Pomp

Mod hat back On.

SirenSpeak, please refrain from casting aspersions on Koy's character, as opposed to the content/tone of his posts.

Pseudonymph

Sorry but I've simply gotten frustrated dealing with this person, who gets away with things that others simply do not.

this is a good example. Isnt calling someone a "cult member" innapropriate?

Why did I get flagged and koy hasnt been warned for saying far worse things? at least not that I have ever seen. Why not ask koy not to cast aspirations on other's character? Something he routinely does.

[ April 22, 2002: Message edited by: SirenSpeak ]</p>

copernicus

Originally posted by Half-Life:
<strong>For class, I need to know why people are agnostics. My teacher wants to know why people believe that we can never know if God is real.</strong>

I really wish that your teacher had put the question differently: Why do people believe that they can know God is real? And how do they define "God"? As an agnostic/atheist, I realize that different people have different ideas about what "God" is. How can one even ask the question without first defining their meaning of "God"? How could anyone ever affirm or deny your teacher's question without some definition of what "God" means? Without this definition, the question itself is meaningless.


His argument is: What if God came down and talked to us? Wouldnt that be a way to know he is real? What if he worked a full-fledged miracle and everyone witnessed it? that would be another way we can know if God is real.

Suppose I told you that I was Einstein. Would you believe it? Could you prove me false? What if I appeared in a cloud of smoke before you and proclaimed "I am Einstein!" Furthermore, suppose that I really looked like Einstein. Would you believe that I was Einstein? How would I convinced you? What if I spoke with a thick Swiss-German accent?

You can see where this is going. What constitutes "proof"? I submit that the only way to prove anything is to provide empirical evidence that others can verify. If you can do that for "God", then you won't find many people remaining agnostics. What we require is verifiable proof--repeatable observations. What makes me say, more often than not, that I am an "atheist" is that I don't believe that such evidence is forthcoming. If one is going to believe implausible ideas without proof, then one might as well accept the existence of Peter Pan, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy. Atheists and agnostics are not required to prove that God doesn't exist any more than they are required to prove that Peter Pan, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy don't exist.

<strong>
So, I guess the main thing I need to know is why you believe we can never know if there is a God or not. Thank you.</strong>

You are asking us to prove a negative proposition. Let's take a ridiculous example. Prove that Santa Claus does not exist. How would you do it? You could make all kinds of arguments about how Santa Claus is an extremely implausible being. You can never prove for an absolute certainty that he does not exist. However, suppose that you wanted to prove that Santa Claus existed. That would be far easier. First of all, you would need to define Santa Claus. Secondly, you would just need to produce a being that met your criteria for "Santa Claus".

The burden of proof is always on the positive assertion. Negative assertions are far more difficult, if not impossible, to prove. You cannot enumerate all of the conditions under which the existence of some imagined object would be impossible. Agnostics are just people who admit that they cannot prove a negative assertion.

jdawg2

I'm not sure if I have any info for you or not

The Other Michael

Hello Copernicus,

I'm puzzled why this isn't the tack that is normally taken on the board. From what I've seen many of the questions posed are based on false assumptions, are leading questions, are merely rhetorical.

It appears to me that if more threads were addressed *at the start* as you did there might be less noise and more signal.

cheers,
Michael

Vorkosigan

Perhaps. But there might also be less learning-by-interacting, and above all, less community.

Vorkosigan

Koyaanisqatsi

Pompous: Quite right, my "rant," as Automaton called it, was heated and my tone excessive. This will be my only response so as not to further sidetrack this thread.

Siren: ....whatever

Automaton: If I may respond...

Actually, if you re-read my “rant” you'll see that 95% of it doesn't mention anything at all about being a cult member; 5% does. But I’m sure you can stuff a straw man with only 5%, right?

Of course right.

Regardless, don't blame the messenger.

Because I pull no punches and am passionate about exposing this nonsense for what it is, I have a superiority complex, eh? Fine.

What would you call this, by the way, if not the result of an even-more-superior complex?

At least I told the kid what's what in no uncertain terms.

It should be abundantly clear to anyone who has ever read any of my posts that I do not in any way shape or form consider anything I post regarding cults and cult programming to be "empty terms."

Stuff that directly up your straw man, capisca?

As for the term having "emotional impact," again, don't blame the messenger. It is what it is. Obfuscating that fact only exacerbates the problem, IMO.

