Does atheism differ from agnosticism?

[Apology]

A newborn octopus has, "...the potential to hear..."? Mind explaining how that would happen, short of a drastic evolutionary change that would likely result in a new species?



Actually, you cited a dictionary definition to support your argument. Yoink then cited another dictionary definition for the exact purpose of demonstrating to you that arguing from a dictionary definition is pointless. And so you went to Wikipedia to find another definition - but not only is this going right back to square one for you, you mistook a term used in physics for a theological term.

Yoink and I don't care what the dictionary says. We just wish that you'd stop using it to support your arguments as though it was the be all and end all of things.



I believe the world can be sorted into two simple groups in a number of ways. Male and not male. White and not white. Shorter than 100cm and not shorter than 100cm. Theist and not theist.

The fact that you don't like that the word that means "not theist" is "atheist" will not change it from being so. The fact that you don't like that there is a dichotomy will not turn a true dichotomy into a false one.

And I don't give two bits about the Raelians. Do they believe in god? No. So they're atheists - it doesn't stop them from also being complete nutcases.



Ugh. Would you kindly go out and actually do some research into Buddhism? Perhaps visit an ashram and talk to the people there?

Whether you like it or not, Buddhists can be theists or athiests. I personally know some atheist Buddhists. I also know some theist Buddhists. That you don't like this does not make it incorrect.

Confucianism is another system that, if one considers it a religion (it is often classed as a 'secular ethical system' rather than a religion, which somewhat seems to be talking around matters a bit) could contain both atheist adherents as well as theist adherents.

Put simply: You can be a religious atheist. Deal with it.

I prefer a more platonic style of argument than you do. I don't feel the need to carry on. I'm sure that there are other people here who can disagree with me while still being civil about it. The lack of civility makes me waver from a model agnostic into an agnostic apathist, so you can see that I actually do change my mind and my allegiances a lot.

 

[Apology]

If you're really bored though, here's a link to a theistic Buddhist group. I did study Buddhism.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/AMIDA.HTM

 

[Mobyseven]

I prefer a more platonic style of argument than you do. I don't feel the need to carry on. I'm sure that there are other people here who can disagree with me while still being civil about it. The lack of civility makes me waver from a model agnostic into an agnostic apathist, so you can see that I actually do change my mind and my allegiances a lot.

Apology, with all due respect you are on a skeptics' forum. There is more to civility than kind words and courtesy - which I have tried to offer you in generous-sized portions. On this forums, if you wish to be civil it is important to respect the rules of debate. You have consistently built up strawmen to attack, dodged questions, and lied about the context in which some arguments have occurred. Believe me when I say that I'm not the less civil person in this discussion.

If you're really bored though, here's a link to a theistic Buddhist group. I did study Buddhism.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/AMIDA.HTM

See, this is what I'm talking about - you're trying to attack one of my positions but in doing so you support my position. I've been saying from the very beginning of this discussion that Buddhists can be theists.

Also, I'd be interested in some more information on Amida Buddhism - a read of the article you linked to as well as the Wikipedia entry don't seem to hint at theism - it seems that Amitabha (Amida Butsu) is considered a reincarnation of Gautama who created a "Pure Land" that can be reached by anyone. Although he created a new land, he is still considered a reincarnation of the Buddha, and would therefore still be a man, and not a god, regardless of his being worshipped.

However, as I said that is just from a very basic amount of research, and any more information you have on the topic would be well appreciated.

 

[Apology]

Apology, with all due respect you are on a skeptics' forum. There is more to civility than kind words and courtesy - which I have tried to offer you in generous-sized portions. On this forums, if you wish to be civil it is important to respect the rules of debate. You have consistently built up strawmen to attack, dodged questions, and lied about the context in which some arguments have occurred. Believe me when I say that I'm not the less civil person in this discussion.



See, this is what I'm talking about - you're trying to attack one of my positions but in doing so you support my position. I've been saying from the very beginning of this discussion that Buddhists can be theists.

