I was careful to select my terms when I said that we can’t definitively ‘prove’ anything, not at least in the colloquial sense of making something unequivocally, unalterably true. I was under the impression that the situation is actually the opposite to what you say, it is possible to formulate mathematical proofs, but it’s unscientific to talk of a definitive proof in the sciences, every theory is open to criticism…it’s the basis of the scientific method. After all, even Newton and Einstein were wrong about a whole lot of things. Perhaps I’m wrong.
Of course, everyone’s an atheist in some sense, nobody believes in the sun god Ra anymore for instance (well hardly anyone).
I’ve heard the atheism = belief and agnosticism = knowledge before. This leads to four broad categories most believers or non-believers can fit in; agnostic atheism, gnostic atheism, agnostic theism and gnostic theism.
This, of course, eliminates those who hold begbert2’s P/C agnostic definitions - those who claim they can’t know one way or the other or those who just aren’t sure, who wouldn’t readily identify with the theist or atheist position.
It also somewhat annoys me that knowledge and belief are considered completely separate. Yes, yes, I know blind faith goes a long way in religion, but most theists would claim that knowledge (of the Bible, personal experiences etc) inform their beliefs. Likewise atheists would claim some form of evidence (or lack thereof) -based knowledge. In either of these cases agnosticism becomes untenable, since knowledge is claimed. Otherwise, what are they basing belief on?
Atheists (Satheists) usually just have ‘evidence’ of the negative variety - we’ve looked everywhere and we haven’t found any decent evidence of any gods yet. There are specific exceptions for gods that claim to have done things that can be checked - or ones that claim philosophical impossibilities, like flauting the Problem of Evil. But for most gods we just dismiss them the way we do other myths.
And, of course, we haven’t actually looked everywhere which is why we’re philosophical agnostics too.
It seems to depend on what side you’re looking from.
From an atheist perspective they are essentially one and the same. We’re open to the microscopic possibility that one of the religions might have stumbled onto the right answer by pure chance. After all we can’t disprove it. But the chance is negligible and so, for lack of better data, we ignore it completely as one always does with negligible factors (per definition). We conclude that there is no god, and see no reason for agnostics to conclude differently.
From an agnostic perspective the difference is absolute and seemingly insurmountable. The statement “we know there isn’t a god” is objectively wrong, and “we don’t know if there’s a god” is objectively correct. The sides are polar opposites and no matter how much data the agnostic collects he will never bridge the gap into certainty.
No true. In 35 years of discussing this stuff on-line, I’ve run into at most one or two atheists who claim to have any knowledge that no God exists. A particular god, yes, and claiming not to have knowledge that a god exists, certainly. Saying that you believe there is no god is different from saying you know this. Saying I believe the Yankees will win the pennant this year does not imply I know it.
Agnostics commit to the position that it is impossible to prove that a god exists. (That it is impossible to prove that no gods exist is pretty self evident.) They don’t commit to a god position, but they do commit to a knowledge position. Atheism and agnosticism are orthogonal in any case. Pleonast’s position of theistic agnosticism is perfectly reasonable.
There are plenty of reasons, none having much to do with knowing. Not rejecting the null hypothesis (no god) is different from claiming it is proven.
You don’t have to choose one over the other. I’ve often seen atheism discussed in terms of passe gods, but never agnosticism. That is a very interesting take on it. Is the existence of Zeus just as unknowable one way or another as that of our God?
I reject agnosticism because I think any reasonable god (besides deistic ones) can make himself pretty darn obvious, and can demonstrate his existence to at least the level acceptable in a court of law. That none has doesn’t mean a hypothetical god can’t.
You’ve got a big gaping hole in this set of definitions, which I’ll call 'B’atheists - those who believe that no gods exist (as opposed to just lacking god belief) but do not say it is impossible (except for certain classes of gods) and don’t say they are certain. That is where a lot of us are.
Yeah, I sometimes wonder what philosophical agnostics think they’re claiming - are they really saying that it can’t be possible to know that God exists, no matter what God does? 'Cause that’s a little strange as positions go; anything worth being called God could swing by and start signing autographs if they so chose. Sure, we couldn’t know it was the God, but is that really what they’re arguing?
If people are arguing the philosophical agnostic position for gods that are supposedly interacting with reality all the time, like the Christian God usually supposedly is, is it really valid to say it’s unknowable? Surely if it’s got its hands all over reality the presence/absence of fingerprints is evidence one way or the other. So how could you claim it’s unknowable?
