Ken Ham - Richard Dawkins is not an atheist

the_monkey

What an absolute clown



Full article - http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/07/14/richard-dawkins-is-not-an-atheist-ken-ham_n_7794000.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

NEW YORK -- Richard Dawkins is "not an atheist," according to a young Earth creationist who is currently building a life-size Noah's Ark. Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum in Kentucky, posted a blog on Monday claiming the renowned British biologist could not be an atheist, as they don’t exist.
Ham, who recently asserted that all aliens are going to Hell, said the Bible teaches that every person is born with a knowledge of God, even if they deny it. To back up this thesis, the 63-year-old highlighted an appearance on "The Daily Show" in 2013 in which "The God Delusion" author admitted he didn’t know what happens after death. "I know that our consciousness is wrapped up in our brains... I know that our brains rot,” Dawkins told Jon Stewart. ............

Michael OBrien

the_monkey wrote: »

What an absolute clown



Full article - http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/07/14/richard-dawkins-is-not-an-atheist-ken-ham_n_7794000.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

This is part of the rise of presuppositionalism, the last gasp of creationism, where they deny reality itself in favour of a closed circle of beliefs, that are founded on cherry picked statements from the bible.
I am amazed that people like Ken Hamm have any influence at all among the public, yet even in Ireland, there are people I personally know that believe many of the Young Earth ideas with total conviction.
That group of theists spread so much misinformation that it is very hard to break through to them. Hamm is extremely exploitive and dangerous in furthering his crazy beliefs, while seeking to make millions at the same time.
The Nye vs Hamm debate is an excellent example of how deluded Hamm is and how committed he is to his cause (basically nothing will ever change his mind as he believes in blind faith over everything else)
I wish people would stop giving air or internet time to such loons, as it gives them an sense of respectibility, when in reality they are the types of people that run dangerous cults or scream half naked from street corners with signs that have "the end is near" on them.

TwoShedsJackson

The influence that the likes of Ken Ham has is wildly over-estimated. This sort of spoofer gets plenty of airtime because they are happy to say a few bizarre or ridiculous things in a short space of time and so fill up a few minutes/paragraphs/pages when things in the news are slow.

the_monkey

Irony about creationism is , it's actually easy for them to "win" debates,
They don't need to answer any tough questions, it's all faith or because it's written in the Bible - it must be true.
So they love it when a scientist can't explain something well ... when it's ok if they can't explain theirs well ..

Take this crap for instance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaKryi3605g

Michael OBrien

the_monkey wrote: »

Irony about creationism is , it's actually easy for them to "win" debates,
They don't need to answer any tough questions, it's all faith or because it's written in the Bible - it must be true.
So they love it when a scientist can't explain something well ... when it's ok if they can't explain theirs well ..

Take this crap for instance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaKryi3605g

The primary issue is the nature of the question is deceitful, its like when Ray goes around asking for an example of a change in 'kind' in nature to prove evolution. No one can answer that as 'kind' is not a scientific term (in that context) its a religious term.
'information' to creationists is similar, what exactly IS it to their view. All mutations change dna by definition. This changes the 'information' but what does 'increase' mean as changing something does not always mean increasing something, or making it more complex. Also increase in what way? size, function, form, a combination of them. That is the issue these creationists play on.
They ask stupid questions, which only sound intelligent to those that are ignorant of what the process actually is, but are open to misinterpretation resulting in any answer being insufficient to satisfy them.
One example would be new structures, yet 'new' in what way. Wings are not new structures, they are repurposed arms and hands. New organs are similar, repurposed from earlier organs.
Creationists totally misunderstand evolution (and all science) in EVERY way, so trying to explain something to them takes ages as you have to go back to bare bones basic biology to even begin to explain something to them. They then lack the interest to learn enough to understand why the question is flawed and then claim the scientist or person explaining it is dodging the question when they are in fact answering it as factually as possible.

SpaceTime

It's amazing how much time and energy is wasted by these people arguing against science.

If it wasn't for science they'd have no radio, television, Internet or modern printing techniques to argue using.

I don't know why some media outlets in the U.S. pay so much attention to them tbh.