Also, I'd be interested in some more information on Amida Buddhism - a read of the article you linked to as well as the Wikipedia entry don't seem to hint at theism - it seems that Amitabha (Amida Butsu) is considered a reincarnation of Gautama who created a "Pure Land" that can be reached by anyone. Although he created a new land, he is still considered a reincarnation of the Buddha, and would therefore still be a man, and not a god, regardless of his being worshipped.

However, as I said that is just from a very basic amount of research, and any more information you have on the topic would be well appreciated.

You have outright attacked me in here and other threads in an unreasonably uncivil fashion and I'm no longer willing to debate with you any longer. This is the heart of the reason why you're unable to convince anyone; they simply get tired of talking to you due to your general incivility. This debate is worthless in my opinion as I no longer care what you think or care to convince you one way or another due to the same incivility.

 

[Apology]

I feel justified in not responding to anyone who can't adhere to the rules of debate and discussion that are generally adhered to by high-school students in debate clubs. Here is a summary of them for your perusal:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cl...ate&sig=AV4Jl8OEpE5auiCygnRaqnIYKOM#PPA125,M1

I'm not going to be drawn into a contentious slap fight. It's silly.

 

[Mobyseven]

You have outright attacked me in here and other threads in an unreasonably uncivil fashion and I'm no longer willing to debate with you any longer. This is the heart of the reason why you're unable to convince anyone; they simply get tired of talking to you due to your general incivility. This debate is worthless in my opinion as I no longer care what you think or care to convince you one way or another due to the same incivility.

Coming from you, that certainly seems rich. I'd like to see some examples of this "outright attacking" - your attitude in this thread reminds me of countless other trolls who would feign offense whenever somebody found a flaw in their position.

You seem to think that I give a damn about your opinion. Please understand that I don't, at least not in the sense that you think. You would like to believe that your opinion is somehow sacred, and the fact that the people here assign a different label to you than how you label yourself has offended you - you have labelled yourself 'agnostic', and then you come here to find out that it does not mean what you think it means, and that (shock, horror!) you are implicitly an atheist due to your lack of belief in god.

You may certainly feel genuinely offended as well - such is a natural reaction when one has been building up and tearing down strawmen the entire thread, only to be informed that we won't fall for that sort of thing here.

I would suggest that you grow up and get a thicker skin, because if having your opinions challenged is offensive to you, you're not likely to have a very fun time anywhere on the internet, nor in real life.

I feel justified in not responding to anyone who can't adhere to the rules of debate and discussion that are generally adhered to by high-school students in debate clubs. Here is a summary of them for your perusal:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cl...ate&sig=AV4Jl8OEpE5auiCygnRaqnIYKOM#PPA125,M1

I'm not going to be drawn into a contentious slap fight. It's silly.

See, this is just juvenile. You baselessly accuse me of not being able to debate at a high school standard, post a copy of the rules for parliamentary debate, and then say, "I'm not going to be drawn into a contentious slap fight." You're like the kid who bares his ass to the others on the playground and then wonders why he gets beaten up.

You're not worth the time anymore, Apology.

 

[Belz...]

Gee, Apology, by now I'd think you'd have everybody on ignore.

Why, there should be a whining subforum.

 

[Apology]

Gee, Apology, by now I'd think you'd have everybody on ignore.

Why, there should be a whining subforum.

I don't have anyone on ignore because I'm not attempting to deny them their right to speak, I'm just defending my right to not continue further debate with someone who doesn't follow basic rules of decorum in debate.

Of course I can't prove what atheists believe. Look at this list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Atheist_philosophers

At the very top it admits that some people on the list may be more appropriately described as agnostics. Some of them actually were members of other groups that did not call themselves atheists, so they are presumptively included on this list. If I determine that such a person did indeed, at one time, say "God does not exist" then it hardly matters, since they called themselves a "Secularist" and might not be an atheist at all.

