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Are Agnostics Welcome Here?

dafydd said:
You misunderstood me. I asked for proof, not more bare assertions. Was Faraday philosophizing when he made the first electric motor? Science arose because of Man interacting with the world on a practical level, not because of philosophers sitting on their backsides while exercising their jaws.
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How did Faraday think, how did Faraday reason, how did Faraday analyze his results, how did Faraday evaluate the issues of the day and the experimentation of those whose work formed the basis of his.

Do you know how Faraday’s occupation was defined in the terminology of the time: natural philosopher

Now how about all those other fundamental areas of human activity. Are they all insignificant as well? Can we conclude that our legal and political systems are trivial enterprises developed by ignorant philosophers with nothing better to do than sit on their collective back-sides and belch hot air?

…Yes!...why of course, how silly of me. Forget I asked.

tsig said:
Your very very very very very very big idea isn't my very very very very very very big idea.

If these ideas are so big I'm really surprised you haven't undertaken to study them yourself.
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…and after 17, 368 posts, I’m surprised you haven’t either.

Piggy said:
Let me put it this way to the dead-enders....

If we know anything at all, we know there is no god.
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Let me get this straight…we do not know what the universe is (and just to make Belz happy, nor can we definitively say that we know what it does), we cannot be sure of what we know (except that there is very likely a great deal that we do not know), we do not know what ‘knowing’ is, nor do we know how we know anything at all….yet somehow you are able to definitively conclude that you ‘know’ that something as fundamental and profound as a creator of all things simply does not exist. I doubt there would be any point in suggesting that this is something of a fallacy.

ETA:....hang on, I've just noticed something. You qualified your statement. You said: '..if we know anything at all...' You do realize you have just become a philosopher. Or were you simply being colloquial (as in, not literal)? That's a pretty gigantic qualification though...if we know anything at all!
 
annnnoid said:
How did Faraday think, how did Faraday reason, how did Faraday analyze his results, how did Faraday evaluate the issues of the day and the experimentation of those whose work formed the basis of his.
Do you know how Faraday’s occupation was defined in the terminology of the time: natural philosopher

Now how about all those other fundamental areas of human activity. Are they all insignificant as well? Can we conclude that our legal and political systems are trivial enterprises developed by ignorant philosophers with nothing better to do than sit on their collective back-sides and belch hot air?

…Yes!...why of course, how silly of me. Forget I asked.




…and after 17, 368 posts, I’m surprised you haven’t either.




Let me get this straight…we do not know what the universe is (and just to make Belz happy, nor can we definitively say that we know what it does), we cannot be sure of what we know (except that there is very likely a great deal that we do not know), we do not know what ‘knowing’ is, nor do we know how we know anything at all….yet somehow you are able to definitively conclude that you ‘know’ that something as fundamental and profound as a creator of all things simply does not exist. I doubt there would be any point in suggesting that this is something of a fallacy.

ETA:....hang on, I've just noticed something. You qualified your statement. You said: '..if we know anything at all...' You do realize you have just become a philosopher. Or were you simply being colloquial (as in, not literal)? That's a pretty gigantic qualification though...if we know anything at all!
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With his brain.
 
Piggy said:
The movement along that continuum of attenuation is from false to undefined (which is to say, nonsensical).
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This is a massive generalization and over-rationalization.

Piggy said:
Unless you intend to propose one that's neither
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I’ve proposed some, Wasp has proposed some…you’ve ignored them. They are simply not-defined in a manner which your template can accommodate.


Piggy said:
And none of the potential answers to the current questions about our world have anything to do with notions of god.
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That does not, by definition, exclude the possibility of God.

Piggy said:
But you want to tell me that the state of the science of physics is supposed to provide me some reason not to understand that gods are all myths?
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I am surprised that you continually misrepresent these statements. Wasp is pointing out that no physicist worth the title would conclude that we have a conclusive understanding of fundamental reality…and many would suggest that we could be some distance from such an achievement (others actually believe it to be impossible by definition).

Point is, there is, if only theoretically, such a thing as fundamental reality. Everything exists so everything must be the result of something and we conclusively do not know what that something is because if we did we would know it and if there is one thing that physicists do know it is that they do not know what fundamental ‘something’ is.

