Gnostic Atheist

[Joshpantera]

19 minutes ago, mymistake said:

Stop and think about it.  Who should define what gnostic atheism means?  Should it be the people who call themselves gnostic atheists and want the name to mean something that makes sense or should it be a different group that wants the name to mean something nonsensical?  

 

 

It means knowing that god doesn't exist. That's the only reason to add "gnostic" to atheism. There is only the options of "knowing" and "not knowing" to add in front of belief or not belief. This isn't a conspiracy, BTW. No one is putting a false meaning into a term that literally represents knowledge (gnosis) of gods non existence. 

 

19 minutes ago, mymistake said:

I am a strong atheist.  I know gods do not exist.  I just use a different reason to get there.  I reject the nonsensical reasoning that others assign to strong atheism.

 

How do you "know" that gods do not exist? That is what we're trying to get down to. What you're claiming isn't possible. This is you claiming it, not others setting up straw men. 

 

19 minutes ago, mymistake said:

I admit that "beyond all doubt" is not possible.  Not possible for god, nor for any other field of knowledge.  What I ask is that we hold god to the same standard as any other type of knowledge.

 

You're talking like a #6 who thinks they're a #7. In otherwords, an agnostic atheist who thinks he's a gnostic atheist. 

 

19 minutes ago, mymistake said:

I don't see you addressing my point.  If my position is untenable then flatten it.  People are claiming SA because it is well supported.

 

We have. It's laying here dismantled. It's flat from the outset because "gnosis" of the existence of god isn't even possible. It never gets off the runway. 

 

19 minutes ago, mymistake said:

I know beyond a reasonable doubt that there are no gods.  Is that actually agnostic atheism?

 

That's less than knowing. So it may be. For all intensive purposes I know the same thing, but ultimately I don't have absolute knowledge of this. The default is gnostic atheism as far as knowing can take you, then a necessary agnostic atheism beyond that point. I don't want to toss aside gnostic atheism completely, because all of the knowledge you're describing is important and has it's place in the scheme of lacking belief in gods. 

[Wertbag]

1 hour ago, Joshpantera said:

Again, Dawkins position against theists is not a weak one, it's an intellectually honest one. Which holds more power than an obviously intellectually dishonest one, which is something to consider. The religious person is showing themselves as arrogant, and holding an untenable position which can not be held in reality. That's what people will see. 

 

And also, with what confidence do you propose taking on the burden of proof that gods do not exist? 

 

From our biased viewpoint Dawkins position is fine, but to the mixed audience that his message is going to admissions of doubt absolutely weakens the position.  I say that having heard that exact argument used against him.  I've heard quotes such as "He said he doesn't really know" and "He just admitted he has no idea".  Dawkins himself says he is not a great debater and he hates the format.  I love Dawkins as a science educator, but in a debate situation it is critical to show the audience a confident front.  The strength of that confidence carries to those listening and they will respond accordingly.  This is not even gnostic vs agnostic, you make sure to avoid that discussion and stick to terms that show your confidence.  Saying "I have never seen anything that would convince me otherwise" is a positive statement, while "I'm 99% sure that there is no such thing" leaves that gap that the religious person will jump on.

 

Aron Ra is a great example of this, as he often emphasises the words "fact" and "demonstrable" in debates.  "Evolution is a fact.  It is provable, demonstrable and beyond doubt".  The term fact is a great one.  A piece of data which is shown to be true by evidence and by being verified as such.  Our knowledge is based on facts and those facts must be verifiable.

In the coin flip example given the problem is purely one of the artificial restraint of the video.  If that same experiment was done in person then there would be nothing stopping you from going up and verifying the fact first hand.  The only conclusion we should reach from the example is that we do not have enough data to come to an answer.

 

Take for example the flying spaghetti monster.  We know who created it and why and we know it is pure imagination.  We can verify these facts and we can know that the FSM does not exist.  To argue we cannot know for sure when we have these facts in hand is unreasonable.

 

6 minutes ago, disillusioned said:

The conclusion needs to be made by someone. On what basis is the conclusion reached? Will everyone necessarily agree? If not, then I don't think it can be called knowledge. And even if so, what if everyone is wrong?

 

You don't need everyone to agree for a fact to be knowledge.  You need the facts to be verifiable and provable and, after that is established, if some people do not accept the fact then they would be in an unreasonable position denying reality.  What if we are wrong?  Then firstly we failed to verify the facts fully, but more importantly our knowledge will have increased with the new data and new facts.  Knowledge is not static, it is a constantly expanding pool.

 

3 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

The problem is that many newbies to atheism are not, and don't get it on these levels of concern. Just curious, I've been atheist since around 1992. 

How long have either of you considered yourself fully deconverted atheists? I think that's another factor to consider here about gnostic atheism. 

