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Author Topic:   Fundamental Atheism and the Conflicting Ideas Problem.
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 66 of 134 (198421)
04-11-2005 11:00 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by Ooook!
04-11-2005 11:10 AM


Re: Note: the dictionary defines atheism as a belief.
Propositions like the existance of God (and the actions I take from them) are considered by looking at evidence first. If something has no evidence (like the possibility of some kind of God) I'm not going to act on it, but if it has no evidence contrary to it, I'm not going to dismiss it as a possibility.
Although unlike Contra I don't consider this an indefensible position, I do consider the bit I bolded above to be erroneous. Simply put - and I'm no philosopher or logician - to me it is incumbent upon those making the positive claim (i.e., there exists some entity that for lack of a better term we humans deem "god") to provide evidence for that claim. I submit that after several thousand - and possible several tens of thousands, depending on how one interprets certain enigmatic "burial" practices and various artifacts and cave drawings - years with a total absence of evidence, inspite of the quite assiduous searching of believers of various stripes over that time frame, one would be quite justified in stating that said entity did not exist. Agnosticism appears to me to be tantamount to equivocation - without a single shred of evidence presented in all that time, claiming that the possibility should be acknowledged seems to be the weakest of the three statements (it exists, it doesn't exist, we don't know either way).
Just my ten kopeks.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Ooook!, posted 04-11-2005 11:10 AM Ooook! has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 67 by Ooook!, posted 04-12-2005 5:04 AM Quetzal has replied
 Message 76 by RAZD, posted 04-13-2005 6:38 PM Quetzal has replied

Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 75 of 134 (198818)
04-12-2005 11:15 PM
Reply to: Message 67 by Ooook!
04-12-2005 5:04 AM


Re: Note: the dictionary defines atheism as a belief.
Thanks Oook,
Actually, it does sound that functionally at least we are on the same page. However (don't you hate it when someone says that? )
So I would argue that it is not tantamount to equivocation at all, merely an acknowledgment that everything has to stand up to the same scrutiny in relation to the evidence.
I'm sorry to quibble here, but how does this statement stand up in relation to the preceeding one you make:
Can I write off the possibility of some kind of God?
Don't know enough to call it
It may be simply a matter of what I call "confidence level". It's a question of functionality. If after 40,000 years or so no evidence for something has been produced in spite of literally billions of humans looking for it, it seems somehow perverse not to assume that another 40,000 years won't produce any either. Therefore, I feel that I can say "it doesn't exist" with a very high degree of confidence (about the same level as when I assume the sun WILL rise tomorrow - even though there's a remote possibility it won't. Or for that matter assuming my car will not have translated from the garage into the street through a quantum tunnel overnight - it's possible, but the odds are so small as to defy rational calculation.) Is it an assumption? Yes. But one I make without much fear of contradiction. IOW, I don't see that there IS any doubt - at least to the limits of anything meaningful.
Quetzal, "Defender of Atheism"

This message is a reply to:
 Message 67 by Ooook!, posted 04-12-2005 5:04 AM Ooook! has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 122 by Ooook!, posted 04-23-2005 5:14 AM Quetzal has not replied

Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 80 of 134 (199070)
04-13-2005 8:28 PM
Reply to: Message 76 by RAZD
04-13-2005 6:38 PM


Re: Note: the dictionary defines atheism as a belief.
Just out of curiosity, your "reply" had what to do with any of the points I made in my post?
I would also say that this applies equally to dark matter and dark energy ... the mystical stuff that makes the universe spin on time.
Umm, yeah. So? What does dark matter - or anything else cosmological - have to do with anything I've written in this thread?
I also think it is better to say "I don't know" than to claim to know when you don't, that you should be equally skeptical on both sides. this doesn't mean you aren't free to believe one way or the other, just that you need to distinguish between belief and knowledge.
Sure. "I don't know" is a reasonable answer when there is doubt. My discussion with Oook appears to be based on at what level "doubt" becomes meaningless mental masturbation. IOW, at what point it becomes reasonable to state, "it ain't so". For me, the last 40,000 years or so provide a pretty fair baseline - to the point that continuing to admit "doubt" becomes futile exercise equivalent to a metaphysical argument over "the square root of a duck", as a friend once put it.
Again, what you may be looking at is the evidence regardless of how you see it. Your expectations may be what are in error. Can you distinguish between a wholly natural universe and one that was created and left untouched ... from a sample of <0.00001% of it?
I'm sure there's some deep and profoundly important philosophical statement in here, but I'm simply to dense to understand it. Aside from the universe reference (which appears superficially to be a "we can know nothing if we don't know everything" argument), this paragraph is almost Brad-like in its opacity. Sorry if I'm not up to your intellectual level on metaphysics.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by RAZD, posted 04-13-2005 6:38 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 85 by RAZD, posted 04-14-2005 9:11 PM Quetzal has replied

Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 103 of 134 (200012)
04-17-2005 9:47 PM
Reply to: Message 85 by RAZD
04-14-2005 9:11 PM


Re: Note: the dictionary defines atheism as a belief.
um, the amount of evidence that shows that the dark stuff really exists rather than it being just one hypothesis of how to make observation match theory. the hypothesis that god makes the galaxies spin just so is as valid as the dark stuffs hypothesis due to the total lack of evidence one way or the other.
another hypothesis is that the theory is wrong. this is what I happen to believe: that there will be physical evidence that validates some other theory of gravity ability to predict the observed behavior without needing dark stuffs.
You didn't answer my question. What does dark matter or whatever have to do with what I wrote? Are you posting to me but actually responding to someone else? Very confusing.
Ya know RAZD, much as I enjoy reading your posts in most cases, you occasionally seem to develop a selective "blind spot" to what people are actually saying to you if it conflicts with what you're saying. The key element in the post to which you responded, and which you completely skipped over to reiterate your confusing - and as far as I can see irrelevent - "dark matter" thingy, was the following:
Quetzal in post 80 writes:
Sure. "I don't know" is a reasonable answer when there is doubt. My discussion with Oook appears to be based on at what level "doubt" becomes meaningless mental masturbation. IOW, at what point it becomes reasonable to state, "it ain't so". For me, the last 40,000 years or so provide a pretty fair baseline - to the point that continuing to admit "doubt" becomes futile exercise equivalent to a metaphysical argument over "the square root of a duck", as a friend once put it.
Do you continue to espouse "doubt" for every single theory or idea ever produced by man on this planet, simply because it can't be 100% disproved? If no one has produced evidence for a theory for over three times the written history of humankind, it seems strange to me to continue to inisist on the potential. You, obviously, see things differently. Your opinion, however, doesn't necessarily make my position illogical or untenable. In fact, if anything, I would say it was incumbent upon YOU to make the case that a) there is some reason for doubt, and b) the level of said doubt is sufficient to leave the question open.
LOL. Not metaphysics so much as arguing for the same approach to be used for things with similar levels of evidence.
You have not established that I DON'T use exactly the same methodology - and level of skepticism - for all claims, regardless of nature. What gives you the impression that I don't? Because I disagree with your pet hypothesis (that all atheists are blind believers who adhere to some "atheist tenet" equivalent to the worst creationist)? Sorry to burst your bubble here.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 85 by RAZD, posted 04-14-2005 9:11 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 108 by RAZD, posted 04-18-2005 8:58 PM Quetzal has not replied

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