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Topic: Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology) (Read 5792 times) |
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Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology)
« on: 2005-03-10 21:33:20 » |
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The question was :::
Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism given the current state of epistemology and science?
My response :::
Epistemology being where at some point on top is the axiom, or assumption that leads to many other assumptions. I read a good text Axioms as the Basis for All Understanding, which is written in an approachable format for most I would think and even at times attempts to throw in some humour along the way.
http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Philosophy/axioms/axioms/axioms.html
What it basically states in a nutshell is that we are all in a sense 'guessing' so I don't know and you don't know, so lighten up.
Of course I don't want to lighten up, I want to really know. But, I produce this argument that defeats mine. I don't mind really and It's just a professor of physics that I'm disagreeing with, Duke Uni no less.  Of course I'm trying to keep it light, yet maintain a different stance, that I can indeed know.
Religion is a self-referential system of beliefs based on evidence outside of the realm of investigation. By documents that are within the realm of investigation. The documents within the realm of investigation are evidence enough for me to conclude no-trump on religion. Atheism holds the trump card IMO that even the weakest card is better than the Ace of Religion.
Knowledge of the physical world by the senses, although self-evident come under fire by atomistic theories that everything is composed of atoms and therefore nothing is really what it seems to be. Any numerous arguments that deny the senses access to reality are held as evidence of some inability to know it.
Yet, we are born by nature, whereupon all the materials to form life are in place, and the enviroment to develop life are in place, life will happen as some one has posited recently, and yes, life will persist in happening, because it is bound in reality. We can witness it with our eyes, and understand it with microscopes, and at an atomic level life cannot be denied. Our senses percieve reality directly, no matter what conclusions we regard otherwise.
I agree with the quote of Einstein whether or not he actually even said it " Reality is an illusion albeit a persistant one."
Yet, I maintain that a person and chair at the atomic level might look and act like atoms just the same, but they are in fact not the same because I'm not a chair. People will run with these arguments though.
Now how does this tie into me being an atheist from an epistemological stance. Well, it's simple. Reality is the mediator of all truths in my worldview.
If religion doesn't reflect reality, then it doesn't reflect the truth. If it's not the truth in this sense, then I cannot justify it epistemologically. It's false.
If being agnostic means I cannot know, then It's a position I would have to take, against being able to understand the real situation we are in. My senses unable to determine whether or not religion reflects reality.
I see agnosticism as a stance of not being able to make the call either way. If we can know and understand the nature of the world, in being a part of the world and fitting into the schema of earthly existence we can understand our own natures, and from this vantage understand where we truly belong and will rest.
from : (On Nature and Her Laws) System of Nature - Mirabaud
Man, in short, whether from sloth or from terror, having abnegated the evidence of his senses, has been guided in all his actions, in all his enterprizes, by imagination, by enthusiasm, by habit, by preconceived opinions, but above all, by the influence of authority, which knew well how to deceive him, to turn his ignorance to esteem, his sloth to advantage.
I trust my senses, and I trust my modus to help me know the truth; For to hold a belief affirming of a god I am unable to sense except from abnegation of my senses; can none otherwise be more than deceit, self-deception, mass-deception, and denial of my senses - nonsense.
Should I at once deceive myself, and subjugate my senses to foolishness I should proclaim on high that god is within me and tells me to tell you such as evidence of his mastery of disguise, his ability to shapeshift and take over minds, his ability to produce riddles that disspell demons at once and fill the void with such a peace and presence that none demon could crawl in again.
It's this sort of nonsense, the abnegation of the senses, that keeps one from deriving a justification for knowledge concerning that which is outside the realm of investigation, to wit that which we cannot get our hands on, cannot sense, and cannot comprehend nor understand. Whereas one could easily muse that it's thusly not worthy of obligation, adoration, contemplation, and/or financial donation.
Thanks for your time and for reading because I definitely enjoyed writing it.
best regards - d r i f t
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David Lucifer
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Re:Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology)
« Reply #1 on: 2005-03-11 12:11:14 » |
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I think you allude to the proposition that atheism and agnosticism are not really at odds if you interpret them reasonably. Agnosticism is (or was originally, according to Huxley) a general epistemological stance of evidentialism. The strength of belief you hold in any given statement should be a logical and mathematical consequence of weighing the evidence for and against the statement. It is important to realize that truth lies on a continuum from 0 (absolutely false) to 1 (absolutely true). The numbers aren't important, they could be from -1 to +1 or from 1-9 as we tend to use in Meridion. The zero to one range is useful for making analogies to probability.
