An Exploration Into"Agnosticism"

Hey RAZD,If there exists substantial evidence of a possibility, yet unverified, then that possibility has not been negated. Once the evidence has been evaluated then the possibility can either be further considered or rejected.Still, I can appreciate your point and your wording.I have a major issue with "subjective" evidence (no surprise there), but I'll leave that discussion to you and Straggler ... again ... maybe.

Thanks AZPaul, It was not without some reluctance that I have replied here, as I don't want to be dragged down that rabbit hole again (particularly when a lot of what I see here has been discussed already).Enjoy.

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That the majority of the world over the course of human history identifies with supernaturalism in form or the other makes it relevant to at least examine why that is. It could be entirely a human invention or there could be some truth to it. What I am saying is for me, personally, I do not have all the evidence to make a truly educated decision. The sensible thing to do in my opinion, is simply state that I am an agnostic. Why? Because I awaiting more evidence.That's all it means to me. If you want to be an atheist, knock yourself out. You are entitled that, and your reasons for being an atheist are your own. Why do you feel the need to question my reasons? This is the third thread (that I'm aware of) where you have asked similar questions.What is your beef with agnosticism? There is a reason why it is a logical fallacy. You are leaning upon your own incredulity to make the case for you. How people arrive at their conclusions about the supernatural is claimed to come from personal experience, none of which I can refute, nor care to. The best way to demonstrate the logic or illogic of their position is to ask them specific questions and see if they hold contradictory answers. The bible is a breeding ground for illogical and inconsistent claims. That, however, does nothing to disprove God. It only serves to invalidate what the bible claims of God. And even then there could be smatterings of truth.Either way it is of no consequence to me, and why it is to you is a profound mystery to me. I am agnostic towards the conception of God, whatever that might be. That could be Vishnu, YHWH, or Spinoza's God, whatever. I only argue the specifics.To me, atheism is the positive declaration of no gods, and agnosticism has not enough information make a declaration in either direction.

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"Political correctness is tyranny with manners." -- Charlton Heston

Wouldn't that just mean they're not irrefutable?

Appears I have taken this as a blanket statement and out of context.I stand corrected.

Look whatever the case shall we at least to agree to try and remain civil to each other? That depends. I want to know whether the wider and well publicised disagreement between you and I is the result of disagreeing over whether or not the evidence in question does exist. Or if it is more fundamental than that and revolves around whether or not such evidence can exist. Does that make sense? I am guessing that you won't engage for nemerous reasons but don't let it be said that I have not tried to elicit your full position from you.Are you saying that it is impossible to conclude that the concept of god is a human invention can be based on empirical evidence? Or are you saying that empirical evidence in favour of such a conclusion is just irrelevant? Or are you saying something else (If so - What exactly)? The entire premise of the world-view you are advocating is based on the presumption that gods are "unknowable". But how can you know this? Or even have any indication that this is the case? Raz if anybody else here based their entire personal philosophy on such a baseless assumption you would be the first to rip into the inadequacies of their position. Why do you think your own subjective beliefs are any different? Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

And by "subjective evidence" you mean what exactly? Can you cite a single example directly relevant to the existence of non-empirical beings? Something you have failed to do in multiple threads on this subject.Your entire position on this is based on the unjustifiable conflation of "subjective evidence" (as per courtroom evidence) with Immaterial "Evidence"When are you going to realise that "subjective evidence" and Immaterial "Evidence" are not the same thing?

This has been covered before Straggler You are assuming that such evidence is complete and unequivocal. Curiously, all I gave you was one (1) example to show you that your evidence is necessarily incomplete, as this invalidates your conclusion/s.What you are exhibiting, however, is to my mind the essential difference between an atheist (no matter how tentative they pretend to be) and an agnostic, is that the agnostic remains open-minded, while the atheist has decided (based on incomplete information, opinion, bias and worldview).What I find curious, is that there is no reason to decide something that is not resolved, and may not be able to be resolved: what is wrong with being an agnostic?Why do you consider it more important to conclude that god/s do not exist than to conclude that the answer cannot be known from the evidence available?Enjoy.

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I disagree. Well...To an extent. I don't think we can say with absolute certainty that the IPU or his noodleness do not exist. What if these entities do exist and are supernaturally invoking disbelief in themselves because they are shy? Or what if the IPU only reveals itself to atheists trying to disbunk the existence of deities in a grand display of self verifying ironicism? Nothing is certain. And one irrefutable is only less or more ridiculous for reasons that it is rationally impossible to justify than any other irrefutable.The fact is that all the evidence we have suggets that the entire concept of supernatural unknowables is very probably the product of human invention. Maybe some more than others. But ultimately all.

No. That is just simply untrue. No evidence can ever be considered complete. And no evidenced conclusion is ever unequivocal. I am an evidence based atheist who inherently lacks certainty. I thought we had got past the whole "certainty" issue.With that in mind I am asking if ANY evidence favouring the concept of gods as the product of human invention is relevant to the question of whether or not gods are more likely to be the product of human invention than to actually exist. Do you deny such evidence exists? Or do you deny that such evidence is relevant? That is fundamentally my question to you as I seek the root of our disagreement. But I have always absolutely advocated that any empirically evidenced conclusion is necessarily based on incomplete evidence. That is just a practical fact of every single empirically evidenced conclusion you can name.Likelihood. Not certainty. Why does evidence in favour of the concept of god as a human invention not make that conclusion more likely to be correct? That is the question here. A question you keep evading. If you stop falsely accusing me of certainty and "complete and unequivocal" evidence then you really have no position to speak of regarding this longstanding matter. Nothing where that is not a rational and empirically objectively evidenced conclusion. But on what basis do you presume that gods are "unknowable" rather than the product of human invention? Given the available empirical evidence? How can you know, or even have any indication, that this is the case? The premise of "unknowability" upon which your entire longstanding position is founded is rationally unjustifiable.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

"Strong atheism" being what? The certainty that no gods exist?In other words a position held by no-one here and no-one readily recognisable as representing anyone here (e.g. Dawkins)In which case we can all agree that advocating any argument of certainty is irrational. Which leaves only arguments of relative likelihood. No?If certainty is not possible then only likelihood remains. No?

