I think this has been the cause of a lot of my confusion, because I wasn’t aware that the second type existed. My understanding was that atheists were making a statement of belief: I believe there is/are no god(s).
And it confuses me when I’m trying to dig into beliefs and I’m getting back answers that amount to what science does or does not “know”.
-VM
I think there are people who do that, but I don’t think I’m one of them. It seems that a great many people assume that agnostics are specifically attached to a specifically deist god.
-VM
Yeah, that’s basically what I have been implying.
-VM
Perhaps you’d care to tell us what physical laws exist in the absence of space and time.
And you are in possession of this cosmic wisdom, exactly how?
Wrong on all points. Quantum fluctuations don’t arise from any of Einstein’s theories, but from Heisenberg’s, with whom Einstein had fundamental differences. Their implications have been extended by relativity theory but certainly don’t arise from it, so in that sense you got it backwards. Most importantly, though, vacuum energy is the result of quantum uncertainty in spacetime, so it has exactly zero relevance to the Big Bang. Finally, whether God is “required” to explain either the BB or some deeper underlying phenomenon is the core of the argument, to which apparently only you have arrived at a definitive answer through an amazing combination of incorrect facts and circular logic.
And you are in possession of this other piece of cosmic wisdom, exactly how?
I think we’re way past “can”.
I think you missed the point of what I was trying to say. The point is, any time I let a statement slip out that doesn’t specifically allow for multiple gods, I have to be reminded that there might be more than one. At some point, it seems like it’s just a way to derail the discussion. After having acknowledged the possibility a dozen or so times, I’m thinking I should get a pass for trying for less awkward sentences.
And how many times must I acknowledge this in order to turn off the reflexive reminders?
All I can say is that this does not match my personal experience.
Agreed.
Yes, I believe that a god could show itself. However, I don’t believe that it will. That is, I believe that if there was a god that wanted us to know something about it, then it already would have. So, I tend to think that, if there is a god, it’s not a God that’s looking to be acknowledged by us.
I got the impression that Trinopus would, but I don’t want to speak for him/her…
For me, orthogonal is a mathematical term, and I am failing to see how using it here clarifies the relationship between atheism and agnosticism. They seem to me to be a lot closer to parallel–going generally in the same direction but not quite touching.
[ol]
[li]I believe that I’m having pizza for lunch.[/li][li]I believe that I’m not having pizza for lunch. It may be anything else, but it won’t be pizza.[/li][li]I have no idea whether I’m having pizza for lunch, and don’t have any beliefs associated with the possibility.[/li][/ol]
Regardless of atheism or agnosticism, it seems like you’re denying the second of these is meaningfully different from the third. It sure seems different to me.
Well, clearly some do.
I believe that you definitely missed the point of what I was trying to say.
And what would you say was the difference between weak atheism and agnosticism? What makes them “orthogonal”?
Er, is this the same as “lack of belief in any gods”? Or, are you saying that any time a person doesn’t believe in a particular god, “that is atheism.” So, then Christians would be “atheistic” about Vishnu. Is that what you’re saying, or are you referring to something else?
Seems to me if I believe something, then I’ve drawn a conclusion. It could be an incorrect conclusion…so, you’re making a distinction that I can’t follow.
I don’t think I’ve suggested otherwise.
I think I know what you’re trying to say, but I found that last bit difficult to follow.
Thanks for clarifying. I think it’s interesting that you assume that we would be of such importance to god. Maybe god has shown itself to aliens on another world but figures we’re too crazy to be bothered with…
Don’t think I quite equated them. However, the whole idea of using the null hypothesis is that the “test” hypothesis is not true. Then I look for evidence that refutes the null hypothesis. If I find no evidence, then I can’t reject it. Now, I COULD assume that my test hypothesis WAS true, but that the universe is hiding evidence from me. However, that would be operating in opposition to Occam’s Razor.
Which is not to say that the two are equivalent, but they represent two ways of expressing an essentially pragmatic approach to trying to understand the world. To me, this is so obvious that it surprises me that pointing this out would lead to being offered a remedial course in experimental design.
-VM
For what it’s worth, I’ve raised my daughters to be as close to that ideal as possible (without actively keeping them away from theists).
-VM
I wanted to respond, but I got lost following this thread backwards.
If it helps, I believe there are at least two kinds of atheists – and quite possibly more. There are those who, seeing no evidence for the existence of gods, hold the matter to be of no interest. It’s as if you asked, “Is there intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos?” and they say, “There isn’t any evidence for it, so, for our practical purposes, the answer is no.”
