a true agnostic?!

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

What I find most exasperating about this forum is that one can leave for an extended period of time and return to find the exact same persons having the exact same conversation filled with the exact same errors.

Maybe you shouldn't return, then.

[stuntpickle]

Maybe you shouldn't return, then.

Maybe you should start reading books rather than simply talking about them.

[MorpheusSandman]

First, the notion of atheism as a sort of vague a-theism, meaning roughly without belief in God, really only gained mainstream cultural currency in the 1970s when George Smith wrote Atheism: The Case Against God.

But WHO CARES? The denotations and connotations of words change over time, and to argue a word can't mean something because it used to didn't mean that is beyond ridiculous. There is a reality out there that words are supposed to connect to, and using only three terms to refer to the range and level and kinds of beliefs people have about God is incredibly limiting. I'll agree that fussing over semantics is stupid, but sometimes we have to to try and clearly express what we really feel. I can say "I do not believe God exists, but I do not claim certainty as to his non-existence" is much longer than saying "I'm an agnostic atheist" or "I'm a weak atheist" or whatever combination label you want to put on it. I could say I'm agnostic, but the connotations of that label are people who are really in the middle, who really don't know one way or the other, but because I think it's much less likely that no God exists rather than that God exists, such a connotation does not fit me.

The truth is that the so-called a-theists were really just engaged in the worst sort of legalism and semantic wriggling in attempt to reform their opinion so that they didn't have to defend it.

One doesn't need to defend a position that is not making positive claims. That's like saying those who don't believe in Russell's Teapot needs to defend their position. We merely need to shoot down the reasons for believing in theism.

The question the atheists were trying to avoid was "Why is atheism correct or more likely true?" ...someone is likely to reiterate Dawkins's canard about "proving a negative"

Atheism is more likely to be true if all of the evidential claims for theism are more than likely false. I don't remember Dawkins making the "you can't prove a negative" argument, but that's, indeed, a misunderstanding of proof in a logical setting. It's not about positives and negatives (because every positive claim has a corresponding negative claim and vice-versa), but about universals and particulars and what each is restricted to. The burden of proof becomes apparent when we compare the difficulty or ease with which two conflicting statements can be proven. I always make the purple banana example instead of the God example. Compare these two claims:

No purple bananas exist
Purple bananas exist

Superficially, they seem to be just be positives and negatives of opposing claims, but, this becomes apparently wrong if we switch them to their corresponding positive and negatives respectively:

Of all things that exist, nothing is a purple banana
Everything that exists is not something other than a purple banana

To make it even clearer, let's compare the two positives:

Of all things that exist, no things are purple bananas
Of all things that exist, some things are purple bananas

If we ask the simple question "what does it take to prove either statement?" then it becomes clear which is easier. To prove some things are purple bananas merely requires producing a purple banana! To prove no things are purple bananas requires producing everything in existence!

This is sometimes rephrased as the black swan argument, but the same thing applies in all cases. We're talking about distribution and what that means to proof. To prove God doesn't exists means knowing everything there is to be known about the universe (and maybe beyond) and being able to say conclusively that nothing out there matches God's description. To prove God merely requires producing God in some way that's verifiable, ie, in ways that are not subject to subjective distortions of reality, through cognitive biases, and logical errors.

Any position one has, whether on golf or God, ought to have some reasonable justification ending in a positive affirmation of one's position.

Completely wrong. Bayes' Theorem tells us otherwise. Inductive probabilities are all we have when it comes to matters of the unknown, and God can't be anything other than an unknown, hence every claim to either absolute positive is a distortion of reality. It's the kind of "faith" that pushes our beliefs to one of the poles of certainty, even when reality does not comply. That kind of absolute thinking is what gets people into trouble. One can however show that God is very unlikely based on Bayesian reasoning, and show that he is unlikely enough not to believe.

The retreat into a-theism is the worst sort of intellectual dishonesty.

