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Author Topic:   Agnosticism vs. Atheism
sidelined
Member (Idle past 5907 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 151 of 160 (58327)
09-28-2003 4:15 PM
Reply to: Message 150 by mark24
09-28-2003 3:40 PM


Mark 24, I do not believe we are offtopic since this concerns the validity of agnostic/atheistic points of view.And I agree that God is off the radar screen of science if,and only if,God does not interact in any PHYSICAL way with the universe.This would mean he is incapable of being seen,heard,felt or otherwise sensed by biological organisms else he WOULD leave a trace that we could investigate.The lack of any trace of evidence could be explained if,we assume,God does NOT interact at anytime after 10*-43 sec. after creation of the universe or at a scale of greater than 10*-35 meters.
I do not feel this would be in agreement with any standard description of God.And again I would ask as I have in other posts, Why is there no effort on the part of creation scientists to objectively search for supportive evidence?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 150 by mark24, posted 09-28-2003 3:40 PM mark24 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 152 by mark24, posted 09-28-2003 4:34 PM sidelined has replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 152 of 160 (58331)
09-28-2003 4:34 PM
Reply to: Message 151 by sidelined
09-28-2003 4:15 PM


sidelined,
The lack of any trace of evidence could be explained if,
Or that we wouldn't understand it if we did, or that we simply haven't found the evidence that does exist....
Mark

This message is a reply to:
 Message 151 by sidelined, posted 09-28-2003 4:15 PM sidelined has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 153 by sidelined, posted 09-28-2003 10:48 PM mark24 has replied

  
sidelined
Member (Idle past 5907 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 153 of 160 (58393)
09-28-2003 10:48 PM
Reply to: Message 152 by mark24
09-28-2003 4:34 PM


Mark 24
"Or that we wouldn't understand it if we did, or that we simply haven't found the evidence that does exist...."
If we look at this statement one is left with wondering why we couldn't understand it nor why the evidence does not exist since we are able to detect forces of both enormous strength and tremendous subtlety.The evidence does not even make it effects known upon the forces we do understand.Any force great enough to manipulate the strong nuclear force would leave its stamp.The difference between the strength of gravity and electromagntism is on the order of 10*43
It also goes to the core of religious texts in that God interacts at a physical level with different individuals.In order to do so he must use physical laws.
[This message has been edited by sidelined, 09-28-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 152 by mark24, posted 09-28-2003 4:34 PM mark24 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 157 by mark24, posted 09-29-2003 10:07 AM sidelined has replied

  
Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 154 of 160 (58445)
09-29-2003 7:17 AM
Reply to: Message 143 by John
09-27-2003 10:58 AM


You can't know that. It is possible that some things exist which we can never detect-- previous or alternate universes for example. It is very questionable whether we can ever settle this. It isn't a statement of existence or non-existence. We simply can't know. Something we can't detect may not make a difference to us and we ought to be able to ignore such things; but that isn't a statement of non-existence.
From a deductive logic point of view you are, of course, correct. However, from a deductive logic point of view we can't really know anything. So any reasonable world view is forced to assume certain things. Most people would agree that it is reasonable to assume that there is a real world. I go perhaps a little further in claiming that it corresponds to what we can sense, either directly or indirectly. I therfore assume (or take on faith, if you prefer) the non-existence of an entity with no possible evidence. What is knowledge depends on what assumptions you make to start with.
Incidently, you're wrong about previous or alternative universes necessarily being un-knowable. There's an interesting discussion of this in a recent Scientific American (I think it was the June issue, but I'm not sure).
That is exactly the problem with 'lack of evidence' arguments. It is always a matter of what we can detect right now. You can't know what will be detectable a few days, weeks, or centuries from now; and so you can't make claims of non-existence based upon lack of evidence.
I'm not making it on lack of evidence. I'm making it on contary evidence. We don't observe what we should observe if there is a god, therfore not god. Not we don't observe god therefore god.
We can refute a lot of particular claims. What this proves is that the particular claim is wrong. You will never exhaust the particular claims and you can't generalize from particular to universal. It would be like trying to prove that there are no red marbles in a box of infinite size. There really is no contradictory evidence. The only way to prove the postulate is to investigate every single aspect of the box. The box being infinite, this is impossible.
If there were an infinite number of gods to refute this would be true. But I don't think there are. I think you have moved from discussing the existence of god to discussing the existence of hypothetical entity #n.
A god is something that is (or was) worshipped by humans. I'll also accept your unknown creator of the universe as a god. That's a pretty finite set. Your creator god will be falsified when we explain the creation of the universe. The others can be falsified on their individual merits.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 143 by John, posted 09-27-2003 10:58 AM John has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 155 by John, posted 09-29-2003 9:30 AM Dr Jack has replied

