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goout
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Ok so you’re content to sidestep and I’ll move on.
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Vonsalza
Guest
You may have missed my point just a hair.
As mathematics appears to transcend culture in a way language did not for most of history, I distinguish between the two as mathematics being more a of “Michelangelo seeing what was already present in the stone” situation.
The aliens we may encounter years from know probably won’t speak English. They’ll probably speak “math”, though.
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Vera_Ljuba
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Math, geometry, logic and some more are abstract sciences. Humans created the axioms which they are dependent upon. Some of these axiomatic systems are quite suitable to describe the physical reality. Others are purely artificial concoctions, which may or may not have practical uses.
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Bradski
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I’ll go with that. Maths is universal and language, almost by definition, is not.
But you might be interested in what people like Steven Pinker (and originally Chomsky) say about our innate ability to learn language as children. As if there is a universal grammar. We just adapt to the particular language in which we are brought up, so learning a complex language like Finnish is no different to learning a simple one like Bahasa Indonesian.
Until we pass childhood and then it becomes much more difficult.
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Samwise21
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What do you guys think of this **** where Massimo Pigliucci called out Pope Francis
rationallyspeaking.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/dear-pope.html
rationallyspeaking.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/dear-pope.html
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reggieM
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I’m familiar with him so I didn’t bother to read it all.
It seems he’s basically saying that Pope Francis believes in God and since Pigliucci thinks God doesn’t exist, then the Pope should be ashamed of himself.
The only thing I like about Pigliucci is that he attacks other atheists because they don’t have any respect for philosophy. That makes for some interesting conflicts.
But other than that, that article looked like another attempt to generate some attention for himself.
It seems he’s basically saying that Pope Francis believes in God and since Pigliucci thinks God doesn’t exist, then the Pope should be ashamed of himself.
The only thing I like about Pigliucci is that he attacks other atheists because they don’t have any respect for philosophy. That makes for some interesting conflicts.
But other than that, that article looked like another attempt to generate some attention for himself.
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Russell_SA
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You can be justified in knowing a particular god of particular logically contradictory attributes does not exist such as the Abrahamic god, but you can not be justified in knowing that no god exists or does exist since we can not test for it.
Gnosticism is to know something
Theism is to be convinced of something without direct knowledge of it.
So you can be:
Gnostic Theist - Convinced and know god(s) exists. Both are positive claims that can be challenged and the null-hypothesis, default position is to not believe them until convinced.
Agnostic Theist - Convinced but does not know god(s) actually exist. First part is a positive claim and is challengeable. Second is not a positive claim about reality.
Gnostic Atheist - Unconvinced and knows god(s) do not exist. Second is a positive claim and is challengeable.
Agnostic Atheist - The null hypothesis of this issue. To be unconvinced and to not have direct knowledge that god(s) exist.
Ex: Jury members are atheist about the event that took place at the beginning of the trial since by default, they assume the defendant is not guilty, and it’s up to the prosecution to convince the jury of the positive claim that the defendant is actually guilty. Same with god, it’s up the theists to convince people that a deity exists. The default position is to not believe it till convinced; IE the null hypothesis.
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Vonsalza
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sigh
This well-within-living memory innovation has already become quite the tired canard…
First problem - Where does one cross over from “agnostic” to “gnostic”?
Where in the spectrum between “I don’t know”, “I’m not sure”, “It’s possible”, “It might be”, “I think so”, “I’m convinced” and “ALLAHU ACKBAR!!!” has one crossed from “agnostic” to “gnostic”?
This obviously segues into discussions on the murky difference between “believing” and “knowing” and how arbitrary those distinctions are (“It’s reasonable to assume…” being a secularist analogue for “I have faith that…”).
Second problem - the creation of the term “agnostic atheist” (which is really the only reason this sophomoric theism-square was created) is nonsensical. It takes a word that claims belief in a lack of gods and mashes it with another that means the existence of gods is unknown if not unknowable. Nonsensical.
Probably why Sagan picked “agnostic” for his religious label…
If you don’t currently believe in the existence of god, but concede that your view is due to a lack of evidence and there could be something yet discovered, there’s already a word for that. A real one;
The classic agnostic.
Another attempt by atheists to widen a net that doesn’t work very well. It still doesn’t.
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Bradski
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It’s not widening the net. It’s exactly the same net. It’s just that some people get confused (or at least say that they are confused) when the word is used. So we try to give a fuller explanation of what we mean.
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Vonsalza
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Then I humbly beg your pardon.
When one compares definitions of the word “atheist” between sources and publication dates, it certainly seems like there’s been a bit of revisionism. It also seems that attempts to redefine the word as passively as possible still didn’t satisfy, so mash-ups with categorically different adjectives started popping up a mere couple decades ago. All seeming like an attempt to “de-posit” (if you’ll pardon the usage) a claim.
But I suppose it’s mere clarification on behalf of all atheists, as you say.
Mea culpa.
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reggieM
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I would challenge this. A person can have direct knowledge of God, so Theism would include both those that do have this and those that don’t.
Yes, the difference here with atheism is that it is a positive claim about an existing entity that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt (to the individual and also to those who are open to being convinced).
This is the attempt to prove a negative. It is affirming that “it is impossible for God to exist”.
That statement is contradictory for a number of reasons.
If it is possible for God to exist, then one cannot ever positively know that God does not exist. The search space for God is infinite and no human can traverse it.
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Russell_SA
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So you seem to not have researched the difference between being convinced about something and to know something.
I’ll reference the jury again. They do not know what actually happened in the trial case they are there to listen to. So they are agnostic about the event. They are also atheist about the event by default because the default position is to assume the defendant is not guilty until they are convinced by the prosecution that the defendant is probably guilty. Same with the god argument, the default position is to not believe the claim until the person is convinced of the arguments for it’s existence. You know this, the readers know this, stop this absurdity.