(My answer to this, of course, is to wonder if they’re not just claiming to be agnostics to avoid having to admit to being atheists - which they think means something worse than it really does.)
Well, this is where it really gets messy to be honest, because now we have to start defining god.
As near as I can tell, god is usually defined as a supernatural being. Supernatural means ‘above natural’, so it is a thing outside of scientific testing, since we can only observe the natural.
In other words it’s kind of like two-dimensional beings trying to prove that three-dimensional beings exist.
They can’t prove that three-dimensional beings exists - but they can prove that a specific three-dimensional being exists (if it chooses to intersect their plane so they can see it). They just can’t prove that being’s three-dimensional.
I don’t disagree. Although the ‘absence of evidence = evidence of absence?’ debate has been done to death, all we know is that nothing in science currently indicates the existence of any sort of supernatural intelligence. Like Laplace said when Napoleon asked him where God was in his mécanique céleste " Sire, I did not need that hypothesis.". And the discoveries of evolution, complexity from simplicity, not the other way round.
The trouble here is that we could be described as ‘Satheists’ in regards to pretty much every divine claim, from Vishnu to Russell’s teapot. This seems to me functionally similar to agnosticism, but with more…conviction that all these things in all likelihood aren’t true despite our lack of knowledge about them. Nobody has searched the universe for Lord Krishna, but everyone who isn’t Hindu assumes he doesn’t exist. Is this conviction/belief the only difference between those who identify as agnostic or atheist? If so it adds credence to the idea that agnostics are somewhat wishy-washy and indecisive.
Although I don’t think many people would seriously claim agnosticism for all divine claims. So, special pleading for a Judeo-Christian God we can’t know about, but obviously Jove and Thor, of which the same is true, don’t exist. Most atheists view all of these claims as equally unlikely - is there therefore perhaps a double-standard on the part of the philosophical/common agnostic?
Edit; @ Fake Tales of San Francisco, if God is purely in the realm of the supernatural, totally outside the natural world and therefore above testing, this implies that he doesn’t manifest in the natural world - after all, we can test things that manifest. Nobody has ‘seen’ electromagnetism or gravity, but we can test its manifestations and be fairly sure that such forces exist. Without the manifestation it this God would appear be more deist. So who cares if he exists, if he doesn’t do anything?
First you gotta check whether the Pagnostic is actually denying that he’s on one side of the Atheist/Theist divide. Just because they primarily identify as an agnostic doesn’t mean that they’re unaware that belief is separate and orhogonal.
And I think that Cagnosticism exists to create a wishy-washy double standard. They want to not believe without having to admit not believing; to be neither theist nor atheist. Admittedly this is mostly because the term “atheist” is loaded with connotations that nobody claims, including self-identifying atheists, but still.
It seems to me there is a gap there also, but it does depend on the definition of god.
How would you classify someone that believes that entire categories of gods don’t exist, but that within some specific definitions, it is simply unknown at this time. I can see a few possibilities:
Exists, but is unknowable due to human body/brain limitations, we simply can not comprehend it
Exists, it’s nature is knowable in the sense that we can comprehend it, but the evidence for it is simply not available to us to prove one way or the other (maybe a god that created the universe and then walked away)
It exists, it’s nature is knowable by humans, the evidence exists but has not been found
Well, as an outsider, viewing it neutrally, I think atheists and agnostics should view each other with respect, as people of differing viewpoints. Dogmatism is always a path away from communication and understanding. The inherent admission of an absence of knowledge from the point of view of the agnostic is deserving of respect. It is always tempting to assume one’s own perceptions and deductions are correct, for if you could see errors in your own thinking, you would certainly amend those errors, and re-examine your position. But, for the atheist, especially atheists of the objectivist persuasion an unproven contention must be seen as without merit, and for practical purposes rejected as false, despite the absence of positive proof. Either can recognize the intellectual honesty inherent in the others position.
Of course, there is the drawback of forgoing the name calling, and insults.
Looks like you’re off-line now, but maybe you’ll look at this later:
The reason no one calls themselves ag or a-unicornists (as I’m sure you realize) is because no one really cares about unicorns–God is a different story. I personally know a few athiests, and my problem with them is their tendency to ridicule theists and to generally dismiss any belief that includes faith in God or a god-like being. But what REALLY bothers me is their tendency to PREACH–if there is anything that drives me crazy about ‘believers’, it’s their love of preaching.
