The Free Talk Live BBS
Free Talk Live => General => Topic started by: Diogenes The Cynic on October 08, 2009, 08:15:09 PM
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I understand the standpoint the standpoint of Atheism. A person doesn't believe in G-d, and therefore lives life according to how he or she thinks is best in light of that belief.
I understand the standpoint of a theist as well. A person believes in G-d and lives life in accordance to what they think G-d expects of them.
What I don't understand is the standpoint of an agnostic. From what I have observed they live their lives no differently then atheists, but if they were true agnostics, they would hedge their bets and take Pascals Wager.
For a true agnostic, one who thinks G-ds existence is ambiguous, they would have little philosophical inclination to object to performing religious ritual. If they had strong moral objection to the performance of religious ritual, then they would be effectively atheist, wouldn't they?
Your thoughts?
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I have no objection, unless force is being initiated.
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I dunno man, I think agnosticism makes more sense than Atheism.
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I dunno man, I think agnosticism makes more sense than Atheism.
Yes but beyond that, if a person was in actually honestly agnostic, wouldnt they have an incentive to take Pascals Wager?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager
Unless theyre being dishonest about being agnostic and are in fact just lazy, or something else.
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I can't choose what to believe or not believe. I have to face evidence for my beliefs to change.
The bottom line is, I don't know. I can't make myself believe something my subconscious tells me is at least partially untrue.
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What I don't understand is the standpoint of an agnostic. From what I have observed they live their lives no differently then atheists, but if they were true agnostics, they would hedge their bets and take Pascals Wager.
For a true agnostic, one who thinks G-ds existence is ambiguous, they would have little philosophical inclination to object to performing religious ritual. If they had strong moral objection to the performance of religious ritual, then they would be effectively atheist, wouldn't they?
Your thoughts?
First, Pascals Wager is bullshit. There are many different religions that all say you will go to the bad afterlife if you worship other gods. Therefore you're better off just living a good life and not devoting your life to the improvable possibility of after life. Well you're better off not believing in superstitions but you can't have everything.
Your shit about following rituals is impossible to follow in practice. Many religions say you don't go to the good afterlife if you aren't buried in the right way, therefore its impossible to be buried in more than one "right" way. Even within a religion there are sects that disagree with what makes you go to heaven and hell, often that leads to contradiction, meaning picking heaven for one sect means hell for another.
Therefore Pascals Wager is fucking retarded since by trying to follow any one religion you are potentially simultaneously enraging dozens of others, not to mention some religions have literally millions of gods.
IMO Most Agnostics are just Atheists who are afraid/confused of the label.
Atheism means lack of belief.
Any answer to the question "do you believe in God?" thats not yes, including "I don't know", means you're an atheist.
Gnosticism refers to claims of knowledge. You can be a Agnostic Theist. I.e. someone who believes in a god but doesn't claim to know it exists.
I've never met an Atheist who claims to 100% know for a certainty there are no gods. That level of absolute certainty is useless. However most Atheists will under practical definitions, actively believe there is no god, just as other theists actively disbelieve other contradictory religions, and just how every sane person disbelieves in Santa's existence. (yes, I just went there)
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I call myself an agnostic, rather than an atheist, because I haven't decided for sure that a higher power doesn't exist--it's that I just don't care one way or another.
Are you Bigfoot agnostic, Russels Teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russels_teapot) agnostic, and Tooth Fairy agnostic aswell?
edit: Either I just dropped such a powerful knowledge bomb that Elitist Bitch has rethought her position, Or I've pulled some sort of dick move and I'm about to get a post-post verbal smackdown.
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First, Pascals Wager is bullshit. There are many different religions that all say you will go to the bad afterlife if you worship other gods. Therefore you're better off just living a good life and not devoting your life to the improvable possibility of after life. Well you're better off not believing in superstitions but you can't have everything.
Your shit about following rituals is impossible to follow in practice. Many religions say you don't go to the good afterlife if you aren't buried in the right way, therefore its impossible to be buried in more than one "right" way. Even within a religion there are sects that disagree with what makes you go to heaven and hell, often that leads to contradiction, meaning picking heaven for one sect means hell for another.
Therefore Pascals Wager is fucking retarded since by trying to follow any one religion you are potentially simultaneously enraging dozens of others, not to mention some religions have literally millions of gods.
IMO Most Agnostics are just Atheists who are afraid/confused of the label.
Atheism means lack of belief.
Any answer to the question "do you believe in God?" thats not yes, including "I don't know", means you're an atheist.
Gnosticism refers to claims of knowledge. You can be a Agnostic Theist. I.e. someone who believes in a god but doesn't claim to know it exists.
I've never met an Atheist who claims to 100% know for a certainty there are no gods. That level of absolute certainty is useless. However most Atheists will under practical definitions, actively believe there is no god, just as other theists actively disbelieve other contradictory religions, and just how every sane person disbelieves in Santa's existence. (yes, I just went there)
I wonder what percentage of your posts begin with x ......is bullshit.
Pascals Wager is superficial belief, and in that sense, its not really real, but from a cost-benefit analysis, to a true agnostic, it makes sense.
The whole "many religions" argument doesn't sway me. You could theoretically reason what you think is best. Everyone has critical thinking abilities, right?
I agree with your assessment of most agnostics really being atheists.
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Some people just can't take a position on any issue. These are the ones who mark "undecided" on all of those surveys.
"Do you favor death? Mark Y for Yes, N for No or U for undecided." Some people will always mark the U.
"Do you believe in a deity?" Again, some people will answer, "Uh--I don't know."
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One does not need to have all the answers in the world. Nor take a position on everything. Some things are too complicated for a human to understand. Because our minds can only deal with patterns. I think agnostics understand that the concept or existence of a god(s) is just too big of a question for a human comprehend.
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I wonder what percentage of your posts begin with x ......is bullshit.
Lots
Pascals Wager is superficial belief, and in that sense, its not really real, but from a cost-benefit analysis, to a true agnostic, it makes sense.
The whole "many religions" argument doesn't sway me. You could theoretically reason what you think is best. Everyone has critical thinking abilities, right?
WTF? for this post I'm going to be mostly emphasizing in caps
Pascals wager says that since believing in god will get you to heaven, then you might aswell do it because the penalty for not believing is high, and the costs for believing are so low, except IT IGNORES DOZENS OF OTHER RELIGIONS.
Unless you can prove to me that 1 religion is true and all others are false, then it is SPECTACULARLY bad game theory, since if you decide to believe in 1 god, there are countless other gods you have to discount. I.e. You can't believe in the one and only god Jehovah, who made the earth in 7 days, and simultaneously believe in hinduism, norse pantheon, greek pantheon, sikhism etc.
The majority of religions make the same arguments. You can't prove God X doesn't exist. Look at all the amazing things around you, they couldn't have happened by chance, god must have made them. We have a really old book that has eyewitness accounts of people seeing and talking to god/s.
And you can't use multiple rituals from different religions because there are numerous gods who punish belief in other gods them with hell/bad afterlife. Thou shalt have no other gods but me ring a bell? (im paraphrasing)
Whats not to get?
