Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

• "Grog bigger than you. Follow Grog or Grog club you in head."

The only intellectually honest one in that bunch is Grog.

Evidently Grog gets mean whether he's drinking grog or not

A book that I HIGHLY recommend is Sapiens.

Haven't read it, but Harari was quoted and referenced heavily in a book I did read last year....I think it was Sapiens, but moreso I remember the author's name than the particular book.  

Haven't read it, but Harari was quoted and referenced heavily in a book I did read last year....I think it was Sapiens, but moreso I remember the author's name than the particular book. 

He released a second book called Homo Deus that I haven't read, which is more about the future of humanity than the past as I understand it. I need to put that one on my list, but I haven't gotten around to it. 

That's not really atheism, that's agnosticism.  And generally, the agnostic position does make a claim:  That they don't know if there's a god, and/or it can't be known if there is a god.  The first claim is simply first-person experience and isn't forward looking, and off the top of my head, wouldn't need support...it's just their current mental state regarding the topic.  The second claim is actually a belief, and it does require support.  Agnostics don't get off the hook in their claims any more than atheists or theists.  Nor should they. 

I've heard this before, and just don't buy it. From an epistemological sense, it's basically impossible to prove a negative. That doesn't mean that I have to provide evidence that everything I don't believe in doesn't exist. The default position is to withhold belief for things that you cannot prove or have significant evidence DO exist. 

It's like the claim that we're all living in some other much higher order entity's computer simulation. I.e. that we're a version of the video game "The Sims" and we don't know it, or that we're just all in The Matrix and don't realize that our observed reality is a made up construct to satisfy us. 

I don't believe we're in a sim, or that we're in The Matrix. But can I prove that we're not? Of course not. Does that mean that I should consider myself agnostic on the matter, and not claim that I don't believe it? I don't think so.

People tend to apply this test ONLY to the atheism / agnosticism question. I don't believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster either, but it seems that people don't consider me an agnostic on that question, I'm allowed to be a non-believer. 

I'd turn it back on you. Do you believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Well, if you don't, then you need to PROVE it doesn't exist, otherwise you're agnostic on the matter... 

I don't believe you're agnostic on the matter, I think you believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist. But you can't prove it, can you?

He released a second book called Homo Deus that I haven't read, which is more about the future of humanity than the past as I understand it. I need to put that one on my list, but I haven't gotten around to it.

That's it.  Homo Deus.  

Sort of the Christopher Hitchens view.

It's impossible to get into typing on a forum.  Fascinating topic for me, though.  I take the opposite view.  Ideas have consequences.  Things like charity arise naturally out of some worldviews and things like will-to-power arise from others.  I think there is an ocean of evidence both historically and philosophically to support the assertion that western civilization, with all its quirks and foibles, is so saturated in Christian values and ethics that the average person can't see it and thus assumes it has no bearing, similar to the tale of the man asking a fish what it's like to live in water and the fish says "What's water?"  (It's so ubiquitous in its life it doesn't recognize that it's a thing...the fish doesn't know anything else and has nothing to compare its experience to.)  We assume that things like goodwill and sacrifice are the natural state of humanity--or can be--but I don't see any reason to think this is the case.  Psychologically, or again, philosophically or historically. 

At any rate, you've already offered more than the average person, so while I disagree, credit for at least thinking about it. 

Well said.

I'd argue that "individual rights" or "human rights" are also a myth. A very convenient, very useful, very important myth and one that underpins a lot of our society. 

Back in the old days, we based rights on religion, and law on things like the Ten Commandments. In the modern era, we assume that humans have "natural rights" based on their humanity, and that these rights are inherent in the human condition...

...but rights only exist so far as we all agree and respect them. Your "right" to life is only as strong as your ability to evade Jeffrey Dahmer, or Pol Pot, or the cruise missile. 

The argument that much of Western society is steeped in Judeo-Christian values is IMHO obvious. Where we differ is in the question of whether Christian values are sent down to us from a benevolent Creator, or whether humans invented Judaism and Christianity because it's a lot easier to justify "human rights" by an appeal to authority (Creator) than it is to just invent them and convince people they exist. 

We likely have the concept of unique and individual human rights likely FROM the Judeo-Christian tradition, and today we've invented secular replacements for them. We can argue about belief and whether there is a Creator, but either way humanity needs the myth of unique and individual human rights to thrive. 

I've heard this before, and just don't buy it. From an epistemological sense, it's basically impossible to prove a negative. That doesn't mean that I have to provide evidence that everything I don't believe in doesn't exist. The default position is to withhold belief for things that you cannot prove or have significant evidence DO exist.

It's like the claim that we're all living in some other much higher order entity's computer simulation. I.e. that we're a version of the video game "The Sims" and we don't know it, or that we're just all in The Matrix and don't realize that our observed reality is a made up construct to satisfy us.

