How so?
Of course there is, considering that even the bible employs certain forms of internal logic.
If empirical evidence is the weakest, how then can an proponet of the so called “postmodern epistemologies” be certain of the existence of the external world? Furthermore, how are ontological questions more important than, say, existential ones?
Plantinga is weak as far as theologican goes. Swinburne fares better.
This is one questions a lot of Christians ask of nonbelievers. If you think about it a bit deeper, however, it signals trouble for Christians.
The Christians lead a moral life because of an external force. Suppose that this force then is shown to be non-existent, would that mean Christians become immoral?
As one of my favourite quote goes, “If it were proved to you that there is no God, which atrocity would you commit first, and why?”
To elaborate on that sentiment, a study of history shows that belief in God does very little to prevent atrocities in the first place. In fact for an excellent survey of some really monumental atrocities, I recommend the book of Joshua.
Actually, looking back on it, I think I was being kind of anal - I’m sure you were just being facetious about the “brainwashing” thing, and I probably overreacted. Please accept my apologies.
Because your senses are a part of the metaphysic that they study. An empirical observation takes place, not at the place where you’re looking, but in your brain.
Honestly, this is trivial. Let X be a free variable: X is true because X says so.
Existence is a phenomenal attribute, and like any categorical concept is a contrivance from sentience, without which, such a description is moot. A rock exists because you say it does; there is no declaration (or epistemic awareness) of existence from the rock. In other words, the only universe that exists is the one in your brain.
That depends on what you mean by “existential”. If you mean “of or relating to existence”, they are one and the same. But if you mean “empirical experience”, then existentialism is merely one ontological interpretation.
[note to self]Remember the smilies next time[/note to self]
I don’t have a belief IN God. Nor do I believe there is NO God. I am undecided. I have no belief one way or the other. I don’t agree that this makes me an atheist (in spite of your excellent arguments to the contrary, for which I applaud you).
flowbark articulated what I was attempting (and failing) to say…
I have however, formed a new belief as a direct consequence of this thread, namely that “I believe I am an empirical agnostic.”
For the record, regarding the question of morality (which I’ve ignored so far because the answer seems intuitively obvious to me), I do not see any correlation between moral behavior and a god-belief.
Algernon! You’re an Empirical Agnostic? Why haven’t I seen you during services? 
I have an argument up my sleave which alleges that Apos’s binary approach to belief / not belief is problematic (though nonetheless analytically sound). But I will wait for his response…
Lib, I’ve never pictured you to be an idealist, but your most recent post surely exemplifies that point.
—My only point is that in most contexts (outside of this one, I grant you) to say “I don’t believe that…”, is more or less equivalent to, “I disbelieve that…”—
No, if anything, that is a FALSE (and often dishonest) assumption that people all to habitually make, and shouldn’t, in any context.
—My taxonomy was is very similar to their’s. —
I don’t agree with that statement (I suggest you read deeper into it’s discussion of the controversy, and note how their definition of agnosticism is not exhaustive of atheism either), nor is this website any more authoritative than any other. We could send each other racing around hundreds of sites. You could check out the atheism site at about.com. Or Positive Atheism (which isn’t what it sounds). Or, most importantly, you can check out what the most famous non-believers, the only people to ever discuss atheism in anything other than a non-denouncing stance, used the word: Richard Carlile, Baron d’Holbach, Charles Southwell, Charles Bradlaugh, and Anne Besant, etc. Or you could check out the book “Atheism” George H. Smith which is possibly the most widely read book on atheism today. All agree with me. Some disagree. How are we to resolve the “popular usage” debate then? At the very least, I think I have the edge on it among atheists: while you have the edge on people as a whole (most of which don’t relaly give the issue much thought)
—What I have a problem with is obliterating the distinction between…—
Did I? Wasn’t I the one who pointed out that people can be, and are, atheist agnostics, theist agnostics, and claimed theist/atheist gnostics? So I think this is a false accusation on your part.
The point is not that agnosticism is equivalent to atheism. It is that it rests on a different distinction than does atheism, and declaring yourself an agnostic does not answer the question of whether you are a theist or atheist.
—a) “those that do not believe that the question is intrinsically unknowable, but instead believe that the evidence for or against God is inconclusive, and therefore are undecided about the issue.” (empirical agnostics, like flowbark)—
Yes yes… but don’t you realize that inconclusive evidence is not, for everyone, the end of the road? One could still believe that, not believe, and believe not!
—b) practitioners of ," “Weak atheism”…[or] simple skepticism; disbelief in the existence of God."—
Sigh. If you are going to criticize MY definition, and accuse me of conflation, you could at least get MY definition right. It’s not “disbelief in” (though an atheist certainly COULD have “disbelief in”) but rather “lacking the belief that.”
Preliminaries:
Apos: 1) Thanks for the response. I fear that my post muddied the waters a little, in that I implicitly ascribed the Infidel Website’s definition of soft atheism to you. Woops. Sorry about that.