Imagine you have a ballot paper. On the paper theres a list of all the different religions. They have a box next to them. They say TICK THIS BOX TO GO TO HEAVEN, but they also say TICK ANY OTHER BOX AND GO TO HELL.
Ticking any one box vastly increases your chance of going to all other helsl compared to going to that one heaven. Not all of them are like this, some of them puss out and say as long as you live a good life you'll go to heaven, but ALOT don't.
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Agnostic for me means that I believe we can't understand everything.
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I'm an atheist, but in defense of agnostics, it may be that they believe in the existence of some kind of god but don't know which god, or don't care whether or not a god exists because it doesn't appear to bear any impact on their life, and thus rightly declare that they don't know, and that it's not going to change because they don't plan to find out. There are lots of things in life where it seems like there is an overall intent to the noise of the universe, but it's nothing that can't be easily reasoned away as chance unless you can demonstrate a consistent way to do it. To an agnostic, they may recognize the possibility "Yeah okay maybe a god does exist, maybe not, weird fortunate things do happen but not reliably enough to the believers in any particular religion, and not to a degree that can't be explained in other ways.
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I am, myself, agnostic. That is, when I'm in a very good mood, which is most of the time. The rest of the time, I'm atheist all the way.
I even published a book on the subject.
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What if whatever an individual happens to believe is the truth for themselves.
In the movie, "Eric the Viking," when the crew of the ship was lifted up to Valhalla (Viking Heaven) all the Vikings saw their version of heaven with Odin and other Norse Gods. But the Christian monk missionary who was also in the ship just saw clouds and nothing of Valhalla.
If this is the case that our own beliefs create our own individual afterlives. What will the agnostic or atheist have created for themselves. Maybe they would never believe themselves dead and continue as though they are living for all eternity. Maybe even getting angry at a random post on a message board which might make them question the nature of their current existence. Are you really alive now? I suppose the agnostic will be undecided.
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What if whatever an individual happens to believe is the truth for themselves.
In the movie, "Eric the Viking," when the crew of the ship was lifted up to Valhalla (Viking Heaven) all the Vikings saw their version of heaven with Odin and other Norse Gods. But the Christian monk missionary who was also in the ship just saw clouds and nothing of Valhalla.
If this is the case that our own beliefs create our own individual afterlives. What will the agnostic or atheist have created for themselves. Maybe they would never believe themselves dead and continue as though they are living for all eternity. Maybe even getting angry at a random post on a message board which might make them question the nature of their current existence. Are you really alive now? I suppose the agnostic will be undecided.
Reminds me of the Heinlein novel Job: A Comedy of Justice. That was great.
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The only thing i 100per cent can believe is that religion exists.Who can say that with milions of people all believing in something it doesn't create a certain reality.The mind can do amazing things when focused on a goal.While you may argue that there is or is not a god you can't argue that religion doesn't affect the human species.In the end all you can hope for is that the religion that wins the race doesn't result in the destruction of the earth....
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I would best be described as one of those Russell's Teapot agnostics. Although when discussing the matter I usually go with atheist. In polite circles I just avoid religion altogether. When religious friends start talking about religion I get very interested in baseball.
But you people aren't my friends. :P
I think agnosticism makes perfect sense. Sure, there may be a higher being, but I see no reason to limit his/her abilities to those imagined by pre-medieval humans. If there is any "supreme being" that is worthy of my worship, he won't be so small-minded as to care about what I did on Sunday mornings or what I ate during the month of March.
If there is some afterlife, I hope I am judged by some meaningful measure of decency or ethical treatment of my fellow man. If there is an afterlife, and I am to be judged by some petty bureaucrat who is going to count the number of times I masturbated or whether I ate pork, then I tell you right now, that I would rather be sent to where Hugh Hefner ends up than where Torquemada resides.
I have no idea if there is a god or not, but I am not at all interested in the silly gods mentioned in any books I've read in my lifetime.
By they way, I actually kind of like the movie "Defending Your Life". If that was what the afterlife is like, I'll see you at the Italian Restaurant.
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I call myself an agnostic, rather than an atheist, because I haven't decided for sure that a higher power doesn't exist--it's that I just don't care one way or another.
Are you Bigfoot agnostic, Russels Teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russels_teapot) agnostic, and Tooth Fairy agnostic aswell?
edit: Either I just dropped such a powerful knowledge bomb that Elitist Bitch has rethought her position, Or I've pulled some sort of dick move and I'm about to get a post-post verbal smackdown.
I didn't get all the way through the thread, but Vandal's response is what I'd like to say in seventeen seconds or less.
I never really cared to look into the several versions of something I couldn't care less about.
Isn't that sorta like asking what kind of golf club you'd like to use at the bowling alley?
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I dunno man, I think agnosticism makes more sense than Atheism.
Yes but beyond that, if a person was in actually honestly agnostic, wouldnt they have an incentive to take Pascals Wager?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager
Unless theyre being dishonest about being agnostic and are in fact just lazy, or something else.
What would one have to do in definite terms to 'take pascals wager'? Must one actually believe? Or like it says at the top of the page live as if god exists, like, y'know, being nice to people a\nd not initiating force on their persons or property?
Whose version of god should I assume is true to CMA and does that mean I should follow all the literature literally just to be on the safe side. If I'm going to have to kill fags just to insure I don't go to hell I'm starting with Tom Greene. If it's safe to discard the thing about killing fags why not the thing about stealing?
Only a retarded religious assfuck thinks you need religion to be a good person. If god exists and will one day seperate those who suck from those who kick ass I'm not worried about it.
I read closer and you're all about religious ritual... Which one? Won't I be destroying all the credit I earned with the xtian god by taking sacrament when I sacrifice a virgin to some other god and vice versa? Sounds like a good way to make sure you piss off the powers that be no matter who they are. Best to do nothing. In conclusion, After having paid little attention to you for awhile I've returned to find you being entirely retarded again. NO, there's absolutely no good reason for an agnostic to spend his life learning about mythical creatures who want him to suffer for eternity and doing whatever it is some crazy asshole in a bad suit and rediculous hat says he has to do to prevent them doing so and then moving on to the next ill-tempered mythical creature and crazy asshole who has even more stupid shit for them to do and probably wants money too.
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I dunno man, I think agnosticism makes more sense than Atheism.
Yes but beyond that, if a person was in actually honestly agnostic, wouldnt they have an incentive to take Pascals Wager?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager
Unless theyre being dishonest about being agnostic and are in fact just lazy, or something else.
What would one have to do in definite terms to 'take pascals wager'? Must one actually believe? Or like it says at the top of the page live as if god exists, like, y'know, being nice to people a\nd not initiating force on their persons or property?
Whose version of god should I assume is true to CMA and does that mean I should follow all the literature literally just to be on the safe side. If I'm going to have to kill fags just to insure I don't go to hell I'm starting with Tom Greene. If it's safe to discard the thing about killing fags why not the thing about stealing?
