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"Agnostics are Nowhere Men"

egslim said:
In the strictest sense that makes me an agnostic atheist.

But define "know". Strictly speaking I cannot know if there's a teleportable pink unicorn in my closet either. However, I work on the assumption that I know there isn't one.

So that makes me an agnostic atheist in philosophy, and an atheist in practice. I never cared much for this kind of philosophy.
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Yeah then we get to epistemology and ontology which ends up totally irrelevant to what beliefs people say they hold in regards to their religion.
 
MikeSun5 said:
Do you think you could convince a Catholic that they're really Catholic-Protestant? I wonder .... if one were to use cleverly worded false logic to write a compelling essay on how, scientifically, atheists are really agnostics .... I wonder how aggressively that would be defended...

I just don't see the point of setting labels for other people. Especially when it really only serves to ruffle feathers. Reminds me of the "Checkmate Atheists!" guy from youtube. :D
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The catholic-protestant analogy is not apt, for reasons I and others have explained about atheism/theism and agnosticism/gnosticism being different axes/continua/things. I manage to be both an atheist and agnostic quite easily.

And I do not think that concepts related to this topic should be taboo just because some people might be insulted that somebody who does not believe in any gods is an atheist, just because they also happen to be agnostic. It might ruffle feathers? Oh dear! Won't somebody please think of the agnostics? :)
 
Darat said:
Doesn't answer the question.
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It's rather like:

A: Do you have a car?
B: What's a car?
A: Like ... a Mercedes, Porsche, BMW, Nissan?
B: Oh ... no, none of those.
A: But you have a car, do you?
B: I don't know and I don't care.
A: How can you not know if oyu have a car?
B: Well, you haven't told me what type of car, have you?
A: But I don't want to know that! I just want to know if oyu have any car at all!
B: How am I supposed to answer that? Maybe I think of an Isetta sa a kind of car, but you don't? Or a Tricycle?
A: So do you have an Isetta or a Tricycle?
B: No, none of those ...
A: So you simply don't have a car?
B: Stop labeling me! Cars aren't as important as you make them out to be!
A: What. Kind. Of. Car. Do. You. Drive?
B: Well, what kinds are there?
A: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car_brands
B: Well, no, none of those, either.
A: So you simply don't have a car!
B: I still might, the list might be incomplete.
A ...
 
Darat said:
But the gods that most people in the world profess a belief in e.g. the Christian and Muslim god are not hidden gods. It seems to be only in places like this that these weird and wonderful definitions of gods are brought up. We can hypothesise about a lot of things but why not just deal with what people actually say they believe in?
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Well, they're hidden when we look for them. :D

However, I consider that particular God falsified due to contrary evidence and internal contradiction. In regards to the Abrahamic God, I would be a gnostic atheist.
 
Rasmus said:
Why?
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How can you answer a question about a concept that mankind hasn't made up their minds about? There are an infinite number of interpretations of the word "God", and even within one Religion you will find that they shift the definition at their own taste/convenience. Hence the discussion is guaranteed to be a waste of time for scientific/practical purposes (But I will not deny it proves to be quite a hobby for philosophers and the like)

Again, if you're gonna bother me asking me if I believe in God, have the courtesy of clarifying which concept of God are you referring to.

Rasmus said:
It's just another refusal to answer the question and avoid being called an atheist.
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Frankly, I couldn't give a damn what you wanna call me so you can stop implying that that's my ultimate goal: To stop you from calling me an atheist. So if you feel comfortable calling me an atheist, I'm not gonna stop you from it. Personally, I define myself as an Ignostic, since I have found arguments about God or any other non clearly defined concept, an intellectual waste of time.

So again, all I said was ask you to clarify which of the millions of definitions of God you were referring to when you asked me the question: I'm not avoiding the question. Just do your work of clarifying which one you're referring to and I'll be happy to answer the question.
 