As I will get into later, it is not an example of "propaganda."

If you're going to act superior you should at least be able to demonstrate it, yes?

Yes, let's...

His character? Please take note of what was emphasized.

The emphasis was placed on the inability to comprehend "any answers given" because of outside conditioning "to accept a premise as true that has never been demonstrated to be true." It had nothing to do with his character and everything to do with the fact that outside conditioning has evidently, IMO, influenced his thinking, thus his questions.

Half Life's last post stated:

And the original question was:
My entire “rant” was an explanation of how backwards that question is and how it is, in essence, the fallacy of the complex question; that evident within these questions is cult programming, skewing the questions to the point where they are literally turned completely around.

You saw it as innocent questions regarding agnosticism and I saw deeper based not just on this post, but his other posts that I have also been involved in, which is why my post was directed at Half Life and not you.

Sue me.

Impossible for me to comprehend that someone could come to an illogical belief through logical exploration? Technically, no, not impossible to "comprehend," just indicative of skewed logical processing, IMO.

What's more, nothing in Half Life's posts (again, not just this one) shows anything regarding his "logical exploration." What they have shown, however, is his own ability for rational, logical thought, which makes his skewed thinking all the more painful to watch for me and is precisely why I posted what I did to him, concluding my post as I did.

I'm sorry if it wasn't abundantly clear to you that my post was directed to Half Life and not you.

You just said, "Would you be willing to accept any evidence for the existence of a fictional creature at all, no matter how strong it might be?"

It's also the fallacy of the complex question. Have you stopped beating your wife? If not, sir, then you...blah, blah, blah...

Stuff that straw man!

Obviously if someone has compelling evidence, I'll process it the same way I would process any compelling evidence, so your question was not just rhetorical, but it was a pedantic attempt at establishing superiority, so put that in your irony pipe and smoke it.

Please! You could use a bowl.

How about you respond to the salient issue? Is theism an imposed belief structure, i.e., is it forced upon you? The answer to that question in 99.998% of the time is, "yes."

Why did I make this point? Well, in context with my “rant” it coincides with the theme of trying to derail Half Life's already derailed thought process; to make it clear to him that he will not be able to comprehend any answers given because he has been forced to accept as true that which has never been demonstrated to be true first.

And that is derived entirely from what he has so far posted here and elsewhere.

Is that all right with you?

First, Scientific knowledge is not a belief system, no matter how many semantics dances are performed to equate the two.

Second, it is the result of natural investigation, so the only thing that could be said is that the Scientific process is "imposed" in that anything that is taught can be said to be "imposed," if your goal is tortured semantics to stuff a straw man as you are here doing.

You know as well as I do that there is a significant qualitative difference between "imposing theistic beliefs" and "teaching a method of scientific investigation," and that difference has little to nothing to do with semantics.

Yes... My superiority commands it.

Any more meaningless questions?

Can we say, "taken out of context and therefore, supported assertion?"

This is the whole quote:

Theism is, indeed, an imposed belief structure. It is forced upon you and not "natural" (unless you know of any recorded cased of children who just spontaneously started quoting two thousand year old Middle Eastern warrior-deity dogma in Aramaic?), and it can be readily demonstrated from Half Life's posts that he does not necessarily think this is true.

In other words, not unsupported--demonstrable--assertion.

Perhaps you're now confused about what an analogy is?

Obviously, I do not consider the "parents" of a computer to be its manufacturers-- --nor do I understand why you would.

The "natural" operating system is analogous to the individual's uninfluenced cognitive processes; the tabla rassa of the individual mind prior to social bias and influence, which is why I pointed out that if Half Life had been born in Palestine he would most likely be Muslim.

A point you agree with, by the way, if begrudgingly, but we'll get to that in due course as well.

Who has that superiority complex again?

Thank you. I have a master's degree in cute.

Relax, little one. It's an analogy, the resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike used to illustrate a point.

I used it to attempt to explain the fact that you are born with a default to what is natural and then conditioned to what is alleged to be supernatural, hence the changing of the default "natural" operating system with "Goddidit 6.66."

Remember? You thought it was cute.

Do you understand what an analogy is for?

And misconstruing the argument is even worse!

By all dogmatic accounts that I am aware of, God is ineffable and mysterious and cannot be known fully while alive as an essential quality to his "nature", hence my valid and logically-consistent-with-known-dogma conclusion.