Kidchameleon

Dawkins doesn't claim to be atheist though?

the_monkey

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Dawkins doesn't claim to be atheist though?

Well he says himself technically he is agnostic ... he can't be 100% sure , no one can , but he is 99.9% sure ..

oldrnwisr

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Dawkins doesn't claim to be atheist though?

Well, he does. He has previously outlined a scale of belief from 1 to 7:

1. Strong theist. 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C.G. Jung: “I do not believe, I know.”
2. De facto theist. Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. “I don’t know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there.”
3. Leaning towards theism. Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. “I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.”
4. Completely impartial. Exactly 50 per cent. “God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.”
5. Leaning towards atheism. Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. “I do not know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be skeptical.”
6. De facto atheist. Very low probability, but short of zero. “I don’t know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.”
7. Strong atheist. “I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung knows there is one.”

Although he originally identified as a 6, he later clarified in interviews that he is actually a 6.9.

the_monkey wrote: »

Well he says himself technically he is agnostic ... he can't be 100% sure , no one can , but he is 99.9% sure ..

But atheism and agnosticism are complementary rather than mutually exclusive positions. You can be an agnostic atheist, for example.

Harika

oldrnwisr wrote: »

But atheism and agnosticism are complementary rather than mutually exclusive positions. You can be an agnostic atheist, for example.

There is this overview between the differences between (a)gnostic (a)theists.

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

Yeah, I don't like that 'graph', or similar ones that get posted every time this comes up. I'm agnostic about the whole thing...

Michael OBrien

the_monkey wrote: »

Well he says himself technically he is agnostic ... he can't be 100% sure , no one can , but he is 99.9% sure ..

I cannot believe people still argue about this.
Dawkins chart is out of date, and he has been corrected on this and you can hear him in later interviews stating he is an agnostic atheist.
He is an agnostic towards the idea of A god, and an atheist for not believing in the claims about gods.
To go further, it is entirely logical to be a gnostic towards certain gods NOT existing (jesus, Thor, Horus) and agnostic towards other versions of gods (deist gods for example) while being atheistic towards all claims.

The whole issue with agnostic instead of atheist is a way of strawmanning atheism as an extreme faith based position of KNOWING there is no gods anywhere in the entire universe. This is utter bull, and has been torn down for years, yet people who either don't like the baggage of atheism, or are ignorant of the terms actual meaning, or, in Dawkins case, regurgitate the cliché without proper reflection on it (until lately) keep acting as if atheism requires an adamant view of absolute certainty about the nature of reality, that excludes supernatural gods.
Dawkins has stated he is about as uncertain that gods exist as he is about fairies existing. If someone still thinks that does not make him an atheist, they have no clue what the heck we are talking about for decades.

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

I always thought that being agnostic meant:

Dictionary.com wrote:

agnostic [ag-nos-tik]
noun
1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable

Michael OBrien wrote: »

I cannot believe people still argue about this.
people who either don't like... or are ignorant of the terms actual meaning, or,... regurgitate the cliché without proper reflection on it

edit:
the theist/ atheist question is meaningless to me, as it is unknowable. I'm just agnostic

Michael OBrien

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

I always thought that being agnostic meant:


edit:
the theist/ atheist question is meaningless to me, as it is unknowable. I'm just agnostic

So please tell me then what you believe not what you know.
Atheism addresses the claims about a god, as in the pathway of knowledge that the claimholder says they have to know the mind of whatever god they pray to, or believe in (theism anyway). An atheist doubts the claims made and by that action the claimant's credibility.
The exact same rational applies to all claims, especially extraordinary ones.

I find this a good analogy, alien abduction believers. I don't believe their stories, from what I have heard about them, so I would be a A-alienabductionist as I don't believe in alien abductions. I am agnostic towards whether aliens exist or in fact if they actually ever visited us (in different degrees) but half drunk claims and photoshopped jpegs leave me doubtful to the credibility of those claiming they exist.

Ok, now even if a god exists, I would still be perfectly reasonable to be an atheist UNTIL I get sufficent evidence to convince me that theists actually know what the heck they claim to know is real.