 

Personally I'm 41, and I would say I declared myself agnostic around age 10.  My thought at that time was simply that I did not understand the debate, so there was no way for me to make an informed decision as to what I was without a great deal of research.  It would be another 10 years before I finally openly called myself an atheist (although for all intents and purpose I was much earlier).  I would therefore say I've been a declared atheist for around 20 years and a doubter for at least 30.

 

On a side note, I'm really glad I started this discussion.  It was purely a rant so I didn't expect any more than a place to empty my mind.  A good, friendly back and forth over a subject with deep thoughts is unexpected but very interesting.

[disillusioned]

4 minutes ago, Wertbag said:

 

You don't need everyone to agree for a fact to be knowledge.  You need the facts to be verifiable and provable and, after that is established, if some people do not accept the fact then they would be in an unreasonable position denying reality.  What if we are wrong?  Then firstly we failed to verify the facts fully, but more importantly our knowledge will have increased with the new data and new facts.  Knowledge is not static, it is a constantly expanding pool.

 

 

As it turns out, what I need isn't really that relevant.

 

The real question is, what is knowledge?

 

If your definition is "things which are verifiable and provable", then I would ask, provable under which assumptions? And according to which rules of deduction/inference? This is an area that I have studied in some detail. It turns out that there are many statements which are provable under certain assumptions and rules of inference, but demonstrably false under others. How do you know that your assumptions are the right ones?

 

Usually, we go for assumptions that lead to useful results. But we know for a fact^TM that some things which are practically false nevertheless produce useful results (see, the placebo effect). So where does this leave us?

 

I say that we should be cautious. Doubly so when we are considering questions which are manifestly theoretical. But this leaves us with no gnostic atheism.

 

I'm sorry. I really am. I'm an atheist. I wish you were right. But gnostic atheism just isn't tenable.

 

[quinntar]

3 minutes ago, disillusioned said:

 

As it turns out, what I need isn't really that relevant.

 

The real question is, what is knowledge?

 

If your definition is "things which are verifiable and provable", then I would ask, provable under which assumptions? And according to which rules of deduction/inference? This is an area that I have studied in some detail. It turns out that there are many statements which are provable under certain assumptions and rules of inference, but demonstrably false under others. How do you know that your assumptions are the right ones?

 

Usually, we go for assumptions that lead to useful results. But we know for a fact^TM that some things which are practically false nevertheless produce useful results (see, the placebo effect). So where does this leave us?

 

I say that we should be cautious. Doubly so when we are considering questions which are manifestly theoretical. But this leaves us with no gnostic atheism.

 

I'm sorry. I really am. I'm an atheist. I wish you were right. But gnostic atheism just isn't tenable.

 

Isn't "Gnosticism" Just hidden knowledge. Is this a case of an Atheist who finds purposes in the quest for that hidden knowledge. There's always shit we don't know, that we have to obtain. 

 

 

[disillusioned]

4 minutes ago, theanticrash said:

Isn't "Gnosticism" Just hidden knowledge. Is this a case of an Atheist who finds purposes in the quest for that hidden knowledge. There's always shit we don't know, that we have to obtain. 

 

 

 

No, gnosticism is a claim to have knowledge of a specific thing. Gnostic atheism is a claim to have knowledge that God does not exist. I agree that there is always "shit we don't know". But this assertion runs counter to gnosticism of any kind.

[quinntar]

11 minutes ago, disillusioned said:

 

No, gnosticism is a claim to have knowledge of a specific thing. Gnostic atheism is a claim to have knowledge that God does not exist. I agree that there is always "shit we don't know". But this assertion runs counter to gnosticism of any kind.

Do you think that as humans we need some spiritual meaning to the cosmos? Right now many people still have a huge thirst for meaning when they leave religion behind, that the materiality of life is simply not enough to satisfy.

 

 

[Joshpantera]

1 hour ago, Wertbag said:

Saying "I have never seen anything that would convince me otherwise" is a positive statement, while "I'm 99% sure that there is no such thing" leaves that gap that the religious person will jump on.

 

All good points. The whole direction you're taking. I've heard the same from theists. But this only serves to open discussion of the impossibility of them claiming to know that god does exist. They don't actually know this. And the scales are tipped against them in terms of the likelihood that god does exist. There's no flattering position for them to cling to even in the face of admitting uncertainty. Which is why Dawkins or I would not hesitate to put it out there. We know where it will lead. 

 

1 hour ago, Wertbag said:

Personally I'm 41, and I would say I declared myself agnostic around age 10.  My thought at that time was simply that I did not understand the debate, so there was no way for me to make an informed decision as to what I was without a great deal of research.  It would be another 10 years before I finally openly called myself an atheist (although for all intents and purpose I was much earlier).  I would therefore say I've been a declared atheist for around 20 years and a doubter for at least 30.

