exists, but I wouldn't describe such a philosophy as agnosticism because the quality of it is akin to very weak scientific conjecture with no experimental or theoretical basis and no hopes of progressing beyond that state. In other words, the kind of wild hypothesizing that math and science freshmen go through before learning the real deal. Hey, that's a great name for it: Agriosm, after Greek for wild plus -ism (conjugated to -m). An Agriost is one who engages in Wild Hypothesizing and constantly points out that since there's no evidence against, we can't possibly discount. That is, the essence of Agriosm is a sort of argument ad ignorantiam, or argument from ignorance: If something has not been proven false, then it must be true. (But in this case, "might" is used instead of "must", which is an ingenious and subtle diversion.) Please bear in mind that I'm not dissing real philosophers here, just the stalwart champions of armchair agnosticism and heralds of ignorance.

I like to keep agnosticism as doubt in religion, someone with weak or wavering faith. I don't like the trend that tries to transform that simple definition into somehing mighty sophisticated a la postmodernism.

Edit for grammar and the "might" clarification.

nermal

I don't see it as a probabilistic exercise. Probability is an extension or consequence of logic, and the question of the existence of the supernatural is not one which can be evaluated logically. It is, by definition, outside the realm of logic which is contingent upon and determined by existence in the natural sense.
By assigning a probability to the existence of God, you are in essence falling back on the two arguments I posited earlier. I'll restate them, and even concede some ground and add a third:

1. The existence of God is an assertion, and the burden of proof falls on those making the claim.
2. There is no evidence for the existence of a God, and therefore it cannot be proven.

The third is this:
3. By parsimony, I can assert that I do not believe in God.
I cannot "know" God does not exist, and I do not have to. The reasonable position barring newfound evidence is that God does not exist.

Again, if we can agree that knowledge is a tenable concept, which has any meaning whatsoever, then we must agree that there are things which we can know. These exist within the sphere of the natural, and are testable and falsifiable. The hypothesis that your roommate is a robot falls within this sphere.
You can test the hypothesis that your roommate is a robot. You can prove it true or false by a number of empirical methods. You can know the validity of the claim insofar as the word "know" means anything.
I disagree. Insofar as they keep the subject the existence of God, and don't spill over into some kind of trancendentalist nonsense, they aren't robbing knowledge of legimate meaning, they are just positing a position (agnosticism) which has no meaning.
The color of your shirt is a testable, falsifiable hypothesis. It is a measurable property. It falls within the natural, logical scheme of things, and insofar as we can know anything, we can know the color of your shirt.
Both kinds of deitys are unknowable and useless, since they must exist outside the natural testable falsifiable universe. That's the point.
I ran into that feller over in the political forum, he's bad, and mean-dog mean. If he rides into this forum, me and Festus will give him a good welcome. They's room enough in this town for all of us.
Cue up the Hugo Montenegro.

Ed