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Alliteration wrote:

Spoiler: show

Well, I see the old atheist/agnostic debate has come up again...

I view terms like "atheist" and "agnostic" as labels depending on a person's view regarding not one, but two propositions. The simplest way to explain is with a chart:




So, no, under this view you cannot be an "agnostic atheist". Arranging terms this way expresses your beliefs more quickly, and with less confusion.

So, if I am understanding you correctly, an agnostic person is sorta uncertain - the verdict is out, but an atheist person is more then 50% sure in their heart that there is no God?

Nezhul wrote: But believing in GOD himself, without a church, without a priest, without a rules, without ANYTHING... Believing in God that accepts you the way you are - that's what Jesus actually talked about, and not the blasphemy written in dozens of saint books.
IMHO.

Yep....believing simply because you believe....faith.....that's what my God wanted all the way along...from the beginning and until we meet face to face. *bright smile*

All at once...

Handcuffed wrote:Agnostic atheist means, "I do not believe there is a god, but I do not think that it is a provable claim"

Gnostic atheist means, "I do not believe there is a god, and I think it is a provable claim" (although how this would work is beyond me)

Merely saying "I do not believe..." regarding a proposition doesn't say very much at all, in philosophy. Disbelief in a proposition isn't a claim at all, without belief in that proposition's negation.

Just saying "agnostic" does not indicate whether one is a theist or atheist; however, in the common vernacular it just means neither.

Similarly, saying one is an atheist does not indicate one's gnostic beliefs.

You may call it semantics, but I think it's an important distinction.

I think you're still missing the point, as you've just merely restated your position once again. Yes, we're arguing semantics. My argument is that "agnostic atheist/gnostic atheist" is unnecessarily long-winded, and makes discussions less clear. Basically what I'm saying is this: the stance that you refer to as "agnostic atheist" should be referred to as simply "agnostic", and the stance that you refer to as "gnostic atheist" should be referred to simply as "atheist". It's Orwell's third rule of good writing: If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

If your own stance is what you refer to as agnostic atheist, are you for some reason opposed to simply referring to yourself as agnostic? If so, why? If my ideas are adopted, no one is going to mistakenly think that you might be some sort of theist.

You also said, "although how this would work is beyond me". I hear this a lot...and every time, I've found that it's an indicator that the speaker has not read very much modern atheist philosophy - perhaps you should pick up some works by J.L. Schellenberg, Graham Oppy, Gregory Dawes, J.H. Sobel, or William Rowe.

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Evals wrote:We can debate the precise meaning of labels all day long, but in the end, it comes down to what the people who most generally use the terms believe the meaning is, not what one's individual definition is. Personally, I don't feel it's possible to hit the nail on the head as to what the precise definition is, whether a person can be easily classified as one or the other. I think a lot of labels such as submissive, dominant, and agnostic have a much more broad and flexible meaning than people who use them like to think.

If we were talking about the common use of words, you'd be right; however in a philosophical discussion, the meanings of words are of the utmost importance. I've seen people lose debates because they said God is "perfectly good" instead of "maximally good", for example.

I think it's important to remember that definitions are stipulative - one party needs to propose a definition he thinks is most useful for the discussion (which I have done), then the other party can either accept that definition as useful as well, or argue the point and propose an alternative definition he feels is more useful.

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Shell wrote:And yes, I know that THIS will not be accepted....and I am not asking that anyone accept it....it's my thinking and I'm okay with it.

Actually, your view on theology is one of the more common ones among Christian scholars nowadays. It's gaining a lot of ground on the more "conservative", literalist views. Bravo!

So, if I am understanding you correctly, an agnostic person is sorta uncertain - the verdict is out, but an atheist person is more then 50% sure in their heart that there is no God?

Right. The philosopher Richard Gale, for example, has written on how he's examined various arguments for and against God, and found some that work and some that do not on both sides. He's concluded that there's not enough either way to shift the balance very far away from the 50% mark. Thus, he labels himself an agnostic.

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Alliteration wrote:I just can't resist...

Bandit224 wrote:My Massive Penis wasn't an option, so I chose Athiest.

Good one.

