Questions for Atheists and Agnostics

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cho_pilo

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Why is there so little discussion between atheists and agnostics here?

We have here atheists , anti-theists, and agnostics members.

I guess, there are clashes between them.

And yet they barely discuss their differences here.

How come?
 
cho_pilo said:
Good point Eric. But other than Temporary Ban on Evolution / Atheism Threads Sticky, what are the other reasons? There are bigger fish (theists?) to fry?
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I light of my previous statement, I suppose it would be interesting to see (using the search engine) if there were any such discussions (and how many) on CAF prior to the temporary ban.

I think you have brought up an interesting topic here (for example, are there debates between agnostics and atheists as to which position is the most reasonable?) but I am simply not sure how such a discussion can be conducted in this forum without violating the current ban. Maybe the idea of the ban involves discussions between theists and non-theists, but not in terms of non-theists discussing among themselves the similarities and differences of their positions. I really don’t know. In any event, I think it would be prudent to have the mod’s (name removed by moderator)ut on this before going any further.
 
Most people think of atheism as a more extreme version of agnosticism, but they are actually different answers to two different questions. A person who doesn’t believe in any deities is an atheist. Now some atheists take it a step further and claim that no deities exist. This is a lack of belief coupled with an assertion. Atheism in itself makes no assertions, however; it is simply a lack of belief in deities.

Agnosticism, on the other hand, answers negatively to the question “Can we gain knowledge of deities?” It is an assertion unlike atheism. A person can be an agnostic while still being a theist–such a person would believe in a deity while claiming that they could never actually know about the deity. In other words, agnosticism addresses the question of knowing deities, rather than believing in them.

So there isn’t any real conflict. A person can be an agnostic atheist, just a plain atheist, an agnostic theist, or just a plain theist.
 
Oreoracle said:
Most people think of atheism as a more extreme version of agnosticism, but they are actually different answers to two different questions. A person who doesn’t believe in any deities is an atheist. Now some atheists take it a step further and claim that no deities exist. This is a lack of belief coupled with an assertion. Atheism in itself makes no assertions, however; it is simply a lack of belief in deities.

Agnosticism, on the other hand, answers negatively to the question “Can we gain knowledge of deities?” It is an assertion unlike atheism. A person can be an agnostic while still being a theist–such a person would believe in a deity while claiming that they could never actually know about the deity. In other words, agnosticism addresses the question of knowing deities, rather than believing in them.

So there isn’t any real conflict. A person can be an agnostic atheist, just a plain atheist, an agnostic theist, or just a plain theist.
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Good point. In fact I was what some may consider a agnostic Christian, that is, I believed there was a God, but also did not believe any one had any real knowledge to what is actually true and false. I also believed we could never attain this knowledge as there was no evidence to prove it. My faith was not based on rationale knowledge, because I did not think it was rationale to believe in some thing unseen or unproven.

But there are other types of agnostics, or also known as soft atheists, who do not believe in a god/gods, but do not totally dismiss the possibility. Often the distinction can be blurred between the two.

I have come a long way in my journey, and actually I first disliked the ban when I first came here, after a little thought regarding it, I can understand that no good could come out of open debates with them.
 
Oreoracle said:
Most people think of atheism as a more extreme version of agnosticism, but they are actually different answers to two different questions. A person who doesn’t believe in any deities is an atheist. Now some atheists take it a step further and claim that no deities exist. This is a lack of belief coupled with an assertion. Atheism in itself makes no assertions, however; it is simply a lack of belief in deities.

Agnosticism, on the other hand, answers negatively to the question “Can we gain knowledge of deities?” It is an assertion unlike atheism. A person can be an agnostic while still being a theist–such a person would believe in a deity while claiming that they could never actually know about the deity. In other words, agnosticism addresses the question of knowing deities, rather than believing in them.

So there isn’t any real conflict. A person can be an agnostic atheist, just a plain atheist, an agnostic theist, or just a plain theist.
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There is probably a philosophical distinction between the statements, “I don’t believe there is a god” and “I believe there is no god”, although whether there is a practical distinction is less clear. Some assert that in order to be a ‘real’ atheist, one must be positively certain there is no god, but this is not the case. One does not need to be positively certain there is a god in order to believe, to be a ‘real’ theist.

Some self-identified atheists, it is true, disdain the claims of self-identified agnostics as being ‘wishy-washy’ or ‘fence-sitting’. But if pressed, I suspect most self-identified atheists would admit that they have no certain knowledge one way or the other, just like most self-identified theists would be obliged to acknowledge the same. One could perhaps then go on to make a distinction between ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ agnosticism - ‘I don’t have knowledge of god’ vs ‘I don’t believe it possible to have knowledge of god’.
 
cho_pilo said:
Why is there so little discussion between atheists and agnostics here?

