Agnostic versus Atheist

[ThinkingSapien]

I’d like some evidence, please, that your cat didn’t get up at the crack of dawn, do his business, and then go back to sleep.

Another day perhaps. I’m stuck removed from home working in a tiny conference room in a Disney world resort while the cat is at home.

Note: there are security cameras in the house. But you have the options of questioning of it’s really my cat, if the timestamp watermark is correct, and so on. I’m not very concerned with whether or not it is sufficiently convincing though.

 

[Solmyr]

One can certainly prove nonexistence. As pointed out by the eminently gifted Christian apologist: I can say “No US Senator is a Muslim”.

That “eminently gifted” apologist is wrong. He could only say that “so far there is no US Senator who would have admitted to be Muslim”. He cannot know that there is no US Senator who is “secretly” a Muslim.

Universal nonexistence cannot be proven. One can only say that so far we have not seen “X”… not that “X” does not exist, anywhere and any time. Negative statements can be proven, of course in some axiomatic system, like mathematics. One can prove that there are no positive integers “p” and “q” the ratio (p/q) equals precisely the square root of 2. Also one can point out that “married bachelors” (or any other logically inconsistent) states of affairs do not and cannot exist. But a generic, universal negatives, like “there are no purple/yellow polka dot elephants” - these cannot be proven.

In the objective (non-axiomatic) reality one can only present evidence for or against something. “Proof” is reserved for axiomatic systems. But that has also been pointed out many times.

 

[CHRISTINE77]

I’d like some evidence, please, that your cat didn’t get up at the crack of dawn, do his business, and then go back to sleep.

Cats are nocturnal. Anyway they spend more than half of their lives sleeping. Bad analogy. Song bird - yes they are up before the crack of dawn making all kinds of racket.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Now to demand “evidence” would be a different issue. And the answer would be simple: “The absence of evidence (for anything, not just for God’s existence) is evidence of absence”. But this has also been pointed out many times.

But this fallacy has been pointed out many times in many threads here at CA.

The absence of evidence (even if that were so, which it isn’t) is not evidence of absence.

Many philosophers and scientists throughout history have deduced the existence of God. You can’t say they did so without offering evidence. You might not agree with their evidence, but that is not the same as saying there was no evidence offered.

If I say there is a snake crawling toward you, you would look for the evidence. You would not just say there is no snake crawling toward you without looking to prove that there was no snake.

The same with God. You don’t just get to say there is no God without looking for the proof that God does not exist … and you wouldn’t find any if you did look, just as no one has ever found any such proof. Denying the existence of God is wishful think, because then we make ourselves into Gods.

Vanity of vanities.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

A finite fact can be proved.

In respect of God Who is more than infinite, we can only have pointers, which approximate.

 

[PRmerger]

Another day perhaps. I’m stuck removed from home working in a tiny conference room in a Disney world resort while the cat is at home.

Note: there are security cameras in the house. But you have the options of questioning of it’s really my cat, if the timestamp watermark is correct, and so on. I’m not very concerned with whether or not it is sufficiently convincing though.

Of course I will question that.

But then again, I would only be applying the (peculiarly high) standard of demand for evidence that atheists apply for All Things Theological, so I don’t think any atheist should have a problem with that.

 

[PRmerger]

That “eminently gifted” apologist is wrong. He could only say that “so far there is no US Senator who would have admitted to be Muslim”. He cannot know that there is no US Senator who is “secretly” a Muslim.

Fair enough.

So you’ve conceded that there is actually a way to prove something’s nonexistence.

“It is totally possible to say ‘there are no US Senators who have admitted to being Muslim’ and therefore, it is nonsensical to say that we cannot prove something’s nonexistence.”

Universal nonexistence cannot be proven. One can only say that so far we have not seen “X”… not that “X” does not exist, anywhere and any time. Negative statements can be proven, of course in some axiomatic system, like mathematics. One can prove that there are no positive integers “p” and “q” the ratio (p/q) equals precisely the square root of 2. Also one can point out that “married bachelors” (or any other logically inconsistent) states of affairs do not and cannot exist. But a generic, universal negatives, like “there are no purple/yellow polka dot elephants” - these cannot be proven.

In the objective (non-axiomatic) reality one can only present evidence for or against something. “Proof” is reserved for axiomatic systems. But that has also been pointed out many times.

