Why are most people unwilling to admit that they don't know if God does or does not exist?
The fact that anyone is part of any religion with a God or God(s) or is an atheist, means that they either believe that the God(s) of that religion does exist or does not exist, but is otherwise not willing or is reluctant to admit the actual truth, which is that no one knows whether any God does or does not exist. You can present all of the evidence you want to support your claim, but at the end of the day you may as well just admit that you don t know if God does or does not exist, because that is the actual truth. Anyone who is unwilling to admit this in my opinion is extremely stubborn and would rather stick to their own beliefs while refusing to believe anything else, or either is not smart enough to understand that they really don t know if God does or does not exist. Moreover, does it even matter whether God does or does not exist? Like lets say it was proven that any given God(s) does exist. What will it change other than the fact that we will know that they exist?
Comments (440)
i agree except i believe your beliefs effect your actions. If i believed Stalin or Hitler was good guy it would effect how i carry my self out in society and i believe the same is true about whether you believe in god or gods or whatever. I do agree that you can't be 100% certain of most things.
I think a lot of atheists are willing to admit that there's no definitive proof that something doesn't exist. But, as famously explained by Russell's teapot you don't have to disprove the existence of something in order to go about your merry way rightly assuming that it doesn't exist. It's the job of the believer to prove that God does exist and until the day there is such evidence, I will assume there are as many gods as there are sun-circling teapots...which is none.
i agree with that. If christians aren't doing practical things to make things easier on people who suffer such as changing laws (without raising taxes) that negatively effect poor people and so on about stuff that helps suffering people then how can we christians defend our faith. I would argue most churches don't do alot to help struggling people whether those people struggle with finances or this that or something else.
When someone says they became an atheist at age 12, i would say that is too early to make that decision because there is some much information that a 12 year old no matter how smart he/she just doesn't have.
Yes. I am a theist, that is really proactive regarding my faith, acknowledges that my suppositions can be mistaken. But for debate, that can flaw your points — so it should be acknowledged by both sides of this god debate beforehand.
Really? I think that's a fine decision.
Way too much use of the words "believe" and "belief" in the OP and in the responses. In a discussion about whether any gods exist...the words "believe" and "belief" are just disguises for "blind guesses."
Some people make a blind guess that at least one god exists...some make a blind guess that none exist.
No big deal there.
What does become annoying are people who blindly guess that it is more likely that there is a GOD than that there are none...or people who blindly guess that it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one.
They always are the toughest to get along with.
For me:
[i][b]I do not know if gods exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect gods CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that gods MUST EXIST...that gods are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...
...so I don't.[/b][/i]
Why is that? Must you prove that Donald Trump exists before we will discuss him with you? Every believer (belief in anything, not just God) decides what they believe. You decide whether you agree with them or not. No-one has the "job" of proving anything.
You do not KNOW that no gods exist.
You blindly guess that none do...just as the majority you mentioned blindly guess that at least one does.
i think you agree with the OP you just wrote it better. Just my opinion.
I don't "know" whether or not I exist either, but evidence strongly suggests to me that I do, and until such a time as evidence is presented to the contrary, I'm confident to call it "knowledge" of my existence. There is nothing to interfere with my "knowledge" that gods don't exist. There is an abundance of evidence to suggest that they don't and none to suggest that they do. It seems absurd to assert that something no one has ever experienced, that there's no evidence of, that there's no way to demonstrate, exists.
"Why is that? Must you prove that Donald Trump exists before we will discuss him with you? Every believer (belief in anything, not just God) decides what they believe. You decide whether you agree with them or not. No-one has the "job" of proving anything. "
I guess hes saying that because people who have a religion claim to have the moral high ground that they should have to try harder to prove their point because some would say that having a moral high ground imposes on people who might (keyword might) not be as moral.
I'd assume everyone already has had enough proof of that and then some.
Quoting Pattern-chaser
If they want me to believe it they do. If they don't, then we'll both go on our merry ways.
Are you willing to admit that you don't know if there's a refrigerator in your kitchen?
I do agree with the OP.
Thanks.
I understand what you are saying. You blindly guess there are no gods.
There is NO evidence to suggest no gods exist...that cannot be used to suggest that gods do exist.
Respectfully, Wholly...that is illogical.
We have absolutely NO evidence whatsoever that any sentient life exists on any planet circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol. None whatsoever. No one on this planet has ever experienced "sentient life on any of those planets"...but that does not logically lead to "therefore no sentient beings exist on any of those planets." That DOES NOT EVEN logically lead to...it is more likely that no sentient beings exist on any of them...than that at least one has sentient life.
"?Maureen
tl;dr: Why is that that not everyone is an agnostic like myself? Those people must be stubborn or stupid. "
There is a practicality to religion. Religion promotes unity where there otherwise may have been none to beginning. In the book "Sapiens" by Noah Harrari he states that Religion allowed for massive coordination between people. He argues that humans at sizes greater than 150 people (apes are the same way) they can't function together without collective fiction. Money, corporations, religion, legal laws, and so on are all fictions according to the the book "Sapiens". Its a great book that is quite popular. He calls himself an atheist but he does practice a religion that emphasizes yoga. I would argue he recognizes the human mind has a side that needs some form of wierdness or spirituality.
In day to day life you continually make choices and live according to that very logic. You don't have any proof that your neighbor/parent/spouse isn't a Korean imposter sent to kill you when you least expect it. Therefore you assume they aren't. You don't have any proof that people turn into pink unicorns when you're not looking, but I bet you still assume they don't.
I mean.... There's an infinite, incomprehensible number of things that we can't (currently) prove don't exist or happen, and yet we're all perfectly safe in assuming that absent any proof that they DO exist or happen, they don't.
Sure there is. For example, when I look on my desk right now, I can't find any gods.
Hey--a post that we completely agree on!
There's hope for us yet! :wink:
Quoting Pattern-chaser
If I didn't at least define what Donald Trump is, how would you even know what I was talking about?
It's a rookie mistake.
What you "assume"...you assume. I have NOT said anything about that. I, like most people, assume all sorts of things.
But what you assume about sentient beings on any planet circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol...has absolutely NOTHING to do with whether any sentient beings live on any of those planets.
So why did you mention it?
C'mon, man. When you look at your desk...there is no evidence that there is life on any planet circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol. What makes you suppose that is evidence that there are no sentient beings on any of those planets?
Your post doesn't really make sense....but I'll try to wean as much out of it as I can.
I assume there is life on other planets because there is plenty of reason to believe there is. For example, life evolved on this planet, so clearly it's possible for it to happen. You multiply that possibility by the number of inhabitable planets and you get a pretty decent likelihood.
You have no precendent for the existence of gods. Not one. There's not a single reason or piece of evidence to believe they might exist.
Life on other planets isn't supposed to be omnipresent, is it?
God is supposed to be.
If we're talking about a non-omnipresent God, I'll point out the lack of evidence of it in the locations where we're supposed to find it.
Also, scientists are in the process of finding actual, physical proof of alien life: https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/nasa1.html
Where's your God meteorite?
YOU telling me how to make sense...is like Chris Christie telling me how to stay thin, N.
In any case...the nonsense you posted above does not impact on my question...which talks about the planets circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol...not the universe.
By the way...to the best of our knowledge...no life exists except on planet Earth...not even in our system...which has billions of bodies circling the sun.
Wean that!
See my above link.
Quoting Frank Apisa
If you're gonna start getting snarky and insulting with me, I'm also gonna go on my merry way.
I am not talking about anyone named God. If you are saying that certain gods do not exist...SAY THAT!
If you are arguing that no gods exist...fine.
I do not mind you sharing your blind guesses about the REALITY.
In fact, I thank you for them.
I said "it." Are you not talking about anything named God?
Okay...they are in the process. When they answer my question about sentient life on any of the planets circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol...get back to me.
Then either stop the nonsense about me not making sense...or be on your way. Because if you show me a lack of respect...I WILL return the favor.
You said, "God is supposed to be."
I am not talking about anyone...or anything...named God.
If you are saying that no gods exist...
...I still thank you for sharing your blind guess about that.
In fact, I wonder if you are correct or not.
If you're not talking about anything named God then what the hell are we even talking about?
"Let's start a thread using this word, but then say that we're not talking about anything using this word." How stupid is that?
I said your post wasn't making sense. I didn't attack you as a person.
Quoting Frank Apisa
They still have a meteorite and soil samples and the existence of all of life on earth and you got nothin. So the ball is still in your court: where is a single shred of anything that makes God even a tiny bit more likely than Russell's teapot?
Even in our best instruments, large eco-planets appear as mere specks, so there is no way we are going to be able to detect life on them.
Earth is the only thing big enough to support an atmosphere within the the habitable zone so you would not expect life in the rest of the solar system.
Then it would be our duty to denounce this simulation, and its objectives, out of solidarity towards our real flesh selves.
In other words, if we are in a simulation trying to assess how weak we are when believing in god, we should disbelieve and resist.
What if we are being nurtured by divine beings into becoming better people than we are, but in order to avoid gamification of the educational system, our true nature (the spirit) was hidden from us with lies and deception, so that we strived to be better persons primarily out of strength of character and secondarily out of education, but only marginally out of religion?
Then it would be our duty to follow the deception, and its objectives, out of solidarity towards our real spiritual selves.
In other words, if we are in the material world of a spiritual reality trying to learn morality, we should study and accept.
What if we are consciousness deluding itself that anything exists, and the illusion (made of more or less spiritual parts) has as objective creating reality indefinitely, as an endless social dream?
Then it would be our duty to improve the world in all senses, out of self interest: we are going to be stuck here forever.
In other words, if reality is make-believe, we should play as seriously as possible.
I do not know. You tell me about stupid.
In any case...I am not talking about any particular god. You apparently are, since you refer to this "something" named God.
I ask again: Are you asserting that no gods exist...or that it is more likely that no gods exist than that at least one does?
Are you actually asking me to support that?????????????????
Here is my position, which I have posted a dozen times at least:
[i][b]I do not know if gods exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect gods CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that gods MUST EXIST...that gods are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...
...so I don't.[/b][/i]
Now...if you are asking me to defend that, I will do my best.
What is the point of your post?
If you are saying that the only logical response to the question is: I do not know....
...great. We are I agreement.
I feel this same way about the god thing.
How about you?
Sounds right on the button to me.
Speculation...supposition...and opinions about the implications of the speculations and suppositions.
Excellent post.
As for agnosticism-- there are people who are atheists, and people who are theists but who also accept that God might exist or might not exist even in spite of their own belief. In any case, THIS is different than being an agnostic, which is someone who has no opinion either way but pretty much takes a neutral stance regarding whether or not God exists. Meanwhile, there are also some atheists who believe that God does not exist, no questions asked, and some theists who believe that God does exist, no questions asked, in addition to those who accept that they don't know either way.
'The age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years; the earliest undisputed evidence of life on Earth dates from at least 3.5 billion years ago. There is evidence that life began much earlier.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earliest_known_life_forms
So evolution did not take long to get up and running here. I'd expect similar results on similar planets elsewhere.
On the ball, as ever. Makes you wonder whether he actually read the opening post properly. Seems a tad inconsiderate to turn up to a discussion, disregard the wording of the opening post, then just try to push your own single-minded agenda, as you do repeatedly in multiple other discussions on the topic.
Also, he seems like another one of those single-issue philosophy types. I find them weird. Broaden out. There's [i]way[/I] more to philosophy than this one single issue.
IS THERE SENTIENT LIFE ON ANY PLANET CIRCLING THE NEAREST 25 STARS TO SOL?
Any answer except, "I do not know"...is absolute nonsense.
Your bar movement from "nearest 25 stars to Sol"...to "nearby systems"...and changing "sentient life" to "life" is beneath someone of your intelligence, Devans.
If you have something to say to me...try to grow the balls to actually say it to me.
We have a sample size of one solar system that says solar systems come with sentient life. It's dangerous to rely on a small sample size I know, but that is all the information we have.
So I feel a gambling man, if he had to make a bet, would bet on aliens.
Okay...so you agree..."I do not know" is the answer.
Why can you not just say that?
Do you feel you would be making an unwarranted concession to me...or what?
No: I think the answer is that there probably are aliens.
Probability is how we judge the merit of inductive truth, how we differentiate between weak and strong inductive truth. This is a more refined approach than guessing (but if you take a guess, probably your subconscious uses statistics anyway so there is no escaping probability).
Oh, my...you know exactly how I'd respond...and you did not want that response.
Grow some balls.
Devans...what is it with you?
I did not ask if there are "aliens."
I asked if there are any sentient beings on any planet circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol.
I have now repeated that 4 or 5 times...and you still avoid it by answering something else.
What is the problem?
The answer to my question is obvious. The ONLY logical answer is, "I do not know."
Why not give it?
Is there a parrot nearby?
Quoting Frank Apisa
You've already said that. Like I said: predictable.
If you could see a god...you would not have to guess...or "believe" as you put it.
The answer is 'yes, probably'. Not 'I don't know' because we have just discussed inductive evidence in favour of the proposition.
Are we headed towards a full circle on this line of reasoning?
That is as absurd as the answer, "No, probably."
Anyone pretending they can make a probability estimate in either direction...is (in the vernacular) playing with him/herself.
But, I can see that you are not what I supposed you were.
It takes a good deal more ethical wherewithal to acknowledge an "I do not know" than you apparently possess.
No problem. I will continue to comment.
The original meaning of agnostic - a term coined by Henry "Darwin's Bulldog" Huxley - is precisely as you say: someone whose position is that they don't know (as opposed to gnostics who do). Of course, Huxley had a lot more to say on the subject than just repeating his thesis over and over and disparaging anyone who might disagree as stubborn, stupid or dishonest.
Nope.
Just stating something I see as obvious.
2 + 2 + 4 in base ten. I do not have to do any guessing about that.
If you saw something that you could positively identify as "a GOD"...you would not have to do any guessing about it. If you had to guess...then you have not seen something that you could positively identify as "a GOD."
Correct.
Actually Thomas Huxley, among other things, wanted to distinguish himself from the theists and atheists...who seemed to be saying "I know there is a GOD" or "I know there are no gods"...or who were expressing a "belief" in one or the other direction.
Insert sun-circling teapot in place of gods and see if you still think it's reasonable.
Okay.
[b][i]I do not know if a sun-circling teapot exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect a sun-circling teapot CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of a sun-circling teapot is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that a sun-circling teapot MUST EXIST...that sun-circling teapots are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...
...so I don't.[/i][/b]
Seems fine to me.
Are you saying it is impossible for a sun-circling teapot to exist...or that a sun-circling teapot has to exist?
I'm saying I'm very much justified in saying it doesn't exist given the lack of evidence that it does.
Fine. That is allowed.
And, if you do not care about logic...it makes sense.
There are lots of things for which there is a lack of evidence...but that may exist.
Same thing goes for gods.
Anyway...wife and I are off to Princeton for dinner. See you folk tomorrow.
:roll:
Well, you go off to Princeton and make sure that you watch out for those goblins and chimera and vampires you don't know don't exist on your way!
When you come back:
Knowledge is defined as "justified, true belief." I believe there are no gods. It's justified for me to claim there are no gods. And if there are no gods then my belief is true as well.
I might be wrong. It's always possible to be wrong. But I neither believe that I am wrong, nor would I be justified in believing myself to be wrong. So I am fully justified in claiming to know that there are no gods.
Until there is any evidence for gods (or any of the mysterious things you're nebulously pointing to that "might" exist), thus providing any justification whatsoever for the other side, I am correct in claiming to know there are no gods.
Innocent until proven guilty. Or in this case, non-existent until proven otherwise.
With regard to God, I haven't seen any reasonable argument for making any assessment on probability [i]whatsoever[/I]. And 50/50 [i]is[/I] a probability assessment.
[I]Nods head[/I].
"No: I think the answer is that there probably are aliens.
Probability is how we judge the merit of inductive truth, how we differentiate between weak and strong inductive truth. This is a more refined approach than guessing (but if you take a guess, probably your subconscious uses statistics anyway so there is no escaping probability). "
i'm stealing this and putting it in my journal.
^This is actually an inaccurate definition, since nothing at all is known for certain. Even scientific "facts" such as the nature of the earth's rotation are not known with 100 percent certainty to be true. With that said, it may indeed be justified for you to claim that there are no Gods, but there is still a possibility that there are Gods nonetheless. I know a man on youtube who is an atheist but will even attest to the fact that Gods may exist, and I feel like this man is highly intelligent.
It's a considerably better definition than knowledge as certainty, because under that definition we would know next to nothing, yet we know so much. Why are you even bringing up certainty? How does that help?
Quoting Maureen
Right, but they're known nevertheless, which was the point, I believe.
Quoting Maureen
And...? Who do you think has suggested that it's impossible? I mean, it [I]could[/I] be impossible. Unless I've missed it, you haven't even made it clear what exactly you're talking about, so how can I know that it doesn't lead to contradiction?
If I asked you what you meant by "Gods", and you replied, "Gods are beings which blar-de-blar...", and something about that description implied a contradiction, then it would be reasonable to conclude that Gods, as described, cannot exist.
It depends on what you mean by God, whether or not I am prepared to claim he definitely doesn't exist or not. The Christian God is not just any old God, there are lots of specific claims surrounding his existence and what's he done and what he is. It is different to say I cannot say I know that there are no Gods.
Is God more than just his existence? What if I deny his character, his history, his nature as they are known by Christians? There are many things about the Christian God which either have been disproven or could be argued to be impossible, such as his moral objectivity. You could argue with interpretations of his nature like that he is benevolent and just as well. So "A" God could exist but I am happy to disagree that God could exist as he is described by Christians or Muslims.
As I said...if you do not care about logic...what you are saying makes sense.
All that "believing" nonsense. You just cannot call your blind guesses...blind guesses. You have to call them "believing."
You ought to figure out why you do that.
Anyway...you do make sense...providing, of course, that you logic out the window.
Correct...which is why I would not make it.
I merely say that I do not know.
Here it is again:
[i][b]I do not know if gods exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect gods CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that gods MUST EXIST...that gods are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...
...so I don't.[/b][/i]
Ah, okay, so you've changed your stance. You've scrapped the 50/50 thing. :up:
(By the way, I would strongly warn you against spamming the forum. If you keep that up, I predict you'll end up being banned).
I think the question 'is there a God?' is not a 50/50 proposition.
But the question 'was the universe created?' is a 50/50 proposition.
Okay.
Quoting Devans99
And what's your argument for that? The last time we got this far, you refused to present one.
- All heads
- All tails
- 50/50
It's the 3rd. The question 'was the universe created?' is of the same nature - boolean answer, no reason to suspect a non-normal distribution in the answer, so 50/50 is the correct probability to assign.
I wouldn't predict any, because I don't have to, and because I am more sensible than that. I would say that a 50/50 result would most likely be closest to the actual result, which could be anything.
But anyway, you can't reasonably jump from your coin example to the creation of the universe. So what's your argument about the creation of the universe?
