An arguement for Agnoticism - against Atheism.

[Verily]

Let me a write up a brief and rather unenlightening rebuttal. By this I do not mean to attack the sort of agnosticism Gully Foyle promotes; it is not, in itself, problematic. It also does a good job of weeding out some of the more unfortunate arguments put forward by atheism—although in doing so it tends to side, quite wrongly, with religion, which both Gully and its other proponents should know better than to do.

I could will appeal to the human senses and to reason to suggest that God does not exist because I do not, and cannot, perceive God. The response is that these are meaningless, and that there can be things which exist beyond our senses and our reason. I am inclined to agree that this is true in theory. However, without any possible evidence, there is no reason beyond doubt to believe things actually do exist beyond our sense and reason.

The confusion agnosticism, or at least the form of agnosticism herein discussed, encounters is the equation of potential to exist with reasonable possibility of existence. Many things have the potential to exist within our world, from a mountain a billion miles tall to a star so small it could fit in the palm of your hand. We have not even come remotely close to plying the complete depths of the universe, yet we would dismiss the possibility of these existing outright. Such, too, is any individual thing beyond our senses and capacity to conceive, including in this argument God. They could exist, in theory, but the possibility of any individual thing existing is small enough as to be negligible and irrelevant.*

(Here we reach something of a semantic standoff as to who will define “God” and how. I think it is reasonable to take “God” to mean any definition applied by any significant faith or any reasonably recognizable deviation from such. While this definition is ambiguous in itself, it at least gives us something other than “thing beyond our senses”.)

To the agnostic, then, the relative chances are unimportant, and the very fact that it is possible means it is worth considering. I suppose philosophically this isn’t wrong, but as a practical argument it falls apart. You should be able to deduce why on your own.

However, we’ve overlooked something else. The fact that I can conceive of things which supposedly exist beyond my senses suggests that they are not, in fact, beyond my senses, or at least beyond my perception. But, then, to what does Gully refer when he says that science is without basis in saying that there is nothing beyond the potential reaches of knowledge? Certainly neither he nor any other agnostic or religious person has any concept of what such a thing would be any more than a nonbeliever does—if they did, the thing wouldn’t be beyond human conception. Just something to chew on.

I suppose you can call this all a variation of the Flying Spaghetti Monster argument. There is nothing empirical which makes the Flying Spaghetti Monster less likely than God (as defined above). Gully calls it a rhetorical device, but surely he should also then be concerned about the possibility that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists. One cannot be dismissed without dismissing the other.

*The other possibility is that the regions beyond our conception are infinite in scope, in which case even the most improbable things must exist. Of course, if this is the case, God is the least of our worries.

[Jacobtm]

There is no scientific case for Atheism, and there is no scientific case for any 1 religion, any definitive statement in that realm is a belief.

Many religious beliefs on their own can be disproved. If you believe that literal interpretation of the Torah is the definition of Judaism, then all you have to do is show scientifically that the world is older than the Torah claims. But religious people will begin to say that their holy texts are not to be taken literally, in which case, if a religion makes no real claims about anything that can be tested or proven, it's no different than subscribing to any life philosophy.

So it's not really a dichotomy between Atheism and believing in "God", because that implies a judeo-christian belief system. Belief in any sort of god, gods, dieties, FSMs, magic jelly beans, or lack of belief in all of it, are all equally valid.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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Am I defending religion? I don't think so, at least not here.

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Yes, but equally the reverse true. "Abscene of evidence is not evidence of abscence."

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Who exactly is making these calculations ("negligible and irrelevant")? I'd agree with the rest of this.

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... and most of those faiths have very different intrepretations of "god". Hell, look at Hinduism and its multitude of intrepretations. (Though I'm thinking of something close to Brahman, rather than say, the classic Monotheistic Christian God "thing")

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Ah but a star or a black hole is different thing at least in my conception to a "god", I'm really referring to a being or thing which exists outside of reality as it is known. As we cannot as of yet, sense this reality (and can not know whether such a reality exists or not) it cannot be classified in the same way as the phenomena of our universe. Your mathematical calculations, are based on on what we already about the universe, which as said, is rather shallow at this point.

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Ah okay, now this is an interesting argument. All I will add is that perhaps it is not so much sensory knowledge we are referring to, but what we think of as sensory knowledge. After all we don't innately know that there are five senses, we learn that from our education. With prevelance of other unexplainable phenomena - say, Ghost or UFO sightings - then perhaps our own knowledge of perception is somewhat limited. I'm not going to make the argument now (too long), but I have before leaned towards the pomo conception that our knowledge is constructed out of whatever we consider knowledge to be.

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Perhaps so. But your last paragraph contradicts this one. The FSM was invented as a rhetorical device, as an argument against religion, it was not something conceived as "beyond our senses".

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True, and even some astrophysicists are leaning towards "multiple universe" theories.

[justfollowingtheelections]

(Please point out typos).

why don't we begin with the thread title.

LOL. Yes, I always spell it that way. Like the word "Aswell". It's a childhood trait I can't quite shrug off.

also, 'agnoticism' as opposed to 'agnosticism'

Ugh. Missed that. Typed too fast.

I touch of Bertrand Russell. It's not really a response to him (Why I am Not a Christian), as he simply comes from an 'anti'-theistic proposition to a middle point and you come from an 'anti'-athiestic proposition and come to pretty much the same middle point.

I tend to agree with that, the only genuinely rational position given what we genuinely know about the universe without assumptions (which is practically nothing) is Agnosticism. I can't prove or disprove science. No-one can. With the mental tools we currently have at our disposal. (I really Russell's book btw, even if I disagree with it - every member of the religious right should be read his "nice people" essay.)

Well said.  Religion and atheism are two sides of the same coin:  Arrogant interpretations of what we are more than likely incapable of understanding.

     I had a friend who said once that he was an Agnostic because it is impossible to know whether or not God exists.

I would agree with your friend.

[Associate Justice PiT]

(Please point out typos).

why don't we begin with the thread title.

LOL. Yes, I always spell it that way. Like the word "Aswell". It's a childhood trait I can't quite shrug off.

also, 'agnoticism' as opposed to 'agnosticism'

Ugh. Missed that. Typed too fast.

I touch of Bertrand Russell. It's not really a response to him (Why I am Not a Christian), as he simply comes from an 'anti'-theistic proposition to a middle point and you come from an 'anti'-athiestic proposition and come to pretty much the same middle point.

I tend to agree with that, the only genuinely rational position given what we genuinely know about the universe without assumptions (which is practically nothing) is Agnosticism. I can't prove or disprove science. No-one can. With the mental tools we currently have at our disposal. (I really Russell's book btw, even if I disagree with it - every member of the religious right should be read his "nice people" essay.)

Well said.  Religion and atheism are two sides of the same coin:  Arrogant interpretations of what we are more than likely incapable of understanding.

     I had a friend who said once that he was an Agnostic because it is impossible to know whether or not God exists.

I would agree with your friend.

     It's a reasonable belief to hold.

     I don't feel the same way though, since I figure that if it is more reasonable for God not to exist than it is for God to exist, it would make more sense for me to hold the former belief.