Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Hiiri]

I don't see why an agnostic atheist should try to convert people away from theism. After all, if you don't know about the validity of your own position, how can you claim that your position is better/superior to a different position? And yet, there are those who are publicly campaigning against theism, ranging from the personal level up to attacking theist religions as a concept as such.

Even if you don't know an answer to something, it doesn't make every answer equally valid.

I've got eggs in my fridge. I don't know how many there are. Is it equally valid to say there are 5 eggs or 5 million eggs in my fridge? Of course not.

And frankly, when you try to link rationality with agnostic atheism, it feels as if you implied that theism was irrational, a generalized qualification that would already go towards gnostic atheism in my opinion.

It is irrational. There is no evidence for it.

[Deathworks]

Dear Max White,

And that "'wat iz realz' clusterfuck" is at the very core of the theism/atheism question. Science is using models and assumptions whose veracity is only "confirmed" by comparing how well their predictions co-incide with the observed results. We don't know if any single of the laws of physics is actually correct in describing the world - they are currently our best guess, but they are not proven facts. Just remember the upheaval Einstein brought about.

And the question of divinity lies even much, much deeper that quarks and what not. It is a question about the very basic source.

I am also an agnostic atheist and for me, agnosticism is logical from the evidence I have and the assumptions I have made. However, I would not go so far as to categorically deny the impossibility for evidence of divinity. Assuming that something divine exists, it could, theoretically, prove its own existence in some way by influencing the world we perceive. Therefore, if I really assume that I do not know whether there is anything divine, I can not claim that such evidence is outright impossible.

Hiiri: Your comparison with the fridge is incorrect as you know a lot more about the fridge than what we know for sure about the world. The theism question  is more like the question sailors of old were confronted with - what will there be beyond the Atlantic Ocean? No one has seen it and given reliable information. Is there just more ocean to infinity? The end of the world? More countries? Or maybe a loop back to the East? There were theories, but until someone actually went there, checked, and reported back, neither theory could claim superiority.

Yours,
Deathworks

P.S.: Hiiri: Your last sentence implies that there is evidence for atheism. I would be interested in seeing how you procure evidence for the non-existence of divinity.

[Max White]

Seriously, the 'reality' question is unanswerable, by definition. When you remove the foundation of knowledge, the debate becomes pointless. You end up with a billion and more 'What if!'s and zero answers. The only rational thing to do is to make the assumption that there is a universe, we can see it, and it makes sense.
You can't live your life like Wen the Eternally Surprised, it isn't possible, so if you are going to make these assumptions then don't pick and choose when they count just to better fit your case.

[Deathworks]

Hello Max White!

Well, you have just described agnostic atheism very well:

the 'reality' question is unanswerable, by definition

That is exactly what an agnostic atheist believes. And if they then make assumptions as that position lacks a basis for questions that requires answers due to their human nature, they make those assumptions being aware that those are assumptions and not objective truth.

Once you claim that those assumptions have any objectivity, you are no longer holding an agnostic position, as you propose knowledge about objectivity, something that agnosticism denies.

And I don't see how I switched my argument in any way. I have always argued that I can't prove or disprove divinity objectively, and pointing out the impossibility for an agnosticist to know objectivity does not seem to contradict those statements.

Yours,
Deathworks

[Max White]

Well I don't claim them to be objective truths, but we might as well treat them that way.
If tomorrow everybody woke up in brain pods and we learnt that all of history was just a simulation that had run for a few minutes, and anything before that was just pre-existing data, then the rational thing to do would be sit down and say 'Well, I guess everything we thought we knew was invalid! Time to make the exact same assumptions and start again!

No matter what happens, even if your reality itself is invalidated, you can always make the fundamental assumptions.

[Deathworks]

Hello!

Well, as far as I know, Buddhism, for instance, questions the reality of our world itself, making it a mere shadow of real life. If I am to assume that our world is real, I already have denied the possibility of Buddhism to be correct. But in doing so, I have already moved away from the agnostic position.

And if you advice us to make assumptions, you are allowing us to choose something. After all, there is nothing objective to work on, so we can pick freely, what exact assumptions we make. For instance, an apple falls from a tree. I can assume that this is due to the physical law of gravity. But I can just as easily assume that it does so, because God has imposed the rule that apples fall from trees. If we do not know the objective truth, either assumption is equally possible to choose. Or rather, can you point out any reason to prefer one assumption over the other?

Yours,
Deathworks

[Max White]

See you are mistaking knowing from believing. They are different things.
I don't know that the universe I live in is real, but I choose to believe that it is real for the sake of accepting that I have applicable knowledge of its workings. This doesn't really exclude you from questioning your own belief. Making assumptions isn't the same as deciding that you know the truth, at least not for anybody with the capacity to work with hypothetical.

If the universe is real, and observable, and follows patterns, then I can predict that letting go of this ball will cause it to fall.

That is the assumption we make for all things, as such normally we just exclude the first part, because it is implied.

