I think one can be a non-crazy strong atheist with respect to a particular definition of God. Not just “I don’t believe in X” but “I believe in no X”. I believe that God (for that definition of God) does not and cannot exist, stick a fork in Him, He’s done. Of course you can make up trivial definitions of God, which are either internally inconsistent and absurd (God is an Invisible Pink Unicorn) or ludicrously easy to empirically refute (God is a six-inch-high six-armed elephant-headed blue entity inside this cabinet here…nope). But not all Gods for which I’m a strong atheist are that trivial; the God of the six-day young Earth “scientific” creationists has been empirically refuted; I suspect that certain classical definitions of the Christian God run into IPU style problems of inconsistent and self-refuting definition. (I would say in fact that I believe this to be the case, but a Christian theologian would probably argue I’m not properly understanding their concepts.) Of course, God or gods are often not rigorously defined, and you always run into problems with someone else having a different interpretation or slightly different definition (God is a six-inch-high six-armed elephant-headed blue entity who instantaneously teleports to a different cabinet or sock drawer every time you go to look for him).
What if God just wanted us to believe that? Could he not make us believe otherwise? Even if part of the definition of God is that “He will make himself known to all humanity in two seconds!” and he doesn’t appear in two seconds, it may just mean that God had to override what he told us due to extenuating circumstances.
When dealing with fantasy beings, any rational can be used to explain why the rules didn’t match up with the reality. So long as that is true, you can never empirically disprove the entity.
That’s why I specified “scientific” creationists–that particular group of creationists who claim that, really, the fossils and the rocks actually show that Earth is 10,000 years old, tops, and there was a universal flood, but them pointy-headed secular humanist scientists just hate God so they cover this up. This is the equivalent of saying I must have just overlooked the six-inch-high six-armed elephant-headed blue deity in my cabinet when I went to look for it.
Of course, there are variations of “omphalos” creationism, in which 10,000 years ago God created a Universe which looks just like a 13 billion year old evolving cosmos, complete with Divinely Created in the Image of God human beings who God (in His inscrutable wisdom) decided to make look exactly like semi-hairless bipedal apes, living on a planet with hairy quadrupedal apes, fossils of hairy bipedal small-brained apes, etc. This is more like the six-inch-high six-armed elephant-headed blue deity in my cabinet who can also instantaneously teleport (and is very, very shy).
So, has the thread degenerated into the usual
“God doesn’t exist”
“Does too”
“Does not, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a superstitious moron”
“Oh yeah, well here’s my rehashed-for-the-thousandth-time argument for why I’m right”
yet?
Nah, we’ve mostly just been discussing the big party that’s planned at your place, how to override your security systems, whose trunk we’re going to leave you tied up in while we’re trashing the place, etc.
Or you could, I dunno, actually read the thread for yourself…
So we are out all about fighting ignorance huh? Well it seemes I was ignorant of what a true atheist is, as well as what they do and do not believe.
I can see that the faith I have in God is not mirrored inversely as your faith in no God. We have reached our own conclusions in our own way. Who would have thought?
I learned something. And my original premise was wrong. I am quite aware that there is much about religiosity/atheism I have yet to learn. Some have mockingly tried to ascribe motives to my OP. Really and truly, I wanted to open up the discussion. Der Trihs posted some things in another thread, so I opened this one to explore it further.
Nothing is more annoying than a person who claims to have all of the answers with regards to religion. A closed mind does not allow for learning and growth. Thanks for your opinions and for taking the time to post. Over 80 posts and over 10% views to posts is pretty cool. Must have struck a chord with somebody!
No, it’s more of a definitional thing, now, which is pretty much what the OP required, since it’s so ill-conceived.
A bit of a nitpick, but I think a significant one.
I think it is important to distinguish between statements of belief and statements of knowledge. Theism and atheism are about belief, agnosticism is about knowledge. So, I’d refine your definitions as:
Theist: I believe God exists.
Strong Atheist: I believe god (any god) does not exist.
Weak Atheist: I lack belief in any gods. (Strong atheists are thus a subset of weak atheists.)
Agnostic: It isn’t possible to know if God exists. (I agree with your definition.)
JohnMace’s distinction is an important one - not knowing is different from thinking it impossible to know. But the one thing I don’t get about agnosticism is this - while I’m fine with it being impossible to know that god does not exist, I’m not fine with it being impossible to know if he does exist. I’m assuming that knowledge is used as commonly defined, extreme skeptics notwithstanding. I think if any reasonable god wanted us to know he existed, we’d know to the same extent we know the earth is round. Can a true blue agnostic explain this to me?