 

On a side note, I'm really glad I started this discussion.  It was purely a rant so I didn't expect any more than a place to empty my mind.  A good, friendly back and forth over a subject with deep thoughts is unexpected but very interesting.

 

I'm very close then. I'm 41 and abruptly dropped god belief at 15. It was the fall of 91', the senior year class of 92'. So the two of us have been atheist for a lot longer than most people around here. Even a lot of the older posters have not been atheist that long. But you're claiming gnostic atheism even in the face of having been around atheism for a long time. How often have you faced this topic with other atheists? 

 

Over the years I've come to understand the importance of agnostic atheism, whereas I was a hard or gnostic atheism from the outset. That was mainly out of my own lack of knowledge and comprehension of the subject, and the knee jerk reaction of abruptly dropping belief without the full knowledge base behind the act. As I obtained more knowledge, I realized that agnostic atheism is the tenable position from which to counter theists. It consists of applying all known knowledge to show the error, contradiction, and inconsistency in theistic reasoning. But not to go further than intellectual honesty will allow and start making false claims about knowledge that can not be proven. Just because we can demonstrate that YHWH was a man made god who changed and evolved over time doesn't allow us the ability to claim that no possible god could exist somewhere beyond our ability to know that. Our every certainty is overshadowed by an over arching uncertainty in that way. Making uncertainty a dominant position over certainty, agnosis dominant over gnosis.  

 

It's the religious who ought to fear uncertainty, not us. 

 

They have everything to loose to uncertainty, we do not. 

 

 

[mymistake]

Okay it's been a long day.  Let me make a quick response to unify and sum up what I believe is the main point of disagreement.  I will try to get to your longer posts tomorrow.

 

 

It seems to me that epistemology is the hang up.  I see three possible cases:

 

Case 1.  All knowledge must meet the criteria of 100%  beyond all doubt.  That means that any field, doctors and lawyers and so on must address any objection no matter how unfounded or how ridiculous it is. 

 

Case 2.  All knowledge must meet the criteria of beyond a reasonable doubt.  That means we ignore ad hoc objections and magical thinking or anything else that has no foundation.

 

Case 3.  All knowledge has the criteria beyond a reasonable doubt except for one field and there is a very compelling reason why that one field alone is held to the standard of 100% beyond all doubt no matter how silly or absurd the objections might be.

 

 

Now I personally think Case 2 describes reality which is why I call myself a gnostic atheist and assume the burden of proof that entails.  It sounds to me that Josh and Disillusioned are in the school of thought for Case 1.  Am I reading you guys right or do you have a different take on this?  Maybe you guys are Case 3 and I just didn't see the reason that one field of knowledge has such vastly different rules as all the others.

[disillusioned]

6 hours ago, theanticrash said:

Do you think that as humans we need some spiritual meaning to the cosmos? Right now many people still have a huge thirst for meaning when they leave religion behind, that the materiality of life is simply not enough to satisfy.

 

Need how? Psychologically? Sure, some people do. Not all. But this is different from arguing that there actually is a meaning to the cosmos.

[quinntar]

7 minutes ago, disillusioned said:

 

Need how? Psychologically? Sure, some people do. Not all. But this is different from arguing that there actually is a meaning to the cosmos.

We all tag our lives with some meaning don't we? Like what's important to us helps puts the world in some kind of context. Does experience create meaning?

[disillusioned]

5 hours ago, mymistake said:

 

 

 

 

 

It sounds to me that Josh and Disillusioned are in the school of thought for Case 1.  Am I reading you guys right or do you have a different take on this?  Maybe you guys are Case 3 and I just didn't see the reason that one field of knowledge has such vastly different rules as all the others.

 

The way I see it is this: all knowledge ultimately reduces to firmly held belief. 

 

I consider that I know something to be true if it can be proven to me in some way. But the proof rests on assumptions and rules of inference which cannot be shown to be objectively correct. So on a certain logical system, I may know things for certain. This is how I know that, under the usual rules of mathematics, 2+2=4. But there are different systems where 2+2=/=4. Such systems may be of limited utility, but not always. Some of them are quite useful. So the question is, which system should we use?

 

Here's the thing: the selection criteria I use for systems of reasoning generally has to do with utility. I use a particular set of assumptions and rules of inference if they let me do useful work. So I don't lose sleep over whether or not my house actually exists. For all practical purposes, I know that it exists. I'm in it.

 

But the above only makes sense since I know what a house is. If you were to say to me "houses don't exist", I could say that I know you're wrong and set aside the bit about knowledge just being firmly held belief. But if you were to say "xyz does not exist", I need to know what "xyz" is if I'm to say you are right or wrong. If it turns out that "xyz" can mean just about anything to anyone, then I'm afraid there is no way for me to prove that it does not exist. So I definitely can't say that I know it doesn't exist.