I have been there with his argument on the creation of the universe. I personally think it's flawed by an epistemological and metaphysical basis.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/269837
Creation implies a creator. So I think for some people, these two questions (creator/god) are similar, for other people they are very different. It depends on the definition of God... if its 'magical' in some sense (3Os) then they are different questions in my opinion. But for some people, with some types of definition of God, the question 'Is there a God?' can be tackled inductivity.
You can think of induction as a two stage process:
- Make an initial guess. 50/50 is appropriate for boolean propositions
- Refine the guess in the light of the evidence for/against the proposition
I think this is maybe what our brains do subconsciously for us all the time.
You can't build on thin air.
Fantastic counter argument :(
:grin::up:
Hitchen's razor. You have yet to justify your starting point.
I have. It is correct, in the presence of no evidence either way, to start at 50/50 for an estimate of an unknown boolean proposition with normally distributed answers.
Okay, so long as we both acknowledge that a working assumption is not a justification. I will check out your argument when I have time. I'm about to start work.
But if it is an already presented argument with objections not properly dealt with, then that should be the starting point. Let's not act like amnesiacs.
Good!
Again, thanks for agreeing that I make sense!
You don't really provide an argument or anuthing here except trying to say I'm illogical. But I'll still give you an example of how you can know something doesn't exist:
You know how many hands you have. It's probably two, barring special circumstances. You know you don't have three hands. You can search up and down your body and not find a third hand. You have zero proof of a third hand. But you do have a lot of lack of evidence in favor of a third hand. You're perfectly justified in claiming you KNOW you have two hands and no third.
Anyone who tells you (or me) it's illogical to know you don't have a third hand has very simply lost touch with reality.
According to?
That's a pretty standard definition because it basically says that if your justified belief corresponds with reality then it is true and then it is knowledge. It's got nothing to do with absolute certainty.
I'm just gonna copy and paste what I told Frank about that.
Quoting NKBJ
Quoting NKBJ
So apparently you think that some evidence is enough evidence to make an empirical claim. How much evidence and/or what manner of evidence is enough?
Well, I'm sure you don't [I]mean[/I] to do so...
I see no reason to suspect gods CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that gods MUST EXIST...that gods are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...
...so I don't."
^Correct me if am wrong, but it sounds like you are just admitting that you don't know whether or not God exists. So is there a reason why you can't just admit this without an explanation? Keep in mind that if I had written this post and I had simply said "nobody will admit that they don't know if God exists," this would sound like I was just making an assumption that nobody knows if God exists without anything to base it on. Therefore I had to explain that there may be every reason to believe that God does not exist, but that God may still exist even in spite of this, so therefore nobody knows if God does or does not exist. Otherwise it wold sound like I was just saying that nobody knows if God exists just because I wanted to believe this, not because there is an actual legitimate reason why nobody knows this like the reason that I explained.
Allow me to be a little argumentative and question this assertion. So, back 2000-2500 years ago when the theory of atoms (atomos) was first stated, was it out of certainty or reasonable expectation (intuition)? I think the theories about God and consequent beliefs are based on such a criteria. It's not about certainty, it's about intuition, predominantly a reasonable expectation which may or may not be enhanced by superstition.
^What is reality though? Is reality that earth revolves around the sun or that gravity causes objects to fall to the ground? The truth is that these things are NOT "reality", nor is anything else, because there is NOTHING that is known to be 100 percent "true" or "real." Even if something is known to be 99.9 percent true, you still do not know if it is true, because there is a 0.01 percent chance that it is not true. That being said, we are not even talking about percentages here or HOW sure anyone is that God exists, we are simply talking about the fact that God MAY exist, even if there is a very strong possibility that God does not exist. So all I am doing is admitting that I don't know if God does or does not exist, and neither does anyone else since nothing at all is known to be 100 percent true or real. It does not matter if you argue about evidence or how likely it is that God does not exist, this does not and will never change the fact that no one knows anything at all with 100 percent certainty, including whether God does or does not exist.
I guess you would claim you don't know you don't have a third hand then.
Let me put it this way:
If there is a 1 percent chance that God exists, then you do not know if God exists.
And...
If there is nothing to suggest that God exists, and you also have every reason to believe that God does not exist, then you still do not know if God exists, since there is nothing at all that is known 100 percent to be true.
This is the only point that I am trying to make, that no one knows if God exists for the reasons that I have described, even in spite of any evidence and in spite of how sure they might or might not be.
:rofl:
I think you've missed the point about what/who God is to the believers. For them, in so many ways, God does exist. In the least, God is the creator of this reality (universe/world/life) for them and, since we're real, then how can that which made it possible not be real.
I think you're expecting God to be someone/something that appeals to the senses. However, God could be equally real as an object/subject of mind (and be related to logic - by logic I mean the laws which govern reality). God could be representative and abstract and still be real. That's because, fundamentally, everything is based on reality. It's just a question of, "in what way is God real (for you)?"
I think the best argument against God is that He/She/It is generic or derivative. There's no story which starts with God but somehow people manage to fit God into everything. But, for most believers, that doesn't matter anyway. And neither does it matter to logicians. Because, it's not where to start, it's whether the connection is feasible within the bounds of that reality.
I think you should not dismiss God or faith which you clearly do not understand because that sword cuts both ways. Your ignorance of God and people's faith cannot validate your arguments.
I HAVE NEVER SAID 50/50...EVER. HERE OR ANYWHERE ELSE.
Never...ever.
You got that?
I do not spam...nor do I flamebait. So take your warnings and store them where the sun will not get to them.
50/50 70/30 60/40...is all nothing but guesswork on both questions.
I have no idea if there are any gods...I have no idea if the universe was "created"...and I am adult enough to simply acknowledge that.
Some people just cannot do that.
Only if you disregard logic, though. You must have missed that part.
The fact that you can make a thing work for one thing...does not mean it works universally.
In any case, there is no problem with you making a blind guess that no gods exist.
You are wrong.
I do not speak of "God" whatever or whomever you mean by that.
I speak of the existence of gods...or the non-existence of gods.
Either no gods exist...or at least one god exists.
I do not know which it is...and I am adult enough to simply acknowledge that I do not.
If I can do it for one thing proves it's possible to be done and so there's no reason not to apply it to gods. At least, you haven't supplied one aside from loose and unsubstantiated claims of illogic.
Just saying "this is illogical" doesn't make it so.
Okay.
I was over the top with the response.
I apologize.
Actually, I said what you proposed made sense...
...it just that logic has to be disposed of for that to be the case.
I've shown you why your reasoning is defective, but you apparently want to insist.
Ditto :kiss:
Egads...you've also shown yourself why your reasoning is defective?
Never woulda thunk it.
By your own logic you can't "prove" my reasoning is defective.
Really?
And let's hear your case for that.
You may be right...although I doubt it.
If you are, I will acknowledge it.
Ah, but (again, by your logic) you can't know that I'm right. You also can't know that I'm wrong. Absent any way to know either way, you are eternally suspended in an agnostic limbo.
That is the worst description of what I have been saying I have ever heard.
What makes you think I cannot know you are right or wrong?
"I do not know if the chance that NKBJ is correct and also Frank Apisa's superior in every way which includes her amazingly good looks and supreme intellect exists or not;
I see no reason to suspect the chance that NKBJ is correct and also Frank Apisa's superior in every way which includes her amazingly good looks and supreme intellect CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of the chance that NKBJ is correct and also Frank Apisa's superior in every way which includes her amazingly good looks and supreme intellect is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that the chance that NKBJ is correct and also Frank Apisa's superior in every way which includes her amazingly good looks and supreme intellect MUST EXIST...that the chance that NKBJ is correct and also Frank Apisa's superior in every way which includes her amazingly good looks and supreme intellect is needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...
...so I don't."
So yeah, your logic leads to the conclusion that you can't know and can't meaningfully guess at whether I know that there is no God.
(Yes, I had fun writing that :heart: )
I'm glad you had fun. Fun is a big part of these Internet fora...and I also am having fun. This seems to be a win/win situation.
My comments on whether gods exist or no gods exist...do not universalize the way you want them to seem.
I am NOT saying I do not know anything...I know quite a lot...using a reasonable definition of "know."
I know by birthday falls on August 9th; I know I am sitting at my desk typing on the keyboard of our computer; I know 2 + 2 = 4 in base ten; I know London is the capital of England; I know my wife is gonna give me a bit of kind grief when she gets home because I did not do nearly justice to the Honey-Do list today.
But I do not know if gods exist...or is there are no gods...or if the universe is infinite or discrete.
So...I see that you are being illogical on the issue which got us here.
That stuff you wrote just does not compute.
On what basis do you know that your birthday isn't a mistake? That you weren't switched at birth? We have evidence that people do get switched at birth (in which case your birthday may be August 8th or 7th or even 6th!), whereas we have no evidence that gods exist or even could exist. It's actually far more likely that you're wrong about your birthday than that gods exist.
By your logic, you cannot claim you know your birthday.
Good! I'm glad you're not as irritated as you seemed to be earlier in this thread :)
You are going ape.
Didn't mean to rattle you so. I thought you were more in control.
In any case, if you want to think that you KNOW that no gods exist, because I cannot "know" my birthday is August 9th...fine with me. Actually kind of amusing...and we both enjoy fun.
Thanks, N.
Sorry you are. :wink:
Oh boy... and we were just starting to get along. Too bad you can't stay nice consistently.
Quoting Frank Apisa
Oh boy again... I'm merely explaining why your logic isn't consistent.
Anyway, guess your odd and vague reply just means you can't explain how you can claim to know your birthday but not the non-existence of gods.
I do not know if any gods exist or not. I do not know if no gods exist.
I suspect you do not either...especially if it is the "there are no gods."
THAT is impossible to know.
So...where does that leave us?
That leaves us agreeing to disagree I suppose? At least, it seems to me the conversation is not moving forward much at this point.
Truce? Or do you have something heretofore unmentioned to add?
This is an anecdote******
I'll be among the first to say I don't know God. I've never met God nor have ever had the privilege to be in God's company. If I did, I never knew mentally that I was. In my personal experience when I found out I was allergic to a narcotic drug that could have killed me, God was there. When both my parents died and I lacked strength God was there. I believe God comes to us individually respective of our beliefs. Unlike a lot of religions I am not succumb to the concrete standards of dogma. God's existence is there its just an indescribable feeling. sometimes you have to stop and listen to hear God speak.
Yeah, I've got "something heretofore unmentioned" to add.
I work as a starter at a golf course. Today was a banner day...warm, not a lot of wind...really pleasant. Instead of playing, I was sending other people out to play. And, being a good employee, I was smiling and being a good host while doing it.
I had a choice. Break something, kick the cat...or go into the Internet and "discuss" something.
Breaking things is childish...so I didn't choose that. I love our cats...so I didn't choose that.
Feel better now?
This sort of thinking is in sharp contrast to the critical thinking encouraged in philosophy. It is the sceptic who is more ethical in this regard, assuming we share the same values. The believer is not as principled. The believer caves in.
True. This is called belief...I believe the Lakers will one day win the NBA championship just as I believe the Cowboys will win the NFL.
Quoting S
Of course, it gives my brain confidence, but it doesn't make me wrong for the belief.
Quoting S
Well my ideas of a spaghetti god are different than my ideas of what and who God is.
No, it is an example of belief, but not all belief is like that. That particular kind of belief is belief based on wishful thinking. It is unreasonable, and should therefore be rejected and avoided, if you share the same values as me in this regard.
Quoting Anaxagoras
I judge it to be unethical.
Quoting Anaxagoras
Well, yes. But so what? Believers often seem to have difficulty with this point. They point out differences, apparently forgetting that an analogy is not the same thing as an equivalence. It is about what the one and the other have in common in a specific respect, not in a different respect, and not in every respect. The analogy is about the epistemological basis, not about the fact that one is a spaghetti god and the other isn't. That much is obvious. It is actually quite silly to miss the point like that.
The actual content of the belief is irrelevant. Only the effectiveness of the purpose it serves is relevant. So, spaghetti god or just plain old god, it doesn't really matter in this sense.
Ok, fine your point?
Quoting S
According to you. Religious belief or otherwise is personal and whether you perceive it as wishful is up to you, but nonetheless it is, my belief.
Quoting S
But you're nobody to me. You're an opinion on the internet and not an authority and even if you were an authority you're still a nobody online. Regardless how you formulate your arguments philosophically to where an atheist would jerk off to it and splooge all over the place, it would not change how I would believe spiritually.
I would stop if I were you because this road is actually closed. The "proving that God doesn't exist" stops here.
I went on to explain the point.
Quoting Anaxagoras
Well yes, obviously according to me, but obviously not just according to me. That is a clear example of wishful thinking which anyone verify themselves, so long as they're capable.
Quoting Anaxagoras
No, it isn't up to me. That is a conclusion I have reached through reason. Abandoning reason is not a choice for me. I am convinced that it is wishful thinking, and would need to be convinced otherwise or deceived to believe otherwise.
Of course it's personal, but so what? It is not private, because you've made it public. We're discussing it. I am exercising my right to freedom of expression by telling you what I think about it.
Quoting Anaxagoras
That's all that ethics is. There is no authority. I can't force you to share my judgement or my values. I can only argue what I judge to be the merits of it, and the demerits of going against it.
It is also my judgement that it is a bad attitude to treat me as a nobody to you, instead of someone who might be worth listening to.
Some people blindly guess there is at a least one god.
Some people just don't bother to guess.
The people making the blind guesses call their blind guesses...beliefs.
Wonder why they do that?
Wouldn't it be more ethical to call them "guesses?"
Obviously I have not made it. YOU are not conceding it...are you?
As for the "spamming" nonsense...shove it.
That's a different meaning to what I meant. Obviously.
I no longer care about your meaning. I have heard the same nonsense from you time after time...and I have never considered telling you to shut up...or threatened you with banning for spamming.
I intend to find out who owns this site...and who is moderating it. If you are not the owner or a moderator...I am telling you to go fuck yourself. If, on the other hand, you are the owner or a moderator...I will voluntarily leave the forum.
There is no sense in "logic" that attempts to lead from nothing to something.
To say that I'm "blindly guessing" is to suggest that there's some visible evidence I'm not seeing, which is absurd. By your logic, if I'm driving a car and see no obstruction in front of me, I should assume I'm going to crash into whatever it is that I can't see.
It is both logical and reasonable to require evidence for something that has never been demonstrated. It is illogical to assert that a primitive fable is factual until conditions exist by which its allegations can be demonstrated as facts.
Your analogy about sentient life doesn't parallel religious claims and has no bearing on the conversation. Sentient life can be, and has been, demonstrated. Gods have not been demonstrated, neither have the tooth fairy or the boogey man.
Uh oh, flaming. I am not the owner or a moderator, although I have a pretty good understanding from a moderator's perspective, having been one myself here for a couple of years. It wasn't a threat, it was an advising of precaution. Although the second time around I simply told you to stop spamming, which is an imperative.
You're free to ignore it. I have no authority in that sense. But I don't like spam on this forum. Maybe they were more tolerant of it in your previous forum.
Sometimes the evidence is clear but we just don't want to see it. My pastor is Matt Brown, Sandals here in Riverside Ca. One of 8 churches he pastors, founded. His mantra is "Be real with God, be real with myself and be real with others."
"Gods have not been demonstrated." There's something of the mystical there.
All my best, sincerely
Yes you're not; but you are saying that you can't prove the non-existence or existence of something. Of course you can that's silly.
Fuck you!
:grin:
and I expected this forum to be absolutely toxic-free.
You're not talking about evidence, you're talking about personal experiences that haven't been demonstrated or replicated. This isn't about denying something even though you see evidence of it. This isn't about what someone wants or doesn't want.
Are you saying that your pastor and his "mantra" are proof of the existence of gods?
Not just something, something in particular, namely God. But Maureen hasn't made clear the meaning she intended for this discussion, and until she does, we are at risk of talking past each other.
For some reason, she has decided to completely ignore this problem, instead of addressing it.
:up:
I direct my awareness. On prima facie evidence that probably doesn't seem all that earth shattering to you, but it proves false psychoneural identity theory, the belief the brain produces the mind.
The phenomenology of psychic experience has been confirmed to several hundred sigma, several hundred standard deviations from a normal distribution. That's if you can't see yourself directing your awareness.
I grew up surrounded by doctors of jurisprudence. I know a lot about evidence, it's not a one word affair in law school.
peace.
In fact, it exactly logically leads to that. When someone says "more likely" what are they comparing? If there is NO evidence it is CERTAINLY less likely than if there IS evidence....right? This makes no statement on how much more likely (could be 51% or 99%).
Notice that if we accept your logic here, then we must also accept that "finding evidence of god still says NOTHING about the likelihood of there actually being a god." And more problematic, "finding evidence of gravity, plate tectonics, evolution, etc says nothing about the likelihood of them being true".
Quoting Frank Apisa
Agreed. And assuming that "sentience" will result in technological development, we can be VERY CERTAIN (not 100%) that there are no technologically advanced civilizations existing in the 25 closest stars. Now there could be some self aware dolphins floating around somewhere, but nothing advanced enough to use a radio...based on the evidence (it is not 100% because we can't know for sure there is NOT some super advanced civilization that has zero use for radio waves - or other signs of technology we would recognize - but this seems quite unlikely). The lack of evidence of advanced civilizations does exactly tell us it is less likely (says nothing of how much less likely, but unquestionably less), vs actually finding evidence.
Sorry Mr. Apisa. I am barely through page one of this thread. I will try to catch up and get back on track where we left off in the last thread...but I am worried I am just going to say the same things you already get from the other atheists. Do not feel the need to respond to me if I have just repeated another person's point...I will catch up.
There's no such thing as "making the impact of the supernatural intelligible". All impact is natural, and delusion is the only reason to assume otherwise. Everything that "detects the supernatural" is imaginary. The mind is how the brain is perceived by consciousness, it's not an entity external to the brain but an explanation for an imaginary manifestation of the brain, which happens in the brain.
There is no reliable evidence of any "psychic experience", and I'm not sure how that connects to the conversation, maybe you could elaborate.
There is evidence that each thought exists as a series of chemical and energetic processes before it becomes consciousness. Consciousness can't influence processes that are required in order for it to become consciousness. This leads me to believe, and this is an opinion, that all living and non-living things are interconnected in such ways as to "trick" our minds into perceiving experiences the way we perceive them, as organized in any way, as opposed to experiencing a mere energetic mess. It is an illusion, that anything we perceive is "organized" in any way.
It also leads me to believe that there is no free will and that anything perceived as supernatural is merely a misunderstood natural phenomenon. There is reliable, replicable evidence for this and no reliable, replicable evidence against it.
@Frank Apisa I will include you too, as I was going to say this to you at some point.