I am re-posting this simply so that it appears at least twice in this thread. Therefore, the next poster who wanders in and lambastes the OP, (particularly in personal terms) will not have any excuse that s/he missed this point.
Anyone or everyone can still continue the discussion, of course, but given that the Original Poster has acknowledged learning something new and no longer maintains the perspective expressed in the Original Post, we should be able to move past any strawman attacks on the OP (in either sense). (Further clarifications or examples of the evidence that persuaded newcrasher are fine, as long as they are not couched in language indicating the newcrasher is resistant to knowledge or ratiocination.)
Well, the denial part is ambiguous: is someone denying that there could be a God period, or are they denying the claims made about there being a God (which is pretty "not believing)? I think there are many atheists who say they are doing the former when really, if they thought more about it, they are doing, or intending to do, the latter. Their confusion often leads to a lot of sloppy language and confusing arguments.
By evident I meant stuff like pillars of fire, parting of seas, etc. But relgion is always miracle yesterday, miracle tomorrow, but never miracle today. I don’t think we have to get into the subtleties of testing and significance for strong evidence of god.
It’s just like ESP - in fiction, people predict the future and move things with their mind. In real life proponents argue about the statistical significance of a set of experiments. If it really existed, it should show up very clearly at least once. Similarly, the faith argument is designed to explain why god does not show up.
Right. It is an excellent case of special pleading. My belief is different from yours because it is my belief. You’re foolish for believing in Allah, but I’m perfecty justified in believing in Jesus.
[QUOTE=MEBuckner]
I think one can be a non-crazy strong atheist with respect to a particular definition of God. Not just “I don’t believe in X” but “I believe in no X”. I believe that God (for that definition of God) does not and cannot exist, stick a fork in Him, He’s done. /QUOTE]
Yes: it’s important to note that you CANNOT simply write off strong atheism OR theism as “takes lots of faith” right off the bat, particularly if the people making the claims insist otherwise. Most theists SAY that they have faith, and so we take them at their word. But there are also plenty of theists who can argue that they know there is a god based on logical reasons and evidence. There are likewise strong atheists who claim to have logical (usually deductive) arguments disproving god, or at least the general definitions given for God.
The general rule of polite debate is that you must take these people at their word, even if you disagree with their reasoning and think it’s flawed. You have to argue with their arguements. And even if they are wrong, it may be that they are MISTAKEN, in which case it still isn’t right to claim that their claims are based on faith. While you can construct elaborate arguments about their psychology to explain why they are crazy or lying and how they really do have faith, those generally delve too far into ad hominem and personal nastiness. It’s better just to take people at their words: if they say they believe on faith, ok. If they say they have reasons, then at least show why their reasons are wrong instead of accusing them of having faith.
I’m not one, but I’ll raise this point: in George Smith’s classic atheist book, he makes the case against strong agnosticism thusly:
Strong atheists hold that it is impossible to know God (and hence anything about God or its characteristics).
However, knowability IS a characteristic of something.
By the strong agnostic’s own admission, they can’t possibly know whether or not God is knowable, which leads to a contradiction.
They can claim that knowability is the one knowable characteristic of God, but this smacks of special pleading and they cannot justify why or how this would be, or how they would know it.
Therefore, strong agnosticism is untenable as a rationally supported position, and only weaker forms of agnoticism (the “I don’t know” sort) really make much sense.
That’s one more example of why I don’t much like Smith’s book. Knowledge of the truth of the agnostic claim is a meta-statement about it, and does not directly involve knowledge of god, so is no contradiction.
The thing that really turned me off was when Smith “proved” that the universe, and matter, has to extend infinitely far into the past. Philosophers talking about such things such really read some physics books so as not to look foolish.
I would never give Smith’s book to a theist - there are far too many holes in it. I’ve read much more convincing ones.
I think the word “impossible” is used situationally rather than absolutely. It is impossible with only the data we have right now to know if God exists. It doesn’t disallow the theoretical possibility that more data could become available but just recognizes we don’t have the data at this time, and no particularly strong reason to believe that situation is ever likely to change. That’s how I read it anyway.
Richard Dawson, eh? He must have said that, then pointed to the back wall and said, “Survey says…?”
