dmiessler.com | grep understanding - Latest Comments in Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Lady Lauren — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:29:10 -0000

CarlM: "You guys can play with semantics as much as you'd like, I'll stick to using the dictionary versions of words."

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Atheist: One who believes that there is no deity

Dictionaries differ to much and each has seperate outside influence. To speak accurately about atheism, why don't you try:

http://www.atheists.org/

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Blair — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 06:34:48 -0000

Or better yet...just drop the whole labeling altogether and when someone asks you what you believe, just say "I have yet to see any proof of God, but am open to the possibility" or say "I reject the idea of a higher being"..or whatever you do believe in.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Blair — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 06:31:35 -0000

To be frank, with all of your logical deductions and word definitions you may be 'technically' correct about the usage of the term atheist/agnostic..BUT I have to ask 'why bother?'

You basically want all agnostics to declare themselves 'weak atheists'. But why? It seems retarded to me to have a 'weak' atheist and a 'strong' atheist term and to get rid of the agnostic term...considering how different weak and strong atheists' beliefs are. It just confuses people.

So I guess that basically I'm just saying that while you may be 'technically' correct..it just seems highly impractical and confusing. It would be much better if the 'weak' atheists would call themselves agnostics...and let the ones who firmly reject the idea of God be called atheists.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

CarlM — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 12:03:41 -0000

"As for your argument about not attacking the religious view of others because they're harmless ..."

I'm pretty sure that isn't what I said .. and I've just reread what I wrote.

Daniel, whenever you make an assertion about religion causing harm, replace the word "religion" with the word "handguns" and see if the argument sounds familiar. If it does, and if you don't believe that the logic works with that one-word replacement, then there may be something lacking with the logic.

I don't think that anyone in this discussion has denied that there are religious people whose actions at times harm society. Certainly I have not denied that. But, I also don't deny that there are handgun owners whose actions at times harm society. Does it follow that HANDGUNS harm society? I know that your answer to that question is no. So, why do you believe that it follows that RELIGION harms society?

My position is that you are aiming your attack at the wrong place. You believe that it is the religion that is a root cause of societal harm in exactly the same way that many believe that handguns are a root cause of societal harm, and you are using EXACTLY the same sort of logic to come to that conclusion. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I would guess that your position about handgun abuse is probably that we should go hard after those who misuse handguns (that is, they use handguns in such a way that they interfere with the rights of others). I would ask why your position on religion is any different.

I'm guessing that you'll assert that there is some sort of fundamental difference between the two cases, but I'm not at all convinced that there is.

(By the way, I wouldn't mind a direct response to the three questions I asked in the "friend's mother's funeral" paragraph in a previous post.)

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Anon — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 05:33:03 -0000

You can only be 100% certain of your current experience as it happens and as "experience". You can't be 100% certain of what your experience implies or anything else (see You are totally incorrigible!). This means that everyone should be agnostic according to your scale unless you think you are God yourself. The atheists cannot be 100% atheist because God could be an implied by their experience and anything that is implied cannot be 100% certain. Everyone except fanatics has to live with some degree of uncertainty in interpreting the world.

Are firm atheists fanatics? Probably, because they rely on materialism as an absolute argument against spirituality. (See Materialists should read this first)

Whether, on the balance of experiences and learning, you decide that spirituality is relevant or irrelevant is more complex than believing or denying that a teapot might be orbiting the sun. I would classify many agnostics as heretics rather than atheists and heresy can be the beginning of new established religion.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Daniel Miessler — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:12:03 -0000

The scope of atheism includes specific use of the word like this. Deists such as our founding fathers, for example, were widely considered atheists in their time because they didn't believe in the current version of God.

As for your argument about not attacking the religious view of others because they're harmless, this is something I plan to address in a separate piece altogether so I won't do so here. Suffice it to say, I think you and those who take that line are ignorant to the extent that religion as a whole does hurt society.

Your third point, about not infringing on the rights of others being where you draw the line, that's directly related to what I'll be writing on the topic. In short, that's already happening on a wide scale, and you're either ignorant of it or you are ignoring it.

