Agnostic atheism seems like an irrational label
Belief is connected to knowledge through rationality. If you believe something and you're rational, it's because you know something. If you lack belief in something and you're rational, it's because you lack knowledge in it. Likewise, having knowledge in something makes it rational to believe in it, and lacking knowledge makes it rational to lack belief in it.
An agnostic lacks knowledge, so it follows that a rational definition should include that they lack belief in God, due to the connection between belief and knowledge.
Since both atheists and agnostics lack belief in God, we need a way to distinguish the two. So it should naturally follow that we define atheists in terms of what they know, not what they lack belief in.
Quoting Oxford Reference
Therefore what should define atheists is claiming to know that God does not exist (or synonymous phrases such as denying God exists), and this goes together with believing that God does not exist, since belief and knowledge are coupled. Hence, it makes sense to include "belief" in the definition, since it indicates what is known.
Numerous definitions define atheism as the belief God does not exist "or" lack of belief in God, but this "or" is misleading, because the latter follows the former anyway (although not vice versa). If you start by believing that something does not exist, then that goes together (if we're rational) with lacking belief in it.
But what about "agnostic atheism"? When we look at the definition that self-described agnostic atheists give themselves, we find it isn't any different to agnosticism. Many atheists insist that atheism is "just" lack of belief in God, but that's agnosticism.
But putting agnosticism together with atheism is contradictory, despite their shared lack of belief, because of what they know differently. Agnostics don't know whether God exists, while atheists know God doesn't exist. You can't be in two states about knowledge. You also can't be in two states about belief in something's non-existence, which is what is then entailed. An "agnostic atheist" lacks belief in God, like an agnostic, as well as believes God doesn't exist, like an atheist.
The agnostic/gnostic atheist paradigm just doesn't make sense. It tries to separate belief and knowledge so that atheists and theists can be partitioned according to whether their belief follows their knowledge -- that's irrational, because it's irrational to uncouple belief and knowledge.
Therefore, the coincidence of agnosticism and atheism is irrational, because it entails simultaneously not knowing whether God exists and knowing God doesn't exist.
An agnostic lacks knowledge, so it follows that a rational definition should include that they lack belief in God, due to the connection between belief and knowledge.
Since both atheists and agnostics lack belief in God, we need a way to distinguish the two. So it should naturally follow that we define atheists in terms of what they know, not what they lack belief in.
Quoting Oxford Reference
atheism -- The theory or belief that God does not exist.
Therefore what should define atheists is claiming to know that God does not exist (or synonymous phrases such as denying God exists), and this goes together with believing that God does not exist, since belief and knowledge are coupled. Hence, it makes sense to include "belief" in the definition, since it indicates what is known.
Numerous definitions define atheism as the belief God does not exist "or" lack of belief in God, but this "or" is misleading, because the latter follows the former anyway (although not vice versa). If you start by believing that something does not exist, then that goes together (if we're rational) with lacking belief in it.
But what about "agnostic atheism"? When we look at the definition that self-described agnostic atheists give themselves, we find it isn't any different to agnosticism. Many atheists insist that atheism is "just" lack of belief in God, but that's agnosticism.
But putting agnosticism together with atheism is contradictory, despite their shared lack of belief, because of what they know differently. Agnostics don't know whether God exists, while atheists know God doesn't exist. You can't be in two states about knowledge. You also can't be in two states about belief in something's non-existence, which is what is then entailed. An "agnostic atheist" lacks belief in God, like an agnostic, as well as believes God doesn't exist, like an atheist.
The agnostic/gnostic atheist paradigm just doesn't make sense. It tries to separate belief and knowledge so that atheists and theists can be partitioned according to whether their belief follows their knowledge -- that's irrational, because it's irrational to uncouple belief and knowledge.
Therefore, the coincidence of agnosticism and atheism is irrational, because it entails simultaneously not knowing whether God exists and knowing God doesn't exist.
Comments (331)
I am not sure about this one. I think an agnostic can harbor a bit of belief, they just arent sure. An atheist is more sure about the lack of god.
This is true if you work with absolutes. If you 100% know something then there is no room for not knowing. But I think a person can be 85% sure that god does not exist and still call themselves an atheist. And they may call themselves an agnostic at the same time because while they do not believe in god, they believe that something should exist, but they don't know what.
In my mind they are. To me, it is about the level of certainty.
As long as you don't know, you are an agnostic, because you lack knowledge. There aren't degrees of knowledge in a thing; it takes only a binary value.
Quoting mentos987
This is about belief, so you're describing how agnostics might differ from one another. But you still can't put lacking belief in x on a continuum with believing x doesn't exist, because they are different propositions that are separated by a binary divide.
I do not agree here either. When I say that I am "absolutely certain" about something what I really mean is that I believe it to be true with an error margin of about 0.01%.
"I think, therefore I am" is one of very few truths that are 100% certain.
Agreed.
Quoting mentos987
Then you aren't certain, you just have a high degree of confidence.
I think linguists have done a good job showing that atheism in the ordinary sense means more than a mere lack or absence of belief.
Yet there are self-described atheists who claim 1) to lack belief in God's existence, 2) to have no rational justification to assert that God does not exist, and 3) to have no disposition to believe that God might exist. This differs from agnosticism vis-à-vis (3) and it differs from ordinary atheism vis-à-vis (2). Thus the differentiation is intelligible even if the position isn't entirely coherent or sturdy.
True, but I believe that no one is ever 100% sure, so when we say "certain" what we really mean is 99.9...% sure. And if everyone else if fine with equating this to being certain, who am I to argue against it.
So atheists have a high degree of confidence that God doesn't exist. The label "atheist" is useful to convey that. Do you see a problem with people using the word that way?
That isn't a belief that I share.
And (2) as well.
Ye, the belief basically stems from the low chance that everything we experience could ultimately just be one huge fever dream and none of it be true. Since you can't argue away this possibility you instead leave a little room to doubt everything else.
Except that I think, and therefore am..
Quoting mentos987
I agree totally. One hundred percent certainty just does not exist. (Apart from maybe in Plato's World of Forms, but then we would have to 100 percent believe in that, which is impossible, and hence, we find ourselves in a vicious circle.)
Yes, possibly but not necessarily.
I am an agnostic atheist - a fairly common term these days in freethinking circles. Atheism goes to belief, agnosticism goes to knowledge.
I do not believe there are gods. But I do not know that there are no gods. Yet I can't help what I believe. My intuition is to say there are no gods. None of the reasons I have heard are convincing. But I cannot make a positive claim that there are no gods since that would require a demonstration. That's my take.
As I have stated elsewhere, I don't think arguments for or against gods are as significant as some think. You either believe or you don't and this seems to me to be similar to one's sexual preferences. You can't help what you are attracted to. And yes, just as people may change sexual preferences, they might move from belief to disbelief. I suspect people form their views of gods through sense making and intuition more than the arguments we keep rehashing.
Belief and knowledge are coupled, if we're being rational. So if by "goes to belief" you mean "is about lacking belief", then you're defining atheism to be the same as agnosticism.
Quoting Tom Storm
You're an agnostic.
Neither do agnostics, so you need more reason than that to call yourself an atheist.
But the rest of what you're saying -- that we don't invent labels for a host of other lack-of-beliefs -- actually supports my side of this. It supports not defining atheism in terms of what it lacks belief in. Instead, it should be defined in terms of knowledge.
Edit. Maybe agnostic people are keener on thinking in terms of scales/degrees/continuums, since they are more focused on doubt itself.
Re: Atheist contrivances used to avoid presenting the case for their beliefs
In that thread you will find the WNA which will provide what you lack.
And yes, I am a bit jaded. :razz:
WNA? Nvm, found it
Wonderer Neurological Argument, of course.
1) Define "God" as a mind which is not contingent on the existence of an underlying information processing substrate.
2) If minds are contingent on the existence of an underlying information processing substrate, then God does not exist.
3) Minds are contingent on the existence of an underlying information processing substrate.
4) Therefore God does not exist.
This?
Meh, I was not impressed.
Yeah, there's some esoteric knowledge required to get the joke.
I will continue to use atheist as my own personal label since it is more useful. The agnostics I know do not say they do not believe in gods they typically say they can't answer the question of belief since they do not know. Odd to me and as a consequence I consider most agnostics to be atheists. But I fear we will continue to disagree on this so I am happy to move on and let common usage amongst atheists determine where this one heads.
The argument comes to a dead halt with "Define "God"", why would we be able to define god? I am not a believer but if a god were to exist outside of our world, it would seem utterly hopeless to try to define it.
If so, please explain.
If not, then explain why your OP is not inconsistent with the disjunction of 'knowing that G' and 'believing in G' I've presented here. :chin:
I think your conflation of knowing (i.e. a proposition) and believing (i.e. to have trust in, or to be committed to, a statement or disposition), Hallucinogen, is clearly unwarranted.
There are a lot of Christians out there, who interpret Romans 1:18-20 as saying that everyone actually knows God exists.
Such Christians tend to interpret requests that they define God as an indication of dishonesty on the part of atheists.
Yes.
Quoting 180 Proof
This seems like equivocation. I'm not talking about "believing in" in the sense of trusting their character.
Quoting 180 Proof
If you know something, it is rational to believe it. Why would you not believe something that you know?
Quoting 180 Proof
I'm not conflating them. I'm saying they're connected by rationality. See 1st sentence of the OP.
You misconstrue atheism which denotes 'lack of belief in god' and / or 'belief in the nonexistence of god' and is not a statement of knowledge (i.e. not a truth-claim) like agnosticism. It's you who are equivocating confusing belief and knowledge in order to conjure up an inconsistency where there isn't one.
Yes, just as it can be "rational" to believe something without knowing whether it is true.
If you lack knowledge of something, then it's rational to lack belief in it.
If you know something doesn't exist, then it's rational to believe it doesn't exist.
Quoting 180 Proof
???
Agnostics lack knowledge (the lack of a claim) and therefore lack belief.
Quoting 180 Proof
Any belief that you have is a result of what you know, not lack of knowledge.
Agnostics believe we cant know whether God exists. This doesnt preclude faith. Its just not justified true belief. So no knowledge of God - just belief.
Atheists cannot make that leap as they can only belief something justified and true. That precludes God.
So they are well-delineated to my mind. Has that delineation failed somewhere?
Ha! I agree. The point they are making is shaky.
From the American Atheist website:
I wasn't aware of their definition until recent years. But this construction has generally made sense to me.
The hallmark of trouble for me is often when people get bogged down in definitions and marooned in the words. Usage is much more efficacious. I am happy to be an atheist or agnostic or freethinker (the term I used to use) as long as people understand that I do not accept the proposition that god's exist. I have encountered no reason why I should believe in them and a lack of belief fits with my overall sense making.
I have always assumed that since the two words are used separately and that they have separate etymologies that they would carry particular and different meaning. My intuitions there worked out to be pretty much spot on.
I think thats true that a usage-symbolism is good in some sense because it ultimately doesnt matter what one labels oneself with over what they do. But discussing th Le positions requires a little more precision and thats where the notion of belief vs knowledge is super clear abs helpful to me. In any case it seems to solve the problem of rhe OP if the definitions are shared.
To define something you would need to know something about it, does Christians claim to know god? Maybe, I don't know. To me it seems like arguments that god does not exist are weak, and arguments that it does exist are even weaker.
:up:
My WNA was a bit of a hoax, where I reworded the Kalam Cosmological Argument as presented by theologian/philosopher William Lane Craig, and presented the very slightly modified argument as an argument for atheism. The originator of that forum thread then proceeded to attack the WNA, using all the same logic he would reject if directed at the KCA.
Ye, you are right. I lack the prerequisite knowledge here.
A: The reason why someone has or lacks belief is a different topic, with atheists often replying they don't see strong enough evidence and theists using personal experience both of those are valid even if perhaps insufficient.
B: When we ask whether someone believes something, it is a yes or no question. When we ask someone "do you believe there is life in another planet", the answer is either yes or no, as the person weights the evidence in their head. The correct answer would be "I don't positively believe either way, but given the following facts, I believe it is more likely that...", but humans don't talk like that, we say "I (/do not) believe in it".
C: Are you sure that you will wake up tomorrow? No, I could have a stroke in my sleep. Do I have any reason to believe that will happen? No, so I believe I will wake up tomorrow.
The same applies to the Sun rising. Maybe the Sun is massive enough to form a supernova, maybe a supernova can happen from one day to another, maybe an asteroid will hit the Earth and shatter it, or maybe stop its spin, maybe the United Nations did not tell us anything about any of those for some reason! It is possible. Do I believe any of those are the case? I don't believe them, because if I believe that today, I should have believed it all the other past days, because the evidence is the same (none), and it did not happen in any of those days, so I am safer saying it won't happen tomorrow either.
D: It is hardly the case that someone is truly neutral on a topic, even if they purport to be. Given a topic with more than one argument for it and against it each, each argument can have sway in a person that goes from 0 to 1, and there are infinitely many possibilities between 1 and 0 not convinced at all by that argument being 0 and 1 being fully convinced. Being that most topics have several arguments surrounding it, it is extremely unlikely that the evidence's sway in someone's head falls exactly in the middle between belief and disbelief.
From B and D, when we ask someone whether they believe in God they should say yes or no, the uncertainty of the topic is already implied, stating whether you are an agnostic theist/atheit is redundant, and any gnostic theist/atheist has an almost impossible-to-meet burden of proof, so I say the gnostics here are either lying or confused. The agnostic label should be reserved for those who are truly divided (even if the evidence sways their mind in another direction) and prefer to suspend judgement in the await for more evidence.
So what about those that are sure that our religious gods do not exist, but have no clue about anything supernatural beyond that? Are they just atheist or are they agnostic atheist?
You could argue for the label of religious atheist as well for stuff like Buddhism and Jainism, but that is a whole other can of worms.
So to answer your answer, I would say first that those people are deluded because of "sure that our religious gods do not exist" and my comment's C. I would then say they are agnostic about spirituality, but conditionally gnostic antitheist (on the condition that those gods are the gods of Christianity and Islam and Judaism and Tengri etc).
I don't think people need to be delusional because they don't share your grasp of the terminology.
Quoting Lionino
Confused seems better. Even so, saying you are an atheist is usually enough to get the correct message across.
I am not saying that, but that under my definition they would be; if by "gnostic" they understand the Christian gnostics, I would not call deluled, I would call them weird instead.
Quoting mentos987
Which is basically my original comment's point.
Yes, I think I follow, except I think that "confused" is not the same as not bothering with fully knowing the meaning of a world before using it. People just don't care enough to be correct in all they say.
We could argue about the meaning of the word 'confused', but that would be going full circle in this discussion in an ironic fashion.
True. I surrender.
Meanwhile everyone else is actively either trying to define a God (theologians), open minded to a reasonable definition of God (agnostics) or settled with one they like (the religious).
How can you "not believe in god" and at the same time have millions of people still trying to define what "God" is or isn't?
"What" God? Does one reject?
Therefore I understand being a Christian God-atheist, a Jewish God atheist, a Sarah from down the roads God atheist. Because they're defined. They have a dogma.
But I don't understand when an atheist say I don't believe in "God". Because it already presupposes there is only one singular definition to which they refer. Their own one.
But this doesn't apply to everyone's concept of it.
When an atheist says they don't believe in god they are saying they don't believe in any supernatural, personal mind that is outside of space and time, be that mind according to Christian or Hindu theology.
I would refer to the Christian god if I were to say this, not a god of my own creation.
I suppose it would be more correct to say, "I do not believe in the Christian concept of god" rather than "I don't believe in god", but then it would take longer to say it.
Do you see that you are presupposing that the atheist in this scenario is bringing his own concept of God to the discussion?
Conversations can be ongoing and allow for the concept of God under discussion to be fleshed out. At the same time in an ongoing conversation, I as someone who calls himself an atheist, can clarify nuances of my perspective. If I am in a discussion with a theist, the concept of God that makes sense to talk about is the concept of that particular theist. I'm well aware that the concepts of God that theists hold are all over the place.
Fully agree. A-Abrahamic makes more sense I just take it to be a shoddy enumeration of the position I noted. Z
This is inaccurate and atheists don't say that unless they are in America, say, and dealing with the presumption of the single Christian god. They tend to respond in kind: so an atheist in a monotheistic country will tend to respond to that brand of monotheism.
As an atheist I (and most atheists I have met over 30 years) have generally put it thus: I have heard no reason to believe the proposition that any gods exist. AC Grayling an atheist philosopher puts it like this - "I do not believe that gods and goddesses exist."
I have generally also added that I do not find any arguments for any of the gods I have had described to me convincing. Whether the arguments come from Aquinas, Cornelius Van Til, Paul Tillich or Alvin Carl Plantinga . That's all there is to it.
Agnostic - Doesn't know if God exists or not
Atheist - Denies God's existence entirely
Quoting Tom Storm
No. THIS is the misunderstanding of the terms.
An atheist merely abstains from belief. They do not assert that God does NOT exist.
An agnostic believes/thinks we cant know if God exists.
They can co-exist in one entity.
Several problems with this.
1. To reject an assertion that there is a God, you either have to believe that there is no God, or know that there is no God.
"Atheism is too often defined incorrectly as a belief system" Ah, ok, so its knowledge then.
" To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods." Oh, so its not a belief then. So I guess they know there isn't a God. Seems unclear.
Agnosticism as long as I've heard it has mean that you don't know enough to determine one way or another where there is a God or not. An atheist asserts there is no God.
Quoting AmadeusD
This is either a belief or knowledge. To abstain from belief is because you rely on knowledge. To rely on belief is because you abstain from knowledge. Atheists know that God does not exist because there is no evidence for it. Just like I know magical unicorns don't exist, there's no evidence for it.
An agnostic is a person who remains unconvinced that there is enough evidence, or lack of evidence, to make an assertion one way or the other.
Like many atheists I do not say there is no god since that is a positive claim which requires demonstration. I find agnostic atheist to be a useful formulation for me but in general I am happy to be called an agnostic an atheist or a freethinker. As long as the idea that I have no belief in gods is understood.
Quoting Philosophim
Amusing. No, it's not a belief system it's about one belief: Gods. There are atheists who are into reincarnation, astrology and all kinds of New Age stuff. So it doesn't always directly correlate with the secular humanist belief system - which is often the assumption.
Suffice to say you are wrong here and just repeating the incorrect descriptions. Abstaining from belief requires no knowledge. It is precisely a lack of knowledge that leads one to abstain. No evidence? Ignored.
And as noted, an agnostic believes we cannot know if God/s exist.
If you dont take these definitions, Im unsure this is a worthwhile discussion. It seems to me youre just in bad footing and proceeding badly just so
As Tom helpfully provide earlier in the https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/about-atheism/
Youll note that this position is neutral.
You don't need to demonstrate that you know things because the evidence isn't adequate for it. I know that Zeus doesn't exist. Its not that I don't believe Zeus exists. It just seems like you're afraid of asserting something. Assert! No evidence = Know it doesn't exist
Seems like an unnecessary distortion of agnostic and atheism that causes confusion for someone who's not comfortable saying what they know.
Quoting AmadeusD
Yes, but you deciding to make a decision based on a lack of evidence is knowledge, not belief. Belief happens when you have incomplete knowledge, yet decide its the answer anyway. Its not that I don't believe there aren't little green men on the moon, I know there aren't. Not because I've been to the moon, but because no one has given me validated evidence that they exist on the moon.
Theists believe in God. Theists may claim they know God exists, but its never held up to any standard of knowledge, so becomes faith.
Atheists don't believe there isn't a God, they know there isn't a God because there's no evidence.
An agnostic does not know what to believe as they don't see enough evidence one way or the other to make an assertion.
I suppose after putting those definitions out, there is still the possibility that someone does not have enough evidence to know that a God doesn't exist, so some evidence that they one does exist, but believes they don't exist. Since there's no label for this individually, this must get swept up in the term atheist. Perhaps we need a new word.
It's ok by me if you have problems with this. As an atheist, I find it useful. :wink:
Quoting Philosophim
You may be right about this.
What? No it isnt. Thats entirely non sequitur. Its a lack of knowledge of the existence of God/s. It is neutral. It is not a decision. It is in fact NOT making a choice abs living with uncertainty; awaiting further evidence. The agnostic doesnt believe that evidence could exist
Quoting Philosophim
No. You dont know. You simply dont believe it. This conception seems counter to all reasonable takes on knowledge or belief. Seems to conflate them for specifically the task of messing with the terms to fit your ideas. Again, suffice to say you are flat-out wrong about the two positions in question.
