"Agnostics are Nowhere Men"

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

An agnostic contends that god is unknowable. Your basis is that god cant be empirically tested. Isnt this an assumption? Wouldn't the skeptical view be that "I dont know if god is testable" rather than asserting that "god is untestable?"

You might want to re-read my post, because you've just said that my position is something I've said it isn't.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think the two are very closely related.



Well, I'm not sure that I wouldn't define it more as "God is unknown", rather than "God is unknowable". But, if we're talking about something which is empirically untestable like God, then how could it be knowable? I don't really think it's proper scientific/sceptical thinking to claim knowledge about things which are empirically testable.

Perhaps I should ask on what grounds a gnostic would assert that they have knowledge of God?

Are you able to assert a work of fiction is fiction? Or can you point to the work of fiction and say the described being is a fictional being?

Is every being found in a work of fiction also on your list of not "proper scientific/sceptical thinking to claim knowledge about things which are [not] empirically testable"?

Are you applying a double standard to god fiction you don't apply to Harry Potter fiction?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You might want to re-read my post, because you've just said that my position is something I've said it isn't.

You are essentially saying the absence of gods is unknowable, aren't you?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Are you able to assert a work of fiction is fiction? Or can you point to the work of fiction and say the described being is a fictional being?[/quote

Yes and yes. But I can also admit the teeny-tiny Russell's Teapot possibility that that reality is actually real and I'm just dreaming this life as a butterfly in their world. Or whatever.

Is every being found in a work of fiction also on your list of not "proper scientific/sceptical thinking to claim knowledge about things which are [not] empirically testable"?

Yes. And you don't need to add the "not" in there, what I wrote is what I intended to write.

Are you applying a double standard to god fiction you don't apply to Harry Potter fiction?

No.

You are essentially saying the absence of gods is unknowable, aren't you?

Strictly speaking, I'm saying that everything is unknowable.

 

[MikeSun5]

Strictly speaking, I'm saying that everything is unknowable.

Seconded.

Since my position is based on the knowledge that we've gained to this point, I don't accept it as a belief system.

Well countered. That said, the distinction between faith and knowledge is often blurred or even ignored by many atheists attempting to lump agnostics in with atheists. I think you and I are on opposite ends of the same idea here... Your position is based on what we've learned so far, and my position is based on what we haven't learned yet. I don't think it's about refusing to accept what we've learned (unless by "them" you're referring to Creationists), because I'm sure most agnostics and atheists do accept valid science.

I just get irritated when people make stuff up to fill in the blanks of what we don't know. The religious do it all the time. When asked questions whose answers are unknown, atheists are forced to either make something up, or answer agnostically... once again blurring the faith/knowledge line as well as the atheist/agnostic line.

 

[tourmaline]

Strictly speaking, I'm saying that everything is unknowable.

What is this assertion based on?

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Nice shot.

---

This one is a bit Al Gorian for the first 7 minutes as it's mainly just a verbatim restating of the wiki article. The last couple minutes though entertainingly illuminate the folly of definition attempts.

I can't watch it. I don't understand. It loads then it freezes, then it loads one second then freezes again. I tried loading it twice. Well, get this: It freezes at exactly the same spots.

My stupid machine all of a sudden can't load a video that's all audio

 

[HghrSymmetry]

I can't watch it. I don't understand. It loads then it freezes, then it loads one second then freezes again. I tried loading it twice. Well, get this: It freezes at exactly the same spots.

My stupid machine all of a sudden can't load a video that's all audio

It does seem to have some bugs. I put it on "pause" and let it completely download before watching. That might work in your case as well.

(or if not, maybe you can try another site later...ie: work, friends, library, etc).

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

What is this assertion based on?

The logic that I have explained in detail several times already in this thread.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm with Tourmaline. Science is a process. It consists of tools we use to determine reality. Science is not reality itself, nor does science dictate reality, the evidence does.

One of the tools in that scientific process is the concept the door is always open to new discoveries. And every once in a while the evidence reminds us that concept is correct. The Earth's crust which was once solid now consists of moving plates. Bacteria have replaced gastric acid as the cause of ulcers. Animal, mineral or vegetable as conceptual categories has been abandoned as plants move around on the tree of life and become closer relatives to animals than was previously thought.