Now, with our fuzzy logic glasses on, things become a bit more clear. How strongly do you agree with this statement: "God exists"? If you answer without bothering to find out what the questioner means by "God" and "exists", then you are bound to have some misunderstandings right off the bat. (This would explain a large fraction of the flame wars we see on the net and IRL.) Also note the meaning of the statement (and presumably the answer you would give) is subtley but importantly different from the statements "God existed", "My god exists", "There is but one god and his name is Allah", "ghod exists", etc. etc.
But let's say that you clarify the semantics of the question to your satisfaction and give a quantitative answer from 0 to 1 reflecting the strength of your assent/affirmation/belief in the truth of the statement. Now we can assign you to a category, atheist, theist, or agnostic depending on the value of your answer, whether it is relatively low, high or somewhere in between respectively. It would be nice if we could look of the precise definitions in some authoritative source and see, for example, that an atheist is someone that assigns a truth value of 0.25 or less to existence (suitably defined) of some particular god (also defined). But alas there is no such authority so we'll have to wing it.
Of course we are free to define the terms quantitatively within the CoV and it may be useful to do so. But can we agree to give agnostics the middle third of the spectrum or should they get half, or some other fraction?
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Re:Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology)
« Reply #2 on: 2005-03-12 20:47:56 » |
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How I have a craving to understand the complexities behind belief as it truly works and functions within the mind. I give in to distractions and lose my attention when separating the wheat from the chaff in finding what I seek. I also find many different understandings of how beliefs work.
The reason various stages or as you say spectrum of belief exist I see stemming from a chipping away effect that I can only see as a belief that doesn't change overnight and has consequences beyond it being a mere belief, but a prime axiom, with which a subtle change effects the many other assumptions or axioms that fall below it or from which they gain their support.
In other words beliefs concerning god are prime axioms. Because of there position in an overall world view, any change to a prime axiom will distress other beliefs that stem from it. For this reasoning I believe that any changes in god belief are incremental, thus the many positions along the spectrum.
Now from a scale of 0 to 1 in the strength of beliefs of no dieties exist or no gods exist I'd be hard pressed to come up with any convention that would be 'human' enough to work.
Beliefs concerning god reach into a system of beliefs and effect many things concerning a persons worldview.
From what I can gather about human systems of beliefs they are messy, not very mechanical, and subject to change. Especially so for those that take the effort to think about what they believe and try and put together a more cohesive and less contradictory worldview.
When dealing with worldviews aesthetics should not be overlooked and this is why the problem of evil is very effective in turning theist off of the christian belief system because of the ugly side of beliefs based on the abrahamic god or christian god.
Now earlier as I mentioned I don't know about conventions and categorizations, although they can be useful as a measure of success in a way of where people stand on certain issues, but humans being human some defy being categorized.
Just a guess say in the spectrum of things I'd like to know how such beliefs work in the brain. By voltage regulation or some other means such as a negative to positive scale for one particular belief say -10 thru 0 to +10 over god belief.
-10 being a 'foaming at the mouth' atheist or strong atheist
and +10 being a 'rabid fundamentalist' theist.
Or are they two separate beliefs.
0 thru 10 belief in god(s) theist
0 thru 10 disbelief in gods
Two separate beliefs with the 0 scale being apathy. In the course of observing peoples belief systems for a while I see apathy as a common divide between different systems of belief. Where no seeming positive belief is asserted either way.
Towards god belief I see this as agnosticism in it's various strengths.
For 0 to 1 using decimal places the equivalent would be incrementally over 0 to 1 by way of .1 .2 .3 .4 .5 .6 etcetera same difference and maybe your ahead of me to know any voltage electrical/chemical compositions of beliefs in the brain. Please do tell!
I think for agnosticism past apathy could go towards the .3 range or so towards doubt, disbelief, or skepticism.
Although a strength on the more extreme ends towards absolute certainty would risk becoming to fundamental to see anything with objectivity regarding an attack towards a need for such strength and certainty.
