No, it’s just a statement about the necessity for a particular hypothesis. “Why there is almost certainly no God” is a chapter title. The text of chapter is all about evidence.
I don’t have the book in front of me. I can try to find it if you want, but he say quite clearly and repeatedly that gods can’t be disproven, only shown to be extremely unlikely. Have you read it?
Watch this 3 min. video.
Thank you, Diogenes. But I want to be even more “pedantic” than that…and say that “the unknown is currently unknown”…not that it is currently “unknowable.”
I have no idea if it is unknowable!
I see lots of these questions with answers that are unknown (which is why I say, “I do not know” in answer to them…but I hesitate to suggest that they are unknowable! I know I do not know the answers to them…but I really cannot speak for others (although I have no problem making blind guesses!)
And my guess is that Thomas Huxley would agree with that…because there is nothing that he said that would indicate he thought differently.
All this, of course, is merely to correct your original comment: ““Agnosticism is the position that it’s impossible to know whether gods exist.”
I said that was incorrect…and I am correct that it was incorrect.
Agnostics certainly say “we do not know if gods exist”…but the very notion that it is impossible to know…can only be offered by an atheist…because if it is “possible” gods exist…it certainly HAS TO BE possible that it can be known!
That is almost definitional.
I really want to discuss some of these things, Diogenes…and I would like to do it respectfully and with reasonable friendliness. I can understand why Christians get so defensive in discussions that question some of the positions they take…often to such an extent that rational, intelligent, reasonably friendly discussions cannot even take place.
But why does this happen with atheists also? We should be natural allies…but if anything, the lines are more instantaneously drawn with atheists.
Is it really that difficult or hurtful to have positions questioned…to the point where discussions immediately deteriorate into battles with walls erected?
Can we discuss our differences as gentlemen (or ladies and gentlemen)…with each of us simply assuming we each have our reasons for our positions…and that the best possible light suggests we take those positions because we seek to improve the human condition?
if it is currently unknown, it is currently unknowable. Those are the same statements.
There’s the part about agnosticism not being a “creed,” but a statement about what is knowable.
No. You are not correct. Your attempting parsing of a distinction between “unknown” and “unknowable” is a false one.
It is impossible to know by current evidence. Even if God exists, it is still impossible to know it by current evidence. If the evidence changes, then the agnostic will become un-agnostic.
I don’t know what you mean by “allies.” i don’t see myself as being in a battle. I’m just correcting your defintions. You and I are both weak atheists, as far as I can tell, and as it happens, I’m ALSO an agnostic (though you apparently are not if you think it’s possible to know whether gods exist by current, available evidence), but I don’t see myself as being in a battle with Christians.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. I haven’t had any positions questioned (the attempted attacks in this thread on strong atheism are not attacks on me, nor do I disagree with them, as boring and valueless as they may be).
What differences do you believe we have?
Found this:
Yes I have read it, but I don’t have the book in front of me either. My recollection is that he says that the existence of God can be determined scientifically just like the existence of unicorns or flying reindeer. They cannon be proven not to exist to 100% logical certainty, but they can be proven not to exist to the same degree that science can prove anything. Again, please respond to the rest of my questions. Does China exist or is China “almost certain” to exist?
Of course a chapter about “Why x” will be about the evidence that x. Unless you reject inductive reasoning, evidence for or against x is exactly what determins whether “x” is true or false.
No, they’re different. It is currently unknown if there is a dead squirrel in my pool, but it is not currently unknowable because I have the power to look and find out for myself. Irrelevant thought to Frank apisa’s earlier claims; he has now moved the goalpost.
I can’t watch it at work, but I’ll watch and respond when I get home.
Fantome, the quote in question STILL does not support your claim. It still requires rejecting belief in God – as opposed to, say, merely not believing one way or another. It does allow for the peculiar case of rejecting a proposition on the grounds that it is meaningless, but that’s obviously not the same thing as merely lacking any belief one way or another.
You’re obviously quoting a different Encyclopedia of Philosophy than the one I was referrring to. Besides, I think that this talk about rejecting theism because it’s a meaningless proposition is, quite frankly, meaningless. After all, if God exists, then declaring his existence is a meaningful proposition, and so the author in question is striving to draw an irrelevant distinction.
No matter how hard you try, you have not been able to provide any scholarly works that unambiguously support your stance. You’re wasting time.
Yes, that’s correct. That’s what he says. The god can hypothetically be proven to exist, but cannot be proven NOT to exist. Gods can, however, be shown to be highly unlikely to exist.