Are you a theist?
Im sorry but repeating definitions that arent correct doesnt help the position. I do believe this is now not a worthwhile discussion. You are merely repeating your incorrect definitions to support a fairly oblique point.
Agnostic: believes we cant know whether God exists.
Atheist: does not believe God exists due to a LACK of evidence; (not believes God doesnt exist.
You are describing anti-theism. Its not fair to do this. Atheists do not agree with your shoehorned definition.
I know that there are tons of things that I have never heard of nor experienced any evidence for, yet I do not claim they do not exist.
Odd how riled up you are over this. I'm an atheist. I know God doesn't exist. Its not that hard. You seem to be confusing that knowledge means you have the burden of proof. You do not need a burden of proof to know things don't exist. Its up to those who want to prove that something exists to have the burden of proof. I think this is more of an issue of "What is knowledge" than anything else.
Quoting mentos987
Sure, but that is because you trust certain sources in society and there is no valid reason for you not to. That's your evidence. So if someone asked, "How do you know X", you would provide your proof as such. This does not negate my point.
No it isnt. Youre wrong and Im trying to explain it as simply as possible - but youre literally ignoring the fact that your definitions are wrong.
Abstaining from belief requires no knowledge. I do not believe anything that I have no knowledge of. God fits there.
Sorry if thats not how you feel. It is bizarre to me that youre digging your heels in over something demonstrably incorrect.
No, I would not claim I know there are no green men on the moon. But I would argue against it.
This is just a small matter of semantics, I do not know much to 100%. So, when I say, I know something I often mean that I am "extremely confident" of something.
I do not think you need to be even "extremely confident" about god not existing to be an atheist. I'd say that "fairly confident" will suffice.
Yes, that's what an agnostic does. They don't have enough evidence to make a decision either way. But this seems to be upsetting you. Have the last word, I won't reply this time.
Quoting mentos987
Now you're just switching up what I stated. If you claim to know something, you would do what I noted to proove that you know it. If you claim to not know it, then argue that there are no green men on the moon, you believe it.
You are wrong in your definitions and I see no reason to entertain arguments based on them :) take care mate
Err nope. Arguing against the likelihood of something does not require knowledge that it isnt. Your misinterpretations are starting to seem trollish
When I hear people say they "know" something about religion I will automatically translate that to "believe", because religion is such an unknowable field. I do not think that atheists truly know that god does not exist, since it is too hard to prove.
Again, this is all just a matter of the degree of certainty that you assign to the word "know".
And here I thought we had a nice parting of the ways. You're simply asserting, "I'm wrong" then calling me a troll. Control yourself and bow out of a conversation between myself and the other poster please.
Quoting mentos987
Agreed. I noted that earlier here.
Quoting Philosophim
Quoting mentos987
You cannot prove a negative. Proving something requires what's called, "The burden of proof". Someone must present evidence of what they are claiming exists. To claim things don't exist requires no burden. Someone has the burden of proof to claim God exists, atheists do not have the burden of proof to claim something doesn't exist. Its not just God, its any topic.
Thanks for the discussion. I appreciate your perspective and understand why you are arguing for your position. I like your idea about finding a different word.
Anyone is free to claim whatever they want. Knowing is another matter to me.
Consider this; scientists have spent the last 50 years trying to prove Einsteins theories. They are slowly finding that most of them are true. Does this mean that the theories were not true until we proved them true? Did we know them to be false until we proved them to be true?
No. I adequately showed you position to be entirely incorrect viz a viz the definition and use of the two terms and if you looked at the etymologies that would have been obvious from the get go. I provided you the citation for the definition of atheism and yet you continue to espouse an entirely incorrect one in that light.
As Tom nicely points out, anyone can have any view they want about thing. But we do have wrong views and claims. In this case I do not think your position is justified and I dont see any need for a new words
At the very least, if you accepted the definitions that are actually used for those terms, the ambiguity would disappear and the words would already (and they do!) serve the purpose your trying to reinvent the wheel for. Imo
Quoting mentos987:ok:
Also to note I enjoy the discussions no matter how obvious the positions appear to me. I am in no way seeing you in some kind of lower stead @Philosophim - I just cannot understand how its possible to claim what youre claiming in light of the facts. No significant emotion involved
The New Atheists.
Quoting Philosophim
Glad somebody realizes it.
Do you think matter that travels faster than the speed of light can exist?
All of this was proven wrong in the OP. What's your reason for thinking atheists do not assert God does not exist? And what do you call someone who does, other than "atheist"?
Truth exists despite our knowledge of it. They are not the same thing. I can know physics today, but there may be aspects of it that aren't true which we discover 100 years from now. On the flip side, I could believe that a one eyed being watches my every move because I dreamed it, and it were true. I wouldn't have knowledge of it though, it would simply be a belief.
Quoting AmadeusD
I could say exactly the same thing back. You're just asserting you are correct because you believe you are correct. When I disagreed with reasons, you just got upset. If enjoy conversations with people who have different ideas than you, act like it. You can disagree with respect and not get upset at the other poster. Well, unless they start insulting you first, then have at it.
Forgiven, just don't do it again.
Quoting Hallucinogen
I know there is no matter that can travel faster than light as of today. I believe we might find something in the future.
No. No it wasnt.
These are th positions. And the actual atheists of the world know this. You cant te them what their view is. And the citation has been provided more than once.
They are anti-theists.
Just bloody look at the words lol.
A-theism literally means not theism. It doesnt contain anything close to a positive claim. It is a rejection of an u justified belief and nothing more.
Anti-theism. That there is NOT deities.
I understand people see things differently but his is like claiming the sun is dark. It is by definition, not.
Ah you seem to just be here for a conflict now.
This is inaccurate. Your arguments are based on inaccuracies. I pointed these out and you did not address them. I literally do not care how you go about processing that. It is not up to me.
I have disagreed with respect. And in fact If you had read my comment fully, youd see. this was explicitly stated to avoid a bogus retort like this. Sigh. I have addressed your arguments. Not you. The fact that to my mind you are outright, inarguably wrong, is something YOU need to process with respect.
However, I take this particular comment to be an attempt to shift the argument to a personal one and Im not taking that bait.
Words have meaning. Etymologies matter. Simply saying Im going to make up and use my own definitions doesnt fly. So perhaps this is best left alone if thats the MO.
The wisest words you've said here. Another conversation, another time.
But the Lorentz transformations, which are what constrains matter to travelling below the speed of light, aren't derived from empirical evidence or subject to data that is variable. They're derived from the postulate that the laws of physics are invariant (necessary for science to be consistent with itself) along with mathematical modeling.
As long as that's accepted, then we can prove that certain forms of matter don't exist, which is tantamount to "proving a negative".
That is not what agnostic means, agnostic means unknowing.
In any case, I think my answer in particular back in page 2 fully addresses the problem :^) (I hope this one self-promotion does not break the rules)
So you can "know" that Einstein was wrong (because he had only theories, no proof) until someone else provides the proof? You and I do not share the same definition of "know".
If someone provides concrete proof that god exist I will be proven wrong in my belief that god does not exist.
The way I see it, if you knew something and are later proven wrong, it means that you never knew it to begin with. Since there are no solid proofs for gods (non)existence, what we think about it is all beliefs.
Again, it is just a small matter of semantics. It all depends on how high a degree of certainty you assign to the word "know". And this differs all the time, even in my own thinking.
How do you see "Doesn't know" as different from "unknowing"? Aren't they the same thing?
Quoting mentos987
No, we would need to see his evidence first. Einstein invented a theory of math. I could look at his theory and know that his math was correct from where he started. But to know if the math represented reality, he would need to test it in reality. As long as Einstein didn't claim to know it worked in reality without testing it, he would not know if it worked either. Einstein believed it would work in reality, and fortunately for us all, it did.
Quoting mentos987
What you knew will no longer be known, true. There are plenty of things that you can know today that may be proven wrong tomorrow by a change in evidence or new discoveries. But what you know today is the only logical conclusion you can come to with all the information and evidence you have.
Quoting mentos987
No, knowledge is not infallible or necessarily true. Its just the most reasonable conclusion with the evidence we have. You can believe in God despite knowing there is not a God. Belief is when we take a less reasonable conclusion in the face of knowledge, or all we have to go on when we lack knowledge entirely.
Quoting mentos987
Knowledge is contextual of course. Again, its the most rational conclusion based on evidence. Sometimes there is not enough evidence to arrive at a most rational conclusion, therefore we must rely on belief. To an atheist, there is no evidence that proves God exists which holds up under scrutiny. Therefore atheists know that God does not exist.
The 'third' situation is where we need a new word. This is where a person believes a God doesn't exist despite there being enough evidence not to rationally decide either way, or there being enough evidence for someone to know that a God exists. Or maybe there's simply an adjective fix such as "knowing atheist" or, "believing atheist". But in general the word has meant people who assert that the know God does not exist.
Knowledge and truth are not the same thing. Knowledge is the most reasonable conclusion we can make with the information we have at the time. That can change as new information comes about. Truth is inalienable, and does not care what evidence or rational conclusions we make. We can only assume that what we know is the closest to the truth at the time, because at the time rationality and reality are not contradicting our conclusions.
My implication is that the word 'agnostic' does not imply anything about god automatically, it is only in the discussion of philosophy (of religion) that it acquires this special meaning.
I am having trouble with the plum disregard for what these words actually mean. Obviously, you're not hte culprit.
But a-theism has a meaning. A-gnostic has a meaning. Hallucinogen and Philosophism seem to be entirely ignoring those meanings to insert reverse definitions - for what reason, I cannot tell.
Here we have it, this is where we differ. You define knowing as "most rational conclusion" and your "knowing" can be utterly changed if new evidence is introduced.
I have a much higher threshold of required certainty in my definition of knowing.
This is completely fair, and many people have a higher standard of knowledge that ties in with truth. Epistemology is one of my favorite topics, and I've studied it for many years. Even written my own theory of knowledge if you're interested. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14044/knowledge-and-induction-within-your-self-context/p1
You can skip down to the first post by Cerulean-Lawrence. They have a perfect summary if you're interested in just reading that. If you're interested in a deep dive into knowledge discussions, feel free to post there.
What you call knowledge, I call belief. What you call belief, I call faith.
The distinction seems to be originating from the presupposed theory of truth that each one holds.
I disagree that a sharp partition is needed between them, and with the idea that it's even worthwhile to debate the semantics. There are a variety of nuanced positions a person may have, and the label one starts with is never going to convey that. For example, I sometimes call myself an atheist, sometimes an agnostic, and other times an agnostic deist. Each is true in some sense of the word, and no one is going to understand my position without discussing further. I simply choose the label that I think will best work in the context of my discussion.
Even our views of knowledge are relevant. IMO, we have very little actual knowledge, but we may have lots of rationally justified beliefs (and we could also debate how strong a justification should be). I could call myself "agnostic" simply because I acknowledge we have so little actual knowledge. We could debate when to call a belief knowledge, just like we can debate where to apply the labels "atheist" and "agnostic", but it seems pointless.
To really understand someone's views, it requires a dialog - not a label. It seems more reasonable to discuss a person's viewpoint, than to debate the label he chooses. Suppose you come up with a set of definitions that meet your hopes, and then you encounter someone like me who says he's an atheist. Are you going to argue my use of the label, or are you going to enquire as to what I really mean?
You can do both.
Whenever I encounter someone who is (to my mind) misusing these words, i ascertain their position and then ascribe what appears to me an actual accurate enumeration of it.
I am an theist, because i refrain from belief in a God, and believe we could know, if God/s existed, of their existence in some way. Not because i 'identify' as one.
You can label me however you like, after hearing the nuances of my position, but why argue the semantics? I'm inclined to continue to use the labels I mentioned when talking to others- most of whom, won't use the terms as you do, and it will get across the aspect of my view relevant to the occasion.
Just for fun, tell me how you'd label me. Here's some of my thoughts:
We can't have knowledge of very many things, because knowledge is strictly defined as belief that is justified, true, and the justification is adequate to eliminate Gettier problems. But we can (and should) strive for justified beliefs.
I believe a God of religion does not exist. Not just "absence of belief" - that's for wimps ( IMO- no one should make this noncommital claim). I also believe unicorns and fairies don't exist.
I believe it's possible that some sort of intentional entity exists, that may account for the existence of the universe, and/or for the nature of consciousness (ie an immaterial solution to the hard problem). If I actually believed in this, I'd call myself deist (but still.an a-theist). But I don't actually believe it, I just think it's worth considering. Hence, I call myself an "agnostic deist", but still a-theist, and my general position on knowledge in makes me virtually an agnostic (we can't know much of anything) in general.
So how would you label me, and why should I start using that particular label?
Quoting Relativist
I'd go along with this too.
Quoting Relativist
I thought JTB was not much held to these days in epistemology circles - we have competing approaches such as reliabilism; defeasibility theory; constructive empiricism, epistemic contextualism, virtue epistemology? I'm no expert in epistemology, but it would seem to me to be a contested space, with various competing approaches.
Sure, but that makes it another component of the discussion. With my definition of knowledge, most of us are agnostic. But much of this can be sidestepped by referencing belief, rather than knowledge. Knowledge is always belief.
As a pre-amble, i'm glad to see this. I see no obstacle in Gettier problems due to the justification criterion.
Quoting Relativist
I find the italicised pretty odd. What's the problem with non-commitment to something you don't claim any knowledge of? I'm unsure whether there's a rock the exact size of the cabbage in my fridge on the Moon, so i abstain from any take. Absence of evidence and all that...
That said... here's my take on you, written as if fact to make it clear what my take actually is (I do not undertake to debate the take below, but it may be fun!):
My understanding of 'theism' is that it entails belief in a 'Creator' personal God. In that light, IFF you actively reject this (believe theistic God/s cannot exist) you're anti-theist. As for 'agnostic deist' that seems incoherent. Below..
My understanding of deism is that it removes the requirement of a personal or supernatural aspect of the 'supreme being' notion and instead asserts that 'the deity' is part of the natural, discoverable world. To my mind deism entails that we can discover this deity. Since we can have knowledge of it, agnosticism is precluded (as it is the position we cannot know whether a God or Gods exist). If the knowledge criteria doesn't go through for you, anywhere, then just take that word as 'the literal best guess'.
So, I would say you're an anti-theist, and a deist. I would have inserted, over 'deist' a term specific to holding out on belief in a deistic God rather than theistic - if one exists. I also note this might be your 'wimp' moment :nerd: Is there a deistic God or not, Relativist? hehe.
But here's an issue - If agnosticism is meant to be a position on Theism, we're in a pickle using agnostic anyway, regardless of what Deism entails. If it's not, we're using shitty words given Atheism only relates to theism but apparently agnosticism can cover deism too. Here, a word which separates the two theories, AND the two positions would be great.
If atheism and agnosticism deal with the same thing, but only agnosticism can relate to deism we can't be having a worthwhile discussion about htem, using these words only.
Maybe that is the actual issue here.
Word 1: Deism, Yes. I have evidence
Word 2: Deism, No. Have evidence against
Word 3: Deism, Maybe and I believe I can know.
Word 4: Deism, cannot know
Theism: Theism, yes, I have evidence.
Atheism: Theism, Maybe, but im not convinced.
Anti-theist: Theism, No. I have evidence against.
Agnostic: Theism, cannot know
Edit: Sorry, I entirely missed this: Quoting Relativist
Mainly, because 'agnostic deist' makes absolutely no sense given the above (perhaps peculiar to my amalgamated position on all these things taken together). So, to begin you need a new term.
You are anti-theistic, and you are abstaining from belief, but are open to, deistic God/s. The words I've used fit perfectly your position, given we essentially preclude not being able to know of a deistic God so can't use agnostic.
Yes, quite right. In my opinion the error is a matter of fear, philosophical confusion, and an ignorance of the English meaning of the word "atheism." Humpty-Dumptys are running around having words mean "just what I choose them to mean," all in order to bolster a position for the sake of polemics.
From the perspective of an educated atheist, see: https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/2za4ez/comment/cs3ci0s/
A-theism means A-theism.
There's lots of rocks of varying sizes on the moon, so there's a decent chance there's a cabbage sized one - so it's a live possibility. You can't justifiably believe there is such a rock, and you can't justifiably believe there isn't.
But consider unicorns. It's correct to say I lack belief in their existence, but that statement alone doesn't fully convey my position. I see absolutely no reason to believe they exist, no basis even to think it's a live possibility. Therefore I believe they don't exist.
If there's no credible reason to believe something exists, we ought to conclude it doesn't exist. The belief isn't incorrigible- good evidence will result in revising the belief, but without that evidence we should believe it doesn't exist. I think most atheists actually believe God doesn't exist, but are reluctant to admit that, so I say they're wimps.
Quoting AmadeusD
"Cannot" is a modal claim - like saying it's logically impossible. That's going way too far. There's no basis to claim God is logically impossible.
We should be realistic about our beliefs. We form most beliefs through abduction- based on the evidence we're aware of. Your wife could be a alien, but there's no evidence of it- so you should believe she's not an alien.
Quoting AmadeusD
"Anti-theist" is yet another term, one that some would infer to mean I'm against theism. I'm not against it, I just don't believe it. I expect that's not the way you mean it, but there's no way I'd use it.
If you're going to label me a "deist", based solely on the fact that I think it's worth considering, then you're grouping me with people who actually believe an impersonal creator exists. Why do that? Why not keep "agnostic to deism" as a category (if you feel compelled to categorize)?
Quoting AmadeusD
It's not. People use it all the time with respect to other beliefs, and it generally means withholding judgement. One can certainly withhold judgement with regard to God's existence. IMO, this entails considering both God's existence and nonexistence as live possibilities.
Quoting AmadeusD
If I can be agnostic as to economic theories, why can't I be agnostic as to the existence of an impersonal, non-interacting deity?
When I've used the term, I've always explained what I mean. But again, the problem with any labels is that they will not convey the position one holds. Debating terms seems a pointless tangent. It's a fact that these terms are not understood consistently by everyone.
Quoting AmadeusD
My position is that worthwhile discussions depend on going much deeper than the meaning attached to labels. Labels only serve as an imperfect introduction to one's position. The next productive step would be to explore that position further, not to debate semantics.
What other things should we believe in?
Anything we can justifiably believe. We navigate the world based on beliefs we hold about the world that aren't strictly provable. It can't even be proven there's a world external to our minds.
We could draw a distinction between things we believe to be true and things we don't believe to be true, but act as if it is true due to its productivity free will is a big one for determinists.
Many people somewhat hold a nihilistic view of fatalism, where our lives are inherently meaningless, but many of those 'many people' still don't turn to hedonism; so they act as if nihilism is not true, even though they believe it is. You may call that cognitive dissonance, but hey ¯\_(?)_/¯
I think they're fooling themselves.
Yes. I am 'atheist' in relation to the rock. I do not commit one way or the other. Yet....
Quoting Relativist
Prima facie, No. No i shouldn't. And prima facie, these above two quotes are contradictory. If i can be 'agnostic' to the rock, i can be agnostic to my wife's potential alienality. I have no evidence one way or the other. I cannot make any reasonable conclusion. I have no reasons.
However, I know my wife. I can observe and experiment to ascertain whether she has any inhuman properties in some way to deduce whether there's an alien element to her. I do not need to take either conclusion on faith without reason.
The rock - on the other hand - I cannot. I do not have a sufficient reason to reject OR accept the fact of the rock (until I turn over every rock on the Moon - which i shan't). I simply have absolutely no intuition as to whether it exists, despite it being logically possible. So i abstain. Not seeing an issue here, other than a bully-ish determination to force me into a position I do not hold and have no reason to support. At least, in this case, it could be established. As with Deism.
Quoting Relativist
Similar to my delineation above, this is entirely different from the case of a Theistic God imo. A physical, observable object (Unicorn) which has never been observed (other than in the mind) can, as you rightly say, be relegated to 'non-existent'. It's reasonable to 'believe' it does not exist because the evidence WOULD be there if it did (which is the case with a Deistic God).
Something, the existence of which, could not be observed in that same way requires a different process to establish as 'extant' to my mind. This is why your 'deism' cannot be agnostic. It admits of a discoverable God (but this goes to the wording issue I re-traverse below).
Quoting Relativist
"given the above". 'agnostic' is an useless term in any arena if all it means is *shrug*.