That's the major flaw of Pasal's wager in my opinon
Bullshit bullshit nonsense angry speak out of touch with rationality
And the rest of your post is garbage.
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For a true agnostic, one who thinks G-ds existence is ambiguous, they would have little philosophical inclination to object to performing religious ritual.
What you're describing is usually called weak agnosticism - "I personally don't know whether god exists, but I might know someday". There's also strong agnosticism - "it's impossible for anyone to have knowledge about the existence of god".
Personally, I would probably fall into the strong agnostic camp - I believe "god" is just a word people use to describe their fear of the unknown.
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I call myself an agnostic, rather than an atheist, because I haven't decided for sure that a higher power doesn't exist--it's that I just don't care one way or another.
Are you Bigfoot agnostic, Russels Teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russels_teapot) agnostic, and Tooth Fairy agnostic aswell?
edit: Either I just dropped such a powerful knowledge bomb that Elitist Bitch has rethought her position, Or I've pulled some sort of dick move and I'm about to get a post-post verbal smackdown.
I actually just decided I didn't care about expressing my opinion either. Apathy's a great thing.
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I believe "god" is just a word people use to describe their fear of the unknown.
Found out today that there's an actual term for this:
Ignosticism, or igtheism, is the theological position that every other theological position (including agnosticism) assumes too much about the concept of God and many other theological concepts. The word "ignosticism" was coined by Sherwin Wine, a rabbi and a founding figure in Humanistic Judaism.
It can be defined as encompassing two related views about the existence of God:
1. The view that a coherent definition of God must be presented before the question of the existence of God can be meaningfully discussed. Furthermore, if that definition is unfalsifiable, the ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the question of the existence of God (per that definition) is meaningless. In this case, the concept of God is not considered meaningless; the term "God" is considered meaningless.
2. The second view is synonymous with theological noncognitivism, and skips the step of first asking "What is meant by God?" before proclaiming the original question "Does God exist?" as meaningless.
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Unless theyre being dishonest about being agnostic and are in fact just lazy, or something else.
I'd have to disagree with the lazy statement. It seems those that take the easy way out and rely on blind faith, and that is required for both believers and non, are the lazy ones.
It much harder to admit one does not know and continue to quest for an definitive answer.
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Q: what does the kkk burn on an agnostic's lawn?
A: a question mark
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I call myself an agnostic, rather than an atheist, because I haven't decided for sure that a higher power doesn't exist--it's that I just don't care one way or another.
Are you Bigfoot agnostic, Russels Teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russels_teapot) agnostic, and Tooth Fairy agnostic aswell?
edit: Either I just dropped such a powerful knowledge bomb that Elitist Bitch has rethought her position, Or I've pulled some sort of dick move and I'm about to get a post-post verbal smackdown.
This is the first time I have heard of different types of agnosticism. I can respond to Russels Teapot with the following:
The burden of proof rests on the person making a claim, whether that is a positive (x exists) or negative claim (x doesn't exist). So both a person proving or denying the existence of G-d has the burden of proof on them. The difficulty that agnosticism and athiesm have is that while it is easy to prove that something exists, the contrapositive to that is not true, and trying to prove that something doesn't exist is far more difficult.
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WTF? for this post I'm going to be mostly emphasizing in caps
Pascals wager says that since believing in god will get you to heaven, then you might aswell do it because the penalty for not believing is high, and the costs for believing are so low, except IT IGNORES DOZENS OF OTHER RELIGIONS.
Unless you can prove to me that 1 religion is true and all others are false, then it is SPECTACULARLY bad game theory, since if you decide to believe in 1 god, there are countless other gods you have to discount. I.e. You can't believe in the one and only god Jehovah, who made the earth in 7 days, and simultaneously believe in hinduism, norse pantheon, greek pantheon, sikhism etc.
The majority of religions make the same arguments. You can't prove God X doesn't exist. Look at all the amazing things around you, they couldn't have happened by chance, god must have made them. We have a really old book that has eyewitness accounts of people seeing and talking to god/s.
And you can't use multiple rituals from different religions because there are numerous gods who punish belief in other gods them with hell/bad afterlife. Thou shalt have no other gods but me ring a bell? (im paraphrasing)
Whats not to get?
Imagine you have a ballot paper. On the paper theres a list of all the different religions. They have a box next to them. They say TICK THIS BOX TO GO TO HEAVEN, but they also say TICK ANY OTHER BOX AND GO TO HELL.
Ticking any one box vastly increases your chance of going to all other helsl compared to going to that one heaven. Not all of them are like this, some of them puss out and say as long as you live a good life you'll go to heaven, but ALOT don't.
Thats a good point I hadn't considered. I didn't give all non Western religions the same weight.
So, whats the more plausible option, not believing in G-d or gods?
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I would best be described as one of those Russell's Teapot agnostics. Although when discussing the matter I usually go with atheist. In polite circles I just avoid religion altogether. When religious friends start talking about religion I get very interested in baseball.
But you people aren't my friends. :P
Religion and politics are the only two things worth talking about.
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The burden of proof rests on the person making a claim, whether that is a positive (x exists) or negative claim (x doesn't exist). So both a person proving or denying the existence of G-d has the burden of proof on them. The difficulty that agnosticism and athiesm have is that while it is easy to prove that something exists, the contrapositive to that is not true, and trying to prove that something doesn't exist is far more difficult.
I would say that both proving and disproving the existence of God are impossible. Proving it is impossible because as mortals, we mere humans lack the capacity to recognize something infinite. For all we know, what we think is God is just a super, super, super advanced alien. Disproving it is impossible for the same reason.
So that makes me a strong agnostic/weak atheist. I think you can't prove there's a god, and that it's unlikely there is one.
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I just want to take this opportunity to point out the shear stupidity in deciding that whoever created humans must be both omnipotent and omnipresent. Would it not be possible that humans were created by a really advanced alien who visited earth to run some experiments? Maybe they worked out some designs, looked at each other, said "hmmm... interesting..." then moved on to another system and tried some different designs and never gave us a second thought?
As in "These beings that stand upright were an interesting result, but they need more arms to work properly. Besides, although they seem intelligent they soon give up on rational though and resort to inventing irrational explanations to complex sets of occurrences. Let's go back to design 45573/22."
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I'd say it's fairly easy to disprove the common Christian conception of God; that is, an all-powerful, all-good, and all-knowing being. The well known "problem of evil" certainly blows that idea of god out of the water.
Add to that the very high failure rate of prayer (no better than random chance), and the many contradictions and falsehoods in the Bible and I'd say God is pretty well disproven.
BTW, did you hear about the dyslexic agnostic? He just wasn't sure if there really is a Dog.
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I can respond to Russels Teapot with the following:
*whoosh*
The difficulty that agnosticism and athiesm have is that while it is easy to prove that something exists
It's only easy to prove that god(s) exist if you start with the assumption that god(s) exist.
trying to prove that something doesn't exist is far more difficult.
Holy fucking hell. Haven't you posted before that you teach logic classes to seminary students or some such bullshit?