And yes, you can make any assumptions, but you will find some more useful than others. Assuming that 'God did it' is useless because it gives us no pattern to work with. We can't apply anything. If you are going to assume something, it should be the most fundamental things you can, otherwise you will find your model doesn't work very well.

[Deathworks]

Hello!

I don't see where I mistake knowing for believing. Believing is basically the same as assuming in my explanation. Knowing is about objective fact, believing is about subjective assumptions.

The problem is that you try to prove the usefulness for assumptions without an objective basis.

For instance, if God existed and judged us by our faith in it, assuming that God made the apple fall is actually more useful than assuming that gravity did it - you are scoring differently on the objective scale of God, and thus may benefit in ways that surpass any benefits you might have in a short-term.

The problem is that usefulness requires value. Value, however, requires an aim. For instance, is it useful to kill a dog? If I am living in a city where there are stray dogs spreading disease and my aim is to stop the disease, the answer is yes. If I am working in a nursing home where that dog is used to help patients feel better, the answer is no. If you do not know what the world is objectively about, you can evaluate the usefulness of assumptions. Maybe, in the scheme of things, my survival is a bad thing, so it would be objectively better if I died - how can I be certain about that question? And if my survival is a negative, things that benefit my survival are negatives - which negates most of the popular concepts of usefulness people often propose.

Again, without objectivity, you can measure value, and without measuring value, you can't measure usefulness.

Yours,
Deathworks

[Hiiri]

Hiiri: Your comparison with the fridge is incorrect as you know a lot more about the fridge than what we know for sure about the world.

Nothing about the universe suggests there being any gods. Everything in the world works as if there were no gods.

There could be lots we don't know about the fridge either. Who knows, maybe a vortex to an alternate egg dimension opens up every time we close the fridge door. We don't know that.

We judge the rationality of answers on what we know, not what we might not know. Our lack of knowledge is irrelevant.

The theism question  is more like the question sailors of old were confronted with - what will there be beyond the Atlantic Ocean? No one has seen it and given reliable information. Is there just more ocean to infinity? The end of the world? More countries? Or maybe a loop back to the East? There were theories, but until someone actually went there, checked, and reported back, neither theory could claim superiority.

Exact reason why they sailed west was because they expected to find new trade routes to Asia. The options weren't equally valid at the time. They could observe the world around them and judge the options based on that.

P.S.: Hiiri: Your last sentence implies that there is evidence for atheism. I would be interested in seeing how you procure evidence for the non-existence of divinity.

Sure, nothing exists until shown to exist. (No, I don't mean they poof into existence as soon as encountered)

[Max White]

Again, without objectivity, you can measure value, and without measuring value, you can't measure usefulness.

Every day things fall. Knowing how and why and at what rate is useful. If you want me to show you that things fall, I can do that.
Do people get judged every day? Can you show me?

My assumption that things exist to be able to fall is a lot more useful than yours.
Also, things don't have to be quantised to be comparable.

[Deathworks]

Hello Hiiri

Nothing about the universe suggests there being any gods. Everything in the world works as if there were no gods.

What exactly would be a suggestion of divinity in your eyes? Given that gods are by definition a different level of existence from our own, double-guessing their motiviations and predicting their goals seems a bit difficult to me.

There could be lots we don't know about the fridge either. Who knows, maybe a vortex to an alternate egg dimension opens up every time we close the fridge door. We don't know that.

We judge the rationality of answers on what we know, not what we might not know. Our lack of knowledge is irrelevant.

Well, actually we do not know about that vortex. After all, there could be that vortex, but usually it works in such a way that we do not notice - following a law of balance, for instance, it may be that the eggs we put in there travel to that dimension and an equal number of eggs are expelled. Or it may open, and in most cases, nothing is exchanged - but the opening is still there, usable under the right circumstances.

Exact reason why they sailed west was because they expected to find new trade routes to Asia. The options weren't equally valid at the time. They could observe the world around them and judge the options based on that.

Nope, there were also a lot of people who expected them to drop off the world at that time. And before the explorers set off, most people judged that the earth was flat - because you could stand steadily on it without falling away, for instance.

Sure, nothing exists until shown to exist. (No, I don't mean they poof into existence as soon as encountered)

Oh, so how do you think about quantum physics, or easier, about atoms and molecules. I suppose they did not exist in the Middle Ages because they were not shown to exist yet. Or if you allow for their existence despite not having shown to exist back then, how can you disallow for the existence of divinity only by pointing out that we have not yet shown its existence?

And atoms were proposed even in Ancient Greek, so the search had been on long before the Middle Ages.

Yours,
Deathworks

P.S.: Max White: Why is it useful to know that things fall? Usefulness implies that it can be used for a benefit. How do you define benefit? What is "good" in the sense of "benefit"? Why is that "good"?

And I can point to a medical example to show the limitation of your usefulness argument: If you have an itching spot, scratching yourself is the short-term solution. You can easily see that it gives you short-term relief. But in the long run, it will only cause damage to your skin, resulting in more itching.

