How about also answering to post # 114?
And now I remember why I don’t usually get into the religion threads.
The invisible unicorn be with you all!
In discussing evidence, we need to distinguish what we expect to see and what we don’t expect to see. If there were unicorns, we’d expect to find at least one prancing around, especially as the forests shrink, and we’d expect to find at least one unicorn fossil. For UFOs, in the over 60 years since Arnold saw his disks, we’d expect to find one piece of physical evidence, or at least one unambiguous photo.
For SETI, even if we don’t hear anything, that would demonstrate that no one is transmitting close enough. If the aliens existed around the five worlds, and they are at a 1800s level at best, we’d not expect to hear anything from them, so the lack of evidence is not evidence of anything.
The deist world view implies no evidence of that god, so lack of belief is about the best we can justify. The Western theist worldview, on the other hand, claims massive intervention by God - from the extremes of floods and such down to just sending his kid and doing the odd miracle. Lack of evidence to support these claims is indeed evidence that they are not true.
So, it is not evidence that counts - it is expected evidence. Expected evidence is kind of like the predictions made by theories. As an example, if experiments don’t turn up expected evidence of Higgs bosons, someone claiming absence of evidence is not evidence of absence is going to be laughed out of the room. Lack of expected evidence is going to force a rework of the theory.
And your last statement would be correct if you lacked the belief that even one god out of millions didn’t exist. But saying that it is not true that for all gods gi you believe that gi does not exist does not mean that it is not true that for any god Gj you believe Gj does not exist. I can use the proper notation if you’d like. The former statement says that there is at least one Gi for which you lack disbelief, the second says that there is at least one Gj for which you do have disbelief. The statements are compatible.
So you didn’t answer the question.
“I know plenty of theists who “aren’t sure” and admit they don’t know God exists, yet believe He does. I also know atheists who aren’t sure gods don’t exist but are without belief that any do. EDIT: See the beginning of Voyager’s last post.”
That is different again from what Im talking about. I understand most if not all ‘active’ atheists positions are logically based on the null hypothesis and the like, rather than simple ‘god doesnt exist’ beliefs as such. Ie they almost all inherently allow for the possibilty that god exists, if sufficient evidence was found rather than having ‘faith’ that god doesnt exist.
But in my view that is different from ‘I am not making any decision at all on this issue’, which in my view is more akin to the pure agnostic position as a concept. This doesnt really have anything to do with level of certainty or ‘not sureness’ as such, which is why I put the term in italics, if someone can come up with a better term it would be very helpful.
“If a person had no opinion at all as to the probability of winning the lottery, they would bet every time”
Well firstly, bet on what? You cant do all the religions.
And thats a bit like arguing that true atheists have no absolute morality so will be more likely to end up as self centered psychopaths. Predicting behaviour on the basis of philosophical views isnt that straightforward.
Otara
Otara, you’ve been here for almost seven years. Do you not know how to quote posters properly? It would make following the conversation easier for everyone if you would do so.
Look again at what you wrote and my responses. What I responded to is exactly what you were talking about.
I don’t think a person can choose not to make a decision on the issue. You can choose not to state one, to be sure, but under the hood the little cogs in your head will be turning, turning, turning…and you will either find yourself granting or witholding credibility to claims. Things are categorized as likely or not, and you act accordingly - pretty much regardless of whether you articulate (or even understand) your thought processes.
Belief isn’t really something a person can actively control. It just happens.
Most people don’t encounter all the religions - there is usually a dominant one in the area, or failing that a dominant kind of religion in the area. See the “Describe your conversion from religion to atheism or agnosticism.” thread - there are several accounts of atheists who cruised through acting in compliance with the religion without really actively believing or disbelieving it, just because it was expected of them.
Admittedly that’s not technically pascal’s wager - it gambles on immediate societal results rather than post-death rewards. On the other hand, I’m not sure these folk would qualify as “pure” agnostics, because they didn’t fail to form an opinion.
No - those arguments are based on the fallacious opinion that morality from sources other than god is impossible. It’s not even the same type of argument.
Still waiting…
“Look again at what you wrote and my responses. What I responded to is exactly what you were talking about.”
I really dont think you’re really understanding what Im talking about but its probably due to the terms Im using.
You cant ‘not take a position’ and ‘believe or not believe’ in the kind of way Im talking about. Once you lean towards a side you have left that state of ‘not taking a position’. Now granted thats a philosophical position in itself, and in my view a matter of axioms rather than ‘right or wrong’ as you seem to be arguing.
Basically it comes down to what you define is necessary for in order to not really take a position. We seem to disagree on that, which is Ok I guess.
“I don’t think a person can choose not to make a decision on the issue.”
I agree practically its very hard if not impossible to do this, but as a goal or concept it can be defined as such, which is where the zen kind of argument comes in.
Otara
I’m currently preparing foam fingers and silk-screened tees for this topic.
“Bros before Atheos” for the strict agnostics
“A-gnosis, moar liek Halitosis” for the strong atheists
I don’t know.
Not according to Webster or other two dictionaries I cited.
So if you are saying that I should use your definition over the one in Websters…why???
Well obviously it is not useful in this forum!
It’s a perfectly useful word - as long as everyone* understands what it means. (Which isn’t “not an atheist or a thiest”, because in that case it is useless, because it would refer to nobody. But then, that’s not the way the word is used.)
- Or most everyone. It’s still useful despite you.
Well, Gustav…
…the “second quote” read: “I do not believe any gods exist…”
That is not the same as “I believe no gods exist.
If I had said the latter (I didn’t)…that would be a guess.
The former is not a guess at all. It is merely a statement about what I do not believe.
I am getting to the point where I doubt you can understand that difference, but I will keep trying to get through.
Sorry…haven’t been back there in a while. Give me a reply number and I will respond.
In fact, bring your question here. I have been warned by a monitor that I am only to address this issue here in this thread. (What could I tell ya???)
If you think everyone is either a theist or an atheist…you have problems.
That simply is not the way things are.
Where is it useful if everyone is agnostic?
Why do you keep skipping over my posts? I reminded you to get to one of my posts and you responded to only half of it. I then re-posted what you left out and you skipped right over it.
Please answer to post #139.
So you think it’s okay to cherry pick definitions? This is how The Random House dictionary defines abiogenesis:
Would you insist that this is the one and only definition of abiogenesis? It’s not even correct. That’s not how the word is used in science. This is:
Otara, PLEASE use quote tags!
Just to volley the tennis ball back over the net, it is perfectly possible to construct a positive belief in the nonexistence of supernatural deities without “guessing”. The fact that you make a blithe dismissal of all atheist arugments doesn’t mean that they’re actually invalid or uncompelling - it just means that you don’t like them.
And even if the arguments are not compelling, then accepting them still isn’t a guess. If somebody tells you that the earth is flat, and convinces you with some spiffy 14th century argument (“people on the bottom would drop off!”), and then you are asked the shape of the earth, then when you say it’s flat it’s not a guess. You know what you think and have reasons for thinking it.
What problems do you imagine I have? Too many people agreeing with me about the words mean?