What do you think the default position on the theistic debate is? Assuming there even is one.
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AgnosticismIf I flip a coin, and ask you "out of these two outcomes, heads or tails, which one will be the coin toss result in?"42% Voted for by Molzahn, Doom Bunny, Ns243cxcvi, Work In Progress, Epic Adventurer. (6 total)
Despite the fact that there are two possible outcomes, there are three possible answers:
"Heads"
"Tails"
And, "I don't know" -
YOU'RE ALL WRONG!!!!1=P Nah, but seriously though, those saying agnosticism is the default are wrong. People have this nasty habit of putting agnosticism as a middle ground between theism and atheism, and that's just not true. (A)theism regards BELIEF, (a)gnosticism regards KNOWLEDGE. Using the coin example, you can be agnostic AND believe it's heads. Similarly, you can BELIEVE you'll do well in a test but not KNOW you'll do well in a test. Regarding God, you can BELIEVE that God doesn't exist but not KNOW, making you an agnostic atheist.21% Voted for by NoeL-, petethemeat, zga.
The ultimate question is how you're defining atheism. Atheism does - in its broadest sense - mean a lack of theism. By this definition, atheism is the default. The more common definition for atheism is the rejection of theism, which necessitates a knowledge of theism before one can become an atheist. This refers to people who are aware of the concept of gods, yet don't accept the claim (this includes people that are unsure). Under this definition atheism is the RATIONAL default (which is what most youtube atheists are referring to when they say "atheism is the default"), yet the default response to a claim will change from person to person depending on their credulity and superstitious leanings.
So what is meant by "rational default"? Basically, that means the claim has not met the burden of proof needed to be accepted as true. If I made the claim that I was an alien martian from Uranus, to convince people of the fact I'll need to provide sufficient evidence to justify the claim. Since it is an outlandish claim which current knowledge does not support, the default position is to not accept that claim as true.
If, however, I owned DVDs of every season of Scrubs and constantly quoted the show in day-to-day life, the rational default position to the claim "I like Scrubs" is still to reject it, but since the claim conforms to known reality it is rational to accept it. This doesn't mean that the claim is true (I may hate the show, but own the DVDs and quote the show for entirely seperate reasons), only that it is more rational to accept the claim than to dismiss it, based on the known evidence.
On the topic of God, it's a common concensus that the claim "God exists" has NOT met its burden of proof. There is currently no rational model to justify the claim, and so the default position is to NOT accept that claim (i.e. atheism). -
AnglesJust for another angle on this, there is evidence that genetics might have something to do with one's beliefs about the divine (I am not suggesting that it is 'just genes' but there is some evidence of it) in which case it would seem that both atheism and theism can be default positions depending on the person. I know that I, personally, could never be a proper atheist (as in believing in no-god, as opposed to simply not believing in a god) and will always be some shade of theist from hopeful agnostic to reverent believer.14% Voted for by Alexander Hine, Molzahn.
Mind you, just on the purely intellectual front I feel that agnosticism is the default position - both belief in a god and belief in no-god require a certain leap of faith.
A. H. -
No, it is not.The human person longs for God, longs for the infinite. Since atheism lacks both these things, it is not the "defult". Look into history, the VAST majority of people in all culutres have been theists, human minds are wired to belive in God.Voted for by SilverQ.
For a good reason. -
The defaultIn terms of their definition, stupidly, would be non-existence; the lack of all opinion.Voted for by TeChNoWC.
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All defaultAll defaults are just an artificial method that we use to deal with ambiguity, and will vary depending on your personal nature.Voted for by Molzahn.
"Innocent until proven guilty" is the default in the majority of first world judicial systems. This isn't used by all societies however, so how could we say it is the default?
To some Christians, everyone is born believing in God. To some atheists, everyone is born as an atheist. These are all subtle reflections of how these people idealize and simplify the world in order to understand it.
I would say that all answers are equally the default. Like potential superpositions of what is actually true. The default is not a representation of what is actual, but what is prudent to our predictive powers.
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Weydon
June 23, 2009
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I don't know is indeed the default position for anything, but it is not unreasonable to take a position. We're not out of line for saying "No" to the existence of invisible, chocolate farting vampires--but we are just guessing when it comes to heads or tails.