Actually, it's the best kind of rational honesty that acknowledges that as long as we're talking about the unknown we cannot be sure, no matter how much we convince ourselves that we are. You really need to catch up with the 21st Century and the fact that humanity's finite understanding necessitates the need for probability reasoning rather than naive claims towards boolean certainty.

[stuntpickle]

But WHO CARES? The denotations and connotations of words change over time,

I assure you I attended elementary school and understand both connotation and denotation. What I think you don't understand is that the evolution of a-theism was not a natural one that would require a descriptivist dictionary to honor it. It was a calculated effort to obscure the actual argument.

One doesn't need to defend a position that is not making positive claims.

Can you really not see the fallacious nature of this statement? You're begging the question. If we have a disagreement on whether atheism is truly making assertions, you do not get to bypass the disagreement in order to state the entailments of your position.

This is what's so frustrating about this forum. To even have a conversation on here requires that one weed through a list of fallacies and other errors to help others identify the actual points of contention

That's like saying those who don't believe in Russell's Teapot needs to defend their position. We merely need to shoot down the reasons for believing in theism.

Here we go again.... Are you really invoking the standards of an early 20th Century positivist? You do realize Russell's worldview and his ideas about falsifiability have been fairly well refuted, right? You see, you're implying positive claims about evidentiary obligations that no one really adheres to today. If you really want to invoke Russell's ideas about falsifiability, then I suppose you're also willing to debar any truths not empirically verifiable or made in synthetic statements, such as killing homosexuals is bad. The problem I see with your statements here is that you have missed the last century of philosophy. Nearly no philosopher accepts Russell's notions about falsifiability today.

Can you, by the way, provide a rational argument for the existence of Russell's teapot?

Atheism is more likely to be true if all of the evidential claims for theism are more than likely false.

Look, you needn't pretend to instruct me in probabilistic logic or Bayes, as I assure you I am well acquainted.

Again, we have an intolerable incoherence in your statement. If atheism is not asserting anything then what would the statement "Atheism is true" mean in the context of the discussion? If atheism is simply a statement about your lack of belief, then its truth is independent of any proposition about God. This is an absurd conversation in which I am forced to keep pointing out the absurdity. Can you really not see it?

I am not trying to debate the existence of God. I am trying to demonstrate the problems with a-theism (NOT atheism), and you are inadvertently aiding me in the demonstration.

[Alexander III]

For anyone interested in a perspective of atheism which is not tainted by 20th century philosophical superfluities. I could suggest Shelley's The Necessity of Atheism.

It is a damn well written essay, and he makes some valid points, on the real and everyday, instead of discussing various implications which have no relation to either the atheist of the man of religion.

[stuntpickle]

For anyone interested in a perspective of atheism which is not tainted by 20th century philosophical superfluities. I could suggest Shelley's The Necessity of Atheism.

It is a damn well written essay, and he makes some valid points, on the real and everyday, instead of discussing various implications which have no relation to either the atheist of the man of religion.

Always refreshing to see someone so flagrantly display his philistinism.

[MorpheusSandman]

What I think you don't understand is that the evolution of a-theism was not a natural one that would require a descriptivist dictionary to honor it.

All I can say to this is:

If we have a disagreement on whether atheism is truly making assertions, you do not get to bypass the disagreement in order to state the entailments of your position.

Perhaps some atheists are making assertions, but the vast majority I see are actually refuting positive claims made by theists. Refuting claims made is very different than putting forth independent claims. Perhaps atheists do that, but I can't imagine them doing it completely independently of theistic claims to the contrary. I'm fairly sure that scientists would be more than happy to just get on with doing science without having to worry about convincing people to believe what they have to say about how reality works over people who are believing texts that are thousands of years old and existed long before modern science. I'm an atheist of the type that I don't feel the need to make any positive assertions against God's existence, but merely need to refute those positive assertions offered for his existence.

You do realize Russell's worldview and his ideas about falsifiability have been fairly well refuted, right?

