Agnosticism is not Athiesm

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

Agreed, we will end up in circles until god or deity is defined enough that we can say we do or do not believe sure an entity exists (or we are agnostic about it). I'm perfectly happy to accept definitions that are external, so long as some universal definition can be arrived at.

The problem is, I think, that the whole point of defining "god" as a universal concept is to make it easier to reject all possible gods in one fell swoop without being accused of "belief".

I don't think such a definition is possible without it being so all-embracing as to be impossible to reject. That's why I use the term "alatrist" - I can accept/reject/refuse to judge the reality of gods on a case by case basis, but can also definitively say sod the lot of them.

Wicknight wrote:

As it stands I reject as being highly unlikely to the point of certainty the idea that humans have ever managed to define a deity that actually exists, though I accept that this is rather unknowable statement.

Somewhat of an assertion, even!

Wicknight wrote:

I know, I was just using that as a point. You are anything but wishy-washy Scofflaw

Good Lord! Is that a compliment?

Wicknight wrote:

Yes I see the point you are making. But at the same time this has become less and less the way the concept of god is used these days as science, or at least a scientific frame of mind, as come to replace religion for explaining the natural world. The question of god has become quite abstract to the point there it is far beyond testing.

If it was simply a question of saying "God makes it rain by snapping his fingers in the clouds, but if we figure out another process that can do this we have shown god doesn't exist" it would be easy. We can easily show that a certain type of god doesn't exist, or at least that this statement that he makes it rain is not true. But as this has happened time and time again over the last 1000 years or so, the concept of god has retreated back into areas that are largely untestable. From being an entity that constantly controls and interacts with the world causing weather and diease and various other things in clear obvious fashion (like say the Viking gods), modern ideas of gods are very abstract. God can now exists outside our universe, outside or space time, and it is therefore untestable if he actually does do this. God can still interact with our universe, but does so in such a way that he uses his own laws of nature, and as such we cannot tell the difference between that and a natural process.

"God" is being narrowed down and down and pushed further and further into the untestable. It is obvious to us that the older gods don't actually exist, because if they did based on their descriptions, it would be clear to us they did.

To be honest this again is more reason (to me at least) to reject the idea all together. If god as to be defined as being untestable to still be taken seriously then that is, in my view, changing the goal posts a bit too much.

It all makes you want to throw up your hands, claim this is all nonsense, and become an atheists

Well, to be fair to the theists, if God actually did "power" the universe and make it tick, we'd never know, since we would never be able to run a "god-free" comparative test. That's not really a fault in the definition, but a problem of methodology.

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

Well, to be fair to the theists, if God actually did "power" the universe and make it tick, we'd never know, since we would never be able to run a "god-free" comparative test.

Thats true, but my point was that applies more to modern definitions of "god", rather than older ones. If God is something that should actually be inside a rain cloud, visible to all and observably making rain appear, it would be pretty easy to confirm that this is or is not happening using modern technology, and as such give much stronger weight to an argument for or against God ("yes we did see God in the rain cloud last week, and yes he was snapping his fingers")

The problem is that as science has slowly explained things that used to be attributed to the direct intervention of god, the definition of god has retreated back to a safe position where if god exist he works in ways that don't make it obvious he exists to most people. You end up with a situation where the observed universe appears to work exactly the same either with or without a god.

Is change from definitions of gods that should be observably interacting with us all the time to ones that apparently never or rarely interact with us is just more of a reason (for myself at least) to think the idea is nonsense in the first place

Dades

Wicknight wrote:

The problem is that as science has slowly explained things that used to be attributed to the direct intervention of god, the definition of god has retreated back to a safe position where if god exist he works in ways that don't make it obvious he exists to most people. You end up with a situation where the observed universe appears to work exactly the same either with or without a god.

And you also end up with the situation where both the religious, and the agnostic are basically telling the atheist that they can't show god doesn't exist.

As you say, the goalposts haven't so much shifted - as ran out of the grounds altogether.

Scofflaw

The Atheist wrote:

Wicknight wrote:

The problem is that as science has slowly explained things that used to be attributed to the direct intervention of god, the definition of god has retreated back to a safe position where if god exist he works in ways that don't make it obvious he exists to most people. You end up with a situation where the observed universe appears to work exactly the same either with or without a god.

And you also end up with the situation where both the religious, and the agnostic are basically telling the atheist that they can't show god doesn't exist.

As you say, the goalposts haven't so much shifted - as ran out of the grounds altogether.

Sure. Now if only that proved something! Other than that primitive peoples claimed things for their god(s) that couldn't possibly be correct....(and still do!).

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

Sure. Now if only that proved something!

Can you prove that it doesn't prove something. And if you can prove that it doesn't prove something can I prove that you did actually prove that this does not prove something :eek:

Dades

I think it proves we're all wasting our time.
But we already know that I guess (though I can't prove it).