We also do not know, nor do we have the capacity to know, all…or likely even some, God-conditions (except metaphorically…the ones you’ve rejected typically). Our perceptions are limited, our interpretive abilities are limited, our intuition is limited, our imagination is limited, our conceptual abilities are limited, our analytical abilities are limited…and our time in this virtually infinite geometry of space-time is ridiculously limited. The conditions we occupy are infinite…we are not (infinite), either physically or conceptually. There is absolutely no obstacle to suggesting that God is infinite, therefore beyond our ability to comprehend. Given that the universe is, at present, a big question mark, and given that our ability to understand everything is itself a big question mark, we must conclude that God could easily occupy this vast area of unknown. We cannot know that this is not the case without actually knowing what it is that we do not know. When / if we ever reach the point where we can conclusively say that there exist’s no unknowns and we have found no God…then we can conclusively claim that God does not exist. Until then all we can say with varying degrees of certainty (not absolute either) is that this or that conception of God is unlikely.


Piggy said:
Just like I don't need to travel the entire universe, I don't need to know "what it is" in order to understand that god theory has failed. It persists, yes, no doubt about that, both the contrary-to-fact flavor and the de-defined flavor. But one is false, and the other isn't even a claim, so my only way to believe it is to stop being rational, and there be dragons.
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Might it be even remotely possible that your so-called ‘god theory’ is not definitive?

I’ll remind of you of what Atran said…again. You think it is trivial and irrelevant. It’s not. Take a look at that little quote in my sig. It’s from David Fincher. The guy who made movies like Fight Club and The Social Network. He is one of the most respected directors in the world…if not the most respected. He has to know what makes people tick or his movies flop and he gets no money to make another one (and his reputation disintegrates). This is a guy who makes his living applying the fundamental rules of human nature (which is exactly why he has to know what they are). The verities of life they’re called (don’t mean to provoke any skeptic heart attacks…but most movie people are utterly convinced that there is such a thing as ‘truth’ in life). ‘Something’ is in control of our behavior…it is exactly why we behave as we do (and not like wombats, or trees). It is not a thing that we ‘understand’ intellectually…or rationally. It is a thing we ‘know’. It is the epistemology that allows us to be human….with whatever degree of success we can achieve. As Atran pointed out…fundamentally, we are not rational creatures. As I’ve said…entirely legitimate conclusions can be reached entirely exclusive of any rational or scientific basis. You are looking for a rational template. Since one isn’t there, you create it yourself and simply ignore anything that challenges it.

That’s how I interpret your positions. You are just about the most dogmatically rational person I’ve ever encountered. That’s not meant to be an insult, just an observation. You have decided that you’ve defined everything not only adequately but accurately…despite Wasps painstaking efforts to point out the mistakes. Then you proceed to base all your arguments on these mistaken definitions.

If you want to understand how a Christian defines God…go and ask them.

Basically what you are saying…is that you have psychoanalyzed every believer alive or who has ever lived and accurately diagnosed their neurosis (or psychosis as the case may be). Does it not occur to you how massively arrogant this is? Does it not occur to you that you might just be wrong? Not to mention, from what I understand of your expertise, you do not even possess any training as a psychologist or psychiatrist…let alone any experience in the (choke) area of philosophy. Correct me if I’m wrong, but your expertise would appear to be in the hard sciences. Perhaps a Chomsky quote would be appropriate:

“On the ordinary problems of human life, science tells us very little, and scientists as people are surely no guide. In fact they are often the worst guide, because they often tend to focus, laser-like, on their professional interests and know very little about the world.”

…not very complimentary to the scientists of the world, but perhaps it shouldn’t be. Your efforts at reaching your own conclusions about some very substantial issues are certainly far in advance of most of those who take the time to post at JREF, and if that's what works for you, then good on ya mate! Might be helpful to step into someone else's shoes now and then. Often works for me....when I can manage it.
 
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Piggy said:
Oh, yes, Plato, as well as certain ancients in China, India, Japan.... There's a long history of it.

On the other hand, there's the god people pray to for deliverance.

No one ever said an absentee god saved a kid from a car crash.

And when you go back far enough in any culture, you find that all the gods do things in this world.

So you have this continuum from the gods that people petition to do things for them and the deistic "god" (I have to use the QMs b/c this is an undefined god) which comes later as the more primitive gods are recognized as absurd.

The movement along that continuum of attenuation is from false to undefined (which is to say, nonsensical).

Unless you intend to propose one that's neither.

So far we've got a grad student in a universe where beings don't die. (I know, you never proposed that; nevertheless, it's what you have described.)

If we find out that this thing is responsible for the universe, no one's going to shout "The believers were right!", least of all the believers themselves.
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First, thank you for taking the time to respond.