Actually it seems (to me) that those who want to be just "agnostic" are confused. They are dealing with a different question than the rest of us. "Atheist" and "Theist" address the question "do you believe (think) there is a god?" The agnostics change the question to "is there a god?" Which is clearly a VERY different question. One is a question of knowledge, one of belief. "I don't know" is an answer to a knowledge question. The appropriate answer to "do you believe?" would be "I don't believe so" or "I don't think so", notice that makes you an atheist by definition.
Why are "agnostics" so opposed to being called "agnostic atheists"? Would "agnostic" or "atheist" even be used if religion wasn't such a dominant force in society?
As an "agnostic" do you really view your position as being right in the middle of Christian & Atheist? Because from my perspective, agnostic seems WAY closer to atheist than to Christianity.
— SethRy
Not just something, something in particular, namely God. But Maureen hasn't made clear the meaning she intended for this discussion, and until she does, we are at risk of talking past each other.
For some reason, she has decided to completely ignore this problem, instead of addressing it.[/b]
^I have said this numerous times, but it seems that people like you and Frank like to ignore things that are posted here for which you have no argument or either pretend that you don't know or understand what is being said. So I will say it again, in plain English. If there is a 0.01 percent that God does exist and a 99.9 percent chance that God does not exist, then you DO NOT KNOW if God does or does not exist. Period. I don't know, you don't know, and in fact NO ONE knows. In the scenario that I have presented, I will agree that God probably would not exist, but you still do not know either way, especially since nothing is known with 100 percent certainty in spite of the likelihood or percentage to which it is known. I'm not sure exactly what is so hard to understand about any of this, but the ONLY point that I am trying to make is that no one knows if God does or does not exist. If you can agree that no one knows if God does or does not exist, then there should be no need for further discussion or argument on this post, and frankly I'm not even sure I have any idea why anyone here continues to argue or what point they are trying to make with regards to something so simple.
Someone else even asked me if I would agree that I don't know if I have a third hand, and I would in fact agree with this since I don't see 3 hands on my body and therefore I don't know if I have 3 hands since nothing is known with 100 percent certainty.
^That also depends on exactly what it is that you are trying to prove exists, as well as what means you are using to determine if it exists. Example: If someone says that there is a colony of little people on the island of Galapagos, and you go to that island and do a thorough search but do not see a colony of little people, do you determine that the colony simply does not exist, or that it does exist but you just didn't see it, or that it may or may not exist, but you don't know if it exists? You could conclude any one of these things, but nothing that you conclude will change anything about if the colony does exist or does not exist, or the probability that it does exist.
Whether or not you did this on purpose (I am assuming you did), I enjoyed it :grin:
This isn't like talking about a cat. We all know what a cat is. It would be safe to assume that we're all talking about the same thing in that case.
Do we know that God doesn't exist? Yes and no. It depends.
Is that a satisfactory answer? If not, then pull your bloody socks up and [I]clarify![/I].
It is [I]your[/I] responsibility, as the creator of this discussion, to act as chair, and to ensure that we're all talking about what we're supposed to be talking about, and not confused or unclear, and not talking past each other. [I]Take responsibility and act to redress the problem![/I]
Well...
Firstly, nobody ever disagreed, from I know, regarding your conclusion in the OP. However, the analogies and subsequent premises you proposed are erroneous — regarding the principles of epistemology: absolute truth, beliefs, and knowledge.
Secondly, it should be intrinsically accepted in forums like this that you must have a main proposition, people can agree with your conclusion, but not necessarily your process. Nobody ever disagreed with you that no rational person can assert absolute truth regarding the existence of a god, people only disagreed with your proposed analogies to reinforce that.
Like proving the non-existence of something, external discussions shadowed the idea you're trying to convey. thus;
Quoting S
You must outline your proposition first, because if people are not satisfied with the clarity of your proposition, things like this can happen. So, commit to a conclusion based on your premises, whether or not they are: deductive, inductive, or abductive arguments.
No need to discordantly address @Frank Apisa's and my, as you believe, inability to see the main idea. Because clearly, it's you who are missing the point. Anyway, I hope that's all good and behind us, have a great week :D
I could not disagree more, Zhou.
The fact that we have no evidence that sentient life exists on any of those planets...cannot logically lead to the conclusion that no sentient life exists on any of them...or that it is more likely that there is no sentient life there. By the same token, the fact that we have no evidence that NO SENTIENT LIFE exists on any of those planets...cannot logically lead to the conclusion that life exists there...or that it is more likely that life exists there.
It simply indicates that we have no evidence...in either direction.
If any conclusion has to be drawn from the "lack of evidence that life exists there" or "lack of evidence that no life exists there"...it is that we do not know and cannot make a meaningful guess about whether or not life does or does not exist on any of those planets.
Go at this particular again. Put out your best argument.
Let's deal with it for a bit...because there is something of consequence in this part of the issue.
We can go to the rest of your post after resolving this...if it can be resolved.
That's fair enough to post such a question.
Above all the research, God is a belief. Nothing could do much about it's existence. And in nothing is everything.
I can remember you of the existence of law of attraction. According to the law, if one believes in something or if one thinks about a certain thing again and again and again , then there is a strong possibility of such thought coming into existence. So, what if I say God does exist as billions of people thought about God for all these centuries?
And to my belief, I can say God is just man -sculptured form of nature.
"Knowledge" as you are using the word, requires complete certainty. Nothing wrong with that, but your claim that noone knows whether God exists is not very interesting given that definition. Most philosophers - atheist and theist - would agree that noone knows with certainty that God exists. They would say, rather that there are good reasons to favour one side rather than another. Moreover, so what if we can't know whether God exists with certainty? I can't even know with certainty some trivial matter like what I had for breakfast half an hour ago.
I agree with your claim, but then I don't think there are many philosophically educated folk who would disagree. Although, you can never be too sure what the consensus is on a topic..
PA
Yes! This one gets it :grin:
I'm not an adherent for the reasons I gave you above. 1. I direct my awareness. 2. Mental facts are not a consequence of physical facts. 3. A mental state can be dispositional with no accompanying physicality, & 4. In sum, the function of the noetic subsystem of mind is evaluative & supervisory.
All 4 of these things are my experiential reality every waking moment of my life and some of the time when I'm sleeping too.
83 (footnote) While Dennett makes complex neurophysiological arguments, the issue can be resolved by simple reflection. For information to unite at a single locus, it must unite at a point, because uniting in a finite region, however small, is no different in principle than being spread over the whole brain. No single point can have the differentiation to represent complex data physically. The idea that physically encoded information must unite at a single locus is untenable, regardless of details. - God, Science & Mind: The Irrationality of Naturalism by Dennis F. Polis, Ph.D. Dr. Polis is a physicist and has studied the Hard Problem of Consciousness extensively throughout his life. He's also a contributor here, dfpolis.
While we disagree about God, science & naturalism, I'd like to thank you for the polite conversations. I appreciate you articulating your position and how you frame it in the context of it being your position and not something you claim to be experiencing. I really do appreciate that, you very well have the courage of your convictions and aren't stating those as facts for me. Thank you!
For a glimpse into the phenomenology of psychic experience I suggest Dfpolis #22 The Mind Body Problem & Dfpolis #45 Knowledge and Mysticism, both on YouTube.
I get what you are saying...but the fact remains that "knowing" used in certain contexts is quite different from "knowing" used in a philosophical context.
In casual conversation one can easily and reasonably say, "I know where I parked my car"; "I know the name on my birth certificate is..."; "I know that London is the capital of England"...and the like.
But saying "I know there are no gods" or "I know there is a GOD" or "I know it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one"...demands a totally different sensibility...and incurs a great burden of substantiation.
There is certainly nothing wrong with guessing that a GOD exists. (I did during an earlier part of my life)...nor with guessing that no gods exist. But they are just guesses...no matter what the guesses are labelled.
One is also free not to make any guesses on the issue...which I consider to be the more ethical way to handle things.
I am not sure at all that the "casual" and "philosophical" distinction makes sense, but let's see what can be done with it anyway. It isn't clear at all that in philosophical contexts "knowing" means being absolutely certain. Most philosophical arguments don't make their conclusions absolutely certain - not even the most influential ones. Most contemporary philosophical arguments are tentative inferences to the best explanation or else deductive arguments which rest on merely plausible or "intuitive" premises. So I suppose that you aren't trying to describe how "know" is actually used in Philosophy, but recommending a way it should to be used? But what could the grounds be for this linguistic recommendation?
At any rate, it would be quite uninteresting to me if this were just a debate about how the word "know" should be used. So, leaving the word "knowledge" out of it for a minute (since it often gets in the way!), you seem to think that it is unacceptable to make philosophical claims without a "great deal of substantiation" - presumably much more substantiation than is required for casual claims - but why must that be so? Why isn't it acceptable for me to make philosophical claims on the basis of pretty good, but not conclusive, evidence?
PA
Quoting PossibleAaran
I am sure there are many philosophical discussions where I would be content with a fairly mundane understanding of what the word "know" means to denote.
But I specifically spoke to a certain segment where I think it an inappropriate use, namely:
"...saying "I know there are no gods" or "I know there is a GOD" or "I know it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one"...demands a totally different sensibility...and incurs a great burden of substantiation."
So, I acknowledge your point that the way I said what I said requires a, "...but why must that be so."
Speaking of questions about the true nature of the REALITY of existence, though...goes past that point.
Using "know" in the context of the phrases I mentioned above...incurs a burden of substantiation (not proof) that I see as both necessary (required) and unattainable.
If you differ on this...give a specific of disagreement...and I'll give my position on it.
My question to you is: why is it unacceptable to say something like "I know that God exists" or " I know that there are no gods" without having absolute certainty whilst it is acceptable to say something like "I know that London is the capital of England" without having absolute certainty?
My specific disagreement is this: I don't see why claims about the existence of God require a larger amount of substantiation than claims (for example) about the capitals of cities. It seems to me that it is perfectly sufficient - there is nothing objectionable about it - to base a claim that God exists/doesn't exist on good but inconclusive evidence. I thought you disagreed with this. Am I mistaken?
PA
So you are of the opinion that if it is logical to say, "London is the capital of England"...it is also logical to say, "I know there are no gods" and/or "I know there is at least one GOD."
That would be like saying it is logical to say, "I know that London is the capital of England" and/or..."I know that London is not the capital of England."
In any case, I am not saying it is "unacceptable." If a person wants to say, "I know there are no gods"...that is perfectly "acceptable." If they want to say, "I know there are no living organisms of any sort on the fifth planet out from the third closest star to Sol"...that is "acceptable."
A bit bizarre...but acceptable.
Not sure what you are getting at here, PA.
Try me again, if you want.
Okay...I'll take your word on that. You do not see why a claim of "I know there are no gods" should be treated any differently from a claim of "I know Paris is the capital of France"
Best I can say in reply is: I do see it.
I'm not really sure...mostly because I do not normally word things that way...nor do I infer what you seem to be inferring. If I may...I would ask you to quote exactly what I said that you find objectionable or incorrect...and allow me to defend those words rather than your characterization of them.
So I think what you are saying is that no one can prove a negative? That is why the burden of proof is typically on those making a claim vs those denying it (I get that you are claiming to do neither). That being said, a lack of evidence can precisely be evidence.
Is there a monster under your bed?
First we need to define monster. First, it is bigger than a small pet. Could the monster be invisible, lack odor, make no noise etc - yes, seems reasonable. Can the monster be immaterial? No that is a spirit or ghost or apparition or something. Now given these qualifiers, we can "prove" there is no monster by a lack of evidence. If it cannot be seen, felt, smelled, or heard, then it is NOT there. Now obviously with gods, we have much more space to check than just under the bed, but a lack of evidence is still evidence in the direction of no gods.
Would you say it is unreasonable to doubt the existence of monsters under your bed?
What about the lock ness monster?
Could there have been humans in the past with super powers (real power, not a little smarter than average)?
Are Zeus and Poseidon equally likely (or unlikely) as the Christian god and is that god equally likely to any random definition of god? (notice that any random definition would include anything that could possibly be conceived of as a god, and therefor is MORE likely than the 2 previous examples by definition)
Again, we are not claiming certainty, just likelihood.
Quoting Frank Apisa
We are not likely to agree here. A lack of evidence does exactly make something less likely than if there was evidence. Otherwise, what is the point of evidence?
I do not think you have ever addressed this bolded bit. If you can show me the error of that portion, maybe there is progress to be made.
This is where you argue inductively. The ever-expanding and constant growth of the universe can give us somewhat a logical reason to assert, that there is a race of sentient beings outside us humans. For God, it requires abductive and even much simply deductive arguments. If God is imperceptible to the Earth, then why should he be perceptible in the universe? Although we have not examined the universe in its entirety, it might be a fair evaluation to say that God is not perceivable in the universe despite his omnipresence. For sentient beings - or aliens, it is also a fair evaluation to convey that the infinity of the universe, can most probably imply that there are, aliens.
You still remember I am, theistic right?
Here is what I think I disagree with. Why does saying "I know there are no Gods" or "I know there is a God" require more substantiation than "I know that London is the capital of England"?
PA
Saying that something doesn't exist for which there has never been an iota of evidence doesn't incur a burden of substantiation. By its very definition, substantiation is a demonstration of substance. Every assertion of a god or gods is inseparable from its inability to ascribe verifiable substance to god or gods.
An assertion that there is no such thing as a god or gods is unconditionally accompanied by literally all of the evidence in the observable universe. The only "evidence" ever provided for the existence of any supernatural thing is imagination, heightened emotion, some unverifiable personal experience.
That definitely is NOT what I am saying. Of course one can prove a negative.
The burden of proof falls on anyone making an assertion. If one asserts, "There are no gods"...the burden of proof is as real as the burden for the assertion, "At least one GOD exists."
There is evidence. You look under the bed and there is no monster.
And, If you were able to look everywhere in the universe and find no gods...that would be evidence of no gods. Because one finds no eight-legged, two-headed equines on planet Earth...is not evidence there are no eight-legged, two-headed equines. And because we humans are unable to detect any extra-dimensional beings of any sort (god-like or not god-like) here on Earth...does not mean there are no extra-dimensional beings here.
ASIDE: I have been wrong on my wording...careless actually. Of course there is evidence that at least one GOD exists...AND that no gods exist. Everything that exists is evidence that no gods exist IF NO GODS EXIST...and everything is evidence that at least one GOD exists IF ONE GOD EXISTS.
I should have used "unambiguous evidence"...which will still have to be defended, but is what I usually use.
Been a friend of the family for years, Z. What about it?
Anything not established as impossible is possible. So...there could have been.
Beats me. I do not deal with specific gods. I am dealing with the notion of "No gods exist" or "At least one GOD exists"...and I acknowledge that I do not know.
Do you?
I have absolutely no idea of how likely it is that no gods exist...and I have absolutely no idea of how likely it is that at least one GOD exists...so I am no willing to make a guess on those questions. If you are asking me if I ever make guesses on anything else...my answer it: Yes I do. I probably will make a guess about the winner of the Kentucky Derby...and place a bet on my guess.
Okay...that's fair. So you think that since we have no evidence of living organisms of any sort on the fifth planet out from the third closest star to Sol"...you consider that evidence that there is no life there.
Fine with me.
I hope it can be fine with you if I consider that an illogical conclusion.
I did comment on it in what I think was my last post to you. I quote:
[b]I could not disagree more, Zhou.
The fact that we have no evidence that sentient life exists on any of those planets...cannot logically lead to the conclusion that no sentient life exists on any of them...or that it is more likely that there is no sentient life there. By the same token, the fact that we have no evidence that NO SENTIENT LIFE exists on any of those planets...cannot logically lead to the conclusion that life exists there...or that it is more likely that life exists there.
It simply indicates that we have no evidence...in either direction.
If any conclusion has to be drawn from the "lack of evidence that life exists there" or "lack of evidence that no life exists there"...it is that we do not know and cannot make a meaningful guess about whether or not life does or does not exist on any of those planets.
Go at this particular again. Put out your best argument.
Let's deal with it for a bit...because there is something of consequence in this part of the issue.
We can go to the rest of your post after resolving this...if it can be resolved.[/b]
Please, no more of these long drawn out responses to many different topics. Choose one comment and I'll deal with it...and then we can move on. This gets much too cumbersome this way.
No, and I may forget. If it is important for anything you are saying, just remind me.
I cannot help you with that further, Aaran.
If you think that is illogical...we'll just have to disagree.
If what you're claiming is that the mind is personal domain, under direct or indirect personal control, then how can you explain that a thought is dependant on chemical and energetic processes which happen prior to its conception?
OK. i just deleted a nice long one :grin: Not sure what to respond to if not EVERYTHING you say.
Quoting Frank Apisa
Answer this question: Do you KNOW if there is a god?
Now answer this one: Do you THINK there is a god?
"I don't know" does NOT answer the second question. It is like answering "what is your favorite color?" with "42".
Notice if someone asked me "do you believe in "uhenthdfrteunty" I would answer, "I do not even know what that is, so of course I can't possibly believe in it. If you care to give me a definition of 'uhenthdfrteunty', then we can confirm my lack of belief or possibly find something I do believe in."
I agree with your conclusion, but not with how you crafted it.
The semantics behind what you are saying, I would say is erroneous. For you are comparing the existence of two different things. An external, undiscovered race, Aliens, will be just like us — not necessarily by rationality or practice, but that we are natural, contingent beings. Another external, unseen being, God, but holding a difference that he is a supernatural, necessary being. Comparatively, God's transcendent oneness is not like that of a human's or contingent being's existence.
Simply put, for the reason that God is supernatural, his existence is beyond natural presuppositions like: atomic nuclei, content and state of matter, or if he has a respiratory system or not, he is not relative to that of a human. Humans, are presumably similar to other races: natural, specific arrangement of species, and develop life. By those premises, you can assume that external races from human discovery or humans ourselves, do exist. It's not like that of a god, that you can assert his existence because the universe is not completely examined in its entirety. You can't say 'we haven't found him yet' like that of an external race.
Can you explain how you'd be justified in claiming that you know that God doesn't exist, under the strongest possible conception of God? That would be a God which makes no practical difference to what we know of the world, so there wouldn't be any evidence against the existence of God. This God wouldn't intervene in our affairs or anything, as far as we know.
I don't claim that I know that God, under this conception, doesn't exist. It is sufficient to claim that there is no reasonably justified basis to believe that God exists, and that even if God does exist, it would be trivial and make no real difference.
This is the only reason for me being, or the only sense in which I am, a weak atheist. With other conceptions of God where we're reasonably justified in saying that we know that God doesn't exist, the best example being a conception which leads to contradiction, I am a strong atheist. I am justified in saying that I know that this God doesn't exist, per the law of noncontradiction.
I am agnostic on the strongest possible conception of God. Yet this doesn't mean much. If I went around calling myself an agnostic, people would probably get the wrong idea. They'd probably think that I didn't lean more in one direction than the other. Yet I would say that, overall, I am more befitting of the term, "atheist". I do lean more in that direction. It also fits with how it is often used in common parlance, which is to call someone an atheist if they answer the question, "Do you believe in God?", with a, "No", as well as with the etymology of the word. I've even been called a militant atheist and associated with the New Atheists. I like Dawkins and Hitchens. I'm more sympathetic towards them than many others on this forum, from all sides of the debate. I also count Hume, Nietzsche, and Russell amongst my favourite philosophers.