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Rasmus said:
It's rather like:

A: Do you have a car?
B: What's a car?
A: Like ... a Mercedes, Porsche, BMW, Nissan?
B: Oh ... no, none of those.
A: But you have a car, do you?
B: I don't know and I don't care.
A: How can you not know if oyu have a car?
B: Well, you haven't told me what type of car, have you?
A: But I don't want to know that! I just want to know if oyu have any car at all!
B: How am I supposed to answer that? Maybe I think of an Isetta sa a kind of car, but you don't? Or a Tricycle?
A: So do you have an Isetta or a Tricycle?
B: No, none of those ...
A: So you simply don't have a car?
B: Stop labeling me! Cars aren't as important as you make them out to be!
A: What. Kind. Of. Car. Do. You. Drive?
B: Well, what kinds are there?
A: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car_brands
B: Well, no, none of those, either.
A: So you simply don't have a car!
B: I still might, the list might be incomplete.
A ...
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False analogy.

There is a clear definition of what a car is.

Not the case with God or Quale.
 
wollery said:
There is no benefit of the doubt given.

YEC is provably false.

God isn't.

What part of that is hard to understand?
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If God isn't provably false, then pretty much nothing is provably false. If we must accept the possibility that God might exist, why are we not further compelled to accept the possibility that God could have created the Earth exactly as we find it a few seconds ago? What evidence could there be against this position?

Arguments aren't like buses. You can't get off at your stop. If you're going to keep the possibility of a god open, I don't think you can rule anything out.

To be consistent, you would have to at least foreclose the possibility of a God that can perform miracles. I believe you would be left with only the Deist god as a remaining possibility. Otherwise, you're making a special exception for god that you make for nothing else.
 
Checkmite said:
No; that is not accurate. A null hypothesis is always a positive, but tentative, statement that an assertion is untrue, not merely unproved. The fact that a statement is unproved is what causes us to default to the null hypothesis; it is not, itself, the null hypothesis.
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The problem is that it is trivial to construct a situation where X is the null hypothesis and another situation where ~X is the null hypothesis. We can't accept both of these, or else we'd have to accept everything.

The "null hypothesis" you are describing above is one we *never* accept regardless of how the experiment comes out. An experiment can *never* confirm its null hypothesis, it can only falsify its null hypothesis. If it fails to falsify the null hypothesis, then that is all it has done.

If an experiment fails to reject the null hypothesis, we do not accept the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis was the default only for that one particular experiment. Now that the experiment is over, and has failed, there no longer is any null hypothesis.

Consider the claim "there is a dollar bill on my desk". In the absence of any experiment, there is no null hypothesis in the sense you are using the term. If you create an experiment, say you blow on parts of my desk and see if a dollar bill flies off, then "there is no dollar bill on my desk" is the null hypothesis. If you complete the experiment and a dollar bill flies off the desk, you may reject the null hypothesis. However, if no dollar bill flies off, you may conclude nothing. The experiment simply failed to prove there was a dollar bill on my desk. You still have no idea if there is or isn't. (This assumes a traditional probabilistic experiment, which is the only context in which a "null hypothesis" as you are using the term has meaning.)

In the absence of any successful experiments, there are no null hypotheses any more. A failed experiment fails -- its null hypothesis is not longer a null hypothesis. We are left with no idea what the truth is if all our experiments fail. (Other than perhaps some statistical data we might be able to gather in a separate 'meta experiment' using the fact that these experiments all failed.)

The key point is -- a 'null hypothesis' as you are using the term only has meaning within the context of a particular probabilistic experiment. No such experiment, by itself, gives us a reason to believe the null hypothesis.
 
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Ron_Tomkins said:
How can you answer a question about a concept that mankind hasn't made up their minds about? ...snip...
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You need to tell the RCC then - they seem quite certain about their god, as do the Anglicans! That's why I would rather deal with the gods that people say they believe in.
 
Darat said:
You do know that is a very different question to "Which god or gods do you believe in?"
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Can you answer my question of whether or not do you believe in FHGTP? No, right? First you need me to define what FHGTP is.

Same thing with God. If you don't tell me which of the one thousand million definitions of God you're referring to, I'm afraid I can't answer your question.


(Granted, there is a difference. There are some common definitions of God which we're familiar with. Not the case with FHGTP. However, the essential issue remains the same: Unless you define what you mean by God, I can't answer your question)
 
Darat said:
You need to tell the RCC then - they seem quite certain about their god, as do the Anglicans! That's why I would rather deal with the gods that people say they believe in.
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Don't move the goalposts. This isn't about them. This is about why Ignostics can't answer your question unless you define the terms when you ask the question.