Then there are those who say, “No, gods do not exist; they’re inventions of primitive minds, like ghosts, elves, demons, wind-spirits, and dragons.”
I find the former variety more admirable, because they deal with fact. No evidence for the existence of gods has ever been presented. However, I, personally, am of the latter variety: gods are pure myth, just made-up stories. I have no more reason to believe in Jehovah than in Paul Bunyan. However, this latter viewpoint involves making an assertion, a priori, about the world, which the former viewpoint does not.
Dunno if that answers the question, but, honest, I re-read you guys’ posts quite a ways back, and couldn’t figure what the question was.
In retrospect, I think I may have inadvertently derailed the whole thread. I came in thinking that the tension between atheists and agnostics was way higher than there’s any good reason for, and trying to understand it. Of course, it seems that my understanding of what “atheist” means was based on a variant definition compared to the atheists posting here…and there’s been a whole lot of back-and-forth around a) my trying to figure out what atheists actually, um, believe and b) trying to convince them that I’m not a closet Deist.
Not trying to pull you into the fray, but the position you just described is one that I believe Voyager was saying no actual atheists accept. So, congratulations, you’re my counter-example.
Thanks for following along and jumping in…
-VM
I sometimes think there are as many varieties of atheism as there are individual atheists.
Other times, I think there are actually more.
We are all not only alone, but incomplete.
(But, then, I’m the kinda guy who believes we all should have lots and lots of monomanias.)
I hang mine on my monopole.
Don’t need to, since I don’t take a side as to whether they all break down or some.
As opposed to what world do you propose? Science is based on a very strict adherence to the philosophy of naturalism and for good reason. There is a vast embodiment of knowledge it has accumulated empirically that continues to show us it’s a very natural world. Imagine the world we would be living in today if it wasn’t. If I ever observe gravity just once acting differently, or any other supernatural event occurring, I’ll get back to you.
As far as the God not having anything to do with it, including the BB, I’ll let you take it up with Stephen Hawking and company, and let you explain to him where he is getting his cosmic wisdom, perhaps you didn’t get the memo.
I am in possession of various books which deal with this: Stenger, Asimov, Rothman, Sagan, Hawking, Mills, etc, and haven’t seen where I have erred in their interpretation of things. I don’t pretend to do the math, or grasp many aspects of it, but I do feel like I understand just fine what some of their work entails, even if it sometimes is with the help of other writers.
Then you weren’t paying attention to Einstein who did a lot of work with the conservation laws, and it does play a role in that a quantum fluctuation can produce matter in what we have often thought was a perfect vacuum. Nor have you been keeping up with Hawking’s work. I just know how other writers translate it. Here is a brief excerpt from a chapter entitled Origin of the Universe, Natural or Supernatural of Atheist Universe that covers some of Hawkings and other important physicists work:
Mills goes into much further detail than this, as does Stenger and Rothman on what we can do with conservation laws, but the point is, there are plenty of scientists who have at least some working models, where God has nothing to do, and that includes the BB. For those that want more, you can turn to theologians that will still give God work, but his credits have been shrinking over the years, and it’s been rumored He is on some kind of life support system.
Of course, these working models by Hawking and others could also be wrong, and there is a bit of philosophy in some of these pre-BB arguments. Not saying one is absolutely correct, only that some of their models work just fine without any work for God to do.
I thought this was taught in any basic physics class.
But the level of interest in gods, or aliens, doesn’t help us much in defining them. Someone who sees no evidence and holds the matter to be of no interest lacks god belief, and is a weak atheist. In my life outside the Dope I act as if the matter has no interest. The only possible exception would be to challenge someone wishing to make laws dependent on what god supposedly says to show evidence of this god. As for aliens, with the exception of those engaged in SETI and your common variety saucer nut, those who believe in alien life or not are going to live exactly the same way.
These people are tacitly only considering human gods. I think if pressed they’d fall into the first category with regard to other gods. And rewritten to eliminate the insult to primitive minds stuff, it means that we can more or less see where gods came from and how the concept evolved over time.
Both categories seem to deal with facts, but trying to understand the evolution of the god concept seems more interesting than just stating there is no evidence.
No, because he limited his answer to earth gods. (We all fall into the trap of limiting what gods are possible in some way.) Just about every earth god (by which I mean god created by people on earth) which has some verifiable statement about it has been demonstrated not to be true. This does not include deist gods or traditional gods whose adherents say just about every thing the god did in any kind of writing was a myth.
To know no gods exist means you know none of the gods of that planet where intelligent life flourished three billion years ago exist. A tall order indeed.
