Are Agnostics Welcome Here?

[tsig]

Sorry, there is no what?

Surely you can't know that something you don't know about doesn't exist.

Yet you seem to know all about something you don't know about that doesn't exist.

 

[dafydd]

Yet you seem to know all about something you don't know about that doesn't exist.

We will never get through to him about that. It's these pesky unknown unknown unknowns from beyond the event horizon of the formless manifesting themselves as fairies in the foliage again.

 

[punshhh]

Or that it does exist.

Yes.

Nice photo by the way, did you see The Who live?

 

[Belz...]

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?

I've already answered that question several times in this thread. Get to reading.

 

[Multivac]

To be fair, it can be said that all of us have a deep desire for there to be "something out there". For one, the sole idea is just too cool not to prefer it over there being nothing.

Not sure if you mean god or other intelligent life. If you mean god, then you are wrong, many people have no desire for there to be a god.

Additionally, not a single one of us really knows of the existence of a Higher Being. So in that respect, we are all Agnostic. It just so happens some of us "think" we know there actually is something out there. But that is just our deep instinctive desire for there to be something out there, making us believe what we prefer to believe.

I am an atheist, not an agnostic.

So from that point of view we are all agnostic, and we all, in one way or another, wish there was something else there. Something that's fascinating, interesting and cool.

But we not all agnostic. Many are atheists and have no need for god. If you mean intelligent life, then yes, that would be cool and fascinating.

So from that point of view, we are all like you.

No. We aren't all like the OP.

 

[Daald]

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.

Not even close The second definition is simply that the mythological god has failed to be proven and hence I will proceed to claim no god just as I claim no leprechaun etc. When proof is offered the conclusion is changed. Another words it is a tentative answer until the evidence comes in. A null position, whatever you want to call it. God doesn't have to be understood by the non believers. It is the believers job to present the evidence and make it understood. Until that point "no god".

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.

The point is that you are proving anything. You are using god as a variable where you can fit anything including its contradiction. This is evidently a contradiction. If the same proof proves (X) and (~X) and anything else then you are not making sense. Obviously there is some answer but you are not proving a single answer. You are attempting to prove every answer.

 

[Leumas]

As usual you put a strong case for refuting the god of religion. I'm inclined to agree with you,

Excellent….that is all I need…. I am glad that we both agree that any Gods as defined by all religions are BOGUS.


That is a good start....now for the rest...

but you appear to be confusing what I'm saying about hypothetical gods with the god of religion.

I am not discussing the god of religion(the mythological gods). I am proposing a hypothetical god the non-existence of which cannot be proven. Wether it is a God of hindsight or of the gaps is irrelevant to my point.

The problem with this kind of thinking is that it opens the door for ANYTHING and EVERYTHING…. I mean why not a hypothetical ----fill in the blank--- ??

If it cannot be proven or disproven then it is NOTHING….. nothing is nothing and thus cannot be proven or disproven….so what you are in fact claiming is a NOTHING.

If it can occupy a gap(any gap) it cannot be proven to not exist, end of story.

And we all know there gaps including the one our entire known universe inhabits.

As you know from history, the human race assigned gods to every gap that ever existed. Moreover, as you also know from history, as these gaps became tighter and tighter and less prevalent all the gods that were crammed in them disappeared in a buff of logic and scientific knowledge.

So all you are in fact doing is claiming a god that will one day have the same fate as all of his predecessors.

Notice how the elusiveness of the gods is in direct correlation and their usefulness and numbers are in inverse correlation to the levels of sophistication and knowledge of humanity.

So the more and more we evolve in knowledge and scientific ability the more ELUSIVE the gods become and the LESS they become…..so finally we will end up with ZERO INCOMPREHENSIBLE USELESS GODS.


So yes….you can keep talking about an IMPROVABLE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING “hypothetical god” that is progressively becoming INDEFINABLE and USELESS and of course due to all this nobody can disprove it either….just like no one can disprove that we are living in a crystal ball universe acting as a paper weight in some Alien’s office.

