I am still unsure about my self-identity. I am an atheist insofar as I do not believe in god, but I am agnostic as to the possibility of a "god"—whatever that means. It's a matter of evidence, and I have seen none.
I am a methodological naturalist. I can only test truth claims in the real world with the tools at my own disposal. For this reason I cannot be a solipsist: while I concede it is possible that the entire universe is an invention of my own mind somehow, it is not something that I can ever know—even if this is the reality of my own making, it is the reality that I have no choice but to deal with.
I am open to the possibility of a "spiritual" plane of existence, but again, insofar as it continues to exist outside of our grasp of the natural world, I have no way of investigating it.
I struggle with being dishonest about it. That, and I crave having an open and honest conversation about what I believe and why I believe the things that I do. I am worried that that conversation will not play out like it often does in my imagination.
Agnostic atheist. You don't believe and see no evidence to prove it, but you aren't asserting that no gods exist and are open to the possibility pending evidence.
"Claims to know god doesn't exist"
I claim what doesn't exist, doesn't exist. There needs to be at least a shred of evidence of an existence for me to feel confident it doesn't exist. If it never existed then there's really nothing to know or feel confident about because it's not really debateable.
Last edited by Erick Estrada; 03-25-2021 at 11:25 AM.
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I claim what doesn't exist, doesn't exist. There needs to be at least a shred of evidence of an existence for me to feel confident it doesn't exist. If it never existed then there's really nothing to know or feel confident about because it's not really debateable.
i used to take umbrage with this definition also because in my case, its not an active disbelief in god, but rather a complete and utter lack of the concept. so the idea that actively being in opposition of a concept i dont even acknowledge felt wrong
but the truth is, if billions of people in the world believed in something else that was completely arbitrary, say, when you go to sleep you are actually awake, and that when you're awake you're dreaming, there would be a term for people that thought that was nonsense also, despite us not having one for it now
That is probably a useful description of where I am. Although the chaotic operation of the universe, its sheer size and the infinitesimal favourability of life make me dubious. For a while I was an open-theist: of the opinion that god is neither all knowing nor all-powerful, and that she/he is much more like humans than not. It actually provided for me a much more favourable view of a god who cares deeply, but is unable to solve all of our problems, and from time to time messes them up through efforts to change things.
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
I claim what doesn't exist, doesn't exist. There needs to be at least a shred of evidence of an existence for me to feel confident it doesn't exist. If it never existed then there's really nothing to know or feel confident about because it's not really debateable.
I think this has mostly to do with our general sloppiness in the usage of language. We "know" things without claiming to have perfect knowledge, or we mistake confidence for knowledge. I think that when it gets right down to it there are not actually any gnostic atheists. Gnostic theists, on the other hand are abundant, and the reason for this is because millions or billions of people continue to have religious experiences and are either unaware of or unwilling to accept the completely naturalistic explanations for them.
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
That is probably a useful description of where I am. Although the chaotic operation of the universe, its sheer size and the infinitesimal favourability of life make me dubious. For a while I was an open-theist: of the opinion that god is neither all knowing nor all-powerful, and that she/he is much more like humans than not. It actually provided for me a much more favourable view of a god who cares deeply, but is unable to solve all of our problems, and from time to time messes them up through efforts to change things.
This is just an assumption, though. Currently we have no concept of if life is bountiful or scarce. For all we know, life could be all over our solar system, just for starters. Spread that across hundreds of billions of galaxies, and more star systems than you can imagine, and it could be that that statement is totally wrong. Or it could be that Earth is the only life in the Universe, though I consider that far less likely.
Last edited by Fuzz; 03-25-2021 at 01:50 PM.
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I am definetly a deist, I annoy the hell out of my fundy friends when I point out the obvious, that the existance of an all powerful being who created us in no way proves that that being gives a rats ass in hell if I eat pork or schtoop another dude
I claim what doesn't exist, doesn't exist. There needs to be at least a shred of evidence of an existence for me to feel confident it doesn't exist. If it never existed then there's really nothing to know or feel confident about because it's not really debateable.
Which "God"? If we're talking about the self-refuting Judeo-Christian God of the bible, then sure, I feel pretty confident saying that God concept is so flawed that it cannot exist as defined.
For other more loosely defined God-concepts, I'm 99.9999999% sure that they don't exist either, and as such I am perfectly confident with operating under that assumption indefinitely. However, that 0.0000001% would allow me to consider the possibility if evidence was forthcoming. It is simply that I am willing to consider the possibility, and it says nothing about how low or high the bar is (it is plenty high).
I don’t believe the moon is made of cheese. However, I am open to changing my mind if someone shows me solid proof it is made of cheese. So am I agnostic or gnostic about cheese-moon?
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If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
I don’t believe the moon is made of cheese. However, I am open to changing my mind if someone shows me solid proof it is made of cheese. So am I agnostic or gnostic about cheese-moon?
From a purely philosophical perspective you are agnostic about it. In truth, we make claims of certainty and knowledge for all sorts of things for which we do not have total knowledge.
I don't believe that I am merely a brain in a vat. However, I am open to changing my mind if someone shows me solid proof that I am only a brain in a vat.