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I call myself an agnostic, rather than an atheist, because I haven't decided for sure that a higher power doesn't exist--it's that I just don't care one way or another.
Are you Bigfoot agnostic, Russels Teapot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russels_teapot) agnostic, and Tooth Fairy agnostic aswell?
edit: Either I just dropped such a powerful knowledge bomb that Elitist Bitch has rethought her position, Or I've pulled some sort of dick move and I'm about to get a post-post verbal smackdown.
This is the first time I have heard of different types of agnosticism. I can respond to Russels Teapot with the following:
Its the first time because no one feels mind fucked enough to bow into societal pressure and take the bogus fence sitting position of agnosticism on any other issue of supernatural.
No one feels the need to say "well I don't know for sure leprechauns don't exist, and I think its arrogant to think they don't exist when theres no way of knowing for sure", because there isn't a majority of deluded people who believe leprechauns exist without any proof.
The burden of proof rests on the person making a claim, whether that is a positive (x exists) or negative claim (x doesn't exist). So both a person proving or denying the existence of G-d has the burden of proof on them. The difficulty that agnosticism and athiesm have is that while it is easy to prove that something exists, the contrapositive to that is not true, and trying to prove that something doesn't exist is far more difficult.
Its good that you understand the burden of proof.
Except in functional terms claiming X doesn't exist without proof is much more reasonable than claiming X does exist without proof.
For example me saying "there aren't invisible pixies magically controlling every aspect of my life" without evidence is alot more reasonable than claiming that there are. While I might not be able to meet the burden of proof to actually say it 100% certain, I don't see it as unreasonable, since the only practicable way to live life is to assume things you have no evidence for don't exist.
For example, if you're crossing the road and you see no cars, you assume that there are non, and that its safe to walk, rather than think "well I can't prove there are no transcendental cars" and never cross.
Having no evidence of invisible pixies, isn't proof they don't exist, but its a strong indicator that they don't, and the same goes for god or anything else.
I can't prove 100% that there isn't a woman secretly living in my house (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2054057/Homeless-woman-comes-out-of-closet.html), but the fact I haven't seen any evidence of said woman is a strong indicator she isn't here.
Am I agnostic to the crazy cupboard woman? Does it make a meaningful difference between say "I don't know if she exists either way", even though 100% of the time I act like she doesn't.
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The burden of proof rests on the person making a claim, whether that is a positive (x exists) or negative claim (x doesn't exist). So both a person proving or denying the existence of G-d has the burden of proof on them. The difficulty that agnosticism and athiesm have is that while it is easy to prove that something exists, the contrapositive to that is not true, and trying to prove that something doesn't exist is far more difficult.
I would say that both proving and disproving the existence of God are impossible. Proving it is impossible because as mortals, we mere humans lack the capacity to recognize something infinite.
You're assuming things about the nature of a god, even though its a wholey theoretical concept which wildly differs from person.
How is god infinite? Infinite in size? How do you know god is infinite?
How do you know humans can't comprehend infinity?
Also,
(http://www.typophile.com/files/infinityJH.gif)
humans can recognize infinity, at least in concept. Also the universe expands so fast as to be as good as infinite, and we know its doing that.
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There is no such thing as infinity.
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You're assuming things about the nature of a god, even though its a wholey theoretical concept which wildly differs from person.
Yes, because most Westerners who believe in a god generally assert that he is infinite in at least one sense-- having no temporal beginning or end. Humans are not capable, so far as I can tell, of recognizing such a being if confronted with one. I'm not talking about any other version of god.
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You're assuming things about the nature of a god, even though its a wholey theoretical concept which wildly differs from person.
Yes, because most Westerners who believe in a god generally assert that he is infinite in at least one sense-- having no temporal beginning or end. Humans are not capable, so far as I can tell, of recognizing such a being if confronted with one. I'm not talking about any other version of god.
So how do you know you can't recognize it if you've never encountered it? Your claim would require knowledge of such a being in order to make such a claim. I.e. If people can't recognize an "infinite" being, then theres no way to distinguish between an infinite being and nothing, so there would be no way to tell if it was possible to recognize it or not.
By definition, you can only know you can know something until you know you it or someone else knows it. If its unknowable how do you know its unknowable?
The only way it would be impossible to prove an existent entity exists, is if that thing had no measurable effects and no measurable presence, in which case it is the same as nothing.
Same with god. If you can't measure it in anyway, or measure any of its effects, then it might aswell be nothing and I really don't see the value in agnostic labeling, since for all intents and purposes agnostics act as if there is no god, just like I act like there isn't a crazy japanese woman secretly living in my house, even though theres no way I can prove it 100% for sure. (specially if i put in bullshit caveats like the crazy woman is everywhere, or can't be seen or detected in any way).
I have no problem with agnosticism in concept, except when its used specifically for some claims and not others. As I mentioned before no one is Russels Teapot agnostic, everyone assumes that something doesn't exist until theres evidence of it existing.
Except when it comes to supernatural bullshit that billions of people believe in, not just a few nuts, then suddenly its "arrogant" to assume a magical undetectable being doesn't exist when theres absolutely no concrete evidence for it.
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Yes, because most Westerners who believe in a god generally assert that he is infinite in at least one sense-- having no temporal beginning or end. Humans are not capable, so far as I can tell, of recognizing such a being if confronted with one. I'm not talking about any other version of god.
So how do you know you can't recognize it if you've never encountered it?
That's exactly the point-- I wouldn't know if I've encountered it. If I did know, that would mean I had recognized it.
The only way it would be impossible to prove an existent entity exists, is if that thing had no measurable effects and no measurable presence, in which case it is the same as nothing.
I don't know what would automatically prevent an infinite being from having measurable effects. If an infinite being burped once every twenty years, you could measure that....but would you know if it was infinite? Or would you just know that something has been burping every twenty years as far back as you can tell, and shows no signs of stopping?
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I just want to take this opportunity to point out the shear stupidity in deciding that whoever created humans must be both omnipotent and omnipresent. Would it not be possible that humans were created by a really advanced alien who visited earth to run some experiments? Maybe they worked out some designs, looked at each other, said "hmmm... interesting..." then moved on to another system and tried some different designs and never gave us a second thought?
As in "These beings that stand upright were an interesting result, but they need more arms to work properly. Besides, although they seem intelligent they soon give up on rational though and resort to inventing irrational explanations to complex sets of occurrences. Let's go back to design 45573/22."
From the perspective of the agnostic its safer to take the position with the least amount of assumptions. Since there isn't any conclusive evidence of aliens, much less that they're inquisitive, or benevolent enough to create us, it seems that G-d would have less implied assumptions.
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From the perspective of the agnostic its safer to take the position with the least amount of assumptions.
You have no fucking clue what agnosticism means if you think it has anything to do with whether a belief is "safe" or not.
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From the perspective of the agnostic its safer to take the position with the least amount of assumptions.
You have no fucking clue what agnosticism means if you think it has anything to do with whether a belief is "safe" or not.
You understand my point. How would you phrase it?
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You understand my point.
No, I don't.