But as we get better at using the tools in the scientific process, and as we collect and make sense of more and more evidence, the real Universe comes more into focus. There is so much evidence for evolution theory if we found the Cambrian Rabbit now, we'd be looking for the space craft it came in rather than questioning the basics of evolution theory. It's unlikely new evidence is going to make the Earth flat. What is the point of considering the Earth will defy the laws of physics and suddenly stop rotating, flinging us all into space? How does the consideration of all knowledge as 'unknowable' serve to further the scientific investigation of the Universe?


It's hard to believe that agnostics apply the same unknowability to the existence of gods compared to the unknowability that fairies and Leprechauns exist. It's easier to believe agnostics don't recognize the double standard they apply. I don't doubt they pay lip service to denying a double standard. But there is this big barrier of 'god beliefs' that prevents recognizing fairies, Leprechauns and gods are all the same, made up human fiction.

It does not violate any scientific principle of 'knowability' to say gods are fictional beings. It does not violate any scientific principle to follow the evidence to the conclusion, gods are fictional beings. It does violate a scientific principle to make something up in one's mind, know that it is fiction and there is a total absence of evidence for the thing you made up, then declare it might be true, you can't be sure. That is not consistent with the principle in the scientific process that new evidence is always possible.

What would be consistent with scientific principles would be to conclude the evidence says gods are fiction. New evidence could come along and change that conclusion, but since it has not, then the evidence says it is a fact, gods are fictional.

It is possible to recognize the difference between a principle and a conclusion. The conclusion is: the evidence is overwhelming gods are fictional beings. The scientific process principle that all facts are tentative does not prevent a scientist from determining a conclusion reaches the level of certainty we apply to things we call scientific facts.

 

[MikeSun5]

It is possible to recognize the difference between a principle and a conclusion. The conclusion is: the evidence is overwhelming gods are fictional beings. The scientific process principle that all facts are tentative does not prevent a scientist from determining a conclusion reaches the level of certainty we apply to things we call scientific facts.

As usual from you SG, a very good post, but I still think the leprechaun and fairy analogies are a bit of a stretch. I'm convinced that people who have come to agnosticism have not come to it believing a bearded, harp-playing guy on a cloud should be given equal standing with advanced physics. It's not that agnostics hold out for such fantasies, either. For me, it's the simple fact that we don't know if this universe was created by an unknown entity, some sort of natural scientific system, or just plain randomness. Defining some weird creator entity as a deity/god worthy of worship is a semantic battle I don't want to get into, and one that this discussion can do without, IMO.

I also think that religion has limited the perspective of many atheists. When contemplating something as unknown as the creation of our universe, many atheists are only able to see non-atheist veiwpoints through the lens of religions like Christianity or Islam. Like by saying "I don't know," we're somehow entertaining the possibility that angels and demons exist? Or by saying, "science hasn't yielded that information yet," I somehow all the sudden believe that bigfoot and pixies might be real? I disagree.

 

[PixyMisa]

"God" is still an untestable theory.

Then it's not a theory, and God doesn't exist, and you're an atheist.

Scientists just recently figured out how to test another untestable theory: string theory.

Then it's not untestable, is it?

Maybe in the future the atheists will have more solid ground to stand on, but as it stands today, atheism (like religions) is largely an opinion/faith-based belief system.

No.

I'm sure that's a hard pill to swallow for many atheists, but I'm of the mind that until science can start eliminating theories, they should all be considered as a possibility. Why not?

Because that would be stupid.

There are infinitely many ways to be wrong, but only a finite number of ways to be right. So we reject anything that is not (a) coherent, (b) distinct, (c) predictive, (d) empirically testable and (e) empirically supported. God fails on every count.

 

[tourmaline]

The logic that I have explained in detail several times already in this thread.

So it is not evidence based?

 

[Lord Emsworth]

When asked questions whose answers are unknown, atheists are forced to either make something up, or answer agnostically...

Why? You yourself said that the answers are unknown.

I mean, I have a hard time seeing what atheism has got to do with it; as long as there is not a meaningfully defined, and mutually agreed upon, God in there, there is nothing for atheism to do.

