Neil deGrasse Tyson on atheism ("the only 'ist' I am is a scientist")

[Kyriakos]

Exactly. And that's the exact same definition as LoLL offered, in slightly different words. But the rest of your post does not follow:


Your definition of an atheist is an agnostic atheist. Your moron, above, is also an atheist, but a gnostic atheist. What, exactly, precludes an atheist from being agnostic?

Well:

The issue of being theist or atheist is somewhat obviously not about knowing if a god is there (cause, surprise, you cannot). It is about thinking, and the forking path of either thinking you know a god exists/doesn't exist, or thinking it is likely a god exists/doesn't exist. Knowing whether a god exists is not part of the equation in any logical examination of a belief.

Agnostic merely means that you think you cannot know (about something, and god in this context). It never is about thinking there is ground enough that you can form a speculation about what is more likely to be the case.

[Lord of Lost Socks]

It means that one is of the view they do not know (and -in the context of conscious or unconscious idnealism- that in their opinion one cannot know, due to inherent limitations of the observer).

So in other words agnostics view things as unknowable or limited to experience. Nor do I understand why thinking that would stop someone from not believing, in fact that position would in my opinion encourage to not believe.

Not exactly sure where you disagree, or maybe my english is too weak to understand the disctinction.

And yes, agnosticism takes no stance on belief or likelyhood. That's the theism/atheism part. Which is why I'm an agnostic atheist.

[Kyriakos]

So in other words agnostics view things as unknowable or limited to experience. Nor do I understand why thinking that would stop someone from not believing, in fact that position would in my opinion encourage to not believe.

Not exactly sure where you disagree, or maybe my english is too weak to understand the disctinction.

There was once a brief comment (actually by a memeber of the clergy) about Nietzsche's persistence on advertising his atheism. The comment was: "One who does not think something exists is more likely to stop caring about it at some point".

And while the above was a theistic comment, i can agree that atheism of this variety seems to be caused by some sort of covert dependence on the object one is arguing against (in Nietzsche's case he was known to be dependent on idealism as something he fought, but in reality his own understanding of idealism renders it a caricature--small note: my only decent essay for my philosophy degree had this as the topic i chose ).

An agnostic is neither believing nor not-believing in a god, cause an agnostic does not make any such leap that would enable the option to now believe or not believe or place oneself between either end of that line. For example i, as an agnostic, am firmly of the view that our logic systems and overall mental world are making us eternally distinct from anything external, and thus from any god which would be external to us as well (to put it briefly)
On the other hand the personal mental world is another realm, which does not seem to be uniting people, and instead appears to be mostly what can be poetically termed as "an inner universe" .

[Himster]

Well:

The issue of being theist or atheist is somewhat obviously not about knowing if a god is there (cause, surprise, you cannot). It is about thinking, and the forking path of either thinking you know a god exists/doesn't exist, or thinking it is likely a god exists/doesn't exist. Knowing whether a god exists is not part of the equation in any logical examination of a belief.

Agnostic merely means that you think you cannot know (about something, and god in this context). It never is about thinking there is ground enough that you can form a speculation about what is more likely to be the case.

You're coming with an unpopular slant on epistemology there. Or rather an un-standard view on epistemology, this is confusing to atheists.
Your definition of an agnostic isn't incorrect, but it is the narrowest definition possible, people are misunderstanding your meaning because of that.
In it's broadest definition an agnostic is someone who does not know if god exists or not, it's this definition that most people here are referring to.

The atheist/theist dichotomy in it's broadest terms is about non-belief, or belief in non-existence/positive-belief. Obviously thinking can come into it, but that's semantics over epistemology, which is confusing as we're not all on the same page, an interesting debate and a related debate, but confusing because we're all basically talking about different things.

[Kyriakos]

[...]
The atheist/theist dichotomy in it's broadest terms is about non-belief, or belief in non-existence/positive-belief. Obviously thinking can come into it, but that's semantics over epistemology, which is confusing as we're not all on the same page, an interesting debate and a related debate, but confusing because we're all basically talking about different things.