So where does God fall? Somewhere in between (yes, somewhere in between chocolate farting creatures of the night and tossing coins! no, you get what I mean...). We base this choice on personal experience. If we've felt His presence, if we feel safe in giving Faith in something like that, or if we haven't and a natural skeptic doesn't believe in things they never experienced in any form and there's no tangible evidence towards. And an agnostic is someone who remains undecided. Maybe they sometimes think they may have felt His presence, or sneak a prayer here or there, or just see all the people who believe and there arguments and see it as perhaps feasible but nothing more.
I just don't think choosing belief in God is as simple as picking a coin toss. And most people on either side of the fence will assert the same, but that their side is "obviously" right (because of scripture, feelings, science). It's not really as simple as all that, I feel.
I believe in God the way I do because I have felt His presence when I need it, and enjoy my relationship with Him. Rationally and scientifically I see nothing disproving Him, and even maintain that the fact physical existence began without something physical being around to start it as evidence to some supernatural occurrence.
I pick tails over heads because when I was in grade school a kid once said "Tails never fails!" and I thought it was fun.
Jackymania
June 24, 2009
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Let me try and take this 'fun' element to disprove the Atheism as a default belief system argument.
This rhyme is nothing but poetry. I can appreciate it as part of literature. And that it sounds like fun. But nothing beyond that. If the hypothesis 'Tails never fails' is true, than it will put every law of physics into question, and also become a mathematical burden.... :-) It will send all scientist into a tail-spin!!
If coins are tossed in mathematical or physical precision, what are the chance that tails will win or show up a majority of times. if we go by law of averages, than it should be 50 percent of the times. Thats in a practical or real world. However , in an imaginary world anything and everything can be a default to one another. A default can work only within a paradigm or framework.
Theism is a philosophy that arose out of human knowledge, and intellect - after trying to comprehend the nature of beings among the surroundings and in relatiship to oneself. This creats a belief system
Not all humans are that intellectual or intelligent. If a mind is completely blank or ignorant of a belief system, does it mean that they are of an opposite belief system. Thats ridiculous.
The absence of the otherside or the opooiste doesnot make it anything. Absence means voidness, nothingness, or a vacumm. Therefore, in the Tails never fails dictum the heads is not there at all. Because heads does not win or show up.
Which means both sides are tails!
If i am not theistic than am i atheistic? I dont think thats a clean argument. I can be anyone; a animist; i may be a damn fool with no intellect; I may be a Robinson crusoe staying in an island with no objects like a cross or even missionaries finding their way there.
How can Atheism be a 'default' here?
NoeL-
July 10, 2009
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NOT Agnosticism
"If I flip a coin, and ask you "out of these two outcomes, heads or tails, which one will be the coin toss result in?""That doesn't relate to the question at hand, because in your coin example you're not addressing a claim. A more analogous example would be to flip a coin and and ask "Is it heads?". Until you have something to suggest that the coin IS heads, the default position is "I do not believe the coin is heads". This does NOT mean the same as "I believe the coin is tails" - that is a response to a totally different question (i.e. "Is it tails?"). The default position is to reject BOTH claims ("the coin is heads" and "the coin is tails") until evidence points otherwise. If "headism" was defined as the belief that the coin is heads, the default position would be "aheadism", which is NOT synonymous with tailism (the belief that the coin is tails).
The default position to the question "Does God exist?" is "I do not believe that God exists" (which is, by definition, atheism). Likewise, the default position to the question "Does God NOT exist?" is "I do not believe that God does not exist" (note: this does NOT equate to theism, as that requires an explicit belief that God DOES exist, not just a belief that he doesn't not exist).
Atheism IS NOT the belief that no gods exist, it is the DISBELIEF that gods DO exist. The difference is subtle, but it's there.
Molzahn
July 12, 2009
That's the point though, by saying you are agnostic, you are basically saying you don't have an opinion on the matter. It's not designed to have any explanatory power of your position, because you are claiming to lack a position.
CASUAL ACCEPTANCE (aka Coherentism)
"Does it apply to extraordinary claims, or merely "inconsequential" claims?"
Casual acceptance applies to anything that corresponds with your sense of reason. For instance, if you were to tell me that you had a dragon in your trunk, I might be drawn to disbelieve that there is a massive and mythical dragon in your trunk, but I might start to wonder what you mean by dragon and whether you are telling the truth in some form. Maybe I simply misunderstood what you said, or what you are implying.
If you claimed to have flown from the tops of buildings, I might accept that you travelled through the air between buildings by some means that lacks an explanation that is ready to me.
