[SypheDMar]

I stopped reading when I got to here.

I still say I'm an atheist cause quite frankly it makes the most linguistic sense. An atheist is someone who lacks a belief in god... As far as I'm concerned trying to say that someone who is an atheist must actively disbelieve in god is linguistically incorrect.

And then I realized the thread went on a tangent and won't be coming back soon. So I'll go on another tangent! I'm an atheist and a Humanist. And when I meet an agnostic, I treat them like fellow atheists because there really isn't a difference in that regard (I'm of the sort that believes that weak Atheism is the same as Agnosticism). The only thing I have to change is that instead of calling them atheists, I call them agnostics out of respect.

I believe agnostics do take a side. They're clearly not undecided nor in the middle. To me, they share the exact same beliefs as atheists but are politically safe about it. That might not be how other agnostics view themselves, but that's fine too. I once claimed to be agnostic, but then I realized there isn't any reason I should deny what I believe is true.

By the way, I share the same view that karajorma has on atheism. To be atheist is to lack a belief in god. That is not to say that if we can prove there is a god, I will actively deny the god's existence. If science can somehow prove that god(s) exists, then I will believe in one (or many). But without actual proof, I will say that I'm reasonably sure there is no god.

Compare "There's probably no god" to "There might (not) be a god." To me, they're the same. If you don't have a religion yet, that says a lot about what you want to believe.
Compare "There is no god" to "There's probably no god." Still the same.

Not so much of a stretch to go from "There is no god" to "There might or might not be a god."

[The Dagger]

Well, negating the existence of any kind of god is childish, you should at least be unconclusive about it. As of Gödel's incompletness theorems, any logical-mathematical (dare I say human) construction can't prove itself nor prove anything beyond it to be true, so there's no way to negate any concept exterior to your paradigm.
And Ockham's razor is not the best way to go either. It'll only do good to simplify your model if the information is complete (and I just said it can't be). Positive evidence is also a big logical falacy.
I'm not trying to prove you wrong, I'm just saying you have no valid proof either way and so you have choosen to believe what you believe. Most agnostics I've met state that they haven't made any choice, that theirs is the only "logical conclusion". I simply don't agree.

And saying "Something <may/may not> be <true/false>" is not the same as saying "Something <is/isn't> <false/true>". The second one is an affirmation/negation and leaves no room for the opposite statement. If in doubt go the agnostic way. I find it's better to say "I don't know but I choose believe this" regarding a discussion in which you CANNOT proove your statement.

[Mikes]

Well, negating the existence of any kind of god is childish, you should at least be unconclusive about it. As of Gödel's incompletness theorems, any logical-mathematical (dare I say human) construction can't prove itself nor prove anything beyond it to be true, so there's no way to negate any concept exterior to your paradigm.

It's a deeply human trait to anthropomorphize things that they can not understand. That is why we have religion and that is why there are so many different religions as well. The existence of an actual higher being is purely optional. The existence of religion can be explained without a higher being perfectly fine.

So while an actual higher being might exist I really won't concern myself with the possibility any more, or less, than the existence of actual real life Shivans somewhere in the galaxy. Those too "might" exist after all and Volition might have had some prophetic vision as they made the game. The only difference is that we did not form a religion to back up the notion. (yet? HLP worries me sometimes ...  Hey... it wouldn't be the first actual religion based on bloody science fiction ... :coughs:)

[Polpolion]

It's not as if the lack of evidence is enough, it's that we have better - in the scientific sense - explanations on how these gods came to be.

Which says nothing unless you're talking about a man-made figure and not an actual deity. I don't want to bring ignosticism in all that much but there exist an infinite number of distinct beings that, if we assume they exist, could be called gods. Showing that one of them doesn't exist (or in your case, makes more sense as a fictional character) says nothing about the crux of the matter - does some "divine" being exist? It's much more straightforward to prove that they do than they don't. To prove that there exists no gods, you need to show that nothing that could possibly match your definition of "god" could possibly exist, whereas you only need to show that there exists one being that fits your definition to show that a god can exist.