Do you get my point? Do you have to KNOW for certainty that Xeno does not exist, in an absolute sense to view followers of scientology with suspicion and think Hubbard is a criminal? Even if Xenu existed, their cult has not shown any reason to believe that they found any way to know that.

nozzferrahhtoo

It is fun to watch how the media works. Ham has been selling his "Atheists do not exist" narrative for quite a long time and no one has listened to it or noticed it. As soon as he applies that narrative to a media person.... one to whom it clearly does not apply..... suddenly it garners some attention.

An insignificant man, with an insignificant idea, based on absolute zero substantiation..... is basically trying to get attention by piggy backing himself on to someone who has had some media success.

Try making an interesting Tabloid headline out of that! "Man in nonsense shared lime light shocker" "Man gets noticed by saying something about someone people actually have heard of."

dr.fuzzenstein

I don't even know why crackpots are being given a platform. The meeja must be trolling.

obplayer

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

It is fun to watch how the media works. Ham has been selling his "Atheists do not exist" narrative for quite a long time and no one has listened to it or noticed it. As soon as he applies that narrative to a media person.... one to whom it clearly does not apply..... suddenly it garners some attention.

An insignificant man, with an insignificant idea, based on absolute zero substantiation..... is basically trying to get attention by piggy backing himself on to someone who has had some media success.

Try making an interesting Tabloid headline out of that! "Man in nonsense shared lime light shocker" "Man gets noticed by saying something about someone people actually have heard of."

Unfortunately he is not insignificant in America. Lots of people listen to him and accept what he says.

oldrnwisr

Michael OBrien wrote: »

The primary issue is the nature of the question is deceitful, its like when Ray goes around asking for an example of a change in 'kind' in nature to prove evolution. No one can answer that as 'kind' is not a scientific term (in that context) its a religious term.
'information' to creationists is similar, what exactly IS it to their view. All mutations change dna by definition. This changes the 'information' but what does 'increase' mean as changing something does not always mean increasing something, or making it more complex. Also increase in what way? size, function, form, a combination of them. That is the issue these creationists play on.

They might play on these issues but thankfully they're shown to be dead wrong about everything. Every time.

To answer your question about information, when real scientists (not creationists obviously) talk about information they mean Shannon information as developed by Claude Shannon from Bell Labs. Shannon information shows that mutations can and do cause the information in a genome to increase.

Shannon defined information initially as a probability. For example, a message Xi has the probability p(Xi). So if you asked someone their birthday, assigning the value of Xi to 1st January would yield p(Xi) of 0.003.

Shannon then formalised this postulate by defining the information content of a stream as its entropy given by:



so for p(x) = 0 and p(x) = 1, the function has a value of 0.


Now, we'll take a biological example to show how mutation leads to an increase in information.

Let's start with a population of 1000 individuals. 500 of these individuals (which we'll call group A) have a gene with the codon CAG and 500 (which we'll call group with the codon CCC. So p(A) = 0.5 and p(B) = 0.5. Therefore, H = -(0.5*log2(0.5) - 0.5*log2(0.5)) = 1.000.

Now in the next generation, group A remains unchanged. However, in group B, thanks to a random mutation, there are 499 individuals with codon CCC and 1 mutant with CCG. Therefore, the sum of entropies is now:

p(CAG) * log2(p(CAG)) = 0.50000
p(CCC) * log2(p(CCC)) = 0.50044
p(CCG) * log2(p(CCG)) = 0.00997

So now, H = -(0.50000 + 0.50044 + 0.00997) = 1.01041

Therefore the information has increased thanks to this mutation.

Michael OBrien

oldrnwisr wrote: »

They might play on these issues but thankfully they're shown to be dead wrong about everything. Every time.

To answer your question about information, when real scientists (not creationists obviously) talk about information they mean Shannon information as developed by Claude Shannon from Bell Labs. Shannon information shows that mutations can and do cause the information in a genome to increase.

Shannon defined information initially as a probability. For example, a message Xi has the probability p(Xi). So if you asked someone their birthday, assigning the value of Xi to 1st January would yield p(Xi) of 0.003.