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From the perspective of the agnostic its safer to take the position with the least amount of assumptions. Since there isn't any conclusive evidence of aliens, much less that they're inquisitive, or benevolent enough to create us, it seems that G-d would have less implied assumptions.
Not necessarily. benevolence isn't the only motivation. Perhaps it is for entertainment. All of earth being like the game "Spore". Or perhaps we look a lot like them and they watch us having sex for a constant source of porn.
And why does everyone assume God is benevolent? The god of the old testament seems needlessly cruel if you ask me.
Really though, I could be saying anything. It really isn't worth time thinking about, except for lulz. If I were God tomorrow I would be far more kind, just, and merciful than the guy in the fantastic stories bandied about in any of today's religions.
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If I were God tomorrow I would be far more kind, just, and merciful than the guy in the fantastic stories bandied about in any of today's religions.
It seems like atheists and agnostics tend to hold God to a higher standard than believers do. I can't count the number of times I've heard one say basically "The god I don't believe in is better than the one you do."
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If I were God tomorrow I would be far more kind, just, and merciful than the guy in the fantastic stories bandied about in any of today's religions.
It seems like atheists and agnostics tend to hold God to a higher standard than believers do. I can't count the number of times I've heard one say basically "The god I don't believe in is better than the one you do."
Perhaps you are right, but when I hear "god is love" or "he is infinitely merciful" and all of that kind of malarkey, it makes me want to sigh and shake my head.
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From the perspective of the agnostic its safer to take the position with the least amount of assumptions. Since there isn't any conclusive evidence of aliens, much less that they're inquisitive, or benevolent enough to create us, it seems that G-d would have less implied assumptions.
You guys are getting soft if you don't see the question I built into this phrase.
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I guess I didn't catch the question, but I can state my position pretty briefly. I don't believe in in a being that consciously created humanity and hangs around to observe all of use individuality and judge the morality of our actions. I don't have any evidence that there no such being, I just find the concept so ludicrous that it is without merit. I am not interested in following rituals "just in case" there is such a being, any more than I would keep a tuxedo in my car just in case I run into Halle Berry and she invites me to run away with her and get married right now.
I do, occasionally, observe certain small rituals, such as saying "bless you" when someone sneezes, just to keep humans from acting hateful toward me, but not out of any sense that the lord shall smite me or that some boogeymen are going to get my "soul".
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Yes, because most Westerners who believe in a god generally assert that he is infinite in at least one sense-- having no temporal beginning or end. Humans are not capable, so far as I can tell, of recognizing such a being if confronted with one. I'm not talking about any other version of god.
So how do you know you can't recognize it if you've never encountered it?
That's exactly the point-- I wouldn't know if I've encountered it. If I did know, that would mean I had recognized it.
The only way it would be impossible to prove an existent entity exists, is if that thing had no measurable effects and no measurable presence, in which case it is the same as nothing.
I don't know what would automatically prevent an infinite being from having measurable effects. If an infinite being burped once every twenty years, you could measure that....but would you know if it was infinite? Or would you just know that something has been burping every twenty years as far back as you can tell, and shows no signs of stopping?
This is exactly my point.
If it was impossible to recognize god, then there'd be no way to distinguish between an unrecognizeable god, and the lack of a god.
If you can't make any distinction whatsoever between nothing and something, then that something is as good as nothing. There's a strong danger between confusing "I haven't seen any evidence yet", with "I might have seen evidence but I might not have been able to recognize it as such".
Its completely redundant to say "well if god was unrecognizeable I wouldn't know if I encountered it or not"
You can say that about any concept if you put a unrecognizable caveat in there. I wouldn't know if me from 50 years in the future came back, kicked me in the nuts and erased my memory. So what?
Why not say the same things about Leprechauns or the Flying Spaghetti monster? While in concept they're all as impossible to disprove as another, it gives certain supernatural beliefs undue legitimacy by being "agnostic" to 'God', whilst ignoring other dumb supernatural beliefs, as if its okay to just disregard silly myths, but the concept of "God" is so much more important and fundamental that you have to give it proper "respect".
If you really don't think its sensible to assume a god doesnt exist till its proven, just like you do with everything else in the world, then at least take a more general stance of "I don't think its possible to disprove any supernatural beings".
As far as proving something is infinite or not, you're right in so far as you need to have a full view to tell. Whether god will exist for an infinite amount of time, or have infinite amount of power, has nothing to do with with whether it can be proven to exist.
If it exists now, it exists whether it will exist infinitely or not. You don't need to prove it will always exist to prove that it exists. In fact the very fact that theists believe they know god is infinite without having any measurements of it just reinforces how dumb the concept is. How could they possibly know anything will last an infinite amount of time when we don't know if such a thing is even possible?
If it can't be measured in any way, and its effects can't be measured in any way, it doesn't exist. To assume otherwise would be ludicrous, and no one acts like that on anything that really matters (i.e. my crossing the road example).
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Its completely redundant to say "well if god was unrecognizeable I wouldn't know if I encountered it or not"
You can say that about any concept if you put a unrecognizable caveat in there. I wouldn't know if me from 50 years in the future came back, kicked me in the nuts and erased my memory. So what?
Why not say the same things about Leprechauns or the Flying Spaghetti monster?
Well, because presumably I would recognize those. You seem to be conflating "unrecognizable" with "unobserved." I've never seen a leprechaun, but in theory if I met one I would be perfectly capable of saying "Hey, that's a leprechaun" with a reasonable amount of certainty. But if I met God? No way I could do that.
If you really don't think its sensible to assume a god doesnt exist till its proven, just like you do with everything else in the world, then at least take a more general stance of "I don't think its possible to disprove any supernatural beings".
Please don't throw the word "supernatural" in there, as it will cause me all kinds of headaches. I don't want to debate the supernatural. And I also didn't say it's not sensible to assume a god doesn't exist-- that would be silly, as I do assume that. I just said that it can't be proven, one way or another.
Whether god will exist for an infinite amount of time, or have infinite amount of power, has nothing to do with with whether it can be proven to exist.
You say that, but you haven't explained why it is true. How would you prove or disprove the existence of something infinite?
If it can't be measured in any way, and its effects can't be measured in any way, it doesn't exist.
I didn't say otherwise. I said that having effects which can be measured doesn't disqualify something from being infinite.
P.S. I have a raging hangover and the brain is not working properly, so if I've just completely misunderstood what you're saying I apologize.
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You say that, but you haven't explained why it is true. How would you prove or disprove the existence of something infinite?
I don't need to. Its up to you to explain how something being infinite makes it unrecognizeable.
How does it being infinite effect the ability to prove its existance or not? The universe's size is infinite (although it may just appear infinite because we don't have the ability to fully comprehend the nature of the boundary), and we're fully capable of recognizing both the universe exists, and that its size is as good as infinite.
The only thing you might not be able to prove is whether it exists for an infinite amount of time, unless you can live for an infinite amount of time to, if its even possible to have infinite time.