Craig effectively slices and dices this objection here:

Second, the statement that “God does not exist” is not a universally quantified statement. When the theist asserts that “God exists,” the word “God” is being used as a proper name, not as a common noun. It is not a statement like “Dogs exist” but rather like “Lassie exists.” In order to prove that God does not exist, one need not prove that there are no gods whatsoever. Our interest is in one specific being, not in all the other beings which may have been imagined or worshipped throughout the world. So the claim that “God does not exist” is really a singular claim, like “Sherlock Holmes does not exist” or “Harry Potter does not exist.” No one thinks that negative, singular claims cannot be proven.

So whether this claim is being made by the atheist trying to shirk the burden of proof or by the Christian apologist intent on showing that atheism is inherently unprovable, the claim is, I think, false. Of course, absolute certainty is not available, but that’s really a red herring, since we have absolute certainty about almost nothing. Demanding absolute certainty will only lead to an unlivable scepticism.

Now as to your question whether this argument backfires on the theist, it seems to me that it does.

Read more: reasonablefaith.org/must-the-atheist-be-omniscient#ixzz49JsGZQGL

 

[PRmerger]

Seriously? Every bad thing that happens is a direct result of two people searching for knowledge?

Huh?

What is your answer as to why people stay in bed when they promised to help their friend move, say they’re not going to have another drink, and choose to have it anyway, say they’re not going to meet their married paramour clandestinely, but do it anyway, steal office supplies…

Clearly, we know better, but choose to do the bad thing anyway, even with the bad consequences.

Why?

What’s the atheist’s answer to this?

You appear to have placed yourself in a position where you say that claims which have an enormous impact on you are accepted at face value

I accept them for the same reason you accept (some) things: -because you trust the deliverer of this message. That is, because you have…faith.

Believers are consistent with this.

Atheists are not.

And I keep pondering is the atheistic inconsistency: “I won’t believe things without evidence, and the evidence must be peer-reviewed, laboratory reproducible, empirically based data before I will believe!”

and the “Of course there’s an atheistic equivalent to Maximilian Kolbe! (I don’t know who it is, his name, his actions and location, but surely he exists!) Of course I will fly in an airplane without verifying the pilot’s data! Perhaps there is indeed a multiverse–I’m just saying it’s possible, even though there’s not a shred of empirical data for this! And maybe aliens exist, too! The fact that I can’t offer any evidence for this is not troubling to me at all”.

#cognitivedissonance

 

[ThinkingSapien]

But then again, I would only be applying the (peculiarly high) standard of demand for evidence that [some] atheists apply for All Things Theological, so I don’t think any atheist should have a problem with that.

I think that some might have a problem with that. Some might not. Some won’t care to spend the effort convincing others for things of little to no consequence and continue on their way.

 

[Bradski]

Clearly, we know better, but choose to do the bad thing anyway, even with the bad consequences.

Why?

What’s the atheist’s answer to this?

It’s exactly the same answer as everyone else. Joe cheats on his wife because he is excited by the prospect of illicit sex. Mary steals the dress because it’s easier than working for it. Harry lies about his work because he wants people to think he’s important. Are these reasons in addition to ‘the fall’? Because they seem to stand up pretty well on their own. We don’t need mythical reasons for any of this.

But this is accepted by you ‘on faith’. You need 4 witnesses and cctv footage to show that a cat was asleep but a story which we know is not true and which actually dictates how you are meant to live your life, is accepted without any problem at all.

And the church isn’t much help to you in this regard either. It effectively tells you to work it out yourself: ‘Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event’, as the catechism says. Well, it might have been stated differently a few hundred years ago when no-one knew any better, but now we do, it must be stated that it uses ‘figurative language’. It’s only Sunday school children and fundamentalists believe it’s not figurative.

But still…there was an event apparently. Sometime. Somehow. Nobody can give you any definite about this. Just take it on faith that it happened. And that’s why Joe cheats on his wife.

Go figure.

I accept them for the same reason you accept (some) things: -because you trust the deliverer of this message. That is, because you have…faith.

Believers are consistent with this. Atheists are not.

You are directly contradicting something which I have already explained to you in some detail. Remember if I said my wife said she saw a cat crawl from the wreckage? Incredible, but it has no effect on me if I believe it or not. These things are quite possible. But is she said that the two men climbed from the wreckage? That isn’t possible. She is either mistaken or she is suffering post traumatic stress. I would NOT believe her.