There is no big problem in terms of what we call a position, only people who want to make it a big problem. They should be given a brief explanation of why this is so, and then largely ignored to stew in their own juice.
No, I'm afraid I can't. I agree with most of what you said. I'm an agnostic about quite a lot of conceptions of God, but there are those against which there are good philosophical arguments and I am inclined to think that those Gods don't exist. I think the most pressing disagreement we have is only about Dawkins. I think Dawkins is a good scientist, but he's a philosophical amateur on his best day, and most of his attempts at Philosophy are full of basic mistakes. I find that to be true of most "New Atheist" types, which is a shame, because there are excellent atheist Philosophers who don't get anything like the same attention. I think Jordan Sobel died a while ago, but he was very good, as is Graham Oppy.
PA
If God is invisible, intangible, impossible to detect under any circumstances, will never involve itself directly or indirectly in human affairs--then why not "philosophize" about something that matters?
There is zero evidence and zero reason to provide evidence. While we're at it, I'm sure we can find a few more paranoid ramblings from ancient times and go around telling people they can't be disproved either.
That's ironic. We're both doing it right now. You tell me. It's not a serious dilemma in my life. I am not in turmoil over it. I just said that it would be trivial and make no real difference. I only philosophise over it out of interest. I do that with lots of things.
As you guessed, NO, I do not know if there are ANY GODS.
Now answer this one: Do you THINK there is a god?
NO, I do not "think" there are any gods...nor do I guess there are any gods.
I also do not "think" there are no gods...and I do not guess there are no gods.
If forced to make a guess...I will do it.
Okay. Although for the record, my stock answer for the question "Where on the political spectrum do you fall...with extreme liberal at 1 and extreme conservative at 10?...is...
...purple.
I've used that often.
Question for you: When you use the word "believe" in conversations dealing with gods...how does a "belief" differ from "blind guess?"
Seth.
The thing I was asking you to explain was your comment,
"The ever-expanding and constant growth of the universe can give us somewhat a logical reason to assert, that there is a race of sentient beings outside us humans."
(That was in response to my comment, "The fact that we have no evidence that sentient life exists on any of those planets...cannot logically lead to the conclusion that no sentient life exists on any of them...or that it is more likely that there is no sentient life there.")
I do not see that explanation in your response.
We can get to this new comment of yours...but I really would like to understand why you suggest that "the ever-expanding and constant growth of the universe can give us somewhat a logical reason to assert, that there is a race of sentient beings outside us humans."
I would've guessed you were a yellow. Not like a canary yellow, more of a munsell yellow. Although I best be careful, lest you angrily respond, "I am NOT a yellow! I am a PURPLE!".
That's a different counterargument for the same conclusion.
You and I can agree that the universe is ever-expanding, or infinite. The universe's infinity implies infinite resources and infinite time. If so, we can logically assume, that the chances for sentient beings outside us humans to live on planets is quite high. So out of the 'no evidence' argument that you proposed, which is as it follows;
Quoting Frank Apisa
How that argument is flawed is that you neglected the concept of perceivable infinity, which makes other sentient beings more probable to exist because of that infinity. For God, it doesn't necessarily mean hat way — for it is also probable, that his existence is not attached to matter despite his omnipresence, that he is imperceptible.
Now what I meant by inductive argument, wherein I assumed you already knew, is that I utilized the representational proportions of probability to depict the possibility of existence. For God, you certainly cannot start at 50/50 as its probability because that confuses the disparity between probability and possibility — there is no epistemic justification behind that, no value under metaphysical and epistemological territory. For the existence of aliens, you can presume that with infinity as its epistemic justification.
I've called this to your attention before...and will do it again right now:
I am not talking about sentient life in the universe.
I am SPECIFICALLY talking about sentient life on any planet circling the nearest 25 stars to Sol...right at this moment.
That is a very specific and limited venue.
And I stand by my argument that the fact that we have no evidence that sentient life exists on any of those planets...CANNOT logically lead to the conclusion that no sentient life exists on any of them...or that it is more likely that there is no sentient life there.
So...let's go back to that.
What do you find defective in my argument?
You compared that to a god, is the defective. You are correct, whether the entirety of the universe or just that limited interstice you mentioned does not contain any sentient being, it cannot logically lead to a nonexistence conclusion.
However, a comparison to that of a supernatural transcendence, is just flawed. Yes you can assert that the absence of evidence for God does not imply evidence of absence for God, and I stand with that argument for God consistently. Such differently, a transcendent being cannot be limited to resource or value, it is only whether he exists or not, thus, inductive; or argument by probability, is not logically capable to comprehend an agnostic view towards a god. For the reason that it is also possible that God cannot be present conceivably in the universe, the need for thorough examination or by probability can just not work for his existence.
And since you dislike using specific terms, I do remember your viewpoint towards the existence of God.
I am NOT making such a comparison.
I am making a statement about the absurdity of supposing the default position on an issue where there is no evidence of being...is that what is being considered DOES NOT EXIST.
The default should be, I DO NOT KNOW IF IT EXISTS.
Or at very least, NO inference should be drawn from the fact that there is no evidence...that perforce it does not exist. Other evidence may lead there.
There is nothing "flawed" about my reasoning on this issue.
Horse shit!
You remember no such thing...because I most assuredly do not have an inclination toward "at least one god exists"...or toward "no gods exist." Not in any way whatsoever.
Whatever you think you remember...is your imagination at work.
That's only warranted if:
(a) It's not impossible or incoherent that the thing in question might exist,
(b) It's plausible that the thing in question might exist, and
(c) There's no evidence that the thing in question doesn't exist.
The notion of gods has problems with (a), (b) and (c). Some other things that we have no evidence for don't have any of (a), (b) or (c) against them. For those things, it's reasonable to answer that you don't know.
And you are saying that it IS impossible or incoherent for gods to exist?
C'mon!
In any case, I welcome any evidence you have that it is impossible or incoherent that gods can exist.
It is as "plausible" that gods exist as it is that no gods exist. That is why the issue has been debated throughout history as often as it has. We simply do not know which it is.
I do not follow that thought.
It interests me but is kinda convoluted. Could you (would you) flesh it out a bit?
I disagree that the notion of gods has problems with (a) or (b). I am not sure of what you are saying in (c).
Agreed.
AND I think the only logical default point on the issue of the existence or non-existence of any gods...
...is I DO NOT KNOW.
If we're talking about something that has at least some nonphysical aspects, yes. And if we're not, I don't know what we'd be talking about. The alternative would need to be specified better before I'd bother with it.
Quoting Frank Apisa
No, it isn't. A fortiori because the concept of nonphysical existents is incoherent. But there are a number of other absurd aspects to it, too.
Quoting Frank Apisa
In other words, in the case of a god, all the evidence we have so far shows no god to exist.
Are you saying that ideas do not exist?
Stop with that.
YOU are not the determinant of what can or cannot exist. You are dogmatically proclaiming that it is impossible for a god to exist...in a discussion about whether at least one god exists or not.
I'm sure you object when someone proclaims that at least one god MUST exist.
There is NOT A SINGLE PIECE OF EVIDENCE that shows that no gods exist.
Not one tiny piece.
Cite what you consider to be the single most important piece of evidence that shows that "no gods exist"...and I will show it to be worthless.
They're not nonphysical. Nothing is.
Quoting Frank Apisa
The world is. I'm not going to pretend that I can't observe it.
Okay, if nothing is nonphysical...then any gods that exist are nonphysical also. But, like ideas, you cannot put a tie on 'em.
Then get "the world" to tell me what can and cannot exist. All I am hearing from is you right now...7.6 billion to go.
You are arguing like Devans right now, Terrapin...albeit in the opposite direction.
I'm assuming you meant "Then any gods that exist are physical."
That's fine. As I said above: "[If we're talking about something that only has physical aspects, then] I don't know what we'd be talking about. [This] alternative would need to be specified better before I'd bother with it." The first thing I'd want specified is where whatever we're talking about is supposed to be located.
We can in some cases determine with logic what can and cannot exist. That which the existence of which would imply a contradiction cannot exist. So that rules out a number of gods from the enquiry.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Don't assume.
I said what I meant to say.
If you are of the opinion that an IDEA is NOT nonphysical...then an entity god could be nonphysical. If a translation of your "nothing is nonphysical" is that the only things that are nonphysical are things that do not exist...then you are saying that ideas do not exist.
Your arguments here are absurd.
In any case, we can move on to something less in the area of YOU defining things.
You said, "In other words, in the case of a god, all the evidence we have so far shows no god to exist."
I asked you to furnish the single most important piece of evidence that shows that no gods exist.
Let's go there.
S...respectfully as possible...I think it is best we not engage in any further discussions.
You're free to do what you want, as am I. Freedom of expression. That you might have chosen to ignore me doesn't mean that I will stop commenting on your posts.
Okay, but what you said is "then any gods that exist are nonphysical also." I don't know how "also" makes sense, but again, the idea of a nonphysical anything is incoherent. So the idea of gods is incoherent, if they're nonphysical, as you say.
Quoting Frank Apisa
What in the world? How would anything being not nonphysical have any implication for something being nonphysical?
Quoting Frank Apisa
If nothing is nonphysical, then "things that are nonphysical" is x'ed out. There is nothing in that category.
Things that don't exist do not exist. Obviously. In other words, there are no such things.
No. I said that ideas are not nonphysical. Ideas exist. But ideas are not nonphysical. In other words, ideas are physical.
Importance is subjective. I don't know what you're going to consider more important on this end.
I don't consider any piece of evidence more important than any other for this. I look on my desk. There are no gods there. I look on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. No gods there. None on the moon, either. Etc. All of equal importance to me. (And not very important at that, since the question of whether there are gods seems like a colossal waste of time to me, since the idea is so absurd/childish/ignorant.)
From what I gather...you are suggesting that since you cannot see any gods on on your desk, on the sidewalk in front of your apartment...
...that is evidence that gods do not exist.
Okay.
Tell me if you see an "idea" on your desk...or on the sidewalk in front of your apartment.
If not...are you saying that is evidence that ideas do not exist. Or are you able to see that it is ONLY evidence that you cannot see an idea on your desk or on the sidewalk in front of your apartment.
Tell me if you see any sentient beings from any planet circling the nearest 5 stars to Sol on your desk or on the sidewalk in front of your apartment.
If not...are you saying that is evidence that there are no sentient beings from any of those planets? Or are you able to see that it is ONLY evidence that you cannot see any sentient beings from any planet circling the nearest 5 stars to Sol on your desk or on the sidewalk in front of your apartment.
Not seeing, per se. No evidence of them.
Ideas aren't located on desks. They're brain phenomena. There's plenty of evidence that they're brain phenomena.
Maybe you'd want to suggest an alternate place to look for evidence of god phenomena?
YOU are the one claiming there is evidence that there are no gods.
So far, I have not seen any. You have not offered any evidence that there are no gods for consideration...only that you cannot see any on your desk or on the sidewalk in front of your apartment.
Please...just offer some of that evidence you claim exists that there are no gods.
Correct. There is evidence that there are no gods. Everywhere we check--no evidence of any gods. That's evidence that there are none. That's evidence that something doesn't exist. You suggested that maybe we're looking in the wrong place. So I'm asking you to suggest where the right place to look might be.
None of that is evidence that no gods exist.
The fact that no human can "check" and find something is NOT evidence that a thing does not exist. It is merely evidence that we humans cannot detect it.
I am still looking for you to produce any evidence that gods do not exist.
(HINT: I doubt there is ANY evidence that gods do not exist. I have grappled with this problem from both sides...and I have NEVER encountered any unambiguous evidence that no gods exist. For the record, I have NEVER encountered any unambiguous evidence that any gods DO exist either. (NOTE: Obviously, IF a creator god exists, EVERYTHING is evidence that the god exists...but equally obviously, it is FAR from unambiguous.)
So...I am still waiting. Give me a single piece of evidence that no gods exist. Let's discuss it.
Yes it is. The only way it wouldn't be is if god is supposed to be located someplace where we haven't even checked. In lieu of specifying a location, or in a situation where god is supposed to be omnipresent, the more places we search but come up empty is the more evidence that there is no such thing as a god.
Hence, are you suggesting locations that we haven't checked yet?
Quoting Frank Apisa
There would need to be some plausible reason why it's not detectable. What's the plausible reason?
That doesn't just go for gods, it goes for everything.
There's no reason to believe that anything exists if there's no evidence for it, and there's reason to believe that it doesn't exist if searches do not turn it up. We'd need a plausible reason to believe that something isn't detectable in order to believe that.
If you want to think that because you see no gods on your desk or on the street in front of your apartment is evidence that no gods exist...
...then it is also evidence that nothing that you are not able to see on your desk or on the street in front of your apartment is also evidence that nothing else exists.
You are being particularly illogical.
Why is that?
Because humans are not able to "detect" everything that exists?
It certainly appears we humans are not able to "detect" everything that exists.
Exactly.
I do not do "believing."
Anyway...if you want to blindly guess that no gods exist...you are free to do so. I will defend your right to do so. If you are going to pretend there is some logical reason for doing so...I am going to laugh at it.
If you are still monitoring this thread, Maureen...
...I think your OP question if being answered rather strongly by Tarrapin.
Some people just CANNOT...or ARE UNWILLING...to accept "I do not know."
It seems to cause them physical and mental distress at times.
1. In every corner of the world and since we can see more than our planet then in the far beyond as well there are works of order, law and purpose.
2. Every such order and creation calls for an omniscient creator.
Now every creation with the little knowledge they have can see around themselves and can come to understanding of what is going and similarly now these are proved scientifically as well such as:
The planet that we live in and to its fullest extent and then its comparison to the solar system that we are in. The solar system being a part of the galaxy and that our galaxy of having more than 100 billions of stars and the sun being a star of it.
On the other hand in this great universe the count of galaxies are unlimited and yet many had to be discovered and in fact most of them will not be discovered at all and the recent image released of Blackhole.....
The Newton's theory of gravity is governed by all stars and in every planet there is the existence of these forces. As he has put it in his words "Don't doubt the creator, because it is inconceivable that accidents alone could be the controller of the Universe." Also he said "The more i study science the more I believe in God, This most beautiful system of the Sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being". Same goes for Einstein.....
Again, it's not just about seeing. Can we get that straight first? Let's see if we can settle anything.
Change "see" to "sense."
No problemo.
Well, it's not even limited to sense. At least not directly. It includes any sort of evidential detection from any instrument, too. For example, something like a spectrometer, or an oscilloscope, or a neutrino detector--any sort of instrument we can imagine (and that we have reason to believe is responding to some objective phenomenon as a means of detection).
Then change "see" to "sense, either directly or by any other sort of instrument we puny humans can imagine."
Gonna come out the same, Terrapin.
Don't you get that by now.
You could have changed "see" to "detect"...
...and YOU still come up with "If humans cannot detect it...it does not exist"...which is absurd.
We have no idea of how much human intelligence is able to detect...and it is quite possible that on a continuum with "all that exists" being one mile long...what humans are able to detect using instruments and all that crap...may be less than 1/100th of an inch.
The answer to Maureen's question apparently is: Because some people simply will not accept "I do not know" as a response.
So, you're believing first off that some things are not going to be detectable in principle, right?
I do not do "believing."
If you are asking me if my guess is that we humans are not even close to understanding or being able to detect EVERYTHING about existence...
...YES...that is my guess.
At very least, it certainly is possible.
Do you have a guess on the issue?
Yeah, you do. Everyone does. The word(s) you use for it are irrelevant.
So what would be the basis for the notion of some things being undetectable in principle?
Quoting Terrapin Station
I don't!
The words are paramount.,
I makes guesses...I call them "guesses." I make suppositions...I call them "suppositions." I make estimates...I call them "estimates." I have opinions...I call them "opinions."
Some people refer to their guesses, suppositions, estimates, and opinions...as beliefs.
I do not.
They do "believing."
I don't.
If you are asking me about something I wrote...quote what I wrote. I will flesh it out my words if that is what you are asking.
I'm asking you about this:
"...and YOU still come up with "If humans cannot detect it...it does not exist"...which is absurd."
How are you getting to "there are things that are undetectable in principle"
I cannot possibly believe that is what you believe.
The reason I wrote that it is absurd to suppose, as you do, that if humans cannot detect it, it does not exist...
...is because the notion IS absurd.
Pluto existed long before any humans detected it; atoms existed long before any humans detected them.
We have no idea of what exists that we still have not detected.
Your paraphrasing of what I wrote...is even more absurd.
https://www.space.com/26078-how-many-stars-are-there.html
So there are 1*10^24 stars in the observable universe. God could be anywhere amongst them. So we can't use 'we can't find God' to categorically disprove the existence of God.
Using "we can't find any gods" as proof that gods do not exist...
...is totally illogical.
So you're not proposing something undetectable in principle? Just something we haven't detected yet?
Quoting Terrapin Station
I honestly do not know what you mean by your question, Terrapin.
Here is my position stated for (I think) the third time:
It is absurd to suppose that because humans cannot detect "X"...that "X" does not exist.
It is absurd to suppose that everything that exists...can be detected by humans.
I am not being intentionally obtuse. I just do not know what you means by "something undetectable in principle."
So there's a distinction to be had here:
(1) X is undetectable in principle. In other words, no matter what we ever do, no matter what we ever know, we will never be able to detect x, because there's something about x that makes it inherently outside the realm of any possible interactive experience, even indirectly.
(2) We haven't detected x yet, maybe because we simply haven't yet looked in the right place, or in the right way yet, or maybe there's something we're yet to discover, but that we eventually will discover, that will enable us to detect x.
Okay...
...YES.
To both.
It certainly is POSSIBLE that there is an "X" that is undetectable in principle. In other words, no matter what we ever do, no matter what we ever know, we will never be able to detect x, because there's something about x that makes it inherently outside the realm of any possible interactive experience, even indirectly. Humanity (human beings) may cease to exist without ever having detected some "X."
AND...it certainly is POSSIBLE that there is an "X" we humans haven't detected x yet, maybe because we simply haven't yet looked in the right place, or in the right way yet, or maybe there's something we're yet to discover, but that we eventually [s]will[/s] MAY discover, that will enable us to detect x.
Sure, it's possible that there's an x undetectable in principle, and it's possible that there is no x undetectable in principle. Which one do we go with and why?
if you want to guess...guess.
If you are asking me to guess...I will flip Mr. Coin. But to what avail?
Sure they are. It's a simple contradiction. If there's an x that's undetectable in principle, then it can not be the case that there is no x that's undetectable in principle. Again, both are possible.
You suggested that there's an x that's undetectable in principle. You didn't suggest that there's no x that's undetectable in principle. Why? Did you flip a coin?
Are you saying one is impossible?
Which one is that?