In other terms, it's proving (∀x, ~exists(x)) vs proving (∃x, exists(x)) where x is anything that could be called a god. Unless you can also show that you've exhaustively shown that all x can't exist you've failed to prove anything.

Which I guess brings me to a place that just complicates the discussion: It's not enough to wonder if "God" exists, you need to firmly understand what "God" refers to if you're going to be wondering anything. Asking "does god exist?" analogous to asking "does a book exist?". Some people claim that the only book that exists is The Hobbit, other people claim that the lyrics to "Bohemian Raphsody" is a book, other people claim that a book doesn't exist, and some people don't really care because they don't read.

So while an actual higher being might exist I really won't concern myself with the possibility any more, or less, than the existence of actual real life Shivans somewhere in the galaxy. Those too "might" exist after all and Volition might have had some prophetic vision as they made the game.

This is what gets me, too, usually. What exactly are the implications if some God exists? Judging from our understanding of the universe I would say there are very little implications. But obviously some people disagree and they go off doing things, and what's really disappointing is when they get the idea that God wants you to hurt people. Even people in this thread have noted how atheists can be total assholes about their beliefs, and they don't even have a god to blame it on.

[SypheDMar]

And saying "Something <may/may not> be <true/false>" is not the same as saying "Something <is/isn't> <false/true>". The second one is an affirmation/negation and leaves no room for the opposite statement. If in doubt go the agnostic way. I find it's better to say "I don't know but I choose believe this" regarding a discussion in which you CANNOT proove your statement.

In the context of a god, there is no difference to me. I am actually the opposite. If in doubt, go the atheist way because at least you don't have to pretend that you really believe there is an option either way. "I don't know but I choose to believe this," is better than "I don't know so I won't choose" to me. It might be safer politically, but all you're doing is denying what you actually believe. In the case of agnostics, I'd say they are pretending that god is a possibility even if they don't believe that one exists.

It's like a coin toss. Once you toss it, it will either land heads or tails. It's no longer 50/50. Agnostics already flipped the coin. They just don't want to see it land yet.

E: Oh, and as karajorma mentioned earlier, atheists don't actively disbelieve in god. There is nothing childish about lacking faith in one. I would argue it is childish trying to cling on to options that don't really exists. You can't be non-religious yet claim that there may be a god. You either are, or you're not. To say that atheists are childish for not believing in a god is to say that religious people are childish for believing in one (or many). I don't think that's true either. I'm not militant in my belief. I'd be surprised to meet a militant agnostic.

[Mikes]

It's like a coin toss. Once you toss it, it will either land heads or tails. It's no longer 50/50. Agnostics already flipped the coin. They just don't want to see it land yet.

Actually ... a coin toss is 50-50 unless you cheat or the coin is flawed. Furthermore... the actual probability can be measured by repeated tests/coin tosses.

Agnostics however, when questioned about the probability of the existence of god tend to say something along the lines of "while not discounting the possibility entirely, bloody unlikely". I.e. more like 99-01 instead of 50-50. Think a 100 sided dice where one face is the existence of god. You only get to roll once. That would be a better approximation of what many agnostics actually believe. I.e.: Pretty sure there isn't one, just not 100% sure, because the question is, by definition, not verifiable.

The interesting part is that any idea of a "god" by definition and/or design has to be unverifiable because otherwise someone would just go ahead and verify that it is false. lol.

[Luis Dias]

Well, negating the existence of any kind of god is childish, you should at least be unconclusive about it.

That's reasonable to a point. Are you also unconclusive about fairies? What about invisible pink unicorns? Where do you draw the line? Are you drawing the line in an objective way or just being amazingly prejudiced towards our own cultural traditions?