 

Knowledge, in my view, is firmly held belief. Firmly held because it can be proven in some way. But it needs to be specific if it is to be called knowledge, because only specific claims can be provable.

 

[Wertbag]

6 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

Just because we can demonstrate that YHWH was a man made god who changed and evolved over time doesn't allow us the ability to claim that no possible god could exist somewhere beyond our ability to know that.

Would you say you could be gnostic in regards to the Christian god while remaining agnostic to the idea of gods in general?  If a specific belief is shown to be an impossibility then would you accept it is reasonable to be gnostic in regards to that?  What about for subjects for which there is no claim of truth such as the FSM?

 

6 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

It consists of applying all known knowledge to show the error, contradiction, and inconsistency in theistic reasoning.

I would say that is both sides of this question.  We all agree that we can apply our knowledge in this way, we are all atheists and at the core all agree on the arguments against religion.  I do however have friends who I refer to as apathetic atheists.  They have no belief in gods but really just don't want to discussion anything about religion.  The attitude of "I don't believe in god, leave me alone" is a perfectly valid choice but that leads to the question that perhaps there is a better label that covers an atheist who is willing to take on the burden of proof and provide the arguments against religion?  Is there a term to your mind that better fits?  Perhaps anti-theist?

 

6 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

claim that no possible god could exist somewhere

This would be more a question of the definition of a god.  Most people consider god to be an amorphus intelligent being who can directly interfer with the world we live in.  We need to get rid of the vague definitions of energies or events as those are just applying the term god to natural events.  If we can show all such gods are man made and therefore exist solely in the mind, then we should be able to make an absolute statement.  Within this particular set of data 100% of instances are false.  Outside of that set of data is a completely different question.  It feels like maybe this is a point of difference, the idea of an open set of data vs closed.  If I say "There are no pink unicorns in the universe" you can rightly say "You can't possibly know what is out in the universe", but if my statement is more specific, that "there are no pink unicorns in my kitchen", then the claim becomes easily verifiable and we can know the truth of the statement.

 

I had a religious person (not sure what variety of crazy) say to me "I define god as air.  It is all around us, it is in every living thing and it is required for life.  Do you believe in air?"

"Yes, I believe that air exists"

"Well then you believe in a god, therefore you can't claim to be atheist"

Sigh...  

[disillusioned]

26 minutes ago, theanticrash said:

We all tag our lives with some meaning don't we? Like what's important to us helps puts the world in some kind of context. Does experience create meaning?

 

Yes, subjective meaning exists. This is undisputable. The question is, does the cosmos have ultimate meaning? I'm inclined to say "no", but that's just my opinion.

[quinntar]

7 minutes ago, disillusioned said:

 

Yes, subjective meaning exists. This is undisputable. The question is, does the cosmos have ultimate meaning? I'm inclined to say "no", but that's just my opinion.

How do you think we could start the process of discovering if it does?

[Joshpantera]

2 hours ago, Wertbag said:

Would you say you could be gnostic in regards to the Christian god while remaining agnostic to the idea of gods in general?  If a specific belief is shown to be an impossibility then would you accept it is reasonable to be gnostic in regards to that?

 

That's still walking a fine line. I'd say yes to specific cases, like YHWH. But even then, I could probably end up loosing ground if I claimed to know 100% going just on the fact that he started out as a son of El in the Canaanite Elohim pantheon, the national god of Israel, who was later evolved into supreme and universal deity. The evidence is very cut and dry, like the FSM. But the problem is that I can make up a god right now, the celestial blue marlin, tell you I've made it up, and yet neither you or I can disprove it's possible existence out there somewhere due to the nature of possibilities.  I could have guessed, or made it up correctly. 

 

This is about being smart, smarter than your opponents. And with that, honest, more honest than your opponent. We ought to hold ourselves to higher levels of intelligence and honesty in opposition to theistic thinkers if we are to do this correctly, using correct logic and reason. Otherwise we end up fallacious along side of them. And that does no good for atheists and atheism. 

 

So a more firm direction to take is to outline the nature of possibility where one could assert that anything is possible. That's up front and honest. But then consider the fact that even though any thing is possible, not everything is equally likely. This is the beginning of their downfall. And this is where is knowledge comes into play. How likely is it that my clearly made up celestial blue marlin exists out there somewhere, in the face of the fact that any thing is possible? Well, we can see that it's not very likely at all. I can be a 6.9 toward my made up celestial blue marlin. It has all sorts of problems stacked against it. And in the face of these problems stacked against it, it will seem more logical not to believe my claim in the existence of the celestial blue marlin regardless of my own inability to turn around and say that I know it doesn't exist because technically anything is possible. This is one way that an agnostic atheist can stick to correct methodology and yet retain the ability to apply gnosis where gnosis can be applied. 

