"Agnostics are Nowhere Men"

[Last of the Fraggles]

Not if you understand the Ignostic and theological noncognitivist position.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_noncognitivism

How are those positions meaningfully different from atheism? If the definition of something is incoherent then surely you do not believe in its existence?

Philosophical navel gazing and pedantry is all well and good but back in the real world people believe in particular definitions of deities and follow the words of their holy books. What purpose is served by goal-post moving and trying to establish unprovable/testable exceptions?

As an atheist I am happy and confident to say to any particular individual that 'The God you believe in does not exist'. This applies for all meaningful definitions of the word 'God', 'believe' and 'exist'. Beyond that, its word play and, for me at least, while we have real 'holy' men making decisions and proclamations that affect real people's lives based on real interpretations of real definitions of these words then I'm struggling to see the value in providing an area of uncertainty for them to exploit by accepting word play as important.

 

[JoelKatz]

How are those positions meaningfully different from atheism? If the definition of something is incoherent then surely you do not believe in its existence?

The difference is that an atheist must maintain that they do not possess any belief that would qualify as a belief in god. A theological noncognitivist can claim that they might possess such a belief. In order for them to self-identify as an atheist, they claim, they would have to go over all their beliefs and make sure none of them are in something that should be considered a god. But since they don't know how to tell for sure if something should be considered a god, they are not certain how to do this.

Or, to put it simply, their answer to "do you believe in god" might be something like this: "I don't know. I have a lot of beliefs, and am not totally sure whether any of them should be considered to be a belief 'in god'. Since I'm not sure how you are using the term, I don't know how to tell whether any my beliefs qualify. I have a lot of beliefs that simply cannot be put into words in a way that would ensure I communicate them reliably to you."

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Beyond that, its word play and, for me at least, while we have real 'holy' men making decisions and proclamations that affect real people's lives based on real interpretations of real definitions of these words then I'm struggling to see the value in providing an area of uncertainty for them to exploit by accepting word play as important.

 

[Darat]

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)

The questions is not about how I define god but whether you believe in a god, you can believe that your big toe is god, it makes no difference to answering the question.

 

[JoelKatz]

The questions is not about how I define god but whether you believe in a god, you can believe that your big toe is god, it makes no difference to answering the question.

The question of whether you believe in something you call "god" and whether you actually believe in something that is a god are two different questions. A person who claims he believes in god because god is everything and he believes in everything is not thereby a theist. He must possess a belief that is in fact in a god (or would be a god if it existed), regardless of what he calls it. Similarly, a person cannot say that they believe in a supernatural deity but are unwilling to call it "god" and are therefore an atheist.

Those pantheists that are theists are theists not because they are willing to call everything 'god' (or despite the fact that they are not) but because they actually believe everything has properties that in fact make it a god (or would if it actually had them).

 

[Darat]

...snip...

Yes, that specific god is disproved. So what?

Again, so what? What about the Universal creator as a general concept? Does disproving YEC disprove that?

...snip...

The "so what" is why I try to deal with the gods that people say they believe in rather than some strange definition that no one actually worships or forms part of someone's religion.

And to the highlighted part - again I simply accept whatever people say they believe in - it makes no sense to me for me to redefine someone's god for them. If they say their god is an entity that created the earth 6,000 years ago I know that being does not exist because I know that the earth is older than that.

(And I am using know as you first defined it.)

 

[Darat]

The question of whether you believe in something you call "god" and whether you actually believe in something that is a god are two different questions.

...snip...

I do understand your point but I don't think I agree that is makes any difference to my definition of an atheist. For my definition it does not matter what it is that they consider to be god as I am not imposing any conditions on what can be called a god (or not). (ETA: that's because I'm not assigning any meaning to "theist" beyond holding a belief in a god.)

As I said that type of issue only seems to arise in discussions like this, out there in the "real world" of what people actually believe in there seems to be none of this confusion. For example the YEC who knows that their god created the earth 6,000 years ago.

 

[JoelKatz]

I do understand your point but I don't think I agree that is makes any difference to my definition of an atheist. For my definition it does not matter what it is that they consider to be god as I am not imposing any conditions on what can be called a god (or not).