These are possibilities we are talking about. No "possibility" of this sort is mutually exclusive.
If it is possible that X...that presupposes the possibility of not-X. If not, it is a certainty, not a possibility. That is intrinsic to possibility propositions. We are talking about the possibility...not the reality.
If one...then not the other. That is the reality.
But we are talking about the POSSIBILITY...not the reality.
Anyway...this is a side-track...uninteresting and immaterial.
I did no such thing. I suggested the POSSIBILITY.
The POSSIBILITY, Terrapin. THE POSSIBILITY.
For that?
No reason to flip a coin on that. That is a given.
Unless a thing is established as impossible...it is possible.
Both those things are possible.
Anyway...what is the point of all this?
Both are epistemically possible, but if one is ontologically actual, the other is ontologically impossible by virtue of being a contradiction of the other. One has to be ontologically actual.
The possibilities of both exist, Terrapin.
The POSSIBILITY of one...does not negate the POSSIBILITY of the other. In fact, the POSSIBILITY of one just about demands the POSSIBILITY of the other.
My position is epistemologically agnostic, but with regard to belief I "pistemically" atheist or "apistemic", that is, without belief in gods. I could be wrong, but I do not believe in gods and nothing I do is predicated on their possible existence.
There is a difference between "nothing I do is predicated on their possible existence"...and "they do not exist."
You may feel it reasonable to "not take seriously the possibility that they do exist"...BUT the unavoidable fact is that it IS possible that gods exist.
THAT is not even in dispute...and there is no getting around that.
Right, that is my point. I make no claims of knowledge, but still hold beliefs on the matter.
Quoting Frank Apisa
The trap one falls into is thinking that it follows from the claim that something is possible, which is to say, not impossible, that this possibility has any bearing on what one does or believes. It is possible that there is a monster under my bed that has the ability to disappear whenever I look for it. It IS possible that it exists, BUT what follows from this?
Which is to say that you make a blind guess one way or the other.
My guess is that your guess is that no gods exist.
I certainly do not fall into that.
I am saying IT IS POSSIBLE gods exist...just as it is POSSIBLE that no gods do.
The notion that one it is more likely one way or the other...IS ALSO JUST BLIND GUESSWORK.
[QUOTE]It is possible that there is a monster under my bed that has the ability to disappear whenever I look for it. It IS possible that it exists, BUT what follows from this?[/quote]
Beats me.
But if there are gods...what makes you suppose this places an obligation on you.
Where does that come from?
Yeah, that's what I said. "Both are epistemically possible."
But only one can be actualized, because they're logically contradictory.
At no point had I spoken of the REALITY.
I was talking about the possibilities.
In any case...are you going to give us some idea of what this is all about. What point you are trying to make...and how it impacts on why most people are unwilling to just say "I do not know?"
I do not make a blind guess unless I take seriously the possibility of the existence of gods. And unless I find some persuasive reason to take seriously the possibility of their existence, I find no reason to rule them in, and so, do not blindly guess about their existence any more than I make a blind guess about the existence of the monster, or any of the countless things I might imagine are possible without any reason to think that they might be actual.
Quoting Frank Apisa
Well, it is also possible that the gods do place obligations on us.
The question I am getting at is about the significance of such possibilities. In what way does it matter that it is possible that gods exist? If I take seriously the possibility that there is a monster under the bed I might be fearful. I might not want to get in the bed or out of the bed. But if it does not change anything I do or fear then what difference does it make? If a child is fearful, what do we take seriously, the possibility of the monster or the reality of the fear? Do we act to eliminate the threat of the monster or alleviate the fear?
Sure we're getting there. So the question again is why you were going with "There are some things that are in principle not detectable" over the other possibility. We straightened out that they're both epistemic possibilities. Why are you going with one epistemic possibility over the other?
Well...allow me to help you with that.
I absolutely guarantee that there is the possibility of the existence of gods.
That is 100%. Cannot get any better than that.
You concede there is the possibility of no gods...and with that, you must concede the possibility of gods.
But if there are gods...what makes you suppose this places an obligation on you. — Frank Apisa
Yup...possible both ways.
If you are telling me there are no gods...or that it is more likely that there are no gods, Fooloso...
...you ARE making a blind guess.
I didn't.
It isn't.
So...what is this all about?
Are you stalling for some reason?
Then why did you bring it up when I was talking about evidence?
His point was that it's possible that a god exists, and that, given that we can conceive of an undetectable god, we don't know that god, unspecified, doesn't exist.
Your point about evidence doesn't work as an attempted refutation of his point.
What was the point in you making that point about evidence? That is only of logical relevance to a specified god, and he didn't specify. You did. But why?
We can say that it's possible that a god exists and is undetectable. It's also possible that no god exists and that any existent god would be detectable. Possibility isn't enough then, is it?
Logical possibility is sufficient to justify the stance that we don't know that god, unspecified, doesn't exist. That was his point. To argue against that, you'd have to argue that it is logically impossible for there to be an undetectable god. But that argument won't work because it [i]is[/I] logically possible for there to be an undetectable god.
Then logical possibility is sufficient to justify the stance that we do know that god, unspecified, doesn't exist.
In other words, logical possibility would have to be sufficient to justify contradictory claims.
No it isn't, and saying that makes no sense. If you cannot logically rule out the possibility of the actual existence of god, unspecified, then you aren't justified in claiming that you know that god, unspecified, doesn't exist.
Quoting Terrapin Station
What?
Are you saying that it's not logically possible that we do know that god, unspecified, doesn't exist?
No, I'm not saying that. It is logically possible that we do know that god, unspecified, doesn't exist. But that doesn't refute my argument, so why are you focusing on that?
So if it's logically possible, and logical possibility is sufficient to justify a stance, then logical possibility is sufficient to justify both P and not-P, right? If not, why not?
(P and not-P in this case being "We do know that god, unspecified, doesn't exist," and "We don't know that god, unspecified, doesn't exist." )
You're twisting my words. I wasn't generalising about logical possibility. I made a specific point. You haven't said anything to refute my specific point.
If you cannot logically rule out the possibility of the actual existence of god, unspecified, then you aren't justified in claiming that you know that god, unspecified, doesn't exist.
Do understand why that is?
My point was that logical possibility isn't sufficient to claim something. Why not? Because for the vast majority of things, if it's logically possible that P, then it's also logically possible that not-P. So if logical possibility is sufficient to claim something, then we regularly have to claim contradictions.
You disagreed and said that logical possibility is sufficient.
Again, logical possibility is sufficient to justify the stance that we don't know that god, unspecified, doesn't exist.
If you cannot logically rule out the possibility of the actual existence of god, unspecified, then you aren't justified in claiming that you know that god, unspecified, doesn't exist.
Do understand why that is?
Either logical possibility is sufficient to justify a claim or it isn't. If something else is required--so that there are some cases where it's justified and other cases where it's not, then logical possibility isn't actually sufficient. Something else is required. "Sufficient" means that nothing else is required.
You don't need to explain to me what "sufficient" means, you need to understand my point and respond appropriately.
Nothing other than the logical possibility of an undetectable god is required to justify the claim that you aren't justified in claiming that you know that god, unspecified, doesn't exist.
Do you understand that or not? Because you keep missing the point.
Okay. Is something other than the logical possibility of a necessarily detectable god required to justify the claim that you are justified in claiming that you know that god, unspecified, doesn't exist?
Yes, because the fact that we're talking about god, unspecified, means that we're talking about god, broadly, as per a number of possible conceptions, one of which is an undetectable god. The actual existence of a god as per that particular conception is what you'd have to rule out as impossible.
This still doesn't change anything. You still haven't refuted my argument. You are taking us on a futile diversion.
I didn't.
Go back...quote what I said to which you are taking exception...and let's discuss that rather than what you are saying I said.
Wouldn't these be factors in addition to logical possibility?
Given that what you're referring to [I]is[/I] a logical possibility, that would make no sense. Unless you can demonstrate that it is logically impossible through contradiction, it is a logical possibility. And that logical possibility is sufficient for my argument to succeed.
Are you just twisting my words with the aim of scoring a point, or what? What is your intent?
I do not have to concede that possibility since I have acknowledged it all along. See the distinction I made between epistemic agnosticism and pistemic atheism. Allow me to help you with that. I make no knowledge claims about the existence of gods, they may or may not exist, I do not know. But I do not believe they do exist.
Quoting Frank Apisa
I am not telling you anything about the gods. I know nothing of gods. I am telling you what I believe. It is not a guess and it is not blind. It is a matter of not finding anything that leads me to think there are gods, but that is not a guess about whether there are or not. If I were asked to guess I say that barring some further development it seems me that there are not. It would be blind from an epistemological standpoint, but beliefs involve more than what we think we know.
I disagree with lots of what you said here, but I am going to attack our disagreement in a different way.
I am going to agree with something you said; add something to it; and then ask if you are of the same mind on what I added.
Regarding gods, you wrote: "But I do not believe they do exist."
I also do not "believe" any gods exist, Fooloso.
AND I do not "believe" there are no gods.
Are you of that same mind?
We are of the same mind regarding the first belief. As to the second, no. You are, of course, allowed to hold contradictory beliefs, but I prefer not to.
There is no contradiction in affirming both of those statements. People who think that there's a contradiction just aren't good at logic.
There were NO "beliefs" held there, Foolso.
I spoke of what I held no beliefs about.
There are people who "believe" gods exist. I am not one of them. Therefore, I do not "believe" any gods exist...which is what I said.
There also are people who "believe" no gods exist. I am not one of them either. So,, I do not "believe" no gods exist...which I also said.
There was nothing contradictory expressed.
This is a philosophical forum. Precise language is a must.
Thank you, S.
That is something that escapes most people. Nice to see that you got it.
Both Theist and Atheist standpoints challenge logic.
I am not sure that is "returning" to the OP...but...
...IF we define agnostic as "not knowing if at least one god exists or not"...then everyone is an agnostic.
There was a time when I used to use the term "acknowledged agnostic"...to differentiate people who acknowledged their agnosticism from those who would not...which is a return to the OP.
WHY do those who do not acknowledge it...not do so?
And perhaps, why are there people who acknowledge it and yet who still insist that their guess (one way or the other) is a more logical guess than the guesses of people who guess the other way?
If your point was to say that you hold no beliefs about gods then why not say that? Instead you expressed a belief - using a double negative. It is not a question of logic but of determining what you are trying to say.
If I say that I do not believe that it is not going to rain, that may mean I believe it is going to rain or that I hold no belief about whether it will rain or not.
You play on the ambiguity but why? To what end? If you hold to the idea that precise language is a must then why use ambiguous language?
I think both sides (Theist and Atheist) take a lot of pleasure from promoting their point of view and trying to 'persuade' others to their side.
Quoting Frank Apisa
There are logical arguments for God. There are no logical arguments against God. There is empirical evidence for God. There is no empirical evidence against God. Hence the die is weighted.
I did NOT express a "belief." I mentioned that I do not hold certain "beliefs." I was not TRYING to say something...I WAS saying something.
You, erroneously claimed I was holding two contradictory thoughts.
You were wrong.
Okay.
I did not use ambiguous language. I was asking you an appropriate question. Go back and see where I used it...and why I used it that way.
If what you say can mean either of two different things then it is ambiguous. I am not interested in playing this game.
Okay. And there are some people who just never want to acknowledge not knowing something...especially in the "god" continuum.
From this point forward, when you use the word "God" the way you do, I will assume you mean a specific god. Either tell me which god you speak of...or I will assume you mean what I consider the almost cartoon god of the Old Testament.
You are wrong. There are no logical arguments for that God...although there are logical arguments for gods. AND there are logical arguments against that God...very logical...plus there are logical arguments against the idea of gods entirely.
I do not know what that means.
If you want to think there is no empirical evidence against that god...think it.
You are wrong.
If I say I do not have a belief that any gods exist...THAT IS NOT AMBIGUOUS.
If I say I do not have a belief that no gods exist...THAT IS NOT AMBIGUOUS.
You are/were dead wrong. Just man up and acknowledge it. You'll feel better about yourself.
I do not know which God it is. It could be the Flying Spaghetti Monster for all I know. There is an almost zero chance that any of the worlds religions are correct so it is hard to identify God with a particular Religion. Some religions have some things partially correct. For example, I believe catholics believe that God is timeless which is correct.
Quoting Frank Apisa
If you want to debate the existence of a first cause, best to do it here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5577/was-there-a-first-cause-reviewing-the-five-ways/p2
I have laid out all the arguments in the OP.
Quoting Frank Apisa
What empirical evidence can you give against God? My God is not omni-present BTW.
You're not following what I'm saying.
You brought up the following above: "the fact that we're talking about god, unspecified, means that we're talking about god, broadly, as per a number of possible conceptions, one of which is an undetectable god."
Is that identical to simply saying "It's logically possible," or is that something different than simply saying "it's logically possible"?
Since you are not talking about "a god"...but rather about "God"...and referring to it as "he"...I will make the assumption I made, because it almost certainly is that god.
If you are suggesting you can make arguments for that god here and that I cannot respond...I have a suggestion for that suggestion.
Do you want to hear it or are you pretty sure you know what my suggestion would be?
See my comment above.
If you want to think there is no empirical evidence for what may not exist...a tortured bit of logic...think it.
It appears to me that you, like all of us, do not know if any gods exist or not...and are unwilling to acknowledge that you do not know...mostly by pretending your blind guesses are not really blind, but are logical.
You are helping to answer the OP. I'll give you that.
Seriously, I am not religious.
Quoting Frank Apisa
I would like to hear your suggestion (and any counter arguments you can make against God).
Quoting Frank Apisa
Well you could for example show the universe was not created or show there was no first cause; both would be equivalent to disproving God's existence.
Okay. But you are stone-headed...and that is much worse.
My suggestion is for you to shove YOUR suggestion to where the sun never shines.
God?
That god is so obviously mythological...no arguments are really needed.
If you want to think a god made the Earth...placed it in orbit around a star...placed that star in a galaxy with 250 billion other stars...and placed that galaxy in among hundreds of billions of other galaxies...
...and still cares about what some guys does with his own dick...
...be my guest.
If that does not seem absurd to you...what could I say?
Using your methodology of debate...I would just declare it to be so and refuse to accept any arguments that show such a declaration to be absurd.
As I said, I am not arguing for any particular God. The chances of any particular religion actually being true seem minimal to me, but the chances that a 'generic' God exists seem much higher. This God is not mythological in any way. This God has to obey the rules of logic for example. So I think such a God is not only possible, but probable.
Quoting Frank Apisa
I do not think that, what I think is:
- God was responsible for the Big Bang only. He did not make the Earth directly.
- Gos is not omnipresent. It just seems unlikely to me. Where is his nervous system for example?
But that is not what you said. You did not say you do not have a belief that 'X' you said I do not "believe" 'X'.
Quoting Frank Apisa
Again, that is not what you said. When you say that you do not believe 'X' that does not mean that you have no belief about 'X'. As you said, precise language is a must.
You agreed that it was AMBIGUOUS when I used rain in place of gods. Or when you say "Okay" you are simply being non-committal? AMBIGUOUS?
I strive to express myself simply and clearly. I learned this from "The Elements of Style" many years ago. although it took me many years to put it into practice. Given what you have said about yourself, I think it likely that you too have come across this idea. But evidently you do not recognize its value. Why else would you say something like "I do not believe 'X'" when you mean "I hold to no beliefs regarding 'X'" in the context of this discussion?
I'll ask again: what is the point? Why phrase something in a way that you know will lead to misunderstanding?
You're blaming him for your own mistaken assumption. Next time, if you're not sure, just seek clarification.
Even though it was pretty obvious. He meant what he said, and if he didn't, then he would've worded it better. I'm sure he's perfectly capable of wording statements of that sort appropriately. How hard can it be to state, "I do not believe...", instead of, "I believe..."?
I think I am. The problem seems to be that you're missing the point and leading me down the garden path. I'm not sure whether this is accidental or whether you're deliberately twisting my words.
I only ever meant to make the point that the logical possibility of an undetectable god means that your criticism about evidence misses the point that was being made. It misses the point because it can only be criticism against a detectable god, and it was never specified that a detectable god is what is being talked about. On the contrary, it was clear to me that it was an unspecified god that was being talked about.
Seriously, how hard is that to understand? You keep leading me places which do nothing. The situation we're in won't just go away if you ask me some pointless question which gets us nowhere. It's like you're trying to "win" through distraction or by twisting my words in an attempt to "catch me out".
Apparently you are not able to acknowledge that saying "I do not believe "X"...IS NOT the same as saying "I believe not-X."
That is your problem.
You obviously are not equipped for a discussion like this.
Because that was the point I was making.
I was making it here...and in another thread at the same time.
What I said was absolutely the truth.
There was no ambiguity.
But, if you are not adult enough to acknowledge that...no problem. In fact, the fact that you are having that difficulty is a part of the answer to the OP.
My initial post in this tangent was about the following, and it was only about the following:
Quoting Frank Apisa
That's not even specifically about the idea of a god. It's a more general epistemic idea.
What the hell?
If you do not believe no gods exist then either have no belief about gods or you believe gods exist. You might mean one or the other. It is ambiguous. Saying it is ambiguous is not the same as saying you must believe X or not-X. Are you able to acknowledge that?
You go on to say:
Quoting Frank Apisa
Quoting Frank Apisa
But earlier you said:
Quoting Frank Apisa
Quoting Fooloso4
My belief is that gods do not exist. If we are of the same mind regarding this then when you say you also do not believe any gods exist then you are expressing the same belief as I am. You no longer have the option of claiming you do not believe any gods exist because you hold no beliefs about the gods. In that case we would not be of the same mind. Are you able to acknowledge that?
You seem very confused. The "also" makes no sense whatsoever there, and your interpretation is very poor. For some weird reason, you just decided to interpret a clearly worded negation of belief as an affirmation of belief.
How am I supposed to know that you weren't following the conversation? I quoted the bit I just re-quoted above, and that's what I was responding to. Then Frank responded to my comment about it.
Sometimes it seems like you're being deliberately difficult. It's like you withhold information, like the knowledge that you're addressing what's very much the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of the law, and you drag things out, only to eventually spring something like this on me.
Do you relish that moment?
What you fail to realize is that we are not talking about logical entailment. We are talking about what some guy on the internet says. What some guy says and what he means are not always the same, and what he mean is often not clear, even to himself.
Once again, when you say that you do not believe 'X' that does not mean that you have no belief about 'X'. It might be that is what you mean that but you might mean that you do hold this belief. The statement is ambiguous. It is up to the people you are talking to decide for themselves what you mean.
Two can play this game. I said:
Quoting Fooloso4
I did not claim that you do hold contradictory beliefs. It does not follow from the statement that you are allowed to hold contradictory beliefs, that you do or that I claimed you did.
I see that you love to argue, but if you think that is what philosophy is about then we have very different views on the matter. I am not going to waste any more time with this game of ambiguities.
