Split Thread Atheism and lack of belief in the afterlife

[Thermal]

No it isn't - agnostic in that sense means you can never know if a god exists or not. Despite its persistent misuse agnostic is a statement about limits of knowledge.

No. You are taking it to the extreme of saying we can never really know anything. It doesn't go that far.

Take the simplest example: First Causes. We don't have any strong proofs (note we are not saying absolute proofs) one way or the other. We can honestly say there is no evidence supporting the existence of any kind of god thingy and think along those lines and live accordingly. No one taking notes on how often I crack one off to be used against me on Judgement day and all that. But the void of actual knowledge about First Causes makes it too weak a position to positively declare knowledge one way or the other.

 

[bruto]

Agreed. I don't find any compelling evedence to entertain the existence of a literal Jehova or Allah or Thor.

But when the subject broadens beyond those defined and meticulously described beings, becoming "might there be A god?", it's a different question. One that is only very dishonestly approached with invoking Zeus for the umpteenth time.

"Might there be something we call a god" is a very abstract question. "Is there an invisible dragon in my garage" is very concrete and specific. They are, as I believe Sagan intended, not in the same playing field.

While I think that is true as far as it goes, I also think we need to guard against intellectual finagling. We also have to make sure we're not just saying we can call anything we can't figure out a god, a statement that lacks usefulness even if it were to turn out to be true. And if we have decided at some abstract, intellectual level, that there's room in our view of the universe for a god, we also have to ask if it makes any difference in any way we can use or detect.

 

[Darat]

No. You are taking it to the extreme of saying we can never really know anything. It doesn't go that far.

...snip...

Nope - agnostic is a statement or a belief about the limits of knowledge - it simple means when used in these concepts that you are claiming we can never know whether a god exists or not. In other words that the belief in a god is a matter of faith. It does not mean "we don't know".

If you are someone who doesn't know if a god exists then you are an atheist i.e. a person who doesn't believe in a god.

 

[wareyin]

Nope - agnostic is a statement or a belief about the limits of knowledge - it simple means when used in these concepts that you are claiming we can never know whether a god exists or not. In other words that the belief in a god is a matter of faith. It does not mean "we don't know".

If you are someone who doesn't know if a god exists then you are an atheist i.e. a person who doesn't believe in a god.

Very much this.

Belief in a god or gods is an action you have to take and keep taking. Not taking that action means you're an atheist, whether it's the "simply lacks belief" or the "knows there's no god or gods" kind of atheist.

 

[Olmstead]

"Might there be something we call a god" is a very abstract question. "Is there an invisible dragon in my garage" is very concrete and specific. They are, as I believe Sagan intended, not in the same playing field.

No, they are exactly the same, you just think they aren't because some people really, really, really want there to be a god, while no one cares about the invisible dragon in the garage. The question of god is very specific. It requires a being with some form of sentience that somehow created the universe using its power. How is that abstract?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Carl Sagan appears to have used a similarly odd definition of atheism as the OP: "An atheist is someone who has compelling evidence that there is no Judeo-Christian-Islamic God."

They're both wrong. An atheist is someone who does not have a belief in any god or gods.

Regardless nobody could look at the Dragon in the Garage Metaphor and honestly claim it's an appeal to agnosticism as a concept.

What Sagan "identified" as is not the point nor anywhere near the "gotcha" Thermal thinks it is.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I remember having gone through this with you already. That thread was a long time back, certainly before the pandemic.

As was evident from that past discussion, you don't actually understand the appeal-to-popularity fallacy. An appeal to popularity is fallacious only if that popularity is being posited to claim something is true.

Call it whatever the **** lets you sleep at night then. "People believe in god, nobody seriously believes in the garage dragon, therefore god is more likely to be true or has to be taken more seriously or any version of anything that sounds like that" is still wrong.

The actual physical and logical evidence for god and the garage dragon remain the same, none.

 

[Thermal]

Nope - agnostic is a statement or a belief about the limits of knowledge - it simple means when used in these concepts that you are claiming we can never know whether a god exists or not. In other words that the belief in a god is a matter of faith. It does not mean "we don't know".

Haven't we addressed the whole definition thing a few times already?

What you know or don't know can easily mean what has been proven to whatever standard you declare sufficient for working knowledge. I know that objects unsupported will move towards the center of the earth. Adequate proof has been demonstrated for me to declare that as knowledge, without having to vacillate about "well we don't really knoooooow anything". The same cannot be said about First Causes. We have no strong evidence one way or the other.

If you are someone who doesn't know if a god exists then you are an atheist i.e. a person who doesn't believe in a god.

Pretty much, yeah. Point?

 

[Thermal]

No, they are exactly the same, you just think they aren't because some people really, really, really want there to be a god, while no one cares about the invisible dragon in the garage. The question of god is very specific. It requires a being with some form of sentience that somehow created the universe using its power. How is that abstract?

"Might there be an incomprehensible force which is out there beyond our current ken in the vastness of time and space eclipsing all we have known or could know?" is not even on the same planet as "hey what's in my garage over there in the corner?"

 

[Thermal]

Regardless nobody could look at the Dragon in the Garage Metaphor and honestly claim it's an appeal to agnosticism as a concept.

What Sagan "identified" as is not the point nor anywhere near the "gotcha" Thermal thinks it is.