Shannon then formalised this postulate by defining the information content of a stream as its entropy given by:



so for p(x) = 0 and p(x) = 1, the function has a value of 0.


Now, we'll take a biological example to show how mutation leads to an increase in information.

Let's start with a population of 1000 individuals. 500 of these individuals (which we'll call group A) have a gene with the codon CAG and 500 (which we'll call group with the codon CCC. So p(A) = 0.5 and p(B) = 0.5. Therefore, H = -(0.5*log2(0.5) - 0.5*log2(0.5)) = 1.000.

Now in the next generation, group A remains unchanged. However, in group B, thanks to a random mutation, there are 499 individuals with codon CCC and 1 mutant with CCG. Therefore, the sum of entropies is now:

p(CAG) * log2(p(CAG)) = 0.50000
p(CCC) * log2(p(CCC)) = 0.50044
p(CCG) * log2(p(CCG)) = 0.00997

So now, H = -(0.50000 + 0.50044 + 0.00997) = 1.01041

Therefore the information has increased thanks to this mutation.

Thanks I appreciate that info, although even if someone like Dawkins actually wipped out a whiteboard and wrote what you wrote down, all creationists would simply blink at it and say, "but that's not what I mean", then go off on a tangent about how jesus loves him if only he would stop being rational for a minute.
A lot of the problem between scientists and creationists is that the language is completely different, even if all the words are the same. Creationists have their own meaning, often vague emotionally floppy meaning, for almost every word they use. So 'information' never means information, it means, in truth, that they don't want to know what you are saying. Its like a tweet, a short word for a long excuse.
Almost every question they ask is not actually what it sounds like at all.
This is why debating them is so annoying. A creationist can 'win' by saying jesus three times while debating a cosmologist and that disproves the bigbang in their eyes.
After 4 years of REALLY intense experience of watching debates and discussing it personally with people, I find it largely impossible to really educate them, at most you might, if you are lucky, force them into a corner and make them think a bit more on the reasons for their beliefs.
Sometimes that might leak into something useful, or they might simply retreat into their shell and become sullen like a bold 3 year old girl.

oldrnwisr

Michael OBrien wrote: »

Thanks I appreciate that info, although even if someone like Dawkins actually wipped out a whiteboard and wrote what you wrote down, all creationists would simply blink at it and say, "but that's not what I mean", then go off on a tangent about how jesus loves him if only he would stop being rational for a minute.
A lot of the problem between scientists and creationists is that the language is completely different, even if all the words are the same. Creationists have their own meaning, often vague emotionally floppy meaning, for almost every word they use. So 'information' never means information, it means, in truth, that they don't want to know what you are saying. Its like a tweet, a short word for a long excuse.
Almost every question they ask is not actually what it sounds like at all.
This is why debating them is so annoying. A creationist can 'win' by saying jesus three times while debating a cosmologist and that disproves the bigbang in their eyes.
After 4 years of REALLY intense experience of watching debates and discussing it personally with people, I find it largely impossible to really educate them, at most you might, if you are lucky, force them into a corner and make them think a bit more on the reasons for their beliefs.
Sometimes that might leak into something useful, or they might simply retreat into their shell and become sullen like a bold 3 year old girl.

Well, in general creationists tend to play fast and loose with language and semantics because ambiguity is their friend. Take the concept of kind you mentioned previously. The reason why creationists tend not to define kind is that as long as they don't define it, it seems like a reasonable concept to a 3rd party and it's difficult to argue against something which isn't defined. However, the few times when creationists have stuck their heads above the parapet and suggested a definition of kind (like Duane Gish's idea that kind is roughly analogous to family), they were quick to get a smackdown from some real science.

The other important point here is that when you're debating a creationist (something I end up doing a lot of) you're not really attempting to persuade them of anything. You have to go into those debates realising that they are not coming into the debate to present a series of arguments, they're there to defend their religion and nothing that is said will change their mind. As someone once said, you can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. The reason you debate a creationist is so that anyone looking at the debate from an external perspective doesn't get taken in by the reams of bullsh1t that creationists are fond of spouting. It's important to answer their claims with real hard evidence and sound logic so that nobody thinks there's anything to creationism.