Well, because presumably I would recognize those. You seem to be conflating "unrecognizable" with "unobserved." I've never seen a leprechaun, but in theory if I met one I would be perfectly capable of saying "Hey, that's a leprechaun" with a reasonable amount of certainty. But if I met God? No way I could do that.
Surely if by god we me an omni-max creator, it would be well within its power to demonstrate its existence in an empirical fashion. In fact if we mean the bible god, there are specific verses about god revealing himself to people.
The only way this wouldn't work, is if we get back to a situations where the god is deliberately making it impossible for it to be measured, or for any of its effects to be measured, in which case it would have to make itself the same as nothing.
So I guess its possible for there to be a god that makes itself exactly the same as nothing, in which case its a completely banal and useless concept.
Thats a god that would be impossible to prove exists, because it would be indistinguishable from something that doesn't exists, but I don't think its accurate to say any other concept than a 0 effect god can not be proven.
There's currently no way to directly measure a black hole, but we can know it exists by measuring the effects it has on other things. If it exists, it can be proven, if it couldn't what possible use could the word "exists" have in a context of an immeasurable 0 effect entity?
Or in other words, if a god has all the same properties of nothing, in what way can it be said to exist?
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You say that, but you haven't explained why it is true. How would you prove or disprove the existence of something infinite?
I don't need to. Its up to you to explain how something being infinite makes it unrecognizeable.
How does it being infinite effect the ability to prove its existance or not? The universe's size is infinite (although it may just appear infinite because we don't have the ability to fully comprehend the nature of the boundary)
Gah---that caveat is exactly the one I'm making about God. How come you're willing to make it for the universe but not for a deity?
The only thing you might not be able to prove is whether it exists for an infinite amount of time, unless you can live for an infinite amount of time to, if its even possible to have infinite time.
Again-- that's precisely what I'm saying about not being able to recognize an infinite being. I'm not saying that you couldn't recognize the being at all; I'm saying that you could not recognize it as an infinite being. Barack Obama could be God, and he's just working undercover wearing a human costume for a while. You can't prove or disprove that. Even if Obama dies, that could just be God changing costumes. We can sure recognize that he's there, but we have no way of knowing whether he's actually an infinite being. Is it incredibly unlikely? Sure-- I deliberately picked a ridiculous example. But we can't know for certain.
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You say that, but you haven't explained why it is true. How would you prove or disprove the existence of something infinite?
I don't need to. Its up to you to explain how something being infinite makes it unrecognizeable.
How does it being infinite effect the ability to prove its existance or not? The universe's size is infinite (although it may just appear infinite because we don't have the ability to fully comprehend the nature of the boundary)
Gah---that caveat is exactly the one I'm making about God. How come you're willing to make it for the universe but not for a deity?
I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
We can observe the universe and its boundaries (or lack of). As far as I know there is no concrete evidence at all of any gods.
The only thing you might not be able to prove is whether it exists for an infinite amount of time, unless you can live for an infinite amount of time to, if its even possible to have infinite time.
Again-- that's precisely what I'm saying about not being able to recognize an infinite being. I'm not saying that you couldn't recognize the being at all; I'm saying that you could not recognize it as an infinite being. Barack Obama could be God, and he's just working undercover wearing a human costume for a while. You can't prove or disprove that. Even if Obama dies, that could just be God changing costumes. We can sure recognize that he's there, but we have no way of knowing whether he's actually an infinite being. Is it incredibly unlikely? Sure-- I deliberately picked a ridiculous example. But we can't know for certain.
If thats you position, then I don't think it really matters whether the being is "infinite" or not. Obama has done nothing to demonstrate any level of god powers whatsover. The fact he "might" be a god in disguise is completely irrelevant if he acts and appears to be human.
To be clear, my main objection with your position is the idea that the existence of god is not something that can be proved either way.
Can the existence of the universe be proved either way? Can the existence of stars or atoms be proved either way?
How do you know the sun isn't just a projection from an alien species that is just making it look like a collection of burning hydrogen? We don't. BDoes that mean we can't prove for sure that the sun is made of hydrogen? Under your twisted definition yes, under any practical definition no. How can you be sure that the aliens aren't using such sophisticated technology that we'd never be able to tell?
I find the idea of absolute certainty you're talking about useless and disruptive to cognizant thought. Can I be certain that gravity exists? Not in a 100% covering for all caveats fashion, but if you're going to use that definition, any meaningful concept of certainty/uncertainty are out the window. Besides philosophical naval gazing it has no purpose and no interest.
where the theism/atheism debate is happening, You have one side who are trying to make lack of proof explanation for their deity, and the other side who doesn't accept that.
God is everywhere. God is Math. God is happyness. God is in another dimension. God can't be comprehended by mortal beings.
its all bullshit, and while I know thats not your position, all the stuff you are saying about it not being possible to prove a god or not are getting dangerously close to wading into that bullshit.
Single label agnosticism is just a weak cop out. You're either an Atheist Agnostic or a Theistic Agnostic. Saying "both sides are just as irrelevant as each other" is faux intellectual fence sitting/appeal to comrpomise of the worst kind.
This whole argument comes from a faulty premise. I do not know of a single Atheist who claims to 100% know for certain gods don't exist, I would wager they're rarer than theists who claim to have seen god. The idea that atheists and theists are taking as both arrogantly certain positions on opposite ends of the spectrum is a giant strawman.
Its as reasonable to claim the tooth fairy does not exist as it is to claim Jehovah or Thor don't exist. I could be on board with your argument in a world where people felt the same towards those concepts I would not have an issue here, but the vast majority of agnostics I have met have been sucked in to giving the god concept undue reverence.
Ask any average person whether they think father christmas or the tooth fairy exist. They'll happily answer no without any caveats on absolute certainty, and understandably so. Making a special case of the "god" concept, delivers undue attention and value to the ideas that are on the same rocky "you can't prove it doesnt exist" ground.
Try getting a theist to donate money to you because you claim you have special powers and you made the universe. They'll (rightly) demand proof, yet no such proof is demanded for their same god that they donate in the name of. Agnostics of the "both sides are as bad as each other" type, are doing a great disservice to the level of harm and wasted potential that is caused by such inconsistent standards, and are inconsistent themselves.
Why not take the same position towards Homeopathy? You can't prove that Homeopathy isn't having some immeasurable beneficial effect, just as you can't prove Obama isn't some immeasurable god. But I will gladly call homeopathy and god made up bullshit in the same breath.
The whole point of science is explanation. If a being that could fit the description of a god, it has to have some tangible presence, either matter, energy, or something else we don't know of yet. "It can't be detected in anyway" is not a viable option, unless it is nothing or something identical to nothing.
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What I love about that post, fatcat, is that you start out by saying that you don't know what I'm getting at, and then proceed to write a lengthy refutation of positions that I don't even hold. What is the point of that, exactly? I'm not trying to convince you that it's rational to believe in a god. I'm not telling you that we need to be absolutely certain of anything in order to comfortably believe in it. So why are you doing all of this hand-waving and telling me things I already know?
The position I do hold is breathtakingly simple, and what's more you've already said that you agree with it: Finite beings cannot comprehend infinity. That's it.