 

[dafydd]

Yes.

Nice photo by the way, did you see The Who live?

Three times, many moons ago.

 

[The Norseman]

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.

Which ones are well understood then?

 

[Piggy]

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!

Of course you can suggest it's a fallacy.

But it would be much better if you simply said it's a fallacy and explained why.

Pointing to things we don't yet know is really no argument against the failure of failed ideas. Seriously, it's not.

Obviously, there is some sort of creator.

Obviously, too, it's not a god, or else somebody around here would argue for a god who can be said to be real without imposing the condition that real be indistinguishable from not real.

But no one will, because to actually make it a bone fide god that exists in a way that's not the same as not existing, you end up making disprovable statements, and we know where that leads.

And yes, I used that phrase intentionally, but it doesn't make me a philosopher. Unless figuring out when to leave home to get to the movies on time is philosophy, because I never do anything that's substantially different from that.

If we know anything at all, we know there are no gods.

By which I mean this... we can only propose that gods may be "real", may "exist", by setting up conditions under which everything we know can be contradicted with impunity.

So yeah, if we know anything at all, we know there are no gods.

 

[Piggy]

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.

No, I don't believe I have ignored them.

I missed several pages recently, tho, so please, if you've ever proposed a god that doesn't exist somewhere along that continuum from false to undefined, I'd appreciate it if you'd post it again.

I mean, look, from where I sit, it would be a much more interesting universe if it had gods in it. It would be an amazing thing. It would be more amazing, in fact, than when I discovered relativity, and that's a damn high bar!

And on top of that, who wouldn't want the opportunity to live in paradise and see people you love again?

So I've got every reason to want my thinking to be wrong.

Trouble is, I've thought about this for decades now, and every possible "out" for god has turned out to be a bust.

There have been many times over the years I've thought, "Oh, wait a minute", but it's never panned out.

If your idea holds water, then I'll be tickled to death.

 

[dafydd]

If your idea holds water, then I'll be tickled to death.

Too many holes in it.

 

[Piggy]

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

Nor does it, by definition, exclude the possibility of a six-legged dog.

But that was my point in the post you cite.

You can't throw physics at me to save your debunked god theory, because physics hasn't found any gods, or any evidence of any gods, and gods don't form part of any current strain of research, except by cranks of course.

Who cares if it doesn't exclude it, that's not my point.

 

[Limbo]

Trouble is, I've thought about this for decades now, and every possible "out" for god has turned out to be a bust.

So how did it go for you when you tried walking the path of individuation? Did you meet God?

 

[Piggy]

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.

And what I'm pointing out to you is the simple fact that we don't need to know "what it is" in order to put the kibosh on god, for the same reason we don't need to explore the entire universe.

Because the fact is, when we did finally examine the cosmos and the fabric of reality, what we found didn't comport with the claims of the theists... at least, with those who hadn't already come to believe in a no-thing god.

The questions still to be answered in physics have nothing to do with god. You seem to propose that god might be hiding in there somewhere, in those unanswered questions, but in doing so you remove god from the world we live in, the one we experience, the one in which we know everything we can possibly know.

Do that, and you're left with two options as a believer.

Either you claim that god works within this world, in which case you're going to propose something testable which we already know will fail because it's already failed, or else you claim that god is apart from this world, in which case you claim to believe in something you couldn't possibly have any idea of.

What's beyond our limitations doesn't matter, because god is a human concept... that's what we're testing here... we're asking if that corresponds to something real, or does not.

If you want to propose concepts beyond our limitations, well, that's fine, but since we obviously can't know what those are, we can't have conversations about them, but there's been a running conversation on god for thousands of years, so it's pretty damn apparent that god isn't in that category.

You're trying to toggle back and forth between a god that might actually be real and one that we can have no concept of, just to suit your argument, and I don't think you even realize you're doing it. You seem to have accepted that these two can be the same thing, but they can't.

 

[Piggy]

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.

