A question for agnostics.

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Sand
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03 Feb 2011, 5:51 am

Tensu wrote:

Sand wrote:

...anybody who is sane...

There is no such thing as sanity.

One must be careful not to judge others by one's self..

Moog
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03 Feb 2011, 6:22 am

you_are_what_you_is wrote:

I'm an atheist, and I'm not agnostic. I know there is no God.

You may. I can't know that. I am agnostic about the idea that you know there is no god. I would also like to be able to experience whatever it was that allowed you to conclusively know this.

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In my experience many theists / deists / whatever, and the vast majority of atheists, will identify as 'agnostic'. Agnosticism is an epistemological claim about the limits of knowledge. When you identify as agnostic about deities, you're saying that you believe you can't know whether or not any deities exist.

When I say I am agnostic on whether there is a god or gods or not, I am saying that I believe I don't know

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The traditional view in philosophy is that knowledge is 'justified true belief', and obviously, if we use that definition, many people would probably drop the agnostic label. Largely due to Gettier problems, most philosophers these days have rather stricter requirements for knowledge. However, even on most of these stricter requirements, many people would still lose their agnosticism.

No, I don't see that that follows. I cannot justify conclusively that there is no god.

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If you consider yourself agnostic, I'd be interested to see what your conception of knowledge is. What conditions must a belief meet for you to count it as knowledge? Given those conditions, why do you consider yourself agnostic?

I can only really know what comes to my senses, from which I construct some ideas about 'reality', some of which are subjectively more useful than others.

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ruveyn
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03 Feb 2011, 6:28 am

Any question you put to agnostics should elicit the response: "I don't know"

ruveyn

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03 Feb 2011, 8:46 am

I am not agnostic, but I think the real issue is that most people hold atheist religious claims to higher standards than most claims in general are held to. This means that a person who would claim to be atheist if this were taken consistently now proclaims agnosticism because atheism has its arbitrarily higher standard.

Tensu
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03 Feb 2011, 9:12 am

Sand wrote:

Tensu wrote:

Sand wrote:

...anybody who is sane...

There is no such thing as sanity.

One must be careful not to judge others by one's self..

I could go on a rant here explaining why I say there is no such thing as sanity but I think I've de-railed the thread enough.

ikorack
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03 Feb 2011, 9:20 am

Tensu wrote:

Sand wrote:

Tensu wrote:

Sand wrote:

...anybody who is sane...

There is no such thing as sanity.

One must be careful not to judge others by one's self..

I could go on a rant here explaining why I say there is no such thing as sanity but I think I've de-railed the thread enough.

That and someone might die from laughter.

you_are_what_you_is
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03 Feb 2011, 9:47 am

AngelRho wrote:

So you're saying God MIGHT exist?

Yes. I also say that I know he doesn't exist. I don't believe those two claims are incompatible.

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03 Feb 2011, 9:52 am

Cyanide wrote:

[I'll just say now that I'm an Agnostic who used to be an Atheist]

That makes no sense. The universe is much larger than a garden. You can say that there aren't five elephants in your garden because:
1.You know what an elephant is, and..
2.You have the ability to see your own garden all at once.

Can you see the entire universe? No. Do you know what "God" is? No. Nobody does (if one exists, that is). Though perhaps if you *could* see the entire universe, you could disprove existence of the Judeo-Christian God. However, that wouldn't disprove the existence of a god/higher power/etc.

As I said above, I used to call myself an Atheist. However, now I call myself an Agnostic-Atheist, because I realized that humans lack the capacity to even prove that there is no God.

You've misunderstood me. I'm not looking at my garden right now, but I still I know there aren't five elephants in my garden. Could I be wrong? Yes, I could be. I don't know without a doubt that there aren't five elephants in my garden. Hell, even if I was looking at my garden, I could be hallucinating that there aren't any elephants there, when really there are.

Conventionally, knowledge doesn't require certainty. That's the point. I'm not certain that there aren't five elephants in my garden, and I'm not certain that God doesn't exist. I still say I know both those things, though.

You can define God however you want; if that definition is incompatible with physicalism, I'd say I know there is no God.