We have here atheists , anti-theists, and agnostics members.

I guess, there are clashes between them.

And yet they barely discuss their differences here.

How come?
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I have never met a true atheist on this forum if by “atheist” you mean a “nihilist” who thinks that the metaphysical nature of existence logically and necessarily precludes the existence of what we call God in all respects.

I have only met agnostics on this forum, people who claim that the limited knowledge we have does not allow us to make the legitimate or rational claim that God exists. The optimistic atheism of today is largely epistemological in nature and principle. These people mostly believe that being an atheist is an epistemological principle of rational and scientific thought, and they often shun metaphysics knowing that it undermines their position.
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
I have never met a true atheist on this forum if by “atheist” you mean a “nihilist” who thinks that the metaphysical nature of existence logically and necessarily precludes the existence of what we call God in all respects.
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I think you’re using your own definitions.
Atheist = someone who doesn’t believe in the existence of god.
 
Sair said:
There is probably a philosophical distinction between the statements, “I don’t believe there is a god” and “I believe there is no god”, although whether there is a practical distinction is less clear.
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There is a clear big logical difference between
  1. Not believing in X
  2. Believing in not-X
The difference there is that a rock doesn’t believe in X, but that doesn’t mean that it believes that X is false. Rocks don’t have any beliefs at all.

But if somebody is actually saying "I don’t believe in the existence of X’, then that does seem to typically imply that they simultaneously believe in the nonexistence of X.

Some says ‘I don’t have a clue whether or not X exists’.
 
cho_pilo said:
Why is there so little discussion between atheists and agnostics here?

We have here atheists , anti-theists, and agnostics members.

I guess, there are clashes between them.

And yet they barely discuss their differences here.

How come?
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The way this sub forum reads, it is a philosophy forum with a catholic emphasis.
That may explain the hesitancy for people to have the types of discussion you describe.
How can a discussion you describe happen with a catholic emphasis?
 
cho_pilo said:
I think you’re using your own definitions.
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No, not really. What i am doing is challenging the definitions by which atheists and agnostics identify themselves on this forum.
cho_pilo said:
Atheist = someone who doesn’t believe in the existence of god.
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The agnostics on this forum don’t believe in God

Sound familiar?

What i tried to show in my previous post is that if somebody does not believe in God because there is no true knowledge of God, then in reality there is no essential difference between the popular understanding of agnosticism and atheism; they are both consequentially the same in that they both end in atheism, and they both claim to be open to the possibility of being persuaded otherwise if the proper evidence is given. If intellectual atheism is by definition an epistemological consequence as opposed to being a metaphysical consequence, then we must agree that most intellectuals who consider themselves agnostic on this forum are in fact “atheists”, because for them the default position of knowledge is disbelief until proven otherwise, this being the popular understanding of atheism. Most atheists consider their position to be the result of some kind of intellectual failure on the part of religion to show evidence of Gods existence; this is essentially no different to agnosticism. This is why some academic atheists criticize agnostics for being closet atheists. But if we are to stay true to agnosticism as being essentially different from atheism, then we must say that all intellectual atheists are really agnostics; and that therefore the term atheism is reserved for those special few that are atheists either out of some kind of idealogical allegiance (political atheism or hedonism) or according to a metaphysical certainty that God does not exist. The metaphysical consequence of intellectual atheism is nihilism. Thus it seems that the only a true atheist/naturalist is a nihilist.

But its a bit more complicated than that. I can be agnostic of Gods existence in terms of true knowledge, and yet still believe in God according to faith; for example i can say that i don’t “know” if God exists for certain, but i have faith in God. Agnosticism, as a principle of knowledge, does not preclude faith when properly understood. So it seems that believers and disbelievers are both equally entitled to the label of agnosticism, if by agnosticism we mean a limitation in scientific or metaphysical knowledge regarding the possible existence of some being or object.

So where does that leave the atheists and agnostics on this forum? It seems to me that they need to redefine their position because their philosophical ideas are overlapping to the extent that one can no-longer consider them as being two separate philosophical positions.
 
I see no reason why the non catholic forum would not be used for such topics.
However, considering the multiple restrictions placed, there may not be an ability to discuss them. Maybe the back fence?
A bit degrading to take such serious discussions there considering that is where non serious matters are to take place.

That is why you don’t see the type of discussion you ask to see here.

It would be like asking you as a catholic to post in the not serious forum on a non theist site.
 
cho_pilo said:
There is a clear big logical difference between
  1. Not believing in X
  2. Believing in not-X
The difference there is that a rock doesn’t believe in X, but that doesn’t mean that it believes that X is false. Rocks don’t have any beliefs at all.