China certainly exists. Chinese dragons almost certainly do not.
Only specific claims about god can be tested, God, as a hypothesis, can never be proven false by testable evidence, only unnecessary and exceedingly unlikely.
What does “not believing one way or another” mean? Not believing in God/gods is all it takes and I’ve cited multiple references.
You said “The Encyclopedia of Philosophy asserts that in its most common definition, atheism is specifically the belief that there is no deity.” I’m showing you that it says you don’t have to have a belief to be an atheist.
What is this hair you’re splitting by claiming “It still requires rejecting belief in God”? Is it that babies can’t be atheists because they have no concept of God? I’ll accept that, but that’s not the way you’ve been arguing with me all along. As an adult, if I am without belief in God, I’m an atheist, This obviously entails rejecting the claim that gods exist. But you’ve been making claims all along about atheism requiring believing there is no deity, which I have proven to you over and over is incorrect. One does not have to believe God/gods don’t exist to be an atheist.
Peculiar case my ass. Not accepting something as true for any reason whatsoever is being without belief; it doesn’t matter what the reason is.
Yeah, obviously. You didn’t quote any, but yours is the only one that matters, right? Which one are you making the claim about, btw?
Unambiguously? I already told you there are more than one definition for almost all words. Scholarly? I cited encyclopedias, dictionaries and linked to a website that included definitions of atheism in religious reference works. Not for your benefit, but for any readers of this thread that might have been taken in by your bullshit about how atheism is defined. I’m not wasting my time because I think it’s worthwhile. Why you think it’s a waste of your time but keep participating is a mystery to me, but that’s your problem.
First of all…that is only one statement, so I am not sure what you mean by "Those are the same statements.
But if you meant…“if a thing is currently unknown” that means the same as it is “currently unknowable”…well, I disagree…although I am willing to listen to the progression of the logic that gets you to:
If “x” is currently unknown…then “x” is currently unknowable.
Can you explain the logic that gets you there?
These two sentences are at odds with each other. The predicate “proven NOT to exist” means “shown to be highly unlikely to exist.”
In the field of science, the concept of proof is not limited (as it is in math and logic) to a logical demonstration showing that a conclusion follows necessarily from a premise. When a scientist (like Dawkins) says that something is proved, what he means is that it has been shown to be highly likely to be true. That’s it. If you want to use the words “proof” and “prove” differently (by restricting them to their mathematical senses for example) that’s fine, but you need to be explicit that you are defining your terms idiosyncratically.
There is nothing magical about negative assertions. Every negative is assertion is logically equivalent to a positive assertion. It is possible to prove a negative. If you like, I can provide a very simple (mathematical) proof that there is no greatest prime number. Inductive reason works for negatives as well. There is far more evidence that leprechauns do not exist as that objects are attracted to one another by a force proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them. Science has proven that leprechauns do not exist. Science has proven that no magical beings exist. Whether God belongs in that category is a matter of opinion, but most descriptions of God clearly do.
They can?
How?
The question is: Are gods involved in the Reality of existence?
How does one show probability on this issue…let alone probability highly favoring one position or another?
Not at all. All you have to do is show that something else is more likely. If you see bootprints in the snow, you can either assume that a person walked through the snow, or that a wizard put them there by magic. One of thos possibilities is far more likely than the other, but the wizard hypothesis, as unlikely as it is, cannot be proven impossible.
Dawkins nesver says that anything is proved.
Science actually has not proven any of those things, nor can it.
Don’t be obtuse. I expressed two statements that are equivalent.
Sure. You can’t magically know what you don’t know. You can discover more information, but then X would no longer be currently unknown. as l;ong as X is currently unknown, then it is crrently unknowable. Those are expressions of the same statement.
Easy. All you have to do is show that something else is more probable. Fucking child’s play.
What the fuck does “reality of existence” mean, and what does it mean to be “involved” in it?
I’ll put it like this. If you can show that anything is more probable than magic, then you’ve shown that magic is improbable, even if you can never prove it’s impossible.
Again, this is not how most people talk. If you want to use proof in a way different from from the rest of us, please let us know at the start of the conversation!
I’m using it the way both scientists and philosophers use it.
This is a a debate that’s now based entirely on stupid semantic battles that have absolutely no bearing on any substance in the argument, and your counter is “that’s not how most people talk”?
Oh well, anyway, I’m done with the thread unless someone starts talking about things with substance. My posts were ignored and instead everyone tried to one up each other with “LOL BUT MY DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY SAYS THIS”. How tedious.