I have the same problem with the list of agnostics (there is no list of agnostic philosophers):

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

I'm certainly not going to assume Darwin was an agnostic when he was a member of the Anglican church. I'm going to assume that he was an Anglican, since by being a member of the Anglican Church, he said so. Both of these lists are foolish. Few of the philosophers even addressed the issue of whether or not God existed in the first place. To suggest that an hour or two should be enough time to solve this problem is to have a basic misunderstanding of the complexity of the problem. An hour or two is not even a quarter of the time one would need in order to research the beliefs of each person on either list.

I'd be interested in hearing a nice, non-contentious argument in favor of implicit atheism, since that is what I most strongly disagree with, but I doubt that's going to happen here. Even though I would most likely disagree with it, I think I could manage to refrain from name-calling in order to discuss it.

 

[CFLarsen]

I don't have anyone on ignore because I'm not attempting to deny them their right to speak...

Why would putting someone on ignore deny them their right to speak?

 

[Yoink]

I've no idea if this affects your argument at all, but if you lack money, it can mean that you don't have enough, not necessarily no money. As in, "I lack the money I need to buy that car".

"I lack the money I need to buy that car." "I don't have the money I need to buy that car." Yes--stunning difference.

 

[Yoink]

I'm not going to bother responding to you any more. Since you can't make a civil argument, I think it's pointless to try. Your attitude is much worse than any disagreement I have with the message that you're trying to convey. I don't come here to be called an idiot, I come here to discuss things rationally. I will continue to do so with others who can maintain a civil bearing and attack the argument without attacking the arguer, but I don't feel a need to respond to you any longer. I'm not putting you on ignore; I'm doing it the old fashioned way by not responding to your posts any longer. I'm actually sorry it's come to this, since I've managed to agree to disagree with other atheists in this thread, but oh, no, that's not for you. Oh well.

FWIW, Apology, I do apologize for calling you an "idiot." I was just getting frustrated with the way you keep shifting the grounds of your argument, refuse to actually listen to what people are saying to you, post links to websites which you haven't bothered to read etc. As Mobyseven put it, very nicely, there's the social etiquette of please-and-thank-you (or, you know, not calling people "idiot" ) but there is also an argumentative etiquette, where I do think you've transgressed pretty badly.

That said, I apologize again for the "idiot" crack. I also will bow out from the argument, at this point. Whatever else this thread has demonstrated it has shown pretty conclusively that the terms "atheist," "agnostic" and "theist" are hopelessly tainted by people's social prejudices and fears and are utterly useless for strict philosophical purposes of defining actual positions in relationship to the question of the existence of a god or gods. I think from now on in discussions of this type I'll just avoid the labels and say "I'm someone who feels there is insufficient evidence to compel any belief in a god or gods" and leave the labels aside.

 

[Apology]

Why would putting someone on ignore deny them their right to speak?

I'm not sure of my logic on this one. I may be prejudiced in favor of not using the ignore function on forums. I'm not against their basic right to speak, I'm in favor of my basic right to not have dialogue with them. It seems like that ideal would be more effectively realized by simply not responding to those posts or posters that I feel are unnecessarily uncivil.

Also, I've seen the ignore function over-used on other forums. I don't like seeing threads that look like this:

Poster 1: Yes I agree with you entirely.
Poster 2: <ignored>
Poster 3: <ignored>
Poster 4: I have a question about what you said. Blah blah blah?
Poster 5: <ignored>

and so on. There was one poster on another forum who had over 100 users on ignore. He might have ignored everyone except the system did not allow for a user to ignore moderators or administrators.

If I thought I needed to put 100 users on ignore, I'd just stop posting there, personally.

 

[CFLarsen]

I'm not sure of my logic on this one. I may be prejudiced in favor of not using the ignore function on forums. I'm not against their basic right to speak, I'm in favor of my basic right to not have dialogue with them. It seems like that ideal would be more effectively realized by simply not responding to those posts or posters that I feel are unnecessarily uncivil.