Karl Popper was alive almost through the entirety of the 20th Century and he was the one that really popularized falsifiability. You talk about synthetic statements, but that's a concept that goes back to the origins of philosophy, and you're accusing me of missing out on the 20th Century? Really? Plus, why in the world are you conflating moral philosophy ("it's wrong to kill homosexuals") with philosophy of science, which is clearly what I was talking about?

Can you, by the way, provide a rational argument for the existence of Russell's teapot?

As much as one can provide a rational argument for the existence of God.

If atheism is not asserting anything then what would the statement "Atheism is true" mean in the context of the discussion?

It depends on what discussion we're having. If we're defining atheism to mean "lack of belief," then "atheism is true" would be true if, indeed, I lacked a belief! If we're defining atheism to mean "the claim that God doesn't exist," then "atheism is true" would be true if, indeed, God doesn't exist. I already stated I'm using atheism in the former sense and am not claiming absolute knowledge as to God's existence or non-existence (agnosticism). I lean closer to accepting "God doesn't exist" as true because no positive claims for God's existence holds water in any rational discourse that's actually connected to reality and not the fog of vague language and the limits of our knowledge concerning reality.

I am trying to demonstrate the problems with a-theism (NOT atheism), and you are inadvertently aiding me in the demonstration.

No, you, like most philosophers, are making a fuss over semantics where no fuss needs to be made. As long as you know what I'm talking about (and I went out of my way to make it clear) it shouldn't matter what words I'm using.

But I will repeat that you are dead wrong that atheists should feel obligated to make a positive claim for God's non-existence. That's like saying I should make a positive claim that a 1,000,000 sided dice won't roll a 1 when the probability is 1 in 1,000,000 it will. Why state a lie when I can state something much closer to (if not exactly) the truth? Stating absolute knowledge of God's existence is nothing short of such a distorted lie brought about by the fact people's brains don't like dealing in Bayesian rather than boolean states of existence.

[Alexander III]

Always refreshing to see someone so flagrantly display his philistinism.

Yes I am a damned philistine; to suggest as essay written by one of the finest poets in the english language, instead of various scientists or academics who approach the subject through absolute and by consequence almost ridiculous reason.

The ant which knows that it is an ant, and despite that attempts to understand the human - as opposed to the ant which thinks it'self a human trying to understand humans. I wonder, which of the two is admirable and which is ridiculous to such a degree that it makes the very subject a farce.

[MorpheusSandman]

^ Don't worry about it, Alex. You aren't a philistine by any stretch. I don't know what's going on on this forum lately with these new posters coming in and feeling at liberty to insult everyone who disagrees with them. I especially notice a certain attitude of self-aggrandized snobbery that's quite common when it comes to philosophy students. They think that unless you've read all the writings of so-and-so that you have no business discussing philosophical matters, nevermind the fact that they took the trouble to bring up such matters in a forum about that with people they know very well will not be familiar with such things. But instead of using their knowledge as a tool to teach and enlighten, they get their kicks by bashing people over the head with how little they know. The most intelligent people I've ever known or read about never felt the need to go around telling everyone how smart they were and how dumb everyone else was; they just let their writing do the talking for them.

[stuntpickle]

All I can say to this is:

...which is not much more than you have said in respect to anything else.

Perhaps some atheists are making assertions, but the vast majority I see are actually refuting positive claims made by theists. Refuting claims made is very different than putting forth independent claims. Perhaps atheists do that, but I can't imagine them doing it completely independently of theistic claims to the contrary. I'm fairly sure that scientists would be more than happy to just get on with doing science without having to worry about convincing people to believe what they have to say about how reality works over people who are believing texts that are thousands of years old and existed long before modern science. I'm an atheist of the type that I don't feel the need to make any positive assertions against God's existence, but merely need to refute those positive assertions offered for his existence.

The "vast majority" you refer to is not engaged in a reasonable discussion. This is because New Atheism is not philosophical, but political.