Epistemological though, I think that atheism is just as defensible as taken from a point of view that regards our senses as capable of percieving reality directly and not denying ourselves the ability to know what's real from the imaginary. Most religious indoctrinations begin by thrawting a persons ability to sense reality, truly a bugbear to have to make people deny what's obvious to believe something absurd, yet absurdities are being sold to the gullible everyday including this not being able to see reality or know the truth, without denying the senses or as carlyle puts it ....
Pin thy faith to no man's sleeve. Hast thou not two eyes of thy own?
I'm not sure if I answered you question in a coherent way regarding the spectrum but I'm really attempting to understand the way the spectrum would be accounted for as the way beliefs work towards one end or the other.
As far as I know. Agnosticism - means you cannot know and atheism means you can know. From a defensible position I think being unable to know, is problematic and is only a matter of understanding how to know by a system of justifying the belief with observation of reality.
- d r i f t
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Re:Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology)
« Reply #3 on: 2005-03-13 11:23:10 » |
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Quote from: d r i f t on 2005-03-12 20:47:56
-10 being a 'foaming at the mouth' atheist or strong atheist
and +10 being a 'rabid fundamentalist' theist.
Or are they two separate beliefs.
0 thru 10 belief in god(s) theist
0 thru 10 disbelief in gods
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They are one belief to the extent that they are linked by a logical relation. As one belief gains in strength, the other must lose strength to maintain consistency.
Quote:
For 0 to 1 using decimal places the equivalent would be incrementally over 0 to 1 by way of .1 .2 .3 .4 .5 .6 etcetera same difference and maybe your ahead of me to know any voltage electrical/chemical compositions of beliefs in the brain. Please do tell!
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Though beliefs no doubt have some physical correlates in the electrical/chemical compositions of the brain in would be too much to hope that there is a direct relation between voltage and strength of belief.
Quote:
As far as I know. Agnosticism - means you cannot know and atheism means you can know. From a defensible position I think being unable to know, is problematic and is only a matter of understanding how to know by a system of justifying the belief with observation of reality.
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There are different reasons for remaining agnostic (undecided) on an issue. One possibility is that you have no relevant evidence either way. Another possibility is that the evidence you have that supports the belief is balanced by evidence you have that contradicts it. A third possibility related to the first is that the belief is such that there can be no evidence either way, in other words an unfalsifiable belief. For example the belief that god exists but uses his omnipotence to hide himself (altering perceptions and memories at will to cover his tracks).
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Re:Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology)
« Reply #4 on: 2005-03-19 15:29:24 » |
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lucifer :: They are one belief to the extent that they are linked by a logical relation. As one belief gains in strength, the other must lose strength to maintain consistency.
drift :: Yes but when you say one belief and other belief are you not speaking of two different ones?
previous : drift :: For 0 to 1 using decimal places the equivalent would be incrementally over 0 to 1 by way of .1 .2 .3 .4 .5 .6 etcetera same difference and maybe your ahead of me to know any voltage electrical/chemical compositions of beliefs in the brain. Please do tell!
lucifer:: Though beliefs no doubt have some physical correlates in the electrical/chemical compositions of the brain in would be too much to hope that there is a direct relation between voltage and strength of belief.
drift:: alright, but then say something acts in a terrifying way on your belief as to it's wrongness, no fear of moving vehicles, then i'd say the voltage is turned up quickly on that belief to destroy it and a new one in it's place, avoid moving vehicles, a strong new belief.
belief as assertions taken as true.
previous drift :: s far as I know. Agnosticism - means you cannot know and atheism means you can know. From a defensible position I think being unable to know, is problematic and is only a matter of understanding how to know by a system of justifying the belief with observation of reality.
lucifer::: There are different reasons for remaining agnostic (undecided) on an issue. One possibility is that you have no relevant evidence either way. Another possibility is that the evidence you have that supports the belief is balanced by evidence you have that contradicts it. A third possibility related to the first is that the belief is such that there can be no evidence either way, in other words an unfalsifiable belief. For example the belief that god exists but uses his omnipotence to hide himself (altering perceptions and memories at will to cover his tracks).
drift ::: Well I suppose that's the catch isn't it? Gods cannot be and not be at the same time. They either exist or they do not.