I might add that it is a very bad idea indeed to automatically accept as true anything that someone you trust tells you. They may not be lying, but just because you trust them does NOT mean that what they tell you is automatically true. And they may be lying in any case. Just ask Joe’s wife.

And I keep pondering is the atheistic inconsistency: “I won’t believe things without evidence, and the evidence must be peer-reviewed, laboratory reproducible, empirically based data before I will believe!”

Who are you quoting? It’s not me or any atheist on this forum. Evidence for the divine is, almost by definition, impossible to prove by those methods. I, and I suspect all other atheists on this forum, are atheists simply because the evidence (and there is evidence), is not credible to each of us. No more. No less.

So you accept things on faith. OK, that’s a requirement for you to be a Catholic in any case. But for some minor things, which bear no influence on you at all, which have no implications for how you live your life, you demand explicit proof. That, as I have just said and which I think you already knew, is not an atheist’s requirement for anything divine. So ‘playing the atheist’ does not ring true at all.

If those service men and women were not Hindu and wrote that they hadn’t called on Vishnu for deliverence, then I really don’t think you’d have any problem accepting what they said at all. I think your reaction would be: ‘Why on earth would they do that? They are not Hindu, so why would anyone think that they would call for help to something in which they don’t believe?’

But, hell, these service men and women were AMERICANS. And America is a Christian nation. So even if they call themselves atheists, then in times of trouble, there is only one God they can call on for help!

How would you respond to a soldier from India who insisted he didn’t call for divine help? An Indian? Well, they are Hindu, so…well, was he in the American armed forces?

An atheist is an atheist, PR. You have implied that there are Christian atheists (they would have called to God!) and hence, Hindu atheists and Muslim atheists etc. I really can’t explain how nonsensical that is.

 

[Lost_Sheep]

An agnostic is an atheist who’s hedging his bets.

 

[Bradski]

An agnostic is an atheist who’s hedging his bets.

I hadn’t thought about this, but there must be Christian agnostics and Hindu agnostics etc. It doesn’t make sense to say that someone is not sure about ALL gods. Surely they’re not all up for consideration.

Are there any agnostics who can confirm what they are agnostic about?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

An agnostic is an atheist who’s hedging his bets.

Not exactly. An agnostic is an atheist who is decidedly not sure of himself.

If he was hedging his bets, he would place at least some money on God.

An agnostic doesn’t want to bet either way.

Yet by refusing to bet on God, he cannot win.

The agnostic is an existential paralytic.

 

[Lost_Sheep]

Not exactly. An agnostic is an atheist who is decidedly not sure of himself.

If he was hedging his bets, he would place at least some money on God.

An agnostic doesn’t want to bet either way.

Yet by refusing to bet on God, he cannot win.

The agnostic is an existential paralytic.

I hadn’t thought about this, but there must be Christian agnostics and Hindu agnostics etc. It doesn’t make sense to say that someone is not sure about ALL gods. Surely they’re not all up for consideration.

Are there any agnostics who can confirm what they are agnostic about?

It was a joke, guys. Don’t go reading so much into it.

 

[PRmerger]

I think that some might have a problem with that. Some might not. Some won’t care to spend the effort convincing others for things of little to no consequence and continue on their way.

 

[PRmerger]

It’s exactly the same answer as everyone else.

Huh?

The Christian answer is: because of Original Sin.

What’s the atheist answer?

“Joe cheats on his wife because he is excited by the prospect of illicit sex”.

So why does he do it when he knows it will betray his wife?

Why, Brad, why?

There has to be a reason that we are not the people we want to be.

What’s your answer to this question?

And the church isn’t much help to you in this regard either. It effectively tells you to work it out yourself:

You’ll have to forgive me if I distrust your arguments that begin with “The Church tells you…”

You haven’t had a very good track record in the past of summarizing this very well.

So if you could just give a source for where you get this the Church “effectively tells you to work it out yourself”, then we can discuss.

Well, it might have been stated differently a few hundred years ago when no-one knew any better, but now we do,

LOL!

Have you ever read St. Augustine?

Just take it on faith that it happened.

So see that double standard?

“I reject faith, except when I use it to say, ‘Surely there are some atheistic equivalents to Maximilian Kolbe!’ There’s nothing wrong with faith. When I use it. But when Believers use it…well, then it is to be dismissed!”