"Agnostic: a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God"
If you're a Deist, you are not able to use the term above. Point blank period. Argue the definition all you want, but to my mind you're just confusing yourself.
Quoting Relativist
I am not. Sorry if that wasn't clear. My point is that is the only word that assists in labeling you at all, since you're precluded from using 'agnostic' as it relates to God. Your point about 'agnostic' being essentially a field-less word is a matter of misusing the word in other areas- and is an example of the problem i went over at the end of my post with a suggestion as to how to solve that issue. Huxley specifically coined the word to apply to mystical and mystico-religious issues. It has been hijacked in other areas as an imprecise analogy.
So this isn't an actual objection to my position - just a restating of the problem I had identified. I would prefer new words to discuss 'Deism' since the word 'Atheist' literally doesn't touch it - therefore, using Agnostic to refer to both deism and theism is really unhelpful.
Quoting Relativist
Agreed, in principle but I would point out that if we cannot understand what each other is saying given the words are not helpful, I can't actually see the discussion as worthwhile. This exchange may be an example. You are not making logical sentences about your belief manifest. Maybe peculiar to me, but I have no interest in going deep into people's views without a reasonable understanding of their language and knowing it is consistent with the meaning of the words they are using. It makes every exchange feel like a Twitter war. And that is absurd in the highest, as i'm sure you're aware.
Quoting Relativist
But it is a fact that these words have definite meanings, overwhelmingly subscribe by our institutional sources of meaning. That people misunderstand them is the entire thrust of my point. That is a serious obstacle to even beginning a meaningful discussion. I cannot discuss your 'agnostic deism' because those terms are contradictory. New Agey nonsense is the biggest peddler of this shit, if you ask me. 'quantum' being the worse offender.. And that said, if what you're suggesting is that we let everyone re-define words so they can use the ones they are aesthetically drawn to and bore us with their illogical, shitty reasonings for doing so, I simply get off your bus and run as far as i can. But, this also seems to be commensurate with your view on non-commitment to theism.
Quoting Relativist
I do not think that is the case. It seems clearly a result of not believing anything on insufficient evidence, as a principle. Both sides have insufficient evidence for their respective positive claim. It takes courage to say "I don't know, and I'm going to move forward with gusto, in uncertainty, despite that..". Is there any reason to think your position, or mine, is a better take? Nope. They are opinions that don't matter other than as interpersonal curiosity. Why it's caused wars is something for psychologists to deal with..
I should be clear, all of the above and my previous comment are not arguments about 'facts of the matter'. There are facts in the argument (the etymology and definition of these words) but what i am doing is outlining a systematic use of the words that actually bloody helps instead of throwing up my hands and saying 'everything's wobbly and we need to spend our lives talking past one another because of it'. I simply don't think that's true, and am attempting to serve up a method for not falling into the illusion it is (on my account).
Right. Richard Dawkins became popular, atheism became fashionable, atheists started debating with theists all over the place, and then atheists found that it was easier to argue when they don't have any burden of proof, and thus there was a popular attempt to redefine the word 'atheism' to connote a mere lack of belief. It is a superficial but also an uninteresting position.
This is painfully bad commentary but as you are Catholic, it is unsurprising.
By "prima facie", do you mean - before all other beliefs are considered? If so, that just seems to say that all logical possibilities should be on the table. But they ought not to remain on the table for long. You based your belief on knowing your wife. I don't know your wife, but I feel pretty strongly that no extraterrestrial aliens that look like humans have ever come to earth, so I feel justified in believing she's not an alien,
Quoting AmadeusD
We agree that the rock is something we ought to withhold judgement (or abstain) on.
We also agree that your belief that your wife isn't an alien is reasonable. I hope you agree that MY belief about your wife is also reasonable, in that it follows from my prior belief about aliens.
Quoting AmadeusD
But something more than logical possibility is needed, otherwise we're embracing extreme philosophical skepticism. It's logically possible your wife's an alien, but logical possibility is too weak to support a belief or even a suspicion. Similarly with unicorns and gods. Sure, a different epistemological process is fine, as long as it's a methodology that tends to lead to truth.
.
"Discoverable"? Not sure what you mean. I consider deism to be more than a logical possibility, but based on it having explanatory power for the problem of consciousness - so it's a simply a metaphysical hypothesis I can't rule out. Seems pretty similar to your inability to rule out a cabbage sized rock on the moon.
Quoting AmadeusD
I don't preclude using the term think "agnostic", but I think it's useful to describe what one is agnostic about. As I said, I am agnostic to deism - although you disagree with me saying that, I guess.
Quoting AmadeusD
Unhelpful for what? As I said, I think the terms we use to describe ourselves are nothing more than imperfect introductions to our positions. Adhering to your preferred semantics doesn't seem like it would make the terms any more than that, either. I've described my position in a bit of detail, and I don't think your terms (anti-theist/deist) captures it any better than "atheist agnostic-deist, and possibly even worse.
Ha! I see why you might say this but I think thats an uncharitable view. As an aside, New Atheism was just a publishing gimmick, it didn't amount to a movement (as David Bentley Hart points out). Most atheists I know found the famous four fairly underwhelming as thinkers, more like good polemicists. But most of us are not philosophers either.
I personally think the idea that an atheist is someone who doesnt believe the proposition that gods exist is a vast improvement on those who say, There Is No God. It seems less militant and more open to discourse.
I hold the same position on morality and beauty. I dont believe them to be objective (outside of contingent human experience and communities of shared values). I am happy to hear arguments that might change my mind. I am open. I like theists and have as good friends a Catholic priest and a Sister. I harbour no hatred towards all religions or people of faith.
I think if someone says they are an atheist we should be fine with their self-identification. Just as I am fine with anyone identifying as Christian, even in those instances where they might be following a prosperity cult of grotesque bigotry which ignores Christ. People in most cases should be allowed to choose their preferred appellation.
I am in no doubt about my lack of belief. I am certain/confident that the gods I am aware of dont exist. The Abrahamic, the ancient and the Hindu. But I cannot talk to versions of God I have not heard of yet. I dislike the word atheist as it comes with significant baggage.
I would like to see more collaboration and goodwill between theists and atheists. The spiritual hollowness of consumer capitalism needs addressing, as does fundamentalism and its penchant for violence and division. We can only tackle this together.
It saddens that the comment came from a Catholic instead of a Protestant, but by reading his introduction he is not actually Catholic, just a tradcath/orthobro without eucharisty or sacramental confirmation I guessed as much when I read "United States".
Quoting Tom Storm
Even though that is true, I don't think it is bad. Those polemicists are still leagues better than any apologetics hacks like WL Craig and that dude who hammered his father's head and uses it as a talking point.
This is, I think, where I differ most with you. I certainly withhold judgement, but not because I'm doing any considering. I don't care about the question to begin with. The God-concept is too indeterminate in my mind to hold any clear convictions. There's nothing there that could either exist or not. So I can certainly say I don't believe; but I can't say that I believe God doesn't exist.
The problem here is that in the God conversation the answer to "God doesn't exist" is assymetric in two ways: (a) emotional impact, and (b) clarity of concept. A simplified matrix:
Theist: emotional impact +, clarity of conept +
Me: emotional impact -, clarity of concept -
In terms of my daily conduct "God doesn't exist" has no emotional impact, partly because it's just words unattached to anything that's taken root in my world view. I feel if I said that line I wouldn't exactly know what I'm saying, so I refrain from saying that. I suspend judgment because (a) I don't care but the theist does, and (b) because I don't quite know what it is that I just said doesn't exist. I'm not someone who's lost his faith: I grew up as the son of Catholic parents, but the concept just never really took roots in my world view. The whys of that are... difficult to puzzle out. It's just that I grew up and my God concept didn't, so it's stunted when compared to that of a mature believer. I'm not sure what that means in practice. In conversations with theists about what they believe in I tend to get lost; it feels like a game of ever-shifting goal posts. I haven't ever gotten to a stage where I could say either way.
But that also means that I'm just not motivated by because-God-says-so arguments. It feels like an extension of social hierarchies, maybe with a shift towards beaurocracy? God as a stand-in for office, which serves as an organisational social principle? Maybe. I tend to dismiss the concept with psychology, sociology, etc.
My intuitive responses to various arguments for God or related concepts tends to be humouros. Intelligent Design? Really? Then who messed up the implementation? Ontological Argument? Wouldn't a God who can decide whether or not to exist even when he doesn't be the greatest of all? None of that is serious. It just flows out of the fact that my mind seems God-concept incompatible. I suppose it's the mindspace that creates Invisible Pink Unicorns and Flying Spaghetti Monsters.
A lot of atheists ask for evidence, but I have trouble with that. I'd need some operable definition to stand in for my intuition; but I feel like the concept is such that if you can define it clearly enough so that asking for evidence makes sense, it ceases to be God. The scope's too big for evidence.
"I don't believe in God," feels like something I can confidently say. When I say "God doesn't exist," I feel like I've already acknowledged too much. That's where I stand on the topic (but it's not thought out).
That's a good point, one that overlooked. It's another very good reason to withhold judgement.
Quoting Dawnstorm
What about a narrow definition, such as a being that intentionally created the universe, by choice?
There's no empirical evidence, but one might infer this as a viable explanatory hypothesis for the existence of a universe that permits the development and existence of intelligent life.
Yes, 'on the face of it', i.e I cannot see how that is a given. It makes no sense to me on the face of it.
Yes, I agree. But without reason nothing changes about what's on the table. I would need something confirming one way or the other. But, this goes to the obvious and critical difference between the two examples we're using.
Quoting Relativist
Fair enough. That's a reason to think it's unlikely, but you have no knowledge, and so a belief is unwarranted. But that doesn't matter much to me - THey would have the same practical effect.
Quoting Relativist
Neat. Then the contradiction remains...
I didn't claim to believe that.
Quoting Relativist
I don't believe she is. I don't believe she isn't. Again - what's hte problem? There seems to be a black and white fallacy here - you're importing a belief into my wording where there isn't any. Confusing a bit.
Quoting Relativist
These are not the same (on my view). The hypothetical rock and hte Unicorn could be - they seem equally unlikely (an exact cabbage shaped rock on the moon, corresponding with the one in my fridge? Come on...) Both logically possible though, so I simply give them no serious thought. I don't 'believe' anything about htem. There's nothing to believe or deny. I have no information or reasons to judge.
A deistic God is discoverable, too. So you need a reason to entertain it? Or is the unlikelihood and lack of evidence enough? Because that seems to contradict your position on Unicorns and my wife being an Alien.
I can see how you'd take this as some form of extreme skepticism - and fair enough, if that's what i'm doing - but as far as i can tell, I am not doing that. I am making a distinction between unobservable possibilities and ones which would be confirmed or denied by empirical data (this, to my mind is the difference between Theism and Deism, as will be obvious by now im sure).
Quoting Relativist
If there is no observability/falsifiability in the concept (Theistic God) there is no truth to be lead to.
Quoting Relativist
This is because, as far as I'm concerned (and, I don't actually see this as an interpretation) you are misusing the word/s. Deism entails discoverability. Agnosticism entails no discoverability in the subject one is agnostic about. So, is it not clear on that account that you cannot by an agnostic deist?
Quoting Relativist
Your final sentence here is an answer to your first. Its entirely incoherent and seems to just absolutely ignore the linguistic inaccuracy and falseness, relative to your expounded position. If you believe in a theistic God, you cannot be an atheist. If you believe in the material, mind-independent world, you cannot be an idealist. If you entertain a deistic God, you cannot also be agnostic because the deistic God is discoverable. They are incompatible positions.
Look, your point is taken, but I see it as an attempt to maintain incongruent positions because you can use language that refers to things you are not entitled to refer yourself to, because you think words are imprecise. Not untrue - but to me, that's a bit of a cop-out, despite recognizing the potential futility of trying to 'standardize' the use of these words. They need to be.
Perfect example is that final sentence I noted - I didn't suggest it was an accurate label. I illustrated that the words we currently use do not capture your position - not because it doesn't fit into the definitions, but because the definitions actively preclude a deist from claiming God is not knowable. I suggested a new set of words to illustrate positions relative to deism, and separately, theism.
This seems an inarguably more fruitful project than just waffling on to each other about positions that don't comport with the terms we're using for them.
Then I would say you are an atheist with respect to the Hebrew God and an agnostic with respect to unknown gods, or something like that. Yet if you believe that all of the gods you are aware of are non-existent, then you are an atheist by the traditional definition.
Quoting Tom Storm
I am not much interested in people who redefine words to have idiosyncratic meanings. It defeats the purpose of words.
Quoting Tom Storm
I would recommend reading the Reddit article I linked earlier, written by an atheist. Many years ago I argued with an intelligent atheist on this topic, and we disagreed. Some years later he messaged me and told me that he had been convinced of my position (regarding the meaning of atheism), and that that Reddit article is the thing that did it for him. He said he was less defensive when the arguments came from an atheist than from a theist.
In some ways this is merely about the meaning of words. There is no word for a mere lack of belief in God. As I told the OP, "agnostic atheist" seems like a fine way to describe such a person. Yet the reason 'atheist' does not mean such a minute and strange thing is because words have substance, and this idea of lack of belief has very little substance. There is nothing inherently combative about believing that some thing does not exist. Combativeness in this case pertains only to one's subjective dispositions.
As a string of words not entirely devoid of meaning, I can do logic with it to some degree, but I can't connect it to the world I like in. It's an intellectual game of no consequence.
The evidence in question is evidence, for a theist, given that they see God in His creation. I can't follow suit, so it's evidence for nothing. It's just see the world.
The problem is that I know what words like "creation" or "choice" mean inside this world. There are plenty of loose ends, and I don't think meaning is fixed to begin with, but there's something I can do about it. I mean it's fairly easy to follow the logic of "A garden is created and maintained by a gardener. When I see a garden, I know there's a gardener. A garden doesn't come about randomly. So what about the world and all it's regularities? Where do they come from?" The problem is that when they lead me to everything, they just lead me into a void; a lack of imagination; nothing.
See, I'm in the world, so are gardens, and so are gardeners. But if you then tell me that God has created the world in analogy to a garden, then I would imagine a god limited by similar restrictions that a gardener is limited by (needing tools and seeds, for example). I'd start wondering what sort of world God lives in, and so on. At that point, I'm in science fiction/fantasy territory. Whatever I can come up with is what's within the bounds of my imagination. And it's my experience is that Christians at the very least wouldn't accept that sort of limited creater as what they are imagining. So I would have to sort of imagine a decontextualised creation? With no limits? That's empty talk to me. Meaningless. It solves nothing. I'm way more comfortable with my ignorance than with this sort of confusion.
See, in every instance of creation the creator is indepentently accessible. I can see a gardener tend to the garden. What would I have seen when God created the world? Nothing. I wouldn't yet have been even possible; the act of seeing was still in the process of forming; and yet, somehow, the process of creation is already... "there" (even though there's no "there" yet)...
Either theists are all led astray by semantic tricks, or they have a world view organised vastly different from mine.
Why would anyone go to Reddit to learn of all places?
Or think that thread would trump actual institutional atheist organisations..
@Leontiskos Unfortunately, I was referring to your commentary :smirk:
That's true. I often come down on the side of usage rather than definitions. This does not mean that I consider every word can be used however we like (Humpty style), it simply means recognition that language is dynamic, words change meaning over time. My English teacher in the 1970's tried fighting against the use of the word 'gay' for homosexual. He was appalled that he was unable to describe himself as a gay man, because the usage had changed.
Quoting Leontiskos
Thanks. Read it. I see the argument but I'm not sure it matters. I still believe there's something interesting and useful in the agnostic atheist category. I'll mull over it.
Quoting Lionino
That may be a good question. I'm new to Reddit.
Speaking of spurious sources of knowledge I asked ChatGPT for a view on agnostic atheist.
...someone who identifies as an "agnostic atheist" is expressing a lack of belief in gods (atheism) while also acknowledging the limits of human knowledge on the matter (agnosticism). This combination is quite common, as many people find that the labels capture different aspects of their stance on the question of gods.
I'll continue to consider this matter.
Want to check something with you. The average atheist is not philosopher and probably (like most people) not all that interested in this recondite subject. I wonder if this means that conventional philosophical nomenclature and categorization are not as useful in trying to understand what people believe and why. When an atheist says, "I don't believe in gods, have no faith and hold gods to be mythological creatures" I don't see this as incompatible with agnosticism for reasons we have explored ad nauseum.
Here's the thing. Most atheists are practical atheists, they are not theorists and do not really care about the philosopher's arguments for or against gods. They simply don't see the need for gods or believe in them. The way they make sense of the world precludes gods. They are certainly atheists, but they don't aspire to any knowledge claim at all in this space. Many of them are not even aware of the arguments in defense of gods. They are simply 'without gods". Does this shed a different light on the matter to you or are these folk, as one theist I know says, 'ignorant dogmatists?'
Moreover, I don't see the point of debate when "denies God" is well encapsulated in the word antitheist.
I think the original purpose of the thread has been twisted.
Quoting Tom Storm
You should soon see that it is the butthole of the internet.
I do not think this is the case. I acknowledge the difference in approach between a lay-person (excuse the pun) and a philosopher (or, sufficiently autodidactic fan thereof..) and realise in practical terms, It really, truly does not matter what labels are used. But we're trying to have discussions - and in the context of 'people who have discussions' i think my take is stands, on my view.
Quoting Tom Storm
These people are agnostic atheists. They don't consider the limits of knowledge, but refrain from belief in God/s. I do not think you're being accurate in that their view precludes God. It just doesn't include it, because there is no evidence for it. It's not an ideological position - its a lethargic one.
Quoting Lionino
That would be unproductive. Explaining how their view is askance from what that word means, is not.
As I said in my first post (and also in the post you are responding to), "agnostic atheist" is an intelligible term. It's just not the same as "atheist."
I don't use Reddit, but the atheist I encountered years ago pointed me to that thread, and it is very good. In fact there is no comparison between that thread and the low-quality nonsense in this thread (including things like 's childish posts and [i]ad hominem[i]).
The irony burns.
Suffice to say, this is also painfully bad commentary. But as i noted you are Catholic in that previous comment, this is also, unsurprising.
And there is no adhominem involved. You are Catholic. As a result, i am not surprised.
I hear you and thanks for the talk. I am interested in your perspective.
Quoting AmadeusD
Got ya. Yes, my point is more that their sense making of the world precludes god (functionally) when they work to explain anything at all (from creation to morality) the god hypothesis is precluded from their repertoire. If someone has determined that gods are irrelevant to their experince, then gods can never be incorporated in any account of any state of affairs. That's all I meant.
Already skipped after this.
In principle, agreed - conditioned by the ignorance that requires :P Ignorance is harsh, but i'm referring to the lack of consideration. As soon as they begin considering the issues, that would change. So i'm ruffled by 'never' here. But, i agree, the majority of people just do not care. They either take God on or don't.
Quoting AmadeusD
This is a key point: what is needed to warrant belief in something's nonexistence?
It's not true that I have no knowledge to warrant my belief your wife is actually human, and not an alien. For example, I know:
-the speed of light provides a limit to how far aliens could travel
-our physical characteristics are a product of our evolutionary history, and therefore the chances aliens with human intelligence and appearance is vanishingly small.
Quoting AmadeusD
Did I misunderstand? I thought you actually believe your wife is human, warranted by your knowledge of her.
But no, I'm not saying everything is black and white. There's also gray area, but there need to be reasons to be in the gray area. Mere logical possibility is not enough. Do you disagree?
Quoting AmadeusD
Of course not. I've been discussing this in terms of approximation. The chances of finding one with the exact shape (down to the molecular level) are zero.
Quoting AmadeusD
Either she's a human or an alien. Your warrant for believing she's human is also warrant for believing she's not an alien.
Quoting AmadeusD
OK, then my comments apply only to those of us who HAVE given serious consideration to these hypothetical existents. After such consideration, if they are left with mere logical possibility, then I think the appropriate belief is "doesn't exist". A key point I mentioned earlier is that beliefs aren't incorrigible. We should remain open to revising belief when we learn more. A corrollary: beliefs do not reflect certainty (certainty reflects incorrigibility).
Quoting AmadeusD
You seem to be saying that one should deny the existence of a Theistic God if one believes there are no observables (=empirical evidence?) and if it's not falsifiable (through other empirical evidence?)