My very next piece, however, will re-address this issue of atheism vs. agnosticism, as I did a horrible job making the argument this time around.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Daniel Miessler — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:34:47 -0000

I'd argue this is a matter of us not fully understanding the TRUE nature of the physics. We know the particle model is true, and we know the wave model is true.

This is a matter of scientific agnosticism.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

CarlM — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 09:39:09 -0000

"The answer is that you are an atheist with respect to that person's beliefs, not agnostic."

This is an example of what I meant when I said that you were misusing the term. Person A may not believe in the same God that Person B believes in, but if Person A believes in any God, then it is inappropriate to call him an atheist. This is a semantic point, but those are important in logical arguments. Atheism is not something that one has toward one particular God or another. It's an all-encompassing thing.

... and while I'm writing in this (soon to be discontinued) thread ...

Your follow-up line to the above quote was:

"My argument is that you should be up front about that."

I think that THIS line points to a disagreement that you have with many of the agnostics who have posted here. My response would be "why?" Several of us have posted (in varying ways) the sentiment that proving the existence or nonexistence of God may well be impossible. So, while it may be an interesting subject for discussion, it's not something that we feel motivated to study in any great depth. Nor do we feel motivated to share our doubts with others.

Daniel, suppose you are at the funeral of a friend's mother. You see the grieving family and overhear someone saying, "She's in Heaven now reunited with her husband." What could possibly be gained by interjecting with some diatribe about your opinion of the likelihood of this reunion? They take some comfort in their beliefs. Why would you take this away from them? This question remains equally valid (in my opinion) even away from that funeral setting. You don't know what comfort people are taking from their religious beliefs at any given moment. Is the "benefit" of sharing your doubt in the sanity of their position really so great?

Please note that while I respect people's right to their religious beliefs, I do not believe that this gives them the right to interfere with the rights of others. For example, I believe that they have the right to hold whatever beliefs they wish, but they may not use public schools to proselytize. They certainly do not have the right to use science classes in public schools to teach things that are not science. (They ought not do this in private school science classes either, but they have the RIGHT to do that.)

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

sumYunDude — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:35:02 -0000

Quote:
"Remember, all propositions being made about the nature of reality are either true or not."

Ummmm... ever heard of wave particle duality?

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

icepyro — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:07:50 -0000

I spent my breaks at work contemplating a proper response only to come home and realize you have in fact redacted your stance in the comments and as such there is a lot less to say now.
But I do think I will just leave this here:
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
It has helped me prevent myself from playing the fool more than once recently. And I think I have still come up short.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Daniel Miessler — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:45:18 -0000

I've held for the last 10 years or so that I'm an agnostic on most matters of the universe scale, and an atheist with respect to most human religion I come across. This is nothing new.

As for misusing the term atheism, I don't think I am. In fact, I think it is you who have it wrong. I refer you to the wikipedia article on the topic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

"Atheism is the philosophical position that deities do not exist,[1] or that rejects theism.[2] In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities.[3]"

If you read the article it becomes pretty clear that if you DO NOT ACCEPT the established god(s) of the time you can fairly be considered an atheist.

This is a separate question from whether you are agnostic, which we all are here in this conversation.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Isaac — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:40:45 -0000

Thank you, very much. I totally agree. I've for a long time declared myself an atheist, then I started claiming agnosticism due to a potential 'intellectual cowardice'. Your simple, concise logical approach has shown me that I am -- in fact -- an atheist.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

cooperati — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:48:07 -0000

a "unicorn deer" was in the news a few years ago.

http://www.popfi.com/wp-con...

-=T=-

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Seth Dove — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:26:33 -0000

I consider myself agnostic because I can't prove a negative. I approach the subject from the definition of god. This god concept is by definition untestable. That's the sneaky thing about it. Therefore I don't even try. When I say I am agnostic what I mean is that I accept that being *certain* there is no god is not possible. Being agnostic does not imply that I am uncertain about the existence of a god. I am certain that it doesn't matter on a practical level. Therefore the entire subject bores me. It's like trying to solve a puzzle that has no solution. Why bother?