I'll admit it, that mostly I read here. I am not too interested in participating in these lengthy debates as of late, simply for lack of time and interest of advancing my view, but the variety of viewpoints are nice to see. So I'm wondering, what you might think of this:

As a thought experiment, meaning of course this would be impossible to carry out, consider if I were to raise my children apart from the society that has religion as we know it. Say I raise my children, and I don't speak a word about a god, or lack of one, and refrain from imparting any adherence or non-adherence to any sort of faith. Likewise, the children never interact with anybody else who would push a particular viewpoint on a deity.

Any questions the children asks are simply answered with our knowledge of the subject scientifically, and anything we don't know, we simply answer with the truth: "We don't know." How old is the universe? "We think about 14 billion years old." Where did humans from from? "We think evolution, over thousands of years." What came before the big bang? "We don't know." Do you think the child likely grow up believing in a deity or not, and if so, which type?

Evals wrote:I'll admit it, that mostly I read here. I am not too interested in participating in these lengthy debates as of late, simply for lack of time and interest of advancing my view, but the variety of viewpoints are nice to see. So I'm wondering, what you might think of this:

As a thought experiment, meaning of course this would be impossible to carry out, consider if I were to raise my children apart from the society that has religion as we know it. Say I raise my children, and I don't speak a word about a god, or lack of one, and refrain from imparting any adherence or non-adherence to any sort of faith. Likewise, the children never interact with anybody else who would push a particular viewpoint on a deity.

Any questions the children asks are simply answered with our knowledge of the subject scientifically, and anything we don't know, we simply answer with the truth: "We don't know." How old is the universe? "We think about 14 billion years old." Where did humans from from? "We think evolution, over thousands of years." What came before the big bang? "We don't know." Do you think the child likely grow up believing in a deity or not, and if so, which type?

I think it would depend on whether God actually exists, and if he does, what his motivations are; as well as the personality of the child. In a godless world, I could see this child growing up either as an atheist, or as some sort of deist/pantheist.

Depending on different conceptions of God, though, a situation might occur where the child is influenced in some way to believe via personal experience/divine revelation.

Alliteration wrote:I think it would depend on whether God actually exists, and if he does, what his motivations are; as well as the personality of the child. In a godless world, I could see this child growing up either as an atheist, or as some sort of deist/pantheist.

Depending on different conceptions of God, though, a situation might occur where the child is influenced in some way to believe via personal experience/divine revelation.

So then we could likely infer the existence of a god if we were actually able to set up this controlled experiment? A rather interesting idea. I think the personal experience and divine revelation beliefs could be thrown out due to being unreliable, as there is no way to distinguish between what's actually divine revelation, and what is simply something the mind conjured.

les wrote:
The answer to Evals question has already been answered.

To the best of my knowledge.
In every human civilisation a deity/deities has/have been invented.

I considered this, but dismissed it fairly quickly. In ever human civilization you are probably thinking of, there are countless natural phenomena that cannot be explained. It could be argued that the human mind jumped to the concept of a deity for reassurance of understanding. In what I am talking about, almost all the child can wonder about can be answered. Only the deepest wonders are left blank. The question then becomes, does the child attribute this to a supernatural being, or does the child simply accept that he or she does not know yet and it will be discovered in the future.

Evals wrote:So then we could likely infer the existence of a god if we were actually able to set up this controlled experiment? A rather interesting idea. I think the personal experience and divine revelation beliefs could be thrown out due to being unreliable, as there is no way to distinguish between what's actually divine revelation, and what is simply something the mind conjured.

Well, no.

Real divine revelation would not be scientific, but it would be self-verifying.While such a thing would provide justification for a belief for the individual experiencing it, it would not do so for the rest of us. External analyses don't really work for such a thing.

Furthermore, we should be careful in looking at our own experiences - while it may or may not be the case that some revelations are true, I think everyone will agree that not *all* of them are. Some of them contradict with others, and some are caused by things such as mental illness or drugs. So, it's important to weed out things like this for people who've had such experiences. Once that is done, however, I'd say the individual is justified (on a personal level) in believing.

Evals wrote:

Spoiler: show

I'll admit it, that mostly I read here. I am not too interested in participating in these lengthy debates as of late, simply for lack of time and interest of advancing my view, but the variety of viewpoints are nice to see. So I'm wondering, what you might think of this:

As a thought experiment, meaning of course this would be impossible to carry out, consider if I were to raise my children apart from the society that has religion as we know it. Say I raise my children, and I don't speak a word about a god, or lack of one, and refrain from imparting any adherence or non-adherence to any sort of faith. Likewise, the children never interact with anybody else who would push a particular viewpoint on a deity.