Why is it important? It's not, really, except to point out that there's a dramatic difference between the finite and the infinite, that there's no such thing as "nearly infinite," and therefore if infinity is part of the fundamental nature of God then humans couldn't perceive the difference between God and a super advanced alien (for example). It's Arthur C. Clarke's third law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," only slightly tweaked to say "Any sufficiently impressive being is indistinguishable from an infinite being." From our vantage point, at least. It's a matter of perspective.
Am I saying that an infinite being exists? No. Am I saying that a being which even appears infinite exists? No. Am I saying that people should go about their lives in a state of perpetual doubt about whether there are any infinite beings? No.
Why not take the same position towards Homeopathy? You can't prove that Homeopathy isn't having some immeasurable beneficial effect
If it's an effect, it's measurable. You're explaining science to me, and you don't know that?
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I consider myself agnostic because I don't think there's proof one way or another. I'm not planning to worship anything, god or not, so I don't see religion as relevant to my life. I also believe that all of the stories about various gods I've heard are bullshit.
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If it's an effect, it's measurable. You're explaining science to me, and you don't know that?
My whole point.
I don't agree with your "finite beings can't comprehend infinity" posit, and seems nothing more than a tautology. I would agree that you can't tell if something is temporally infinite since you'd never know if it would end or not. However I'm not sure such a thing is even possible given time appears to be a function of existence and not something separate/parallel.
However the idea that we can't comprehend infinity purely on the basis of us being finite is shear bunk. Infinite concepts such as recurring decimals are used all the time in maths, and everything maths is used for. Prime numbers is another great example. We couldn't possibly know every prime, but we know there are an infinite amount of them.
You're simultaneously making a point about not comprehending infinity, aswell as the position that you couldn't prove Obama wasn't just god in disguise and such.
I think I dealt with that point in length. My whole comment on Homeopathy was to cut to the root of that faulty position, of the idea of an immeasurable existent entity.
If homeopathy was having an effect (other than placeabo) it could be measured. Likewise, The idea that a god or anything could exist and also be unprovable fits into the same bunk. A god with no presence and no effects is nothing. I know you're not arguing that such a god exists, but that it could be impossible to prove that it does (which is what i don't agree with). If that is not your argument then I believe I have misread the situation. The only thing you couldn't prove was that it would exist for an infinite amount of time, which is not the same thing as being able to prove its existence.
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I would agree that you can't tell if something is temporally infinite since you'd never know if it would end or not.
Great! Disagreement ended. The issue of measurable effects is absolutely irrelevant to the point I was actually trying to make. See how easy that was?
Oh, wait.
The only thing you couldn't prove was that it would exist for an infinite amount of time, which is not the same thing as being able to prove its existence.
It is the same thing as being able to prove its existence as an infinite being. If God is infinite by definition, and you cannot prove that any being is infinite (or not infinite), then you cannot prove (or disprove) the existence of God. I'm sorry, but I don't know how to make that any clearer.
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I would agree that you can't tell if something is temporally infinite since you'd never know if it would end or not.
Great! Disagreement ended. The issue of measurable effects is absolutely irrelevant to the point I was actually trying to make. See how easy that was?
Oh, wait.
The only thing you couldn't prove was that it would exist for an infinite amount of time, which is not the same thing as being able to prove its existence.
It is the same thing as being able to prove its existence as an infinite being. If God is infinite by definition, and you cannot prove that any being is infinite (or not infinite), then you cannot prove (or disprove) the existence of God. I'm sorry, but I don't know how to make that any clearer.
Okay then...
I wasn't meaning to talk about proving the infinite part, just the existing part. I thought you meant that because a god is supposedly infinite, that it can't be proven to exist, not that it can't be proven to be infinite.
If a god exists NOW thats pretty much all I care about being prove, plus getting people to avoid single label self identifying agnosticism.
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Okay then...
I wasn't meaning to talk about proving the infinite part, just the existing part. I thought you meant that because a god is supposedly infinite, that it can't be proven to exist, not that it can't be proven to be infinite.
It's the same thing. If the definition of god requires being infinite, then you cannot prove the existence of a god without also proving the existence of an infinite being.
You cannot prove the existence of an entity without also proving the requirements for its existence. If baking a cake requires eggs, then you can't prove cake without proving eggs. You cannot prove the existence of an infinite being in particular if you can't prove the existence of an infinite being in general.
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Okay then...
I wasn't meaning to talk about proving the infinite part, just the existing part. I thought you meant that because a god is supposedly infinite, that it can't be proven to exist, not that it can't be proven to be infinite.
It's the same thing. If the definition of god requires being infinite, then you cannot prove the existence of a god without also proving the existence of an infinite being.
You cannot prove the existence of an entity without also proving the requirements for its existence. If baking a cake requires eggs, then you can't prove cake without proving eggs. You cannot prove the existence of an infinite being in particular if you can't prove the existence of an infinite being in general.
Faulty logic there Rillion.
Will the universe last forever? We don't know. Does the universe exist? Yes.
It seems a bizarre posit that without knowing one property of something, its impossible to know it exists.
Your egg cake analogy is also faulty. Can you have an proton without Quarks? No. Can you prove protons exist without also proving quarks exist? Yes. its been done. I'd like for you to directly address this one as its as close as i think i've come to directly refuting one of your claims.
A god with infinite power could quite easily demonstrate itself by turning all humans into infinite super beings with the ability to comprehend it.
Its not necessary to observe every property of something to prove it exists. Thousands of years ago, all we could see of the sun is from the naked eye, no knowledge of the hydrogen and nuclear fusion it contained.
If a creature claiming to be god, appeared to all humans, and resurrected dead people, and made life, and struck people dead and did all the things the god of the bible could do, it would be so close to fitting the profile of a god that it is as practical calling that proof of a god, as the plum pudding model was proof of electrons.
Could it turn out that that "god" was just a super advanced alien species? Yes. But knowledge is a fluid and adaptive thing, not unchangeable cast iron thing (besides axioms). It was once thought electrons where inside atoms as in the plum pudding model, before atomic nuclei were proven to exist, but the original plum pudding model still fulfills vital explanatory power as a form of knowledge.
As would any sort of empirical observation of a "god" figure, even if its infinite status was not able to be established.
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Faulty logic there Rillion.
Will the universe last forever? We don't know. Does the universe exist? Yes.
Oh, for fuck's sake. I'm about ready to give up on this.
Is the universe defined as something infinite? No. Is God defined as something infinite? Yes.
If the universe were defined as something infinite, and you said "The universe exists," would you be correct? No. Why? Because you can't tell if it really is infinite. All you would be able to tell is that the other properties you ascribe to the universe apply. Which is no small thing, but if infinity was an intrinsic property of the universe, then you cannot demonstrate that the universe exists if you cannot demonstrate that it's infinite.
Modus tollens:
If A, then B
Not B
Therefore, not A
B = demonstrable infinity
A= demonstrable [anything which is defined as infinite]
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I already said before, I don't think its important whether god can be proven to exist for an infinite time or not, such thing would be improvable even if it was infinite.