Apply this principle to solipsism. There's no evidence that entails it, or makes it likely or unlikely. Neither solipsism nor ~solipsism is falsifiable. Nevertheless, I feel it's warranted to believe ~solipsism (I've described this in another thread). This means I accept that there can be non-evidential warrant. I don't happen to see that there is such warrant for a theistic God, that's why I say I believe a theistic God does not exist. But maybe someday I'll be presented with a good reason I haven't heard of. If that occurs, I'll revise my belief.
Quoting AmadeusD
...per your preferred semantics. Notice that despite this, I've been able to describe my positions to you, and you are free to attach whatever label you like, consistent with those positions.
Quoting AmadeusD
You're arguing that the label "agnostic deist" is incoherent, but my impression is that it's only incoherent to someone who accepts your preferred semantics. I made up the term "agnostic deist", I didn't borrow it from someone else - and when I use the term, I explain what I mean. So what's the problem?
I am open to using different terminology to self-define, other than "agnostic deist", as long as it tells just as much about my position as does this one. I'm not open to using a different term merely to fit a semantics you've devised, particular your insistence that I call myself a "deist" despite the fact that I think it pretty unlikely that there is any kind of deity at all. That would mislead far more people than does "agnostic deist".
Quoting AmadeusD
Why are you claiming I'm maintaining an "incongruent position"? What's incongruent about considering deism a live possibility, but unlikely? I get that you don't like the label I use, but that has no bearing on what my position is.
Quoting AmadeusD
It's not the definitions, it's that the definition precludes...
Did this come out the way you intended? It's contradictory.
But I agree that one cannot be both a deist and claim gods are unknowable*. But that's why it's inappropriate to call me a deist - so you erred in insisting I should have that label. My label more accurately conveys my position: I'm an "agnostic deist" meaning that I'm agnostic as to deism.
*We don't have common ground for identifying what constitutes knowledge. We would need this common ground in order to then consider what is, and isn't, knowable. I gave you a strict definition (justified, true, and no Gettier) - you thought it too strict, but we left it there.
Quoting Relativist
If something is logically possible, but we do not have a good reason to think one way or the other (the Moon Rock would fit here) i remain unconvinced either way. As noted, logical impossibility would be good reason to not believe, but logical possibility I agree is no reason to take something on.
Quoting Relativist
I don't think it is much possible to warrant a belief in non-existence, unless logically impossible. That would give us sufficient reason to believe that even if we explored every mm of every single thing we could ever possibly access, it would not be possible that the object exists. I would accept that. And this may apply to my wife being an alien. But we have no idea whether the aliens have cryo-stasis technology to overcome time constraints - so if we're entertaining that they exist I don't see why we would believe rather than posit, that they haven't visited Earth. Its logically possible, and we have no reason to entirely discount it. Good reason to take it less seriously, though, for sure. Maybe we're only disagreeing abotu degrees.
Quoting Relativist
Ah, i see. No, that was either a misunderstanding or a mis-wording. I meant to point out that i could carry out experiments which would preclude my wife being an alien. I haven't, though, so I can't be sure. I do not believe. I just don't care (for whatever that's worth).
Quoting Relativist
If i had it I would agree. If she is human, she isn't alien. But that doesn't seem to do much for the exchange we're having. As it is, I have merely no good reason to doubt. But i could not justifiably believe it, as i've never done anything by way of investigation on that. Maybe you find me mentally unstable for that - a bullet i'll bite. But doubting that there are other minds seems a wilder bullet to bite to me(not suggesting it's your view - just solipsism in general).
Quoting Relativist
S that rejects there are observables should realise that knowledge is then irrelevant to the proposition. We couldn't possibly know, if there's nothing observable to confirm it. They should rightly call themselves agnostic.
If one believes there are observables, they not be able to refer to themselves as agnostic. That's all. If you believe God is discoverable, then you cannot be agnostic. Deism entails the former, and precludes agnosticism. So...
Quoting Relativist
They are not zero. It is logically possible.
Quoting Relativist
I do not. If you have no reason, you're mistaken to believe the proposition one way or the other. You're free to, though. This, I think, is the only way Theism can happen, other than being mistaken about facts.
Quoting Relativist
This seems to assume your position is what's hard to grasp. it isn't. It does not match the terminology you used.
I could describe myself as an African American and then tell you what i mean is light-skinned, not likely to suffer sickle cell etc... contravening the meaning of African American. Anyone with sense would object and tell me why my usage is wrong. Do you not think this can be done with the terms you're using?
Quoting Relativist
That you're using a word wrong, making your label incoherent. It's like saying "A glass table made of wood". Quoting Relativist
This has entirely misconstrued my position, and i literally no idea how that could have possibly
happened given my final response below...
Quoting Relativist
because if you are committed to using the term 'agnostic deist' the position described by it is contradictory - and your actual position is incongruent with the position it describes.
Bolded: This is the crux of my entire problem. Your position is your position, and it is being misrepresented by the words you're using. I know your position (i think), and I refuse to use incorrect words to describe it.
Quoting Relativist
My point is that the definition is sound, your position just is precluded by it. Perhaps i mis-typed what i was trying to say, but i read it entirely sensibly.
Quoting Relativist
The bolded contradict each other. If you agree a Deist cannot claim God/s are unknowable, then that precludes the deist-entertaining from being agnostic, as it is incoherent to the deism concept. Not sure what's being missed here? You say you're open to deism being true - which means you believe that God is discoverable. So, by your own admission you cannot be agnostic toward the Deistic God, despite concluding that here. You can be unmoved by current evidence, but that's not agnosticism.
Secondarily, as noted here Quoting AmadeusD I do not claim you must use that term. I claim your term is wrong, and we/you need a new one for the position you hold. I stick to that.
Speaking of, is there a single thing that is true in virtue of stating it? I can't think of anything where "I am X" is proof of being X.
What's the criteria?
Quoting Lionino
Cogito, ergo, sum. LOL
I will do you one better. I skipped after that and gave my take on the topic anyway :strong: :cool: :up:
Baptism. I don't know how it is for converts. But for people baptised as a baby, just that is not enough, you must go through catechism to receive the eucharisty and then confirmation otherwise you are just a non-practicing Catholic which might as well be apostate. Baptism and eucharisty however are the two most important sacraments, confirmation is not the most important and the other 4, like marriage, are good but not required one of them is healing, so it is better if you never need it.
Quoting AmadeusD
Well in that case you become by thinking, not by saying; non sum quia dico, sed quia cogito. :^)
This is not my experience of the Catholic view. They are Catholics-in-waiting :P But, fair enough, thank you.
Quoting Lionino
But hte claim is still sound :)
Right, officially they are still Catholics, but in practice we know it is bullshit. If they believe it truly they would have done the other sacraments; they don't do so 99% because they don't believe it or don't care.
Out of all the things that could possibly exist, very few actually exist. So something that is merely possible, has a low probability of existing. That's sufficient reason to conclude that a mere possibility doesn't exist: you'll rarely be wrong.
Quoting AmadeusD
You only increase the viable distance, you don't make it infinite. And greater distances means more alternative destinations, making it less probable we'd be the target. I don't want to debate the plausibility of aliens here. My point is simply that my belief that aliens have not come here is warranted by my belief that it's extremely improbable - so improbable that it's not worth considering.
Quoting AmadeusD
It's zero. There are no rocks on the moon with the molecular structure of a cabbage. If there were, it would be a cabbage, not a rock. You could loosen the exactness of the required likeness and match any probability you like. So instead, let's consider Russell's teapot: we're warranted in believing there is no teapot orbiting the sun between earth and Mars, even though it's logically possible, but grossly improbable.
Quoting AmadeusD
I simply suggest that if you have no reason to doubt she's human, then you actually DON'T doubt she's human and ergo you believe she's not an alien. We all believe lots of things, even though it's logically possible we're wrong. Believing x does not entail believing ~x is logically impossible. It just means we feel we have sufficient justification.
Quoting AmadeusD
Then your belief in ~ solipsism seems unwarranted. But regardless, we've identified another difference of opinion regarding warrant, and these differerences of opinion are far more relevant than semantics.
Quoting AmadeusDThat's your opinion, based on your own semantics, so it's irrelevant to me.
Quoting AmadeusD
Here's what you miss: If you agree a deist isn't agnostic, then you should agree I'm not a deist.
[Quote]You say you're open to deism being true - which means you believe that God is discoverable.[/quote]
No. I don't believe God is discoverable. You have a far too rigid view of semantics, and it's impeding you from understanding positions that don't fit neatly into your semantic framework.
Belief that a nonpersonal, non-interactive creator exists is consistent with deism as typically defined. I do not believe this, so I do not call myself a deist. And yet, you apply that label to me. So your definition of "deist" includes people who don't believe a nonpersonal, non-interactive creator exists. That seems to me a problematic semantics, but you are free to define terms however you like. But don't accuse of having a contradictory position simply because of the problematic defintions you've chosen.
Contunuing...I believe it's a live possibility such a being exists or existed (not merely logically possible). I believe this solely because it has some explanatory power (this is what makes it something more than logically possible), and I do not believe there's further evidence waiting to be discovered that has potential to change me position.
I contrast this "god of deism" with a "god of religion" - a personal and interactive God who reveals himself and provides us with an afterlife. I consider such a god to be merely logically possible. It has no explanatory power beyond what the god of deism provides, and it's considerably less parsimonious.
Hmm. I do see the point you're getting at, but I just think your conclusion is a leap too far. It's not really the case - though it is practically necessary to deal with life, as it is.
Quoting Relativist
I'm sorry, I'm not seeing how you can get from 'improbably' to 'impossible', which is what a belief would seem to imply your thought is? If not, that's fine and it may just be the same as the previous quote/response.
Quoting Relativist
Yeah. It's not zero. I mentioned shape only. There need not be an exact molecular match (because that would be, as you say, a Cabbage LOL defeating hte point of hte example). But I think you're again, leapfrogging there. It is logically possible the a rock, the surface of which, is an exactly surface-dimensional match is possible. In fact, if we extend this to the universe, it's almost certain it exists somewhere. I don't want to go down this path though - it's logically possible, on my account, because I don't posit what you did here. I think we'd agree - and it would again, come back to practicality as the two above have (as i see them). But it's a fair point you're making in all three instances. Again - i may be mentally unstable for my selective skepticism lol
Quoting Relativist
And i do not see sufficient justification without investigation, if we have two logically possible outcomes. Obviously, by inference, I can support a belief that my wife is not an alien - she meets all criteria, prima facie, to be a human. So, in that sense, I don't deny what you're saying - I'm making the point that with no reason one way or the other, belief is unwarranted. That fact is here, i have many, many vicariously-substantiated reasons. But none personal, other than my trust that those reasons are sound. And again, perhaps my doubt here (for both propositions) is a bit schizophrenic. I mind not :)
Quoting Relativist
Then you're not a deist. It is defined as a God which is discoverable in empirical observations of nature. I think you're just ignoring the fact that misusing words is a problem. And, i, personally, while understanding your view will no longer even attempt to say you're a deist, because the statement here precludes it. Your take on that is immaterial to me looking at the definition - looking at your positiion - and deducing hte daylight between them.
Quoting Relativist
Im done. I've been over this three times now and you've outright ignored it to ascribe to me a claim which i have not made and the clearly sufficient solution i've posited. If you're willing to ignore specific, direct treatment of a false claim about my view here, im unsure what to do about it. You are wrong. I don't do what you're claiming and have outright, directly rebutted it three times.
Then you have a burden to explain why that's the case. Insisting on your own definitions isn't reason-giving.
Quoting AmadeusD
?
Quoting AmadeusD
I did -- I gave the Oxford definition in the OP.
Quoting Oxford Reference
Did you look at that? If so, why didn't you give a reason for rejecting this dictionary definition?
Quoting AmadeusD
It was the OP that originally provided this, not Tom. All of this is making me think that you didn't read the OP.
Quoting AmadeusD
No, anti-theism is moral opposition to God on the basis that belief in God is harmful to people. It's not an ontological claim, but a moral one.
Quoting AmadeusD
This reasoning doesn't follow, because if theism is the opposite of belief in God, rather than lack of theism, then it's the positive claim that belief in God is false.
No. Anti-theism is opposition to theism.
I don't think so. I'm attending the actually, etymologically sound usage of the words. Why would you accept randomly-ascribed meanings that don't fit the etymology. More on that below...
Quoting Hallucinogen
That isn't looking at the words - that's taking a definition that fits your point. The one provided by an institutional atheist organisation has much more authority, imo. And i did give that reason - apologies if it wasn't clearer. It should also be extremely clear by now that, three things are going on in my position:
1. I am trying to solve the problem.
2. I have identified robust meanings for these words which avoid double-counts, inaccuracies and inconsistencies, on my view.
3. I have provided a potential actual solution, rather than merely asserted "i am right'. I am asserting that my suggestion solves the problem of inter-subjective meaning making conversation either near-impossible, or totally unimportant.
It is either luck, or my erudite treatment of the words that results in that solution aligning with the etymologically-sound use of hte words.
Quoting Hallucinogen
Do feel free. I'm not being shirty there - please, feel free.
Quoting Hallucinogen
I've never seen this position ascribed to the word from any other source including a brief click-about just now to ensure i'm not totally off-mark - unless you're misreading 'theism should be opposed' as a moral, rather than logical claim (here, they can co-exist - It can be immoral for society to accept patently illogical and false cosmologies - but that's not a moral opposition to God. Was Hitch's position best i can tell). If i'm wrong there, conceded, and I return to my 'solution-oriented' approach to it, using the actual structure of the words to deduce their meaning to avoid this pulling of teeth.
Quoting Hallucinogen
I assume you mean atheism there. And if so, I reject that oppositional framing. They are related, but not opposites. One is a positive claim, one is rejection of that positive claim with no claim of it's own. Clearly, 'anti-theism' is the literal opposite of theism. A-theism is patently, inarguably non-theism with no positive claim. I simply will not accept claims other than this, looking at the words themselves and their structure. Otherwise,. I'm choosing to roll around in a shit-heap of talking over and past one another at every turn. Call me dogmatic, or egoic - I'm just not willing to wade into a clearly dumb framing of words that matter to the conversation. I'm more than happy to be inflexible about nutting out useful strategies for discussing things when it is obvious we don't have one.
As such, and in any case, even assuming i'm mistaken in all these term's meanings and therefore all of my suggestions and positions are 'false': That's a stupid, unhelpful framing of these words that causes the utterly ridiculous conversations we're having now. Hence, actual solution being suggested (IFF i am entirely wrong and can't argue from the words themselves) Why not just accept that a better system of terms would be better instead of going "this is what we have, we'll make do" That doesn't seem to fly anywhere else...
Knowledge is the mental representation of truth.
Quoting Philosophim
Then it's not knowledge, and this definition you're offering means you need a term for information that we're certain about. I call what you're referring to "faith" or "confidence".
Quoting Philosophim
This isn't knowledge. Knowledge is what you are correctly certain about.
Quoting Philosophim
Knowledge isn't just absence of contradiction. You are thinking of belief (or "confidence") - the space of possibilities inferred from what we know.
Antitheist.
...?? ????
?????? ???????????????
?????? ?????? ?????·
I don't speak Ancient Ancient Greek, but it seems to say "However [she] convinced Hera to stop the flower-crowned maiden's godless frenzy". The earliest usage of it seems to refer to the absence of gods, not the denial of them.
The uncommon word ???????? can have two meanings: like the gods, or against god(s).
Someone presented a Reddit post (lol) where the SEP and IEP are misused as sources, but it is true that the SEP claims that the standard definition in philosophy of religion is "denial of God".
Here is the thing: why should philosophers of religion be able to redefine a word that is at least 2000 years older than their field? A word that many people identify and have identified with while not implying the meaning the SEP claims is standard. It may be fair to say we should use the standard definition here since we are technically talking about phil of rel, but why use atheism when the meaning is better encapsulated in 'antitheism', which the IEP calls "positive atheism"?
In any case, I am very skeptical of the SEP's claims of "standard" or "consensus". Sometimes I fail to confirm the existence of those consensuses when I look into the topic myself.
I disputed this over many posts. Finally, I got it across to you:
Quoting AmadeusD
Quoting AmadeusD
Yes, you did. See the bolded statement, above.
You're doing the opposite. Atheism has always meant denial of God's existence and it's only recently that new atheists began to popularise the "lack of belief and nothing else" definition.
Quoting AmadeusD
Selecting any definition is selecting one that fits your point. If anything, this reveals that your original basis "Just look at the bloody words lol" was poorly-informed.
Quoting AmadeusD
And you say this right after complaining I'm taking a definition that fits my point. It shows you're not sticking to your original basis, which you claimed was "just looking at words". Now it has to be from a specifically atheist source, all of a sudden.
Quoting AmadeusD
It doesn't, because as pointed out in the OP, defining atheism as lack of belief doesn't distinguish it from agnosticism, since agnostics also lack belief in God.
People often assume that "everybody" uses the word in the way that they themselves do, and I'm not surprised that you find cases like those in the SEP - though they should know better. Philosophers should be aware that claiming a consensus should be done cautiously and preferably backed up with evidence. Fortunately, a good dictionary is a quite reliable source of such evidence.
You are right that in Ancient Greek atheos - I'm sorry that I don't have an Ancient Greek keyboard - didn't mean exactly what it means now. Though, on a closer look, Plato does, it seems, use that word to mean "denying the gods" (in the Apology). But otherwise, it seems to mean "godless" or "ungodly" (in Pindar, Sophocles and Lysias) and "abandoned by the gods" (in Sophocles). The meaning in your quotation from Bacchylides does seem to be "ungodly".
But I don't think ancient Greek usage is, or should be, a final authority on what a word means now. For me, the meaning of a word is what it is used to mean and the users of a language may not know or care how the ancient Greeks used it. So use may change over time, and most dictionaries now try to capture how the word is used, rather than how it "ought" to be used or was "originally" used.
I'll skip over the change in usage of "atheist" when polytheism declined and Christianity became dominant.
Perhaps the most relevant change is the invention of the term "agnostic" by T.H. Huxley in 1869. Before that "atheist" could comfortably cover both agnosticism (no assertion or denial) and atheism (denial). Huxley's point was precisely to draw that distinction and once it is drawn, "atheism" needs to move over. People seem to have found this distinction important, and so Huxley's coinage has taken root in the language. (Yes, of course you can check that claim in a dictionary!)
Maybe there are people who don't like this distinction. It would be interesting to know why. I don't see any problem with it.
:up:
Quoting Ludwig V
This is a good addition to the debate. Then what happens when there is "antitheism"? Should "atheism" move over as well? If yes, where? If no, what happens with "antitheism"?
Quoting Ludwig V
I agree with this. But, and this is a completely different topic, I believe that when we loan a word from another language, the usage of the word should keep its origin in consideration, lest we commit a barbarism; whereas a word that is our own may be changed in meaning as much as the people will it whether that is good practice is up to debate.
I don't understand the Ancient Greek word, which means "godlike" in Homer, but "contrary to God" in writers that I know nothing about; they are clearly not classical. The obvious etymology is clearly in favour of the latter meaning, which has apparently been around since 1788.
As to what happens to "atheism", it would be a choice. Sadly, no-one is in a position to make the choice, so, in the end, it will be down to users of the terms to make their choices. (In France and Sweden, at least some of these choices are made by a committee, which has legislative backing, but English doesn't have any equivalent authority.)
If antitheism means active opposition to religious belief (and pratice), then atheism would be left with rejection of belief that does not lead to active opposition. But there are other possibilities, especially when you consider dystheism and maltheism. By the way, there is at least one religion (legally established as such in the USA) that is atheist - Scientology - and Buddhism is agnostic - or at least the Buddha was.
I can't see any mileage in arguing about what the words mean. The best one could do in a situation like the one we are in is to make an agreement about how to use the words and then deal with any substantial issues.
:up:
Something that seemingly can't be reinforced too much.
It seems to me that what is important and valuable in this thread is the recognition that the traditional binary position that either God exists or it doesn't. The binary opposition, as so often, is not really very helpful.
I'm also wondering who might want to insist that agnosticism is a variety of atheism, rather than being a distinct position. Where does this idea come from? How does it affect the eternal debate?
Perhaps this has been explained earlier in the thread and I've missed it.
Quoting mentos987
While I do not insist upon anything, is this what you asked about?
Yes. it is. So I went back to the discussion you were quoting from.
I guess "insist" in this context sounds pejorative, so I won't insist on that word.
It seems to me that the debate you got involved in about the meaning of "atheism" and "agnosticism" is actually about the meaning of "knowledge" and "belief" and "certainty" and where there is a binary divide and where there is a spectrum. If there was agreement about those issues, the definitions of "agnostic" and "atheist" would fall into place.