With that said, You are assuming that any Gods exist. It would not matter which God or Gods anyone was referring to in a conversation unless some Gods or one particular God exists among the one(s) being referenced. But as I said before, no one knows if any God(s) do or do not exist. If no one had ever seen elephants before or knew about them and they existed but only lived on another planet, then they would exist but you would not know that they exist. I don't even know that there would be any theories about their existence, it would more than likely simply be that they exist and you don't know it. This example is empirically no different than God(s) since no one has seen God(s) and therefore theoretically no one knows if He or they exist. But as in the example that I gave, God(s) could exist and we just are not aware of it for whatever reasons, just as elephants could theoretically be confined to another planet and we might not know that they exist as a result. With that said, I am particularly irritated by the idea that anyone INSISTS that God(s) absolutely does or does not exist, when as I have just explained NOBODY knows this. It seems as if there are so many people on this forum and elsewhere who cannot think or understand that you don't know whether God exists, or either you just refuse to admit this. It's one thing not to admit that God(s) does or does not exist, but please at least accept that you DO NOT KNOW either way. I find it hilarious that we have spent 11 pages arguing this simply because people refuse to accept the initial point that I made.
We declare that we don't know if it will land heads or tails because we have no data either way, to say either would be a guess. This is the basic position @Frank Apisa is taking.
But say I come along and say that I do have some data indicating it will land on heads. I say that all similar coins I've tossed have landed heads. Frank says "but this coin is not like the others (god might be undetectable etc), so your data doesn't apply, the coin toss remains a guess".
But the question "does my data apply?" is, at this point, another unknown, another coin toss. So, if treating it similarly, the correct statement about the first coin toss is not "it's just a guess", it's "it might be just a guess, or it might not be, it depends on the second coin toss".
This uncertainty is then like a third coin toss... And so on. We end up, as Wittgenstein does in 'On Certainty' with a bedrock of propositions which we simply do not doubt, not ones we cannot talk about doubting, just ones we do not, in practice, doubt.
We cannot, in practice, act as if things exist with properties such as being impossible to detect, even in theory. Properties such as manifest influence on spacetime without being located in spacetime. In practice, "God doesn't exist", or "God probably doesn't exist" are both perfectly rational statements to make because it is impossible to even proceed with thought, let alone life, without simply assuming some hinge propositions to be sound.
I think each person may even have different hinge propositions, but that's another discussion. The point is, the coin tossing has to stop somewhere.
I absolutely, positively DO NOT KNOW if any gods exist.
I have said that many times already.
Here is my position with regard to gods (of any sort):
[i][b]I do not know if gods exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect gods CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that gods MUST EXIST...that gods are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...
...so I don't.[/b][/i]
I have posted this many times already.
What on earth does, "I do not believe in a god", mean?
Does it mean, "I do not believe in a god"?
Or does it mean, "I believe in no gods"?
It's hard to tell, because the choice of words and the ordering of them in such sentences is apparently just completely random and has no bearing on meaning whatsoever.
You mentioned, "in practice", quite a few times there. But if you're talking about, "in practice", then you won't get much disagreement from me.
The problem is, we're engaged in this philosophical enquiry to get at something deeper than, "in practice". In practice, as I've said, a useless undetectable god that does nothing other than exist somewhere unknown to us doesn't make any difference. But aren't we questioning the possible reality, not how we casually treat things?
It seems important in epistemology that we can't logically rule out the actual existence of certain conceptions of god. Epistemology is not ethics. Ethics deals with how we should live, and the principle that we should live as though it doesn't matter falls under ethics, not epistemology.
Yes, but I think hinge propositions apply here too. Like the 'discussion' we had with Jake, at some point in the questioning one has to simply accept things like reason and logic as given, otherwise there is no basis for discussion at all.
I think here with "does x exist" type claims, one of the hinge propositions we must accept in order for the discussion to be meaningful is that things which 'exist' are detectable, at least in theory. If not directly, then necessitated by their effects on things which are.
It may well be that things exist which are not even detectable in theory, but likewise it may well be that human logic is just made up and has no bearing on reality at all. In the case of the former though, as with the latter, believing it simply renders any further discussion pointless. What would we do with the knowledge that it is possible some thing which cannot be detected exists?
Plus, personally, I'm wary of applying reason to a proposition I can't conceive. Maybe others can and I'm just projecting my own lack of intellectual imagination onto them, but I just cannot make such a thing coherent and so cannot trust that I'm really applying logic to it and not just saying things on the grounds that they can be said.
This is the matter that I'm taking issue with though. Not with pragmatism in the 'doing the washing up' sense, but with pragmatism of the 'how can we do logic with this' sense.
I'm saying that the notion of 'exists' and the notion of 'impossible to detect, even in theory' are logically incompatible because of the properties we ascribe to them. I understand your desire to do pure logic here, but obviously we cannot do logic on itself. We cannot answer "is a=b logical" without some properties of a and b to go on.
So here we're asking "could an undetectable being exist?" and so the logical answer still depends on the properties of 'undetectable' and 'exists'. I'm arguing that the properties of 'undetectable' are unknowable because I cannot conceive of such a thing, and that it couldn't exist anyway by definition.
I'm very rusty on logic, but to put it in as basic a form as possible; the set {things that exist} has as a membership criteria the property of 'being detectable (at least in theory)', therefore, if God has the property of 'not being detectable' it is not in the set {things that exist}.
So, my issue is - how do we defend against the proposition that a square circle exists? We might say, it cannot logically because it is a contradiction in terms. If someone then says, "well why can't something which is a contradiction in terms exist?", we have no further recourse than just "because it can't" (or to slap them).
The same seems to me to be true of undetectable existing things "why can't an undetectable thing exist?", "because it can't".
I agree that, if I'm right I'm only right by definition, but I disagree that it is the same as your ad absurdum. I have reasons for defining existence the way I have, using the term that way will not in any way hamper my being understood, and no one has yet provided any reason why I shouldn't. All three such criteria of reasonableness are not met with your horse/toast example.
Maybe, after discussion, you'll convince me that my definition is useless, or inappropriate here, but until that has happened, it remains a reasonable one. Now if you need to check why defining 'horse as cooked bread is unreasonable...
You shouldn't define it that way because I can conceive of the existence of an undetectable being. It makes sense. Yet your definition rules it out.
An undetectable being is not like a square circle. An undetectable being is more like a black swan.
You need to look up the definition of ambiguity. The fact that a statement is truthful does not mean it is not ambiguous. It I say: "I do not believe it is not going to rain", that is a truthful statement if I do not believe it is not going to rain. The question is, what do I mean when I say this? If I believed that it was going to rain that would be consistent with the statement. If I meant I have no belief one way or the other that too would be consistent with the statement. So, how do you know on the basis of the statement which one I meant?
Quoting Frank Apisa
Of course I saw the point! I do not think it helpful to call people stupid but if I did I would say that you are the one who is stupid for your inability to see why your initial statement was ambiguous. Not believing X does not mean that you believe not-X, but that could be what you meant. I would also call you stupid for not understanding that meaning involves a great deal more than making a true statement. A member sent me this privately:
When you provided further context, namely that you hold no beliefs about gods, then and only then was your statement no longer ambiguous as to what you meant.
Quoting Frank Apisa
You know nothing about my educational level or training. There are several reasons why I do not make it known, but one is that it is a good source of amusement as some with little or no training in philosophy draw conclusions about me that only demonstrate their lack of education.
Well, I trust your intellect, so that's good enough for me, but I can't conceive of such a thing existing, so we either agree to differ or you tell me a bit more about this thing you conceive. Presumably it can't do anything (since that would have an impact, and therefore be detectable), it can't take up any space or time. Are we talking about something like an idea (real, but non-physical) or something in another realm, or in this realm but another dimension (although I would think that made it at least theoretically detectable)?
You seem to be treating science and logic in the same manner, whereas I do not. It is possible that science is wrong. It is not possible that logic, in the most fundamental sense, is wrong, because logic defines what's possible. For that reason, it is possible that even though science might say that we would or could in theory detect the existence of any being of any constitution whatsoever, anywhere at all, it might turn out to be wrong. But how is it possible for there to be a square circle?
Of course a thing can be truthful AND ambiguous. But the statement "I do not believe any gods exist" IS NOT AMBIGUOUS.
There ARE people who do "believe" that at least one god exists.
I am not one of them.
The statement, "I do not believe no gods exist.
I am not one of them.
I do not "believe" any gods exist...AND I do not "believe" there are no gods.
If you cannot get that...you are no philosopher...or even close to being one.
There was absolutely nothing ambiguous about my comments...except to someone who is not particularly bright.
Bullshit.
Neither was ambiguous at any point. YOU were mistaking the comment "I do not believe X"...to mean "I believe not-X"
But, you apparently are not very bright. You thought they were contradictory.
There is NO WAY they are contradictory.
If you see my statements as contradictory...which you said you did...your "educational level or training" is inadequate.
To me it should be understanding of an idea that one does understand or not understand by him/herself. Rather you guys are targeting each other simply if he or she cannot understand what he/she wrote, maybe he/she cannot explain properly and thats why academics suggest using shorter sentences.
One's belief and understanding are two different things. Beliefs are pure subjective and needs of objective principles to make it stronger or at least stand at first place. If none here are able to provide those then you all should stop and discuss other topic. The longer you guys go forward with this the more you will get gibberish instead of philosophy...
Screw the "belief" stuff. If a person is going to make an assertion about whether gods exist or not...the person should have the spine to acknowledge that the assertion is a guess...and "the guess" should not be disguised using the word "belief."
Anyway...your suggestion is reasonable and makes sense.
SO...here is a single comment all by itself"
I do not "believe" there are no gods.
That is a simple sentence...and says a specific thing. It says that I do not hold a "belief" that no gods exist. It does not say anything about any other "beliefs" I might have or not have.
Go with it.
Disagree.
Obviously I do not know if any gods exist or not.
I prefer not to guess one way or the other.
I see no reason to suppose the existence of a GOD or gods is impossible...
...and I see no reason to suppose the existence of a GOD or gods is necessary.
There may be at least one god...there may be none.
If forced to make a guess (which for me would be a blind guess)...I would toss Mr. Coin...the coin my wife and I use to make decisions in our football pools when we are undecided.
Obviously not guessing....
Quoting Frank Apisa
Why do you think there is a need of God?
Quoting Frank Apisa
And why do you think there is no need for a God?
Quoting Frank Apisa
Any am curious about the following idea?? How did you end up with this thought when you do not know if there is any God at all?
Quoting Frank Apisa
And I wouldnt suggest tossing a coin on any thought no matter who and where they generate them from>>>>>
Quoting Frank Apisa
That is not the statement I said was ambiguous. The statement in question is: "I do not "believe" there are no gods". That statement is entirely consistent with your believing that there are gods. That is the point you avoid addressing. Since it is also entirely consistent with your not having any beliefs about gods, the statement is ambiguous with regard to your beliefs concerning gods.
Do you really think that using ALL CAPS makes it less AMBIGUOUS? Have you forgotten the context or do you think context does not matter? We were talking about belief in gods. One cannot tell from the statement what you believe, only what you do not believe. That makes it ambiguous.
Quoting Frank Apisa
If I say: "I do not believe it is not going to rain" do I mean it is going to rain or that I hold no belief about whether or not it will rain? If you cannot give me a definitive answer then the statement is ambiguous. In the same way your statement is ambiguous. So, tell me: do I believe it is going to rain? How do you know?
Quoting Frank Apisa
No, that is the mistake you were fishing for. You were so intent on setting the hook that you disregarded what I actually said and substituted the assumptions that you hoped for.
Quoting Frank Apisa
Where did I say they were contradictory? What I said is that you are free to hold contradictory beliefs. And you are, plenty of people do. You apparently are not very bright. YOU were mistaking the comment "You are free to hold contradictory beliefs" to mean "You hold contradictory beliefs".
Quoting Frank Apisa
Of course there is a way in which the statements can be contradictory. Again, the second statement is entirely consistent with believing that there are gods. There is NO WAY that "I do not "believe" there are no gods" entails "I have no beliefs regarding gods". But you are unwilling to admit that either. Instead you use all caps and insult me.
Quoting Frank Apisa
But I did not say they were. That was your assumption. You are so intent on setting the hook that you missed what I actually said and substituted statements of your own making. "You are free to hold contradictory beliefs" does not mean "You hold contradictory beliefs".
Quoting Fooloso4
That is absolute bullshit.
Here is what I actually said:
Quoting Frank Apisa
NOW...how the hell do you get to any ambiguity considering the entire of that commentary?
YOU DON'T!
You are playing a game. I was absolutely clear that I do not hold a "belief" that any gods exist...AND that I do not hold a "belief" that no gods exist.
You screwed up...because YOUR response was:
Quoting Fooloso4
You just didn't get it...although I spelled it out clearly enough for a grammar school kid to get it.
The weak.
Quoting RBS
The strong.
Why do you think the weak needs a savoir? And by the way how do you come to the understanding that God is there only for weak and poor, if that is the case then do you think are all weak, just and rich are unjust?
Quoting S
If the strong is not in need of one, then where did they get the idea of the God being powerful? Why do think at all that there is something powerful beyond their reach? Which is called God?
Quoting S
That's how much my mind's processor can work with only two words :)
Quoting S
I do understand the need of psychology for a superior being or thing or whatever you call it, when you are lacking it or in need for it.....
I would ask for better health when I am in pain and for a good meal when I am hungry.... then why should I be asking for something when can not guarantee me anything.....the question is why should a weak be asking for God and not for being rich or being powerful?
There could be a number of possible factors, such as upbringing, and such as indoctrination. But also, Nietzsche had an interesting answer relating to this. It has to do with his theory of master-slave morality and [I]ressentiment[/I].
Quoting Frank Apisa
The point you were making is that you can phrase something in a way that you know will lead to misunderstanding?
One thing that is of value in Plato's dialogues is what it reveals about the character of Socrates' interlocutors. Other noted philosophers have also pointed to the importance of character. Wittgenstein said that working in philosophy is working on one's self. You have a lot of work to do, but I suspect you will only continue to play games intended to mislead and think that your playing at philosophy is doing philosophy.
I am not going to guess at your motivation, but you will find that the more you play games, the less interested people will be in having a conversation with you. Your loss. There are some members here who know quite a bit about philosophy, but given your behavior I doubt that any of them will bother with you for long.
when we are talking about upbringings and the way we are thought in our life then we are totally overthrowing the idea of subjectivity and ones own mind and actions.... then that human being have no right to decide for himself or that's what you are telling me??, or yet let the weak to decide and express the idea for being a God there or not??? does it make any sense?
Quoting S
Now here we are drifting away...... or that's what it looks like to me, Nietzsche's idea doesn't provide an answer but rather his speculations and theory, I wouldn't call an answer to anything other than what we all believe to be the truth....... now what is the truth that has been discussed so many times....
His ideas about strong and weak are understandable but not fully acceptable...and that they can be well adapted in the current society, on the other hand being poor and weak can also be very dangerous in itself which can then generate negative power,,,,but in itself it is power......
He is talking more of a dimension that is of grasp to the human world and not about God, which is good but my questions is still pending in the air ???..... We cannot compare the actions of human vs God....God's action are based on the understanding of past, present and future where human cannot..... Does it make any sense at all???
The reason for me going this deep is to understand the real need of a God from your perspective,,,do we look for a God when we are in need for something and weak and forget it when we are in power ??? Don't powerful need God as well when they have all the time and money in the world and when they cannot solve a problem???
This is a very good example of an attempt at psychological manipulation. I've been on the brunt end of it myself. You're sending out signals. "I'm not going to guess at your motivation", denying your subtle attack before you make it: the insinuation that he is playing games, doing exactly what you said you weren't going to do by guessing at his motivation. And then you try to get people on your side, signalling that they ought not to bother with one such as him, and trying to use this as some sort of threat.
I was completely clear...you missed it. Now...you are unable to acknowledge you did.
So be it.
Much of your contribution here helps understand what Maureen was asking with her OP.
What do you have in mind in how you are using “weak” and “strong”? What attributes define those words?
The strong are brave, resilient and self-sufficient, and the weak are cowardly, fragile and reliant.
So there are no people who believe in god that are brave, resilient and self - sufficient?
No, there can be and probably are. It depends on the context. But not in respect to their psychological need for a god.
So your really just talking about weakness/strength concerning a few specific traits, the god belief traits such as fear of death?
Is it that they are weak, or possess certain traits such as a need for spiritual meaning?
Yes, amongst others. Fear or unwillingness to confront harsh reality. Escapism. Infantilism.
Quoting DingoJones
It is that they are weak. There is no need for meaning which can't be fulfilled without religious mumbo-jumbo. If I do not need a pacifier, then why do they? If I do not need faux-meaning, then why do they? It is a difference in strength of character.
You might be weaker or stronger in other ways, and vice versa. Why does it have to be a broad stroke of “they are weak, I am strong”?
I DO NOT KNOW IF GODS EXIST OR NOT.
Those are the first words of my position on the issue. I have no idea of what you are talking about, Maureen.
HERE IS MY POSITION:
[b][i]I do not know if gods exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect gods CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that gods MUST EXIST...that gods are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...
...so I don't.[/i][/b]
I was only talking in respect to the psychological need for a god, or the lack thereof, and I think that that's clear from the context.
Weaker or stronger in other ways is beside the point.
You are just rephrasing your one word over and over and that's what is happening with most of the "..k" comments people. I thought you guys will be smart but in reality you guys are just a memory drive of unmeaning-full sentences....
I was thinking and hoping that this forum will be somewhat useful, but now am seeing that most of us here are just doing gibberish and doesn't make any sense.
Good luck with what you are after and what you will learn, for me its enough....
You are just rephrasing your one word over and over and that's what is happening with most of the "..k" comments people. I thought you guys will be smart but in reality you guys are just a memory drive of unmeaning-full sentences....
I was thinking and hoping that this forum will be somewhat useful, but now am seeing that most of us here are just doing gibberish and doesn't make any sense.
Good luck with what you are after and what you will learn, for me its enough....
Well then you arent really saying anything interesting. They are weak on the god issue and you are strong on the god issue, or they are “cowardly, fragile, reliant” on the god issue and you “brave, resilient, self seficient” on the god issue. Alright then, I understand.
Also, you were not being very clear or I wouldnt have to clarify what you meant. It started with you dropping one word answers, following up on how you meant them doesnt seem out of line.
Anyway, I got it now.
:lol:
Okay.
Careful of the door.
Exactly, which is why my point is and has always been to just say that you don't know if God(s) exist or not and leave it at that. Giving any reasons why this is the case is to suggest that those reason(s) is the basis for why you don't know if God(s) exist, which is entirely unnecessary since no one knows if God(s) exists or not. You or anyone else could simply say: "I don't know if God(s) exist or not," and it would be exactly the same as saying "I don't know if God(s) exist or not," and then giving reason(s) for this. Whether you do or do not give reasons for it, the fact will still always be that you, nor anyone else knows if God(s) exist. I won't even bother to explain again why it is that no one knows if God(s) exist, because I feel like it would be hypocritical of what I just said, not to mention monotonous and repetitious.