  
John
Inactive Member


Message 155 of 160 (58456)
09-29-2003 9:30 AM
Reply to: Message 154 by Dr Jack
09-29-2003 7:17 AM


quote:
From a deductive logic point of view you are, of course, correct. However, from a deductive logic point of view we can't really know anything.
Right-o.
quote:
So any reasonable world view is forced to assume certain things.
Yes. The lowest common denominator is perception. It is all we have. With perception as a starting point, you can only gain information about what is, not about what isn't. To get negatives you have to limit the set to a bite sized chunk and essentially list what is in the set and subtract. Simple deduction. If you can't limit the set like that, the process doesn't work.
quote:
Most people would agree that it is reasonable to assume that there is a real world.
"Real" is such a loaded term. Renaisance astronomers screwed the church's real world. Einstein screwed Newton's real world. Quantum mechanics screwed Einstein's real world. Einstein returned the favor. Most people assume a materialistic world-- classicly materialistic-- which is patently wrong as per modern atomic and sub-atomic physics. Things aren't solid, even the particles aren't solid. They aren't even matter, really. The universe isn't a neat 3D box...
quote:
I therfore assume (or take on faith, if you prefer) the non-existence of an entity with no possible evidence.
Functionally, I make the same assumption. It is an assumption, however, not a proof or conclusion derivable from anything we have.
quote:
Incidently, you're wrong about previous or alternative universes necessarily being un-knowable. There's an interesting discussion of this in a recent Scientific American (I think it was the June issue, but I'm not sure).
Must have missed that. But you got the point.
quote:
I'm not making it on lack of evidence. I'm making it on contary evidence. We don't observe what we should observe if there is a god, therfore not god. Not we don't observe god therefore god.
If you have a conception of a god who should leave evidence, then you can test it and prove or disprove that conception. You would spend eternity disproving conceptions that might leave evidence. It is an impossible task. Take gravity. I could go through thousands of ideas-- millions of ideas-- to explain gravity. Disproving all of them would not disprove gravity. With gravity the process would eventually stop because I would, one hopes, stumble upon an idea that does work. With God that might never happen, but assume that God exists and does leave some kind of evidence just as does gravity. How many refuted ideas, refutes the thing?
quote:
If there were an infinite number of gods to refute this would be true. But I don't think there are. I think you have moved from discussing the existence of god to discussing the existence of hypothetical entity #n.
There is an infinite set of gods.
Take A,B, and C. These are gods.
One can refute A and B, leaving C.
Logically, by a process called addition, I can add D, E, and F.
Refute C, leaving D, E, and F.
Refute D and E.
Addition.
etc. etc. and so on forever.
------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

This message is a reply to:
 Message 154 by Dr Jack, posted 09-29-2003 7:17 AM Dr Jack has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 156 by Dr Jack, posted 09-29-2003 9:44 AM John has replied

  
Dr Jack
Member
Posts: 3514
From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch
Joined: 07-14-2003
Member Rating: 8.7


Message 156 of 160 (58458)
09-29-2003 9:44 AM
Reply to: Message 155 by John
09-29-2003 9:30 AM