It seems to me that goes back to the beginning: - Quoting Hallucinogen
I'm not sure I fully understand this and I'm not sure it is right.
But it does seem important to me to note that religious belief may not be entirely rational. After all many religious people think that all that is needed is faith, though one hopes that they think that rationality has a part to play after the fundamental commitment of faith is made.
We can call them "hinge" propositions, or some other idea that treats it as a beginning, a starting-point and so not subject to rational standards in the same way as other propositions. We could even say that the foundation of religious belief is not propositional at all, but a commitment to a way of life - the existentialist idea of commitment has a part to play here.
Do we include atheism and agnosticism as kinds of religious belief? I'm not sure. It probably depends on the variety of atheism or agnosticism in question.
And "faith"
Quoting Ludwig V
I'd say so. Although to me they are more of a way to declare yourself unconvinced.
Yes, of course. I didn't mention that, for me, "" and "faith" are very closely related - and "erusr" and "loyalty" are as well.
Quoting mentos987
OK. There is good reason to think of any opinion or attitude to religion as, in a sense, religious. There are complications - there always are - but I'm not sure that anything important hangs on them.
I don't think it is a matter of truth or not, but of usefulness. The language we use doesn't make any assertions, until it is used and applied. In the same way, the rules of a game aren't right or wrong; it is moves in the game that are right or wrong. That doesn't mean that they are simply arbitrary. The rules can frustrate the aims of the game - make it unplayable. Those rules can be said to be wrong, but that's not the same as false.
If you are referring to Royal Academies of language, the same is the case for Castillian. Also to some extent Portuguese and Galician. English indeed does not have that in any country afaik.
Quoting Ludwig V
Those are more like nonce-words, like misotheism; antitheism is more established, though not as much as atheism admittedly.
Quoting Ludwig V
Add Jainism to the mix in case someone wants to reject that Buddhism is a religion.
Quoting Ludwig V
Agreed. I am sure any reasonable person would grant either of the two definitions in order to go forward in a debate. The discussion over the meaning of 'atheism' started in this thread a few pages ago I think, but it did not seem to lead anywhere, just a debate on semantics.
Quoting Ludwig V
Both I would say, ???? can mean 'face-to-face' among other things.
Quoting Ludwig V
I defend a similar position in this thread on this post, reserving the third position to not an epistemic position but a declarative one, of suspending judgement.
Quoting Lionino
Quoting Lionino
Thanks for all these snippets. I was worrying about anti. Those two meanings combined didn't make any sense. But that explanation works perfectly. (My Greek is very rusty.)
Quoting Lionino
I'm not sure exactly what a "nonce-word" is, but I agree that mal-, dys- and miso- theism are pretty marginal. People love a label for a doctrine, especially if it can be given a name derived from Greek or Latin. But it wouldn't be practical to label every variety of possible doctrine about God. "ant-theism" is a stretch for me, but does seem to identify a worth-while difference and it has a certain antiquity that might serve as respectability.
Quoting Lionino
I don't have a reason to quarrel with you, though I would classify not knowing whether... as epistemic. On the other hand, where would you put someone who thought that the concept of God, at least in Christianity, is incoherent, so that either assertion or denial are inappropriate? Or, I saw a translation of a Buddhist text that had the Buddha saying that the question was "undetermined"? Neither of those is suspending judgement.
I got it from the website I read about "dystheism", which I had never seen before. A nonce-word is a word that is made for that specific reason and abandoned after. Maltheism is a word that was made for a game, if I recall it properly from yesterday.
Quoting Ludwig V
If a concept is incoherent, I think that denial is quite appropriate. But if you refer to something such as "This sentence is wrong", we might have to work with paraconsistent logic a third truth-value or dialetheia. There is no word for someone who believes something to be a third truth-value or dialetheia, "dialeuthic about" perhaps.
As to undefined, it depends on what it means. Something undefined can be like 1/0 or infinity/infinity, which then undefined has a targeted meaning towards which we can believe or disbelieve. Or it can be something that is yet to be known, which suspending judgement is appropriate.
OK. It seems that nothing hangs on what we say, so we don't have to say anything.
Quoting Lionino
The difficulty with the third truth value is that it is very hard to stop at three. One could probably make a case for thirty-three.
Quoting Lionino
Yes. Your two cases are different and there are probably others. Best to leave it at that.
I'm not. And that fact (though, I deny the truth of it) wouldn't change what i've suggested im trying to do.
Quoting Hallucinogen
Hmm. I have a feeling this is going to go nowhere. I asked you to look at the word. Its structure, its etymology, its meaning. Not its (according to you, anyhow) use. You ahve done the latter, and ignored the former. Disagree with the method, sure, but don't pretend you're doing something you're not (and in turn. impugning my method, falsely). I'm more than happy to just get a 'yep, well that's dumb' but being wrong about what I've suggested pushes me to respond this way.
Quoting Hallucinogen
False. As explained above, you're being dishonest about htis. The fact that I (on your method) invoked a more authoratative definition is not an indication i've ceased using the etymological basis. This is now the type of sophistical weirdness talking with apologists gets me. May need to duck out.
Quoting Hallucinogen
I've dealt with this, in detail, over two possible propositions. I am now ducking it. It's been.. interesting :)
Quoting Relativist
There are three examples of my expounding, and explaining this quote. The bad faith in this response is beyond my ability to parse. If you did not read my treatment of this issue (three times) between that bolded quote, and this use of it, I cannot bring myself to delve into such an out-of-sorts use of conversation.
That's fair; I should have restricted my use of the term. Thank you.
Someone can saw they are an agnostic atheist in the following, trivial way, I am an atheist as regards to the Abrahamic religions, but am agnostic as to the topic of if there is some "higher power" or force or entity that orders the universe.
I don't see any good reasons to believe this, but, I don't think we attain certainty in the empirical world.
I'd like to correct myself. It is not that agnosticism is not an epistemic position, surely it is. I mixed the actual sense of 'agnostic' with its sense in the discussion of belief in God here. In the argument that I was referencing, true agnosticism (not knowing whether p) is probabilistically unlikely (almost impossible), as the overall doxastic sway will almost always be towards p or not-p.
I quote Matthew McGrath that " I distinguish three: suspension of judgment, the inquiring attitude, and an attitude I call agnosticism. For the first two of these ways of being neutral, non-epistemic factors such as future-comparative and goal-related factors matter to their justification. But they are not genuine doxastic attitudes". Being that some individuals will be in/around the middle even if more towards p than p-not or the converse in such a way that they don't feel it is fair to affirm either, they will suspend judgement, which is the only third position not doxastic but declarative.
As a disclaimer, Matthew McGrath, in that paper, does not claim Bayesian epistemology or reduction of belief are the case, which I presuppose for my argument.
Quoting Lionino
What makes equally balanced agnosticism "true"? I can see what makes a 90 degree angle a right angle, but that doesn't mean that the only true angles are right angles. There's a complication here, because although right angles are not the only true angles, there is such a thing as a true right angle. But I think that only shows that one needs to be clear about what criterion of truth is at work in each use. You can choose to call equally indifferent agnosticism the only true agnosticism if you like. But I need a better reason than that.
Quoting Lionino
I don't see that agnosticism with a preference one way or the other is restricted to the context of religious belief.
Quoting Lionino
I'm puzzled about suspension of judgement. It is one of the non-genuine doxastic attitudes, and yet you use the same phrase to describe "true" agnosticism.
If any non-epistemic factors make a belief "non-doxastic" (not that I'm sure I know what that means), then religious beliers held on faith are non-doxastic. But why would believing that religious beliefs are non-doxastic be non-doxastic?
Quoting Lionino
I don't quite get this distinction. I suppose you mean that religious beliefs are not rational. I think that is true, but the thread, as I understand it, limits the discussion to rational belief - I'm not sure whether there's such a thing as non-rational knowledge, but there might be, or perhaps some non-rational factors can be part of a knowledge system. After all, scientific beliefs are supposed to be based on a commitment to truth. Isn't that a non-epistemic factor?
If it is faith alone then it is believing without knowledge which is irrational.
Belief/faith as a function of knowledge is rational.
We are trying to establish the terms for referring to people's mental states, so in order for those terms to be clear, the connections between definitions need to also be rational. Sacrifice that and we end up mired in the confusing mess that the new atheists have succeeded in creating.
Let me put this way, I believe you will agree with me. In the debate of belief in God, there are those that believe and those that don't believe. There is also the word 'agnostic'. In this debate, people use this word in many ways, including but not exhausting: suspending belief, finding the idea incoherent, having no clue, etc. "Agnostic" is somewhat used as a catch-all word for the third position. But that is just how many people seem to use the word, very lax. As we know, agnosticism means not knowing, which is what I call true agnosticism, trying to constrast it from suspending belief or others.
Now, I see another argument in your reply, which is
Quoting Ludwig V
To make the analogy with angles, for me, believing that P would be a straight angle, believing that not-P would be a zero angle, and "true agnosticism" the right angle of 90º. My belief is exactly that we are seldom 180º about any proposition, because of point C here, and that most things we believe could be a 160 or 97 degrees angle, the things we disbelieve a 30 or 70 degrees angle. I think that you are questioning why I don't think that 80 or 100 degrees is agnosticism instead of only 90. My reason is that, if we accept 80 or 100 degrees to be agnosticism, there is no fine line to separate agnosticism from believing that p or not-p thus agnosticism would become an arbitrary concept, while belief and disbelief would at least have limits on one side (180º and 0º) ; the only fine line for accurate terminology would be 90º or nothing.
I am aware a counterargument would be the colour 'red'. We don't know where red starts or ends as distinct from violet and orange, the colour red is somewhat arbitrary, yet we productively use the concept of red all the time.
I would reply that {leaving "agnosticism" to an arbitrary range that we are supposed to intuit whether we fall under or not in the moment}, like 'red', is not productive, and it is better to make agnosticism 90º, 95º weak belief and 85º weak disbelief, while 175º strong belief and 5º strong disbelief.
Hopefully my text was not confusing.
Quoting Ludwig V
Right, maybe the text above expresses the criterion of truth I am working with.
Quoting Ludwig V
My explanation on that was also not clear. With "its sense in the discussion of belief in God here" I meant here in this thread. In the first paragraph in this text I specified what I was referring to. The ocurrence of those usages is something I verified here in this thread.
Quoting Ludwig V
That was not my intention, maybe you are referring to one my previous posts that you saw before I made a correction. Indeed, 'suspending belief' is not a true doxastic attitude.
Being that an exactly 90º degrees angle is almost impossible and, for the sake of ease, let's say impossible , we are left with two regions, 90.0?1 to 180 degrees, and 89.9? to 0 degrees. In that sense, there are two doxastic attitudes (or regions), and one that is almost impossible to truly occur. Thus, if we want to have a third position that does occur often, it would be not a genuine doxastic one, which for me is suspending judgement, which can coexist with weakly believing and weakly disbelieving true doxastic attitudes.
Quoting Ludwig V
Every belief is doxastic by definition, no?
Quoting Ludwig V
I didn't really think about religious belief specifically.
Quoting Ludwig V
I believe that scientific belief is more about "will this also happen in the future?" than anything else. There is a commitment to regularity in scientific beliefs for sure, I am not sure if I would call that an epistemic or non-epistemic factor.
Here are my definitions. The exact % is arbitrary.
Knowing something indicates a certainty of 95-100%
Believing something indicates a certainty of 50-95%
Having faith in something is when you simply choose to add a percentage of certainty. E.g. 55% belief + 41% faith = knowing that God exist.
How do you feel about this?
If I don't believe in the existence of God, any god, because there is no evidence for its existence, what does that makes me? An agnostic, an atheist, an agnostic atheist?
To me you're describing classic atheism. You're not saying the jury's out on the existance of gods, you're saying in the absence of evidence I don't believe in any gods.
I dont see any problem with that. As you point out we manage perfectly well with no fine line between red and violet. Picking out and sorting through the varieties of agnosticism is quite interesting. But what is the actual problem that all this is intended to solve? Or is it just a tidy mind?
Quoting Lionino
This proposal, presumably, makes both belief and non-belief rare to impossible just as your similar proposal for agnosticism makes that rare to impossible. What's the advantage in that? I think not accepting p and not accepting not-p is much more than a fine line.
Quoting Lionino I think the problem is your obsession with arranging everything on a single scale. The obsession with degrees of belief makes for a tidy diagram but smothers the distinctions that might actually matter here. WHat is the problem you are trying to solve here?
Quoting Lionino
I don't follow this at all. I can understand being agnostic with a leaning towards theism and being agnostic with a leaning towards atheism. But the business with percentages and doxastic attitudes is over my head - especially as we now have true agnosticism and truly doxastic. Perhaps I just haven't kept up with the argument.
Quoting Lionino
Even if you are right about what scientific belief is about, it is still a commitment to truth.
It would help me if I had some examples of clearly epistemic and clearly non-epistemic factors. Ditto for doxastic and non-doxastic.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
I think you are missing the difference between not believing in the existence of God and believing in the non-existence of God. Admittedly, for some purposes, the difference may not matter much. But if you believe that "God" is an incoherent concept, it does matter.
Right. :up:
Can you figure how these are different?
IN the absence of evidence, not believing amounts to the jury still being out. But perhaps out of hte building, rather than still in the deliberation room. I can't see any practical difference.
Quoting Ludwig V
They are fundamentally different things. I think one of the sophistical tricks of (perhaps the religious?) some in this thread is to pretend that not accepting p is the same as accepting not-p.
In the former, the subject may not know about p. In the former, the know, and reject it positively. Very, very different situations. The misuse of these words hurts my head, and the weak defenses of their misuses even more so.
Not so much. Most common entities without evidence for their existance are in the "I don't believe in it" category not the "well, it's possible" category of most.
Where are unicorns in your mindset? Or ghosts? No doubt some believe in and numerous common folk don't disbelieve in ghosts (which an example of what you're referring to). But that number is severely diminished in intellectually rigorous circles (such as here).
Me neither.
Do you believe in a green donkey (it had copper poisoning) orbiting behind Jupiter in such a way that it is tidally locked with respect to Earth, that is, it is always behind Jupiter and we could never see it with a telescope?
No...
Well, do you have eViDeNcE it is not there though?
I guess not.
ThEn you can't discard the pOsSiBiLity of a green donkey behind Jupiter!
I don't see how this is not the same thing, without expressing the same.
Anyone who claims absolutely that unicorns are not possible, is kidding themselves.
Quoting LuckyR
I am not convinced this is either true, or matters. Not considering something seriously isn't the same as positively affirm disbelief that it is possible.
Quoting Lionino
A good example. The jury is out. Out of hte building. No energy spent on the proposition. But affirmative disbelief is not there. It's merely not engaging.
Isn't philosophy's goal to tidy up our minds? :grin:
Quoting Ludwig V
Since I take a more Bayesian view of belief (according to the SEP the dominant view of partial belief), I would be happy to grant that, but I would say "A bachelor is a single man" is very close to 180º degrees (belief with certainty), while "A bachelor is a married man" to 0º degrees (disbelief). If we wish to talk about synthetic propositions, we could use "A square has four inner angles", very close to 180º also. The law of identity could be said to be 180º degrees, as it is the basal rock that every other belief depends on.
Quoting Ludwig V
If there is a problem to solve, for me, it is that true agnosticism (90º degrees belief) hardly exists. Once we are aware of that, we can talk more accurately and honestly about our beliefs. Some of the confusion in this thread would vanish therefore.
Quoting Ludwig V
Which are?
Quoting Ludwig V
For me, agnostic is the same as being exactly between p and not-p in terms of belief. Suspending belief would be different. Suspending belief is where, for epistemic reasons (such as not having as much evidence as we conceive we could have about the topic) and/or non-epistemic reasons (such as being able to judge better in the future), we intentionally don't make a judgement, even though we could.
Thus you can suspend belief while leaning towards either. True agnosticism would be leaning towards neither.
Quoting Ludwig V
Epistemic factors, Matthew McGrath:
a. How strongly or weakly your evidence supports p (or not-p).
b. Whether you know or appreciate (a).
Non-epistemic factors, indidem:
1. Whether you will later have better (worse) evidence concerning whether p than you now
have.
2. Whether you will later be a better (worse) assessor of your evidence.
3. How valuable, or how much you value, knowing whether p.
4. How likely it is that, if you inquired further and acquired more evidence, you could come to
know whether p.
Doxastic attitudes: believing that p and its adverbs (strongly, weakly), disbelieving that p or believing that not-p and its adverbs, believing neither.
Non-doxastic attitudes: not making judgement, inquiring into the matter, not having heard of.
And I am glad to announce that a beautiful diagram has been made, much to our irony:
Edit: I forgot to add and I am not uploading the file all over again. Left arrow is 180º degrees, right arrow 0º degrees, and upwards arrow 90º degrees.
Not necessarily. I prefer an overview of what's happening. When I understand that, I might do a bit of tidying up, but only if it serves some purpose. Tidying up just for the sake of a system is regimentation, which has its uses (in mathematics and science, for example) but I see no virtue in it for its own sake - and it can be oppressive to people and misleading in philosophy.
Quoting Lionino
It's OK. Your diagram was clear enough for me to work that out. It is a lovely diagram.
Quoting Lionino
These lists are very helpful. I wasn't expecting anything like that. I would have counted everything you've listed as epistemic or doxastic. Does emotional commitment (like belief in God) count as believing strongly and believing something reluctantly (like believing that your friend has scammed you) count as believing weakly?
Quoting Lionino
But that's just a consequence of how you present the phenomena. a single point on the scale seems improbable. 89 degrees is also highly improbably, But a range between 85 and 90 is more probable. You assign so many values to all the other beliefs that you create a specific impression of the relationship between them. It's got nothing to do with what's actually going on.
It's the difference between a dimmer and a light switch.
The question is whether to see all varieties of agnosticism as the same kind of thing, like a bowl full of apples, or as different varieties, like a bowl with apples and oranges and kiwi fruit and maybe a few nuts. I go for the latter. Agnostic because there's no (not enough) evidence is one thing; agnosticism because the concept of God is incoherent is another; agnosticism because religion is the cause of much evil is yet another. I can't fit those on to a single scale. Why do I have to?
It is true that all those varieties of agnosticism can be held strongly or weakly, so it would be comprehensible if one proposed a separate scale for each variety. But then the same will apply to atheism and to theism.
I think you are fastening on a specific feature of belief - that it can be strong or weak - and turning that into an entire system. But belief is more complicated than that.
Sorry, this post is a bit scattered.
The epistemological status of belief is relevant only to those who insist it must be.
Agreed, though atheism isn't (for most) possession of proof positive that gods don't exist, it is the disbelief in gods (regardless of the source of the disbelief).
After all, nonexistance does not require impossibility. It's possible I could have had eggs for breakfast, yet I most certainly did not.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. There's no doubt that many beliefs are held, but not on rational grounds; that doesn't mean the people who hold them are irrational or that they don't really hold those beliefs. But it is always interesting to ask whether a belief is held on rational grounds and if one wants to know whether that belief counts as knowledge, it is essential to ask that question.
Quoting LuckyR
So in the terms in that quotation, agnosticism would be neither belief not disbelief, but, perhaps suspension of judgement or a belief that the question is malformed and therefore unanswerable.
It does seem to be the case that some (many) people don't think the distinction between agnosticism and atheism is important. And indeed, for some purposes, it isn't. But then, for other people, on other occasions, it is.
I don't understand what that means.
Quoting Ludwig V
That is understandable. You will also understand me once I tell you that my background and (one of my) passions are physics and mathematics.
Quoting Ludwig V
I have to say I have not thought much about emotional commitments yet, I was dealing primarily with rational belief, where evidence and logic are used as justification. I tried searching into irrational belief and emotional belief and I could not find much unfortunately.
I can say however that emotional commitments such as "I believe my wife is not cheating" can sometimes not be belief. Sure, they say "I believe", but what they really mean is that they "want to believe", but in the back of their heads they know it is not true. I am not sure if in someone's psychology reason and emotion will always be separate in belief-formation, or if they mix sometimes.
I would say that for believing something reluctantly, the "reluctantly" is the "I want to believe part", which can be discarded when we give an assesment of the strenght of the belief.
Quoting Ludwig V
That is our difference, I only count the first as agnostic. Recognising p as incoherent for me implies believing not-p.