I hope I established though that I didn’t pull my definitions out my arse, or the dictionary’s. Your about.com cite was helpful; they appear to share your definitional structure, though with some ambiguity. (They also stress that the definitions are a bit of a mess.)
a) “Believe” and “Not believe” are exhaustive categories: there are no other options.
b) “Believe” and “Not believe” are mutually exclusive: they do not overlap.
c) “Believe not” (equivalently, “disbelieve”) is a subset of “Not believe”.
d) “Withhold judgement” overlaps areas of “Not believe” and “Believe”. (Here’s where agnosticism enters in.)
e) “Strong atheism” entails “Believe not”.
As long as we understand one another, you can define your terms any way you want, as far as I’m concerned. Permit me to build on your structure, by proposing a couple of (nonexhaustive?) sub-categories for 3f) Weak atheism.
4a) Skeptical Weak Atheists believe that God probably doesn’t exist. This, I claim, is the position of most self-defined atheists in practice. My WAG, no cite.
4b) Empirically Agnostic Weak Atheists withhold judgement regarding the existence of G-d. These folks, I claim, will tend to self-define themselves as either agnostics or nonreligious. Again, my WAG, no cite.
Small quibble/question on agnosticism. If you don’t “know” something, how could you possibly believe it it?
Firts, we most ask: If god cannont be known by nature, is’t the sandtdard replay that you *don’t’
Small quibble/question on agnosticism. If you don’t “know” something, how could you possibly believe it it?
Firts, we most ask: If god cannont be known by nature, is’t the sandtdard replay that you *don’t’
— If you google “I don’t believe that” (be sure to use quotes), I think you will find that the preponderance of hits imply “I disbelieve that”.—
If google showed that the preponderance of sites think that q->p is equivalent to p->q, would this change the ridiculousness of that claim? No amount of any sort of usage can ever make the equivalence you are arguing for valid, because it is flat out a logical error to assume that one equals the other.
I have also pointed out that there is an important difference between the proper distinction a definition has and the specific lengths to which individuals will go. “I don’t believe that” also allows for “I disbelieve that,” and it is certianly easy to fall into a stereotype if one only cares about the loudest examples (and “god does not exist” screeds certianyl get loud!)
But it is still everywhere and always wrong to think that one impies the other, no matter how often you find them in conjuncture. I don’t care whether this is originally a disease in thinking in atheist literature or caricatured theist condemnations of atheists that some atheists picked up: it is simply sloppy thinking all around, and should not be tolerated.
—“I’m wary of definitional systems that tend to sweep empirical agnostics under the rug by merging 4a) and 4b) or stressing a seldom-used late 19th century definition of agnosticism.”—
Sigh. No.
Let’s begin again. There is a god claim. This is the central issue.
Atheism/theism deals with a binary question: does the person in question make this claim or not? Gradations of belief are all well and good, but the whole POINT of thess definitions is to ascertain whether the god claim in question can be assumed true or not in a discussion with this person. This is a yes or no question.
Agnosticism/gnosticism deals with whether or not the person can claim KNOWLEDGE about the validity of the god claim. Gnostics claim to have knowledge (be it about the invalidity or validity of th claim), and agnostics do not claim to knowledge.
These two sorts of classifications deal with different subjects. They can thus be mixed any way you like: giving you four avenues of description: agnostic atheist, agnostic theist, gnostic atheist, gnostic theist.
I have no interest in “writing off” agnosticism by collapsing it into atheism. As I have said time and time again, theists can be agnostics too. Agnosticism is NOT, however, as it is always mistaken as being, an alternative position to either belief or non-belief (even if you don’t think, as I do, that “theism” and “atheism” correspond to those categories).
I have never stressed Huxley’s definition. I regard it as incoherent and self-refuting. The plain Greek reading of the word has become more popular, and is certainly more useable.
Again: why is it so important that atheism and theism meet at the distinction I say they should (and not split off into, say, three categories) Because first of all, then we would no longer be talking about the god claim. We would then be talking about the god claim and the not god claim, and perhaps more besides.
The god claim is the central issue around which classifications like theism and atheism are built. And why are terms like theism or atheism so important to have? Because the KEY practical issue is whether or not someone will grant the truth of the god claim in question.
And the key to agnosticism/gnosticism is whether or not the person has anything to contribute as to the question of the ultimate validity of the god claim.
THAT is why the distinctions are important, and why I think they should be drawn at the points I suggest.
—If you don’t “know” something, how could you possibly believe it it?—
Faith.
[side point]
Apos:
Claim: If you say, “I don’t believe that…” in most contexts people will think you mean “I disbelieve that”
Empirical proof:
How often do you hear the claim “I disbelieve that…”?
How often do you hear the claim “I believe not that…”?