True, but we never can be on the same page, which is another issue which leads to the theory of ideas (Plato) and 'idealism' as noting we are very crucially and forever distinct from an actual overarching external reality-whether the term reality can be of use or not.

There are many nice quotes on this. Protagoras stated that "man is the metre of all things" (which in my view is a practical way to accept idealism as not preventing us from examining external phenomena anyway- and nor should we be confined).

Also, one by Kafka:

"You can not know the truth, unless you are outside of it. You can only know the truth if you are a lie", and so on

[Taiji]

An agnostic cannot be an atheist.

I thought we were in complete agreement earlier but I missed that bit.

Everyone either has a belief in a god, evidenced by them acting as if, or they don't.

Knowledge (of whatever) is beside that point.

So there is no relation between atheism and agnosticism that allows you to know one through the other.

Or in other words agnosticism cannot preclude atheism.

Also, one by Kafka:

"You can not know the truth, unless you are outside of it. You can only know the truth if you are a lie", and so on

It's tempting to like that for the sheer exhilaration of losing so much all at once, but it's just the destruction of the word 'truth' when taken out of context.

Maths is made up, but it isn't a lie, and it has absolute truths.

[Kyriakos]

I thought we were in complete agreement earlier but I missed that bit.

Everyone either has a belief in a god, evidenced by them acting as if, or they don't.

Knowledge (of whatever) is beside that point.

So there is no relation between atheism and agnosticism that allows you to know one through the other.

Or in other words agnosticism cannot preclude atheism.



It's tempting to like that for the sheer exhilaration of losing so much all at once, but it's just the destruction of the word 'truth' when taken out of context.

Maths is made up, but it isn't a lie, and it has absolute truths.

I think that you are likely viewing the terms theist/atheist as connected to specific theories of a god (as in christian, etc). It makes no sense to argue that one has to act in a way defined by belief/nonbelief to a god, if that god he is thinking of is not defined (thus) itself anyway, and neither are any actions or ethics tied to that god.

If you are asking my view on whether the christian, jewish, islamic etc god(s) exist, then my answer would be that while i cannot be certain they do not, i am not involved in any belief to those theories at all. The term "god" does not begin with a specific theory of a god. It is an idea, and ideas tend to be there from the mental world each person has, and the effect of language on that inner world.

[Taiji]

Interesting though it is, I'm not sure how your response accounts for the alleged misuse of the word agnostic.

So I'll restate the point I was trying to make:

Agnosticism cannot preclude atheism if atheism is considered to be a lack of belief in gods.

Do you agree with that statement?

If not then please tell me what's wrong with it.

I think that you are likely viewing the terms theist/atheist as connected to specific theories of a god (as in christian, etc).

Nope.

It makes no sense to argue that one has to act in a way defined by belief/nonbelief to a god, if that god he is thinking of is not defined (thus) itself anyway, and neither are any actions or ethics tied to that god.

If you want verbal evidence you can always ask them.

If you are asking my view on whether the christian, jewish, islamic etc god(s) exist, then my answer would be that while i cannot be certain they do not, i am not involved in any belief to those theories at all. The term "god" does not begin with a specific theory of a god. It is an idea, and ideas tend to be there from the mental world each person has, and the effect of language on that inner world.

I am the same as you is my answer to the question which I wasn't asking.

I think it may be attempting to theorise beyond our capacity that produces gods as a modelling tool.

[Kyriakos]

Interesting though it is, I'm not sure how your response accounts for the alleged misuse of the word agnostic.

So I'll restate the point I was trying to make:

Agnosticism cannot preclude atheism if atheism is considered to be a lack of belief in gods.

Do you agree with that statement?

I don't.

Atheism is aways linked to a position on this issue that is directed to a set end of the belief system, namely the one where the belief is lacking.
Agnosticism, again, is not related to atheism, in the same way that not having ever swam in the sea is not related to having had a lot of time since swimming into the sea.

[Taiji]

Here you say they are related:

An agnostic cannot be an atheist.