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AngelRho
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03 Feb 2011, 10:06 am

you_are_what_you_is wrote:

Cyanide wrote:

I'm not going to try to formulate any argument FOR God in this thread--but I do have an observation. You reasonably say there is no God essentially for the same reason you say you know there aren't 5 elephants in your garden. You've looked and said, "look, there is no God!" which, from your perspective, has held up reasonably well in such a way that, while there MIGHT be a God, the likelihood of that so being is so slim that you feel you can comfortably say that this is a fact that you know (but not "know" with absolute certainty). You can reasonably assume and take it on faith that there is no God. Same thing with the elephants. You COULD prove to yourself there are no elephants, but you've never seen them there, much less with any consistency, and you know the conditions are extremely unlikely. That there are no elephants in your garden is something you can say as a statement of faith, but in this case such a faith is a reasonable thing to believe/not believe. I find that interesting.

you_are_what_you_is
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03 Feb 2011, 10:07 am

Moog wrote:

[You may. I can't know that. I am agnostic about the idea that you know there is no god. I would also like to be able to experience whatever it was that allowed you to conclusively know this.

'Conclusively know'? What does that mean? I didn't say 'conclusively know'. I said 'know'.

I'm an epistemic minimalist - I think knowledge requires merely true belief. So: (1) I believe there is no God; (2) I believe it's true that there is no God; (3) therefore, I know there is no God.

Philosophical tradition holds that knowledge requires justified true belief. (1) I believe there is no God; (2) I believe it's true that there is no God; (3) I believe my belief that there is no God is justified; (4) therefore, I know there is no God. How do I explain (3)? That would change depending on how you define 'God', but the main problem is that I've never encountered any evidence for his existence.

As I mentioned in my OP, many philosophers these days strengthen the justification condition. Even on these stronger accounts, I'd still be able to say I know there is God - and I think most 'agnostic atheists' would be able to say the same. If you're interested, this site provides a good overview of the debates about knowledge: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/

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When I say I am agnostic on whether there is a god or gods or not, I am saying that I believe I don't know

Don't/can't; for these purposes it doesn't make any difference.

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No, I don't see that that follows. I cannot justify conclusively that there is no god.

Again, that word 'conclusively'. I'm talking about knowledge. I'm not interested in 'conclusive knowledge', whatever that means.

Quote:

I can only really know what comes to my senses, from which I construct some ideas about 'reality', some of which are subjectively more useful than others.

So, you're also agnostic about evolution, about where you live, about what kind of car you own, about whether there's an oven in your kitchen, etc?

.

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03 Feb 2011, 10:15 am

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

Yes, I think that's what's going on. When it comes to questions of the divine, for some reason people seem to adopt far stricter knowledge conditions than they would for any other topic. But, of course, if you're using stricter knowledge conditions for one particular thing, I'd say you're not really talking about knowledge - rather, you're talking about 'super-knowledge', or 's-knowledge'. I can't s-know there is no God, but I can know there is God, and that means I'm not agnostic.

.

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03 Feb 2011, 10:26 am

AngelRho wrote:

I haven't 'looked' for a God. I just haven't been given any convincing evidence to believe in one.

That depends on what you mean when you say faith. A lot of people seem to make a big deal about that word.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/faith

On definitions (1) and (6) I'd say I have faith that there is no God. However, on those definitions, saying that you have faith in x isn't a strong claim.

Even if I were to look at my garden and see that there are no elephants there, I still couldn't claim to know without doubt that there are no elephants in my garden, because I could be hallucinating. When I say 'I know there is no God', I'm not saying anything more stronger than 'I know there are not five elephants in my garden'.

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03 Feb 2011, 10:50 am

It doesn't make sense to be a "perfect" atheist, but lets just say that the existence of God is so unlikely for all purposes he doesn't exist. I don't run home every day assuming Jessica Alba is lying on my bed on a carpet of money, although there is some probability of it.

And I don't make the arrogant claims that I "Know the Truth" because I just "Know", like the Religious incessantly do.

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pandabear
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03 Feb 2011, 11:27 am

you_are_what_you_is wrote:

(1) I believe there are not five elephants in my garden.
(2) I believe it's true that there are five elephants in my garden (obviously, given (1).)

Huh? It looks contradictory to me. :?:

91
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03 Feb 2011, 12:21 pm

'Agnostic is the Greek word, for the Latin word, for ignorant' GK Chesterton

Though personally I think there is something humble in admitting to the lack of knowledge we have. An atheist tends to make an unsupportable claim about the universe while declaring to have no faith. That is until they attempt to redefine the term until it is indistinguishable from, but somehow more aggressive than, agnosticism.

@ryan93

You may not be expecting Jessica Alba, but atheists seem to have no issue accepting the universe popped into being uncaused from nothing. Better go check for Jessica.

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Sand
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03 Feb 2011, 12:25 pm

91 wrote:

And if a deity can pop the universe into being from nothing, why is it unacceptable it could happen spontaneously?

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