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Master_Pedant
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19 Aug 2009, 11:55 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDDELFOzTNk[/youtube]

I’ve always wished to call myself an ignostic. For it gives a person uneducated in theology one of three impressions.

1) The person classifying themselves as such is very knowledgeable on the subject of the existence of god to come up with such an obscure label.
2) The person is pretentious, pedantic, or anal-retentively attentive to detail.
3) A combination of 1 & 2.

Ignosticism also holds up against the ready made attacks most theological or philosophical debaters have. You can’t say to the ignostic “you’re not absolutely certain, you have faith” because the ignostic believes the proposition in question is utterly meaningless. Therefore, if you ward off the ignostic by providing a definition, you render yourself open to refutation (something many rhetorically good debaters in the field have clearly avoided).

Ignosticism also has the advantage of being a position good at avoiding the difficulties of ultra-modernist definitions of god; which are abstruse, intangible, and unfalsifable.

However, I disagree with adopting “theological noncognitivsm” or ignosticism for two reasons:

• It assumes a rigid and logically positivistic theory of meaning quite dated by innovations in the philosophy of language and linguistics.
• It makes sense only when consider god as a very general concept, rather than looking at its function in each major religion’s context.

For the record, I consider a Wittgensteinian philosophy concerning “family resemblances” more appropriate for the modern philosophers of language. [1]

By my reasonings, all the rudiments of the many different religious sects’ select gods can be boiled away into three essential “families”, with general characteristics which are meaningful and falsifiable.

Monotheist: One god created the Universe and intervenes in it (either actively or very, very rarely).
Polytheist: Many gods created the Universe or certain aspects of it (i.e. a team of specialist gods) and actively or inactively intervene in it.
Deist: One god created the Universe and then left it alone.
Poly-deist: Many gods created the Universe or specialized in creating particular aspects of it and then left it alone.

Now, while one cannot refute any of the following claims with absolute certainty, one can see that all postulate an extremely complicated being(s), a super-agency(ies), which created the Universe. This is a very large assumption and, in my view, is unnecessary. It explains very little (as the beings methodology remains hidden) and is itself a mystery.

The only reason for postulating a super-intelligent super-agency (or the related plurals) to create the universe is the assumption the universe itself is…

• Finite in Time
• Needs a Cause

Both of these premises are not necessarily true in physical cosmology as…

• A multiverse or cycle of expansions/contractions allow for a universe infinite in time.
• Uncaused phenomena are known to occur at the Subatomic level (where Quantum Theory reigns). This is the level that the big bang occurred at.

This is why I consider God(s) an unnecessary and extravagant assumption and should be disregarded in accordance with the Principle of Parsimony. While one cannot be 100% certain God(s) doesn’t (don’t) exist, this is also true of luminous ether. The essential point is that god can be probabilistically ruled out (which is why I adopt a probabilistic atheism on the matter).

As for ultra-Modernist concepts of God, I think this is one case where ignosticism is merited.

NOTE
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1. I know Wittgenstein was personally a monotheist, but I don’t see his personal views as being that relevant to his philosophy of language, which nullifies theological noncognitivism and corroborates some form of theological cognitivism.



Awesomelyglorious
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20 Aug 2009, 12:12 pm

Yeah, I can't say I favor ignosticism, and I can't say I've ever had a desire to be an ignostic.

I mean, the position seems somewhat ridiculous. I mean, yes, it may be true that different people mean different things when referring to the concept of "God", however, the basic meaning of the term can be figured out through context and asking for clarification by referring to already known about concepts of God.

I do agree with your rejection of the term on the grounds of it's logical positivism, as the idea is quite dated and really kind of silly.

I can only see it as fair to inflict igtheism on a presuppositionalist though, and that's partially because presuppositionalists are annoying and like to spend their time wasting your time by making you jump through excessively skeptical hoops. In their case my reasoning is simple: turnabout is fair play.

I could also accept modernist accounts of theism, because God as a "ground of being" does need more definition so that way one can critically evaluate the idea.



greenblue
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22 Aug 2009, 9:21 pm

well, I have related ignosticism somehow with individuals or living organisms that are or would be uncapable of understanding the human concept of God, at least it seems to make some sense in that case. About anyone who is mentally capable of comprehending such issues, it seems odd, it seems to be very much positions related to and between agnosticism and agnostic theism.


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