Agnosticism vs. Atheism

The difference between Atheists and Agnostics is simple:

• Atheists are offended if you call them Agnostics.
• Agnsotics are offended if you call them Atheists.

Or that seems to be the modern terminology. Historically the Agnostics were a group of poncy intellectuals who wanted to deny the church, but didn't like being counted as Atheists. So they adopted a position of 'no knowledge of god before death'. Yes, that's a slanted interpretation of events, but basically accurate.I consider Agnosticism (as in the earlier 'no knowledge' position, rather than the 'not sure' position) to be intellectual cowardice; a position that amounts to 'don't know, don't care, won't try'. I'm an Atheist, I believe it is possible to know whether there is or isn't a god. I also think the evidence from the world around us renders the existence of god very, very unlikely but not yet totally disproven.Atheism is not a faith position. My belief in a real world that corresponds to my sense is a faith position, and I deduce Atheism from the world that those senses reveal to me. I will differ from many of those who have posted so far in that I consider that I do know there is no Purple Baboon tearing at my face right now.

I can appreciate how that would be irritating. As far as I can see the whole Agnostic-Atheist discussion mostly resolves around a confusion of terms. Your position I consider Atheism, and not intellectual cowardice. And repeat...

Hi Mark24, I'm not calling your position intellectual cowardice, I'm calling the original Agnostic position intellectual cowardice. As I described in my original post their's is a position of 'no knowledge before death', yours is 'no god, but can't be sure' (which I'd call Atheism). That depends of course on the exact god in question. But I think we can deal with all of them:Nearly all god concepts require a dualist mind(or soul)-body concept. As we develop our neuroscience further we drive this concept closer and closer to impossibility. Not to mention the problems with dualism and evolution.Many god concepts involve a specified creation act. These are falsified by our knowledge of the earth's formation, the big bang and evolution.Almost all god concepts involve intervention by that god in the real world. That intervention would be observable. It is not observed, therfore the god is falsified. Note that is not 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'. If a hypothesis requires the presence of certain observables and those observables are not observed then the hypothesis is falsified.Finally, we don't need god to explain anything we do observe (although some of them we are yet to explain through scientific means). And if something is fully explained by known phenomena it falsifies all alternative explanations. I disagree. I think I have an awful lot of evidence against the existence of god. From the problem of evil, through the diversity of religion, the failure of dualism to the properties of the natural world. Everything is exactly as you would expect from a world without god, and not as you would expect from a world with god.Not 100% yet. But we're getting there.Mr. Jack.

Sorry, mark24 but I consider that playing games. Gods are what are worshiped, revered or acknowledged by religous types. The non-existence of god is shown by the falsification of their notions of god. Which one of my evidences do you disagree with? Who's god-notion haven't I covered?

Mark24, A god that is unknown and unrevelaed to man isn't a god. Gods are what religions are based around, nothing else.Even ignoring this, a god that is entirely unknown and unrevealed is a zero-hypothesis with no predictions or properties. Therefore it doesn't exist. Just as the invisible bunny rabbit watching me right now doesn't exist.Also, I'm unclear as to what you mean by positive evidence, please explain? As far as I am aware, evidence is either for, against or neutral with respect to something positive/negative doesn't come into it.

You're either missing what I'm saying, or not agreeing with it. I'm not sure which. I maintain "if it isn't worshipped by humans as a god, it isn't a god. It's just some new made up thing like the invisible incorpreal bunny". In other words, I don't consider your unknown and unrevealed entity to be a god. No. I'm saying if god exists there would be evidence, there is no evidence, therefore no god. I'm also saying that anything that has no possible evidence doesn't exist. There Is A Real World. It Corresponds To Our Senses. That is a statement of faith, and it's one I hold. Under those conditions the bunny does not exist. You'll notice however that there is nothing about that statement that requires the non-existence of god. You can only get positive evidence of things that exist. To ask for positive evidence against something doesn't make sense.

I do not accept your nameless creator thingy as a god. Even if it were, it will be rendered redundant when we explain the creation of the universe. You'll note that although I claim knowledge of the non-existence of god is possible, I do not yet claim we have certainity on this point. I am not denything antecedent. I'm using logic of the following formA => B, !B therfore !A.This is a valid form.Of course merely arguing for the invalidity of one part of one god doesn't disprove the whole of all gods, that's why I presented a range of arguments. You are mis-stating my argument again. I'm not saying !god => !evidence, !evidence therefore !god, I'm saying god => evidence, !evidence therefore !god. There is a fundemental difference in the two arguments. Your bunny has no possible evidence. Therefore it doesn't exist. Where did you get that from? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I've never claimed it was.

Er, yeah, think I mixed C++ and mathematical notation there...Yes, they're basically the same.'=>' is implies. '!' is not. I think using '~' for not is actually the correct standard, sorry.

Not really. I'm saying that when (or if, if you prefer) we explain the existence of he universe it will disprove the existence of any universe-creator god. Thus knowledge of this non-existence is a posibility.I claim it is possible to know that there is no god. I do not claim we know that now. You're trying to get a single No God argument. There is no such thing, however there is an array of arguments that can falsify any given god. A given god makes predictions about the world and can be falsified by the failure of these predictions. A god that makes no predictions about the world, or equivalently, cannot be deduced from the properties of the real world doesn't exist. Absolute knowledge is not possible. I am simply talking about knowledge. I know the sun will rise tommorow. I know my name is Jack. I know 1+1 is 2. I know if A => B, then if A is true, B must be. There's nothing absolute about any of these. I'm defining gods in terms of human religion, yes. Creation, or not, of the universe doesn't come into it. There are plenty of mythologies with gods that are not accredited with creating the universe.

Anything that doesn't leave any possible evidence, doesn't exist. Granted there is plenty we can't detect now, which is why I say we don't know yet that god doesn't exist. However, in general, god postulates claim observables (dualism, creation myths, intervention, etc.). This isn't the same thing at all.It's not a question of there being no evidence. There is evidence, but it's in the negative. There are things that should be observable based on the god construct which aren't. God, by it's very nature, must be a pretty obvious thing, a 'god' which hides in some dark corner of the universe and quietly shuffles dust particles is no god at all.Your graviton example is completely different. We don't have evidence either way. We just can't find them. If we run our new improved ACME graviton finder thingy (or whatever they'll actually use to find gravitons) and we still don't find evidence of them then we will have evidence that they don't exist. Or more accurately that either they don't exist or our theoretical predictions are wrong.

Mark24, There is a difference between having no evidence, and having evidence something is not so. Please allow me an analogy here. Suppose I have a china vase and a baseball bat. You hypothesise that I have hit the vase with the baseball bat as hard as I can. I then argue that you are false because if I did hit the vase with the baseball bat it would be in shattered pieces. By observing that this is not so, we are able to prove that I haven't smacked the vase with the baseball bat. This doesn't follow. I am not claiming absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Which is what you have in the case of the Giant Squid. If you had trawled the sea and found no squid then you would have evidence of absence, instead all you have is a lack of investigation.

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). 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 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.

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:

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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"

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We can know that these gods don't exist?