I neither proposed nor have I described your grad student god. I proposed two different types of gods -- one that is spirit/mind and whose actions we see in the universe as the laws of physics (and which suffers from all of the problems inherent to the mind body problem) and a pantheistic god. In neither scenario is there a being within the universe that doesn't die.
I also mentioned a deist god, which is the grad student god, but again, not within the universe (where universe is defined as our experience of space-time).

You seem to be arguing my ultimate point -- that if such a god were found it would be inconsequential. That is why I suggested that you amend your statement slightly.




We look out and observe the world. We make instruments to magnify things for us, or change them into things we can see or hear.

It sure is a strange world out there. Or so it seems whenever we hit something new. Eventually, though, we come to terms with it as best we can. Although I suppose we will have to hit our limits someday.

And in all that exploration what we've seen is the theists have been wrong about everything... or at least about everything that actually tested what they were saying... right down the line.

And none of the potential answers to the current questions about our world have anything to do with notions of god.

But you want to tell me that the state of the science of physics is supposed to provide me some reason not to understand that gods are all myths?

I beg to differ.
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I think you must have missed the several times where I stated that we could disprove mythical gods. Now if you want me to say that no gods are possible, I don't know if I'm willing to sign on the dotted line there. There are old god ideas that we can't explore with physics.



Actually, you can't go that far.

Thoughts are not airy nothings. They are the activity of a brain. If you want to propose that this universe is a brain, well, it sure doesn't look like one... maybe you have a mechanism to propose? If not, then perhaps I can also propose that it's a 1957 Ford Fairlane.

If you do propose that it's a brain of some sort, then obviously it can't be conscious of all of its own activity, so what is it conscious of?

If it's conscious of us, why don't we notice any mechanism?

If you want to propose a mind without a brain, how does that work? If you don't know how that works, then let me propose that the universe was created by a crystal that has no atoms in it.

Or maybe by "mind" you mean something different from what the word actually means, something that no one has ever imagined it could mean. In that case, the universe might also have been caused by Gary Coleman.

You may have noticed there's a pattern here.

All of the retreats go to nonsense, off to a Wonderland where the rules can produce any absurd idea you care to rattle off.

The condition becomes "as long as you accept that black can mean white...."

Just like I don't need to travel the entire universe, I don't need to know "what it is" in order to understand that god theory has failed. It persists, yes, no doubt about that, both the contrary-to-fact flavor and the de-defined flavor. But one is false, and the other isn't even a claim, so my only way to believe it is to stop being rational, and there be dragons.
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So, I assume that you can now prove idealism wrong? I've heard several people claim it; I've never seen anyone do it. Because you're going to have to do so in order to make this argument work.

You assume that mind can only occur through the action of neuron activity. That is simply not something that we know because we can't prove that materialism is correct. We certainly observe thought occurring through brain action, no question about it.

What we know, with certainty, is that thought occurs. We have experiences that tell us where thought occurs -- in our brains, through their function -- but we do not know that is an accurate accounting of the world. It could also be that everything we see, including the type of thinking we seem to do with our brains, is created in the mind of god. Idealism provides one type of pantheist god.

And, yes, you can propose any number of outlandish claims, but there are a very limited number of claims that can pass muster if we apply parsimony and examine fundamentals. We have two basic types of possible fundamental substance -- mind and matter -- with neutral thrown in and then promptly away. We can't tell which is responsible for what we see because we can't get down to determining fundamental levels like that. Consequently, the options for types of gods are extremely limited. They amount to the god of idealism (pantheism, in essence) or a god of Mind while the universe is made of matter. That's pretty much it as far as I can see. The latter, whether viewed as the deist god or a caretaker god, has a big problem, though, and it is the same problem that plagued Plato and many other philosophers. There just doesn't seem to be any way for such a god to interact with the universe.



You can't worship a thing you never heard of.

This is the error I've been trying to point out to you.

Now, the human brain is really good at accepting inconsistencies. Many Xians, for instance, believe absolutely that there is one God, and that Jesus is God and God the Father is God, and that Jesus is not God the Father, and that Jesus was a man. This is fine.

Go to the political threads and you'll see contradictions successfully ignored right and left, and read Drew Westen's "The Political Brain" and you'll find studies demonstrating how our brains pull off this trick.

So it's not surprising that people would worship and revere a god which, upon investigation, they also insist is beyond our understanding and undetectable by science. But their belief doesn't remove the contradiction.

If they are able to worship it, and it's not nothing, then it is something and it does something in our world, otherwise they could not know it, could never have guessed at it, could have no experience of it.