Perhaps you should better understand what someone is saying prior to throwing a superiority hissy fit?

THEY DO ON A CONSTANT BASIS.

Regardless, that was not what my argument was about; merely your confused and/or deliberate misconstruction.

Oh, for f*ck's sake, you know what I meant. "A 'mistake,' deliberately made so that it slips under the cognitive radar," there, is that better or are you just happy to be pedantic?

Oh please. My "misdirection?" From what was I directing away? My "rant" was directed at Half Life and what I perceived to be a thinly veiled attack on atheism, since it has been my experience that just about every single "discussion" regarding agnosticism is either a conflation of agnosticism and atheism to begin with, or eventually becomes that in the end.

I'm sorry if I pre-empted some point you wished to make, but then, you've got the same ability to post whatever it is you wish to post as do I.

Beside, when I posted, no one else had made any questionable arguments for me to "misdirect."

Half Life's question was: I guess the main thing I need to know is why you believe we can never know if there is a God or not.

An agnostic doesn't believe this as others have pointed out. This is a question much more for atheists than "strong agnostics," (a pointless semantics waffling term, IMO), who only consider it highly unlikely that they will ever know one way or the other.

For an agnostic to declare: "I will never know if there is a God or not," is to declare for all intents and purposes, atheism, the absence of belief in a god or gods, pure and simple, no matter how many pointless semantics hairs you (or anyone else, for that matter) wish to split.

Which is why I then posted...

How is that "misdirection?" If you declare, "I will never know whether or not a God exists," then you are, in effect, declaring atheism, the absence of belief in a god or gods.

Cutting to what I perceived to be the chase is not "misdirection."

Do you even know what these terms mean?

To never know is the linguistic equivalent of .9999999 repeating, which, in mathematics is accepted to be the equivalent of 1, so, I made that leap of faith.

Sue me.

Oh, sorry, didn't mean to use another "whacky analogy" to help illustrate my point.

Would you care for me to write a post as long as this one regarding the word "imply" and how it is derivative of a whole and not specific?

Regardless, my statement, in context, was referring to what atheism is and the purpose of deliberately mistaking atheism with agnosticism, as I clearly perceived was the case with Half Life's questions.

In other words, I was clarifying my own point.

Sorry, if that, too was confusing.

I have seen these same questions a thousand times before and they always digress to the revelation of an illegitimate conflation of agnosticism and atheism, so forgive me if I decided to lay down a pre-emptive "rant," yes?

As I may have mentioned prior, it wasn't directed at you, so I fail to see the relevance of your post.

It's odd that you included the entire thrust of my argument here--not commenting on the fact, I noticed, that the points I make are salient and supportive of everything you claim was just my "rant;" particularly the point I made in that first paragraph regarding what is and is not and why it is and is not a "natural" state of existence--only to then ask this irrelevant rhetorical question.

The point made was that Half Life should not be asking us any questions at all, rather he should be putting the burden of proof where it belongs, on his teacher.

To ask us why we don't believe fictional creatures factually exist is the granddaddy of all tautologies and since others had already addressed it on its face, forgive me, but I thought some other pre-emptive more salient points should also be raised.

I was attempting to explain in no uncertain terms (as is my wont) that the questions are not just assuming that which is not in evidence, but further that he is asking the wrong people the wrong questions.

I apologize if that, too, was unclear and displeased you, your majesty.

Yeah...whatever...Careful, though, your straw man is standing rather close to that fire...

Yeah...whatever...the fire? It's getting...well, if you don't care, I won't either, but you've gone to such trouble...

"Yet again," eh? This should be interesting.

No, I said they "throw up a smokescreen" that is meant to obfuscate that the only justification they have for their beliefs is authority. A "smokescreen," meaning, not evidence, just meant to look like evidence so that you don't see what everything is actually based upon.

That would be the purpose of a "smokescreen."

Archeology is not evidence that proves water was turned into wine or the dead resurrect into Gods or burning bushes speak; likewise extrabibilical references to a man named Jesus nor a boy growing an extra foot in Argentina.

Are you trolling?

Try this, then: the fact that the other evidence is not evidence proves my point and demonstrates that I did not contradict myself.

That fire is getting dangerously close...

There goes the foot! Better get some water quick. That straw man is so flimsy it's going to burst into flames in seconds...5...4....3...

1...

Ignition.

We do not.