 

You guys are worried that you might loose by admitting agnostic stances, whereas, due to experience, I understand that all of the loosing will go back to the theist every time. They don't have any way out of this. It's the case of slapping them back down every time they try and get one up on you. I've been in discourse with theists online and in real time for decades. I've probably seen and interacted with every possible direction they can take, and even watched as new directions have emerged and evolved in response to Jesus mythicism and copy cat theories and other issues which they've had to try and adapt to. They loose every time. They can not win. Because they're quite literally operating from sand foundations which are not possible to ever win from (the bible). Admitting to anything's possible does not do them any justice. 

 

2 hours ago, Wertbag said:

The attitude of "I don't believe in god, leave me alone" is a perfectly valid choice but that leads to the question that perhaps there is a better label that covers an atheist who is willing to take on the burden of proof and provide the arguments against religion?  Is there a term to your mind that better fits?  Perhaps anti-theist?

 

Again, I've outlined that you or I can only take the burden of proof so far. Our only home run comes via the likelihood of possibilities. We have going for us the side of being more likely given the total overview of circumstances with regards to academia and scientific knowledge and discovery. Where you guys want to go with agnostic atheism is a type of anti-theism. It's the opposite to gnostic theism. But only because you're taking on a burden of proof which by name suggests that you can know something which is not knowable. So it's a burden of proof that simply can not be proven. 

 

The reason I put "they don't exist" as my answer to belief in gods, is for the same reason that you two want gnostic atheism. Struggling christians want something compelling. Saying maybe they do exist has caused some to struggle. So for all intensive purposes, they don't exist. The probability is so low that it's inconsequential. They may as well not exist. But if pressed, I must adhere to proper philosophical discourse and understanding. Lest I completely ruin credibility for the position I've taken. 

 

So why not just dump the label gnostic atheist, which doesn't do atheism any justice? 

[mymistake]

3 hours ago, disillusioned said:

 

The way I see it is this: all knowledge ultimately reduces to firmly held belief. 

 

I consider that I know something to be true if it can be proven to me in some way. But the proof rests on assumptions and rules of inference which cannot be shown to be objectively correct. So on a certain logical system, I may know things for certain. This is how I know that, under the usual rules of mathematics, 2+2=4. But there are different systems where 2+2=/=4. Such systems may be of limited utility, but not always. Some of them are quite useful. So the question is, which system should we use?

 

Here's the thing: the selection criteria I use for systems of reasoning generally has to do with utility. I use a particular set of assumptions and rules of inference if they let me do useful work. So I don't lose sleep over whether or not my house actually exists. For all practical purposes, I know that it exists. I'm in it.

 

But the above only makes sense since I know what a house is. If you were to say to me "houses don't exist", I could say that I know you're wrong and set aside the bit about knowledge just being firmly held belief. But if you were to say "xyz does not exist", I need to know what "xyz" is if I'm to say you are right or wrong. If it turns out that "xyz" can mean just about anything to anyone, then I'm afraid there is no way for me to prove that it does not exist. So I definitely can't say that I know it doesn't exist.

 

Knowledge, in my view, is firmly held belief. Firmly held because it can be proven in some way. But it needs to be specific if it is to be called knowledge, because only specific claims can be provable.

 

 

 

Okay.  I think that long ago the theists arranged for a special pleading fallacy to apply for God's existence and for some reason this was simply accepted by the philosophy community.  They didn't catch the mistake but instead passed it down to us.  I find that correcting that mistake clears things up nicely.  I also find that gods were very well defined when they were invented.  I don't think it is valid to take a well defined God and then declare him to be something completely different just because his original definition made him something that does not exist.  We have a long history, thousands of year, of human cultures manufacturing gods everywhere they went.  Every human culture would create it's gods.  Really the trend continues to this day but due to technology we understand that the gods we create today are fictional and we call them super heroes or movie characters.  It's obvious to me that Spiderman and Zeus are cut from the same cloth.  Humans were essentially the same people five thousand years ago so back then an amazing story teller would create a god that would become part of that culture.  Humans create gods the same way as humans create sculpture.

[mymistake]

12 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

It means knowing that god doesn't exist. That's the only reason to add "gnostic" to atheism. There is only the options of "knowing" and "not knowing" to add in front of belief or not belief. This isn't a conspiracy, BTW. No one is putting a false meaning into a term that literally represents knowledge (gnosis) of gods non existence. 

 

How do you "know" that gods do not exist? That is what we're trying to get down to. What you're claiming isn't possible. This is you claiming it, not others setting up straw men. 

 

You're talking like a #6 who thinks they're a #7. In otherwords, an agnostic atheist who thinks he's a gnostic atheist. 

 

We have. It's laying here dismantled. It's flat from the outset because "gnosis" of the existence of god isn't even possible. It never gets off the runway. 