You can't simply cite these folks' beliefs and ignore that.

In fact, their thoughts and actions are perfectly explainable by our scientific understanding of the brain, within a matrix of broader understanding about the world that does not include gods and which has supplanted the earlier mythological understanding of the world which we now know to be false.
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I'm sorry, but that doesn't answer the theist. Anyone with one of these conceptions didn't come to their belief in god by direct observation -- not this type of god. So, it isn't as though they would have heard of it. Plato arrived at his conception through his own thought process concerning being. Same with Aristotle (though its somewhat arguable what conclusion he came to, aside from maybe a deist god, maybe no god). Same with many others. No need for interaction here -- the thought process of trying to understand why there is something instead of nothing led them to these beliefs. For Plato, the thought process of trying to reconcile Heraclitus and Parminides lead him to his concepts.


Of course the thought processes are explainable through our understanding of the brain. That does not make them wrong. The thought processes for understanding money is perfectly understandable but that doesn't stop it from being a shared delusion.


But see, we don't even have to worry about this, because there is no "extraneous entity" being proposed.

As it turns out over and over, what's being proposed is a string of letters that has nothing to serve as a label for. So we can save ourselves the worry.

It is impossible to find a thing which has no definition. Which means the thing will never be found, because it can never be found.

As soon as you clarify the definition so that you do get to something that really does distinguish a god from a not-god, the game goes to not-god. That's where it stands.
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First of all, this is just old, dead logical positivism. Secondly, you have simply stated outright that we go to not-god with any attempt at definition. Yet I've provided you with more than one definition. Idealism/Mind is something we simply cannot disprove (that is not just an empty string of letters; there is an entire philosophical movement behind it). A mind separate from the universe that created and shapes the course of the universe is another that cannot logically be disproved but I don't take seriously because it depends on magic. It could still exist, however.



Yeah, I probably misspoke there.

What I meant was that we've seen a regular progression, at different times in different cultures, of gods simply being part of the world-as-is (even if there's some sort of crossover point between their territory and ours) to being removed to unknowable spaces.
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OK, I think that's fine. But that's now just a sociological/cultural observation.


Now to the issue of worship. Once again, initially you said worthy of worship wasn't necessary; now you seem again to imply that it is. We know that people worship deist and pantheist and other versions of god. It doesn't matter if we don't think such gods exist as to the issue of whether or not people worship them because they do.

So, I will ask again, shouldn't worthy of worship be a part of the definition of god?

And my other point still stands. I do not think that you can make the strong statement that no gods exist. I still think you need to qualify it to not exist, evil, or inconsequential.
 
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annnnoid said:
This is a massive generalization and over-rationalization.




I’ve proposed some, Wasp has proposed some…you’ve ignored them. They are simply not-defined in a manner which your template can accommodate.





That does not, by definition, exclude the possibility of God.




I am surprised that you continually misrepresent these statements. Wasp is pointing out that no physicist worth the title would conclude that we have a conclusive understanding of fundamental reality…and many would suggest that we could be some distance from such an achievement (others actually believe it to be impossible by definition).

Point is, there is, if only theoretically, such a thing as fundamental reality. Everything exists so everything must be the result of something and we conclusively do not know what that something is because if we did we would know it and if there is one thing that physicists do know it is that they do not know what fundamental ‘something’ is.

We also do not know, nor do we have the capacity to know, all…or likely even some, God-conditions (except metaphorically…the ones you’ve rejected typically). Our perceptions are limited, our interpretive abilities are limited, our intuition is limited, our imagination is limited, our conceptual abilities are limited, our analytical abilities are limited…and our time in this virtually infinite geometry of space-time is ridiculously limited. The conditions we occupy are infinite…we are not (infinite), either physically or conceptually. There is absolutely no obstacle to suggesting that God is infinite, therefore beyond our ability to comprehend. Given that the universe is, at present, a big question mark, and given that our ability to understand everything is itself a big question mark, we must conclude that God could easily occupy this vast area of unknown. We cannot know that this is not the case without actually knowing what it is that we do not know. When / if we ever reach the point where we can conclusively say that there exist’s no unknowns and we have found no God…then we can conclusively claim that God does not exist. Until then all we can say with varying degrees of certainty (not absolute either) is that this or that conception of God is unlikely.





Might it be even remotely possible that your so-called ‘god theory’ is not definitive?