Those arguments are not sound and have been demonstrated fallacious so many hundreds if not thousands of times that it's completely beyond me why the board doesn't simply post a disclaimer and close the section "Does God exist?" completely.

But then, I'm a little too hot headed to be influential to the board.

Sweeping?? What has not been demonstrated sufficiently enough by either myself or others here ad nauseum for you to accuse me of making "sweeping generalizations?"

If you have an objection to my tone, fine, make it, but if you're going to attack my reasoning or argumentation, then you'd better damn well be able to back it up instead of fallacious grandstanding like this.

Gee, you think?

No shit?

"Try?" Do fictional creatures factually exist? Well? Do they?

No, they do not. To contend otherwise would then carry with it a burden of proof, don't you think?

Apparently not.

By the way, that was my point; that the questions Half Life's teacher posited were ass backwards and assumed facts that were not in evidence, deliberately misplacing the burden of proof.

I was correcting that skewed thought process.

Sorry if that puts you off.

Accept, of course, for the fact that my argument is demonstrably valid and the ontological arguments are not.

Gods are fictional creatures until otherwise demonstrated. That is an extant fact. It is therefore entirely the burden of the one contending anything different from this initial "default" truth to prove that such fictional creatures are, in fact, non-fictional.

Is that clearer for you?

And you just love avoiding the salient issues of my post. Oh, yeah, I also love using the word "salient."

See, I find that cults glory in the obfuscation of the truth in an Orwellian glee. Funny you should use the word "doublethink" earlier and not correctly apply it as I do.

I'm sorry. Is christianity not an example of ancient Middle Eastern Jewish warrior-deity mythologies?

Propaganda implies that I am not telling the whole truth or in some way bending the truth or obfuscating the truth, precisely what my labored specificity is meant to expose.

How, exactly, is correctly describing christianity in this manner "propaganda?"

Oh, by the way, may I use your straw man's ashes for a papier mache skull I was going to make later? Thanks.

Demonstrably in contention. I say tomato, you say strong agnosticism.

And, as I contended prior, a pointless semantics hair splitting that you are forcing onto Half Life's question, IMO, but fine.

You are interested in exploring a "strong agnostic" definition that equates strong agnosticism, IMO, with atheism for all intents and purposes in order to what? Establish that a strong agnostic does not consider it possible to ever know one way or the other that a God exists.

Have fun with that.

I was, however, addressing a much more important point, IMO, than the splitting of agnostic hairs, which was that Half Life should not be asking us such questions as he should be asking his teacher--the only one making a positive claim--to justify and/or support his own beliefs and, even more important, why his teacher feels he has the basis to impose that belief system upon his students and in so doing skew Half Life's natural cognitive processing so badly that he would not be able to recognize the logical fallacies he is committing by even asking the questions to begin with.

See, I was turning it all around onto him, where it belongs.

I'm sorry if I'm not following your agenda.

It was a deliberate use of redundancy to make a point. It's called poetic license and occasionally I use mine while driving prose.

Clearly yours was long ago revoked.

Well, since it wasn't directed at you, perhaps a simple suggestion of, don't read my posts? Or perhaps a lovely day at the spa would be in order?

Methinks the Lady doth protest too much...

That's funny. I ate rabid Fundy last night for dinner.



(edited for formatting - Koy)

[ April 23, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

BibleBelted

Good Grief!

Koyaanisqatsi

Indeed. My apologies to the rest of the "room."

I will bow out of this discussion as it is clear I perceived something else was a foot at hand...

Proxima Centauri

Most agnostics believe God is currently unknowable. Hardly anyone argues that nothing could ever prove the existence of God. Just miracles which could prove God don't happen. Do you know of any? Here is a website which will tell you about people who pretend miracles and other paranormal things happen when they don't.
<a href="http://www.csicop.org/" target="_blank">http://www.csicop.org/</a>
Here is a document which can show you what
Thomas Huxley, the first agnostic, said.
The Essence Of Agnosticism
<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/bill_schultz/agnostic.html" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/bill_schultz/agnostic.html</a>
I hope your teacher isn't brainwashing you too hard. Don't tell your teacher I said that. Teachers get nasty if they are called brainwashers, even if it looks true. Just read other things so you don't have to rely on what that teacher says.

Here's a website
where you can learn what agnostics really think.
<a href="http://www.agnostichurch.com/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.agnostichurch.com/index.html</a>