Michael OBrien

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Well, in general creationists tend to play fast and loose with language and semantics because ambiguity is their friend. Take the concept of kind you mentioned previously. The reason why creationists tend not to define kind is that as long as they don't define it, it seems like a reasonable concept to a 3rd party and it's difficult to argue against something which isn't defined. However, the few times when creationists have stuck their heads above the parapet and suggested a definition of kind (like Duane Gish's idea that kind is roughly analogous to family), they were quick to get a smackdown from some real science.

The other important point here is that when you're debating a creationist (something I end up doing a lot of) you're not really attempting to persuade them of anything. You have to go into those debates realising that they are not coming into the debate to present a series of arguments, they're there to defend their religion and nothing that is said will change their mind. As someone once said, you can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. The reason you debate a creationist is so that anyone looking at the debate from an external perspective doesn't get taken in by the reams of bullsh1t that creationists are fond of spouting. It's important to answer their claims with real hard evidence and sound logic so that nobody thinks there's anything to creationism.

Have you had any on-line debates that I can have access to?
I would enjoy seeing how you handle YEC claims, and keep a balance between data and delivery.
I find I get rather emotional at times, especially when the person you are talking to has shown absolutely no interest in taking in new data but simply seek a key phrase they can preach on.

oldrnwisr

Michael OBrien wrote: »

Have you had any on-line debates that I can have access to?
I would enjoy seeing how you handle YEC claims, and keep a balance between data and delivery.
I find I get rather emotional at times, especially when the person you are talking to has shown absolutely no interest in taking in new data but simply seek a key phrase they can preach on.

There have been quite a few threads both here and in Christianity on the matter. Here in A&A, here are three threads which I have contributed to:

"The Origin of Specious Nonsense"

"The Origin of Specious Nonsense. Nine years on. Still going strong."

" Science! Ask you question here. Biscuits NOT included and answers not guaranteed."

There are also two BCP (Bible, Creationism and Prophecy) megathreads in Christianity which make for interesting reading. Links here and here.

Mr. CooL ICE

^^

Those threads need to come with a health warning for people with blood pressure issues

dr.fuzzenstein

Nicolas Cage wrote: »

^^

Those threads need to come with a health warning for people with blood pressure issues

Look at my sig and you know that if I click on them I would be at my keyboard arguing till it was time to go to work on Monday.
I have known many religious and conspiracy theory nuts in my life and I have long since given up arguing with them. There are people who will adopt a position for reasons not connected to logic and will then jam their fingers in their ears going "lalalalalaaaa! I can't heeeaaaar you!!!!".
I must very carefully ignore what they're saying, otherwise I might be tempted to do something unpleasant to them.
You cannot argue with insanity. You have to rely on your faith in humanity (oh dear lord) and feverishly hope that intelligent, rational people will outnumber idiots, lunatics, whackjobs and other assorted human debris. In that case do not watch Idiocracy.

Hotblack Desiato

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Look at my sig and you know that if I click on them I would be at my keyboard arguing till it was time to go to work on Monday.

I am reminded of the aphorism about wrestling with a pig

dr.fuzzenstein

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

I am reminded of the aphorism about wrestling with a pig

I'd rather go to a Disaster Area concert. How's the new album coming along?

ShooterSF

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

I always thought that being agnostic meant:


edit:
the theist/ atheist question is meaningless to me, as it is unknowable. I'm just agnostic

But the fact that you think it is unknowable means you are answering the Agnostic question. The Theist/Atheist question is do you BELIEVE a god exists?

Take let's say ghosts. I can't KNOW they don't exist (agnostic) even if some people claim they do know (gnostics, both believers and unbelievers). But looking at the lack of real evidence for them I don't believe they exist (atheist) even though other people do (theists) and both of us live our live accordingly.

So do you find yourself worrying that you are going to hell or are doomed to punishment in some afterlife for not following the rules of the gods put forward by others as real? If not maybe you too are an agnostic atheist

Hotblack Desiato

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

I'd rather go to a Disaster Area concert. How's the new album coming along?