You offer a straw man fallacy here by presuming that all theism is dependent upon sacred texts, when in fact it is entirely possible to be a deist based upon rational arguments alone.

I would say you're an atheist of neither this nor that type, but rather that you are no atheist at all. Even Bertrand Russell conceded that he was technically an agnostic, even though he behaved as an atheist. His concession owed to that he understood atheism was largely indefensible.

Karl Popper was alive almost through the entirety of the 20th Century and he was the one that really popularized falsifiability. You talk about synthetic statements, but that's a concept that goes back to the origins of philosophy, and you're accusing me of missing out on the 20th Century? Really? Plus, why in the world are you conflating moral philosophy ("it's wrong to kill homosexuals") with philosophy of science, which is clearly what I was talking about?

There's so much wrong here that it's difficult to tackle it.

First, you're begging the question again. If one makes a metaphysical argument about the existence of God, it is an egregious error to presume a position that precludes such statements altogether. This is the same error that Russell made: he presumed that all philosophy ought to be a philosophy of science, which is, today, called scientism--something almost no one adheres to.

Second, I'm talking about synthetic statements simply because Russell wanted to debar their use altogether. I'm not conflating moral philosophy with anything. I am demonstrating the absurdity of Russell's insistence on analytic statements. The disaster of logical positivism is that it precludes most every possible conversation--even one about itself. For instance, there is no way to arrive at an insistence on analytic statements, using analytic statements. Also, there is no way to empirically justify empiricism. You say you're talking about the philosophy of science, which is precisely your problem since the philosophy of science is largely irrelevant to a metaphysical discussion concerning God's existence. This is simply more question begging.

Third, Popper's main point regarded the impossibility of truth from induction, and the best he could manage was to deprive science of all truth-discerning power and describe it as an ever-changing description no one had any reason to believe.

As much as one can provide a rational argument for the existence of God.

It's always fun when the fish swallows the hook. Please demonstrate this without resorting to equivocation. Not holding my breath.....

It depends on what discussion we're having. If we're defining atheism to mean "lack of belief," then "atheism is true" would be true if, indeed, I lacked a belief! If we're defining atheism to mean "the claim that God doesn't exist," then "atheism is true" would be true if, indeed, God doesn't exist. I already stated I'm using atheism in the former sense and am not claiming absolute knowledge as to God's existence or non-existence (agnosticism). I lean closer to accepting "God doesn't exist" as true because no positive claims for God's existence holds water in any rational discourse that's actually connected to reality and not the fog of vague language and the limits of our knowledge concerning reality.

This section of your post is most telling. You chose to ignore my main point and address, instead, an ancillary one. This is precisely the problem. You are trying to avoid the devastating criticism simply because you probably recognize that it is, in fact, devastating. The truth is that your entire position crumbles because of a major flaw.

I want you to try to be honest and really focus on this.

If atheism is a statement concerning your lack of belief, then your atheism is true irrespective of the veracity of this or that argument for the existence of God since it is a description of your own personal disposition rather than an assertion about God. Thus you cannot pretend that your atheism satisfies the necessary criteria for your arguments about probabilistic logic. The inverse of proposition A is "not A". You're proposing an atheism of C, which is entirely irrelevant to the discussion. If proposition A is probably untrue, then we are only justified in assuming "not A", which is, in this case, an actual statement of atheism, which is, itself, precisely what you are saying you do NOT believe. It's an unworkable contradiction. Your entire statement of atheism is a fallacy since it presumes the falsity of the opposition to even be coherent.

But I will repeat that you are dead wrong that atheists should feel obligated to make a positive claim for God's non-existence. That's like saying I should make a positive claim that a 1,000,000 sided dice won't roll a 1 when the probability is 1 in 1,000,000 it will. Why state a lie when I can state something much closer to (if not exactly) the truth? Stating absolute knowledge of God's existence is nothing short of such a distorted lie brought about by the fact people's brains don't like dealing in Bayesian rather than boolean states of existence.