So a person who chose to call everything 'god', but did not believe it had any properties other than those people generally believe everything has would be, in your view, a theist? Whereas a person who believed that a supernatural being created the universe and intervenes in human affairs in response to prayer would be an atheist if he refused to call that being 'god'?

As I said that type of issue only seems to arise in discussions like this, out there in the "real world" of what people actually believe in there seems to be none of this confusion. For example the YEC who knows that their god created the earth 6,000 years ago.

It is axiomatic that a distinction doesn't matter in those cases where it in fact doesn't matter. For those people who are willing to call their gods "god" or who are not willing to call non-gods "god", there is no issue. But the test of what we really mean by 'theist' or 'atheist' is decided based on the cases where it *does* matter what we mean.

I'm curious if there is any other category you would be willing to base on such a 'magic word' test. I'm also puzzled how you would apply the distinction to non-English speakers. If we are unable to delve into the meaning of the word 'god', how do we find the corresponding word (if any) in their language?

 

[Tumblehome]

With creationism we would have to deny the physical evidence for evolution. With a hidden God, there's no reason to believe it's not made up, but no way to confirm it.

Theists don't believe in possibilities, aka hidden gods for which there is no concept. They believe in specific gods as defined in their religious books, whether it's God, Allah or reptilian overlords.

Atheism, by definition, is a rejection of the gods of theists, and to say you're undecided about it is to give credence to the possibility that the magical gods of theists indeed exist.

 

[wollery]

Theists don't believe in possibilities, aka hidden gods for which there is no concept. They believe in specific gods as defined in their religious books, whether it's God, Allah or reptilian overlords.

So deists aren't theists?

Atheism, by definition, is a rejection of the gods of theists, and to say you're undecided about it is to give credence to the possibility that the magical gods of theists indeed exist.

No, it's allowing for the fact that we don't know everything. To posit otherwise is arrogant.

 

[wollery]

I reject these kinds of claims completely, on many different grounds including that a claim that cannot be tested even in principle is incapable of being true.

Let's follow that idea through. We can only test things that exist within time and space, because we have no way to get outside time and space. Time and space started with the Big Bang, and the Big Bang was the expansion of a singularity. But how did that singularity come to exist? There are plenty of ideas, but whatever happened did so outside of time and space, so we can't test which of the ideas is right or wrong. Therefore, all claims about how the Big Bang Singularity came into existence are untestable, and by your logic, that makes every possible claim about how the BBS came into existence untrue. This means that the BBS couldn't have come into existence, and thus the Big Bang didn't happen and none of us actually exist.

Someone who "claims" that the universe is a particular way as opposed to another way that is indistinguishable in principle from the first way is not actually making a claim but rather a pseudo-claim. It may have the form of a claim, but does not actually *claim* anything.

Absolute cobblers. That suggests that if the theists had come up with a description of a 6000 year old Universe that looks 13.7 billion years old before anyone came up with Big Bang Cosmology it would automatically make Big Bang Cosmology a pseudo-claim. You're trying to restate Occam's razor and messing it up.

I am not agnostic with respect to apparent claims that do not meet the requirements for being a potentially true claim. I reject them.

If a claim has a zero probability of being true then I reject it. But you have failed to show a zero probability for a creator deity, so it cannot simply be rejected.

This is one of the reasons I am a strong atheist.

Simply put, you have decided that if you cannot know whether something is true or false then you automatically know that it's false. But then, that means that you can know whether it's true or false, which contradicts the reasoning that lead you to conclude that it's false, which means that you can't know . . . . . .

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

The questions is not about how I define god but whether you believe in a god,

If you don't tell me what you mean by God, we're not going anywhere, Darat.

you can believe that your big toe is god, it makes no difference to answering the question.

It makes a difference if you have a specific thing in mind when you say "God". Not everyone means the same thing when they use that word.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

I do understand your point but I don't think I agree that is makes any difference to my definition of an atheist. For my definition it does not matter what it is that they consider to be god as I am not imposing any conditions on what can be called a god (or not). (ETA: that's because I'm not assigning any meaning to "theist" beyond holding a belief in a god.)

Really? It makes no difference? So someone who defines God as all the laws of physics is the same as someone who defines God as The Creator of the Universe?