But here you (agree with me and) say they are unrelated:

Agnosticism, again, is not related to atheism, in the same way that not having ever swam in the sea is not related to having had a lot of time since swimming into the sea.

What are we to make of this?

[Phier]

This whole thread is a moot point.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I'm really hoping people get that

[Kyriakos]

Here you say they are related:



But here you (agree with me and) say they are unrelated:



What are we to make of this?

I surely don't think my own sentences there cause any confusion (?). "Related" seems to mean that something is linked to something else. Something can negate the possibility of something else being there, without there needing to be any link theorised upon. For example if you have a square piece of paper you can argue that the paper is not a circle. It doesn't mean that you have agreed to an identity turning under some conditions a square into a circle. So no relation is there: the square object is not a circular object, and isn't related to it either.

(if one goes more mathematically, the circle cannot be morphed into a square linked to it, in any finite number of morphing steps, ie they are not to be related in this context. To return to the simpler metaphor i used in the previous post: one who has had some time since last swimming into the sea can never be one who has never swam into the sea).

[Taiji]

I surely don't think my own sentences there cause any confusion (?). "Related" seems to mean that something is linked to something else. Something can negate the possibility of something else being there, without there needing to be any link theorised upon. For example if you have a square piece of paper you can argue that the paper is not a circle. It doesn't mean that you have agreed to an identity turning under some conditions a square into a circle. So no relation is there: the square object is not a circular object, and isn't related to it either.

(if one goes more mathematically, the circle cannot be morphed into a square linked to it, in any finite number of morphing steps, ie they are not to be related in this context. Metaphors always have their own issues, of course).

I see, so for you there's agnostics and then 'morons' who claim to know gods do/don't exist (theists/atheists).

That category system seems fairly useless for working out whether someone believes in gods or not.

[Kyriakos]

I see, so for you there's agnostics and then 'morons' who claim to know gods do/don't exist (theists/atheists).

That category system seems fairly useless for working out whether someone believes in gods or not.

Hey that is unfair

There are agnostics, theists and atheists, and you can have degrees in each or all (despite those degrees in one state not being paired with analogous degrees in the other states), but the seperations are not all in degrees and therefore they won't produce every other state by merely altering any of the starting states in a path which still contains them as its basis.

Most theists (of the usual religions) seem to also think they know/have evidence that their god exists. Most, but not all.
Most atheists seem to agree that they do not know their god(s) do not exist, but think that they have enough info to negate any care for such a belief anyway. Some (i suppose a minority, and mostly very young people) seem to think they know that god (sic) does not exist. Mostly they mean a specific impression of a god, eg the one they think figures of authority near them believe.

I noted time and time again that agnosticism is linked to idealism (and idealism is, in general, the view that the thinker cannot know anything outside of his own mental system/world; we form models of external things, but a model is not the external object, and nor can it ever become the external object or its 'reality').
Now, of course, that does not hold true for all definitions of the term. But i do not see why i should care for any definition of this term, given the amount of vagueness with which most think of this issue anyway

[Taiji]

Unfair to get it wrong or spell it out clearly?

Agnosticism for me is about doubting all inferences that are untested or seem untestable.

Where atheism is the lack of a belief in gods, regardless of knowledge or doubts.

So, unless I'm mistaken in my understanding of your def where agnosticism+atheism+theism are all of the parts of one thing, my modelling tools are simply more flexible than yours. You only have 3 states where I have 4, and 1 scale where I have 2!

And you relate the terms in a way I don't (for me they are on different scales), so you can possibly see why your claiming them to be unrelated while defining them seemed odd to me.

Also shapes are related to one another in an exclusive and inclusive way, or we wouldn't be able to tell them apart and also recognise them as all being shapes (I have more shapes than you ). But I appreciate that you explained your use and that this way the analogy has already served it's intended purpose.

[Kyriakos]

Well, shapes are indeed "related" in ways which are not presented by set identities or equations we have, but this is another issue, close to the P=NP problem in computer science. In other words: a human can always do more things mentally than merely all those things he can account for an ability to do. This happens cause consciousness is based on vastly larger unconscious parts of the mental world.