Quoting Ludwig V
I would say otherwise. Many people hold the black-and-white view of belief where you either believe something or you don't, or the black-white-grey view where you believe, don't believe, or disbelieve. I open the folding fan and show there are many shades inbetween. Whether we want to call a region of those shades "strongly believe" and the other "weakly disbelieve" is simply a semantic detail.
Well, that certainly seems to make sense. But that may be stereotyping, No doubt you will feel that it makes sense also that I have no background whatever in those disciplines. Apart from philosophy, you could say that my background is in literature, music and history. That doesn't mean I don't think that physics and mathematics are unimportant in any way. I've always taken an interest in what's going on as part of the laity.
Quoting Lionino
H'm. Do you have a background in logic, specifically the truth-functional calculus? In that system, everything is either true or false. The law of excluded middle applies. When a sentence is malformed (Chomsky's "colourless green ideas sleep furiously" is a good example), you have a problem. You can say that it is not a sentence or a malformed sentence (not a wff) and hence no truth-value can be assigned or that it belongs in some third class (truth-value). But you cannot say or believe that it is true and you cannot say or believe that it is false. The same applies to the contradictory - "Colourless green ideas do not sleep furiously" in this case.
Quoting Lionino
I don't think philosophers are comfortable with irrational belief. But many beliefs have emotions attached to them. We're not machines.
Quoting Lionino
Something that sometimes happens is a bad basis for generalizing about the concept. Your example is a case of what some people would call "wishful thinking". But I don't accept that you can rule it out as a belief just because it is awkward for you.
I think they often mix. To say that they don't represents us as disinterested machines. Some beliefs don't matter to us, but some do.
Quoting Lionino
What do you mean "discarded"? If I come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that my spouse is cheating, the emotion doesn't disappear. Most likely, it will be reinforced.
Quoting Lionino
I've no problem with you unfolding the fan. But it wasn't clear to me that you think that the strength or weakness of belief is proportional to the evidence, - or perhaps you mean "should be" proportional to the evidence? I just think that's not the whole story. One factor that hasn't been mentioned is the idea that some propositions have a special status in that they are foundational and more or less immune to refutation. This is the category of what used to be called a priori or "analytic".
Quoting Lionino
H'm. Surely what your diagram means is not just a detail?
I agree. People do tend to treat their beliefs as if they were facts and no good comes of it. On the hand, I am resistant to the notion that established knowledge is supposed to be the only basis for action.
If you're claiming to know that no God exists because to you, lack of evidence is indistinguishable with, or indicates, lack of existence, then you are an atheist.
If you don't know whether God exists, and hence lack belief, you are an agnostic.
There's a binary distinction between certainty and uncertainty. But not between belief and knowledge (they can coincide, and they do if we're rational). If you try to impose a boundary between belief and knowledge at 95% certainty, not only do you disrupt the fact that they often coincide, but you also create a category (in knowledge) where certainty and uncertainty are paradoxically included. This contradicts the fact that they're disjoint from each other. Knowledge about something only comes from certainty about some detail, not uncertainty. Likewise, if we only have uncertainty at our disposal, then we don't have belief in it. We would just have lack of belief. We can have degrees of belief about something if we know (and therefore have certainty) about some of the details, but not all of them.
The same fallacy arises on the other side of the spectrum. Lack of belief can't mean less than 50% certainty, because lack of belief only (rationally) comes from lack of certainty/knowledge. If you have 0% certainty about something, then you don't have any knowledge regarding it. If you then become 1% certain in it, it means you now know some detail about it. But that means you believe something about it. So trying to push 0% certainty and 1 - 49% certainty into the same category is going to be paradoxical.
This is based on my previous comment that it's rational to believe in something that you know and to not believe in something you lack knowledge of. The same applies to any model of belief and knowledge in terms of certainty and uncertainty that we try to create.
Quoting mentos987
I just wouldn't agree that definition of faith.
My goal is to just shed some light on the opposing schematic approach which you have denied any legitimacy too; although I do not myself use it.
For the sake of brevity, I will refer to your schematic approach as a variant of the traditional schematics and the other as a variant of the etymological schematics. I label yours (as a variant of the) traditional (approach) because it is primarily the widely accepted view traditionally in the actual theological literature; whereas I label the other (a variant of the) etymological (approach) because it is a relatively new development, mainly derived by common folk, by reading the etymology, as opposed to the literature, behind the terms.
The crux of your specific argument for the traditional approach is that belief and knowledge are related such that the latter entails the former (e.g., I know X ? I believe X, etc.) due to, as you say, rationality (because, according to your argument, it is only rational to believe X iff one knows X).
The etymological schema is going to completely deny this and, on the contrary, is going to claim that one can believe X, even rationally, without knowing X.
I think the best way to defend this schema, in this case, is to note some problems with your own formulation of the traditional schema first: you have the relation backwards between beliefs and knowledge. Knowledge, traditionally, is a true, justified, belief. A belief is not determined after one recognizes they have knowledge; but, on the contrary, they believe and then, if it turns out to be true and justified, then it is reaches the status of knowledge. When you say things like If you believe something and you're rational, it's because you know something., this reverses the relationship such that one has to know X before they believe X (or perhaps simultaneously, which is seems pretty implausible) which is impossible (given the standard epistemology in the literature).
The etymological schema is going to say that we formulate beliefs, which are not yet knowledge, all the time (e.g., I believe that the tree I walked passed 3 days ago is still there even though I have little justificatory support for it, etc.); and they usually argue that it is not knowledge because it has not met the threshold of necessary justification to count as knowledgelike the court of law, where we could have a belief that someone did X, and even have some relatively good reasons to support that claim, but it nevertheless falls short in court.
If this is the case (that one can have beliefs about something while not knowing it), then there is a meaningful difference between those who claim to only believe something and those who believe it and know. This is not adequately represented, or so the argument goes, in the traditional schema: agnosticism is both the lack of belief and lack of knowledge, not just the former.
So, this would mean, if it is true, that agnostic theism is the view that one believes at least one god exists, but doesnt claim to know it. Likewise, an agnostic atheist is the view that one does not believe in any gods but doesnt claim to know it.
Now, if we properly re-reverse the relation between belief and knowledge in your view we can still salvage a defense of the traditional schema as well (just on different grounds): one could just say that, within academic and serious dialogue, people should only care about those beliefs which have (or at least purport to have) sufficient justification for them being true (and thusly having knowledge)--for, otherwise, one is discussing trivially held beliefs.
However, depending on how steep the threshold is for justification (for knowledge), which makes it less and less trivial, it may turn out meaningful in a colloquial conversation to ask if the person thinks they have justification to meet that threshold or if they just think they have good reasons to believe it. For example, if a person is thinking epistemically like they do scientifically, then they may mean by knowledge some relatively high standard (like that of a scientific theory) when they say I dont know and they may still have pretty good reasons to believe it when they say but I believe it (like a pretty rigorously tested hypothesis, but not quite a theory yet in science).
Hopefully this helps.
Not to me. The term uncertain would indicate 5-95% certainty. "Certain" would be 95-100%.
Quoting Hallucinogen
Not to me, knowing is a step above believing.
Quoting Hallucinogen
I think that knowledge can contain a small degree of uncertainty.
Quoting Hallucinogen
I don't follow.
Quoting Hallucinogen
I do not follow. Lack of belief can come from contradictions, no?
5-50% certainty would indicate disbelief.
0-5% certainty would indicate knowing that something is not true.
You and I do not share definitions. If you see any logical fallacies in the way I use my definitions, feel free to point them out.
The relationship is not temporal but one of dependency. If we're rational, belief depends on knowledge.
Quoting Bob Ross
But those are irrational beliefs. Beliefs that we formulate without knowledge are usually predictions or estimations. The knowledge involved is what the predicted entity is, what it means, as well as all the wheres and whats involved. The knowledge that might be missing could be the hows. If this is missing, the belief would still be irrational, i.e., not based on knowledge. It's based on knowledge of some details, but the knowledge detailing the hows, and therefore the full proposition in which one believes, is still lacking. That's what makes it irrational.
Quoting Bob Ross
Your justificatory support is the knowledge that there's a tree there, and the knowledge that trees don't typically disappear over a period of 3 days.
Quoting Bob Ross
It's rationality.
Quoting mentos987
Certainty in X cannot coincide with uncertainty in X, so suggesting that they're not disjoint is a fallacy.
Quoting mentos987
Belief and knowledge don't coincide to you? One cannot believe in something and have knowledge of it?
Quoting mentos987
I explained in my previous comment that it couldn't.
Quoting mentos987
If you only have uncertainty in something, then you don't have belief to any degree in it, only lack of belief.
Quoting mentos987
Understanding that there's a contradiction in something is a form of knowledge.
Quoting mentos987
Already debunked all of this.
Antitheism means opposition to the existence of a God. Other definitions even say opposition to religion. Opposition shouldn't be read to mean "denial of". If I deny the existence of unicorns, we don't say I'm opposed to them. Although there are definitions of it the way you mean it. Whichever definition one gives the word, it's defined as such based on what the position purports to know, which underlines that that's how these words should be defined.
When I say I "know" something I mean that I am highly confident, not 100% certain. So yes, my "knowing" does contain a degree of uncertainty.
Quoting Hallucinogen
No, to me you either believe it or you know it. Knowing is stronger than believing.
Quoting Hallucinogen
Not to me, being uncertain only means that you are not certain. You can still believe something and be uncertain of it. uncertain 5-95%, believing 50-95%
Quoting Hallucinogen
In that case, I did not follow.
It seems to me that your definition of "believing" is a lot stronger than mine.
The diagram is for didatic purposes. The distinction between strongly, mid-ly, weakly believing is only for communication. If we want to be accurate, we would use something like percentages.
Quoting Ludwig V
Not my case.
Quoting Ludwig V
Another issue is self-reference: "This sentence is false". It requires a truth-value other than true or untrue. I don't have an issue with that. I don't think the law of excluded middle always applies.
You may bring up that third-values are troublesome for my view of [0,1] or 0º?180º, but that is another issue that touches on another detail of my view.
Quoting Ludwig V
Right. My concern is more whether it is possible to separate emotion from belief when it is attached, or whether it is indissociable.
Quoting Ludwig V
Right, it is more that, besides wishful thinking, I can't think of another explanation for how the mechanism of emotional commitment works, maybe you can provide one.
Quoting Ludwig V
Because whether I believe p and how I wish that it was not the case that p are different matters. I can come to believe that my wife is cheating, and that belief is the same whether I wish it was not the case or not. It would be the same matter if my wish modified the belief, but the belief seems to remain the same regardless of the wish.
Quoting Ludwig V
There we have another element. Like most philosophers (Alix Cohen 2013), I don't think direct doxastic voluntarism is possible. As in, we don't choose our beliefs, or will to believe something. So it is not that we proportion the belief to the evidence, but that the evidence pulls our mind in a particular direction of whether p or not-p of course, to quote Matthew McGrath again, there is also the issue of "Whether you know or appreciate how strongly or weakly your evidence supports p (or not-p)."
Maybe the epistemic-declarative distinction now is more clear. Even if my mind is pulled towards the direction of p, I perhaps still do not take the stance of affirming p for different non-epistemic and/or epistemic reasons.
Quoting Ludwig V
It was briefly mentioned here:Quoting Lionino
I will also say that some beliefs X are more certain than others W exactly because W depends on X. Perhaps when we talk about the strenght of belief we don't have something in absolute terms, like "X is 95% sure" and "Y is 15% sure", but a hierarcy or relation, where the surest propositions (if there are such things) are defined as 100% and the most evidently false (a bachelor is a married man) as 0%, and every other belief is measured in reference to those two. I prefer the latter.
Well, you said it yourself:
Quoting Hallucinogen
This entails that saying you know something means you don't believe it, which is absurd.
Quoting mentos987
You said the opposite of this in your previous comment.
Quoting mentos987
Yes, so "opposition to something" doesn't mean "to deny". It means moral opposition.
"Opposition does not mean to deny, it means moral opposition". You put an adverb next to the verb and pretended that is its default meaning. Opposition to the existence of something is clearly denial of existence. Moral opposition to something's existence is a very weird stance. If I say "I am opposed to the pilot-wave", everybody understands that as thinking that pilot-wave is a bad theory, not that I think the pilot-wave itself is a prick.
"absurd" why? Knowing is simply a degree higher on the scale of certainty . If my certainty drops from having known something then I may start believing it instead.
If someone asks me "Do you believe you need oxygen to survive?" then I answer, "No, I know I need oxygen to survive".
If they ask me, "Do you know what the weather will be like tomorrow? I answer, "I believe it will snow".
Quoting Hallucinogen
Uncertainty and certainty are both scales 0-100%, inversions of each other.
Being certain is a step on the certainty scale: 95-100%
Being uncertain is a step on the certainty scale: 5-95%
You can't be certain and uncertain about the same thing. But being certain does include a small degree of uncertainty (0-5%).
Because you're talking about an object in that case, not a being.
Quoting Lionino
The kind of opposition indicated by the "anti-" prefix is moral. See: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/anti-
Every object is a being.
Quoting Hallucinogen
'Anti-' means opposition, that is what the dictionary says. You ascribe this "morally" adverb to the word opposition when it is not there. There are countless examples of 'anti-' prefixed words without moral meaning.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/anti-ageing
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/anti-id
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/anti-romantic
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/anti-aircraft
The word anti-matter itself indicates reverse, instead of moral stance or counter-action.
But this isn't a case of you not believing that oxygen is needed to survive. You believe it because of what you know.
Quoting mentos987
And you believe it because you know something.
Quoting mentos987
You said earlier that knowledge is 95 - 100% certainty.
Your new comment means that you can be both uncertain and certain, in contradiction to your last comment.
Quoting mentos987
I do not believe it because I know it. I am above the threshold of certainty that is indicated by the word "believing". If you suggest that I merely believe something when I think I know it, I may take that as an insult.
Quoting Hallucinogen
Not necessarily, I can be unsure about it. However I probably have some experience that suggests that it will snow. But yes, I can know some things and use that to form beliefs about something else. The belief is weaker than the knowledge though.
Quoting Hallucinogen
My bad, it is supposed to read "Being uncertain indicates that you are not certain".
:up:
I got involved in this because I'm interested in the debate about religion. We've ended up with the connection to epistemology, probability theory and so on. In a way, there's nothing wrong with that, and we could pursue our differences (which are many and radical) even on this thread. But I don't want to get absorbed in those subjects just now, and you clearly have a thoroughly thought through system in place, so that debate would be quite demanding. I expect you will get more out of a discussion with people who appear to be more on the same page, or at least the same book, as you.
This doesnt make sense to me. You seem to be saying that we must have knowledge of X before we can believe X; but then you say it is atemporal: can you give an example?
Isnt this a temporal dependency?
This also seems like you are saying that we just need to have knowledge of Y (as opposed to X) to believe X, which is compatible with the etymological schema.
Agreed. Good weekend, Herr Ludwig.
You're misrepresenting what I said. I said: "And you believe it because you know something". The thing you are unsure about is the thing you believe, which you believe because of some other fact that you know.
Quoting mentos987
And the experience is what you know.
Quoting mentos987
So this agrees with my original point, meaning you shouldn't have written "not necessarily". What you're now doing is acknowledging that belief coincides with knowledge, which undermines the continuous scale between the two you were advocating for. Since belief is based on knowledge, I can believe in something in which I know.
I think that what you are doing is using belief as a synonym for uncertainty and knowledge as a synonym for certainty, but incorrectly representing this on a continuum in which certainty and uncertainty get mixed together, but not belief and knowledge, each of which you're representing as an admixture of certainty and uncertainty. It is in fact certainty and uncertainty that do not mix, being binary opposites, and belief and knowledge which can mix, shown by the fact that we base belief on knowledge and lack of belief on lack of knowledge.
Quoting mentos987
But that means the same thing. What you wrote was that "Being certain is a step on the Certainty scale: 95-100%" so I pointed out that you earlier that this is what knowledge is, not what certainty is. "You said earlier that knowledge is 95 - 100% certainty." Saying that certainty is a step on the certainty scale means you're mixing uncertainty together with certainty, which is a contradiction that I earlier pointed out.
By dependency, I mean logical dependency. So believing X requires having knowledge about the concept of X. Our beliefs have a structure, so in order to believe, we have to have knowledge in that structure as well as knowledge of how the thing believed in fits into that structure.
Quoting Bob Ross
Validating a belief as rational (as knowledge) can depend on information we don't currently have access to, yes.
Quoting Bob Ross
I have to know what the president of the United States is in order to have a belief about who will become president in the future.
Nah, I can believe something based on other beliefs.
I believe it will snow because I believe someone said so to me earlier. Knowing is not a requirement for believing.
Quoting Hallucinogen
Experience is not the same as knowing. In my experience, the earth is flat.
Quoting Hallucinogen
No, in this case, the beliefs derived from knowledge does not refer to the same thing. I know it snows now so I believe it will snow tomorrow.
Quoting Hallucinogen
Uncertainty and certainty are the scales themselves. Being certain and being uncertain, those are the actual levels of certainty, and they are separate. However, being certain can still contain a degree of uncertainty (0-5%).
Linguists don't decide the meaning of words, there is no prescriptive tradition today in the English language.
You couldn't rationally believe what they said if you had no knowledge it was possible, e.g., if you don't know what snow is or don't know that it can snow.
Quoting mentos987
But you know what the Earth is because you experience standing on it. What you directly experience is what leads to knowledge, and you don't experience the roundness of the Earth, so it's not an appropriate example to prove your point.
Quoting mentos987
It still refers to knowledge.
Quoting mentos987
This just doesn't make sense. They're separate but they overlap?
By being I meant something with a mind.
Quoting Lionino
You're right. Anti-theist can mean asserting God doesn't exist.
But I can experience that it is flat. I think it is a great case for experience not being knowledge.
Quoting Hallucinogen
Maybe to your definition of knowledge. If everything was based on what I call knowledge, there would be less mistakes all around.
Quoting Hallucinogen
Uncertain and certain does not overlap. Uncertainty and certainty are scales, they can overlap, they have no thresholds. A degree of uncertainty will always contain the inversed degree of certainty.
This sort of logical dependency you described is not atemporal.
Exactly, so you could believe that the next president will be Bob without knowing it: thats exactly how agnostic atheism works.
You have now conflated the knowledge used to formulate the belief in X with the need for knowledge of X to formulate the belief in X.
Then I don't know what your criteria for atemporality is or how you're reaching any conclusion about what is temporal and what isn't.
Quoting Bob Ross
No, I can have an irrational belief that turns out to be incorrect, based on fallacy or just lack of knoweldge, or I can have a rational belief that turns out to be correct based on knowledge.
Quoting Bob Ross
It doesn't work at all, it pushes together agnosticism, defined as lack of knowledge, together with atheism, a knowledge claim regarding the same thing.
Quoting Bob Ross
The "need" is rationality, it's not being conflated with knowledge itself. One arrives at belief from knowledge through rationality.
You conveniently chose the reference that supports your argument, from the "The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable".
Let's see what the relevant dictionaries say:
How are you deciding "relevant", other than as a way of describing the reference that supports your own view?
I should point out that appealing to dictionaries is going to be completely fruitless for your side of the argument, since dictionaries aren't reason-giving.
Hence, the OP.
And they aren't even incompatible with the definition I gave or the OP either. So you aren't even proving me wrong by pointing these out.
Let's see the description for your one source:
And one of my sources:
Which one seems more relevant to philosophy of religion's terminology?
Quoting Hallucinogen
Correct me if I am wrong, but the OP mentions dictionaries and definitions at many points, and some arguments seem to be based on these definitions. The Oxford definition from the Fables book is followed by this:
Quoting Hallucinogen
This whole argument references the sourced definition of atheism you used. I am saying your source for that definition is not a good source.
It's you that said one is more relevant than the other, not me. I'd say "relevance" of a definition comes down to popularity and history.
Quoting Lionino
As a way of debunking what the OP is aimed at debunking - the idea that definitions prove what things are.
Quoting Lionino
They aren't.
Quoting Lionino
The argument doesn't depend on the definition, it mentions it as an example of how atheism should be defined based on the argument.
Is believing a ridged state for you? Are you equally sure about all your beliefs?
Atemporality is the property of being timelesshaving no temporal order. You were saying that the belief in X is atemporally dependent on knowledge of X. This makes no sense: how do I non-temporally acquire knowledge of X and then a belief in X without that inevitably being a temporal process?