 

[JoelKatz]

Simply put, you have decided that if you cannot know whether something is true or false then you automatically know that it's false. But then, that means that you can know whether it's true or false, which contradicts the reasoning that lead you to conclude that it's false, which means that you can't know . . . . . .

When a person claims something, there is the proposition they are claiming and then there is the claim itself. That's why when someone says "your wife is cheating on you", rational people don't respond, "that's interesting, you've just stated a logical proposition that might or might not be true".

In fact, when a person says "your wife is cheating on you", they are making a claim. It's not easy to put in precise words what it means to 'claim' something, but roughly, to claim something is to assert that one has reasons that justify believing that the proposition claimed is in fact true.

So if I say "your wife is cheating on you", you will understand me to be saying something akin to "I have evidence and/or argument that justifies a belief that your wife is cheating on you, I have this belief, and you should to". (This not precisely what it means to claim something, and it doesn't always mean precisely the same thing, but that's the general idea. The important point is that a claim is not identical to the proposition claimed.)

We don't add all those other words because the most common thing we do to propositions is claim them. So in English (and every other language I know of) stating a proposition is how we claim it. (You say "it is raining today" to communicate to another person that you have reason to believe that it is raining today, in fact believe that it is raining today, and want the other person to know these things generally so that they can form the same justified belief.)

The truth or falsity of a *claim* is not the same as the truth or falsity of the underlying proposition. For example, "This claim is false" is a false claim. I am claiming to have evidence that justifies believing in the truth of a logical proposition that cannot possibly be true -- there is no way I could have such evidence.

 

[wollery]

When a person claims something, there is the proposition they are claiming and then there is the claim itself. That's why when someone says "your wife is cheating on you", rational people don't respond, "that's interesting, you've just stated a logical proposition that might or might not be true".

In fact, when a person says "your wife is cheating on you", they are making a claim. It's not easy to put in precise words what it means to 'claim' something, but roughly, to claim something is to assert that one has reasons that justify believing that the proposition claimed is in fact true.

So if I say "your wife is cheating on you", you will understand me to be saying something akin to "I have evidence and/or argument that justifies a belief that your wife is cheating on you, I have this belief, and you should to". (This not precisely what it means to claim something, and it doesn't always mean precisely the same thing, but that's the general idea. The important point is that a claim is not identical to the proposition claimed.)

We don't add all those other words because the most common thing we do to propositions is claim them. So in English (and every other language I know of) stating a proposition is how we claim it. (You say "it is raining today" to communicate to another person that you have reason to believe that it is raining today, in fact believe that it is raining today, and want the other person to know these things generally so that they can form the same justified belief.)

The truth or falsity of a *claim* is not the same as the truth or falsity of the underlying proposition. For example, "This claim is false" is a false claim. I am claiming to have evidence that justifies believing in the truth of a logical proposition that cannot possibly be true -- there is no way I could have such evidence.

In other words you dismiss the claim, "there is a god" because that claim requires knowledge that nobody can have, but you aren't dismissing the proposition, "there is a god".

That's a very nice semantic argument you've constructed, but since you haven't dismissed the proposition you can't make the claim, "there is no god" because, by your semantic argument, you can't have the knowledge which is required to make that claim. Thus your claim to be a strong atheist is destroyed by your own argument.

 

[JM85]

until the large hadron collider gives some answers as to what the catalyst for the big bang was, then i'm on the side of not knowing. even then there will be questions. that doesn't mean there's a designer, but there's still a lot of unknowns that will leave a lot of lingering questions in my head.

 

[HghrSymmetry]

How are those positions meaningfully different from atheism? If the definition of something is incoherent then surely you do not believe in its existence?

You just answered your own question. If the term is incoherent, then it can’t even be addressed. Believing in its existence (or not) becomes moot.
It's just nonsense.
If a person were to approach me on a street corner and babble some gibberish and then ask if I believe in the existence of said gibberish…I would just chuckle and say the question is meaningless.

Philosophical navel gazing and pedantry is all well and good but back in the real world people believe in particular definitions of deities and follow the words of their holy books. What purpose is served by goal-post moving and trying to establish unprovable/testable exceptions?