Very slowly since I decided to spend another year dead for tax reasons.

galljga1

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Look at my sig and you know that if I click on them I would be at my keyboard arguing till it was time to go to work on Monday.
I have known many religious and conspiracy theory nuts in my life and I have long since given up arguing with them. There are people who will adopt a position for reasons not connected to logic and will then jam their fingers in their ears going "lalalalalaaaa! I can't heeeaaaar you!!!!".
I must very carefully ignore what they're saying, otherwise I might be tempted to do something unpleasant to them.
You cannot argue with insanity. You have to rely on your faith in humanity (oh dear lord) and feverishly hope that intelligent, rational people will outnumber idiots, lunatics, whackjobs and other assorted human debris. In that case do not watch Idiocracy.

I have practically given up posting on Conspiracy Theories forum or any of the religious forums. It is too easy to receive an infraction for simply stating fact.

dr.fuzzenstein

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Very slowly since I decided to spend another year dead for tax reasons.

See you in Milliways, mine's a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.
Obviously no one told Ken Ham that the creation of the Bable Fish proved God's existence and therefore led to his demise.

Hotblack Desiato

Don't forget to deposit one penny in any bank account to ensure sufficient funds to pay your bill.

Although Douglas Adams didn't account (heh) for the euro changeover, and the collapse of interest rates. It remains to be seen if the current situation is maintained on a galactic time scale. You might end up with a handful of worthless Greek Drachma. Picture the embarrassment!

dr.fuzzenstein

Next time I can't pay the bill I'll know better than to steal that stupid stunt ship again. Sorry about that, hope the show went off OK.

Brian Shanahan

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

I always thought that being agnostic meant:


edit:
the theist/ atheist question is meaningless to me, as it is unknowable. I'm just agnostic

Your confusion is coming from the fact that you don't understand the two questions the positions "atheist" and "agnostic" are answers to.

Agnostic answers the question "do you think we currently know for certain whether there is a god?" and frankly a large majority of people would call themselves agnostic if they thought that question through or not, whether they believed in god or not.

Atheist answers the question "Given what we know about life, the universe, and everything, do you think there is a god?" and this one comes down to examination of personal beliefs and external evidence.

Now that being said, while one can be agnostic on the question of godly existence in general, one can still take a gnostic position on every single god posited by humanity as having never existed. While it is probably impossible to prove that no gods exist, for most human created deities (including Abram's yhwh) it is trivially easy to show that they don't exist for definite.

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

i take the the position that currently, and forever more, the existence of 'god' is unknown, and unknowable...

and as such, having an opinion on its existence is meaningless.
I believe if there is a god, that its interactions with the world can never be distinguishable from normal physical / electrochemical interactions that obey the laws of physics, and that people who say 'I would believe, if only there were some proof...' are actually gnostic athiests, as they believe that there is at least a small probability of 'some proof' existing, no matter how little, no matter how far ahead in the future. whereas i believe there never will be any, and i'm quite happy with that,

dr.fuzzenstein

The problem is not God and it's existence or otherwise, it's religion. Come up with any new thing (and not just religion) and people will use it as an excuse to be extremely crappy to each other.
I keep saying it, but the system is not the problem, but people, us, the barely evolved, half-witted child species. Just about intelligent enough to invent some nifty things, but not intelligent and evolved enough not to bash each other's brains in due to perceived differences or simply for the sheer hell of it.

Brian Shanahan

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

i take the the position that currently, and forever more, the existence of 'god' is unknown, and unknowable...

and as such, having an opinion on its existence is meaningless.
I believe if there is a god, that its interactions with the world can never be distinguishable from normal physical / electrochemical interactions that obey the laws of physics, and that people who say 'I would believe, if only there were some proof...' are actually gnostic athiests, as they believe that there is at least a small probability of 'some proof' existing, no matter how little, no matter how far ahead in the future. whereas i believe there never will be any, and i'm quite happy with that,

So, essentially you're an unacknowledged agnostic atheist.

dr.fuzzenstein

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

So, essentially you're an unacknowledged agnostic atheist.