Then we will disagree. What if this... What if that ...What if there was a water canopy? What if the fine structure constant were different back then?For (what is becoming my favorite movie title) Pinkie and the Noodle, we know the time, the place, the reason and the creators.Please don't get me wrong. I understand what you are saying and why. And for most other issues I might be as skeptical.My opinion, freely given and worth every penny, sometimes there comes a point when the evidence is such that skepticism becomes overly tenacious to the point of failure to acknowledge the reality, where denial becomes obstinacy.

I agree wholeheartedly in practise but I remain insistent that we must remain technically agnostic towards all irrefutable entities no matter how "absurd" or "made up" they may seem subjectively. I quote Bertie once again:

In which case (whether you realise it or not) you are simply citing widespread belief in the supernaual as evidence upon which to elevate supernatural concepts over other entirely uevidenced concepts. Belief as evidence upon which to justify belief (or at least decry "disbelief"). That is circular. The same reason you keep replying to my questions? Is that not why we all participate here? It sounds superficially reasonable and smacks of mindless middle-ism whilst being unable (in my view) to hold up to rational analysis (with regard to any concept of god I have ever seen anyone actually advocate or define). Er no. That is what you are doing in differentiating the irrefutable FSM and IPU (and whatever other "absurd" entities" you find incredulous) from other equally irrefutable entities which you consider worthy of your agnosticism. I advocate that they should all be treated with skepticism on the basis that they are more likley the product of human invention than not. Because I see the illogicality of claiming to know about "unknowable" entities as a logical problem in general and not one restricted to the bible. Claiming to have evidence of non-empirical entities in general falls foul of the problems with Immaterial "Evidence"Then why not the IPU? Seriously. Why exactly is Vishnu more worthy of agnosticism than the IPU? Please explain. This is a genuine point of bemusement on my part. Please help. Is there any evidence in favour of the concept of god being a human invention? Would such evidence have any bearing on the likelihood of such concepts being more or less likely to be the product of human invention than to actually exist?Why is this seemingly innocuous question considered by those (such as RAZD) who advocate agnosticism as so confrontational?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Still avoiding the issue of why you need to decide?You've titled the thread "An Exploration Into"Agnosticism" so this issue does not involve me or my beliefs, rather it seems to focus on yours, and why you are not an agnostic.I'll continue if you want to explore why you feel so compelled to decide, rather than be agnostic, otherwise this will just be one more rehashed hashed hash. But, as has been demonstrated on other threads, your "likelihood" is a product of your human invention. You make up the data set involved, based on opinion and bias in your worldview. Confirmation Bias, Cognitive Dissonance and ide fixes, are not the tools of an open-mind or an honest skeptic, and continued belief in the face of contradictory evidence is delusion.Why do you feel so compelled to decide ... what is wrong with being an agnostic? So you are not agnostic on god/s, because you actually have empirical objective evidence that shows no gods can exist? This would be the evidence that you failed to produce on the Pseudoskepticism and logic thread?Or is it because you are making stuff up? (again)Why do you feel so compelled to decide ... what is wrong with being an agnostic?Certainly by this time, you should be able to admit\recognize that being agnostic is the de facto logical default position, that one needs evidence to logically move from the agnostic position, and that the more logical conclusion in the absence of convincing evidence is agnostic.Why do you feel so compelled to decide ... what is wrong with being an agnostic?If you go around trying to pretend that atheism is really agnosticism, then why not cut to the chase and say you are agnostic? Being tentative about a conclusion, particularly one based in any part on opinion and bias, is not the same as saying that the evidence is not complete enough to form a valid evidence based conclusion. If you base your decision on evidence then what is it? If this purported evidence is nothing more than opinion and bias, then are you being honest?Why do you feel so compelled to decide ... what is wrong with being an agnostic? Being a "pap" as defined, means being just as dogmatic an agnostic as a dogmatic theist or dogmatic atheist.If an agnostic is someone who looks at the available evidence with an open-minded skepticism and concludes that the available evidence is not complete enough to form a valid evidence based conclusion, then one is a "tap" by the above definition. And yet it is easy for a logical mind to conceive of many instances where knowledge, especially knowledge complete enough for making a logical conclusion, is not possible at this time.Curiously, I can state that it is not possible to know at this time what the weather will be like in Washington DC on 01April2020 - will it be cloudy and rainy or dry and sunny? - and so I am agnostic on that issue. As we come closer to that date our ability to predict that weather increases, but we still need to come pretty close to the date to have significant confidence in the prediction, while on 01April2020 the issue become moot.Interestingly, I am not driven to decide one way or the other at this time.This too is part of the agnostic position, as I see it: that a decision based on inadequate information is not necessary to make at this time.Why do you feel so compelled to decide ... what is wrong with being an agnostic? (A) is a position based on empirical evidence that is validated and confirmed.
(B) is a position based on worldview evaluation of available evidence.
(C) is agnosticThe essential problem for the (B)'s - theistic and atheistic - is the question of why the decision is necessary: if it is a life and death decision, then we are evolved to make such a decision and we live or die by the consequences, but if it is purely a fabrication of habit (due to past evolution, being forced to make life or death decisions), then it is an artificial reason.So Straggler, why are you so obsessed with the question? Why do you feel so compelled to decide ... what is wrong with being an agnostic?Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : in any part

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