Thats not what you implied thought with:
This implies that one only needs some knowledge which is not the thing about to be beleived for that belief to be rational (i.e., one needs knowledge of some Y for belief in X to be rational, not knowledge of X). If this is true, then you could believe that the next president will be Bob, given the knowledge you have, without knowing it will be Bob.
I didn't say this. I gave an example of a kind of belief that can turn out to be irrational or rational on some temporal dependency.
Quoting Bob Ross
Why is it necessary for one of those two statements of mine to imply the other?
Of course the former doesn't imply the latter. The latter is a much simpler claim about rational beliefs than what the former says about rational beliefs that have some temporal dependency. They are not in contradiction, either.
Quoting Bob Ross
Because you insisted on talking about beliefs with temporal dependency for rationality.
So I gave you an example of those, and now you're writing as if you're undermining the general depency of rational belief in X on knowledge of X.
To have a belief about presidents, you need to know what "presidents" means.
To have a belief about who will become president in the future, I have to know what "becoming president in the future" means.
Those are both examples of atemporal logical/semantic dependency of rational belief on knowledge that beliefs possessing temporal dependency also have.
No, I have different degrees of certainty in my beliefs. Some are based on more knowledge than others.
You definitely said this:
Underline adds by me. And, not to mention, you reiterated it again in your last response:
Again, my point is that you are now conflating a belief in X requiring knowledge of X with belief in X requiring background knowledge, Y. Agnostic atheism is perfectly compatible with the latter, not the former. An agnostic atheist claims that they belief X but do not know X; but that they have reasons to back (i.e., some knowledge about) Y such that they think they are justified in that belief [in X]. Your OP was attacking agnostic atheist in the sense that one needs knowledge of X to believe X; but you are no longer claiming this, and this renders your argument against the etymological schema ineffective.
I dont see how any of that is atemporal. In order to know what becoming president in the future means to believe Bob is going to be the next president, I need to know the former before the latter.
Not sure that's true. You can have direct knowledge that Bob will become President (for instance, if you're told he's going to be by a source trustworthy). You might then want to ask what a President is, and have that explained to you - I imagine, barring some mental incapacity, you will pretty automatically fill in the blanks of the original statement (i.e what 'President' means) and have a full understanding of what 'Bob is going to be President' really presents you with.
I may be missing something from further back in the exchange btu this seems a solution to the temporality problem in this case.
Relevance of something comes down to whether it is related to the topic at hand. Dictionaries of philosophy seem more relevant than the book of fables and words.
Quoting Hallucinogen
No clue what that means. Definitions give us what a word (symbol) refers to. Nobody claims that definitions have magical access to the noumenal realm.
The only thing your OP supposedly debunks is whether the definition for atheism given somewhere is accurate or contradictory or whatnot.
If by this you just mean that you were told Bob will become president, then this does not negate my point. One must know somethingi.e., one must believe themselves justified in at least one of their beliefsto believe that Bob will become president. That could be simply being told it.
I don't think that's the case. If that's not what the conflict above is about, ignore me haha
No, it is that there is a temporal relationship between the knowledge used to believe bob will become president and that belief. I am not saying that one needs to know bob will become president.
That is an example, not id est. That could be true, but it also could not (as you already rightly pointed out).
It's possible your response still closes that out, I'm just unsure as I wouldn't want to assume where you are putting your defenders in.
On the second, fair enough. I guess what im getting at is that I do not think that is the case, whether a mere example or the essence of hte issue (though, i think id est is a bit out of place in that exact position of your repsonse).
I dont think one needs to know what a President is before being told Bob will become one/it to know that Bob will become one/it.
This could also be pointless - but i need practice for my upcoming papers LOL
I think that president is a troublesome word, so let's switch to something more concrete: butterflies.
Does Bob need to know what a butterfly is to know that the caterpillar is going to become one? Let's say that he believes the caterpillar will become a butterfly, that it is true it will become a butterfly, and that he is justified in thinking it will become one because the caterpillar just made a cocoon. It seems that he knows it. If there is one troublesome component is that "he believes the caterpillar will become a butterfly". How could it be that Bob believes that, if he has no mental content of what a butterfly is?
If he has a good notion of cocoon function (in it's most simple i.e Form A->Cocoon->Form B), and that the result is called, by tradition (or perhaps he knows the etymology, but not to what it refers), a butterfly, I don't think he needs to know what a butterfly IS. He need only know that the inevitable result of a caterpillar (which he does know about) entering a cocoon (and not dying) is "a butterfly".
I see the problem. But I don't think it's more than an epistemological discomfort. He' still justified in believing "a butterfly" will result, just doesn't know what it looks like.
Additionally, if someone where to simply tell me "I drew a triangle, but it doesn't have three internal angles" I am justified, despite having zero knowledge of what they drew in reality, of knowing that it isn't a triangle. I can be absolutely certain that a Triangle has not resulted from this drawing session, but i have no idea what the person drew (this one is messy and i expect it to be pulled apart.. go for it)
Then, for him, a butterfly is that which comes out of the cocoon. He may not know what shape, colour, or smell the butterfly is, but for him butterfly means the thing that comes out of the cocoon, so he knows what a butterfly is for him, just not what a butterfly is for people who go outside.
Quoting AmadeusD
You know that it was a non-triangle, hence your conclusion.
I assume this is aimed his having never been outside being required to not know what a Butterfly appears to be. Fair.
Quoting Lionino
Even for those people, the butterfly is the thing that comes out of the cocoon. It's appearance is further information than what the thing is, surely? He has, lets say, limited knowledge.
Quoting Lionino
Yes, this is merely a reverse of the Butterfly example to try to ensure the logic is consistent (in the sense that knowledge can be derived from aspects of a thing - but that direct knowledge isn't needed. So Bob's knowledge of the A-Cocoon-B flow ensures that once he's told that B is a Butterful, it's knowledge.
Counterexample, (dumb) kids know what a butterfly is without knowing it is the thing that comes out of the cocoon.
Then, they both(Bob and the dumb kids) know what a butterfly is, and the other pieces of information (in one case, it's appearance, in the other, its origin) don't seem to bear on the respective knowledge claims. It doesn't seem to follow that the opposite (in each case) is required to bring the information to the level of 'knowledge'.
I don't think that's a counter as much as a parallel. They both know what a butterfly is under different criteria.
Could it be that more accurately, Bob knows merely that a butterfly comes from a cocoon? This seems to go the President example pretty squarely - I'm of the view that we can know Bob will become President, regardless of whether we know what a President is.
Under rationality*
To have a belief about presidents, you need to know what "presidents" means.
To have a belief about who will become president in the future, I have to know what "becoming president in the future" means.
These are both examples of "To rationally believe X, I have to know what X means".
Another such relationship: "To rationally believe X, I have to know X is a fact"
Quoting Bob Ross
As soon as you know what X means, you're mentally representing it, so you believe what it means. There isn't a delay. The atemporality is between the two.
Well, agnosticism means that one doesn't "know" whether gods exist or not. However it is an error to then assume that believers and nonbelievers "know" that gods exist or don't exist. It is more accurate (when dealing with unknowable entities, like gods) to substitute "believe" for "know" on the question of existance.
For me, since I think that the concept of "God" is incoherent or perhaps empty, I'm inclinced to think that no-one, including me, knows that God exists or that God does not exist. But I do know that the concept of God is incoherent. It is clear, I would say, that believing on faith that God exists (or doesn't) is not knowing that God exists or doesn't. However, people often confuse knowledge with subjective certainty, and belief with subjective uncertainty - and this is not unreasonable; it's just a complication. But then, there's another complication, that religious belief is often called belief rather than knowledge; I'm not quite sure why and this may be an old-fashioned view, but the creed does begin "I believe..." I think this is a specialized use of belief to mean "trust"; it's not unknown outside religion.
But it's important to bear in mind that belief that p is belief that p is true, and hence it is hard to distinguish between belief and knowledge from a subjective point of view. The consequence is that knowledge claims should never be made for one's own beliefs, only for the beliefs of others - except in cases where the belief is "common knowledge" or certainly true.
Quoting Ludwig V
Have you got a breif sketch of why you might argue this? I take a similar position, but I am curious how others see this.
in other words, the difference from the agnostic in what the atheist says is that there is every reason not to believe in the existence of God, and further, following from that, every reason to believe in the non-existence of God.
"I'm an atheist" - "Care to go into detail on exactly what you mean by that?" - "Sure, I mean..."
Some words end up with that kind of clarification being required. It's not ideal but it's what we've got.
Correct.
Y = a president is one elected to preside over an organized body of people, such as the chief executive of a republic.
X = bob is going to be the next president.
I must know Y in order to know X. @AmadeusD was arguing, in their OP, that agnostic atheism is nonsensical (or irrational) because an analysis of the two words conjoined (i.e., agnostic + atheism) reveals that anyone subscribing to it claims no knowledge of whether gods exist while not believing it; and this argument rests on the assumption, or perhaps defended principle, that one must know what they believei.e., they must know X to believe X.
You are right insofar as one could know that Bob will become something, of which all one is aware of is that it is called presidency, and thusly one does not completely understand nor know what it means for Bob to become president (without knowing what presidency is).
I can tell you that this wooden block I have in my hand is floovy (in fact, I just did) and you will thereby know, without knowing what floovy means, that the wooden block has a property of something--but not what that property is itself.
Best of luck, my friend!
This is perfectly compatible with agnostic atheism. An agnostic atheist knows what it means for god(s) not to exist, so they can rationally believe that god(s) dont exist without knowing god(s) dont exist.
This is equivalent to saying what I was saying before: according to you, to rationally believe X, one must know X (saying it is a fact is redundant). This is what you havent defended but, instead, diverted to the previous principle (quoted above this quote). I dont think one needs to know X to believe X, which is not the same thing as needing to know what X means to believe X.
Not really. My first question would be to find out which concept of God is at stake. When I say "the concept of God is incoherent", I usually have in mind the Christian conception of God. But even that takes many forms. Each thinks that the others are all wrong, but they can't all be right. They can all be wrong, though. But then, how to decide right and wrong here? The trump card is, of course, faith, and arguably coherence and incoherence aren't applicable to questions of faith. Internal consistency might be.
My best first argument is the problem of evil, which I'm sure you are familiar with. It has the virtue of being applicable to all Christian conceptions.
There is an argument whether omniscience and omnipotence are compatible. If God knows everything, can God alter anything?
Then there's the idea that God is everywhere at all times, which makes it hard to understand what his knowledge of the world would be like. Certainly not like ours, since we are at all times located at a specific place and time.
There is a list of more detailed issues, all well known in Christian theology, none of which have what I would call a solution. In alphabetical order, divinity/humanity of Jesus, original sin, redemption through sacrifice or scapegoating, transubstantiation, trinity,
The most general objection is that the concept of God only makes sense in a dualist (or maybe an idealist a la Berkeley) metaphysics.
I would classify God's existence as, for believers, a "hinge" proposition, around which all other issues are seen. But I also think the doctrinal question whether God exists is not as important as Christians (and Muslims) believe it to be. Religion is essentially a question of attitude and way of life. Doctrine is secondary.
Does that help?
Quoting Ludwig V
Indeed. I have never understood why a god would ruin his weekend (the crucifixion) and (as per the old quip) sacrifice himself to himself to save us from himself because of a rule he made himself?
The very idea of invisible god/s who can only be known through old books and human testimony seems incoherant. I think the religious term for this is ineffable. :wink:
In that case what Bob and the kids "know" as "butterfly" are different things. For Bob,
"butterfly" is the same thing as "the thing that comes out of the cocoon". When Bob thinks of a butterfly he does not have the same mental content as the kids.
Your argument seem to be either that both parties have a mental content at all for the word "butterfly" regardless of whether those contents are alike, or that there is some essential property of "butterfly" you didn't specify that both parties know of regardless of the accidents (shape colour etc) of a butterfly.
Quoting AmadeusD
By the mental content of butterfly to Bob, that would be redundant. The thing that comes from a cocoon comes from a cocoon.
Quoting AmadeusD
What we understand by president is a set of official duties and privileges. If Bob does not understand anything at all by the word "president", I believe that we will end up with a non-proposition, "Bob will become ?", and belief in the context of knowledge must be propositional.
Ineffability is a popular topic in this argument. I wish I could wave my hand and abolish it, But that would be to rely on a rather primitive version of logical positivism, so the grounds for that are not solid. On the other hand, the mystics can only persuade us to accept that their experiences are true, so philosophy will not be impressed. But the fact that some people have such experiences seems undeniable. Dismissing them all as frauds or unbalanced is as implausible as claiming that all such experiences are genuine. In the end, it will come back to common sense and everyday life to sort the sheep from the goats - and the criterion is not truth/falsity.
Quoting Tom Storm,
There is some room for some justifications for sacrifice. But it is too often talked about as if it were just a case of passing the parcel of guilt from the sinner to someone or something else or paying a fine. No, thanks.
You put me in mind of an important point that I did not include. For a very long time, there was, in philosophy, a long series of attempts to prove that God's existence was necessary and that a priori argument could be developed. But lately, it seems that both theists and atheists have agreed that it is an empirical question.
Both sides think that empirical evidence justified their view, so we can conclude that both sides are wrong. But we should remember Laplace's famous reply I had no need of that hypothesis. ("Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là" - (allegedly as a reply to Napoleon, who had asked why he hadn't mentioned God in his book on astronomy.) See WIkipedia entry on him. For him, it was clearly not an empirical question, but not a necessary question either. For me, it is a question of an attitude, which guides the interpretation of evidence. What does that mean? For a hint, consider Berkeley's argument in his A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. See, for example, section 109.
I suspect that discussion of God's existence will turn out to be no less infinite that he is supposed to be. (I can never decide whether God should be a he, a she, a s/he or an it.)
:up: In light of recent fashion, I think, 'they/them.'
My favourite apologists are the currently burgeoning presuppositionalists, who bypass empiricism completely (via the transcendental argument and Cornelius Van Til).
Quoting Ludwig V
This was generally my position. God fails to assist me in any sense making, primarily because theism has scant explanatory power. Tackling the various proofs/arguments are just for sport.
I was surprised to discover when I first ventured into this on-line world, that many people seem to be dead serious about the arguments. Which is not to deny that others just love the argument - for sport, as you say.
Quoting Tom Storm
Yes. I have encountered those ideas. I haven't got my head around this, and my reluctance to engage with it is a big part of the reason why. The strategy is undoubtedly ingenious, but doesn't offer the sceptics and unbelievers much incentive to engage. Why do you like them?
Quoting Tom Storm
Yes. I use that sometimes, but I'm not comfortable with it. It's such a lash-up. But maybe it would not be inappropriate for a Trinitarian God.
Mainly because, as you say, they're ingenious. Quite a stunt to take reason (the skeptic's prized tool against 'superstition') and use the very possibility of rationality as proof for god. But they can also be monotonous and repetitive.
Quoting Ludwig V
Me too.
Mystics undoubtedly experience something they attempt to evoke in their writings. It is the postulated ontological or metaphysical implications of what is experienced that are questionable and that have nothing at all to do with philosophy, due to their vacuity.
This is not to say that the experience itself is not rich and cannot be inspiring, even life-changing; it is necessarily vacuous only in the propositional. not the poetical. sense.
:up:
It seems to me that there is awfully good evidence from entheogens that some capacity for 'spiritual experience' tends to be a physical characteristic of human brains.
Yes. I agree, having experimented extensively with entheogens myself, and I think the 'spiritual' aspect is a 'feeling' phenomenon which does not support any claim about the metaphysical nature of reality. Religious and metaphysical conclusions are arbitrary, culturally driven, after the fact add-ons.
This is something which I think is so obvious, but those who wish to believe in something transcendent can never seem to, in the face of all the compelling evidence, bring themselves to accept it. Wishful thinking and confirmation bias and the scotomas that go with them rule among the spiritually and religiously minded.
The puzzle that strikes me is why he thinks his approach might change the mind of an atheist. Agnostics may be more open to it, though this one certainly isn't. It seems more relevant to Christians talking amongst themselves.
It's all very well to talk of rationality, but what, on this account is it? Is it the rationality of Hume, which "is and ought to be, the slave of the passions", or of Aristotle, who revolutionizes Plato's idea of it by observing that "reason, by itself, moves nothing". Why would a rational God present us with the Bible - especially the Old Testament - as its book? I could go on, but it might become monotonous and repetitive.
Quoting Janus
In a sense, yes. Though I'm not sure that "arbitrary" is the right world. I have an impression that the experiences seem to fit in to whatever religious/metaphysical framework the experiencer already has. Which is not to say that they may not change how the ideas are expressed and the aspects that are emphasized.
Quoting Janus
That's certainly true. Though aren't some experiences - "bad trips" - paranoid fantasies, which may be life-changing, but not in a good way. That's why I say they have to be assessed, in the end, by their results in the ordinary world.
I've noticed that a lot of what they say in these conversations is like that. They say stuff that's only meaningful to other Christians.
The thing about presuppositionalists is that they don't talk about religion or Jesus, they are only desirous of bullying into you that atheism is irrational and that agnosticism is impossible.
What theists usually do is (try to) prove that God exists, and then go for the historical reasons why their religion is truer than Islam or Buddhism which is always a stopping point, as the evidence surrounding Christianity is more detrimental than it is corroborative.
Presuppositionalism is performative, not philosophical.
Quoting Ludwig V
Surely, some people even go crazy after taking LSD.
Quoting Tom Storm
Alex Malpass is a public figure and philosopher who has dealt with presups several times. There are a few articles of his that touch on the topic, on the presup tag of his website.
:up: Yes, Malpass is good on this.
I've met a few people who were converted by this approach, so I suspect it works on some and for a while it was a refreshing change from Aquinas' five ways arguments and the like. Most start with a variation of Kant's transcendental argument for god. If you see a skilful practitioner in full flight, they are fun to watch. But like any skill, some are terrible at it and resort to a kind of bullying. I can see how they might get to a god, but getting to Jesus is much harder.
Relevant and funny clip:
I've heard variations of this too. A question for you. If God grants intelligibility and autonomous reasoning is possible, doesn't this just allow for the Christian notion of free will? I have heard one presup deal with this problem with - 'God is the necessary condition of intelligibility and guarantees reason on earth, but he allows humans to use reason for good or ill, via freewill.'
Transcendental arguments might get someone to arrive at the god hypothesis, but getting to 'Jesus died for our sins' was always going to be an additional leap. There are also Muslim apologists who use presuppositional apologetics to 'prove' Islam.
A related argument used by some preups is the evolutionary argument against naturalism.
The conclusion of the evolutionary argument against naturalism is that if our cognitive faculties are a product of naturalistic evolution, there is no inherent guarantee that our beliefs are true. Natural selection may have shaped our cognitive abilities in a way that prioritizes survival and reproduction over the accurate perception of reality. (note Donald Hoffman makes the same argument to support his version of idealism)
Alvin Plantinga, a leading exponent of the argument, suggests that if naturalism is true, it undermines its own validity. If our cognitive faculties are not reliable in providing true beliefs, then the naturalist's confidence in the truth of naturalism itself becomes suspect, as it relies on those very cognitive faculties. In other words, we need a transcendental source for truth.
Quoting AmadeusD
That's basically what I was getting at. The knowledge of what a President is just plum isn't required to have a justified belief one will become one. If it is also 'true' regardless of whether you know that, you'd be JTFing it all the way along. But that does necessarily mean knowledge and we're back to that old chestnut..
Quoting Bob Ross
I'm unsure if this is an elucidate for me or a description, for someone else, of my position.
if the latter, that is not my position.
My position is that 'agnostic atheism' makes full sense. Its merely an agnostic who does not believe in God, as opposed to one who does.
Neither claim knowledge of God, and so there's no overlap or toe-treading.
The issue with that, on the face of it, an Atheist retains the position that we can know - but have no evidence. The Agnostic rejects that.
Quoting Bob Ross
Appreciate it :)
I used the term 'arbitrary' to indicate that I think mystical and psychedelic experiences can be rationalized in terms of any religious/ metaphysical framework.
Quoting Ludwig V
My experience is that bad trips may either be indicative of underlying psychoses or be just due to existential anxieties. So, I have known many people who have taken many trips, but no one whose subsequent ongoing psychosis or extreme neurosis could be definitively attributed to the use of psychedelics. That said, I don't doubt that the use of psychedelics can in rare cases trigger incipient psychoses.
I would agree, and I ..think.. this is probably hte issue I was esoterically wanting to highlight. They know its a 'butterfly'. But what does that mean Peabody? Heh.