 

[Tumblehome]

Strictly speaking, I'm saying that everything is unknowable.

Seconded.

Even the knowledge that everything is unknowable?

Well countered. That said, the distinction between faith and knowledge is often blurred or even ignored by many atheists attempting to lump agnostics in with atheists. I think you and I are on opposite ends of the same idea here... Your position is based on what we've learned so far, and my position is based on what we haven't learned yet. I don't think it's about refusing to accept what we've learned (unless by "them" you're referring to Creationists), because I'm sure most agnostics and atheists do accept valid science.

I just get irritated when people make stuff up to fill in the blanks of what we don't know. The religious do it all the time. When asked questions whose answers are unknown, atheists are forced to either make something up, or answer agnostically... once again blurring the faith/knowledge line as well as the atheist/agnostic line.

I think where we really differ is in what constitutes "unknown". To me, the question of God has been answered because of what we know. I'm probably going over well-trodden ground, but I'll try to explain why (if for no other reason than to make it clearer to myself).

One major lesson I take from our knowledge of the universe is that the supernatural is impossible, and that extends to gods as well as psychics and spoon benders. Any concept of "God" invented by humans has as little grounding in reason as Sylvia Browne's supposed powers.

Yet some people who reject Browne's claims fudge the data to allow for gods, or at least their possibility. When the Age of Reason began to raise doubts about religious miracles like prayers and resurrection, some people used the No True Scotsman fallacy to invent a deistic god who doesn't perform miracles for us but who still magically created the universe for our benefit. When we recognized that "for our benefit" ignores all the suffering in the world, the fallacy was further modified to invent an impersonal god, and so on. All that's left now is a vague, wispy, last gasp concept of God that bears no resemblance to any of the originals other than being based on the merest supposition ("There must be"), and is so undefined, and undefinable, as to be meaningless. To consider that something so farfetched might be true seems to refute what we've learned.

I know you're not a creationist, but to say that we can't know anything for sure because we don't know everything for sure is to acknowledge that there's a chance that creationists are right. For that to happen, all the evidence we have for an impersonal 13.7 billion-year-old universe and 4.5 billion-year-old Earth--all of it--would be wrong. That's a leap of faith that I can't take.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

As usual from you SG, a very good post, but I still think the leprechaun and fairy analogies are a bit of a stretch. I'm convinced that people who have come to agnosticism have not come to it believing a bearded, harp-playing guy on a cloud should be given equal standing with advanced physics. It's not that agnostics hold out for such fantasies, either. For me, it's the simple fact that we don't know if this universe was created by an unknown entity, some sort of natural scientific system, or just plain randomness. Defining some weird creator entity as a deity/god worthy of worship is a semantic battle I don't want to get into, and one that this discussion can do without, IMO.

There are many points of view of both atheism and agnosticism.

We can talk about two flavors of agnostics here to simplify the discussion. One flavor is the agnostic who is really an atheist but thinks of the god question as, you can't prove gods don't exist so science doesn't allow you to say with certainty, there are no gods.

The second flavor is the one you are describing, the agnostic who feels 'gods' (usually one god because that is the common god belief in this part of the world) is a legitimate hypothesis for the origination of the Universe.

My earlier answer addresses both but in two different ways.

For the first flavor agnostic, I say, shift paradigms from asking, can you prove gods don't exist to the more appropriate question, what does the evidence tell us about gods? Proving gods don't exist starts with a conclusion, gods might exist, and asks the question, does any evidence fit this conclusion? I prefer to start with the question, where does the evidence about gods lead? It leads very clearly to the conclusion, gods are fictional beings.

The flavor agnostic you are describing assumes facts not in evidence. Once you follow the evidence and conclude gods are fictional beings, what evidence is left that one might consider gods as a viable explanation for the origin of the Universe? On what evidence do you add gods to your list of potential hypotheses?

Can you rule out Harry Potter or fairies or Leprechauns as potential explanations for the origin of the Universe? You can see, I hope, that adding willy nilly explanations, just because someone can imagine such origins, does not yield a valid hypothesis. On what basis do you add the god hypothesis to your list of possible Universe origins?