Itching, scratching, and irritation are very short-term, so we can observe them easily, but if we take on the world in an objective way, we are talking about years, presumably about infinity. Even if your assumption is doing you good for 100 years, what does that mean if those 100 years are then following by more than 100,000,000 years of agony? Is it still more useful in the long run.

Or look at climate change. Provided that the models are correct, the usefulness of heavy industries is much smaller than was assumed. Sure, you could cheaply mass-produce products. But some decades later, you may see New York drown because of that.

Or look at the credit crash. People built their homes and were happy - useful. Now they can't pay back their credits, they lose their homes and also have tons of debts they hadn't had before - not useful.

My point is that you are arguing only about what you perceive in a short term, but deny the possibility of long term consequences which may completely reverse the short term ones.

EDIT: I know I should give more thought to my posts. Returning to the apple falling, let me point out that the theist claim does not make any statements about whether God will always impose that rule on apples. Therefore, the theist claim does not in itself automatically differ from the gravity claim, because it may just as easily be the result of the assumption that God wants apples to always work that way - and then you have a pattern just as much as with the gravity claim. The initial assumption I proposed did not state this clearly.

[Grek]

And if you advice us to make assumptions, you are allowing us to choose something. After all, there is nothing objective to work on, so we can pick freely, what exact assumptions we make. For instance, an apple falls from a tree. I can assume that this is due to the physical law of gravity. But I can just as easily assume that it does so, because God has imposed the rule that apples fall from trees. If we do not know the objective truth, either assumption is equally possible to choose. Or rather, can you point out any reason to prefer one assumption over the other?

This is just the problem of the priors all over again. Fortunately, it's a solved problem:

At the very start of reasoning, you should rank all theories in order of complexity* so that equally simple theories are accepted equally and more simple theories are more accepted than complex theories. This gives your prior probability distribution for how likely you think each theory is to be true, or your 'priors' in short. Then you update on your priors based on evidence that you see. There are a number of justifications for why you should prefer simple theories, but I'm not going to go into them unless there's someone that disagrees with the principle of parsimony.

*Complexity in this case is based on the minimum message length formalization of Occam's Razor - the complexity of a theory is the minimum number of bits required to specify a computer program on a universal Turing machine that will output the predictions of the theory.

"Apples do not fall" is the most simple theory. But that one is disproved by seeing apples fall. So then you go on to the next simple theory: newtonian gravity. You stick with newtonian gravity until something happens that contradicts newtonian gravity. Which happened. So on to the next most simple theory: relativity. We stick with that until we find something that contradicts relativity. We haven't found anything like that yet, so we're still believing in relativity. God is way, way down on the list because God is a very complicated sort of hypothesis.

Likewise, while "God exists, but is using his/her supernatural powers to hide from us and thereby making the universe look (at least to us) like he/she does not exist" is way way more complex than "God does not exist" and as a result, we should prefer the later as our working theory given equal evidence.

[Max White]

Well yes, you might find that scratching gets worse over time. How do we know this? Observation, rather than speculation. How do we even know there was a scratch? Because we made the fundamental assumptions that there was a logical universe for the scratch to exist in. Pointing out that more data is collected over a longer time and that data can change your conclusions changes nothing about the topic.

As for this 'What is of benifit' type argument, if there is no objective scale for benefit then there is surly no down side to me enslaving you and the ones you love and having you carry out arbitrary tasks. After all, what is suffering? What is anything to do with the human condition? I think we both know the answer here, it just doesn't fit in very well with your line of thinking.

[Graknorke]

I really cannot see a future where understanding how to utilize gravity would cause humanity any harm.
Knowledge cannot cause harm in general really, only people's actions. And even then, it isn't the fault of the information, just the people who decided to take it and then cause problems with it.

[Deathworks]

Hello Max White

I am not sure whether you are correct about my thoughts. It may very well be that on the objective side, there is no downside to you enslaving me and the ones I love and making me do arbitrary tasks. It may very well be that is good if you cause suffering to me. Actually, if you go down to it, atheism itself endorses the belief that there is no downside to any decision as there is no meaning for doing or not doing something. In a world without divinity, my death or suffering is just as good as my life and happiness. And the same goes for everyone and everything else.

Objectively, I have no way to tell you not to enslave me. I only reject that option once I accept the subjective assumption that my happiness has a positive value.

Grek: A very nice approach you describe.

I have to admit that you have answered my question quite convincingly. However, this is also pointing out flaws in my argument and how I am pointing out the difference between theories and truth.

What I am trying to stress is that theories are theories and that they can at any point be disproved. And assumptions are assumptions, and any of them may be wrong or correct - otherwise they would no longer be assumptions but knowledge.

Yours,
Deathworks

EDIT: Graknorke: I already pointed out that the potential harm of the belief in gravity would lie in the possible existence of a God who may judge and punish you based on your denying their existence.