This does not mean its existence can't be proven.
Infinite is a property of something, not something in itself. Whether the god is infinite or not, we wouldn't be able to distinguish between an infinite god or a finite god if any proof did surface.
You can prove something exists without proving every property of it. There are many things (like my atom example) that we only knew a fraction of things about compared to what we know now, but we still had good solid empirical evidence to prove they exist.
Personally I don't draw any meaningful distinction between a god that is truly infinite (not that i think such a thing is possible), and one that appears to be infinite. I'm sure most theists don't either.
Going back to my example, if a being turns up, spontaneously creates life, and can do everything the god in the bible can do, thats good enough in all practical terms to count as proof as god.
What would be the point in claiming "thats not really proof of god, its just proof of something really similar to god"? Is there really a meaningful distinction?
This seems to be on the same pedantic ground as single label agnosticism in general. At a push yes its not possible to 100% claim god does not exists, but that is on such a non useful level of thinking its pointless even to bring it up in conversation. Its not 100% possible to claim that the sun exists, or anything if you take a notion of absolute certainty to its full extent. What's the opposite of reductio ad absurdum?
If we talk about proving god as a concept as whole, including infinite properties, then yes you are right, you can't prove it. But if we talk about all the important parts besides the infinite properties, (especially when you consider there's no useful distinction between infinite and a large enough sample of finite god powers), then its irrelevant.
The whole idea of having to prove infinite to prove a gods existence is intellectually clumsy, its far more practical simply to require the proof of god-like powers. Thats really all that people care about in the god concept. Some theists don't even agree that "infinite power" is a practical idea cause that leads to all kind of "can god make a rock so heavy he can't move it" type situations.
Since billions of people actually do believe in this super magical being, we might aswell address it on practical terms.
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If we talk about proving god as a concept as whole, including infinite properties, then yes you are right, you can't prove it. But if we talk about all the important parts besides the infinite properties, (especially when you consider there's no useful distinction between infinite and a large enough sample of finite god powers), then its irrelevant.
I think it's relevant because most people who believe in God also believe that they get their morality from him, and that the only fitting source for a morality is an entity who is absolute and perfect. I don't think most people who have a "God says so" kind of morality would be okay with getting their morality from someone who has merely been around for a really, really long time and is really, really powerful. To you and me the difference is not that important, but then we don't rely on "God says so" for anything. It's kind of like how we don't mind talking about which things in the Bible are true or false, but a fundamentalist will tell you that if one part is wrong, you might as well throw the whole book away. It's not because I'm an absolutist that I think God's infinitude is such an important characteristic, but because they are.
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In any case, it's all beside the point, since people don't accept the concept of god for logical reasons. They cling to religion for emotional reasons; because god satisfies some emotional need.
It's fairly easy to disprove the traditional Christian idea of god. One would think that this means no one exists who still believes in that old fairy tale. But, millions of people still cling to it. That's because people don't care if it makes any sense. They want it to be true, and so mentally reject any disproof, no matter how valid.
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It's fairly easy to disprove the traditional Christian idea of god. One would think that this means no one exists who still believes in that old fairy tale. But, millions of people still cling to it. That's because people don't care if it makes any sense.
I don't really think that's true. If people didn't care if it made sense, there wouldn't be an ongoing search for Noah's Ark. The shroud of Turin wouldn't have gotten people so excited. Christians wouldn't be making pilgrimages to Jerusalem. It's not that they're not concerned with it making sense-- they just don't judge whether things make sense by your (and my) standards. Yes, there are some Christians who say "I believe in spite of it being unbelievable" or "I believe because it's unbelievable," but I don't think they're the majority. Faith is more of a stop-gap than a foundation-- most Christians seem to only rely on fideism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fideism) when they've run up against something they can't explain. The rest of it is stuff they think makes sense, even if you do not.
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The "ark" seems to be found--and disproven--every few years, and the Shroud has been a known fraud for years. Did the exposure of either ever result in ONE Christian saying, "Oh--I guess it's all fake, after all." Of course not, because their acceptance of the religion isn't based on reason but on emotion.
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The "ark" seems to be found--and disproven--every few years, and the Shroud has been a known fraud for years. Did the exposure of either ever result in ONE Christian saying, "Oh--I guess it's all fake, after all." Of course not, because their acceptance of the religion isn't based on reason but on emotion.
I know this, Mike. What I'm saying is that they think their belief is evidence-based, even though it's not. If they didn't think that, they wouldn't care about the ark, or the shroud, or make up silly theories about how God (or the devil, pick your poison) planted fossils to "test our faith."
Of course, there are loads of Christians who don't give a damn about any of those things. Those are the ones who honestly don't subject their faith to evidence at all. Ken Miller, the famous evolutionary biologist, is one of them. Seemingly paradoxically, these Christians seem to be the more rational sort.
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The "ark" seems to be found--and disproven--every few years, and the Shroud has been a known fraud for years. Did the exposure of either ever result in ONE Christian saying, "Oh--I guess it's all fake, after all." Of course not, because their acceptance of the religion isn't based on reason but on emotion.
I know this, Mike. What I'm saying is that they think their belief is evidence-based, even though it's not. If they didn't think that, they wouldn't care about the ark, or the shroud, or make up silly theories about how God (or the devil, pick your poison) planted fossils to "test our faith."
Of course, there are loads of Christians who don't give a damn about any of those things. Those are the ones who honestly don't subject their faith to evidence at all. Ken Miller, the famous evolutionary biologist, is one of them. Seemingly paradoxically, these Christians seem to be the more rational sort.
Exactly. There are very few people out there (at least in my opinion) who are satisfied with faith. Most religious people look for evidence to validate their beliefs whenever possible.
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Firstly, I didn't read through everything, just thought I'd drop in my position.
As a theist-agnostic, through my life's experiences I've felt a sort of contact with the divine, whatever it may ultimately be. In particular, I had a very intense moment in which I can only describe myself as having "Momentarily achieved Nirvana." As soon as I noticed, it was gone.
Anyhow, I couldn't justify taking part in a particular religious practice "just in case." Seeing what I've seen, feeling what I've felt, all my life experiences lead me to believe that if there is something otherworldly out there, it's beyond my scope of definition. Being unable to satisfactorily identify "what lies beyond," all I have are my life experiences, which include a limited -- though far more thorough than most truly religious individuals -- self-education of various practices and beliefs. All I can say is none of it feels right. All that feels right is living my life as positively as possible.
One thing I've told a Christian friend is, I don't pray, I just work for what I want or need... Which is exactly what you do, but I take credit for achieving goals instead of giving it away. Some may call it Hubris, I suppose, but I need a deity as much as a deity needs me.
I hope this is clear, I've low on sleep and full of Mountain Dew. I'll cut it there before I end up writing an essay.
Edit: I forgot to mention yesterday that I was NOT, in fact, taking any drugs in the aforementioned experience. I don't do anything mind-altering/expanding/muddling/what-have-you, so in case you were wondering, there ya go.