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.
Donald Rumsfeld

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

So, essentially you're an unacknowledged agnostic atheist.

In the same way that most on here would be unacknowledged gnostic atheists...

robdonn

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

i take the the position that currently, and forever more, the existence of 'god' is unknown, and unknowable...

How do you know that it is, and forever will be, unknowable?

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

i don't, but thats the position i take, as an agnostic

robdonn

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

i don't, but thats the position i take, as an agnostic

So you don't know it, but you believe it.

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

i believe that its impossible to know

robdonn

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

i believe that its impossible to know

So you believe something yet do not know it to be true, just as a theist may believe that a god exists but does not know, and an atheist can believe that a god does not exist but does not know.

This is the point, not having knowledge of something (agnosticism) is not the same as not holding a belief in something (such as a belief in a god).

oldrnwisr

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

i believe that its impossible to know

Currently or in principle?

If it's impossible to know then wouldn't agnostic atheism be a sensible
position to adopt.

Believing that a god is definitely unknowable is an awfully gnostic postion for an agnostic to hold.


Oh, and BTW regarding your comment here:

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

In the same way that most on here would be unacknowledged gnostic atheists...

Not sure if you missed an a there or not. You see a lot of people make that particular claim in here and yet none seem to be able to back it up. I've been posting on here for about 5 years and I haven't met anyone here who falls into the gnostic atheist category.

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

arrah shure, its all semantics though really, isnt it?

Believing that a god is definitely unknowable is an awfully gnostic position for an agnostic to hold.

I thought it was the very definition of 'agnostic' though?


in my opinion an 'agnostic atheist' asking off a theist "show me the proof?" necessarily means that he believes such proof may exist, and as such would make him gnostic... in my opinion, of course

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

I've got it lads! I'm a gnostic agnostic, thats what I am!

oldrnwisr

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

arrah shure, its all semantics though really, isnt it?
I thought it was the very definition of 'agnostic' though?

Colloquially yes, but it's a really awful definition. Holding the position that something is currently unknowable is agnostic and implies a neutral position with regard to knowledge. However, suggesting that something can never be known implies a level of knowledge as to why it can never be known. So declaring something to be definitely unknowable implies a certain knowledge of the matter.

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

in my opinion an 'agnostic atheist' asking off a theist "show me the proof?" necessarily means that he believes such proof may exist, and as such would make him gnostic... in my opinion, of course

OK, here's the thing. Rarely do atheists proactively track down theists and demand proof. They ask for proof in response to a theist making some kind of claim, usually that their god of choice exists. So the theist in making the claim has the burden of proof to show that the claim is true. This can go one of two ways. Either the theist offers up some kind of proof so that it can be assessed and critiqued and a reasonable discussion can be had. Or, the theist retreats into the corner that either they believe on faith, at which point the discussion is done, or they make noises in the direction of god being unknowable or untestable by science. The problem with this last approach is that if their claim is unknowable/untestable/unfalsifiable then a claim which is true looks exactly the same as a claim which is false. So the atheist, or anyone else for that matter has no reason to take the claim seriously.

robdonn

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

I've got it lads! I'm a gnostic agnostic, thats what I am!

So you know the unknowable? :P

ShooterSF

Second Toughest in_the Freshers wrote: »

i believe that its impossible to know

So if someone said they know a god exists and they even know that god's motives, wishes, demands etc. you wouldn't believe them as it is impossible to know? You wouldn't believe that person's theistic claims. You might even say you would reject their claims? ...

dr.fuzzenstein

ShooterSF wrote: »

So if someone said they know a god exists and they even know that god's motives, wishes, demands etc. you wouldn't believe them as it is impossible to know? You wouldn't believe that person's theistic claims. You might even say you would reject their claims? ...

What if I knew a god existed, but I chose not to believe in him/her/it?

ShooterSF

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

What if I knew a god existed, but I chose not to believe in him/her/it?

That doesn't make sense unless you are using the word believe in terms of support or following rather than to believe something exists. You can't know something exists and yet chose not to believe it exists. You can't even really chose in the first place, I suppose you could go into denial about it...