Agnosticism holds it to be true, that a person cannot know whether they actually do or do not exist.
Point being that either they do or they do not. As an atheist and further as a strong atheist I assert that we can in fact know that's gods do not exist, just as the theist asserts that we can know that gods do exist.
What happens then is usually a contradiction of ungodly illogical reasoning. Be it ever so humble for me to avoid cognitive dissonance; because I know that gods do not exist, it would be to the theist to show that there particular flavor of god is the correct one. I only nip it in the bud so to speak, that they are all nuts to believe in any one of their convolutions; for reasons they give to worship some invented higher being.
The agnostic knows something is wrong with religion, they just can't call it either way. I'm not afraid of being wrong in this sense because I have reason enough to believe that we can know gods don't exist, as easily as I can know that if I make up one of my own, that it won't materialize because of my faith in it.
I suppose in this light it becomes obvious, that what we are really speaking of is the power of beliefs, to change things. Usually through the actions of the believers. Now this on the other hand is something you can believe. Beliefs do change things and I'd be damned to think otherwise.
This is why I want to focus some efforts to understand the limits of beliefs, how they work and how much they act as a force on peoples behaviors. Quite a bit from what i've gathered.
- d r i f t
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Re:Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology)
« Reply #5 on: 2007-05-07 15:49:21 » |
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It has been over two years since I have posted and this is a thread I remember forming just before I stopped. I intended to read it and respond but I fell out of the habit of posting on forums altogether. I am sure that I have missed out on much discussion in that time on this subject but I'll respond here because it seems an appropriate spot.
There is something unsatisfying about describing Agnosticism as simply the belief that "you cannot know" what is more important is why you cannot know. There was a core logic to Huxley's opinion on epistemology and it is best articulated by the essence of the scientific method, which is probably the best system for determing what is probably true and what is probably false, so grounded in logic and reason as it is. (For reference I'll state that essence as: presenting a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, observing results and drawing the conclusion.) The way I, as an Agnostic, view the question of God is as follows. It is a hypothesis that cannot proceed to testing. It is not testable. The non-testability of a given idea should mean that it is a non-issue. That which can be tested can be concluded upon; that which cannot be tested is a non-issue.
Epistemologically, there is a difference between viewing something as being ineffectual and negating it. And that difference should be recognized to prevent compromising the consistiency of reason. What happens with Atheism is just that: it say "what a ridiculous notion God is" and decides that is grounds to bypass the logic of the scientific method to conclude that either a god does not exist or that it probably does not exist. Informally, an Agnostic can agree with the statement that a god is a ridiculous notion -- something people often do not realize -- but for a slighly different reason which is that there is absolutely no reason to believe it. An Agnostic would say there is no reason to believe in a god and and Atheist would say there is no reason to believe in a go and therefore it probably does not exist. I believe that latter thought process is flawed even if it is very similar to the former and that the two ideas would not affect the sensibilities of the other on the day-to-day scheme of things.
This is also why I am not a huge fan that "0 to 1 scale" which is similar to the probablility scale presented in Dawkins's The God Delusion in the chapter titled "The poverty of agnosticism" (and I will admit that that chapter is all I have read from the book). First of all it sets the scale up in such a way that the whole of Agnosticism lies right in the middle of religion and Atheism. I don't think this is accurate and it would probably have to at least in part with my second problem with the scale. The second problem is the fact that it relies on probablility. What is going unsaid about the idea of probablility when presenting these scales is that in order to have probablility determination you have to be able to test something to some degree. Sometimes concepts that lie on the scale as having a given probability are not testable ideas. I will concede that some are testable but the problem is that the testable ones speak for the non-testable ones. The way that problem manifests itself is through defeating religious dogma and using that result as a way to negate all possible manifestations of a god, which are infinite in nature and would not necessarily affect the natural universe in a testable fashion. The realm on non-testability is infinite. Therefore one cannot produce a scale of probability (which requires a element of testing to determine) that either uses the testable as the test for the non-testable or that places the non-testable within the scale directly.
