diana

That's tautologically redundant, isn't it?

d

Keith Russell

Greetings:

If saying 'there is no 'God'' requires omniscience, then omniscience would be required to make any claim.

I mean, how does one know that two plus two might equal five, somewhere in some far off, unobserved corner of the universe?

We can either know, or we can't know. And, if we cannot know, we cannot even know that...

Keith.

parkdalian

There is another difficulty. It may be more accurate to say that "fictional creatures do not presently exist".

Unicorns may be considered fictional now, but I'm sure they could manipulate the genes of horses to grow horns. Flying machines were once fictional, but exist now.

LLaurieG

(Laurie) Chimeras - good one! Makes my point. It's not about having never experienced them. My original statement was that intellectually speaking, I consider atheism to be the default position. Is this not your default position? Are you claiming that no one can know anything for sure?

(Laurie) Please refrain from insults.

(Laurie) It's reasonable to believe that because the burden of proof is on the leprechaun asserters. They've had centuries, but those believers have still not introduced a leprechaun to the world - not one tiny footprint - not one li'l green coprolite. Yes: concluding that leprechauns are fictional folktale figures who do not actually exist IS reasonable and DOES make the most sense. Another writer here put it best:

(Laurie) In my opinion that is precisely the trouble with the agnostic position. "I don't know" is their sole response to everything. A person who, when serially quizzed re: his belief in a long list of improbable gods and obviously fictional, supernatural creatures who repeats "I don't know! We can never know!" over and over and over again might pat himself on the back for intellectual honesty. But in the real world, such a respondee is quickly dismissed by others as a fencesitter, one unwilling to take a stand - and to a truly absurd degree! I agree with Reasonable Doubt and with Koyaanisquatsi:



(Laurie) To summarize: the lack of positive evidence [hinduwoman], and the historical propensity of humans to invent gods [Selseral], are both very strong evidence for the nonexistence of god(s). To that I would add another item relating to Selseral's "big picture" observation, namely that no babies are born believing in a god. God-belief must be indoctrinated into children's impressionable minds. Furthermore we know that such indoctrination "brainwashing" works even on mature adults.

If the many gods proposed by human cultures are real, why do children need to be inculcated into their belief?

[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: LLaurieG ]</p>

Hawkingfan

Yes, Reasonable Doubt has said it best. (Maybe I should change my name to ReasonabledoubtFan?). Anyway, I'll try and add my 2 cents worth. It just seems to me that saying, "Impossible to know" implies a fear of being wrong. Either that, or it's the equivalent of saying "I do not have the intellect to decide" or "I am uncapable of thinking" or "I cannot decipher between fact and fiction, imagination and reality". The simple fact remains that nothing can possibly exist outside the laws of science. If god exists within the laws of science (which he doesn't--no mass, no temperature, no pressure, etc...) then it is possible to know him--yet there is no evidence that this is the case. If god does not exist within the laws of science (which is impossible), his behavior would have no affect on our universe at all, at any point in time--his existance would be meaningless.
As an atheist, to the question "Is there a God?" I say: "I believe in science. God plays no role in any scientific theory. Science is truth. God is not truth." So the agnostic must show how something can exist outside the realm of science in order to say it is impossible to know if God exists.

diana

Fascinating position. It sounds reasonable, but I'm not sure I agree. It seems flawed, but damned if I can put my finger on it.

d

Crito

That's exactly what I did after reading your vacuous pontification. Let's take a look, shall we?

Your patronizing antics do not move me. Here's the definition of "fiction", found <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fictional" target="_blank">here</a>, emphasis mine: "An imaginative creation or a pretense that does not represent actuality but has been invented." Replacing your phrase "Fictional creatures" with this definition, we then see the vacuousness of your sentence: "Imaginative creatures that do not represent actuality but have been invented do not factually exist." Thus your sentence, as diana pointed out, is tautological.

Since the "this" you're referring to is merely a tautology, then of course it's "incontrovertible and fundamental". Your sentence is analogous to "I saw a triangle with three sides," because a triange, by definition, is a three-sided shape. And there's no point in communicating with someone who says "I saw an eight-sided triangle," because that person has a dysfunctional head.