Which says nothing unless you're talking about a man-made figure and not an actual deity. I don't want to bring ignosticism in all that much but there exist an infinite number of distinct beings that, if we assume they exist, could be called gods. Showing that one of them doesn't exist (or in your case, makes more sense as a fictional character) says nothing about the crux of the matter - does some "divine" being exist? It's much more straightforward to prove that they do than they don't. To prove that there exists no gods, you need to show that nothing that could possibly match your definition of "god" could possibly exist, whereas you only need to show that there exists one being that fits your definition to show that a god can exist.

But I did bring up ignosticism. I said it was clever trolling. I just assume when people talk about "God" they are most probably thinking something really close to the Christian God. As you rightly put, "God" can mean almost *anything*, and so it's not only "unconclusive", it's borderline irrelevant to our daily lives. To that kind of "possible God" I say "derp". That's all I can say really, because everything's possible in that metaphysical sense. God can be a long-past dead demiurge that is no longer here. Or he can be a complete sadistic God who convinced a lot of folks to follow this Jesus guy and then picks everyone that does so and places them in eternal hellfire. He can be a computer nerd from an upper universe. He can be a vat where our brains are resting. And on and on and on. There's no point in all this, I even believe that all these possibilities are probably symetrical in any characteristic we can imagine.

So I scrap all of that and say, "come on when people are talking about God, they are not referring to all these possibilities, they have something in mind". It's towards that "Something" in their minds that I call myself an atheist.

In other terms, it's proving (∀x, ~exists(x)) vs proving (∃x, exists(x)) where x is anything that could be called a god. Unless you can also show that you've exhaustively shown that all x can't exist you've failed to prove anything.

That's insane. Let me give you an alternative: I see the world around me and I see lots of people claiming there's a God. I see their evidence and it is a failure. I see evidence against their claims, reasoning, etc. I conclude there's no such thing and move on.

Isn't that so much simpler? I don't need to engage in infinites here. I just live my finite life with the best possible conclusion I can gather given all I know. I can wander philosophically why all those infinite possibilities are insane and ridiculous and possible in a certain point of view, but that isn't really the point.

Which I guess brings me to a place that just complicates the discussion: It's not enough to wonder if "God" exists, you need to firmly understand what "God" refers to if you're going to be wondering anything. Asking "does god exist?" analogous to asking "does a book exist?". Some people claim that the only book that exists is The Hobbit, other people claim that the lyrics to "Bohemian Raphsody" is a book, other people claim that a book doesn't exist, and some people don't really care because they don't read.

Been there done that. I said that earlier here.

[Mikes]

My fairytale is better than yours ... that's why it's true. Prove me wrong or I am right.

[SypheDMar]

It's like a coin toss. Once you toss it, it will either land heads or tails. It's no longer 50/50. Agnostics already flipped the coin. They just don't want to see it land yet.

Actually ... a coin toss is 50-50 unless you cheat or the coin is flawed. Furthermore... the actual probability can be measured by repeated tests.

Agnostics however, when questioned about the probability of the existence of god tend to say something along the lines of "while not discounting the possibility entirely, bloody unlikely". I.e. more like 99-01 instead of 50-50. Think a 100 sided dice where one face is the existence of god. You only get to roll once. That would be a better approximation of what many agnostics actually believe. I.e.: Pretty sure there isn't not, just not 100% sure.

A coin toss is only 50/50 prior to throwing it. Once it lands, it's either 100-0 or 0-100.

And what you said about the probability of a god is what I mean. 99-01 is exactly the same as what atheists believe. No atheists would say that god doesn't exists if god shows evidence of existing. That's why I mentioned that there is no difference between agnostics and atheism. That's why I believe that agnosticism is exactly the same as weak atheism.

An agnostic would not believe god exists but would play it safe saying that there is a slim chance that it might exist. An atheist would believe god does not exist and has no reason to tell others that there is a slim chance even if the atheist knows there is a slim chance.