 

[PRmerger]

I might add that it is a very bad idea indeed to automatically accept as true anything that someone you trust tells you.

You are very Catholic when you say this.

And I will add a corollary to the above: sometimes it’s a very good idea to automatically accept as true something that someone who’s in a position of authority tells you.*

Who are you quoting? It’s not me or any atheist on this forum. Evidence for the divine is, almost by definition, impossible to prove by those methods.

I’ve already referenced a whole lot o’ folks (did you listen to the podcast yet?) who do make those demands.

I, and I suspect all other atheists on this forum, are atheists simply because the evidence (and there is evidence), is not credible to each of us. No more. No less.

There you go. The standard for the evidence that will convince you is so peculiarly high for theological matters.

And so peculiarly low for so many other things.

So you accept things on faith.

Sure.

Just like you do.

OK, that’s a requirement for you to be a Catholic in any case. But for some minor things, which bear no influence on you at all, which have no implications for how you live your life, you demand explicit proof.

And peculiarly, for things which have a very, very great influence on your life, you make no demands for proof. (Cue the reference to the pilot that you cede your life to. Not a single time have you demanded proof for her qualifications. Not. A. Single. Time.)

That, as I have just said and which I think you already knew, is not an atheist’s requirement for anything divine. So ‘playing the atheist’ does not ring true at all.

It simply shows the absurdity of the demands, no?

*You’re in a dark theater. There’s a fire. An boy in an usher’s uniform appears with a flashlight and says, “Follow me!”.

 

[Solmyr]

Fair enough.

So you’ve conceded that there is actually a way to prove something’s nonexistence.

“It is totally possible to say ‘there are no US Senators who have admitted to being Muslim’ and therefore, it is nonsensical to say that we cannot prove something’s nonexistence.”

But that does NOT follow. You changed the problem. You can say that “currently we have not heard of any US Senators, who would have admitted that they are Muslims”. But that does NOT say anything about the EXISTENCE of Muslim Senators neither in general, nor in particular. And that is what Craig said.

If one uses superficial “reasoning” (as Craig does) it looks like that one can prove the “nonexistence” of something very specific. If I would assert that there is no book of Mormon currently on my desk, it could be “verified” (but NOT proven!) that this statement is true by enumerating all the objects on my desk. But that would not “prove” anything, because there might be a miniature book of Mormon there, which is so small that it cannot be discovered.

However, it is a child’s play to prove the nonexistence of a logically inconsistent or contradictory state of affairs. It is obvious that “married bachelors” do not and cannot exist… and there is no need for any kind of “omniscience”.

Existence, however is easy to “prove”… just show that the object in question is THERE, and can be verified by using out senses. I am sorry to say that Craig is not a good apologist. He commits elementary errors, like confusing “proof” with “evidence” and “proving” with “verification”. And such sloppiness is inexcusable for an allegedly “eminently gifted” apologist.

Craig effectively slices and dices this objection here:

I went and read his little essay. Without going into details - unless you are inclined to discuss it, I am not particularly interested in it. However, I strongly agree with his final conclusion: **The bottom line is that we have no choice but to go on the basis of the knowledge and evidence that we do have—just we do in all other affairs of life.**This IS exactly what I keep telling. We must go by the available evidence. Or if you prefer, we MUST follow the “duck principle”. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and tastes like a duck, we MUST conclude that we deal with a duck and not a giraffe in disguise. If a human father neglects and abuses his child, we do not assume that he might have a very good reason to do it - we go by the evidence we have - and conclude that the father is abusive. If we see that God does not help the ones in need, we go by the evidence we have - and conclude that God not care. According to Craig!

Since there is no actual, direct evidence of God, and especially not for God’s “love”, the only rational conclusion is that there is NO God, or if there is, then he does not care about us.

 

[PRmerger]

But that does NOT follow. You changed the problem. You can say that “currently we have not heard of any US Senators, who would have admitted that they are Muslims”. But that does NOT say anything about the EXISTENCE of Muslim Senators neither in general, nor in particular. And that is what Craig said.

Or we could say: There are no US Senators who are professed Muslims.

QED.

Proved nonexistence.

 

[PRmerger]

But that would not “prove” anything, because there might be a miniature book of Mormon there, which is so small that it cannot be discovered.

LOL!

'nuff said.