I’ll remind of you of what Atran said…again. You think it is trivial and irrelevant. It’s not. Take a look at that little quote in my sig. It’s from David Fincher. The guy who made movies like Fight Club and The Social Network. He is one of the most respected directors in the world…if not the most respected. He has to know what makes people tick or his movies flop and he gets no money to make another one (and his reputation disintegrates). This is a guy who makes his living applying the fundamental rules of human nature (which is exactly why he has to know what they are). The verities of life they’re called (don’t mean to provoke any skeptic heart attacks…but most movie people are utterly convinced that there is such a thing as ‘truth’ in life). ‘Something’ is in control of our behavior…it is exactly why we behave as we do (and not like wombats, or trees). It is not a thing that we ‘understand’ intellectually…or rationally. It is a thing we ‘know’. It is the epistemology that allows us to be human….with whatever degree of success we can achieve. As Atran pointed out…fundamentally, we are not rational creatures. As I’ve said…entirely legitimate conclusions can be reached entirely exclusive of any rational or scientific basis. You are looking for a rational template. Since one isn’t there, you create it yourself and simply ignore anything that challenges it.

That’s how I interpret your positions. You are just about the most dogmatically rational person I’ve ever encountered. That’s not meant to be an insult, just an observation. You have decided that you’ve defined everything not only adequately but accurately…despite Wasps painstaking efforts to point out the mistakes. Then you proceed to base all your arguments on these mistaken definitions.

If you want to understand how a Christian defines God…go and ask them.

Basically what you are saying…is that you have psychoanalyzed every believer alive or who has ever lived and accurately diagnosed their neurosis (or psychosis as the case may be). Does it not occur to you how massively arrogant this is? Does it not occur to you that you might just be wrong? Not to mention, from what I understand of your expertise, you do not even possess any training as a psychologist or psychiatrist…let alone any experience in the (choke) area of philosophy. Correct me if I’m wrong, but your expertise would appear to be in the hard sciences. Perhaps a Chomsky quote would be appropriate:

“On the ordinary problems of human life, science tells us very little, and scientists as people are surely no guide. In fact they are often the worst guide, because they often tend to focus, laser-like, on their professional interests and know very little about the world.”

…not very complimentary to the scientists of the world, but perhaps it shouldn’t be. Your efforts at reaching your own conclusions about some very substantial issues are certainly far in advance of most of those who take the time to post at JREF, and if that's what works for you, then good on ya mate! Might be helpful to step into someone else's shoes now and then. Often works for me....when I can manage it.
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Quite!
 
I will also repeat myself.

That's like saying getting rid of old television sets means getting rid of plasma televisions as well because one led to the other.
 
Daald said:
I think this was admitted to a while back and that the second definition is being used. You are objecting based on the first definition and the wires are getting crossed.
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Ok, and the second definition is dependent on what believers have understood God to be. From what I read on these boards, this God is not well understood and we end up with little more than a caricature.

No I mean don't name it X. Just name it anything and see what it does to your argument.

For example:
X is the precursor to our universe.
Anything is the precursor to our universe.

Where do mythical gods intersect with X?
Where do mythical gods intersect with anything?

God/X/Anything really stands for absolutely anything. So when you prove anything you have really proved nothing :)
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I don't see a point here, X is by definition outside our knowledge bubble(I include imagination in this bubble) and cannot be anything within the bubble (however it might correspond to/resemble something in the bubble).

God has well defined attributes, in the set (X) of things outside the bubble there may be anything including an X (a god like X) corresponding to God. We cannot say either way if X is there or not.
 
Belz... said:
He's not. "We can't prove it isn't" is not arguing in favour of something. He's also wrong.
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By the way Belz, if there is no substance as you say, what is doing the doing which physicists have detected with their instruments?

Is it nothing?
 
Piggy said:
Let me put it this way to the dead-enders....

If we know anything at all, we know there is no god.
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Sorry, there is no what?

Surely you can't know that something you don't know about doesn't exist.
 
punshhh said:
Ok, and the second definition is dependent on what believers have understood God to be. From what I read on these boards, this God is not well understood and we end up with little more than a caricature.

I don't see a point here, X is by definition outside our knowledge bubble(I include imagination in this bubble) and cannot be anything within the bubble (however it might correspond to/resemble something in the bubble).

God has well defined attributes, in the set (X) of things outside the bubble there may be anything including an X (a god like X) corresponding to God. We cannot say either way if X is there or not.
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God = X ???


Or not.
 
punshhh said:
By the way Belz, if there is no substance as you say, what is doing the doing which physicists have detected with their instruments?

Is it nothing?
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Reality. You should try it as a refreshing change of pace.
 
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