To have direct experience and independent confirmation would be a good place to start to say that you know something. This is because you could experience an event and but you have to have independent verification of it to make sure you are not hallucinating or misinterpreting the data some way that would cause you to misrepresent what actually happened.
IE: Gravity waves - Einstein used mathematics to move from atheist to theist on the idea of gravity waves existing. But we did not know that they existed until we ran the experiment in 2015 and actually detected them. Independent testing confirmed this as well. Now we are gnostic theists about gravity waves.
Please stop making me slap my head at the absurd attempts you are making to dismiss this line of discussion. It’s really a waste of my time.
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reggieM
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The question of god’s existence is not a claim or even an argument. It’s a question about each person’s individual existence, purpose, destiny, meaning. The default position is meaning, purpose and destiny - therefore God.
The claim that counters the default is “everything = nothing” (atheism). That claim is contradicted by every human being in everyday life.
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Vonsalza
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To the contrary, I spent much time in my university’s Philo dept. (to my father’s chagrin) before finally picking another major (to my father’s great joy).
“Belief” and “knowing” are two different points on the exact same continuum.
The physicists running the Hadron Collider are as sure of the existence of a given sub-atomic particle as the Jihadi is of the existence of Allah right before they detonate their bomb-vest.
You assume you can verify the existence of neutrinos on the word of men in white coats. The Jihadi assumes he can verify the existence of Allah on the word of men in white turbans.
You assume those fields couldn’t be more different. I disagree. In both, a laity takes as gospel the word of the learned elite within that particular field with the assurance that if you spent as much time studying the subject in the same way they had, you’d come to the same conclusions.
The existence of group mania suggests they’re right. Hell, I might even be a better skeptic than you are. I’m just willing to admit where I use faith for things I haven’t personally experienced.
Johnny Cash sang it best: “What is Truth?”
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inocente
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That would make sense if you were talking about the impossibility of knowing for certain there isn’t a teapot orbiting any planet anywhere in the universe. But is God really so tiny and insignificant? Isn’t God that than which nothing greater can be conceived? Surely not someone who can be squirreled away in an infinite search space?
Not sure I understood but you appear to be claiming that meaning proves God. Nope. I’m under no obligation to go along with whatever you think is the meaning and purpose of my life, whether or not you tell me it was a message from God. The default position is each person finds her own meaning and purpose.
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reggieM
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Yes, but apparently quite a lot of people cannot find Him.
Well, meaning and purpose come from somewhere and are directed to an end, goal of final outcome.
What Russel_SA is saying is that the default position is atheism, which is the same as saying there is no ultimate meaning or purpose.
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Russell_SA
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I’ll leave this to the fair-minded readers to see if your statement is as absurd as I believe it to be. You’re coming across as suggesting that the claim of a deity existing is not a claim. I believe that is called “special pleading fallacy”. Sorry but since that does not make sense to me, everything that follows is irrelevant since it’s based on your first premise. Or you could clarify more here.
For me reality of logical conversation goes:
Person A: I believes X exists. (This, by definition, is a positive claim about reality.)
Person B: Why?
Person A: Because A + B = rubbish conclusion (This, by definition, is the argument.)
B = sorry but I don’t believe X exists based on your rubbish logic. It still may exist, but I’m not convinced by your presentation for it’s existence and since I can not go independently verify it’s existence, I can’t know that it exists for myself. So I’m still unconvinced and still agnostic about knowing it exists, aka agnostic atheist.
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Russell_SA
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I agree that knowledge is a subset to belief. I’ll reference gravity waves again. Einstein believed that gravity waves should exist based on the mathematics of reality as he understood them. His belief that they should be there told us where to go look once we could look for them. But he did not know yet if they existed. Once we ran the tests in 2015 and actually detected them, then we were justified in knowing they exist. Real world application of how we use the terms belief and knowing.
Skipping a step and jumping straight to defining the difference between science community and the theistic community.
Evidence by personal revelation is only evidence for the individual. To everyone else it is heresy. That is the only evidence people have for knowing the supernatural exists for them since it can not be independently verified by others. Others may be argued to believe this person’s tale, but they still can not independently verify that event. Also, since it can not be independently verified by others about the event, the individual is not justified in distinguishing the difference between a delusion or reality or a misinterpretation of the event.
Science does not do this. You know this, the readers know this, stop this tom foolery here.
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Vonsalza
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No, no. Not a subset. Two different points on a continuum between “perfect uncertainly” and “perfect conviction”.
yawn
For the Christian theist, Christ was foretold as being a Nazarene and would be betrayed for the pieces of silver. Lo and behold, what did Christians say happened?
The men in funny hats were predicting things and then validating those predictions millennia before the men in funny coats started doing the very same thing today. “The Annual Review of Astronomy” is your Bible. The Septuagint was theirs.
This is essentially your “fairy” in the everlasting “my blue-eyed sky-fairy is better than your brown-eyed sky-fairy” conflict.
Sure. And the religious communities all the world over are made up of people who affirm practically identical experiences within their community.
Stop your ideological hand-waving…
Every group does this. The effect of “bandwagon” is just as documented within the halls of the academy as it is everywhere else.
To be sure, I’m on-board with the likely existence of gravity waves. But I’m no more sure about it than I am anything else I’ve not personally experienced or verified; as a reasonable person should be, no?
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reggieM
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Person A believes logical first principles came from somewhere, but he won’t explain where - he just makes this assumption. Then he proceeds to use those unexplained priniciples to argue about origins.
The argument fails.
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