[Luis Dias]

Perhaps the real difference is how much bull**** one can take. There's a moment in life where you go "You know what? I'm fed up of all this bull****, from now on I'll call like it is". It's probably an emotional difference. Here's Asimov:

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.

[SypheDMar]

The quote works well to explain my point. Thank you Luis Dias.

[Polpolion]

That's insane. Let me give you an alternative: I see the world around me and I see lots of people claiming there's a God. I see their evidence and it is a failure. I see evidence against their claims, reasoning, etc. I conclude there's no such thing and move on.

Isn't that so much simpler? I don't need to engage in infinites here. I just live my finite life with the best possible conclusion I can gather given all I know. I can wander philosophically why all those infinite possibilities are insane and ridiculous and possible in a certain point of view, but that isn't really the point.

You can believe anything you want, but it has no bearing on the truth value. Personally, I don't hinge my life on whether god exists or not so I see no problem in not committing myself to any particular belief. I'd go farther to say that if you're going to engage in serious theological discussions about the existence of God, you'd have to be just plain lazy to ignore these possibilities.

disclaimer: I'm not calling you lazy; we're discussing discussions about the existence of god, not discussing the existence of god.

[Mikes]

A coin toss is only 50/50 prior to throwing it. Once it lands, it's either 100-0 or 0-100.

And what you said about the probability of a god is what I mean. 99-01 is exactly the same as what atheists believe. No atheists would say that god doesn't exists if god shows evidence of existing. That's why I mentioned that there is no difference between agnostics and atheism. That's why I believe that agnosticism is exactly the same as weak atheism.

An agnostic would not believe god exists but would play it safe saying that there is a slim chance that it might exist. An atheist would believe god does not exist and has no reason to tell others that there is a slim chance even if the atheist knows there is a slim chance.

It's completely irrelevant to the question as you can not verify the existence of god like you can the result of a coin toss.
Who says no one wants to see it land?  Frankly I would be delighted if we could actually verify it in a way that no person could question.

You have to understand that from an agnostics perspective the most likely outcome (i.e. 99 to 1 ... or rather a couple of million to one) would be that people finally stopped believing in those fairytales they call religion.

Or rather... it would be extremely surprising if there was a god.
The irony is ... that if an actual god, like the "Christian god" would actually exist, a lot of people would not be happy about the revelation, but rather raving mad about what that sadist has been doing with his human toys. Which again.... does make it even more likely, that the whole thing is simply a badly constructed fairytale with all the inconsistencies and paradoxes that came up over the centuries barely holding together.

Too bad you can't monopolize education and torture anyone who denies the existence of god anymore until they repent their atheist ways...   now that was how you made religion really work.

[Luis Dias]

@Polpolion

Oh right, I think you do have a point there. But then there's a big difference between a theological serious discussion that brings up probabilities and logical thinking into the debate, just as a lot of metaphysical and mathematical thinking, and a much more down to earth questionnaire about the simple question of whether the God we learned exists in our culture actually does or is just make-believe.

Ironically enough, all that pondering about all those possibilities is an argument against any specific theism, and not really against atheism. It's not as if the adding up of metaphysical possibilities somehow diminishes the probability of atheism. Probabilities do not work that way.

[SypheDMar]

Just to clarify, while I am an atheist, I don't necessarily share all of Luis Dias's points. I am also a Humanist.

f. I'd go farther to say that if you're going to engage in serious theological discussions about the existence of God, you'd have to be just plain lazy to ignore these possibilities

I agree. It only takes a few seconds to think of the possibilities, so not thinking about them would not even be engaging in a discussion. I believe Luis Dias must have done so at one point.

I have many religious friends who explains their beliefs to me. Many of them Christians. Many of them believe in different things other than that there is God and Jesus is their savior. I was raised Catholic in school. My family is polytheistic. Without needing to go into a history of my life, all of my experiences have led me to believe that there is no god. But at one point, I did consider it. I did, in fact, believe that God existed for a short time.