I responded to your question. I did it as courteously as possible. And in return, I get a lot of shit in return.
I am not here for any grief from you.
If you do not like what I say...or the way I say it...don't read my comments.
Either that...or go fuck yourself.
The choice is yours. No need to tell me why you chose whatever you choose.
The Ganzfeld boasts a 7% difference between random and psychically driven power; a 32% hit rate over an average (random average) of 25%. When people with previous experience, people open to the experience, and siblings are tested it moves from 32% to 60% or about a 35% success rate over the mean.
In one meta-analysis the z score (sigma) is 16.1 with 1.4 billion random number generations studied (the tests/trials). There are three types of random number generators: radioactive decay; electronic tunneling; & light beam splitter. http://boundarylab.org/bi/articles/rngma.pdf
That article is about the RNG's but mentions this on page 2 on dice throws: "This set of dice experiments produced a small overall effect (an average of 1.2% over chance expectation), but statistically this was more than 18 standard errors from chance." 34.1 standard deviations from a normal distribution. 34.1 sigma. The Higgs Boson won with 6 sigma.
People who claim "atheism" are claiming it emphatically. Claim it do, claim it don't, but there can be no uncertainty about whether it is being claimed or not.
One of my favorite "atheological" posers is Jacklyn Glenn. I vividly remember a video she made on YouTube where she discusses, "Coming out as an atheist." If one claims "atheism" and you aren't experiencing them denying the deity claim then the closet for them to come out of can't exist.
"Dear mom & dad, little Timmy, I haven't ever denied the deity claim before, but now I'm going out as an atheist." ???
It is not as much an ontological mystery as you might think.
Definition of God/god/gods Merriam Webster
1 capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality: such as a: the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe. b Christian Science : the incorporeal divine Principle ruling over all as eternal Spirit : infinite Min
2 : a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship; specifically : one controlling a particular aspect or part of reality Greek gods of love and war
3 : a person or thing of supreme value. "had photos of baseball's gods pinned to his bedroom wall."
4 : a powerful ruler. "Hollywood gods that control our movies' fates."
God Dictionary com
noun
1.
the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe.
2.
the Supreme Being considered with reference to a particular attribute:
the God of Islam.
3.
(lowercase) one of several deities, especially a male deity, presiding over some portion of worldly affairs.
4.
(often lowercase) a supreme being according to some particular conception:
the god of mercy.
5.
Christian Science. the Supreme Being, understood as Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Principle.
6.
(lowercase) an image of a deity; an idol.
7.
(lowercase) any deified person or object.
verb (used with object), godded, godding. (lowercase)
8.
(often lowercase) Gods, Theater.
the upper balcony in a theater.
the spectators in this part of the balcony.
9.
to regard or treat as a god; deify; idolize.
interjection
10.
(used to express disappointment, disbelief, weariness, frustration, annoyance, or the like):
God, do we have to listen to this nonsense?
God is not a god or any god. These are different and incompatible terms.
Thank you for your welcoming me here. I really do/did appreciate that, and I'm sorry, I believe in one comment I misstated your philosophical stance. It is not my intention to alienate anyone, certainly not on Good Friday.
Until the internet (my getting on it), I never knew it was an option to believe mythology is real.
Not sure what that test is or how it relates, it's chance and not evidence of anything "supernatural". I've had "precognitive" dreams, I've been exposed to "psychic phenomena", I've lived in "haunted" houses, I've witnessed "alternate realities"--I've personally experienced what some people would call "supernatural" or "psychic". I have no reason to deny that inexplicable things happen. That something is inexplicable doesn't mean that it's "supernatural", and correlation isn't reliable "proof".
If I was inclined to believe that rolling dice were scientific evidence of "supernatural", after seeing things that don't exist or dreaming details of future events, then we would be having a very different conversation.
The supernatural has been tested for 150 years. It's tested in a myriad of ways notwithstanding each of us directs our awareness, discussing consciousness is behavior it causes, and so naturalism has been proven false.
It's Good News, the best. It may not comport with your take on things, but it's Good News nonetheless. We don't merely consist of our bodies. When our bodies give out, that's not the end of us.
It's a small but consistently significant effect. I gave you 34.1 sigma (z - score) but it's actually a lot more when you look at an aggregate of all the meta-analyses. A baseline is established, there are billions of tests/trials, there are meta-analyses, skeptical replications, peer review, and the statistically significant results are present with the file drawer effect taken into account.
Dfpolis #22 The Mind Body Problem
Hello, this is Dr. Dennis Polis, welcome to another in the series of Open Philosophy videos. In this video we will be considering the mind body problem which is, how can an immaterial mind control physical movement? (Skipping ahead).
All of these results are much higher than the standard set by Victor Stenger in his book, God: The Failed Hypothesis, there he arbitrarily sets odds of 10,000 to 1 for a result to qualify as scientific. One criticism of meta-analysis is that studies with no significant effect are more likely to be filed away than published. This is called the file drawer effect. We can estimate how likely this is to reduce a significant effect to insignificance by calculating how many additional unpublished studies showing no effect would be required to reduce the results to insignificance.
For dice throws almost 18,000 (17,974) unpublished studies with no results would be required. For Radin & Nelson's (2003) meta-analysis almost 11 million file drawer studies would be required. Thus, we can be confident that the mind can exert intentional control over the laws of nature with the effect being about 1 part in 10,000.
One part in 10,000 doesn't seem like a very large effect, however, the brain contains 10 to the 11th neurons. Thus, an effect of one part in 10,000 corresponds to controlling 10 million neurons. Given that the brain has evolved as a control system and that the nature of control systems is to use small inputs to control large outputs, this is more than adequate to control our body and behavior.
At a moment when I felt I was due for some hysterical laughter, I appreciate this, sincerely. Please feel free to share this super-genius Nobel physicist's name so I can look him up in relation to psychic experimentation over the last 150 years.
Never mind, I found him.
The Failure of Causal Closure
Since the vertical line of causation is atemporal, it is missed by a mechanical projection looking solely at time-ordered events for explanations. No prior event can explain a later, disjoint, event. It is simply _not there_ when the later event occurs. Physics reflects this insight in relativistic quantum field theory's _locality postulate,_ which rejects action at a distance (In modern physics "distance" combines space and time. The non-locality in the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox does not contradict the locality postulate because it follows from quantum field theory, which is based on the locality postulate). Information from an earlier event is only present later because a logical propagator has brought it forward in time. Logical propagators operate on information, acting in the physical theater of operation via _intentionality._ Immaterial entities are not only causally effective, but are causes _par excellence._ Without them, events would be disjoint monads.
While essential and accidental causality are distinct, they are directly related. The regular sequence in Humean-Kantian causality is the integral effect of natural laws' essential causality. Thus, Humean-Kantian causality is dependent upon the intentional laws of nature. This is seen in the basic equation of quantum field theory, a paradigm of fundamental physics. - God, Science and Mind: The Irrationality of Naturalism by Dennis F. Polis available from Lulu and Amazon, pp. 56-7.
This was an earlier attempt to copy out his book by hand. Added the authoritative case references into the body of the text. Pobody's Nerfect.
Your comment about this physicist is based on either insufficient knowledge or intentional deception. He won a singular Nobel Prize prior to becoming involved in parapsychology--a study on behalf of which he's lost credibility.
Transcendental meditation is not physics, and the man hasn't proven anything except maybe that he's mellow. I don't know, I'd have to meet him to know that. Either way, I believe particles can be further broken down into energy and empty space and that all things are made of variations of these, but that's only what has been observed by someone who isn't me, calculated or speculated from behind a veil of senses--none of it is "real". "Particle" is just a name given to an object that appears a certain way. "Particle" is just a word made from symbols. It's all semantics.
Honestly, I take all invisible things with a pinch of salt until they demonstrate potential to cause massive loss of life. Calling things "particles" has also led to saving lives. Maybe they'll be called something else some day.
If there's ever a scientific explanation for "psychic phenomena", then its "natural", not "supernatural".
You're copy-pasting things you don't even understand.
When an author copies and pastes his work is that copying and pasting? While I was not the original author I am the scribe who copied it all out by hand and those were given the same authority as God, the ones who copied out the Bible.
If you ever took a couple of days and read the Bible you'd know the Scribes (in the New Testament) were the ones officially challenging Christ. No one had a greater knowledge.
You don't copy anything out by hand, do you? It's my preferred method for learning because simply reading stuff doesn't put you in the mind of the person who wrote it. I had to fact check every single detail based on the spelling alone, that was for the 63 of 67 of his videos I transcribed. Copying out the books was no cakewalk either.
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) observes brain activity, but via blood flow, not neural activity. One might imagine a technology similar to FMRI to observe synaptic firing. What would be required for an MRI of complete brain state? Since synaptic gaps are about 0.25µm thick and current MRI scans have millimeter resolution, we must do 10,000 times better.
See that, 0.25µm ? That took a bit of research, to get that character the same as in the book, I had to research it online. In order to get the correct character I had to learn everything there is to know about it. I had to understand it, or one might say it got beat into me for the bargain. I don't know everything Dr. Polis knows, but I've got a lot of it underhand. I've purchased and given away 12 or 13 of his books.
One micron, .001 millimeter. .007, James, James Bond. You got a degree in physics, philosophy or some natural science? Universities issue degrees in parapsychology. Maybe you're just a bit behind the times?
That's a persistent problem with the board in general.
Atheism is neither agnostic or certain of the non-existence of God. That's the traditional fundamental misunderstanding of atheism. The atheistic approach is simply that without proof or data in support of any claim, that claim shouldn't be made as a fundamental belief. So the notion that God "could exist" becomes irrelevant since it's not even a concept worth entertaining as there is nothing pointing to such an explanation for anything.
If raising the question, the answer is agnostic, but the question is flawed in the first place through an atheistic perspective. Just like Russell's teapot analogy, the question itself becomes absurd: "We can never be sure there is or isn't a teapot in orbit around the sun". That is an agnostic claim and an absolutely absurd one. The theistic perspective would be that they are certain that the teapot is there, without any data or rational deduction of how or why. The atheistic perspective is that the question itself is absurd, so the answer whether there is or isn't a teapot becomes just as absurd. As long as there isn't anything pointing towards the existence or non-existence of a teapot in space, the question itself is just abstract, absurd fantasies not worth entertaining in search of knowledge. It may even be that the search for proving or disproving such a thing is fundamentally a waste of time when there are things in our universe that we can measure and is much more worth examining in order to understand existence.
The atheistic question then becomes, why should we waste time asking absurd questions, debating absurd non-sensical hypothetical answers to these absurd questions, instead of putting time and energy into the things we can actually measure and get knowledge about? We should build from what we know, grow knowledge of what we can actually grow knowledge from and build our understanding of the universe and our existence from that evolving knowledge. Anything else is a distraction and a waste of time if knowledge and understanding is our goal.
Yeah, the default on completely ridiculous ideas shouldn't be that they're plausible, so we'll refrain from saying one way or the other.
Do you realize that is all bullshit?
There is no "fundamental misunderstanding" of atheism...because there is no actual understanding of atheism. It means whatever a person wants it to mean when using it.
Some atheists mean it to denote "an assertion that no gods exist."
Some atheist mean it to denote "a belief that no gods exist."
Some atheists mean it to denote "a belief or assertion that it is more LIKELY that there are no gods than that there is at least one."
Some atheists mean it to denote "simply a lack of belief that gods exist."
Some atheists mean it to denote the bullshit you just posted.
It is a worthless word...as a descriptor. That is why I often ask people claiming atheism...what they mean.
There are people who have "beliefs" (and who discuss at length) whether or not a particular team will win the next SuperBowl...or the next World's Cup.
If that is a reasonable topic for discussion...certainly the topic of whether or not gods exist is a reasonable topic for discussion. For people who use atheist as a descriptor to claim some sort of intellectual superiority to people who use agnostic (for instance) because the topic is not worth discussing...or that it is a useless topic...is bullshit.
Just sayin'!
To you perhaps
Quoting Frank Apisa
How do you conclude that to be the true concept of atheism?
Quoting Frank Apisa
You have a fundamentally limited understanding of what I actually wrote, so that's probably the reason your intellectual level is to just spam "bullshit". If that's the level of intellectual rhetoric and discussion you want to exist on, I think it's easy to deduce which is intellectually superior.
Just sayin
I would welcome a more philosophical response than "bullshit", if you demand not to be intellectually inferior, as per your own way of defining things.
To anyone thinking!
I told you.
Because I ask people who use the word as a descriptor...and those are some of the answers I've gotten.
More bullshit.
I couldn't care less what you'd "welcome."
I am saying that YOUR assertion that...
...That's the traditional fundamental misunderstanding of atheism. The atheistic approach is simply that without proof or data in support of any claim, that claim shouldn't be made as a fundamental belief...
...is not worth more respect than to be called "bullshit."
If you want to just take that thought and reword it, we'll have a go at a discussion on a higher level.
Or you could have better manners and phrase your arguments better so that I could care to value your opinion. Right now, valuing your argument relevant gets lost whenever I see "bullshit" as an answer. So I'll rather wait for other better-mannered people to discuss with and not waste my time on someone who's level of engagement starts with "bullshit".
You could simply have written, "I don't think my arguments would hold water against you, Frank."
It would have been more concise...and more truthful.
Nope, you just don't understand my argument and replies with it being bullshit instead of nuanced argumentation. Your post is not worthy of being a philosophical part of a discussion since you are not even trying to be involved in a back and forth discussion. Now you want me to say my argument doesn't hold up, as agreeing that you know better. Your arrogance and attitude have been seen across this forum and I don't feel there's any reason to involve myself in a discussion with someone at your level. Return with better manners and better philosophical respect and I may entertain having a discussion, until then, I cannot value your post as a relevant counter-point to what I wrote.
Chris...get under control. Don't let comments like this trigger you so.
If you want to discuss some of these issues with me...discuss. If you want to suppose you are above discussing matters of this sort with me because I am beneath you in some way...
...fine with me. I accept that is the way you feel.
Just stop discussing.
Don't keep posting comments about stopping!
Write a post with a better philosophical substance so I have something to work from. I can't work from answers like "bullshit". It's not that it's triggering, it's that it's fundamentally lacking relevant substance and I don't think the quality of your post is enough. You write like you were writing Facebook comments or twitter rants, not having a philosophical discussion.
If you can't raise the quality of your writing to a point where the discussion is a progression of ideas, you are merely ranting your emotional opinions. If you can't see that it's the way you write and your attitude that's the problem here, you might not have the ability for self-reflection.
I can't work out well-composed arguments from bullish attitudes and rant-like rhetoric. It's pretty much beneath me and is beneath anyone interested in proper philosophical debate manners.
Wow...really tough to get rid of you and your "I am better than you" attitude, Chris. Okay, in my estimation, that is a factor in your favor.
For the record, "the quality of my writing" has gotten me op ed pieces and op ed sized pieces published in major newspapers across the country...including the BIG one...The New York Times. It got me a full page MY TURN in Newsweek Magazine. ALL of which were published without so much as a single comma being changed.
So do not give me any of your "I am better than you" shit about quality of writing.
I considered your comments above to be bullshit...and I so described them. It was a shortcut...a cut-to-the-chase kind of thing.
If you want to climb down off your high horse and actually discuss it with me...do it. If, instead, you want to continue to tell me that you are not going to have a discussion with me...BY HAVING A DISCUSSION WITH ME...have a ball.
I am enjoying this as much as I would a discussion on the actual topic.
That's you interpretation of everything said, that's not the stance I'm at. Your wild and personal interpretation is irrelevant to what I actually wrote. And if you're in the position of "getting rid of people" like you say, then you're seriously just underlying how inappropriate you behave in a discussion. Seriously.
Quoting Frank Apisa
Then why are you writing in the way you do? I have never read anything written like the section you wrote just now, which is infantile at best in its rhetoric and I don't even write English as my primary language. I doubt any major publication would allow that type of writing. But if you're published, then please entertain the same level of respectful writing as you do in those publications, because you are seriously not doing it here. And for someone who gets angry about other people writing like they are superior; listing your publications in the manner that you just did is seriously just doing what you hate yourself; the bragging bully trying to claim superiority in the discussion. I'm not the one bragging in all caps here, you are. You.
Quoting Frank Apisa
I'm not, I'm asking for a respectful writing within the discussion, you're the one who started saying "bullshit" and behaving rather disrespectful. Do not demand respect if you can't show it yourself, that's just pathetic.
Quoting Frank Apisa
You considering something bullshit is not a valid philosophical groundwork for a counter-argument.
Quoting Frank Apisa
I'm not the one on a high horse here. Your interpretation of a text does not equal me being on a high horse. You, however, brag about how good you are and how I should accept my argument to not hold water against you. I stick to the information I wrote, you actually place yourself on a high horse directly. A serious inability of self-reflection on your part.
Quoting Frank Apisa
I'm not enjoying it, I'm waiting for you to stop behaving like a bully. If you want respect and equality in the discussion, then stop behaving as you do. Respect is earned, you have not earned anything and can't demand respect if you come into the room screaming "bullshit".
The interpretation of "atheism" is commonly about atheists demanding proof for something to exist. If you "do not believe in God", which is another interpretation of atheism, mainly made by theists, you need to accept that it is a belief and therefore the opposite, "there is a God", might be true. This would mean that it's rather an agnostic point of view.
How do you define the difference between an agnostic and an atheist? If there's no difference, there's no reason for there to be separate definitions really. A belief that there is no God will have to accept the idea that it is just a belief and therefore it becomes the same level of unknowable position as a belief in God. It, therefore, becomes more agnostic and is no longer different from atheism.
That's why atheism isn't really defined by a "belief", which means it's a method of looking at the world. Atheism is about accepting what is, not what is believed. Accepting what is, means you need to prove something in order for it to be accepted to be. That means if there's a theistic idea of a teapot in space between the sun and us, the agnostic will accept that we cannot possibly know if it's there or if it's not there, while the atheist will not even accept the concept before there's proven observations that might provide a hypothesis of there being a teapot. I would say that the definition of atheism is rather clear in comparison to agnosticism and theism.
My position, what I know emphatically is I'm being held in existence by an "Entity" and that "Entity" is holding me in existence. The definition of words can't gain any traction on the experience.
"I don't believe in god." Perhaps that person should internalize that in the first-person, and in so doing would never proffer it in the second-person to someone they know rejects that projection?
I'm not in charge of another's education. Someone here who holds an opposing view, Tim Wood I think is his name, was challenging me over the part about being held in existence by God. Claimed something about that being my nomenclature and didn't map onto reality.
The space exploring teapot is an unnecessary platonic idea. I'm leaving shortly, after my e-bike is fully charged, to Mt. Rubidoux where I will be passing out flyers for my soap ministry. Flyers with pictures of my Dad putting the Holy Cross on Mt. Rubidoux April 4th, 1963 using Angel #7187. Is it an intrinsic necessity you are made aware of this fact? No. So it is with the teapot.
