Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt:

"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."

Remember, I defined agnosticism in my post as "the position that one does not know whether any gods exist." By that definition, to disprove the Christian god is to disconfirm agnosticism. Now, I'm sure you have a different definition of "agnosticism," and that's fine. But mine's close enough to Living Dead Chipmunk's definition ("'not sure if ANY god(s) exist'"), and it is to him or to her that my post was addressed.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Living Dead Chipmunk:

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

By your definition, "not sure if ANY god(s) exist" (12/12/02 3:38 pm), I've disproven agnosticism in general.

Robert G. Ingersoll

Well, guys, I've read this entire lengthy post and didn't learn a damn thing. But please allow me to muck things up even more. I'm good at that.

It's hard to discern what the coiner of the term "agnosticism" actually was trying to say, and, indeed, the word can have any of about ten different definitions.

BUT, just to make things simple, I propose we would use the word 'agnosticism' to mean: the reasonably assumed propostion that all humans, by definition, are not gods, and do not and cannot have ABSOLUTE knowledge of anything, and that all understandings start from naked assumptions. Sad, but true (I can only assume).

Using this definition as a tool, all reasonable, non-egomanical individuals should agree to being agnostics, should they not? The opposite, i.e., gnostics, are just egomaniacs.

Now, having dealt with the epistemological question as effectively as i know how, the next question becomes "What is the most reasonable assumption, based on all the evidence we are aware of, or can be aware of, regarding the 'ontological question'."

'God' or 'god' has many varying definitions, with various and sundry attributes, e.g., all-powerful vs. most powerful, anthropological vs. free-floating consciousness, a generic vs. sectarian god, etc. But the FUNDAMENTAL definition of god, if the word is to have any meaning as supernatural or supranatural is simply:

god: Something that somehow through some method created the entire universe intentionally, i.e., on purpose. To hell with all the various caveats; this is the sine qua non, if you will.

Well, is there at present any scientifically provable method, empirical evidence, or sound logic that apparently leads an disinterested person to the conclusion that such is probable? Well, no, in my opinion. May I receive agreement on this from my fellow 'infidels'?

Continuing, does the god theory thereby seem superfluous as an explantion for the existence or the prevaling attributes of the universe? Well, yes, in my opinion. May I also receive agreement on this from 'infidels'?

Now, can this reasoning re ontology and epistemology be most accurately labeled as 'weak atheism'? Yes, I'm thinking.

Then what use word agnosticism (other than my proposed definition) and what use the phrase 'strong atheism'? What do those labels really do for me, or anyone else? What, I ax you?

I am a weak atheist. Why would an 'infidel' be anything else, or want to, unless they were egomaniacs, and/or do not have the intellectual capacity to understand this whole issue?

(Or is it the word 'weak' what turns some off?)



[ December 14, 2002: Message edited by: Robert G. Ingersoll ]</p>

Vorkosigan

I am a weak atheist. Why would an 'infidel' be anything else, or want to, unless they were egomaniacs, and/or do not have the intellectual capacity to understand this whole issue?

...or understood it in a richer, deeper way than you imagine.

Vorkosigan, strong atheist

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Robert G. Ingersoll:

"I propose we would use the word 'agnosticism' to mean: the reasonably assumed propostion that all humans, by definition, are not gods, and do not and cannot have ABSOLUTE knowledge of anything, and that all understandings start from naked assumptions... all reasonable, non-egomanical individuals should agree to being agnostics, should they not?"

I'd say a definition of a philosophical position isn't very useful if it picks out every human being. What is "absolute" knowledge? I don't think anyone really looks for it when we're shopping for beliefs.

"god: Something that somehow through some method created the entire universe intentionally, i.e., on purpose."

To be a "strong" or "positive" atheist only requires that a person disbelieve in some gods, not in all gods. And there is good reason to disbelieve in some gods.

galiel

I am a _______. Why would a _______ be anything else, or want to, unless they were egomaniacs, and/or do not have the intellectual capacity to understand this whole issue?

No matter what you put in there, this is not the statement of a rational freethinker. It sounds an awful lot like the statement of a dogmatic believer, and I am sure that was not your intent.

People may be mistaken (including you), they may know more or less than you do, they may or may not share the same definition of terms that you do, they may be irrational. That does not make them either egomaniacal or intellectually retarded.

Try again.

Synaesthesia

By this definition, there are only a handful of atheists in the world. Moreover, by this definition, strong atheists are almost all agnostic.