 

That's less than knowing. So it may be. For all intensive purposes I know the same thing, but ultimately I don't have absolute knowledge of this. The default is gnostic atheism as far as knowing can take you, then a necessary agnostic atheism beyond that point. I don't want to toss aside gnostic atheism completely, because all of the knowledge you're describing is important and has it's place in the scheme of lacking belief in gods. 

 

 

I realize it is not a conspiracy.  My point is that Dawkins does not address most people who call themselves gnostic atheists; the one who reached that conclusion because they have looked at the evidence.  Dawkins' stage 7 is a mirror image of the theist - somebody who says something to the effect of "Hitchens is my prophet and he prophesied that there is no God so I will take it on faith, that must be the truth."   Well It is a big world so perhaps somebody does think along those lines but that isn't what drives most of the modern strong atheism movement.  Dawkins should have created a stage between, a stage 6 1/2, that is to gnostic atheism what the biological scientist is to the theory of evolution.  We accept it as a fact because that is what a large quantity of compelling evidence points to and none of the objections to it have merit.  Not only is this possible but that is the situation we have regarding the existence of god.

 

You don't have absolute knowledge of anything at all.  Does that lead you to believe that you know nothing at all or are you using one criteria for everything else but special standards for the existence of God?  I am going to hold God to the same standard that I hold everything else.  So if I can know anything at all then God's existence can be examined just like anything else. 

[mymistake]

12 hours ago, disillusioned said:

 

As it turns out, what I need isn't really that relevant.

 

The real question is, what is knowledge?

 

If your definition is "things which are verifiable and provable", then I would ask, provable under which assumptions? And according to which rules of deduction/inference? This is an area that I have studied in some detail. It turns out that there are many statements which are provable under certain assumptions and rules of inference, but demonstrably false under others. How do you know that your assumptions are the right ones?

 

Usually, we go for assumptions that lead to useful results. But we know for a fact^TM that some things which are practically false nevertheless produce useful results (see, the placebo effect). So where does this leave us?

 

I say that we should be cautious. Doubly so when we are considering questions which are manifestly theoretical. But this leaves us with no gnostic atheism.

 

I'm sorry. I really am. I'm an atheist. I wish you were right. But gnostic atheism just isn't tenable.

 

 

 

Have you really considered all of the conditions around God's existence?  Over the last five thousand years we have had literally millions of people (if not over a billion) make positive claims about God or gods.  Typically these are of the "God told me X" variety.  And I'm not talking about just the cult creators.  Most of my life I have had laymen Christians come up to me to tell me that "God told them X".  I even did it myself back when I was a believer.  The nature of these claims will have some of them in conflict with others.  The believers are manufacturing these messages from god.

 

You can't look at all of that evidence and conclude that God is imaginary?  God has a long history and it all turns out to be false every time.

[Joshpantera]

4 hours ago, mymistake said:

I realize it is not a conspiracy.  My point is that Dawkins does not address most people who call themselves gnostic atheists; the one who reached that conclusion because they have looked at the evidence.  Dawkins' stage 7 is a mirror image of the theist - somebody who says something to the effect of "Hitchens is my prophet and he prophesied that there is no God so I will take it on faith, that must be the truth."   Well It is a big world so perhaps somebody does think along those lines but that isn't what drives most of the modern strong atheism movement.  Dawkins should have created a stage between, a stage 6 1/2, that is to gnostic atheism what the biological scientist is to the theory of evolution.  We accept it as a fact because that is what a large quantity of compelling evidence points to and none of the objections to it have merit.  Not only is this possible but that is the situation we have regarding the existence of god.

 

To be honest, I've had contact with very few people who take a gnostic atheist position. There's an overwhelming number of atheists who are not interested in trying to take that position nor the burden of proof requirement that it entails. And from what I see from this brief example of two who do want to take the label, you seem to be doing so based a few misunderstandings about landscape of theist verses atheist debate. You're not very different from those of us who simply describe our position as agnostic atheist. You don't have any evidence or proof against the existence of god that we don't have and utilize as well. 

 

Dawkins later revised his stance and called it a 6.9

 

The only thing keeping him from a 7 is the "gnostic" claim of transitioning from a 6 to a 7. Maybe you are a 6.9 too. Maybe I am as well. Because I'm as certain as certainty can take us that every single mythological god in the world is completely man made, make believe, and false. I'm right there with you. Dawkins and I are just unwilling to take on a "gnostic" label which immediately over steps a line separating logic and reason, from ill logic and ill reason. It's going too far to start claiming "gnosis" where "gnosis" can not rightfully be claimed. That's it. That's why we're 6.9's and not 7's. 

 

Because once you leave agnostic atheism for gnostic atheism, you literally have mirror imaged gnostic theism. Both consist of knowledge claims that are untenable. If Dawkins added another category, it couldn't be anything other than another agnostic category, because at some point, crossing from agnostic to gnostic, there's no other option than to mirror the gnostic theist. So it works out to be next in line after 6. 

