A question for agnostics.

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The problem here, you_are_what_you_is, is that you're the only one that differentiates between "to know" and "to know without any doubt", which is why you and others keep going in circles.

No - agnosticism about x states that you can't/don't know whether or not x is true. It has nothing to do with 'absolute knowledge', whatever that means.

I agree that here there's a confusion about the term 'knowledge'. There isn't such a confusion when it comes to claims like 'there are not five elephants in my garden', 'I live in the UK', 'there is an oven in my kitchen', etc. There aren't many people who'd call themselves agnostic about claims like that. I think the problem is that people are assessing theological claims in particular on stricter knowledge conditions, and I think that's a mistake.

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to believe something is to think its true, so what is a true belief? It is also said to mean 'to have an opinion about what is true with no proof'.

Could you provide your own definition?

There's a significant difference between the two. Conventionally, 'to know' is not interchangeable with 'to know without a doubt'.

Just take a look at wikipedia, or a dictionary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/knowledge (on none of those definitions would knowledge be interchangeable with absence of doubt)

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A true belief is a belief that is true. I don't know how to explain it further.

Obviously, you're going to think that all of your beliefs are true beliefs. If you don't think x is true, you won't believe x. However, many people hold many beliefs that aren't true, even though they think they are true. Those beliefs aren't true beliefs, because they're not actually true.

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So the only difference is you assert your beliefs are doubly true?

I am getting a bit dizzy here, but just to clarify my position more:

I can know whether or not there are five elephants in my garden (even if I may be less than 1% wrong).

In the case of God, however, I just don't know. There are valid logical arguments for the existence of the Creator just as there are valid arguments for the lack of necessity of His existence.

But unless we discover more things about the universe and solve some of the mysteries that have yet to be solved, we just can't know in the meantime.

I don't understand what it means to assert that your beliefs are 'doubly' true.

Unless I've been extraordinarily lucky, it's surely the case that some of my beliefs are false. So not all of my beliefs are true beliefs. However, I'd still say of each belief I hold that it's a true belief - because otherwise I wouldn't believe it. I'm not going to believe things that I don't think are true.

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>.< So you have wasted time by starting a thread to dictate to others that you think what you believe is true?

No. I don't understand how anyone could read the OP and reach that conclusion.

This thread is about knowledge and agnosticism. I'm saying that many people who call themselves agnostic about deities (so they claim they don't know whether deities exist) would drop the agnostic label (so they'd claim they do know whether deities exist) on the conventional conditions a belief must meet for it count as knowledge. Hence my questions: "What conditions must a belief meet for you to count it as knowledge? Given those conditions, why do you consider yourself agnostic?"

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i don't follow you here. those are both statements that assume you understand "the rules of the game," as it were. this is a silly assumption. hawking radiation is an excellent example of parts of our universe creating "itself from nothing." even without that glimpse of our confusing reality, i don't follow you here. you're assuming that an omnipotent being is necessary because.... because.... sheer necessity? but a universe to spontaneously create itself from nothing and by nothing can't, itself, exist out of sheer necessity? "sheer necessity" seems like a copout. either my logic is bad and i just can't see how you're satisfied with "sheer necessity" for god but not for the universe itself, or you're not being internally consistent.

You can be sure that when someone so embedded in the total illogicality of religion is put to the test of making a sensible evaluation no logic can withstand the emotional investment in religion.

Last edited by Sand on 04 Feb 2011, 1:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

Is there a good YouTube video I can watch that elaborates on this?

I admit I suck when it comes to cosmology.

@ Walter

That is an abuse the term 'nothing'. Particles do spawn from the quantum vacuum, this however, is not nothing.

As to the term, 'necessity'. There are many necessarily existing things. For example numbers are uncaused and exist (as a concept or as real uncaused abstract objects, depending on your view) out of sheer necessity.

"as real uncaused abstract objects"

Don't want to tread pickily on your toes, 91, and hardly dissing your point, but Philologos QUA philologue has to ask, is there in your philosophical repertoire a school or tradition for which the expression "abstract object" is not problematic?

Given the mind boggling proliferation of technical language, not to say jargon, differing from discipline to discipline and school to school, it is by no means unlikely.

But no school in the disciplines with which I have a nodding acquaintance would let that happen.

Aha, yes, bringing in 'know' there in the way you have has clearly confused me. An atheist can of course hold to a strong belief that there is no god whether or not he 'knows' (conclusively or not), though I would assert that no one recognisably human knows there is no god with 100% certainty, and I do not see any utility in being an atheist over an agnostic.



(3) in no way follows (1) and (2) here. Or I could say (1) I believe the moon is made of milk pudding (2) I believe it's true that the moon is made of milk pudding (3) therefore I know the moon is made of milk pudding. I know no such thing. I may well believe it though, with incredible force, even. but until I go and touch, smell, and taste the moon, I only have a belief, not a knowing.



I would say that one cannot discount the possible existence of something until they have proof, and for that I would say that we would have to be able to experience the totality of all that exists. For the purposes of living, one may of course work with an assumption that there is no god, though again, I see no utility in taking a stance of atheism over agnosticism.



Well, it matters to me, I think there's a huge difference. Your question seems to be in essence, 'Why aren't more agnostics atheist?' and I believe I am attempting to show you why.



Throw out conclusively, then. I cannot justify a lack of a god, by your method or mine. Conclusively or not.



Actually, yes. Sometimes I don't believe the oven is where I left it. I've always been like this. My waking life often feels like it follows dream logic. I feel no certainty about anything.

I am indeed agnostic on evolution, as I have no first hand knowing that evolution is something that takes place, and see no value in throwing in one way or the other, except perhaps for cultural reasons (i.e. my peers are all atheists and evolutionists).