But if somebody is actually saying "I don’t believe in the existence of X’, then that does seem to typically imply that they simultaneously believe in the nonexistence of X.

Some says ‘I don’t have a clue whether or not X exists’.
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Incapacity for holding beliefs, I suspect, does not qualify one to be an atheist - otherwise all of us could rightfully claim to have been born atheists!

I have certainly seen some discussion on other forums regarding the distinction between lack of belief in gods and belief in the nonexistence of gods. There are those who claim that atheism is simply the former, and for a while, I tended to agree; but I now rather think that this misses the point.

IMO atheism, to be worth its salt as a philosophical position and to stand up in the marketplace of ideas, ought to positively embrace the belief that the universe is godless.

Why I suspect many atheists-in-practice shun this stance is due to the fact that religious believers often seize upon this and say that it is supremely arrogant to claim that we know enough about the universe to positively declare that there is no such thing as a god (though how it could be more arrogant than claiming that the god in which one believes is the One True God is beyond me). Such a criticism does a disservice to both sides. Atheists are not claiming to have searched every corner of the universe in order to discard the possibility that God is hiding behind a remote chunk of cosmic debris in a distant galaxy; and if the possibility of such an ineffectual being is enough to sustain belief, it says little for the theist levelling the criticism. It also sidesteps the fact that atheism is a position of belief, not a position of certain knowledge. Theism is likewise a position of belief - I have yet to see anyone who claims certain knowledge of any god’s existence actually provide an explanation of how this certain knowledge was obtained; yet I have seldom heard religious believers criticised for intellectual arrogance.

Belief in a personal, supernatural deity carries with it certain assumptions and expectations about the way the world is. If experience and study lead one to conclude that these assumptions and expectations are erroneous and invalid, it is reasonable to suppose that gods, such as humans conceive of them, do not exist. Atheism is this supposition.
 
Sair said:
Belief in a personal, supernatural deity carries with it certain assumptions and expectations about the way the world is. If experience and study lead one to conclude that these assumptions and expectations are erroneous and invalid, it is reasonable to suppose that gods, such as humans conceive of them, do not exist. Atheism is this supposition.
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Pantheism is the supposition that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that pantheism is true - implying that atheism is false. On what grounds do you hold that belief?
 
tonyrey said:
Pantheism is the supposition that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that pantheism is true - implying that atheism is false. On what grounds do you hold that belief?
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Pantheism is the belief in ultimate unity, that nature and the divine are one and the same - that if we may contemplate divinity at all, then it is of the world, not separate from it. It is not a belief in an individual, personal deity that exists on some ‘higher’ plane, far removed from us. In that regard, it is much closer to atheism than to classical theism.

For me, pantheism came as the awareness of a profound sense of peace and belonging arising from the contemplation of myself as part of nature - but one part of a whole that has been long before me and will remain long after me. Science continues to demonstrate that this is so, in ways that no writer of ancient scripture imagined.
 
Sair said:
Pantheism is the belief in ultimate unity, that nature and the divine are one and the same - that if we may contemplate divinity at all, then it is of the world, not separate from it. It is not a belief in an individual, personal deity that exists on some ‘higher’ plane, far removed from us. In that regard, it is much closer to atheism than to classical theism.

For me, pantheism came as the awareness of a profound sense of peace and belonging arising from the contemplation of myself as part of nature - but one part of a whole that has been long before me and will remain long after me. Science continues to demonstrate that this is so, in ways that no writer of ancient scripture imagined.
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How do you define “divinity”? Is it compatible with physicalism?
 
Sair said:
cho pilo;8307311:
The difference there is that a rock doesn’t believe in X, but that doesn’t mean that it believes that X is false. Rocks don’t have any beliefs at all.
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Incapacity for holding beliefs, I suspect, does not qualify one to be an atheist - otherwise all of us could rightfully claim to have been born atheists!
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Agreed. As far as I can tell my cat doesn’t hold a belief in deities so I wouldn’t classify her based on what she believes or doesn’t believe.

Taking this a step further the “-ist” suffix is found on labels for people. If I walked in a room and asked some one to identify all of the unmarried I would hope they don’t start identifying the table or lamp among the unmarried individuals.
 
ThinkingSapien said:
Agreed. As far as I can tell my cat doesn’t hold a belief in deities so I wouldn’t classify her based on what she believes or doesn’t believe.

Taking this a step further the “-ist” suffix is found on labels for people. If I walked in a room and asked some one to identify all of the unmarried I would hope they don’t start identifying the table or lamp among the unmarried individuals.
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Your cat doesn’t believe in equality, freedom or justice either. Quite a few human beings fall into that category if we are to judge by the way they treat others. The difference is that your cat is not to blame…
 
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