 

4 hours ago, mymistake said:

You don't have absolute knowledge of anything at all.  Does that lead you to believe that you know nothing at all or are you using one criteria for everything else but special standards for the existence of God?  I am going to hold God to the same standard that I hold everything else.  So if I can know anything at all then God's existence can be examined just like anything else. 

 

What that means is that ALL gnostic opinions regarding god never get off the ground. This is the crutch of the problem with your line of reasoning. You don't have absolute knowledge of anything at all, therefore you have no ground from with to make any "gnostic" claim. Because any "gnostic" claim that you make is immediately subject to fallacy. Gnostic and fallacious reasoning go hand in hand. 

 

[mymistake]

46 minutes ago, Joshpantera said:

 The only thing keeping him from a 7 is the "gnostic" claim of transitioning from a 6 to a 7. Maybe you are a 6.9 too. Maybe I am as well. Because I'm as certain as certainty can take us that every single mythological god in the world completely man made, make believe, and false. I'm right there with you. Dawkins and I are just willing to take on a "gnostic" label which immediately over steps a line separating logic and reason, from ill logic and ill reason. It's going too far to start claiming "gnosis" where "gnosis" can not rightfully be claims. That's it. That's why we're 6.9's and not 7's. 

 

Inductive reasoning is logical.  I don't see why we are not allowed to apply it to gods.

 

 

48 minutes ago, Joshpantera said:

Because once you leave agnostic atheism for gnostic atheism, you literally have mirror imaged gnostic theism. Both consist of knowledge claims that are untenable. If Dawkins added another category, it couldn't be anything other than another agnostic category, because at some point, crossing from agnostic to gnostic, there's no other option than to mirror the gnostic theist. 

 

No, I've gone over this.  There is a huge difference between "I shall make Hitchens my prophet and I shall take his word on faith so because Hitchens said it then I believe there are no gods" and following the evidence to it's natural conclusion using inductive reasoning.  Totally different things.

 

50 minutes ago, Joshpantera said:

What that means is that ALL gnostic opinions regarding god never get off the ground. This the crutch of the problem with your line of reasoning. You don't have absolute knowledge of anything at all, therefore you have no ground from with to make any "gnostic" claim. Because any "gnostic" claim that you make is immediately subject to fallacy. Gnostic and fallacious reasoning go hand in hand. 

 

You seem to conclude that knowledge is not possible.  That doesn't make any sense to me.  Reality is too well organized.  I conclude that knowledge is possible.  If you want to tell yourself that you cannot know anything at all that is fine.  Do what works for you but I am very confident that many things can be known by verifying them through testing even though this never reaches the standard of absolute 100% beyond all doubt.   You may notice that the rest of society continues right along as if they too can have knowledge even though the absolute 100% beyond all doubt standard isn't reached.   Perhaps knowledge is possible.

[Joshpantera]

1 hour ago, mymistake said:

No, I've gone over this.  There is a huge difference between "I shall make Hitchens my prophet and I shall take his word on faith so because Hitchens said it then I believe there are no gods" and following the evidence to it's natural conclusion using inductive reasoning.  Totally different things.

 

No one has made this faith based claim about Hitchens aside from you. If you're suggesting Dawkins has, then you'd be raising a straw man. It only means believing that you somehow know that god doesn't exist. That's it. Now you may have faith in it, I don't know. We're not discussing faith. We're discussing belief claims regardless of whatever faith is associated. No one's saying you're a gnostic atheist based on faith in some gnostic atheist leader. So let's not keep trying to go there. 

 

Following inductive reasoning based on the available evidence is fine. Why not? 

 

But so what? 

 

It doesn't make an untenable claim, tenable. These examples you're reaching for each fall short in terms of making the untenable, tenable. 

 

1 hour ago, mymistake said:

You seem to conclude that knowledge is not possible.  That doesn't make any sense to me.  Reality is too well organized.  I conclude that knowledge is possible.  If you want to tell yourself that you cannot know anything at all that is fine.  Do what works for you but I am very confident that many things can be known by verifying them through testing even though this never reaches the standard of absolute 100% beyond all doubt.   You may notice that the rest of society continues right along as if they too can have knowledge even though the absolute 100% beyond all doubt standard isn't reached.   Perhaps knowledge is possible.

 

We may have to cross over into the depths of reality for a moment, and then walk our way back up to our current experience.

 

We don't perceive anything as it actually is. All perception, everything from our senses, are merely representations of reality we never perceive in a direct way. So that's our reality, an indirect version of reality. Science is always working from uncertain foundations. We deal in terms of fitness, not so much in terms of truth. And things that have become evolutionary advantageous for survival. 