And if you think the Dragon is a slam dunk to prove atheism, when its own author didn't, means either you think Sagan was pretty ******* stupid, or you are misunderstanding it

 

[wareyin]

And if you think the Dragon is a slam dunk to prove atheism, when its own author didn't, means either you think Sagan was pretty ******* stupid, or you are misunderstanding it

Since we've established that Sagan was using "atheism" wrong, then whether or not he didn't think the Dragon was an argument for atheism or not means dick all, doesn't it?

 

[wareyin]

"Might there be an incomprehensible force which is out there beyond our current ken in the vastness of time and space eclipsing all we have known or could know?" is not even on the same planet as "hey what's in my garage over there in the corner?"

"Might there be an incomprehensible force which is out there beyond our current ken eclipsing all we have known or could know in my garage" is close enough to "might there be an invisible dragon in my garage" for me. Is it the location which is the sticking point?

 

[Olmstead]

"Might there be an incomprehensible force which is out there beyond our current ken in the vastness of time and space e lipsing all we have known or could know?" is not even on the same planet as "hey what's in my garage over there in the corner?"

Oh, don't do that. You've gone from "might there be a god" to "might there be something we don't know and don't understand out there". I'm sure there is. Maybe it's even in my garage.

However, the actual concrete examples of a god and an invisble dragon in the garage are completely the same. One thing that is pure fiction is equivalent to another thing that is pure fiction. Zero evidence for either and both are completely unfalsifiable.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Apologists just plow right through as if "Some vague thing that maybe made the universe vaguely" and "God" are really the same thing and we just have to pretend that makes sense.

The first mover, the prime cause, the watchmaker, I know I'm forgetting a few, and all the other "Turtles All the Way Down" arguments are not god. They are god apologetics.

God is telling people to bomb abortions clinics and to not eat pork and to dress women like beekeepers and that the Earth was created a thousand years after Sumerians were already brewing beer and making sex toys but we're not allowed to talk about that god, only the vague god who's a Voltron where every lion is a special pleading.

 

[Thermal]

Since we've established that Sagan was using "atheism" wrong, then whether or not he didn't think the Dragon was an argument for atheism or not means dick all, doesn't it?

I think the Dragon is a restricted use analogy, not a catch all. It makes perfect sense for refuting a god an adversary claims specific knowledge about. But carrying it beyond our reference frame of what we can/can't see from here is where it fails to keep working.

Just like beer in the fridge. It only works as an analogy when parameters are restricted. When they are not strictly limited, it's a stupid comparison. Kind of like saying "dripping water on your granite countertop won't wear a hole in it in our lifetime, therefore water cannot wear a hole in stone. QEMFD".

 

[Leumas]

"Might there be an incomprehensible force which is out there beyond our current ken eclipsing all we have known or could know in my garage" is close enough to "might there be an invisible dragon in my garage" for me. Is it the location which is the sticking point?

Of course... the first cause could not have caused the garage first and then stayed in it could it now?

Also the first cause was too busy working out the irrational fallacies of the first cause argument to be concerned with garages or the future needs for them once idiots called humans (he will later cause) decide to stop believing in the first cause claptrap fallacies in order to invent the internal combustion engine and cars so as to need garages.

So you see the first cause causer was too busy vanishing in a puff of logic to ever have caused garages and stayed in them.... so it is not the same argument... no?

 

[JoeMorgue]

The last time the excuse I got was the Dragon in the Garage "obviously wasn't serious" so it didn't count.

 

[Thermal]

Oh, don't do that. You've gone from "might there be a god" to "might there be something we don't know and don't understand out there". I'm sure there is. Maybe it's even in my garage.

What do you mean, "don't do that"? It's exactly what we are talking about. What we don't or can't understand drops right into what may be a god.

However, the actual concrete examples of a god and an invisble dragon in the garage are completely the same. One thing that is pure fiction is equivalent to another thing that is pure fiction. Zero evidence for either and both are completely unfalsifiable.

Unfalsifiable in the here and now, sure. So is interstellar travel, In a sense. Slamming that door shut to, are we? Or just maybe keeping an open mind and keep poking around?

 

[Steve]

First Causes and the Watchmaker are not the same argument. And you damn well know it.



You can claim whatever you like. It doesn't change that some kind of god is an independently arrived at possible explanation for others.

You rely heavily on the Invisible Dragon to make your point. Ya might want to recall what the originator of that analogy had to say about atheism.

Sometimes Sagan was wrong. No big deal.

 

[wareyin]

I think the Dragon is a restricted use analogy, not a catch all. It makes perfect sense for refuting a god an adversary claims specific knowledge about. But carrying it beyond our reference frame of what we can/can't see from here is where it fails to keep working.

You seem to have missed out on the "invisible" part if you want to claim it doesn't work based on what we can see.

Just like beer in the fridge. It only works as an analogy when parameters are restricted. When they are not strictly limited, it's a stupid comparison. Kind of like saying "dripping water on your granite countertop won't wear a hole in it in our lifetime, therefore water cannot wear a hole in stone. QEMFD".

But...it really doesn't fail if parameters are no longer restricted. Try it:

There's an invisible dragon somewhere either in or outside the bounds of the universe. It still demonstrates the silliness of "proving" a god by defining it in such a way that it can't be falsified. The whole analogy is about the burden of proof.