Take gravity. I could go through thousands of ideas-- millions of ideas-- to explain gravity. Disproving all of them would not disprove gravity. With gravity the process would eventually stop because I would, one hopes, stumble upon an idea that does work.
True. But if you found a pair of high mass objects and showed there was no force between them you would have disproved gravity without needing any explanation of how it might work.
Ultimately, I don't I disagree with much of your argument, John, but with what your concept of 'god' is. It seems to me that you have gone from talking about god to talking about an arbitary hypothetical thing.
Would you accept that for the smaller subset of 'god' that I'm talking about:
quote:
A god is something that is (or was) worshipped by humans. I'll also accept your unknown creator of the universe as a god. That's a pretty finite set. Your creator god will be falsified when we explain the creation of the universe. The others can be falsified on their individual merits.
  —"Mr Jack"
We can know that these gods don't exist?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 155 by John, posted 09-29-2003 9:30 AM John has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 159 by John, posted 09-30-2003 10:10 AM Dr Jack has not replied

  
mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 157 of 160 (58461)
09-29-2003 10:07 AM
Reply to: Message 153 by sidelined
09-28-2003 10:48 PM


sidelined,
If we look at this statement one is left with wondering why we couldn't understand it nor why the evidence does not exist since we are able to detect forces of both enormous strength and tremendous subtlety.
Because things we see as natural laws of physics aren't "natural" (they probably are, but you get what I mean). If "gods" involvement was to create the precursor conditions, & tweak a vacuum fluctuation in such a way as all our temporal dimensions & laws of physics are direct corollaries of that single big bang event, how would you detect that the original "finger click" wasn't involved, or that it was?
Mark

This message is a reply to:
 Message 153 by sidelined, posted 09-28-2003 10:48 PM sidelined has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 158 by sidelined, posted 09-29-2003 10:48 AM mark24 has not replied

  
sidelined
Member (Idle past 5907 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 158 of 160 (58473)
09-29-2003 10:48 AM
Reply to: Message 157 by mark24
09-29-2003 10:07 AM


Mark 24,
Yes that is correct "if" God merely created precusor conditions and only tweaked the vacuum energy perhaps he could indeed be looked over.
In this respect we could be agnostic since we have put parameters around Gods capabilities. In other words we have begun to "define" Him. Yet the difficulty still remains for us to not invoke unecessary possibilites that are mere speculation since we have no way of determining whether this point of view is correct or another, ludicrous, position is.(Not to state that the former is ludicrous)
And the people who come to these pages to argue for God do not share this version of your limited God but argue that He walks and talks and performs miracles.They further state that there is a "scientific"explanation for God. They have yet to show this explanation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 157 by mark24, posted 09-29-2003 10:07 AM mark24 has not replied

  
John
Inactive Member


Message 159 of 160 (58729)
09-30-2003 10:10 AM
Reply to: Message 156 by Dr Jack
09-29-2003 9:44 AM


quote:
Ultimately, I don't I disagree with much of your argument, John, but with what your concept of 'god' is.
I think that is the problem. I don't know what god is other than 'some entity who influences or once influenced humans and/or the world we call the real world.' I'm not even sure about the 'entity' part-- the tao doesn't qualify for example.
quote:
We can know that these gods don't exist?
You should be able to prove or disprove a great many common, even uncommon, ideas about god. I don't know whether you can get them all, however.
------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

This message is a reply to:
 Message 156 by Dr Jack, posted 09-29-2003 9:44 AM Dr Jack has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 160 by Prozacman, posted 10-13-2003 6:01 PM John has not replied

  
Prozacman
Inactive Member


Message 160 of 160 (60771)
10-13-2003 6:01 PM
Reply to: Message 159 by John
09-30-2003 10:10 AM


I am an agnostic, and the only reason I have for being one is purely emotional; I HOPE a good God exists, but I really have no rational basis for believing so, and I don't know if I ever will. Hope is all I've got, and thats OK.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 159 by John, posted 09-30-2003 10:10 AM John has not replied

  
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