 

The foundation of reality is uncertainty, not knowing. 

 

Agnosis trumps gnosis when ultimate, or absolute truth or reality is concerned. 

 

God, a theoretical suggestion, is addressed to ultimate reality, absolute truth, transcendent of all knowledge ( beyond gnosis), etc., etc. 

 

None of this compels me to belief, obviously. I find it highly unlikely, and a slim possibility that ultimate reality is anything other than natural. Or that transcendent of our knowledge or ability to conceive, is anything other than an extension of the natural cosmos of existence which extends beyond our ability to perceive, or know directly. In my opinion, beyond our indirect perceptions, I've rejected the suggestion of beyond time and space as having any merit, as both space and time would necessarily extend out infinite and unbound, by default. So I'm not very moved by the suggestion of a god who is beyond time and space, for instance. For every supernatural suggestion about reality, there is a natural and more reasonable counter part about reality.  Uncertainty doesn't give supernatural assertions a leg up in any way. 

 

This all serves to suspend belief, even in the face of an uncertain reality. 

 

It's agnostic atheism, based on whatever gnosis we have to try and work with, for whatever it's worth. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[disillusioned]

6 hours ago, mymistake said:

 

 

Have you really considered all of the conditions around God's existence?  Over the last five thousand years we have had literally millions of people (if not over a billion) make positive claims about God or gods.  Typically these are of the "God told me X" variety.  And I'm not talking about just the cult creators.  Most of my life I have had laymen Christians come up to me to tell me that "God told them X".  I even did it myself back when I was a believer.  The nature of these claims will have some of them in conflict with others.  The believers are manufacturing these messages from god.

 

You can't look at all of that evidence and conclude that God is imaginary?  God has a long history and it all turns out to be false every time.

 

First of all, I have concluded that God is probably imaginary. I just don't know for sure that this is the case. Practically, it's a trivial distinction. But philosophically, it is significant.

 

Also, the kind of God you are talking about here is not by any means the only kind of God that people believe in. There are plenty of deists, panthesists, moderates from the mainstream religions, and others who don't label themselves but nevertheless think that there is something beyond the universe which they call God. We cannot say with certainty that these people are wrong. We just can't.

[disillusioned]

7 hours ago, mymistake said:

 

Okay.  I think that long ago the theists arranged for a special pleading fallacy to apply for God's existence and for some reason this was simply accepted by the philosophy community.  They didn't catch the mistake but instead passed it down to us.  I find that correcting that mistake clears things up nicely.  I also find that gods were very well defined when they were invented.  I don't think it is valid to take a well defined God and then declare him to be something completely different just because his original definition made him something that does not exist.  We have a long history, thousands of year, of human cultures manufacturing gods everywhere they went.  Every human culture would create it's gods.  Really the trend continues to this day but due to technology we understand that the gods we create today are fictional and we call them super heroes or movie characters.  It's obvious to me that Spiderman and Zeus are cut from the same cloth.  Humans were essentially the same people five thousand years ago so back then an amazing story teller would create a god that would become part of that culture.  Humans create gods the same way as humans create sculpture.

 

Some specific Gods have been well defined. It is possible to be a gnostic atheist with respect to these. Zeus, for example, does not exist. One can simply climb Mount Olympus to prove this. But as I said in my previous post, there are lots of different views of God. Some of them are remarkably coherent. Some are not. Some are well defined, but not accessible, and hence not testable. As this is the case, I don't think it is possible to say that we can prove that no God of any kind exists.

 

I agree that most forms of theism are nonsense, and some are directly disprovable. But to go all the way to gnostic atheism is to go too far. This is not special pleading. This is exactly how I treat all truth claims. It is much easier to be convinced that something is true than it is to actually prove it (see: Fermat's last theorem). But in the absence of proof, knowledge cannot be claimed.

 

You seem fixated on the idea that "God" is a single, coherent, well defined notion, which we can prove does not exist. Fine. What is this "God" that you are talking about?

[disillusioned]

2 hours ago, mymistake said:

 

Inductive reasoning is logical.  I don't see why we are not allowed to apply it to gods.

 

 

Inductive reasoning does not result in certainty. Just probability. So it doesn't get you proof.

 

Unless, that is, we are speaking of mathematical induction, which does get you certainty. But there are many reasons why we can't use mathematical induction to prove that God does not exist.

[disillusioned]

10 hours ago, theanticrash said:

How do you think we could start the process of discovering if it does?

 

This is a delicate question.

 

It seems to me that if the universe has ultimate meaning, then it must have ultimate meaning to someone. So really, what we would have to do is show whether or not there is someone beyond the universe to whom it has meaning. I don't personally think that this is an answerable question. So for me, it's a non-starter.

 

I certainly don't have any reason to think that there is someone beyond the universe to whom it has meaning. So there's that.