[SypheDMar]

It's completely irrelevant to the question as you can not verify the existence of god like you can the result of a coin toss.
Who says no one wants to see it land?  Frankly I would be delighted if we could actually verify it in a way that no person could question.

My coin toss analogy was not about whether or not god exists. It was about whether one believes or does not believe that god exists. Atheists choose one side. Theists choose another. Agnostics, by definition, pretend to not choose even though they've already sided with the Atheists. When the coin falls, the look away.

You have to understand that from an agnostics perspective the most likely outcome (i.e. 99 to 1 ... or rather a couple of million to one) would be that people finally stopped believing in those fairytales they call religion.

Or rather... it would be extremely surprising if there was a god.

This is exactly the same belief as an atheist.

The irony is ... that if an actual god, like the "Christian god" would actually exist, a lot of people would not be happy about the revelation, but rather raving mad about what that sadist has been doing with his human toys. Which again.... does make it even more likely, that the whole thing is simply a badly constructed fairytale with all the inconsistencies and paradoxes that came up over the centuries barely holding together.

This is why I don't believe in the Christian God.

[Mikes]

I have many religious friends who explains their beliefs to me. Many of them Christians. Many of them believe in different things other than that there is God and Jesus is their savior. I was raised Catholic in school. My family is polytheistic. Without needing to go into a history of my life, all of my experiences have led me to believe that there is no god. But at one point, I did consider it. I did, in fact, believe that God existed for a short time.

That is why, when you marry, you still have to pledge to raise your Children the "Christian way". 

You get to the Children, you can not just make a society believe anything, you can make it do anything as well.
Not exclusive to religion. Works great for installing totalitarian regimes as well. See: Hitler's youth.

Thankfully... the information society of today's age proves, at least to some extent/in some areas of the world, somewhat more resistant to this sort of manipulation than the societies of the previous century(-ies).

It was about whether one believes or does not believe that god exists. Atheists choose one side. Theists choose another. Agnostics, by definition, pretend to not choose even though they've already sided with the Atheists. When the coin falls, the look away.

I disagree rather strongly. "When" the coin falls is irrelevant as the coin, by definition, never falls and we can not make it fall. God is not verifiable by definition (or rather, as the cynic would say "by design".)
But jolly me ... if we actually could see the coin fall... why wouldn't we look? Then the matter would finally be settled once and for all. OF COURSE we would want to look.

So why can't we look?
The cynic would again point out that the problem is rather that every religion makes (has to make) their god "unverifiable", because otherwise it would be a very short lived religion.



You don't want to suggest that agnostics would not want to verify it one way or the other if we actually could? That just doesn't make sense.
It's not a matter of "looking away" ... it's a matter of not even being able to look no matter if you want to or not.

[The Dagger]

Well, negating the existence of any kind of god is childish, you should at least be unconclusive about it.

That's reasonable to a point. Are you also unconclusive about fairies? What about invisible pink unicorns? Where do you draw the line? Are you drawing the line in an objective way or just being amazingly prejudiced towards our own cultural traditions?

Well, I was speaking of logics there. I have a belief and I choose it like Asimov said he did. I know it's fundamentally emotional and unrational, but it's my belief. When I look at the discussion here it looks like people is trying to proove they belief is the only true one (and a logical one too). So I'm trying to point here is that there is no proof either way, and that people saying "There's a 99% chance God exists" are speaking of a coin toss that landed in a place they can't reach in a place with physics they can't understand. EDIT: Mikes said it better.

