"The weak atheist assigns no probability at all to “God doesn’t exist”
What exactly does this mean? If someone assigns 0% probability to X by definition he assigns 100% probability to not-X. The only way you can assign no probability to not-X is to also assign no probability to X as well. But your weak atheist isn’t doing this. That is the basic problem IMO.
“You seem to be forgetting that we are speaking not of truth, but of affirmations of truth claims.”
But the affirmations still have to be consistent presumably. And you can’t reject X and reject not-X at the same time.
You can say that you don’t have any opinion on X and not-X but I don’t think that is weak atheism. It sounds to me more like agnosticism.
OK, fair enough. How about: “a Christian’s certainty of god is not based solely on empirical, objective evidence. That is to say, an element of faith must enter into it at some point.”
No, that’s apathy. Agnostics have an opinion on the existance of God. Agnostics believe the question “Does God exist” is completely unanswerable under all circumstances. Both the strong and the weak atheist would answer that question “No, God does not exist”. However, they come to that answer from different directions. The strong atheist says “It is logically or evidentually impossible for God to exist.” The weak atheist says, “There is no logical or evidentiary evidence that supports a conclusion that God exists, and lacking such evidence, I state that God does not exist”.
The basic problem is that you keep forgetting about “belief”. The symbolic equation in question is not X, but BX. There is a difference, and a very large one at that.
A weak atheist makes no claim whatsoever to the truth (or lack thereof) of either X or ~X. The weak atheist does not assign 0% probability to X. He assigns 0% probability to BX. “There is zero percent probability that I believe that God exists.”
No. Agnosticism posits that it is not possible for anyone to ever have a valid opinion on X, as the truth value of X is intrinsicaly unknowable.
The weak atheist has no opinion on the truth value of X pending further evidence, and, more importantly, takes the default stance that X is false. This is not quite the same as stating ~X. This is taking the philosophical stance that the default, neutral value of existance is intrinsicaly false. Everything is assumed false until proven true. The weak atheist doesn’t believe~X is true, he merely assumes it, as non-existance is the default state before analysis is applied to the situation.
I know, that doesn’t really make a lot of logical sense, but we’re dealing with belief here, not logical proofs. There is a difference between the assumption of non-existance, and the belief of non-existance.
You are right that one definition of agnosticism is “cannot know whether God exists” but I think that “don’t know whether God exists” would also be considered agnostic as well. There is a fair amount of fuzziness here.
Perhaps some of the confusion is about the word “believe” because I am not sure that there is much of a distinction between taking non-existence as a default position and believing in non-existence.
I am not sure that adding “believe” in the proposition changes much unless you are willing to admit multiple probabilities. IOW if “believe”= assigning 100% probability and not believing=0% then ~BX and B~X become equivalent. If ~B can mean anything other than 100% then the two are not equivalent. I am not sure how clear this but I don’t really have the time to elaborate.
Anyway an interseting if inconclusive discussion. I think our three-way difference underlines the fact that these concepts are rather fuzzy.
Captain Amazing,
Your definition seems to be the one I suggested earlier:
“So perhaps the distinction between weak and strong atheists is the process by which they come to their identical conclusions. The strong atheist believes he has positive evidence that God doesn’t exist. The weak atheist reaches the same conclusion but only by default because he hasn’t found any evidence that God exists.”
However my understanding is that both Apos and Random have different definitions which involve differences in the conclusion as well as the process towards the conclusion.
The problem is: as I am explaining it, atheism need not involve the reaching of any conclusions. That’s part of a basic confusion that people have about how negative (or privative) definitions work.
If somebody says, “The existence of a God or gods is unverifiable, and therefore the concept is meaningless,” what does that make him? A theological verificationist? Does such a person qualify as an atheist per se? (I am aware that, IIRC, verificationism has fallen out of fashion due to the unverifiability of the premise that unverifiable propositions are meaningless.)