Stop erecting straw men. I have proposed nothing in regards to science. Metaphysical claims about the existence of God have nothing to do with science, and you are not at all justified in presuming science as the ultimate arbiter of truth.

Your analogy is horrible and false. A better one is that you are precluding the possibility of rolling a 1 on a thousand-sided dice because dice do not, in and of themselves, conform to your diceless worldview. You beg the question at every opportunity.

Yes I am a damned philistine; to suggest as essay written by one of the finest poets in the english language, instead of various scientists or academics who approach the subject through absolute and by consequence almost ridiculous reason.

The ant which knows that it is an ant, and despite that attempts to understand the human - as opposed to the ant which thinks it'self a human trying to understand humans. I wonder, which of the two is admirable and which is ridiculous to such a degree that it makes the very subject a farce.

Nice straw man. Of course, I was calling you a philistine not because you suggested people read an essay by this or that poet, but because, in a fit of passive-aggression, you derided the previous philosophical conversation.

[Alexander III]

Nice straw man. Of course, I was calling you a philistine not because you suggested people read an essay by this or that poet, but because, in a fit of passive-aggression, you derided the previous philosophical conversation.

This! This stuff right here, yes I was deriding it, because it is something which I see and encounter continually, it is impossible to discuss something without someone resorting tho this. It is conglomerating words in certain patterns to make them meaningless. It it trying to use as many words to say absolutely nothing as possible. It is an insult to language and conversation, it is an insult to thought.

[stuntpickle]

This! This stuff right here, yes I was deriding it, because it is something which I see and encounter continually, it is impossible to discuss something without someone resorting tho this. It is conglomerating words in certain patterns to make them meaningless. It it trying to use as many words to say absolutely nothing as possible. It is an insult to language and conversation, it is an insult to thought.

So sayeth the arbiter of thought. There is nothing more tedious than a proselytizing minimalist.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Maybe you should start reading books rather than simply talking about them.

Yep. I don't read books. Though I need to figure out what those 70+ things made out of paper I read within the last 16 months were. I'm not good with neologisms.

So sayeth the arbiter of thought.

Irony.

[stuntpickle]

Irony.

There's a difference between holding someone accountable to conventions of rationality and berating someone for stylistic difference.

[MorpheusSandman]

...which is not much more than you have said in respect to anything else.

Like begets like.

I would say you're an atheist of neither this nor that type, but rather that you are no atheist at all. Even Bertrand Russell conceded that he was technically an agnostic, even though he behaved as an atheist. His concession owed to that he understood atheism was largely indefensible.

Again, I Why in the world are you so obsessed with labels and whether someone IS or IS NOT an atheist or agnostic or both or neither? You're treating words like battlegrounds to be claimed for your team. You know someone is being intellectually dishonest when the other side goes out of their way to explain exactly what they mean in easily understandable words, yet the other side insists on saying they ARE or ARE NOT this-or-that label. Seriously. I don't care if you call me a plupperdiddle as long as you understand what my beliefs and claims are, because, really, that's all that matters here.

If one makes a metaphysical argument about the existence of God, it is an egregious error to presume a position that precludes such statements altogether.

If one makes metaphysical arguments then they're a moron because we have absolutely zero evidence of anything metaphysical and we're right back to Russell's teacup. See, it's really a metaphysical teacup that is actually residing in a metaphysical realm that just happens to be superimposed over our own universe and revolving around the sun! "Metaphysical" is such a wonderfully pretentious way of saying "I don't have to prove what I say so nani nani boo boo!"

For instance, there is no way to arrive at an insistence on analytic statements, using analytic statements. Also, there is no way to empirically justify empiricism.