Also, I've seen the ignore function over-used on other forums. I don't like seeing threads that look like this:

Poster 1: Yes I agree with you entirely.
Poster 2: <ignored>
Poster 3: <ignored>
Poster 4: I have a question about what you said. Blah blah blah?
Poster 5: <ignored>

and so on. There was one poster on another forum who had over 100 users on ignore. He might have ignored everyone except the system did not allow for a user to ignore moderators or administrators.

If I thought I needed to put 100 users on ignore, I'd just stop posting there, personally.

That doesn't answer the question: Why would putting someone on ignore deny them their right to speak?

 

[Apology]

That doesn't answer the question: Why would putting someone on ignore deny them their right to speak?

It doesn't; not really. I feel they have a basic right to say that I'm an idiot or a liar. I also have a basic right to not listen. I think Fred Phelps has a basic right to say I'm going to hell, but I'm under no obligation to stand there and let him berate me.

I probably am just prejudiced against the ignore function because of the way it makes threads look. I've seen screenshots of 30-post pages, all different posters, with only one or two posts that aren't on "ignore". In my opinion it is unreadable. If a forum's members are so abhorrent to me that I need to have a lot of people on ignore, it's better to not participate in that forum.

The only person on any forum that I've ever ignored is someone who posted in annoying, cutesy-wootsey phonetically-spelled baby talk. That was by far more unreadable that just seeing <ignored>. I felt entirely justified then because it wasn't an issue of disagreement with the poster really. Eventually the moderation team on that forum made that poster stop with the baby-talk thing, and I removed that person from my ignore list.

 

[bignickel]

This always strikes me as a silly argument. An omnipotent god, by definition, is able to compel (and justify) absolute belief in his/her existence. To claim "strong agnosticism" is to in fact claim knowledge of the types of divinity that might or might not exist, and of their limits. If there's a god he doesn't have to persuade me that he exists (changing water into wine etc.), he can just make it so that I know he exists ("hey, presto!").

Since you've indicated you're bowing out, I'm not sure you'll see my response.

I don't understand your problems with the argument. If you have any creature (god/s, aliens, MIB, et al) who can change your brain wave patterns, then, afterwards, sure, you'd be a gnostic after that. But that doesn't mean that the agnostic 'standards of evidence' have magically been willed away. I'm thinking of the final chapters of 1984 here: when Winston sees that 2 + 2 = 5, does that really mean that 2 + 2 = 5? Or has he walked away from the 'standards of mathematics'?

I could be reading your thread wrong, of course; if I suddenly heard voices speaking to me and making me see bushes on fire: I'd assume I was mad, or at the very least, suffering from visual and audio hallucinations. Past that... aliens.

 

[Yoink]

Since you've indicated you're bowing out, I'm not sure you'll see my response.

I don't understand your problems with the argument. If you have any creature (god/s, aliens, MIB, et al) who can change your brain wave patterns, then, afterwards, sure, you'd be a gnostic after that. But that doesn't mean that the agnostic 'standards of evidence' have magically been willed away. I'm thinking of the final chapters of 1984 here: when Winston sees that 2 + 2 = 5, does that really mean that 2 + 2 = 5? Or has he walked away from the 'standards of mathematics'?

I could be reading your thread wrong, of course; if I suddenly heard voices speaking to me and making me see bushes on fire: I'd assume I was mad, or at the very least, suffering from visual and audio hallucinations. Past that... aliens.

No, I'm not saying that perfect illusion=truth. I'm saying that an omnipotent god could, ex hypothesi, meet all standards of "true belief." That is, it isn't just that he could fiddle with our brain waves (as a very-powerful alien could), he could make it not only that we know, but that we know that what we know is true. How? Well, duh, he's omnipotent. You're still trying to have a bob each way on this: "but, if I was able to nip back to my pre-revelation existence I wouldn't be able to have it proven to me that my post-revelation knowledge was true." Sure, but that's not the point. We cannot know that there is no such thing as a god who is capable of making us fully and completely know of his divinity. Thus the claims of strong agnosticism are inherently absurd.

