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Are Agnostics Welcome Here?

TheGoldcountry said:
I think there are many here who don't recognize that simple fact. All imaginary things are possible; that DOES NOT mean that they should all be treated with equal regard. Those who say that they hold all beliefs and possibilities equally are either hypocrites or willfully disingenuous. Otherwise, they should be looking in their garden for the evil faeries I left there.
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Punshhh does believe that there are faeries in his garden.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=197989
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
This is metaphysics we're talking about; we can't get there, we can't know what *is*. We can make all sorts of comments about proposed gods, mythical gods, etc. -- we have excellent evidence that they do not exist.
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We can't know what is and yet we are acquainted with what is (through having a physical body). If there is one substance it is the one thing we are familiar with. It is the intellect which can't account for it and god concepts are an attempt to.

What we can say is that it is much less parsimonious to propose another entity that directs the world as opposed to the world just being and doing it all on its own because a single substance involves fewer entities than does two substances (and a god plus the universe requires two substances). And we can say that if the universe is god, then we are just actions/thoughts in the mind of god and that's the exact equivalent, at least for us, of there just being 'stuff'.
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If god is an emergent property of nature, it is not another substance, so we have only one substance including god and nature and we are acquainted with it.
 
TheGoldcountry said:
I think there are many here who don't recognize that simple fact. All imaginary things are possible; that DOES NOT mean that they should all be treated with equal regard. Those who say that they hold all beliefs and possibilities equally are either hypocrites or willfully disingenuous. Otherwise, they should be looking in their garden for the evil faeries I left there.
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Agreed. But have you ever run across anyone who actually holds that opinion (that all should be held in equal regard)? I think it's worth debating whether or not all imaginary things are possible. I'm not even sure that statement is correct. There's an interesting analysis of this idea in the philosophy literature -- I read an opinion on it once but haven't the slightest idea where to find it again.
 
punshhh said:
We can't know what is and yet we are acquainted with what is (through having a physical body). If there is one substance it is the one thing we are familiar with. It is the intellect which can't account for it and god concepts are an attempt to.

If god is an emergent property of nature, it is not another substance, so we have only one substance including god and nature and we are acquainted with it.
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Was that gibberish supposed to mean something?
 
punshhh said:
We can't know what is and yet we are acquainted with what is (through having a physical body). If there is one substance it is the one thing we are familiar with. It is the intellect which can't account for it and god concepts are an attempt to.
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I'm not sure that we do or can know it all that well. We are made of a specific form of the single substance -- the manifestation we call matter -- but whatever it is, it's extraordinarily strange. If there is a single substance it is also expressed as energy and space-time. What could be both vibrating strings of energy and space-time?



If god is an emergent property of nature, it is not another substance, so we have only one substance including god and nature and we are acquainted with it.
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If god is an emergent property of nature then we have no way of even postulating what god is, does, or looks like.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
Agreed. But have you ever run across anyone who actually holds that opinion (that all should be held in equal regard)? I think it's worth debating whether or not all imaginary things are possible. I'm not even sure that statement is correct. There's an interesting analysis of this idea in the philosophy literature -- I read an opinion on it once but haven't the slightest idea where to find it again.
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Many people have the tendency to approach their own beliefs and fantasies with more seriousness than others. If I told you I had a troll chained in my basement who was teaching me magic, you would probably (quite rightly) doubt me. Yet you think that your beliefs should be held in higher regard simply by the virtue of stating them outright. No. Your fantasies are your own; you should have no expectation that others will accept them without evidence.
 
TheGoldcountry said:
Many people have the tendency to approach their own beliefs and fantasies with more seriousness than others. If I told you I had a troll chained in my basement who was teaching me magic, you would probably (quite rightly) doubt me. Yet you think that your beliefs should be held in higher regard simply by the virtue of stating them outright. No. Your fantasies are your own; you should have no expectation that others will accept them without evidence.
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I'm sorry, but to what belief do you refer?
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
Really? When did I start believing that? I guess I must have posted it somewhere; could you direct me to a specific post?
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A thousand apologies. My mistake. The remark was aimed at punshhh. He is just playing a game of 'Let's Pretend'.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
If you want to call it non-existent, that's fine with me; but I don't think that's really proper. I think it is much more honest to say -- we can't go there, so we can't know, so who cares? Alternatively you could say, honestly -- we can't know if such a being exists, so I choose to believe that it doesn't. One could also say -- we can't know if such a being exists, so I choose to believe that it does and that it directs the world.

This is metaphysics we're talking about; we can't get there, we can't know what *is*. We can make all sorts of comments about proposed gods, mythical gods, etc. -- we have excellent evidence that they do not exist.

But this sort of entity -- what I think FattyCatty and punshhh were talking about -- we simply cannot prove or disprove. It might not exist. It might direct everything that does exist. It might be all of existence. We can't possibly know.
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Ichneumonwasp said:
I'm sorry, but to what belief do you refer?
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If you're willing to suspend disbelief for one hypothesis without any evidence, you are a hypocrite if you don't consider all beliefs equally.
 
TheGoldcountry said:
If you're willing to suspend disbelief for one hypothesis without any evidence, you are a hypocrite if you don't consider all beliefs equally.
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I believe that I am constantly accompanied by an invisible six feet high white rabbit. Would you consider believing that?
 
TheGoldcountry said:
If you're willing to suspend disbelief for one hypothesis without any evidence, you are a hypocrite if you don't consider all beliefs equally.
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OK, but that doesn't answer my question. First, if I'm a hypocrite then I'm a hypocrite which is quite different from you saying that I think my beliefs should be held in higher regard.

What makes you think that I think the choice between god and not-god is equal? I didn't say the choices were equal. I said we have to make a choice.
 
punshhh said:
I would take what Dafydd says about me with a pinch of salt if I were you.
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One should take what you say with a kilo of salt. How is the search for examples of my gibberish going? You are the mendacious one here.
 
dafydd said:
I believe that I am constantly accompanied by an invisible six feet high white rabbit. Would you consider believing that?
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Harvey!

I would much prefer Harvey existing that several of the posters on this forum.
 
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