Have you considered the evidence based fact that all god hypotheses to date, where we have discovered the nature of some phenomena, have been failed hypotheses? Yet you want to continue considering the god hypothesis. How does limiting the god hypothesis to only the 'big' question, the origin of the Universe, offer any more potential to be the correct hypothesis than any other god of the gaps hypotheses which we know have all failed in the past?

And I haven't even gotten to the usual argument, adding a god layer is akin to invoking, "magic did it" which does nothing to increase our understanding of the Universe. How did the gods originate? It's a self defeating line of inquiry unless you have some evidence gods exist. And if you had such evidence, then we'd have the answer to how the Universe originated, but we'd need to start asking where did the gods originate?

I also think that religion has limited the perspective of many atheists. When contemplating something as unknown as the creation of our universe, many atheists are only able to see non-atheist veiwpoints through the lens of religions like Christianity or Islam. Like by saying "I don't know," we're somehow entertaining the possibility that angels and demons exist? Or by saying, "science hasn't yielded that information yet," I somehow all the sudden believe that bigfoot and pixies might be real? I disagree.

This is a straw man as far as my conclusions are concerned. Show me any evidence of gods, any whatsoever, that does not come from god fiction. There is none that I am aware of. Because we don't know how the Universe originated, you are suggesting we include 'god magic' in the list of hypotheses. You don't have a single shred of evidence suggesting god magic, and all the god of the gap hypotheses to date have been failed hypotheses. Not to mention we know gods are fictional beings.

It would seem to me it is time to shelve the god hypothesis once and for all.

 

[tourmaline]

I know you're not a creationist, but to say that we can't know anything for sure because we don't know everything for sure is to acknowledge that there's a chance that creationists are right. For that to happen, all the evidence we have for an impersonal 13.7 billion-year-old universe and 4.5 billion-year-old Earth--all of it--would be wrong. That's a leap of faith that I can't take.

Isnt this an argument from ignorance?

Also, can someone please help? I dont understand how not knowing something equals unknowable -- how a lack of information leads to claim of certainty rather than uncertainty. This seems like a non sequitur.

 

[Tumblehome]

Isnt this an argument from ignorance?

Could be, but I'm not up on my debating terms. All I know is that it doesn't make sense to me.

Also, can someone please help? I dont understand how not knowing something equals unknowable -- how a lack of information leads to claim of certainty rather than uncertainty. This seems like a non sequitur.

We might not be able to know what there was before the universe, if anything, or what's outside the universe, if anything, or how it got started, since our perception is limited to what's inside it, as far as we know. Those aren't certifiably unknowable questions, only possibly. And they certainly don't automatically mean Goddidit.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

What is the point of considering the Earth will defy the laws of physics and suddenly stop rotating, flinging us all into space? How does the consideration of all knowledge as 'unknowable' serve to further the scientific investigation of the Universe?

I get the feeling you've not really read through my posts on the subject, as I've already addressed this more than once in this thread.

It's hard to believe that agnostics apply the same unknowability to the existence of gods compared to the unknowability that fairies and Leprechauns exist. It's easier to believe agnostics don't recognize the double standard they apply.

I honestly don't care what you find easy or hard to believe. What I actually think - which I've explained many times already, and which you're arguing against straw man versions of - is not influenced in the slightest by what you find easy to believe.

What would be consistent with scientific principles would be to conclude the evidence says gods are fiction. New evidence could come along and change that conclusion, but since it has not, then the evidence says it is a fact, gods are fictional.

It is possible to recognize the difference between a principle and a conclusion. The conclusion is: the evidence is overwhelming gods are fictional beings. The scientific process principle that all facts are tentative does not prevent a scientist from determining a conclusion reaches the level of certainty we apply to things we call scientific facts.

Which is the position I've said many times is the one that I actually hold. So your entire post has been arguing that I really ought to hold the position that I've already said I do hold. Except I'd quibble over the use of the word "fact".

So it is not evidence based?

I'm confused as to what evidence you think such a position could have either for or against it. Can you provide any examples of what you would consider evidence either for or against in the matter?

Even the knowledge that everything is unknowable?

Yes, actually. That's why I quibbled earlier saying that I preferred to say "unknown", rather than "unknowable".