It seems to me that both "strong agnostics" and 'strong atheists" have more in common with "believers" than "nonbelievers." "Strong agnostics" are actually building on a long theological tradition to do with God's necessary unknowability (now we see through a glass darkly, then face to face etc). They have good arguments to make about particular imagined gods. There are all sorts of good reasons to argue that it is important for the Christian god not to reveal himself (although it makes for some problems when it comes to Christ's miracles etc.--which were supposed to be proof of his divinity). But as soon as you open this out to gods in general the argument becomes absurd. If god can be a mean-minded prankster, for example, then there's no reason that he shouldn't hide himself for a few billion years and then pop up and go "hey boys, I'm here--and now I'll make you all certain of that fact--shazam!"

 

[Egg]

"I lack the money I need to buy that car." "I don't have the money I need to buy that car." Yes--stunning difference.

You call roll your eyes at me if you like, but you clearly compared "lack" to "has no", not "don't have".

 

[Yoink]

You call roll your eyes at me if you like, but you clearly compared "lack" to "has no", not "don't have".

Oh for the love of...

What is the difference that you see between "has no" and "don't have"?????

"He has no money to buy a car." "He lacks money to buy a car." "He does not have the money to buy a car."

You're just grasping at straws here.

To say "I lack belief in God' is EXACTLY the same as to say "I have no belief in god" AND to say "I don't have a belief in god."

If you claim that there is a difference, please spell it out.

 

[Apology]

FWIW, Apology, I do apologize for calling you an "idiot." I was just getting frustrated with the way you keep shifting the grounds of your argument, refuse to actually listen to what people are saying to you, post links to websites which you haven't bothered to read etc. As Mobyseven put it, very nicely, there's the social etiquette of please-and-thank-you (or, you know, not calling people "idiot" ) but there is also an argumentative etiquette, where I do think you've transgressed pretty badly.

That said, I apologize again for the "idiot" crack. I also will bow out from the argument, at this point. Whatever else this thread has demonstrated it has shown pretty conclusively that the terms "atheist," "agnostic" and "theist" are hopelessly tainted by people's social prejudices and fears and are utterly useless for strict philosophical purposes of defining actual positions in relationship to the question of the existence of a god or gods. I think from now on in discussions of this type I'll just avoid the labels and say "I'm someone who feels there is insufficient evidence to compel any belief in a god or gods" and leave the labels aside.

I accept your apology. This is a complex issue that can't be solved in a single thread. It was foolish to try and "prove" what atheists believe. I can't even determine who is an atheist and who is not without reading their work, and internet searches turn up a lot of chaff that must be sorted through. It was my mistake to take the challenge in the first place.

I'm glad I didn't use the ignore function or I would have missed this post. I'm greatly relieved that we can agree to disagree on some things. We also seem to agree that the definitions are useless. I apologize for my own conduct.

 

[Egg]

Oh for the love of...

What is the difference that you see between "has no" and "don't have"?????

"He has no money to buy a car." "He lacks money to buy a car." "He does not have the money to buy a car."

You're just grasping at straws here.

To say "I lack belief in God' is EXACTLY the same as to say "I have no belief in god" AND to say "I don't have a belief in god."

If you claim that there is a difference, please spell it out.

There's an implication of "not enough" or "something missing", where "has no" is just zero and carries no such implication.

The guy who lacks the money for a car, could be just $1 short and still lack the money to buy a car.

In terms of belief, if you chose to use the scale Dawkins suggests, lacking the belief to be a theist could be said to be anywhere on that scale below theist. No belief could be said to be pretty much at the point where he suggests it's the same as "belief in no".

In some contexts, lack could mean to not have, but one wouldn't usually use the word there.

I know it probably seems petty, but there have been plenty of disagreements from people having a slightly different understanding of the language being used (which has just been emphasised in this thread).