Going back to your comment, the line is subjective. In logics/math, there is no line, either it's certainly true or not. In real life, you have to choose. If you want to believe in invisible pink unicorns it's your choice and I don't have a say on it. (Though I can choose to believe you're wrong.) Pushing it to the limit, if you make a belief system that can explain all things and doesn't contradict itself, you have made a new paradigm. Normally, the scientific paradigm is the one who can explain the most, the simplest way. The concept of energy is as untangible as those unicorns. Yet, we use it to explain most things in our days. What we have to remember is that those things are artificial constructs that allow us to simplify, group and classify our observations and grasp what we can experiment. For me, discussing the existence of God and the existence of energy is the same. Both are unprovable.

And saying "If God exists why <is life so hard/are there wars/something bad exists>" is like saying "If God exists why can I kill my neighboor" which comes back to "if God exists why I'm I free to do things he shouldn't let me do" which is only a contradiction if you take God to be an authoritarian prick. Which is attacking a particular image of god, which can be unproven but by no way can be said to be the only possible representation of God. And the western view of the Christian God is reduced to a cliché as its view on Islam is reduced to extremists/terrorists, so I won't even enter that debate.

[SypheDMar]

I have many religious friends who explains their beliefs to me. Many of them Christians. Many of them believe in different things other than that there is God and Jesus is their savior. I was raised Catholic in school. My family is polytheistic. Without needing to go into a history of my life, all of my experiences have led me to believe that there is no god. But at one point, I did consider it. I did, in fact, believe that God existed for a short time.

That is why, when you marry, you still have to pledge to raise your Children the "Christian way". 

You get to the Children, you can not just make a society believe anything, you can make it do anything as well.
Not exclusive to religion. Works great for installing totalitarian regimes as well. See: Hitler's youth.

Thankfully... the information society of today's age proves, at least to some extent/in some areas of the world, somewhat more resistant to this sort of manipulation than the societies of the previous century(-ies).

It was about whether one believes or does not believe that god exists. Atheists choose one side. Theists choose another. Agnostics, by definition, pretend to not choose even though they've already sided with the Atheists. When the coin falls, the look away.

I disagree rather strongly. "When" the coin falls is irrelevant as the coin, by definition, never falls and we can not make it fall. God is not verifiable by definition (or rather, as the cynic would say "by design".)
But jolly me ... if we actually could see the coin fall... why wouldn't we look? Then the matter would finally be settled once and for all. OF COURSE we would want to look.

So why can't we look?
The cynic would again point out that the problem is rather that every religion makes (has to make) their god "unverifiable", because otherwise it would be a very short lived religion.



You don't want to suggest that agnostics would not want to verify it one way or the other if we actually could? That just doesn't make sense.
It's not a matter of "looking away" ... it's a matter of not even being able to look no matter if you want to or not.

I'm not talking about the existence of God, as I mentioned. I'm talking about the belief of a god. To put simply:

Head:Atheist
Tails:Theist

As opposed to

Head:god does not exist
Tails:god exists

See the difference?

[karajorma]

This discussion is actually why I linked to that wikipedia article on agnostic atheism. Let's paste a quote so we're all on the same page.

Positive atheism (also called strong atheism and hard atheism) is the form of atheism that asserts that no deities exist.[1] Negative atheism (also called weak atheism and soft atheism) is any other type of atheism, wherein a person does not believe in the existence of any deities, but does not explicitly assert there to be none

From here.


The irony is that with the exception of Luis, pretty much everyone who has professed to be an atheist or agnostic on this thread is actually an agnostic atheist (i.e a weak atheist). MP-Ryan keeps saying he is an agnostic but I'd bet money his views are probably no different from mine. It's simply a choice of which of two labels to apply to yourself.

Saying you're agnostic doesn't actually answer the simple question "What do you believe in?" Saying you're an atheist does.

That's kind of the point, folks =)

The point is to deliberately give a vague answer to a simple question? This is why I tend to agree with Dawkins on his point about intellectual cowardice. If someone asks me whether I believe in god or not, I just say no. Which automatically makes me an atheist. I don't see any point in obfuscating or prevaricating about an answer. I'll point out I'm agnostic if someone asks me "Why?"