I feel Agnosticism is the most natural position because the scientific method is a very natural way for people to understand their surroundings. If you are presented with a closed, 2'x2'x2' box and cannot open it and the presenter asks whether or not it is empty, would you determine that it is empty because you cannot see that it has contents? No, I don't think any normal person would. And creating a probability scale with which you determine that a live elephant cannot exist in it is non sequitur. This is the extenmsion of the same thought process. Atheism is reactionary and for that reason loses site of the very thing it seeks to instruct: science. It seems to suspend the logic that science is dependent on to counter the tenacity of religion.
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Re:Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology)
« Reply #6 on: 2007-05-07 17:20:36 » |
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Quote from: ObfuscatoryAlias on 2007-05-07 15:49:21 | ... What happens with Atheism is just that: it say "what a ridiculous notion God is" and decides that is grounds to bypass the logic of the scientific method to conclude that either a god does not exist or that it probably does not exist. |
[Blunderov] Well, my personal atheism holds that the sense in which god is a "ridiculous notion" is that the concept is logically incoherent. A priori, god cannot exist. Nothing to do with probability at all.
(If it was alleged that at the bottom of my garden there lived a creature that could divide itself by zero and come up with a different remainder every time I would also not be an agnostic about that.)
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Re:Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology)
« Reply #7 on: 2007-05-07 17:41:16 » |
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What is the concept that you consider logically incoherent? A god can always be responsible for or attributed to that which is not known or not understood.
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Re:Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology)
« Reply #8 on: 2007-05-07 18:23:43 » |
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I haven't done this for a long time, so once more with feeling:
Atheism is the rejection of the vesting of "belief" in gods. "A" without, "theism", the vesting of belief in god thingies. So atheism speaks not to the existence or non-existence of so called "gods" but of the vesting of belief in them. Confusion may arise when "strong atheism" implies the rejection of the existence of god thingies in which to vest belief, and "weak atheism" rejects the concept of belief itself without grounds for vesting it, but these are classifications of atheists, and not atheism itself.
Meanwhile, agnosticism speaks neither to the existence or vesting of belief in god thingies, but to the need to qualify the attributes of a thingy as conferring (or more likely not conferring) god status, and the total inability to establish the necessary qualities of god thinginess to make this determination.
So while atheism and agnosticism are different, they both relate - powerfully - to a need for evidence to accept the improbable, and as such they are compatible with each other, although neither is dependent on the other (and there may exist weird examples who combine theism with agnosticism or assert knowledge of non-contradictory god-thingies qualifying attributes yet reject belief). I have met neither. Instead, real examples of atheists reject asserted god-qualifications as nonsensical, and most agnostics and all atheists reject belief in gods; meaning that with the exception of those potential agnostics who claim that the attributes of gods are unknowable but still vest belief in them (theoretically possible but I have never met somebody this daft), all agnostics are in any case atheists (although some agnostics who haven't realized that atheism covers a very broad range from the weak atheist (who doesn't know if there are no gods, but doesn't vest belief in them - what most people unfamiliar with Huxley might incorrectly describe as an agnostic position) to the strong atheist (who asserts that there are no gods in which to vest belief) might assert - incorrectly - that they are not atheists, but instead claim to be so open minded that their brains have flowed out leaving them empty headed, and possibly even repeat the ridiculous assertions of some befuddled atheists, that atheism somehow requires belief in order to reject the ridiculous notions of believers, possibly a hangover from the days when Christians regularly killed people for professing atheism.
Belief (Lucifer would perhaps have "unreasonable", "irrational" or "unfounded" belief, asserting that because believers have contaminated the word-pool by using the same word to refer to acceptance of founded conclusions, that actually "rational belief" is possible. I and many post Russellian philosophers, along with anyone following the interesting discoveries about the very different brain processes and areas used when making different kinds of decisions, would strongly disagree. The use of the same word (model) does not imply the same process (terrain) - or even a related process, except perhaps in that both of them supposedly happen in the majority of humans. This is why I have introduced a new word, "weyken," to describe truth propositions reached through evidence, preferably through the use of the scientific method as it evolves to distinguish the rational or founded assignment of a truth value from the faith based "belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel". (Bierce, Ambrose, "The Devil's Dictionary"). Weyken qualifies "truth values" through the process used to attain it, in the same way as agnosticism was intended to address the attributes used to assign a particular truth value to statements of god qualities (and strongly foreshadowing Popper to a truly remarkable degree) happens in the absence of evidence and the vesting of it requires as a foundation, a lack of evidence, or the disregarding of counter evidence, else belief is not required to formulate a truth value for a proposition under study.