Now before proceeding, let me make a point clear. According to its definition, by calling any creature "fictional", you are making a claim. You are claiming that such a creature does not "represent actuality" - that it does not exist! And when you make a claim, be it "does exist" or "does not exist", you have the burden of proof.


You're missing the point. It's not about saying "This fictional creature is not fictional." It's about asking, "Is this creature fictional in the first place?" I'll explain more below.

Utterly false. This is an example of argumentum ad ignorantiam, explained <a href="http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html#ignorantiam" target="_blank">here</a>: the fallacy occurs "when it is argued that something must be false because it hasn't been proved true."

A fictional creature is one which exists in the mind only. That's what "fictional" means, as I said earlier. So when you say that dragons are fictional, you are claiming that they don't exist. And to prove this you say that "until such time as the burden of proof has been adequately met, [the dragon] is and must be considered...a fictional creature."

That, my friend, is the fallacy argumentum ad ignorantiam. Because it cannot be shown that dragons exist, it does not follow that dragons don't exist, that they are fictional.

As I said earlier in this thread, the only answer is "I don't know." A declaration of ignorance.

By the way, get rid of all that god-damned adverbiage. It's adding nothing to your post.

[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: Crito ]</p>

LLaurieG

(Laurie) It strikes people that way today. It strikes me that way. But it's important to put agnosticism in historical context. Recall that a couple centuries ago, it would be professional suicide and could even be dangerous to publicly profess atheism. Agnosticism was proposed by scientist Thomas Huxley in 1870, the same year Darwin's Origin of Species saw print. (Coincidence??) Myself, I think coming up with the concept was incredibly socially useful, even a stroke of genius, on Huxley's part as it served to give religious skeptics a socially acceptable avenue and label for expressing religious doubt. Murmuring "one simply can't know for certain whether God exists" is far less dangerous, more genteel, more socially acceptable than saying "It's a crock."

And from <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>



[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: LLaurieG ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

One would certainly think that is the case. Unfortunately, no theist seems capable of understanding such a basic fact, so it must be repeatedly pointed out to them ad nauseum.

God is a fictional creature until such time as the burden to prove otherwise has been met. Stating God is not fictional does not meet that burden.

Anyone who merely states, "God is not fictional" (i.e., "God exists") or tries to get around the burden by stating something equally asinine (such as "Prove that God is fictional") fails to meet the absolute, self-imposed burden of proof inherent in the initial claim, "God exists."

Until that burden has been met by theists (the only ones making the positive claim), it is not possible to say a God factually exists nor is it even possible to say that a God might factually exist.

One can only say (with any certainty) that no such being factually exists, because fictional creatures do not factually exist.

To addend the "currently" or "until proven" is a further irrelevance, since (as others have already pointed out) an essential attribute of the Judeo/Christian God's existence is that it can never be proved to exist, per se, so much as it must be believed to exist on faith alone.

It's hardwired into the construct. An ineffable being--by its very (alleged) nature--cannot ever be proved to exist, which, again, is why the cult created the doctrine of faith to avoid this obvious flaw in their dogma.

It is designed to be nothing but circular logic, which, to the ignorant, induces the exact cognitive dissonance necessary for indoctrination.

It's like the Buddhist koan, "If you ever see the Buddha, kill him," since, if you were to ever actually see the Buddha, then it couldn't possibly be the Buddha.

[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi-Still Retired ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

Unfortunately, having shunned "vacuous pontification" in order to proudly rise to assert your "declaration of ignorance", you've hardly gone much beyond tautology. That does not, of course, render the declaration wrong, but "god-damned adverbiage" to the effect that you don't know that which is rendered inaccessible and unknowable says very little.

Tell me, from your perspective:

• Is the belief in God(s), the Daoine Sidhe, the Purple Unicorn and White Raven warranted or unwarranted?
• Do you suspect that the laws of physics and chemistry apply to galaxy M51, and is this belief similarly warranted or unwarranted?

Finally, do you suggest that all of these 'unknowables' are equally deserving of your "declaration"?

[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>