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Kim — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:48:39 -0000

When I said "excessive proof" I meant actually that we have excessively exhausted the possibility of proving that they exist. There is still a possibility that one might, but after years of searching, one has yet to be found.

You're right, it is magical, we can never say for sure that unicorns do not exist, and I have been convinced on that front... But i haven't been convinced on the god front. And I do entertain the notion that one exists, why would i deny that?

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Scott — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:47:07 -0000

I know that God does not exist. One day nothing came to me and told me that nothing exists and all I had to do was accept nothing into my heart, which I did, and I would be saved by nothing and live in communion with nothing.

I can't prove that nothing came to me nor can you prove that it didn't. When I think about nothing I get a "peace that passes all understanding". That's another reason that I know that nothing exists.

I also once had a dream and it was about nothing and so I've taken this as further evidence that nothing exists. Sometimes I'll pray to nothing and sometimes those prayers are answered and other times they are not. I guess nothing works in mysterious ways.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

CarlM — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:39:26 -0000

"You're essentially trying to argue that the chances of ANYTHING untestable being true and the odds of them being untrue are equal, and that any belief OR DISBELIEF in either direction is a matter of faith. "

Daniel, you are putting words in our mouths. None of the agnostics writing here has said that the probabilities of the existence or non-existence of God are equal. We have merely said that our personal probabilities of the existence of God are neither 0 nor 100%. That is what makes us agnostic.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

CarlM — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:37:04 -0000

Daniel, you've got a lot of smart people writing here. (I'm using "smart" in the they-agree-with-Carl sense.) We're even starting to have an effect on you. Allow me to quote you:

"but in general I'm agnostic."

----

PS I believe that you're misusing the word atheist. You are an atheist or you are not, but your logic would say that a devout Christian is an atheist about Islam. That's nuts. He simply doesn't believe in the teaching of Islam (at least where they are in conflict with the teachings of Christianity). THIS DOES NOT IN ANY WAY MAKE THE DEVOUT CHRISTIAN AN ATHEIST! That's an ABSURD use of the word.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Craig — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:33:05 -0000

Lol.

Ahh crap. Well this has been a whole lot of arguing for nothing. Maybe I'm being so picky because in a philosophy class I would be considered a 'hard agnostic', so I do tend to bristle a bit when someone just says, "hey why not just call yourself an atheist."

Anyway...nice blog and topic...it certainly gave me something to do to kill time during a slow work day.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

CarlM — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:20:16 -0000

"I have the same exact positions as you on 1 and 2. We differ on 3."

Sorry, Daniel, for me this is not logically possible. If I had enough information to make a decision, then I would either be in slot 1 or slot 7.

----

To answer your question about probabilities that you've asked more than once I think. Something with a probability of 0.000001 is infinitely more probable than something with probability 0. The numbers may be nearly the same, but there is an ENORMOUS difference between something being IMPOSSIBLE and something being very unlikely. That (for me) is the difference between an atheism and agnosticism.

You're not going to convince me otherwise.

----

"And the name for offering no respect to this particular *flavor* of absurd proposition, i.e. the truth of Abrahamic religions, is atheism."

That's not what atheism is (once again, I'm choosing to use the dictionary definition) .. and furthermore, I have ENORMOUS respect for religious people. It seems that you do not .. and this is one place that you and I differ.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Craig — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:20:05 -0000

"Once more: that which is claimed without evidence can also be dismissed without it."

And???

Agnostics simply don't care about questions which fit that statement. We only care about the provable. We don't care about what is 'likely' or 'unlikely' or what the odds are..we only care about what is.

God or unicorns cannot be proved. We're not going to waste out time trying to convince others about something that cannot be proved. We simply see it as it is. Unknowable. What an individual choose to believe in these cases also doesn't concern us...what I have been calling a 'faith based belief'. Maybe a better word for it would be a 'conclusion'.

In any case we don't care. The uncertainty principle plays a part here and we recognize that it restricts what we can or cannot know. Given that, we are only concerned about what can be known. That which cannot, we simply accept as not being knowable, and let each individual come to their own conclusion.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Daniel Miessler — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:37:22 -0000

> No, the *reason* I don't believe in Unicorns is that is seems extremely unlikely they exist. I've never seen one, I've never seen the bones of one, never been shown a fossil of one, etc...