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

Can you prove that it doesn't prove something. And if you can prove that it doesn't prove something can I prove that you did actually prove that this does not prove something :eek:

Oh come one - I already gave you the one thing it proves. Other than that we're in "walks like a duck, quacks like a duck" territory.

cordially,
Scofflaw

SonOfPerdition

The problem is that as science has slowly explained things that used to be attributed to the direct intervention of god, the definition of god has retreated back to a safe position where if god exist he works in ways that don't make it obvious he exists to most people. You end up with a situation where the observed universe appears to work exactly the same either with or without a god.

The Atheist wrote:

And you also end up with the situation where both the religious, and the agnostic are basically telling the atheist that they can't show god doesn't exist.

As you say, the goalposts haven't so much shifted - as ran out of the grounds altogether.

If the goalposts shift so much to define such an obscure god (in whatever form) then surely that ends up in a benign non interventionist God that demands nothing and expects nothing.
In that case ..... should we care? What does it matter if we can't show that sort of God doesn't exist, it poses no threat to anyone.

I tend to simply nod and accept a personal definition of god which is so obscure that as Zillah said earlier in the thread . . it is just another label of a real thing. It may be another label to me, but it is a personal belief to that person and may be very real to them. I see no point in even discussing it, but i wouldn't 'poo poo' it either.

I really like Scofflaws alatrist definition, it sums me up nicely.

great thread BTW .. giving me lots to ponder over the last week.

edited to add in Wicknight's post to make it clearer what i'm replying to.

Zombrex

The Atheist wrote:

I think it proves we're all wasting our time.
But we already know that I guess (though I can't prove it).

The sooner everyone realises that I'm right and starts worshipping me as a god, the better it will be for everyone in the long run

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

The sooner everyone realises that I'm right and starts worshipping me as a god, the better it will be for everyone in the long run

Do we get intervention?

enquiringly,
Scofflaw

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

Do we get intervention?

enquiringly,
Scofflaw

All night long .... er ... I mean ... yes, yes you do.

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

All night long .... er ... I mean ... yes, yes you do.

Omnipotence - beats Viagra!

er,
Scofflaw

nesf

Wicknight wrote:

But then you are judging it to be true, at least so far as the basis for further judgements based on this initial judgement.

Ah but I'm talking about objective truth which means that I'm not talking about "true, at least so far as...". I mean truth in the precise, deductive sense. 1 + 1 = 2 is deductively true. The statement that the sun is a ball of very hot gas isn't. It might approximate "truth" to an acceptable degree, but that doesn't mean it's deductively true.

I'm not trying to change your beliefs here, I'm only trying to clarify that just because someone acts as if something is true it does not mean that either they believe that it is true or that it is objectively true.



Oh and pH,

Playboy

philosophers of epistemology we are!

Zombrex

nesf wrote:

Ah but I'm talking about objective truth which means that I'm not talking about "true, at least so far as...". I mean truth in the precise, deductive sense. 1 + 1 = 2 is deductively true. The statement that the sun is a ball of very hot gas isn't. It might approximate "truth" to an acceptable degree, but that doesn't mean it's deductively true.

I'm not trying to change your beliefs here, I'm only trying to clarify that just because someone acts as if something is true it does not mean that either they believe that it is true or that it is objectively true.



Oh and pH,

But that is the original point. It is impossible to know anything as "true", to do with anything. THat is the point about the train falling on your head. You don't, and cannot know, that a train is not about to fall on your head for absolutely certain.

So with this in mind, why do agnostics make a big deal about this fact in relation to the question of "god". We ignore this fact with so many other things in life, we make judgements about so many other things that we cannot know for certain. Yet when it comes to the question of god some agnostics go "hold on a minute, we cannot know for absolute certain, so its illogical to make a judgement either way", ignoring the fact that we cannot know anything for absolute certain but we still make judgements all the time - "gravity will still be here tomorrow so its ok for me to leave my car not strapped down"

This ignores the fact that there is a lot of reason behind atheism, it is not just a guess. But for some reason it is not enough for an agnostic, even if they themselves are for all purposes atheists as well.

nesf

Wicknight wrote:

But that is the original point. It is impossible to know anything as "true", to do with anything. THat is the point about the train falling on your head. You don't, and cannot know, that a train is not about to fall on your head for absolutely certain.

So with this in mind, why do agnostics make a big deal about this fact in relation to the question of "god". We ignore this fact with so many other things in life, we make judgements about so many other things that we cannot know for certain. Yet when it comes to the question of god some agnostics go "hold on a minute, we cannot know for absolute certain, so its illogical to make a judgement either way", ignoring the fact that we cannot know anything for absolute certain but we still make judgements all the time - "gravity will still be here tomorrow so its ok for me to leave my car not strapped down"

This ignores the fact that there is a lot of reason behind atheism, it is not just a guess. But for some reason it is not enough for an agnostic, even if they themselves are for all purposes atheists as well.

you don't have to take the position of not being able to percieve objective truth in some fashion to be an agnostic. Don't fall into the trap of labelling all agnostics as skeptics or some other group in order to counter the position in general. What you are arguing is a good argument against sollipsist or a naive sceptic but not necessarily an agnostic.