No kidding, they're called axioms. They're the things we assume are true for the sake of seeing what can be produced from the theorems derived from them. Even though they apply a bit differently in philosophy than they do in math, the idea is the same. Analytical statements and empiricism do not have to prove themselves using their own method, they have to prove themselves using the truthfulness of what's discovered using those methods. And you'll excuse me for thinking we've found out far more about how things work using empiricism and analysis than we have using metaphysics, which I'm pretty sure has produced exactly zero testable hypotheses to date (which is miraculous considering how long it's been around!)

You say you're talking about the philosophy of science, which is precisely your problem since the philosophy of science is largely irrelevant to a metaphysical discussion concerning God's existence.

Theists would like to think so, because it gives them a Get-out-of-jail-free card for explaining away why their beliefs don't allow them to make accurate predictions about the real world. It's the ol' dragon in the garage, which is, ironically, nothing like how certain religious texts present proofs for their God's existence. I somehow doubt ancient civilizations would've been persuaded by purely metaphysical arguments if they didn't think there were some physical consequences to their beliefs, because they were too concerned with, you know, surviving the most common of things.

Please demonstrate this without resorting to equivocation.

I did so above.

If atheism is a statement concerning your lack of belief, then your atheism is true irrespective of the veracity of this or that argument for the existence of God since it is a description of your own personal disposition rather than an assertion about God.

Very well done! I'm glad you seemed to understand that part of the argument. Atheism can merely be a statement about one's lack of belief. It does not have to be a statement about their claim to the absence of God to any absolute degree.

Thus you cannot pretend that your atheism satisfies the necessary criteria for your arguments about probabilistic logic. The inverse of proposition A is "not A". You're proposing an atheism of C, which is entirely irrelevant to the discussion. If proposition A is probably untrue, then we are only justified in assuming "not A", which is, in this case, an actual statement of atheism, which is, itself, precisely what you are saying you do NOT believe.

I can't help but be struck by the fact that this entire paragraph conveniently side-steps everything I said about absolute, polar, boolean, 0/1, true-false statements not being necessary (and, in fact, always being false in the most literal sense) when dealing with the unknown. Atheism can mean two different things at once (I know you may be shocked to learn words can have more than one meaning!). It can concern one's lack of belief (as discussed above), and it can concern statements about the non-existence of God. Since now you've switched to talking about the latter, I don't know what to say except to reiterate what I already said.

Of course the inverse proposition of "A" is "Not A," but you can also have "probably A" and "probably Not A" and, really, that's all you can have when dealing with the unknown. I say "probably Not A" (given the lack of evidence), and that "probably Not A" informs my belief, which is a lack of belief, but at the same time does not allow me to be certain enough to claim "Not A" as a proposition without adding "probably" before it. Likewise, I can assume "Not A," which you say is "an actual statement of atheism," but that just strikes me as incoherent because you're still insisting on pushing a statement concerning probabilities to a binary pole of true/false. It's still my 1,000,000 die example where you're insisting I must make a propositional statement about 1 NOT coming up, but I see no reason to do that when I can know the exact probability. Of course, I can't know the exact probability concerning God, but in my mind it's closer to 0% than 100%, and while I may live as if (assuming) it's 0%, that doesn't mean that accurately represents my probabilistic belief. It's just a way our brains scale to speed things up.

you are not at all justified in presuming science as the ultimate arbiter of truth.

Now who's erecting strawmen?

A better one is that you are precluding the possibility of rolling a 1 on a thousand-sided dice because dice do not, in and of themselves, conform to your diceless worldview.

What in the world? The analogy is that I put God as the "1" on the million-sided dice. I have no idea what you're trying to say about a diceless worldview... I guess my exclusion of the metaphysical? Well, as soon as someone provides me physical proof of the metaphysical, I'll be more than happy to jump on board but, until then, I'm still living in a physical universe and all metaphysical claims seem to have no measurable effect on that world and further seem to be little more than imaginative concepts that have no anchor in anything actual.

Nice straw man.

I think you need to make your avatar one of a strawman begging the question so you can just stop (misusing) those terms.