Speaking for myself on this subject, which I don't often do these days as I have other more significant things to think about, I am an agnostic always, a weak atheist towards the idea that there may be some thing I might accept as being a god if somebody could define such a thingies in a way I might accede to, but a strong atheist in regards to every god thingies proposition I have seen articulated to date, simply because every set of god attributes I have seen articulated have not only been a "self-referential system of beliefs based on evidence outside of the realm of investigation," but also a "self and reality contradicting set of propositions" which necessitate the acceptance of consequences which ought to be visible if the propositions however unlikely, were true. Fortunately for our sanity, the Universe regularly proves that contra they claims of the religious, it is not only uncaring, unforgiving, unmerciful, irresistible, and deadly (qualities sufficient to reject most god notions), it also doesn't give a shit about your sex life or the sex lives of the vast numbers of previously dominant and now extinct species (qualities sufficient to reject most of the rest).
Kind Regards
Hermit
PS Interestingly, the more human the gods become, the more likely they become - but the less deserving of godhood.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology)
« Reply #9 on: 2007-05-07 23:35:14 » |
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I'm not sure what Hermit was getting at speculating on what I mean by belief, but just to clarify I use the term in the same sense that it is used in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and most common usage, that is to believe something is to accept it as true (completely independent of how or why it is accepted as true, or whether or not is true).
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Re:Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology)
« Reply #10 on: 2007-05-08 02:49:16 » |
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Quote from: ObfuscatoryAlias on 2007-05-07 17:41:16 What is the concept that you consider logically incoherent? A god can always be responsible for or attributed to that which is not known or not understood.
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Does this help any ObfuscatoryAlias?
The author is someone named David Hill, who I'm not familiar with, except for this well-worn piece which is quite good.
Walter
David Hill wrote:
The classical attributes of a deity are singularity ("there can only be
one") omniscience (all-knowing), omnipotence (all-powerful),
omnipresence ('(S)He's everywhere!"), omni beneficence (all-good), and
omnisoothience (all-true). One can immediately see that the attributes
of omniscience and omnipotence cannot simultaneously inhere in a
single deity. If a deity were omniscient (knew everything), then it
would know the future and thus be powerless to change it, but if it were
omnipotent (all-powerful), then it could change the future, and therefore
could not know it for certain. It's like the simultaneous impossibility of
an irresistible force and an immovable object; if one of these two
deific properties exists (and they are considered to be the most
important two), then the other logically cannot.
Furthermore, If deity were everywhere, it could perceive nothing, for
perception requires a point of view, that is, a spatiotemporal
perspective other than that of the perceived object from which to
perceive that object. Deity being omnipresent (everywhere), there is
nowhere that deity would not be, thus nothing it could perceive.
It gets even worse. Deity must be perfect; in fact, perfection is what is
broken down into all those 'omni' subcategories. thus, a perfect deity
could not even think. Thought is dynamic, that is, to think, one's
thought must move between conceptions. Now, thought could
conceivably move in three directions; from perfect to imperfect, from
imperfect to perfect, and from imperfect to imperfect (from perfect to
perfect is not an alternative, perfection being singular and movement
requiring distinguishable prior and posterior). But all of the three
possible alternatives contain either prior or posterior imperfection or
both, which are not allowably entertained in the mind of a perfect deity.
There's much, much more that I could add, but this should more than
suffice to demonstrate that asserting the existence of a deity
possessing the attributes that most consider essential to it deserving
the deific appellation mires one in a miasmic quagmire of irretrievable
contradiction, once one journeys beyond emotion-driven faith and uses
one's noggin to divine (Luvzda pun!) the nonsensical and absurd
consequences necessarily entailed.