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
That is probably a useful description of where I am. Although the chaotic operation of the universe, its sheer size and the infinitesimal favourability of life make me dubious. For a while I was an open-theist: of the opinion that god is neither all knowing nor all-powerful, and that she/he is much more like humans than not. It actually provided for me a much more favourable view of a god who cares deeply, but is unable to solve all of our problems, and from time to time messes them up through efforts to change things.
The Drake Equation is interesting when thinking about the infinitesimal probability of life. With current findings of the number of habitable planets that could evolve human like life increasing rapidly
Now the usefulness of this is questionable as the rare earth hypothesis uses conservative values leading to a number less than one. But a more favourable set of criteria set the number at 15,000,000 species.
So we actually don’t know with certainty if the likelihood of intelligent life is rare on a universe level scale.
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The Drake Equation is interesting when thinking about the infinitesimal probability of life. With current findings of the number of habitable planets that could evolve human like life increasing rapidly
Now the usefulness of this is questionable as the rare earth hypothesis uses conservative values leading to a number less than one. But a more favourable set of criteria set the number at 15,000,000 species.
So we actually don’t know with certainty if the likelihood of intelligent life is rare on a universe level scale.
I think it's worthwhile to think of this question also in terms of the sheer size of the universe. Even if the universe is teeming with life, it is all so far away that we have no good reason of ever imagining that we could know one way or the other. It seems reasonable to conclude that nothing travels faster than light, and even at light speed the nearest star is more than a four-year journey away.
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
From a purely philosophical perspective you are agnostic about it. In truth, we make claims of certainty and knowledge for all sorts of things for which we do not have total knowledge.
I don't believe that I am merely a brain in a vat. However, I am open to changing my mind if someone shows me solid proof that I am only a brain in a vat.
Yeah, Cliff might have used arguably one of the worse examples I've heard in response to that.
I claim what doesn't exist, doesn't exist. There needs to be at least a shred of evidence of an existence for me to feel confident it doesn't exist. If it never existed then there's really nothing to know or feel confident about because it's not really debateable.
Your double speak confuses me.
But that entire graph is a complete strawman of the confident atheists position. Everyone telling me about the faith I need to have in actively believe god does not exist, but it's an obvious deficiency in language and historic context. The theists have pulled a completely made up presupposition out of thin air and pushed the burden of proof back on me. The whole thing is long debunked by the flying spaghetti monster postulate, it's not reductio ad absurdum if the content of the analogy is identical to the original claim itself, and this thought experiment proves it's ridiculous expecting me to be open to a claim you are making if you are unable to ground it in some sense of reality.
I think it's worthwhile to think of this question also in terms of the sheer size of the universe. Even if the universe is teeming with life, it is all so far away that we have no good reason of ever imagining that we could know one way or the other. It seems reasonable to conclude that nothing travels faster than light, and even at light speed the nearest star is more than a four-year journey away.
Yeah, I get a kick out of people who say "someday we might be able to travel at light speed or even faster" and reach other stars.
Fact is, light is made of photons and they have no mass, to have anything with mass to travel at the speed of light would take more energy than we could ever imagine and even more energy to slow down and stop!
IMO the only way humans ever leave this planet for another star system is if we send a probe with frozen embryo's in hopes that aliens them in a few million years.
Meh, humans went from not being able to really imagine powered flight to landing on the moon in ~100 years. If we last another 10,000 we might figure out a weird way of "travelling" faster than light. It won't be in a conventional physical way that we currently understand though.
For the record I think even travelling at 99% C is likely impossible for anything that we can conceive of.
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But that entire graph is a complete strawman of the confident atheists position. Everyone telling me about the faith I need to have in actively believe god does not exist, but it's an obvious deficiency in language and historic context. The theists have pulled a completely made up presupposition out of thin air and pushed the burden of proof back on me. The whole thing is long debunked by the flying spaghetti monster postulate, it's not reductio ad absurdum if the content of the analogy is identical to the original claim itself, and this thought experiment proves it's ridiculous expecting me to be open to a claim you are making if you are unable to ground it in some sense of reality.
How is the diagram in any way a straw man?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Meh, humans went from not being able to really imagine powered flight to landing on the moon in ~100 years. If we last another 10,000 we might figure out a weird way of "travelling" faster than light. It won't be in a conventional physical way that we currently understand though.
Well, human beings were most definitely imagining powered flight much earlier than 1860.
But to the point, I think that is just it, though: there are physical limits that are simply impossible to overcome. In a sense, imagining travel even approaching light speed is not much different than imagining the supernatural.
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For the record I think even travelling at 99% C is likely impossible for anything that we can conceive of.
What is this.
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
I watched this video a decade ago and I've always wondered if it reveals the nature of "god" using ants as an analogy. No ant is an architect or an engineer, yet they've managed to build a complex structure with many functional areas each with temperature, humidity, ventilation, food and waste requirements. I wonder if the summation of the collective consciousness of the ants of the colony creates a new unique consciousness that guides the whole, like each ant has their own unique frequency of consciousness and the "ant god" is summation of all these frequencies into a new unique frequency. So "god" doesn't create us, but is rather a byproduct of our collective consciousness. Then again, ants are also the byproduct of hundreds of millions of years of evolution and I may just be trying to attach a larger value to what is simply a highly refined biological process.
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