I don't believe we're in a sim, or that we're in The Matrix. But can I prove that we're not? Of course not. Does that mean that I should consider myself agnostic on the matter, and not claim that I don't believe it? I don't think so.

People tend to apply this test ONLY to the atheism / agnosticism question. I don't believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster either, but it seems that people don't consider me an agnostic on that question, I'm allowed to be a non-believer.

I'd turn it back on you. Do you believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Well, if you don't, then you need to PROVE it doesn't exist, otherwise you're agnostic on the matter...

I don't believe you're agnostic on the matter, I think you believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist. But you can't prove it, can you?

And I've heard this before, I don't don't buy it.  You'll have to pardon me, I'm sure this will be a lot clunkier than the much more articulate thinkers I'm drawing from.  

You seem to be referring to Properly Basic Beliefs--beliefs which are appropriately grounded and may be rationally accepted as basic beliefs not grounded in argument.  i.e.--neither of us think we're living in The Matrix, we can't prove that, but for reasons I can't get into here, qualifies as rational thought.  Or again, the belief that betarhoalphadelta is a person on the other end of these interwebz wire thingys.  I can't prove that.  Could be a bot beyond what I know bots to be capable of, could be I'm delusional and I'm making you up.  I can't prove that's not the case, however I'm justified in thinking you are a real person.  The agnostic is not being asked to prove such a negative.  

The flying spaghetti monster is a famous example getting into the philosophical concept of "Possible Worlds," which you may know about, and if not, I don't have the capacity to get into here.  Here I'll just say I don't think it's helpful or particularly relevant for the discussion at hand.  

That's all beside the point.  The agnostic absolutely makes a positive claim when they say "We can't know if there's a god."  That is a claim which requires at least some support. 

We can't know if there's really a sun.  Technically true, much like the Matrix, but we can assign properties of being to what we mean when we say "sun" and then there's a threshold of rationally acceptable evidence for such a thing.  

We also can't know if there's a Loch Ness monster, would be a similar claim.  Again there has to be some definable qualities assigned to whatever/whomever, and failing to find such a thing may leave one without proof of its nonexistence, but finding sufficient evidence of something matching those qualities is a logically possible outcome which would negate the positive idea of not being able to know if it exists.  If it is logically possible to know if something exists, then the agnostic does not get to wave their hand and magically dismiss the burden of proof he seeks to put on everyone else when they say "it's not possible to know." 

"God" may be assigned qualities*, and then there is either sufficient evidence for this being or not, the presence of said evidence making the original claim incorrect.  It would probably be more correct to say "We can't know that there's no god."  Proving that would be proving a negative, but that's a position more likely to be held by a theist.  In saying we can't know something, the agnostic makes as positive a claim as the theist in asserting God exists, and the atheist in asserting God does not exist.  Only, the agnostic does not make a claim about existence, but rather about knowledge.  That still is an assertion which requires support.  

That is why I say I accept the agnostic (statement 1, if you will):  "I don't know if there's a God."  Fair.  Maybe the evidence of lack of evidence isn't enough to move someone firmly either direction.  But the agnostic statement 2:  "We can't know...." 1) is a positive statement  2) in asking for support is not being asked to prove a negative  3) thus requires support.  


*This is not unimportant.  People need to be sure they're referring to the same thing, or person, in a topic like this.  Most arguments from popular atheists present arguments against a being that I, as a theist, don't believe in either.  Sometimes people tell me "I don't believe in God" and my first thought is "Which God don't you believe in?  Because I can point you to a lot of televangelists or cults or what have you, or a Sistine Chapel painting of some bearded Santa Clause looking grandpa surrounded by cherubim, and I don't believe in that guy either."  This is where most popular atheistic authors and thinkers lose me....most often they set up straw men and then proceed to knock them down, which doesn't move me at all.  And while they clearly don't do enough research, they're not entirely to blame for this, which brings me to my earlier statement about Christians in a previous post.  The reason why a lot of non-theists have concepts of God I'm not even interested in engaging in--because I find that "god" equally ridiculous--is because on the whole, Christians have done a crap job of conveying or even understanding what they (supposedly) believe.  I shouldn't criticize too harshly though, I fell in that category most of my life. 

That's all beside the point.  The agnostic absolutely makes a positive claim when they say "We can't know if there's a god."  That is a claim which requires at least some support. 

I agree. We can't know if there isn't, but we CAN know if there is. As you say, if we agree on the idea/qualities of what a "God" is, and we find definitive proof of its/his/hers (I know know God's preferred pronoun) existence, then we can know. 

That said, it's difficult. We assign God certain attributes/qualities that we define as supernatural, and yet we inhabit and observe the natural world. But I suppose that God being God, God could reveal existence to us in the natural world in such a way as we might "know" of God's existence. 

But your point is heard. Anyone who claims we can't know something exists is a claim that's not particularly defensible.