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Walter Watts
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Hermit
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Re:Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology)
« Reply #11 on: 2007-05-08 09:53:07 » |
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Off-topic Aside
Like Huxley, who expressed similar thoughts well over a century ago, I think that it is beyond time to distinguish between the completely different mechanisms involved in determining that something may be true or false through rational processes (which is what I suggest establishes the rational world in which Lucifer claims to live), in that, given evidence, the vesting of belief is not required to assert falsity, only the acceptance of evidence; and the irrational intuiting of truth values through internal processes which are invalidated by the presence of confirmatory evidence (what I suggest 'belief' means in effect for the general population who live outside of Lucifer's "bubble of rationality").
I hold the strong perspective that confusing the rational beliefs (what I would call "weyken") with irrational beliefs based on unfounded or badly founded convictions (what I, like most of mankind, would call "belief"), is only possible through ignoring the very different processes involved in reaching conclusions about truth values through using the same name for both, and have long concluded based on cui bono, that this confusion assists only those whose agenda is to confabulate their beliefs with rationality, and based on the acknowledgements of the primary source of the confusion, Noah Webster, a lexicographer with a self acknowledge religious motivation and goal, have concluded that this was at least in some part, deliberate.
This confusion is something I refuse to contribute to; as I see those engaged in maintaining this confusion as enemies of rationality - simply because, irrespective of their motivations, this is the ultimate effect of this confusion. Arguing otherwise based on the terminology of philosophy is to ignore the fact that modern philosophical ideas and methods are by and large the direct descendants of around 1500 years of careful mismanagement and poisoning of the debate by religious masters of memetics (another concept I share with noted atheist thinkers including Huxley and Russell), and the sequel to at least 4,000 years of religiously indoctrinated thinkers before that. If we agree that memetics has any relevance whatsoever, we are also, volens nolens forced to acknowledge that framing and language are massively loaded on the side of irrationality. Until the rational atheists break out of this framework by refusing to continue to enable it, I doubt that it is possible to propagate rationality or atheism to any but a very small group made up of the few intellectually competent people not already predisposed to regard irrationality (including the defense of using the same word to deal with the fruits of application of the handmaiden of reason, the scientific method, with the irrational assignment of truth values in the absence - or face - of evidence) as reasonable.
As I recall it, Lucifer once challenged me that he would stop using belief when I answered him what to use instead of "belief system." I weyken I have long done so.
Kindest Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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David Lucifer
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Re:Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology)
« Reply #12 on: 2007-05-08 19:29:59 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2007-05-08 09:53:07
As I recall it, Lucifer once challenged me that he would stop using belief when I answered him what to use instead of "belief system." I weyken I have long done so.
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I must have missed that. What do you call propositions accepted as true independent of how or why or if they are true? If you don't see the need for a word for that than I think you have missed my point all along.
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Hermit
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Re:Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology)
« Reply #13 on: 2007-05-08 23:43:32 » |
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Clearly I've missed your point all along.
Many believers won't change for quite some while, and hopefully the new users will reserve weyken for use in appropriate moments. So the word for unfounded, unverified, unvalidated acceptance of something as true [I would say this includes all instances of asserting a truth value without evidence, in other words the assertion of falsity as well] remains belief. Naturally the existence of a word denoting truth values assigned for qualified cause will inevitably result in the downgrading of other classes of "belief" and those for whom this matters are likely to migrate their usage.
Kindest Regards
Hermit
PS Thanks-for the sponsorship. If all goes well I expect we will end up not only having bats in the belfry, but alsio having beagles in the basement :-)
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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David Lucifer
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Re:Is agnosticism more "defendable" than atheism (epistemology)
« Reply #14 on: 2007-05-09 10:16:09 » |
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My understanding of your (Hermit's) position is that we need a new word (weyken) because the influence of religion has caused the vast majority of english speakers to associate the word "belief" with irrational origins (i.e. unfounded, unverified, unvalidated acceptance). I have seen no evidence that this is true. I could point to dictionaries that have definitions without this association. I have read scores of books, and talked to hundreds of people and as far as I can tell honestly, this association is only a possibility, definitely not a necessary part of the definition. Most references of "belief" I have read in a scientific or technical context would not make sense if the association was necessary. My evidence is that when the origin of the belief is important it is always qualified so the reader understands.
Do you have any evidence to the contrary?
BTW I think weyken is a fine word as a shorthand for those beliefs that are derived or inferred in a scientific, rational, empirical manner, but it could be replaced everywhere with "rational beliefs" without loss of meaning.
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