Obviously you are having a bit of trouble with the language used in this kind of discussion.
I call your attention to the fact that
a) I do not "believe" any gods exist
...is not the same as...
b) I "believe no gods exist."
They are VERY different...and convey totally different thoughts.
The "definition" you were making that you say theists mainly use...should not have been "do not believe in God"...but rather "believe God does not exist." (Frankly, I think that distinction is made more often by agnostics than theists.)
ASIDE: The singular is inappropriate for this kind of discussion. It should be "gods" or "at least one god." The use of "God" as you used it seems to be pointing to one particular god. And the use of "believe in" is off the charts.
Anyway..."believing" when used about gods...really is just a disguise for "blindly guessing."
Not sure how to respond to this other than that it's hard to use that as a philosophical foundation for any philosophical argument. Philosophical arguments need to be rationally constructed.
Quoting Daniel Cox
Not entirely sure what you're saying here, so before I answer it, maybe clarify what you actually mean?
Quoting Daniel Cox
Also not sure about your point here? Need more clarification on your perspective first.
Quoting Daniel Cox
I'm not sure how this relates to Russel's Teapot? The example I gave is an extension of his analogy, showing different points of view from theists, agnostics, and atheists, in order to exemplify a more defined overview of atheism.
Unnecessary attack on language skills, which is easily countered by the fact that I hold the highest degree of English language skills within my community of non-English speakers. It's also easily countered by the fact that I don't fall back on using emotionally charged rhetoric when my viewpoints are challenged.
But I appreciate that you finally step back from the way of writing you did before.
Quoting Frank Apisa
Please explain how the difference between A and B is more than just in their phrasing. They both refer to a "belief" in the non-existence in God or Gods.
My point was that agnosticism and theism both adhere to a belief, while atheism, by the definition I gave to Daniel Cox is detached from theism and agnosticism through the concept that it does not even acknowledge a question that doesn't have any rational foundation. That atheism needs the question in itself to be a rationally valid concept first before even entertaining the idea of an answer. I.e having a supported hypothesis as a question, not asking something out of thin air. Both theism and agnosticism rely on an acceptance of some kind before holding a position, atheism doesn't hold any position before its a valid question.
Quoting Frank Apisa
That's a rather semantic pedantry. It doesn't change lines drawn between theism, agnosticism, and atheism within my argument. "Belief" is what it is, the acceptance of something as true with limited support of it being true. Belief is never true in itself and when it's true it's no longer belief. The term defines itself and cannot be changed into anything other than what it is.
Quoting Christoffer
I'll take this first...and we can cover the other stuff in your post after hashing this out.
I am astonished that you do not see the significant difference between the two statements. It happens to be at the crux of "strong atheism" and "weak atheism"...so it has gotten more than its fair share of play.
Take (b) first: I "believe" no gods exist.
THAT is a statement of "belief" (or guess)...that no gods exist. It IS a "belief" as much as the "belief" "I 'believe' at least one god exists." It simply is a "belief" in the opposite direction.
One could not logically say: I "believe" no gods exist...and I "believe" gods do exist.
But with (a): I do not "believe" any gods exist...we are not dealing with a "belief." We are dealing with a lack of a "belief." The person is saying essentially, "There are people who "believe" gods exist. I am not one of them." Or..."gods exist" is NOT one of my "beliefs."
A person could easily say, "I do not 'believe" any gods exist" (meaning I am not one of the group who "believe" gods exist"...and could logically follow that up with, "I also do not 'believe' there are no gods"...meaning "There are people who 'believe' no gods exist. I am not one of those people."
(b) is a statement of "belief."
(a) is a statement of a lack of "belief."
Full stop for now...
...your comments, please.
Yes, you are correct about the grammars. But taking things out of context like this is not very linguistically pragmatic. The semantics, as I mentioned, does not erase the core of how I classify between different standpoints.
a) I do not "believe" any gods exist
a1) I do not have any beliefs in the existence of any particular gods.
b) I "believe no gods exist."
b1) I hold a belief that no gods exist.
So (a1) leaves room for some sort of agnosticism; there is no explicit belief that God does not exist, just a lack of belief that any particular god exists?
Whereas (b1) is an active believe that no gods exist at all.
Quoting Christoffer
Very good question.
Quoting Christoffer
Very true. It would almost certainly go straight in the bin.
Not sure what "linguistically pragmatic" is supposed to mean...but my comment was important to what ou wrote.
The two statements are different...and essential to the difference between weak and strong atheism. And, the issue, as far as my experience shows, is raised more by agnostics than theists.
So...if there was a point that you were making back there...perhaps you could make it again...and we can discuss it.
Thank you.
I think I made it quite clear in what I said.
This is a point I have discussed hundreds of times over two decades of posting on the Internet.
I, personally, do not "believe" there are any gods.
I, personally, ALSO do not "believe" there are no gods.
I do not hold a "belief" in either direction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics
Quoting Frank Apisa
Previous posts include what I mean, primarily my answers to Daniel Cox digs deeper into the meaning of my original post.
No, you should take a leaf out of his book and repeat your point in the exact same wording over and over again on the internet for the next twenty years. :lol:
Off-topic, I admit, but: not many people here need help with knowledge and science. :chin:
I definitely did not get what you meant...and as I pointed out, some of what you said is questionable and not worded clearly.
But, if it is not important enough for you to pursue...okay.
It's good not to hold too many beliefs. I believe completely only in logic, probability, some of the rest of maths and what is deduced from 'I think therefore I am'.
Then there are things that I have such a high conviction in that they class as a belief even though they cannot be known with complete certainty (eg: gravity, evolution).
Then there are all the other propositions, all of which I assign probabilities as to whether they are correct or not.
I think everyone does something similar, consciously or sub-consciously, we assign probabilities to inductive propositions.
It's clearly described in my previous posts. I won't waste time repeating myself because you can't scroll to the top of this page to read the answer to Daniel Cox. He brought up the same kind of question about my definitions of atheism as you did and I put forth an answer to why I define atheism in the way I do and why I don't agree on atheism to be defined in numerous vague definitions.
This might be the most incoherent sentence of personal convictions I've ever read. :rofl:
I totally understand, Devans.
A few, if I may, though.
"Then there are things that I have such a high conviction in that they class as a belief even though they cannot be known with complete certainty (eg: gravity, evolution)."
NO "beliefs" are known with complete certainty. The moment you know something with complete certainty...there is no need for "belief."
So that sentence does not make sense.
"Then there are all the other propositions, all of which I assign probabilities as to whether they are correct or not."
You do NOT assign probabilities to them...you invent probabilities. 87.46% of all statistics are made up right on the spot, Devans.
You are doing that same thing with 94.75% of all the probability estimates you make.
86,9% of all your "probability estimates" are incorrect. And of the remaining 14.1%...almost 37% are questionable.
You also have a set of beliefs which you have such a high conviction in that your psychology prevents you from being conscious of the logical faults with your rationalisations, in spite of your high valuation of logic.
I don't believe in very much as explained above. Eternalism for example, I hold a 50% conviction that it is true. That is not the same as a belief.
Your very first sentence in that post is totally wrong. And I have explained that to you.
That is why I've asked for the clarification.
No problem. We'll just let that be for now.
Read that sentence again. You only believe completely in logic? With probability attached but the some of the maths are not part of logic and probability so you don't believe completely in some of the rest of the math?
Your statement about your convictions makes zero sense to your own convictions.
The house is blue while some of it is not red, but it's completely blueish.
Neither communicates what really has to be communicated for a reasonable discussion to occur.
Yes it is. You believe it to be 50% true, you have no foundation for those numbers in anything but your own opinion and belief. How you mix together your belief with probability math and deduce it to not be belief is self-delusional.
Some of the axioms of math I do not believe, so there are parts of maths that I do not class as belief. Why is that strange?
"Some of the axioms of math I do not believe"
"so there are parts of maths that I do not class as belief. "
I think it's self-explanatory.
It is not, please explain.
And you ignore the rest because of the semantics, not the linguistic pragmatics of it. Daniel Cox didn't have a problem understanding what I wrote, why would you?
You believe some parts of math and therefore you classify some parts as not belief. What parts are beliefs whatsoever in math? You essentially choose parts of math that conclude your logic to be true because you deem other parts of math to be beliefs and therefore ignore actual math logic in favor of your own personal math logic.
Which math is a belief and which is not a belief?
Sounds funny, doesn't it? Like asking which religion is a fruit and which religion is not a fruit.
Hardly, there is logic behind it, I look at the axioms and say 'do I think that axiom applies to real life?' - if yes then the parts of maths depending upon that axiom become part of my belief set.
An excert from a paper I'm working on:
Vapourware: The Axiom Of Infinity
The treatment of actual infinity in mathematics is purely axiomatic. Actual infinity (hereon after referred to just as infinity) is merely declared to exist; it is not proved that infinity exists.
The axiom of infinity merely asserts the existence of an infinite set I.
Traditionally, axioms are chosen because they are inductively very likely to be true. We have strong reasons for believing in our axioms. The problem with axiomatically defining infinity to exist is that it is not clear that infinity exists:
- We have no examples from nature of infinity
- Constructing anything infinity large is impossible; not enough time
- Constructing something infinity small is impossible; one would never finish chopping
- Infinity is clearly not a number. If it were, it would be a number X greater than all other numbers. But X+1>X
Bearing in mind the above doubts, is the assumption of the existence of infinity a good axiom? A house rests upon its foundations. Set theory rests upon the decidedly shaky foundation of the axiom of infinity.
A Polymorphic Discord In Set Theory
The definition of a set is polymorphic:
- A finite set may be specified as a list of items
- A infinite set maybe specified by selection criteria such as ‘all real numbers’
However, this is not a valid polymorphism. An infinite set is not a-kind-of finite set and vice-versa. The two object types have very different properties:
- An infinite set clearly does not have a cardinality property. Cardinality or size implies the ability to measure something. Infinity is by definition unmeasurable so it has no size.
- A finite set has a completely defined list of members. An infinite set does not.
These are very different types of objects; to try to treat them the same is like trying to force a square peg into a round hole. An infinite set is just a partial description of a set - it is the selection criteria for the set: ‘all natural numbers’ does not completely define a set, it just describes what type of objects go in the set. Contrast that to a finite set, which is fully described and defined.
It is never possible to fully define an infinite set - there is not enough paper in the world - so when working with infinite sets we are always working with a partly defined IE UNDEFINED objects. This is why so many paradoxes occur with infinite sets - they are not fully defined logical entities.
What has been done in set theory is an abomination to the principles of sound design; instead of treating finite and infinite sets as different objects each having different operations and properties, Cantor simply made up fictitious numbers (the transfinite) to represent the nonexistent cardinality property of infinite sets.
There Is No Basis In Logic For Transfinite Arithmetic
- aleph-naught - is defined as the cardinality of set of natural numbers.
The rules of transfinite arithmetic assert that:
?+1=?
on the basis that the set {1} is already a member of the natural numbers so the cardinality of is unchanged.
This assertion is a contradiction. In english, it says:
’There exists something that when changed, does not change’
This is deeply illogical - there is no sound basis in logic for transfinite arithmetic.
:grimace:
That doesn't mean anything. I'm working on paper as well, but it's not truth, both because I'm working on it and because it hasn't gone through falsification methods and cross-examinations through argumentative dialectics. I cannot conclude anything without falsifying my own ideas, before that, they are just ideas, maybe interesting, maybe flawed, but I would never conclude them deductively just because I want them to be true.
...and I wouldn't, ever, start a follow-up paper/argument assuming my, not finished, previous argument's conclusion to be true.
I have not concluded anything to be deductively true; my ideas remain ideas, they have had a limited amount of cross examination and survived. So for the basis of the probability analysis, I went with 50% likelihood eternalism is true.
I do not believe it should be so controversial. Most physicists think eternalism is correct. Most ordinary people believe in presentism. Why not split the difference at 50%?
Think about that!
In any case, since I found legitimate fault with the first sentence...why are you assuming I did not find lots of fault with the rest, because "the rest" had your first thoughts as a predicate.
Because you haven't put forth any real argument against what I wrote about, you stopped at a semantical error and are just spamming posts about things already addressed. Move on to the definitions given in my answer to Daniel Cox, that's the latest point in the discussion. What you are doing right now is going back to the bullying mentality of previous posts you've made and I couldn't care less.
You are being a jerk on this...so...as I said, we can just leave it be.
Your notions on the word "atheist" are all wet.
Your notions on the word "believe" are all wet also.
And while that may seem trivial...those two things are more important to real discussion of the topics at hand here than any of the other bullshit that is thrown around.
As for the language you have so much trouble with...stop making it be the word "bullshit", for instance...and pay more attention to words like "atheist" and "believe."
The sound "cuff" is acceptable...but turn it around and make the sound "fuck"...and people like you go ape. Of all the conventions of humans...that particular one is the most childish.
Yes, maybe, I don't think so, but hey, the guy said, "We are done." No, I'm not. He tagged me to try and diminish my value.
I'm not an adherent to modern - analytic philosophy. So, I can't help you there.
I was referring to begging the question. A person who claims anything "atheism, theism, analytic or intentional logic/philosophy" should hold it in the first-person and refrain from holding it in the second-.
"What's gone wrong here is that the support offered for the conclusion is something nobody would accept unless they already accepted the conclusion itself. I have begged the question if I support a conclusion with reasons that would not be accepted in the context by anyone who did not already accept the conclusion. With a little reminding, this is a judgment we can often make." Larry Wright Ph.D. UCR (Riverside) Critical Thinking. Some college student left the textbook in the dumpster area. I live in Riverside!
Tim was begging the question with me about "being held in existence." If someone doesn't understand that then they need a lot more help than the smartest person in the world could manage. Being held in existence is not some special revelation of mine.
I'm sorry, I don't know how to do the quote thing, and I've been absent for 24 hours. I'm having to go up and down the page and I'm not copying and pasting your comments to me, I'm merely answering them via my facetious book, The World According to Dan Cox (Cox - Christ - Servant hehehe).
"I'm not sure how this relates to Russel's Teapot? The example I gave is an extension of his analogy, showing different points of view from theists, agnostics, and atheists, in order to exemplify a more defined overview of atheism."
Those are all unnecessary platonic ideas. The word "atheism" is incoherent. I agree with Frank on this point, "People who claim the word 'atheism' morph its meaning depending on the circumstance." Atheism is the denial of the deity claim and we're all born "atheists" and then when it's shown that babies don't deny deity claims the claimed adherent then claims, "I'm not making claims, it's a proven scientific fact that babies lack belief of gods." What the hell happened to the part about denying deity claims?
Quoting Daniel Cox
Your own definition of atheism is still in line with what I described. The concept of a God or Gods does not exist for a baby, but is learned. If the baby had the tools of critical thinking and not just accepting the ideas put forth by parents and the environment around them, they would question the validity of the claims they learn. This means that pure logical and rational reasoning, which babies lack, is a standard ideal within atheism. Compare that to agnosticism which accept the belief that a God or Gods might exist, only that we don't know. Atheism does not even accept the belief in the first place, it's a tabula rasa of concepts about existence, it focuses on what is, not what might be or what is believed.
The core of what I'm saying is that if you are to define atheism you need to specifically draw the line between the different fields; theism, agnosticism, and atheism. If theism is belief without actual proof and agnosticism is a belief that you cannot know either (which accepts a belief in each direction), then atheism cannot be about a belief in anything, it is the lack of belief altogether. That would essentially boil down to atheism relying on what is, not what is believed, i.e the definition I previously gave.
The thing I can see is that the concept and methodology of thinking without belief is so alien to theists and agnostics that it's hard to actually explain this kind of perspective. Essentially, it seems that to be able to truly explain atheism, you need to be an atheist. Hopefully, I'm wrong about that, but I find it common that atheism is a hard perspective for many to grasp. It's like the difference between asking someone to imagine something specific and to ask someone to imagine nothing. To imagine something is easy, to imagine nothing is a concept hard even through philosophy. To grasp theism is easier than to grasp the absence of belief in god and the ascent of god.
So how do I view things as an atheist? I reject belief of any kind that doesn't have support. Belief in my eyes is only valid as a hypothesis, which means it has rational support as educated guesses. If I believe something, I do it because of having some data in support of it. If I encounter something in which I don't know anything, I cannot have a belief in anything about it, since any unsupported belief becomes a concept of fantasy for me. I know where the line is between fantasy and conviction. This means that if we look at Russel's teapot, I cannot accept the concept of a teapot in space to be anything other than a fantasy. I don't even believe there to be no teapot in space, because a belief of non-existence is a belief accepting the possibility of the opposite. There is no belief, i.e there is nothing before data of a possibility of it being there. If someone recorded a blurry image of something resembling a teapot in space and interpretations of historical data suggest that it might be a teapot because we have records of historical events that might show a teapot have been ejected into space at some point in history. No one can know for certain, but the hypothesis is sound. In that case, the hypothesis about a teapot in space can exist as a concept for an atheist but never accepted as truth before proven beyond doubt. This is why I used a form of extension of Russel's teapot for this reasoning in order to exemplify the difference between the three positions. This is why I can't define atheism within any concept o belief. Belief is non-existent in any form within atheism.
Let's reason together. Essence: the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character.
"conflict is the essence of drama"
synonyms:
quintessence · soul · spirit · ethos · nature · life · lifeblood · core · heart · center · crux · nub · nucleus · kernel · marrow · meat · pith · gist · substance · principle · central part · fundamental quality · basic quality · essential part · intrinsic nature · sum and substance · reality · actuality · quiddity · esse · nitty-gritty
Without looking up the word "tabularasa" it appears to me as if people who claim "atheism" are claiming they exist as "atheists" before they are operational. For me reality entails the essence of a thing as the specification of its acts, that existence is the ability to act. The word "atheism" and other words being used here in our discussion, have never formed representations of themselves in my brain or mind. I don't really do concepts in the 2nd- & 3rd-person perspective.
For me, people who claim they exist as something connected to concepts they adhere to is dubious at best and what I would describe as a phantasm. Let's just call people "fantasists" whose claimed commitments are at odds with reality. Reading again your first paragraph, we might again be on the same page.
I don't see the field. I'm not experiencing "atheism," not in any way it's described. I've left my body and met God in His Shekinah Glory, a couple of times. Once wasn't out of body, but then on those grounds I only attended churches where God's Shekinah Glory was in operation. I just can't get any traction into God hater arguments. I experience God haters, people hating/denying God to me, their use of the word "atheism" is incidental to their essence (God haters).
One guy kept claiming "atheism is doxastic." That's circular.
"I reject belief of any kind that doesn't have support." That's a religious tautology of your personal view of what has and has not support. I direct my awareness, the word "atheism" falsified.
Be blessed my Friend, I'm out the door, be back on tomorrow! Hope to see you then.
Daniel Eugene Cox (the Christ) 144 The Ancient of Days.