From atheism to agnosticism

[Keneke]

Just thought I'd test my chops in here again, since I've been making a spiritual journey as of late and I really need to temper my steel.

I was atheist for years, but in the face of the possibility of anything existing outside of detectable existence, I want to call myself an agnostic. Perceptible existence is what we know, and in the case of multiverse theory or any sort of theism, I feel like I can say that there's a point past which we cannot currently know, and possibly ever know.

To live as if our lives are our own is easy enough to do. I'm not a subscriber to empirical statements made in the name of miracles. However, I feel that just as a heavenly explanation is called God of the Gaps, that also that imagining nothing beyond the edges of our perception is a nihilism of the gaps.

So, I find that I can wonder and hope and fear if I do think about how to put known existence into context against possible existence, but it's not really my place to dictate my beliefs over someone else's facts.

So anyway, if you think that's cool, you don't have to debate just to be a Devil's Advocate. Just felt like throwing meat in the Lion's Den and seeing if the lions are hungry. No need to call be brave or anything; I'm just masochistic.

 

[J. Arthur Hastur]

If the human race lives long enough, I think we will eventually know everything.

 

[Irony]

I have never in my life met an atheist who thought that nothing existed beyond the edges of our perception.

 

[Keneke]

If the human race lives long enough, I think we will eventually know everything.

I'll edit my previous post to say: "I feel like I can say that there's a point past which we cannot currently know, OR possibly ever know."

 

[ImaginalDisc]

If the human race lives long enough, I think we will eventually know everything.

Entropy, the vastness of space, and limited energy resources kind of precludes that, I think.

There's no conceivable way for humans in the far future to reconstruct the Library of Alexandra, for example, so we'll never know what all those scrolls contained. Neither can we ever find out what is beyond the perceivable edge of the universe. And, we can't plot the position of all objects in the universe, because that would take a processor larger than the universe itself.

I don't even see how knowing everything is relevant to the god hypothesis, it's inherently unfalsifiable.

 

[J. Arthur Hastur]

Until some years ago, sub-atomic particles existed beyond the limits of our perception. There is so much we don't know, but we keep discovering more and more, which why I am especially adamant that nothing should be taken on 'faith'.

When Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod, a majority of people refused to use them because they had 'faith' that god only used lightning to destroy the wicked. Priests and deacons railed against his invention, because everyone knew that god only smited those that needed to be smitten, not because they had a taller house, or a taller tree in their yard.

If you take anything purely on faith, then you are making a conscious decision not to investigate it.

 

[J. Arthur Hastur]

Entropy, the vastness of space, and limited energy resources kind of precludes that, I think.

There's no conceivable way for humans in the far future to reconstruct the Library of Alexandra, for example, so we'll never know what all those scrolls contained. Neither can we ever find out what is beyond the perceivable edge of the universe. And, we can't plot the position of all objects in the universe, because that would take a processor larger than the universe itself.

I don't even see how knowing everything is relevant to the god hypothesis, it's inherently unfalsifiable.

Well, I didn't mean that it was necessarily relevant to the whole god debate, I was thinking more along the lines that we will be able to explain the unexplainable that some people chalk up to faith.

 

[Keneke]

If you take anything purely on faith, then you are making a conscious decision not to investigate it.

Purely, perhaps, but I like to believe (or, in the case of agnosticism, be baffled) and investigate at the same time.

 

[J. Arthur Hastur]

Purely, perhaps, but I like to believe (or, in the case of agnosticism, be baffled) and investigate at the same time.

Same here, saying you don't know isn't the same as taking something on faith. Nothing wrong with not knowing, unless you don't know because you just don't want to find out.

 

[Keneke]

I have never in my life met an atheist who thought that nothing existed beyond the edges of our perception.

I think there's misunderstanding here. By "perception" I mean our universe, and there do exist people who think that the universe is the totality of existence.

 

[Irony]

I was atheist for years, but in the face of the possibility of anything existing outside of detectable existence, I want to call myself an agnostic.

I've never understood why people use the terms atheist and agnostic like they're incompatible. Atheism is the absence of a belief in a deity. Agnosticism is a belief that the existance or non-existance of a deity can not be proven.

If both labels apply to you, then use them both.

 

[Keneke]

Same here, saying you don't know isn't the same as taking something on faith. Nothing wrong with not knowing, unless you don't know because you just don't want to find out.

Yet the belief of not knowing can be a positive belief, right? I claim it is currently unknown where existence ends. Can that potentially be falsified?

 

[Irony]

I think there's misunderstanding here. By "perception" I mean our universe, and there do exist people who think that the universe is the totality of existence.

Not sure I follow. Wouldn't any supernatural entity, including God, also be part of our universe?

 

[J. Arthur Hastur]

Yet the belief of not knowing can be a positive belief, right? I claim it is currently unknown where existence ends. Can that potentially be falsified?

Well I'm not sure not knowing is a belief, you either know or you don't and you either admit that you know or you don't. There are theories on where existence ends. Maybe someday that can be falsified, but not at the moment, I don't believe.

For instance if you believe in the continually expanding universe, then you would have find a way to move faster than said expansion to reach the edge of existence, and of course that edge would continually move.

Of course you'd also need to define 'existence' first.

 

[Keneke]

I've never understood why people use the terms atheist and agnostic like they're incompatible. Atheism is the absence of a belief in a deity. Agnosticism is a belief that the existance or non-existance of a deity can not be proven.

If both labels apply to you, then use them both.

It's not that I am saying it cannot be proven, only that it currently is not. And my atheism was defined by belief in absence, or at least imagining it that way based upon evidence at the time. As I thought one could tell by the context (but I apologize, I was wrong), I was referring to the terms as per popular usage.

 

[Cello Man]

...When Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod, a majority of people refused to use them because they had 'faith' that god only used lightning to destroy the wicked. Priests and deacons railed against his invention, because everyone knew that god only smited those that needed to be smitten, not because they had a taller house, or a taller tree in their yard...

I always get a kick out of seeing a church with a lightning rod on its steeple. Why is it necessary, I wonder? Paranoia or a nagging subconscious lack of faith?

 

[Keneke]

Not sure I follow. Wouldn't any supernatural entity, including God, also be part of our universe?

Not if the entity also existed outside the universe, the same way the multiverse theory postulates other universes. Now, if you want to say existence, well, we really cannot see beyond the confines of our universe, so we cannot say universe = all of existence just yet.

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

I think there's misunderstanding here. By "perception" I mean our universe, and there do exist people who think that the universe is the totality of existence.

For all intents and purposes, it is.

 

[J. Arthur Hastur]

I always get a kick out of seeing a church with a lightning rod on its steeple. Why is it necessary, I wonder? Paranoia or a nagging subconscious lack of faith?

My guess is that it's a little bit of both.

 

[J. Arthur Hastur]

For all intents and purposes, it is.

Okay, what if I invent a car that can travel inter-universally, where is your totality now!?