11–20 of 28 posts
What happened to being a good old agnostic? I think that in attempting to fight against being pigeonholed as either a believer or a denier of god/gods, he lights on the notion that somehow being a better (or real) scientist by being open to possibilities is an alternative. With respect, there's already a reasonable alternative to being either a believer in or denier of god/gods: agnosticism. The open mind stuff just…
What happened to being a good old agnostic? I think that in attempting to fight against being pigeonholed as either a believer or a denier of god/gods, he lights on the notion that somehow being a better (or real) scientist by being open to possibilities is an alternative. With respect, there's already a reasonable alternative to being either a believer in or denier of god/gods: agnosticism. The open mind stuff just…
I don't think agnosticism can really be called reasonable anymore. We now know so much about the universe that believing in any specific deity, or even just a general sense of the supernatural, seems akin to believing into Russel's teapot. Being atheist and being open minded are not mutually exclusive.
The existence of god is as yet unverifiable in the same way the existence of Bilbo Baggins is unverifiable. So what?
Of course we can't be completely certain. But the same goes for most everything else outside of mathematics, and I usually don't see people being so exaggeratedly careful to withhold judgement like this except on really touchy, emotionally charged subjects like religion. This is a double standard.
I like his take on this. I normally describe myself as an atheist but only because I don't believe that any of the religions I've studied are true. But I am open to other possibilities and I think this guy describes that well.
Is there anyone outside of a mental institution who isn't open to other possibilities? There has to be something seriously wrong with you if you are willing to state a priori that you will not consider unequivocal evidence of a new phenomenon, should it appear.
(Note that I'm not saying this is unique to Christians, or that it applies to all or even most Christians. Here endeth the disclaimer.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there anyone outside of a mental institution who isn't open to other possibilities? There has to be something seriously wrong with you if you are willing to state a priori that you will not consider unequivocal evidence of a new phenomenon, should it appear.
While it's true that few would explicitly state that, there are certainly people on both sides that feel free to ignore inconvenient evidence. Not exactly a shocking revelation, but humans aren't purely logic-driven beings.
If you ascribe a very low probability to the existence of a god, then I'd say you're justified in just calling yourself an atheist. And vice versa for theists. The big problem I notice among a lot of people who identify as agnostics (or "possibilians", if you prefer) is that they're treating lack of absolute certainty as synonymous with lack of any certainty. Of course we can't be completely certain. But the same goe…
The math would go something like this X is gods existence with given definition of god, Y is all the possibilities where god may or may not exist. Then probability of god is X/Y and you should get somekind of percentage for it.
Example, Let's define god as creator god, plus there is the possibility of no god, wikipedia has 109 different entities for creator god and there is roughly eight(?) different breeds of atheism. So we have 109/(109+8)
We get 93,2% probability of god existing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Creator_gods
I'm not really trying to say anything about gods existence. I'm trying to say that don't use math where it's not applicable. To me probability is highly mathematical concept.
What happened to being a good old agnostic? I think that in attempting to fight against being pigeonholed as either a believer or a denier of god/gods, he lights on the notion that somehow being a better (or real) scientist by being open to possibilities is an alternative. With respect, there's already a reasonable alternative to being either a believer in or denier of god/gods: agnosticism. The open mind stuff just…
I don't think agnosticism can really be called reasonable anymore. We now know so much about the universe that believing in any specific deity, or even just a general sense of the supernatural, seems akin to believing into Russel's teapot. Being atheist and being open minded are not mutually exclusive.
But I would not be so stupid to go and tell everybody that I certainly absolutely believe that there is no elephant toy behind my couch. And I surely would not bet on it. Maybe someone broke into my apartment, and I don't know about it. (or I was wasted and thought it was funny)
I would simply take a stand that I don't know until I look there.
Thats atheism, except that it's kinda hard to go and look.
If you ascribe a very low probability to the existence of a god, then I'd say you're justified in just calling yourself an atheist. And vice versa for theists. The big problem I notice among a lot of people who identify as agnostics (or "possibilians", if you prefer) is that they're treating lack of absolute certainty as synonymous with lack of any certainty. Of course we can't be completely certain. But the same goe…
Probability and religion are not well suited terms to use together, probabilities are for stuff you can measure, religious stuff is usually something you cant measure. The math would go something like this X is gods existence with given definition of god, Y is all the possibilities where god may or may not exist. Then probability of god is X/Y and you should get somekind of percentage for it. Example, Let's define go…
However, if you see (for example) someone turn into a pillar of salt, and hear a booming voice from the sky proclaiming itself god, then that should make the existence of that god more probable in your estimation. Ditto for cars crashing through walls: if it happened more often, then this evidence should raise your estimate of the probability of suddenly having your wall knocked down by someone's car. This doesn't have to be complicated; it's actually very straightforward.
To you, probability may be a highly mathematical concept that doesn't apply to everything. To me, probability is how we express uncertainty. It's a powerful way of describing the way the universe works, and we ignore or misrepresent it at our own peril.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While it's true that few would explicitly state that, there are certainly people on both sides that feel free to ignore inconvenient evidence. Not exactly a shocking revelation, but humans aren't purely logic-driven beings.
Could you name some inconvenient evidence that people on the atheist side tend to ignore? I'm not claiming that there isn't such evidence, but often when people criticize "people on both sides", they're committing an equivocation fallacy because it sounds wise. I'm curious to see if you did, too.