Synaesthesia

Pseudonym,
I don’t recall saying that it is possible to be irrational regarding a topic you are not aware of. It is, however, possible to be atheistic for irrational reasons. For example, some disbelieve in God because they think christians are assholes, or that God is cruel and a cruel god can’t exist.

Now there is no such thing as a totally irrational human being. However, all atheists have weaknesses in their epistemic systems to varying degrees. This is a product of the human condition and is naturally not unique to atheists.

Totalitarianist

Originally posted by Clutch:
Pseudo, I don't know any simpler form of communication than written English. I have explained that the First Cause argument is completely distinct from the idea that the universe actually had a beginning; that the former is unsound while the latter is consistent; and that atheists correctly reject the former while virtually universally accepting the latter, which is, after all, the received scientific view.

Tell me how rejecting the fact that "everything has a cause" is scientific. And please start answering my questions. Stop being so evasive.

If you have somehow failed to notice that this demolishes your claims about atheists and the FC,

You haven't indicated how the belief that "everything must have had a cause" is irrational. You're not making any sense now.

then I am unable to communicate with you. Your repeated evasion, however, makes it quite clear that you *have* noticed this, and would rather dodge than admit your error.

Tell me my error once again. This time, though, tell me how it's an error.

This is precisely, as I've said before, the strong atheist's method of reasoning on the existence of God:

-I do not know if there was a first cause or not. I do not know if there was a beginning or not. I do not know if the big bang is true or not. If it is true, I don't know if it was caused by something external or not. I don't know any of these things. I don't know if the universe is finite or infinite. I don't know if something caused the universe, or whether the causer, if there was one, was sentient or non-sentient. I don't know any of this, nor does anyone else.
-Therefore, with an air of certainty, I have rationally deduced that God does not exist.

Can someone please tell me how the above is incorrect? No one has actually done this yet.

The rational atheist will reject every form of God ever thought of by man; for that would be an irrational assumption based on something we are completely ignorant of. The rational atheist will also reject arguments for his non-existence (no, I'm not talking about the Christian God); for that would also be an irrational assumption on a beginning we are completely ignorant of.

[ July 22, 2002: Message edited by: Pseudonym ]</p>

Devilnaut

Pseudo, unless you start by treating your opponents with some respect, no one will bother to debate you and your arguments will suffer as a result.


Possibly because you haven't asked? The above is not a correct representation of a strong atheist's method of reasoning. I know, because I am a strong atheist with regards to most concepts of God.

Allow me to attempt to explain my personal reasoning on this issue:

It is true that we do not know what the processes were that led to our Universe's beginning, if indeed there was a beginning. There are an infinite number of possible "first causes", in fact as many as we could possibly imagine. One such suggestion for a "first cause" is that an all-powerful anthropomorphic creator set these things in motion (let us call him God). Keeping in mind that the concept of this God was created by and for humans that lived thousands of years ago, who had a mere fraction of the real knowledge that we currently have about our universe, and hence that this "first cause" is an essentially arbitrary entity and has literally no basis in reality, meaning it is supported by no physical evidence whatsoever, I see no reason to assign this "God" anything more than an extremely low probability of actually being the case.

any questions?

[ July 22, 2002: Message edited by: Devilnaut ]</p>

Clutch

It really is amazing. Careful, clear explanation, again and again, and you come back with yet another straightforward confusion of "everything has a cause" and "everything must have had a cause"! And then, of course, top it off by telling me I'm not making sense...

Well, okay. If you're determined to repeat this very basic confusion regardless of how often it's explained to you, there's no point continuing to explain it.

John Page

Pseud:

I think you do misunderstand strong atheism. How about:

"Man made up stories about god. It is irrational to believe all stories are true. Therefore it is not irrational to disbelieve unsubstantiated stories about god."

Rational?

Cheers, John

[ July 22, 2002: Message edited by: John Page ]</p>

Devilnaut

And one more thing:

Okay. What about the existence of an invisible / intangible dragon that only few people have ever witnessed and no one is able to clearly define? Is it now suddenly unreasonable to disbelieve in this creature?

Totalitarianist

By Jove! Once again, you're talking about a God created by man. That Dragon you speak of is like the God concept created by man. I'm not talking about any concept of God; I'm talking about a beginning we know nothing of. So don't make assumptions on that matter without empirical evidence. I will reply to the rest of you ******** later--when I have time to deal with utter nonsense.

Devilnaut

Okay. Well, I thought you were making some kind of charge of irrationality against strong atheists. Apparently whatever you are talking about has nothing to do with atheism.

optimist

Devilnaut: "Is this accurate?"

Well, since we are talking about word usage I suppose neither of our two definition are more accurate than the other. I would expect the most accurate definition of "weak" and "strong" atheism is "vague concepts used in horribly confusing and different ways!" What you and I are talking about is how we think the terms are best used, or are commonly used in (respectable) books on the subject. Here is the most sensible way I find to define them:

Strong Atheism: A straw-man position that claims all God-concepts to be untrue with 100% (logical) certainty. It fails because many God concepts are empirical, and so they can be untrue only with 100% empirical "certainty." BUT the usage of the word certainty in that statement requires "scare quotes" since empirical "certainty" is not like absolute logical certainty. I am empirically certain I have two hands since I have no reason to doubt it, all evidence points to the fact that I have two hands. But I am not (logically) certain since it is still possible that I don't have two hands. That all my evidence is wrong. When you use the word "certain" I think it is implied which kind of certainty you mean by the kind of fact you are asserting. (e.g. to say I am certain about having two hands implies that I mean empirically "certain" since I am speaking about an empirical fact.)

Weak Atheism: The belief that all God-concepts are false (with the level of uncertainty that goes with any empirical belief). This seems like how the plain word "atheism" is most often meant.

Strong Agnosticism: The belief that all God-concepts true-value are unknowable. No probability can be assigned to such a concept.

Weak Agnosticism: The suspension of belief on the God-question. For those who have not decided on the issue. Your, "In my opinion it's somebody who considers the evidence both for and against a given God concept to be underwhelming, and has suspended their judgement" is what I refer to as a weak agnostic. But, there is no standard on how to use any of these words really.

Any essay or book would be foolish not to first define how they are using these terms before they speak on this issue.

_________________________

Devilnaut: "strong atheists with regards to certain God concepts, and weak atheists with regards to others."

True. In my words, many people are weak atheists to certain God-concepts and weak agnostics to others they haven't thought about. However some are weak atheists to all the God-concepts that fall under their definition of "God." For example, me! Any entity (God, alien monkeys, invisible elves, etc.) that I have no positive evidence for and fails to cohere with my life experience is automatically considered (by me) empirically false. This is really a little more technical than that, but that is a close summary. Below I'll elaborate:


For example, if someone ask me if I believe in "ploks" I would not automatically disbelieve them since I don't even know what they mean by "ploks." If they said "ploks" are chairs with spikes in the middle, I might suspend judgement on their existence or maybe even consider the idea likely since "ploks" digresses only slightly from my normal experience. In my experience it would be easy to put a spike on a chair, and I can easily imagine many motives why this would have been done sometime in history. However, if someone told me that a "plok" is a alien super-creature who lives undetected on my head... This would not cohere with the rest of my life experience, nor could I think of any reason this "plok" would be living on my head. This would be a case where I would disbelieve in "ploks" until given some positive reason to even think they were possible.

"Plok" as a spike-chair would easily fit (cohere) with the rest of my life experience.

"Plok" as an alien super-creature would not. Not to mention: Why would you know about this creature?

Kharakov

Thanks, so it probably wasn't a disagreement with determinism, but instead with our ability to predict the future.

-k