I agree with Fincher. And coincidentally, I make my living on much the same terms he does, in a different field, although I don't make nearly as much money at it.

And yes, I agree that I'm hyper-rational. I don't see that as a problem.

But please, don't misunderstand my statements about what people believe in and what people worship.

I may well have botched the telling, but I'd hope it's fairly clear by now... no one prays for the deistic god to get him out of the torture cell, or to remove a child's cancer.

But you see, that is the god that could be real. That is the god that could exist.

These other gods, the ineffable ones, the unimaginable ones, the deistic ones, the one which someone someday may propose, or whatever... not only can nobody say what they're supposed to be -- which in itself means we can never find them -- not only do they render the terms "real" and "exist" meaningless, but they also require us to accept that people are believing in and discussing something which they could never have heard of.

How much is too much for you?

That's what I want to ask at this point.

Am I being relentlessly rational, hell yes.

This is a skeptics' board. Damn right I am.

And I don't have to get into every believer's head to do it.

It doesn't matter what each person believes, because what matters is the latitude of belief you can have when it comes to god, and that scale, as we've seen, slides between false and undefined.

So on the one hand, I don't necessarily have to step in their shoes.

It just so happens that I often have, given where I live, how I've lived, and who my family are.

But it's not about my personal experience. It's about what makes sense, and about what can only make sense if we accept that nonsense can make sense.

 

[Piggy]

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.

Here's what I was referring to, although it's many pages back now. You proposed an intelligent manipulator as a god that created this universe, which in its simplest form is the grad student god, then when asked what made it a god instead of a hyperdimensional grad student, you proposed that it was immortal, which only meant that it (and presumably things like it) simply didn't die in that hyperuniverse, which to my mind didn't make it any more godlike from our perspective than it already was.

But regarding these two ideas of god, no, I'm not arguing that anything would be inconsequential.

If you're talking about a god "that is spirit/mind and whose actions we see in the universe as the laws of physics" then you're going to have to explain to me what that means, if it means anything distinguishable from the kind of brute physics that has replaced god.

I can tell you, though, you're in trouble as soon as you get to putting a slash between spirit and mind.

On the other hand, if you're talking about a "deistic god" which is "not within the universe" then you're supposedly talking about something you could never have even heard of, so that can't possibly be what we're talking about.

In either case, there's nothing to be consequential or inconsequential. It doesn't even rise to that.

 

[Piggy]

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.

But only the mythological gods could ever have been real. They're the only ones that had a chance, the original gods.

It turned out, they weren't real after all.

Imagining new things which are undisprovable has been proffered as a solution. Not just now, but in quite a few times and places.

The problem there is that, if a thing really is undisprovable, then it can't actually do or be what gods have always done and been, and it can only be real if you accept that literally anything you care to think up could also be real.

Even worse, if it refers to a thing of ancient origin, it can't be anything but a Humpty-Dumpty definition.

So no, that's not a solution.

I haven't seen anyone yet propose a god that could really exist, was distinguishable from not-god, and wasn't contrary to observation.

And there's a reason for that.

 

[Piggy]

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.

You can't possibly mean anything by that middle sentence in the above paragraph.

And I'm not just throwing that out there. I'm dead serious, that's a meaningless sentence.

Unless you have some notion of what such a mind might be, which you don't claim to.

Like I said, if you want to claim that the universe is a mind (whether god's or anyone else's) that doesn't need some sort of brain, then you have to allow me to assert that it's a 1957 Ford Fairlane which doesn't need car parts.

For real, is there an argument that doesn't take us to Wonderland, or not?

ETA: I just read that and it sounds really aggressive. I wasn't actually feeling aggressive when I wrote it. It still says what I want to say, although I killed the last sentence. Anyway, please do read it in an offhand tone, as it was composed.

 

[Piggy]

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.

You can't just ignore the referent.

If they had an idea of anything, then they had an idea of something.

If we're really talking about a thing beyond our understanding, knowledge, and comprehension, then we're not talking about anything we can talk about or know of in any way.

The whole notion is absurd on its face.