Don’t confound an unfamiliar position with “pedantry and navel gazing.”
In the ignostic/theological noncognitivist view, the moment you use the term “atheist”,
you’re saying that theism or “God” has a cognitively understandable meaning.
It certainly does not. Now I’m not talking about the description in bronze age mythology books/manuscripts. I’m referring to a definition in a scientific sense. I want to know what this entity is composed of so I can say whether it is something to believe or disbelieve.
The problem is that the theist never, ever answers the question of this things make up (in any meaningful way). The answers usually comprise of actions or deeds.
What it does isn’t a description of what it is.
Occasionally you get the "beyond space and time" answers, which are equally nonsensical.

Sam Harris describes himself as “atheist” but more out of necessity than accuracy…

"Sam Harris has expressed frustration with being labeled an atheist and often employs igtheistic arguments criticizing the ambiguous and inconsistent definitions of "God". Harris finds the label and concept of atheism as extraneous as needing to label oneself a non-racist or a non-believer in Zeus.[8] In this sense, Harris finds debating about the existence of God to be both absurd and ascientific yet still an inconvenient necessity when speaking in defense for reason and science."

As an atheist I am happy and confident to say to any particular individual that 'The God you believe in does not exist'. This applies for all meaningful definitions of the word 'God', 'believe' and 'exist'. Beyond that, its word play and, for me at least, while we have real 'holy' men making decisions and proclamations that affect real people's lives based on real interpretations of real definitions of these words then I'm struggling to see the value in providing an area of uncertainty for them to exploit by accepting word play as important.

To an ignostic, there isn’t a meaningful definition of “God.” That’s the point.
The “word” “God” isn’t even definable enough to reject. It’s below that, in the territory of utter meaninglessness.
There is no uncertainty or word play involved.
Religious people will continue to say they believe in mythological characters, but when you ask them specific questions about their constitution, you’ll get nothing but nonsense in return. Thus they are not really being honest with themselves, they're just cooking up a meaningless mental construct.

"In a chapter of his 1936 book Language, Truth, and Logic, A. J. Ayer argued that one could not speak of God's existence, or even the probability of God's existence, since the concept itself was unverifiable and thus nonsensical.[4] Ayer wrote that this ruled out atheism and agnosticism as well as theism because all three positions assume that the sentence "God exists" is meaningful.[5] Given the meaninglessness of theistic claims, Ayer opined that there was "no logical ground for antagonism between religion and natural science",[6] as theism alone does not entail any propositions which the scientific method can falsify."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism

If someone wants to call themselves an atheist...fine. But in this view, it is saying that there is something cognitively comprehensible to not believe in.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

You just answered your own question. If the term is incoherent, then it can’t even be addressed. Believing in its existence (or not) becomes moot.
It's just nonsense.
If a person were to approach me on a street corner and babble some gibberish and then ask if I believe in the existence of said gibberish…I would just chuckle and say the question is meaningless.




Don’t confound an unfamiliar position with “pedantry and navel gazing.”
In the ignostic/theological noncognitivist view, the moment you use the term “atheist”,
you’re saying that theism or “God” has a cognitively understandable meaning.
It certainly does not. Now I’m not talking about the description in bronze age mythology books/manuscripts. I’m referring to a definition in a scientific sense. I want to know what this entity is composed of so I can say whether it is something to believe or disbelieve.
The problem is that the theist never, ever answers the question of this things make up (in any meaningful way). The answers usually comprise of actions or deeds.
What it does isn’t a description of what it is.
Occasionally you get the "beyond space and time" answers, which are equally nonsensical.

Sam Harris describes himself as “atheist” but more out of necessity than accuracy…

"Sam Harris has expressed frustration with being labeled an atheist and often employs igtheistic arguments criticizing the ambiguous and inconsistent definitions of "God". Harris finds the label and concept of atheism as extraneous as needing to label oneself a non-racist or a non-believer in Zeus.[8] In this sense, Harris finds debating about the existence of God to be both absurd and ascientific yet still an inconvenient necessity when speaking in defense for reason and science."



To an ignostic, there isn’t a meaningful definition of “God.” That’s the point.
The “word” “God” isn’t even definable enough to reject. It’s below that, in the territory of utter meaninglessness.
There is no uncertainty or word play involved.
Religious people will continue to say they believe in mythological characters, but when you ask them specific questions about their constitution, you’ll get nothing but nonsense in return. Thus they are not really being honest with themselves, they're just cooking up a meaningless mental construct.