I am more confident that God doesn't exist then I am confident that Santa Clause doesn't exist. If this doesn't make me a strong atheist (which according to you it doesn't), I don't know what does.

luvluv

Thomas Metcalf:

Well, I would disagree at least partially. The big bang theory makes it clear to me that there is a necessary being, whether that being be God or the physical laws that allowed for the big bang to occur. SOMETHING must have always existed, even if that something is just a force or a law of nature.

Well, I would agree that considered independantly or in conjunction from a strictly formal standpoint both arguments fail as proofs. But the persistent actual FACT of the anthropic coincidences and big bang cosmology make Deism a perfectly legitimate hypothesis. I fail to see how alternatives to Deism "discredit" Deism. Does Deism discredit inflationary theory or superstring theory? When one is proven, then the others are discredited. Until that point, Deism of some kind is as legitimate a hypothesis as the others. The teleological and cosmological arguments have been discredited as proofs, but the problems they apparently describe (creation ex nihlo and the anthropic coincidences) still provide pefectly adequate and rational grounds for Deism.

At any rate, the teleological argument has always been a very strong, I dare say sound, argument against naturalism. None of Hume's objections deny that it is possible that the universe was fine-tuned, only that it is impossible to discern whether that fine-tuning was initiated once by an omnipotent, omniscient God, or by a team of intelligent beings through trial and error. But in either case, naturalism is undone. One would have to incorporate a complete Theory of Everything in order to make naturalism a possibility again, and even this would not solve what I consider to be the greatest anthropic coincidence of all, DNA. How exaclty did a system of encoding, translating, and utilizing information evolve from irrational, material processes? I'm not sure the T.O.E. would be able to answer that one.

It's still not clear to me. Who says God learned anything or did evil? I don't see what you are making the inconsistency with. Are you talking about the problem of evil?

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by luvluv:

"SOMETHING must have always existed, even if that something is just a force or a law of nature."

Still, to say that "something" has always existed provides as much support for theism as to say that something has a mind, or that something is powerful. The apologist has to show that only a being with God's other attributes could have produced the universe.

"But the persistent actual FACT of the anthropic coincidences and big bang cosmology make Deism a perfectly legitimate hypothesis."

It's not parsimonious enough. Deism is simply unnecessary to explain what we observe.

"The teleological and cosmological arguments have been discredited as proofs, but the problems they apparently describe... still provide pefectly adequate and rational grounds for Deism."

Only if the fact that cats exist provides rational grounds for the belief that cats were placed on earth by aliens. There are simply better hypotheses.

"At any rate, the teleological argument has always been a very strong, I dare say sound, argument against naturalism."

I don't see how. It's a well-known fact that natural processes produce order and complexity all the time, and further, it's another non sequitur to conclude that whatever produced this order is supernatural. Again, it's simply not necessary.

"One would have to incorporate a complete Theory of Everything in order to make naturalism a possibility again, ..."

That's akin to saying that someone would have to produce a theory that explained how they get those little ships in those bottles before we could say it's possible that it was humans that do it. Even if we don't know how it happened, that provides literally no grounds to posit something supernatural.

"...and even this would not solve what I consider to be the greatest anthropic coincidence of all, DNA. How exaclty did a system of encoding, translating, and utilizing information evolve from irrational, material processes?"

I don't know. We have some good leads. It's Argument from Ignorance to go from a question such as the above to the supposition, "Naturalism is false." A century or two ago, we had no idea how natural processes could have produced complex life, but it's clear now that they did. Again, we must not conclude anything strong based only on our ignorance; the theist must frame an argument that shows only a supernaturalistic process could produce DNA, or that some supernaturalistic process is the best explanation therefor.

"It's still not clear to me. Who says God learned anything or did evil?"

We know that He cannot perform either of those actions, but His omnipotence would indicate that He can. It's an explicit contradiction.

Fiach

We are falling into the debate over definition. Most of us here simple do not believe in the existence of God. That can include so-called Hard Atheists who state that they can disprove gods.

There are weak atheists (I hate the term weak for one who is more rational.) They simply state that there is no compelling evidence nor evidence at all for justifying a belief in God. The Agnostic is so close to that, it is hard to separate them. The Agnostic says there is such a total lack of evidence that the question is irrelevant.

All of this is dependent on using the prevailing Euro-American view of God as a being with consciousness who either directly created or designed the mechanisms of creation.

If we define God as a purely natural mechanism or force that belches out universes periodically but has no consciousness nor intelligence, then should we even call that God. It is not really supernatural, so God is not the ideal term for a natural process.

My position is that I have no belief in the existence of God. I assert that there is no evidence of god, and not even a necessity for a god. I disbelieve in God because he lacks evidence and is unnecessary. I don't know if that makes me a weak Atheist or a strong Agnostic. I think it just makes me a rational thinker.

Fiach