Right, no evidence. That's why you don't believe in them.

> It seems to me the big difference between agnostics and atheism is that agnostics will say, 'I do or don't believe in a god, however, I also will admit I could be wrong. I simply cannot have certainty....and of that, I AM certain."

Dammit, man. I must be really bad at arguing this. You're not seeing that my beliefs are just about identical on this.

I am not absolutely certain there is no godlike being anywhere in the universe either--that's why I'm agnostic on the issue. But I am pretty close to certain that unicorns don't exist, and the Abrahamic gods. The degree that I leave open to possibility is the smallest possible amount in order to NOT be certain. It's about humility in the face of a strange existence.

Atheists like myself and Dawkins aren't saying for CERTAIN there are no Abrahamic gods; we're just saying the odds are low enough to dismiss the possibility to the point of calling ourselves atheists within that context.

It's precision of language. If someone holding a Bible asks me if I'm an atheist I say yes, because that's what they were asking. If someone in a philosophy class asks me if I'm an atheist the answer is going to be a whole lot more involved--e.g. well, for human gods, yes....but in general I'm agnostic.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Craig — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:18:41 -0000

No, the *reason* I don't believe in Unicorns is that is seems extremely unlikely they exist. I've never seen one, I've never seen the bones of one, never been shown a fossil of one, etc...

However, I cannot *know* with certainty they don't exist. I can BELIEVE they don't exist based on everything I have ever seen, perceived, experienced, etc) but I cannot KNOW they don't exist.

All that I KNOW is that their existence is unknowable at this time.

As an agnostic I draw a very strong line between the words 'belief' and 'knowledge'. One is internal and is based on personal views, reasoning, etc. The other is external, empirical and can be quantified or proven through logic.

I cannot prove unicorns don't exist. So the only knowledge I have of them is that the question of their existence is unknowable. That doesn't mean I can't still believe they don't exist. But without proof, without evidence one way or the other, that belief is ultimately grounded in faith. It's still something I can not empirically or logically prove.

Likewise with god. I can choose a side, believe a god exists, or not believe a god exists...but since I cannot show proof either way, my belief is based on faith...not knowledge or certainty.

It seems to me the big difference between agnostics and atheism is that agnostics will say, 'I do or don't believe in a god, however, I also will admit I could be wrong. I simply cannot have certainty....and of that, I AM certain."

While Atheists refuse to allow for the possibility of being wrong in their belief.

What I don't understand is why atheists feel that agnostics are waffling. We just like certainty.

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

Kim — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:08:04 -0000

But then they would be asking me if I'm agnostic to the christian religion, which I'm not. I think it's quite mostly crap.

My response to "are you christian?" is a very emphatic "NO".

My response to "do you believe in god" is "maybe, not really convinced. I consider myself agnostic".

If they ask me "do you believe in MY god" my answer would also be "NO".

Re: Shades of Astray: Why You Shouldn’t Be Calling Yourself Agnostic

cooperati — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:04:58 -0000

The popularity of a choice DOES fundamentally change the prevalence of the action of choosing to believe or disbelieve.

Again, disbelieving something isn't only having a lack of belief. It means you believe the opposite.

"There is no God." Do you believe this? Do you disbelieve this?

"There is no soul." Do you believe this? Do you disbelieve this?

"There is no afterlife." Do you believe this? Do you disbelieve this?

I could go on and on, but each time one states yes or no, they've made a choice, stating their beliefs.

(The only way this is not the case is if the person answering the question was actively copping out with some answer neither yes or no, or if there was some mechanical impairment that prevented input of the question, output of the answer, or both.)

A lack of belief is ONLY possible in the case of absolute ignorance of the choice. "God", "soul", and "afterlife" are all defined concepts. (That alone determines that they exist, if only as defined concepts.) There is no room for ignorance, until these concepts are unlearned or undefined, which constitutes another action.

-=T=-