Any questions the children asks are simply answered with our knowledge of the subject scientifically, and anything we don't know, we simply answer with the truth: "We don't know." How old is the universe? "We think about 14 billion years old." Where did humans from from? "We think evolution, over thousands of years." What came before the big bang? "We don't know." Do you think the child likely grow up believing in a deity or not, and if so, which type?

Personally I believe so. We all have a burning need in us to know.....why are we here? Usually that question leads to the belief or disbelief in a higher being. Just my thought though. *Smile*

Alliteration wrote:Well, no.

Real divine revelation would not be scientific, but it would be self-verifying.While such a thing would provide justification for a belief for the individual experiencing it, it would not do so for the rest of us. External analyses don't really work for such a thing.

Furthermore, we should be careful in looking at our own experiences - while it may or may not be the case that some revelations are true, I think everyone will agree that not *all* of them are. Some of them contradict with others, and some are caused by things such as mental illness or drugs. So, it's important to weed out things like this for people who've had such experiences. Once that is done, however, I'd say the individual is justified (on a personal level) in believing.

The first part was more about trying to understand why god intervening is relevant. If he intervenes or if he doesn't, if he exists or if he doesn't, we won't know.

In response to that last paragraph you mentioned, I've already mentioned that at the bottom of my last post: "I think the personal experience and divine revelation beliefs could be thrown out due to being unreliable, as there is no way to distinguish between what's actually divine revelation, and what is simply something the mind conjured." What I was intended to convey was what you said yourself, except to a more fuller extent. I was saying personal revelations are scientifically unreliable because they cannot be verified to be either a figment of one's mind or an actual revelation itself.

Evals wrote: The first part was more about trying to understand why god intervening is relevant. If he intervenes or if he doesn't, if he exists or if he doesn't, we won't know.

In response to that last paragraph you mentioned, I've already mentioned that at the bottom of my last post: "I think the personal experience and divine revelation beliefs could be thrown out due to being unreliable, as there is no way to distinguish between what's actually divine revelation, and what is simply something the mind conjured." What I was intended to convey was what you said yourself, except to a more fuller extent. I was saying personal revelations are scientifically unreliable because they cannot be verified to be either a figment of one's mind or an actual revelation itself.

True, we won't know whether he intervenes - but if he does, it will change the outcome. We just (probably) won't be able to detect it. From our point of view, it would appear as if things had just taken their course.

And yes, they are scientifically unreliable, but I wouldn't say they're generally unreliable. A real religious experience would (sort of) be an a priori justification for belief. While there's no way for us to distinguish whether a person's experience is real or fake as outside observers, the person having a real experience, due to it coming from God, would "just know".

The key issue here is not truth, but justification. The best we can do to counter beliefs brought about by religious experience is to offer defeaters for those beliefs - it's not as if the person having the belief has not lived up to his epistemic duty.

Shell wrote:Personally I believe so. We all have a burning need in us to know.....why are we here? Usually that question leads to the belief or disbelief in a higher being. Just my thought though. *Smile*

Some have argued that the mere existence of such a need to know (and the observation that belief in God seems to crop up time and time again) is evidence of God; because positing God's influence as an explanation meets more of the criteria for a good explanation (simplicity, explanatory power, explanatory scope, makes predictions, and is falsifiable) than the next most likely idea - that it's a misfiring of certain parts of our brain related to curiosity and the need for companionship.

EDIT: Holy crap, that is a long sentence :P

Alliteration wrote:

Shell wrote:Personally I believe so. We all have a burning need in us to know.....why are we here? Usually that question leads to the belief or disbelief in a higher being. Just my thought though. *Smile*

Some have argued that the mere existence of such a need to know (and the observation that belief in God seems to crop up time and time again) is evidence of God; because positing God's influence as an explanation meets more of the criteria for a good explanation (simplicity, explanatory power, explanatory scope, makes predictions, and is falsifiable) than the next most likely idea - that it's a misfiring of certain parts of our brain related to curiosity and the need for companionship.

EDIT: Holy crap, that is a long sentence :P

Yes, it was a long sentence......and umm.......*blushing*.......huh? *blushing bright red*