Quoting Lionino
It relies on neither. Both Bob and the Dumb Children would be justified in seeing the Butterfly emerge and confidently proclaim "That's a butterfly!" additionally,. they would both be correct - and this is as a result of their wildly divergent 'knowledge' of a butterfly.
Quoting Lionino
Not in the case that Bob is declaring it a butterfly. It really, truly matters that his knowledge, despite diverging from say yours or the Dumb Kid's, correctly has him identifying the butterfly in question. As to pre-visual confirmation... yeah, i'd agree. That is what a butterfly is for Bob. But knowledge is redundant in that case... It's not verified, exchanged, understood or anything else.
Quoting Lionino
But the proposition, in either case IS "Bob will become President". The empty concept is not really relevant. Bob will (lets say you also know this..), in 38 days, become President.
In 39 days you can, with justification, claim that Bob is now president. But you don't know much, if anything, about it. I'm just not sure what hte issue is here.. I agree with all the daylight you're identifying existing between these notions. But they all converge, correctly, in certain claims.
If that's not how you'd characterize this, and the previous comment, let me know directly and boldly as i'll take it into account going forward. People communicate differently..
In my immediate defense, citing that atheist institutions reject that formulation is, to me, an argument. In this case, appeal to authority seems quite apt ;)
In any case, to re-iterate, this is how, on my account, these words work:
Quoting AmadeusD
I then suggested this, below, set as a way of fixing the apparent problems people are having using words with obvious etymologically-sound uses as it seems the above set cannot apply to deism without becoming convoluted and half-arsed.
Word 1: Deism, Yes. I have evidence
Word 2: Deism, No. Have evidence against
Word 3: Deism, Maybe and I believe I can know.
Word 4: Deism, cannot know.
I don't really understand the above to be an argument, per se, but I would defend those definitions and did so for pages before and after the post these two sets came from.
Quite so. But Tertullian already co-opted that problem. "I believe because it is unbelievable."
Quoting Tom Storm
Well, all sorts of tactics work - even the traditional approach of standing up and informing the audience that they are all sinners! Actually, this latches on to any private guilt that we might harbour (which I'm sure happens in any social system) and exploits it. Genius!
I'm prepared to believe that even Tertullian's approach might work sometimes.
Which goes to show that conversion is not just a matter of reason. Rationality may creep in after the event, but it doesn't set it off.
Quoting Tom Storm
That's very odd. Reason is supposed to guarantee the truth of its conclusions. The truth might be used for good or ill, but that's not the fault of reason, is it?
Quoting Tom Storm
It might work better for Islam and Judaism. Though there would still be an awkward gap about proving that the Book in each case was the Word of God.
Quoting Lionino
Quite so. If I were still teaching, I would use this to show how philosophy should not be conducted and how to ensure that a dialogue is unproductive. One must put one's own view at risk, or nothing will be gained.
Quoting Tom Storm
This is an interesting argument. Another attempt to co-opt and transform a familiar sceptical/atheist position. But if natural selection is to prioritize survival, it needs to promote accurate perception of reality. Call me cynical, but the same does not necessarily apply to reproduction, which, arguably, often works quite well on the basis of misperceptions and misunderstandings.
Quoting Tom Storm
The real flaw here is the presupposition that either our cognitive faculties (all of them) are accurate or they (all of them) are not. The awkward truth is that sometimes they are and some of them are not. We learn which is which through the feed-back loop (doing and being in the world) - and we never need to stop learning.
:100:
Fair enough.
Quoting Janus
That may be true. I only wanted to say that what happens after you swallow the pill is not determined. It depends on you (not in the sense that you are responsible for it or in control of it!) and your circumstances. From what I've read and heard, having an experienced guide with you makes a big difference, at least at the beginning. It goes back to the beginnings in the '50's. The "aristocrats" emphasized the need for a guide, the "democrats" insisted it was for everyone. The aristocrats were probably guilty of snobbery and elitism, but they were right about the guide - as the psychiatrists seem to be demonstrating nowadays.
I've never had a bad trip, but I did trip one time with someone who did, and it can be a very bad situation. The bad trip this guy had was very much a result of him being someone whose psychology was fairly fucked up to begin with, and I wasn't a guide so much as someone too young and ignorant to recognize the potential for things to go really bad for this guy. That was a long scary night of continually talking this guy down.
My opinion is that adult supervision is highly highly recommended.
I think that would be epicureanism, yes? Gods exist but they don't care and can't bother.
Non-religious theism is just... theism without any dogma.
Quoting Tom Storm
Surely. I even talked about it here:
Quoting Lionino
Quoting Tom Storm
True, and perhaps what prioritises survival is the accurate perception a pragmatic theory of truth. As in, things are true because the group with that belief F survived and the group with belief D died out.
Quoting Tom Storm
Quoting Tom Storm
You can have a guarantee of intelligibility that is not a God. In any case, I am far from being experienced with presupism, that is something that I will only engage with later.
Quoting Tom Storm
Ah, Platinga. Platinga, Kalam, Ehrman.
My understanding - which may be incomplete or not well-aligned with actual Deists claims - is that Deism is basically just Theism, but an impersonal God (of nature, the universe, 'Love' or whatever). I don't think it, as a term, indicates whether someone is pro- anti- or 'agnostic'.
My issue was that an 'agnostic Deist' is incoherent, as a Deist believes we can discover God in nature.. This necessarily precludes 'agnostic' as a type of Deism. Agnostics reject that we can discover/know of/about God. In fact, I think the main discussion here where I've gone over these positions was someone claiming to be an agnostic Deist. It made no sense - so I had to conclude the gentleman was a Deist - he got stuck on that, where I was actually trying to illustrate the inadequacy of the terms - hence, suggesting that set in the comment you quoted so solve the 'agnostic Deist' problem.
It also interests me that among the former Christians Ive met who are now atheists, the journey is often: Christian to deist to atheist. Its like deism is the faded remnant of theism that can be readily discarded. One goes from wheelchair to walking stick to walking unaided - if youll forgive the vulgar secular bias.
@JanusJust going to step in here noting that I have professionally trip-sat in the past and observed clinical psychedelic trials.
Get. A. Sober. Sitter. That is all. Bad trips are pretty easy to mitigate and bring back around with certain techniques - but an informed sitter is required to ensure you can get through the rivers of fire. All imo.
Quoting Tom Storm
I largely agree, though when I do consider Deism seriously, I think its the metaphysical implications that catch any interest from me at all. If there are 'entities' larger and more encompassing than we've ever recognized then that's a pretty extreme bit of ontology to take on. Also, if It doesn't care about us what might it be interested in? What are missing in our cosmology?
I'm no expert, but it goes something like this. How does reason guarantee its own truth - this is circular and offers no meaningful explanation. The presup might start with the question, why does reason (this mysterious, immaterial phenomenon) work so well? Why do the laws of logic - identity, non-contradiction and excluded middle - work, seemingly everywhere and for eternity? If the world is just blind physical forces behaving, how do such mysterious laws work and allow us to created math, languages and reasoning?
The presup will argue that we can't really know that the laws of logic work if they do not have a foundation. If they are just floating in a meaningless reality, how can they function? Is reason perhaps just a kind of gibberish?
The laws of logic work, they conclude, because they reflect the consistent and orderly nature of God's creation. How else could we guarantee the truth of these laws in an inherently meaningless and godless universe?
The best an atheist can say is that the logical absolutes work - it's a presupposition which can be continually demonstrated and there need be no additional presupposition to guarantee them. Particularly not god/s which has/have yet to be demonstrated as existing.
It's fun to me because presups in tackling the use of reason to disprove god, twist it around and use god to disprove reason. (Which I don't find convincing but do find ingenious.)
It's kind of a variation of the argument by design, with reason sitting in place of a tree or bird.
Quoting Lionino
Good point. Some people have even suggested alien intelligence instead of god. Others accept Platonism.
Quoting Lionino
I agree. But not just no dogma, no relationship with the creator at all. An impersonal god. Many of the America founding fathers, like Jefferson were deists. It was fashionable in the 17th century.
I tend to go with a more "in your face" approach, in the (admittedly slim) hope of getting the presuppositionalist to question his presuppositions.
A recent convo I had:
Full thread.
In that case I got a more thoughtful response than I tend to expect from presuppositionalists.
I generally find presuppositionalists more sad than funny, because presuppositionalism is pure epistemic poison, that badly cripples the thinking of many who fall into it.
Yeah, could be. Certainly more plausible than a magic man from where I sit. You are also right to question the supposed inherent meaning of regularities. (in the thread)
Quoting wonderer1
Yeah, many of them are just parroting the arguments without fully understanding them and are terrible.
Yeah, it is usually more rhetorically effective script, than thought through position.
I was talking about two different things in the same paragraph. Epicureanism as about no relationship with creator. Non-religious theism as about god without dogma.
In the topic's theme, relating "America" with names like "Jefferson" and "McWhatever" sort of erodes grounds for intelligibility as those are contradictory theologies. The former is Catholic, and the latter two I would expect to observe them within a Wendy's praying to their tri-une god George Floyd.
Wow! That's some unusual career experience. :rofl:
It was a good decade lol
That could work if a religion primarily of practice works. Depending on the details of the practice, that could be an intellectually respectable way to go. Perhaps that's why Bhuddhism is so popular these days.
[quote="wonderer1;87660]I generally find presuppositionalists more sad than funny, because presuppositionalism is pure epistemic poison, that badly cripples the thinking of many who fall into it.[/quote]
I think it depends a bit on the attitude of the presuppositionalist. It seems to me the poison is in the attitude (as in the video earlier). Worse still, that dogmatic inability to engage with someone who verntures to disagree seems likely to me to betray a certain level of uncertainty.
Quoting Tom Storm
I would suggest that gives far too much to the other side. If logic needs a guarantee, that means it could be wrong. But how could it be wrong?
For myself, I would go for observing that God's guarantee doesn't seem to be worth much, given how much chaos and disorder there is in the universe, and wondering why It didn't bother to include sub-atomic particles in its promise.
Buddhism is very interesting, especially because there are so many sects. Some people hesitate to classify it as a religion.
So what is your response to my claim that to rationally believe X, one has to know X?
Quoting Bob Ross
I said to rationally believe X. Do you think one needs to know X to rationally believe X?
Quoting Bob Ross
I was giving you an example of atemporal dependency, not telling you what is sufficient for rational belief. Knowing what X means is required for rational belief in X, but it is obviously not sufficient. It doesn't establish that an agnostic atheist can rationally believe that God doesnt exist without knowing God doesnt exist, only that they can't without knowing what it means. The connection between rational belief and knowledge is just the connection between mental representation and informational content. For some kinds of information, there's a temporal dependency, but there are always atemporal dependencies (rationality itself, semantics etc).
If i missed this in my responses, that changes my position to 'yes, they do' and i retract all previous objections.
I don't agree with it, but it is an interesting read nevertheless.
Yes, I thought it an interesting - even ingenious - manoeuvre. But it ends up as a rather fruitless disagreement, which is fundamentally merely tactical.
What follows is not hard core philosophy, merely reflections.
Supposing this issue is raised by a presuppositionalist who wishes to simply assume the existence of God, without argument. All the atheist needs to do is to assert that they do not wish to make the same assumption. End of debate.
But that's not, apparently what presuppositionalists really want to do. Van Til, at least, wants to mount a transcendental argument for God and claim that order and reason in the world cannot be explained without appeal to God. No atheist would accept that idea, so, again, end of argument.
I'm not sure that the existence of at least some order and reason is a contingent fact. It seems to me more like a project, a way of looking at the world which we need to stick to because without it, we could not live. The concept of an entirely chaotic world is, by definition, incomprehensible to me.
One thing that I and the presuppositionalist might agree on is that the existence of God is not susceptible of rational proof (and hence not susceptible of rational disproof, either). I don't say that Christianity is irrational, only that rationality comes in after the starting-point (hinge proposition? axiom?) is established. I prefer, however, to say that the doctrine is secondary to an attitude and a way of life and derives from that, rather than the other way about.
Does this explain some of the cognitive dissonance required for specific religious claims counter to empirical evidence forr you?
I hadn't thought that far ahead. But yes, why not? It might require accepting, what Wittgenstein never said, but I suppose might have thought, that the rules of a specific language-game might be inconsistent, In fact, empirically, we find that existing language-games frequently throw up inconsistencies where we "don't know our way about"; we just settle them as we go, so that's all right. There's a further complication that what seems an inconsistency to an atheist, might not seem inconsistent to a theist - the problem of evil might be an example. Internally, at least in Christianity, there are certainly doctrines that seem inconsistent to some, but not to others - the Trinity, perhaps.
The big issue would be whether and how that way of life relates to other ways of life. I read Wittgenstein as thinking that there can be different ways of life, but not thinking about what differences between them mean - conflict or incommensurability. In practice, I would say, religions mostly think that their way of life should be universal and having great difficulty in inter-acting with them.
Are atheism and agnosticism ways of life? In a way, yes. Perhaps not entirely comfortable.
How so?
Good question. It is awkward and that's why I like it.
Wittgenstein leaves us with these ideas, but little indication of how he would take them further. I am sure some people have tried to develop them, but there don't seem to be any inspiring ideas. It's a difficult area to deal with. It doesn't fit comfortably with what we think of as philosophy, which has abandoned the core question of Greek philosophy - how to live - because it appears unscientific and therefore not respectable.
For Berkeley, the point of his argument is not that it is true, but that it is the basis of what I will vaguely call an attitude. Paragraph 109 in the Treatise says:-
That's an attitude and, according to Berkeley, it is the basis of a Christian life. It follows that he thinks that the scepticism, atheism that he is arguing against do not support that attitude. One wonders, though, what attitudes he thinks those doctrines lead to.
Religions codify and organize life, so it is easy to see what the implications are of accepting his arguments. Atheism and Agnosticism do not have a codified way of life that goes with them and it is not clear what kind of attitude or way of life might go with them.
Starting-points might be the Greek Sceptics - Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus. It seems that they were working in the same arena as Stoicism and Epicureanism and, like them, were pursuing scepticism as a way of reaching ataraxia - tranquillity. See Stanford Encyclopedia on Sextus Empiricus 3.3
In a different vein, Existentialism (and Romanticism) seem to me to be a response to the idea that the universe is a soulless, meaningless machine.
Yeah. That's the key. People often confuse atheism with secular humanism. Which does have a worldview. Atheism itself is about a single issue and doesn't have a worldview. I know atheists who believe in astrology, ghosts and UFO abductions, so skepticism isn't necessary.
For my money this is waffle. It only makes sense if you already presuppose an account of god as per Berkeley. A Scientologist might make similar arguments using their beliefs. It's just the rhetoric of someone who assumes truth. I'm not aware of the Gospels offering humans anything except some stories and claims which can be twisted in endless directions. Jesus death seems absurd and pointless. To believe in the New Testament you could be a rapist or a priest (or both), a homophobic fascist or a gay socialist. I would suggest there is no Christian worldview either. It supports disparate and contradictory worldviews.
Quoting Ludwig V
Does romanticism generally hold that the world is soulless or meaningless? Existentialism certainly seems to have been constructed as a way to deal with meaninglessness and in Camus' case, absurdity. The idea that we need to find meaning in a world without gods in it always makes me laugh. It's not as if theists don't find life meaningless. I have worked in the area of suicide intervention and on balance those who find life meaningless and become suicidal are just as likely (if not more so) to believe in a god.
I guess that's true, though it leaves room for people to adopt a range of views, non of which would be incompatible so long as it doesn't presuppose a "Nobodaddy in the sky".
Agnosticism is similar. It's important that Buddhism starts from a diagnosis of the cause of suffering, and everything revolves around that. If religion is defined as believing in a god(s), it is not a religion. If religion is defined as a way of life, it is.
Quoting Tom Storm
I wasn't saying that it is anything but waffle, just that Berkeley reveals here that his argument is constructed in the service of a project. There are other passages where he makes is quite clear that his metaphysics is supposed to reveal God's glory and lead to an awareness of the omni-presence of God. Side-note:- It seems that elsewhere, he thinks that we will then go on to accept that we need to obey him and his representatives on earth (and that includes the king).
(Don't forget he lived 16851753, so he would have had the British Civil War and all that in mind. One assumes he would also have disapproved of the French and American Revolutions if he had known of them.)
Quoting Tom Storm
I generalize cautiously - on the whole the answer is no, but the critical idea is the opposition to the dominance of the new science and critique of the industrial revolution, which seems to be a result of it.
Quoting Tom Storm
I'm not surprised. The standard sales pitch makes big assumptions about what believing in God means. There are also people whose belief in God means guilt, self-loathing and sadism.
I do accept that "is" does not imply "ought". But there is no doubt that "is" does lead people to conclude "ought". Analytic philosophers, whose tradition derives from Hume, have great trouble recognizing that. Hence discussion of it is not academically respectable. Cavell points us in a different direction.
More on that?
Quoting Ludwig V
Certainly and it makes sense. We make choices about what we ought to do based on inferences and predictably.
Inversely, disproving the existence of something is just as difficult, if not impossible. At least I can prove that I exist, to myself. But proving for sure that something doesn't exist? May as well try to demonstrate a hole in the fabric of the universe (whatever that means). No one can prove God does not exist, just like no one can prove tree-elves do not exist. Nor should anyone bother to prove or disprove existence.
We assume something exists, and then we prove things about it's motion, it's nature. It either is, or isn't that's a separate question. Not subject to proof. Only subject to experience.
If you can prove that a concept entails a contradiction, that would be a proof of its non-existance. Here is an argument against the concept of the Christian God by Alex Malpass.
Quoting Lionino
These both agree with my point. My point is that reason and proof sit in between things that exist. We have to simply experience something to consider it's existence, and if we want to be reasonable about it, the first step is defining that experience as a concept. Once we enter the world of concepts we can start to be reasonable. It wasn't reason that delivered the experience of the thing we are now trying to be reasonable about.
Some people think they experienced God. Who could penetrate that without being that person? Some people experienced tree-elves. Who could penetrate that? If they want me to "believe in" a tree elf, they need to work with the things I have already experienced and would agree already exist, and use these experiences to show me the distinct place where tree-elves should be in view, but they would be better off to just throw a tree-elf in my face. Give me the experience.
We can say that "All swans are white." and therefore if someone says "there is a black swan" they are either not pointing to a swan, or my definition of a swan was wrong - reason and logic show this. But whether any swans at all actually exist - nothing has been said about that, and no reason or logic or even science can prove logically one way or the other.
It's not that we give up on trying to show what exists. It's that we can't show it by reason. We show it. Period. Then we can look for how it fits reasonably in world where other things exist.
I don't think you can rule out the existence of some thing with reason alone, because I don't think you can rule in the existence of any thing by reason alone. Except your self, to your self. Which does no body else and nothing else in the world any good.
"All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal."
Tons of reason here and room for reasonable analysis.
None of will ever show you that a man is, mortality is, Socrates is. We reason about existing things, not to existing things.
:fire:
:100:
Due to varying definitions, to have a conversation we have to define agnosticism and atheism. If we're just discussing how or if they regard "God"(1)and the former doesn't consider God and the latter actively disbelieves in deity then the compound term agnostic atheism is nonsense. Done.
(1)intelligent, higher power and creator of all, embodies virtue
For further consideration.
The Buddhist take:
"This is why to some Christians, Buddhism seems to be "atheistic"or "pantheistic." Suzuki and his associates claim that it is neither. God is neither affirmed nor denied by Buddhism, insofar as Buddhists consider such affirmations and denials to be dualistic, therefore irrelevant to the main purpose of Buddhism, which is precisely emancipation from all forms of dualistic thought.
--Thomas Merton, Mystics and Zen Masters, 1961
Antiquated definition of atheist:
"For three centuries Christians suffered persecution ... Christianity seems widely to have been disapproved of in the Roman world, and Christians were referred to as atheists because of their failure to believe in the Roman gods.
--Christopher Cook, Philokalia and the Inner Life, 2011
The common denominator:
"The original conception of Tao was simply the observation that reality has a certain way about it. This way encompasses all of existence: life, the universe, and everything. A Christian may call it Gods will; an atheist may call it the laws of nature. These are labels pointing to the same thing, and Tao is simply the most generalized label imaginable, applicable to both perspectives.
--Derek Lin, Tao Te Ching_ Annotated & Explained, 2014
Quoting Lionino
More about these points:
Quoting SEP