Also, if somebody believes that the existence of God is impossible to prove, but believes in God for kicks anyway (a pretty good summary of my beliefs), what does that make him? A theistic agnostic, perhaps?
“atheism need not involve the reaching of any conclusions”
That appears to be your definition but I am not sure it’s widely shared. Many people would define not reaching any conclusion as agnosticism.
I think most of these people are not non-agnostics who just lump all people between athiest and theist togethor. An Athiest denies the possibility of god an Agnostic denies the possibilty of knowledge (of god). A better word for someone who just hasnt made up there mind, but conceivably could be, would be ungnostic.
“Sometimes what a phrase means to philosophers and theologians is different than what it means to the general public.”
True but is there a standard definition of these terms in philosophy textbooks? If so can someone provide them?
There exists no grand high council of philosophy, I defend my definition of agnosticism on the grounds that its more interesting then just people who dont know, closer to what Huxley had in mind when he coined the term, and more etymologically consitant.
“more etymologically consitant.”
The prefix “a” generally means “not”. So the “don’t know” interpretation is more consistent with general usage.
As for interesting that is a matter of opinion. I have always the thought that the idea of denial of any possible knowledge of God an awfully strong position. What if some day there is a voice in the sky which announces and performs extraordinary miracles? Most people would consider that evidence of some kind of God.
A person who says “I dunno” based on his current state of knowledge seems more reasonable than someone who says that it is impossible to ever know whether God exists.
“a” with regards to philosophical terms is usually a little stronger then just negation, for which plenty of prefixes already exist (i.e. non-, un-). Denail is a closer approximation. An athiest is more then just a non-theist they (to a strong or weak extent perhaps) actively disbelieve in the deity.
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That’s why its interesting and deserving of a seperate term. Peopel who just say “i dunno” have vaguer more transitional beliefs. The type of agnosticism I describe is more of a defined and completed belief.
“Denail is a closer approximation”
But even denial doesn’t quite get you what you want. Someone who denies knowledge isn’t necessarily someone who denies the possibility of knowledge in any circumstances.
“The type of agnosticism I describe is more of a defined and completed belief.”
Maybe but it’s so strong I am not sure there are too many reasonable people who hold such a belief. How many people do you know who would continue denying the possibility of knowledge no matter what happens or what evidence is presented to them?
OTOH the position: “I don’t know if God exists or not but it’s possible that future evidence could help me make my mind” seems both more reasonable and more in tune with the general meaning of the term agnostic.
This is an interesting discussion which suggests the addtional categories of strong and weak agnosticism to distinguish the “cannot know” and “I do not know” positions.
That makes a lot of sense although it brings up the question of what the difference is between weak agnosticism and weak atheism.
Agnosticism doesn’t deny the possibility of knowing God. The Agnostic says “We do not have enough knowledge to accept or deny God. But we might at some point.”
I’m not sure agnosticism can be a belief system in and of itself. Seems like more of a way station, between the two poles, (God/NoGod).
Well I know one at least, myself. If one assumes that god has infinite and timeless aspects, then i can very rationally determine that I will never be able to gather enough evidence to prove that even a god-like entity is in fact god. the case would be different if you defined god as just a superior being, created in time with finite powers. Of course any sufficiently advanced aliens will meet this criteria. My point with the “a-” prefix was that Huxley used a prefix stronger and less common then simple negation, I believe intentionally to distinguish simply not knowing, from a seprate complete belief system (that knowing was impossible).
“I will never be able to gather enough evidence to prove that even a god-like entity is in fact god.”
If by proof you mean 100% certainly that’s true. But then no empirical proposition can be proven with 100% certainty so that is not a very interesting proposition.
If by proof you mean strong evidence, then your version of agnosticism is highly dubious because it assumes that even if God exists he won’t be able to supply strong evidence of his existence. You are in effect ruling out the existence of a certain kind of God: ie. one who can provide strong evidence of his existence.