I was just saying that you were tying agnosticism to knowledge, which is correct. Nothing to do with multiple gods.
Interesting. Have you seen bias against agnostics?
So you don’t believe in any gods, but if you did believe in one the one you’d believe in would be invisible. Okay. But it is logically possible for the god to make herself known to us, so if agnosticism means the belief that gods are unknowable, this goes against it.
They are different. The second is much stronger. But they are both types of lack of belief that you’ll have pizza. And neither has anything to do with knowledge. In case two, if you smelled some pizza, or you found you lacked other options, and wound up having pizza, the statement that you believed you would not eat pizza is still correct. The statement that you knew you would not eat pizza would be wrong.
Here are the options.
A person can be a weak atheist (lack god belief) and still think that knowledge of a god is possible, if one existed.
One can certainly be a weak atheist and think knowledge of god is impossible. I’m not sure how this would be justified, but the concepts are not contradictory.
One can certainly be a theist and think god can be known. Pretty common.
One can believe in a god, and believe that god cannot be known - a deist.
Since a deist has convinced himself that the only possible god is hidden and doesn’t interfere, this position makes sense.
Since all four possibilities exist, the concepts are orthogonal.
Sorry. Nor precisely for any god G I lack belief in that god. Changing god to gods in my statement is fine. My new definition certainly includes multiple gods - there is no requirement that the existence of god G contradicts the existence of God H. (Though it might.)
Sometimes yes and sometimes no.
Any god worthy of the name could show himself. I agree he might want to. Since there are lots of planets older than ours, it would make sense for a creator god to put the life he is interested in fiddling with on one of the earlier planets. If he had to make a full universe for that life, the conditions are right for other life to evolve. So, perhaps we are just contamination. Maybe he took his people off to heaven or wherever billions of years ago. Let’s just hope this god is too busy to clean up.
Uplifting philosophy, no?
No, the null hypothesis is not the hypothesis you are looking for evidence for - and trying to refute at the same time. Because if it is you are left with no hypothesis at all. Some people try to refute the null hypothesis and then declare their own unverified hypothesis the winner by default.
The null hypothesis can be totally null (no gods exist) or what has been accepted.
200 or more years ago the null hypothesis was that the Bible was correct about the origin of species, Darwin did not refute the Bible directly, but introduced a new hypothesis and demonstrated it.
Creationists today, on the other hand, spend a lot of time not demonstrating that the flood happened but instead they try to find tiny holes in evolution, and if they think they have done so, announce that this proves they are correct. They are trying to disprove the null hypothesis, not demonstrate theirs. You can see how this gets them into trouble.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that delivery man was one of the many neo-pagans we have in the UK these days. If this commentator had bothered to talk to him rather than dismiss him as ignorant, he or she might have learnt all about Eostre and the way Her festival was co-opted by the Christians way back in the dark ages.
Of course, most of this history is imaginary, having been reconstructed from a sentence or two in Bede. Knowing all about Eostre is as meaningless as knowing about Easter, since they are both imaginary histories reconstructed from inadequate documentary evidence.
I’d think it would be far more likely he’s Muslim, Sikh or Hindu, and so didn’t have any cultural reference points for how the Great Feast of Chocolate Eggs and Rabbits relates to Jesus dying on the cross. Western Neo-pagans are hardly ignorant of Christianity, most having been brought up nominally Christian or at least in a Chritianity-saturated culture.
True that.
My closest neo-pagan acquaintance is a vicar’s daughter, so she’d know the ins and outs of the Easter story backwards.
What other gods would these be? I don’t get your point here.
When talking about mythological gods, I have no objection to extending it to “…Folklore and fables made up by hypothetical intelligent aliens elsewhere in the cosmos.” It just seems an unnecessary filip.
Acts 17:23 talks about a monument dedicated to “An Unknown God,” so, if the story is true, people were covering that possibility a long, long time ago.
if we’re talking about gods made up by human cultures, we can investigate their origins and the claims made about them, and in every case be pretty certain there is no god there. I think we both agree on that. I think Smartass would agree with that.
But if I make up a god that is concerned with some other world, and who has never had anything to do with us, what can we say about it? By default we don’t believe in it, of course. Given that the universe looks naturally made, we can even believe it doesn’t exist. But be certain? Know? Not at all. Not that this lack of knowledge should affect our behavior one little bit.
Can’t agree. Your position assumes we have the ability to measure to measure a supposedly omnipotent and all encompassing entity. There’s no reason to assume that’s the case.