"In a chapter of his 1936 book Language, Truth, and Logic, A. J. Ayer argued that one could not speak of God's existence, or even the probability of God's existence, since the concept itself was unverifiable and thus nonsensical.[4] Ayer wrote that this ruled out atheism and agnosticism as well as theism because all three positions assume that the sentence "God exists" is meaningful.[5] Given the meaninglessness of theistic claims, Ayer opined that there was "no logical ground for antagonism between religion and natural science",[6] as theism alone does not entail any propositions which the scientific method can falsify."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism

If someone wants to call themselves an atheist...fine. But in this view, it is saying that there is something cognitively comprehensible to not believe in.

There isn't much in there to disagree with and its dangerously close to the position I hold. However, I will maintain that for all practical intents and purposes that renders them atheist and that the distinction they are trying to make is word play and pedantry to satisfy some philosophical fundamentalism.

The truth of the matter is that people do not withhold judgement on whether glargles from the planet glorg really do exist and are the reason why the sky is blue and the cause of burnt toast at breakfast time in the absence of a coherent definition.

Maybe I'm just generous enough to be happy to test and dismiss the claims theists make rather than ask for a complete and coherent totality of a specification before I do so.

So far every single God theory have seen falls into one of a few categories the major ones I have identified as being:

1. Provably false - e.g. God is the creator of the Earth and started the Human race when He created Adam and Eve. We know this to be false.

2. Meaningless - e.g. 'God is Love' 'God is everything'. I'm prepared to reject these until someone can come back with something that makes sense which I guess is where I break from the Ignostics et al.

3. Incoherent and/or internally contradictory- e.g. God is both invisible and pink.

4. Insufficiently different from non-existence as to justify the term existence - e.g. God sits outside of the universe and does not interact with it in any way shape or form.

There are probably a couple more that I can't recall at this second however my argument is that I am just as happy to reject these claims as I am to reject the claim that the next time I stand up I will float off into the sky. I do not regard myself as an agnostic gravitist.

We do well to remember that Gods are figments of the believers' imaginations and that there are at least as many definitions as there are believers. While it may be scientifically and philosophically accurate to concede that 'You can't prove the infinite number of theories we can imagine to be wrong with 100% confidence' that is not what the theist means when they posit that their God exists.

To you there may be no difference in saying that 'I can't be sure God doesn't exist' or in saying that 'I am as sure as I can be about anything else in this universe that God doesn't exist' but in reality there is.

 

[Darat]

So a person who chose to call everything 'god', but did not believe it had any properties other than those people generally believe everything has would be, in your view, a theist? Whereas a person who believed that a supernatural being created the universe and intervenes in human affairs in response to prayer would be an atheist if he refused to call that being 'god'?

It is axiomatic that a distinction doesn't matter in those cases where it in fact doesn't matter. For those people who are willing to call their gods "god" or who are not willing to call non-gods "god", there is no issue. But the test of what we really mean by 'theist' or 'atheist' is decided based on the cases where it *does* matter what we mean.

And this is an example of what I mean when I say these discussions only happen in places like this.

If we deal with what people actually say they believe in rather than all these strange and wonderful possible definitions for god, that I've never heard anyone say that they believe in, these apparent issues with definitions fade away.

I'm curious if there is any other category you would be willing to base on such a 'magic word' test. I'm also puzzled how you would apply the distinction to non-English speakers. If we are unable to delve into the meaning of the word 'god', how do we find the corresponding word (if any) in their language?

I don't know about other languages and what words they have and whether they can be considered equivalent to the English word god, theist and gnostic. I suspect from my general understanding that they tend to have similar terms.

 

[Darat]

How do you test the claim that the Universe was brought into existence 6000 years ago but looking perfectly in every detail like it formed naturally 4 billion years ago?

Go on, how do you test it?

Earlier you stated that:

"Except that we can prove (in as far as anything is provable) that Young Earth Creationism is a load of hooey."​

I doubt anyone else is using "know" or "prove" any differently than you have in the above quote. Why do you seemingly hold that a claim about a god is somehow different?