:D:D:D
(I see I took way too long and you’ve kind of already had your question answered, but I figure I’ll answer your question to me anyway, in case it provides any more insight)
Well, I can’t give you a positive statement about the afterlife, because, although I understand what it means to you, it’s a word that attaches to nothing ‘real’ in my world.
It’d kind of be like giving a positive statement about Middle Earth. I can tell you all sorts of things about it, a bit about its history, denizines, etc etc etc. But, it’s not a thing that really has a belief/non-belief element, because to me it’s a made-up story.
The afterlife is a made-up story (again, YMMV and all that). I’ve read about it, know what other people think about it, but it’s a fairy story.
And, to chime in on the weak/strong athiest discussion, I find the idea of splitting athiesm kind of funny, and generally feel like the division was made up by people who call themselves ‘weak’ athiests who didn’t want to be associated with asshole-athiests.
I don’t believe in god. Of course, if there was some evidence that passed whatever level of scrutiny that is acceptable to me that a god did exist, then I suppose I’d believe that there was a god. This isn’t called ‘weak’ athiesm, it’s called being rational and scientific.
Weak athiesm seems like it’s just a way that athiests can talk to non-athiests and say, “I’m an athiest, but see, I’m not weird, I’m a soft athiest, which means that, well, I’m an athiest, but not as much of one as those weirdos over there!” It’s a way to present oneself as practically agnostic while still calling oneself athiest, therefore skirting the truth of ones belief (or lack thereof) in order to make it more palatable to those who we’re affraid might pass judgement or not like us.
I think his reasoning is sound. You can’t have knowledge of the truth of agnostic claim in the first place without having some knowledge of the characteristics of God: that’s just a dodge.
The basic problem is this: you don’t know your full capabilities of knowledge, because you clearly do not know everything. Likewise, if you yourself admit that you don’t understand or know God, then how can you ever possibly conclude that the two UNKNOWN areas of your capability and the knowledge of God do not somewhere overlap? You can’t drag such a strong positive conclusion about knowledge out of a position that itself insists on such a high degree of ignorance and uncertainty!
You’ll have to remind me of his exact argument, because I don’t remember anything in this particular vein done for that purpose. He wrote this book quite a long time ago in terms of physics, but even so, physics, as far as I know, has not really established much of anything about the actual existence or start of the universe. In general, we talk about the BB or even a singularity as being “the start” of the universe, but it’s not really: it’s the start of the particular arrangement of the sort of universe and timescale we are familiar with. And given that time too contracts towards a singularity, we’re left with something akin to an eternity in a moment rather than a beginning IN time.
newscrasher, I am certain this comment is aimed at me. I apologize for my comment about testing your own faith. Your responses in these topics have been honest and a valuable contribution to the discussions. Please let me clarify. Persecution and martyrdom are a common trend in the Christian faith. If the factual answers provided to you do not jibe with your heartfelt beliefs- then you are going to be led either down the path of doubt or the path of persecution. I didn’t want you to set up an argument that had flaws in the logic.
It is a very difficult task for a scientist to disprove Biblical theory without undermining faith. I do not think that testing ones faith with science (or atheists) is a healthy exercise. Faith is not measurable; nor does it need to be defended, proved, or disproved.
There are Christians who present Biblical dogma in such a way as to be shot down. They do this to strengthen their personal faith and their resolve; and a positive side effect is the appearance of martyrdom.
I do not believe that you are one of those Christians. Please accept my apology. And thank you for opening up this dialogue. I am just as receptive to understanding your point of view as you are to mine.
Hang on, let’s try this:
The number of things that don’t exist is infinite - unicorns don’t exist; unicorns that talk don’t exist, unicorns that talk, but only ever say ‘snid’, don’t exist, and so on)
The number of things that cannot exist is also infinite - black objects that are red; black squares that are red and circular; black squares that are circular, red and can talk, but only ever say ‘snid’…)
So whereabouts are we going to store the faith that each and every one of these objects are nonexistent? Faith requires consciousness and consciousness is finite; there simply isn’t enough space in anyone’s mind to have faith in the non-existence of each and every non-existent entity; there isn’t space in the universe for all that faith.
There just isn’t room in the human mind (in fact I doubt there’s room in the whole universe* to store the expression of faith in the non-existence of the infinite number of things that don’t exist, plus things that can be postulated, but couldn’t exist for some logical or physical reason