[Taiji]

Compared to mine yours is crap at showing whether someone believes in gods or not. So what is the benefit of keeping your model?

NP problem on wiki made me lol:

A farmer wants to take 100 watermelons of different masses to the market. She needs to pack the watermelons into boxes. Each box can only hold 20 kilograms without breaking. The farmer needs to know if 10 boxes will be enough for her to carry all 100 watermelons to market.

Weigh them, duh.

[Kissaki]

An agnostic is neither believing nor not-believing in a god,

Not possible. By that extremely strict definition, no agnostics have ever existed, nor could they. It is impossible to be aware of a claim without forming an opinion as to whether one thinks it is true or false. An agnostic simply says there is no certain knowledge. This, in no way, shape or form, prevents the agnostic from having opinions on the matter. In fact it is impossible for him - or anyone - not to. An agnostic either believes God exists, or he believes God does not exist - but he recognizes that there is room for doubt regardless. The agnostic says, "I don't KNOW" - he does not say, "I don't think". Because obviously he does, unless he's dead.

cause an agnostic does not make any such leap that would enable the option to now believe or not believe or place oneself between either end of that line. For example i, as an agnostic, am firmly of the view that our logic systems and overall mental world are making us eternally distinct from anything external, and thus from any god which would be external to us as well (to put it briefly)

Let me ask you one question: what time is it?

By your own definition of agnostic, and your claim of being one, you cannot answer that question. You won't make such a leap as to believe that the time of day is such and such.

[Kyriakos]

^Uh...idealism isn't about not being able to know anything... I also know that 1+1=2. The nature of 'knowing' doesn't always have to do with an external 'reality' either. For example i know that some seconds ago i saw your sentences above. I still do not know if any being worth being termed a "god" exists, or other parameters related to that.

@Taiji: well, thanks for now ruining any sense that you were debating and not trying to antagonise. Internet y u no less predictable? :\

[RubiconDecision]

Rubicon, please do not fabricate quotes. You present your definitions as direct quotations from dictionary.reference.com, but your definitions are not found there. That last sentence has nothing to do with the definition of "theist", neither from that site nor from any definition I am familiar with. Nor does it make a lick of sense. "Theism" does not mention the trinity or divine revelation either way, it is strictly concerned with the existence of gods. The only possible reason you could have for adding that last bit is as some sort of cop-out so you can claim, fallaciously, that Christianity is somehow not theism.

In fact, the only two definitions which even mention revelation do not support you. The first one says the exact OPPOSITE of what you say:

"the belief in one God as the creator and ruler of the universe, without rejection of revelation"

The second one merely says that revelation is not relevant to the definition:

"the form of the belief in one God as the transcendent creator and ruler of the universe that does not necessarily entail further belief in divine revelation"


No - this is just flat out wrong. An agnostic does not believe in the knowable - just the opposite! He believes that nothing can be knowable. If he were in addition to that to believe just the knowable, his mind would be very empty indeed. No, the agnostic believes that believe is all he can do. He will never accept anything with absolute certainty.

I fixed it. Theism has lots of definitions but they are primarily in response to atheism. They began as monotheism, but without discussing the Trinity. So one could mention the Abrahamic faith traditions, but in all honesty, Christianity is not theism. Note the correct link in the original post. I am not making the attempt to be deceptive, and making ad hominem attacks on me, and not being moderated is rather low in the D & D, but then I guess I'm fair game for some reason.

If you were to ask a devout Jewish scholar if Christians believed in monotheism, he'd shudder and say no. Likewise would a devout Muslim scholar say no. The Trinity (Trinitarianism) results in something that is truly not monotheism.

Here is a longer explanation on that theism definition issue. I'll not waste one more second of time on this, for that is not the topic.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post13769770

I seriously doubt an agnostic believes that nothing can be knowable. If one believed that, they couldn't get out of bed, make any determinations, and would question the veracity of Reality. It would be utter madness. You cannot mean that. It wouldn't be not accepting anything with absolute certainity, it would manifest as being unable to make any conclusions and not trust their own observations from their senses.