Some people have an already preconceived definition of God, to which they will answer either "yes" or "no" when asked if they believe in God. Hey, guess what? Not everyone has an already preconceived definition of God. Those will reply with "I don't know". Additionally, some people who do, need to know which definition of God you're referring to when you ask the question.
 
egslim said:
Assuming the existence of an all-powerful deity, the argument that evidence indicating the Earth's old age was merely planted by said deity can never be refuted. YEC is ultimately a belief, it's unfalsifiable.
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YEC is often touted as science, and can be shown from evidence to be false. If they fall back on, "God did it that way to test our faith" then that's just faith and is indeed unfalsifiable. But again, that's the difference between faith and knowledge.

I'll go one step further.
The belief, without evidence, that an all-powerful deity exists is a huge leap of the imagination. But once you accept it, the belief that he would also use this power (by, for example, making the world seem much older than it is) comes from a logical point of view almost naturally.
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Yes. So what? What relevance does this have to what I said?

Ultimately nothing outside of logic and mathematics can be proven false.
That doesn't stop us from discarding astrology as nonsense, there's no rational reason to treat religion any different.
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Astrology can be shown to be false. In fact, it has been. People believe in all sorts of stuff that's been shown to be bullcrap. Again, I'm wondering what your point was. I'm not talking about religion, I'm talking about the difference between faith and knowledge.

Alan said:
Is identifying as an agnostic atheist a problem?
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No, never said it was. I am an agnostic atheist. I just get annoyed by people telling me that being agnostic makes me a fence sitter. Maybe it's because I hate people who try to tell me what I ought to think, or because I hate people who see things only in black and white, or maybe it's because I can't stand people who try to tell me my position is wrong when they can't justify their own.

Darat said:
Which means that you have proved (in the same sense that you are using it) that the god that someone who is a young earth creationist believes in doesn't exist.
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Yes, that specific god is disproved. So what?

Darat said:
But it is and you've just stated that above! Part of the definition of the god that someone who believes in YEC is that their god created the earth a few thousand years ago. If you think we can prove that YEC is not true than you have shown that their god does not exist.
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Again, so what? What about the Universal creator as a general concept? Does disproving YEC disprove that?

Rasmus said:
It's rather like:

A: Do you have a car?
B: What's a car?
A: Like ... a Mercedes, Porsche, BMW, Nissan?
B: Oh ... no, none of those.
A: But you have a car, do you?
B: I don't know and I don't care.
A: How can you not know if oyu have a car?
B: Well, you haven't told me what type of car, have you?
A: But I don't want to know that! I just want to know if oyu have any car at all!
B: How am I supposed to answer that? Maybe I think of an Isetta sa a kind of car, but you don't? Or a Tricycle?
A: So do you have an Isetta or a Tricycle?
B: No, none of those ...
A: So you simply don't have a car?
B: Stop labeling me! Cars aren't as important as you make them out to be!
A: What. Kind. Of. Car. Do. You. Drive?
B: Well, what kinds are there?
A: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_car_brands
B: Well, no, none of those, either.
A: So you simply don't have a car!
B: I still might, the list might be incomplete.
A ...
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False analogy. Try again.

JoelKatz said:
If God isn't provably false, then pretty much nothing is provably false. If we must accept the possibility that God might exist, why are we not further compelled to accept the possibility that God could have created the Earth exactly as we find it a few seconds ago? What evidence could there be against this position?
Click to expand...
None.

Arguments aren't like buses. You can't get off at your stop. If you're going to keep the possibility of a god open, I don't think you can rule anything out.
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Technically, no, you can't rule anything out. If you do then you're being illogical.

However, we have to treat the world and the Universe as we see them, and assume that the laws we observe work, and that the evidence we gather is reliable. Working from those assumptions we find that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old.

To be consistent, you would have to at least foreclose the possibility of a God that can perform miracles.
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Why? Although a god that can perform miracles is far less likely, and we'd have to ask why it hadn't done so recently, why does that have to be discarded for consistency?

I believe you would be left with only the Deist god as a remaining possibility.
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So disprove the Deist god.

Otherwise, you're making a special exception for god that you make for nothing else.
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No I'm not.
 
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