 

[stevea]

This is naked special pleading. I can make any claim and then when the scientific method fails to validate it point out that this is just a failing of the method and says nothing about the validity of the claim. Your choice to limit the scientific method's scope to "physical reality" is arbitrary....

No - read empiricism. It is NOT special pleading as you are ignoring the main point. There is no foundation for the scientific method even within the domain of the physical universe. It happens to work. We can easily imagine universes where it was impossible to create an accurate model based on the minimal presupposition principal. Claiming that it should work in other domains where we have no experience is pure conjecture. When we get away from simplistic high school experiments with discrete answers we are faced with statistics and the Bayesian model is typically used to model the problem and draw inferences - but again it is easy to create systems where this cannot give us an accurate model. That the "SciMethod" *usually* works in our physical universe is less than certainty and more than a fluke. Someday we may need to revise the model-building tool to regain an accurate model.

stevea, these are claims that some people will make and some try to apply this to empiricism. I myself am not so certain - it's something that I'm trying to parse for myself. I understand as you point out that there are no proofs in our investigations of the real world, simply a greater amount of evidence, sometimes an overwhelming amount,

I's say, never an overwhelming amount. We always lack certainty since the model may be in error or changing in ways' we have not yet observed and modeled.

That does not mean that people don't assume that these represent limits to knowledge. As I have stated I'm not convinced that there there may not be any such limits. My understanding is that there are plenty of elegant mathematical proofs, some for instance being developed in string theory, that do not, or may turn out to not have any bearing on reality depending on what 'flavor' of string theory turns out to be correct. Mathematics is essentially a symbolic notation that can at times describe with great accuracy how the universe works. Other times it does not represent the physical world.

The mathematics just represents the model - not the physical universe itself. So it's nice when we get really good agreement and predictable outcomes from the model thaat correspond to the physical universe, but the point of science is to find new range or domains where the model fails, and then correct the model.

As for not believing in limits - The Heisenberg uncertainty principal places a limit on what can be known on a very small scale. That information cannot travel faster then 'c' places a limit on what can be known on a macroscopic scale. Of course these are just predictions from the model, and subject to revision themselves..

However I am also not certain if there is any bearing Godel and Turnings work has on our universe.

Very little. It says something about what is computable in finite amounts of time. It clarifies that there are classes of unaddressable mathematical problems. It sets some limitations on formal languages. The physical universe is not (apparently) an axiomatic system, so there is no obvious relevance to "physics". I suppose it might be applied to the discrete chemistry of genetics, which can probably be mapped to a Turing machine. and *might* indicate some limitations on what proteins could be constructed or that some genetic sequences cannot produce a corresponding protein in a finite amount of time (looping).

Still, what I was getting at was my assertion of the possibility, albeit a small one, that there may be no limits on knowledge or gathering evidence for or against anything that can be defined. Which brings me to the point, how does anyone know for sure that we may find a method for determining, at least within accurate models, anything that we want to know about nature given enough time to develop the tools to do so? How can anyone be certain such tools cannot be built?

I think you'd enjoy reading a non-mathematical treatment of this topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_Principle
But the idea is basically that the observation of something necessarily changes the thing you just measured. As some very low level it's impossible to measure without distorting the result. You are looking into mush. The idea of "hidden variables", perhaps statistical properties that control matter in this unexplorable domain was proposed - but since it is not measurable, detectable or falsifiable - the theory of hidden variables is not a scientific theory.

The speed of light forms a similarly impenetrable barrier to our knowledge.

====


Back on topic. The problem with dieties is that if (as someone suggested) they are part of the physical universe and follow the model we've observed in the physical universe - then they can hardly be considered supernatural. Maybe there are some arrangement of matter and energy with methods to manipulate the universe in ways we haven't yet - but that's just a parlor trick. Maybe they emanate some new force that we haven't yet observed - but that sound like a new state of matter - something to learn not to worship.

To be supernatural - means the diety must do something that beyond natural, beyond what happens in the physical universe. Not just beyond the bits we can model well, but beyond anything we could model. It's hard to imagine what that could be. Creating matter/energy de novo or reducing entropy come to mind, but that's weak. My opinion is that, with study, we'd find a way to attribute this "miracle" to some physical cause or else we'd admit ignorance. Neither is proof of the supernatural.