1st hit on google: “I don’t believe that”
I might recommend that you highlight the distinction by using such phrases as “absence of belief” instead of “not believe”. (Although, again, for the purposes of this discussion, I understand your particular terminology.) Sorry for going on and on about this side point but (Jeez) if we can’t get the small points hammered down, I’m wondering about whether the trickier points can be handled.
—The only point I was making is that while there is a valid analytic distinction between "not believe " and the narrower “believe not”, it’s not a distinction that is observed in common practice. In common practice “not believe” = disbelieve. That is not an analytic error.—
So it is an analytic error, only it’s not an analytic error because everyone makes that mistake? (Of course, since you admit that YOU read that implication into every instance, how can we trust your judgement on whether the implication is actually there or not in your survey?)
Again, I dont see why what you are advocating is any different than my q->p = p->q example earlier. Sure, it’s a common confusion. Is that a good thing? No. It poisons honest communication.
Remember: we’re not talking about single words here anymore. We’re not talking about re-thinking what “p” is, or “->” is (though, even if “->” is taken to mean “iff,” then the equivalence STILL isn’t quite true), but the entire phrase. We’re talking about people using words that have pretty clearly defined meanings (like “don’t” and “believe” and “not” and “that”, etc.), and taking the grammatically wrong meaning out of them.
And who is trying to eradicate valid positions here? Isn’t it pretty important to understand that people can “not believe” without “believing not”? Isn’t that the distinction most important for engaging in axiomatic discussions?
Do we really want people to think they live in a world where the mere suggestion of a belief makes one have to have a counter-belief if one is not ready to have that belief. That’s insane. That’s blackmail. And that’s, coincidentally or not, exactly what evangelists of all stripes and causes would love for people to believe.
—2) How often do you hear the claim “I believe not that…”?—
Almost always, when people disagree, people simply state the contrary position that they DO believe, or we hear the “not” come later in the sentance…(one reason to think your sample is more than a little biased)
“believe not” is quite a strong claim, and allowing the law of the excluded middle (and who wouldn’t in this context?) then it also seems to be awkward, which of course is why we wouldn’t find it in common parlance.
for “believe not” is simply “believe (~X)”.
I would not care to make a distinction between “believe” and “believe not” as I read it. Both make an existential claim.
—I would not care to make a distinction between “believe” and “believe not” as I read it. Both make an existential claim.—
Yep: and to both you can ask a binary, yes/no question as to whether or not one affirms the belief.
—I would not care to make a distinction between “believe” and “believe not” as I read it.—
Well sure, but what about, “don’t believe” and “believe”?
I’d put it down to use in that case, for rejecting a belief ~(believe (X)) shouldn’t equate to [believe(~X)] if we consider belief to be some sort of function, as it were. Given “belief” operator and the negation sign, we may not place the sign in any particular place and have them all achieve the same meaning.
If, for example, I would say that God is nonsense, and I don’t believe in him, you couldn’t then turn around and say that I believe in not-god, since the opposite of nonsense would still be, I think, nonsense. You could say that I believe that nonsensical statements exist, though. But who would argue with that?
And what phrasing could we use for refusing to accept a distinction? For isn’t that characteristic of agnosticism in general, that such a distinction GOD cannot be made? It makes no sense to use belief in reference to god, in this case.
I am not sure who I am agreeing with here.
No mistake is being made. This is a matter of common usage. If I was asked, “Tell me flowbark, do you personally believe that Alpha Centuri is a yellow sun (as opposed to a red or blue sun)?”, I would respond, “I don’t know”. If I wanted to be pedantic, I’d say, “I neither believe that nor disbelieve that”. If, OTOH, I say “I don’t believe that Alpha Centuri is a yellow sun (full stop)”, it implies (in common usage) that I believe that Alpha Centuri is something else. It implies that, because any sane audience recognizes that I could have said, “I don’t know”, or “I neither believe nor disbelieve that”, if I meant to make this clear.
There simply are not many contexts where maintaining ambiguity between “disbelieve” and “have no opinion” is that critical.
So, yes, though there is a valid distinction between “not believe” and its subset “believe not”, that in no way stops somebody from using the sound “not believe” to refer to the latter and the sound “have no opinion” to refer to the former. Especially when the meaning is commonly understood.
In case anybody is losing the thread here, I’ll present a quote by the philosopher Hosper (1967), which I suspect that Apos would take issue with.
[quote]
One can believe in many gods (polytheism) or one (monotheism). One can believe in a God who created the world and then left it to run by itself in splendid isolation (Deism) or one who continues to exercise his influence over the course of the world at every stage of its history (theism). One can believe that there is no God at all (atheism), or that we are not entitled on the basis of evidence either to believe God exists or that he does not exist (agnosticism, literally “I-don’t-know-ism”)
[quote]
An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, p 427. I shake my virtual finger at Hosper for equating strong atheism with atheism and neglecting to mention weak atheism. I applaud his discussion to the extent that it reflects qualitative differences in religious beliefs without limiting them to simple binary distinctions.
(Hosper is not the final authority regarding terminology of course.)