If you were to claim that you could reproduce this phenomenon, I would be curious and perhaps even choose to be sceptical. But my initial instinct is to accept a claim until it conflicts with other data. If you said that my birthday was actually july 25, I would be sceptical because it conflicts with my foreknowledge of when my birthday was.
If you were to say that your cat is the president of the united states, I would be sceptical because that again conflicts with a previous instance of data. But, if you were to say that your sister could see ultraviolet light, I would casually believe you because there are cases where people can see that spectrum of light. I wouldn't refer to it in a secondary conversation until I had verified the information, but I would accept it nonetheless.
If I knew that you constantly deceive, or were consistently misinformed, I might be sceptical of what you say.
casual acceptance is essentially coherentism in a nutshell, which opposes foundationalism. And I think it is a perfectly legitimate and rational philosophy to observe the world by.
//end comment on coherentism
There, you've made me hunt down the real underlying topic, coherentism versus foundationalism. Why should foundationalism be considered the default method of reasoning?
NoeL-
August 2, 2009
And in doing so you've just proven that agnosticism IS NOT the default! A coherentist approach would put theism as the default. A foundationalist approach would put atheism as the default. Neither would put agnosticism as the default.
"Why should foundationalism be considered the default method of reasoning?"
Because the theist claim is an extraordinary one. If someone says "I had a ham sandwich for breakfast" then fine, casually accept that claim to your heart's content. If someone claims "I had a beaker of sulfuric acid for breakfast" then you'd have to be an idiot to believe them until proven wrong (unless it was morning and they are suicidal).
Molzahn
August 2, 2009
Agnosticism isn't a description of a conclusive decision one way or the other, it is the lack of conclusion, or lack of philosophical choice.
Coherentism doesn't necessarily make theism the default, because if you were raised in a family that taught you "God doesn't exist," you would casually accept the negative claim until you met a contradiction. It can swing either way, and until a concept is assimilated into your mind, it doesn't necessarily have to be either way by default. If an opinion is successfully imprinted, you may echo that response depending on how much you were polarized to belief it. However, if your initial experience with a concept is neutral like a question asking "does god exist?" or the presentation of a paradox; you may not immediately have an answer, and you may not decide to create an answer until it becomes important.
Foundationalism presupposes that everyone is built with an inherent sense of what is axiomatically true and that we work from a blank slate. It doesn't even have to be atheist; theists use this manoeuvre too, stating that everyone has an imprinted sense of right and wrong. I just think it's completely the wrong way to try to analyze something. It's a complete bastardization of psychology.
If your answer to something is "I don't know," you are agnostic. If someone asks you if you believe god exists, and you state "I don't know," without an indication of polarity, this does not necessarily mean that you are atheist or theist, but it does indicate that you are agnostic.
NoeL-
August 2, 2009
That's not how you've defined coherentism though, and your use of agnosticism is wrong also. (A)gnosticism refers to KNOWLEDGE. If someone asks you if you believe in God and you say "I don't know" you are an AGNOSTIC ATHEIST. Since whether or not you know the truth of the existence of God is irrelevent to theism (which is the BELIEF IN, not the KNOWLEDGE OF, the existence of gods), we can chop that word out of our definition and your position becomes ATHEISM.
Saying "I don't know" makes you an atheist because you are NOT saying "I believe in a god(s)", which is the necessary part of being a theist. If you CANNOT say "I believe in a god(s)" you are ATHEISTIC by default.
"Agnosticism isn't a description of a conclusive decision one way or the other, it is the lack of conclusion, or lack of philosophical choice."
No it's not. It's the state of lacking knowledge on a particular subject. I BELEIVE aliens exist, but I do not KNOW they exist. I am an agnostic 'alienist'. Throwing your hands in the air and saying "I don't know" DOES make you an agnostic, but it does NOT relieve you of your status of atheism. It's like someone asking "are you a male or female?" and you respond with "I have brown hair". Whilst your statement may well be true, it doesn't answer the initial question. Can "brunette" be the default position of "gender"?
"Coherentism doesn't necessarily make theism the default... It can swing either way"
Then it's not a question of whether the coherentist default or foundationalist default should be the default, because coherentism has no default!
"if your initial experience with a concept is neutral like a question asking "does god exist?" or the presentation of a paradox; you may not immediately have an answer, and you may not decide to create an answer until it becomes important."
Which makes you an atheist. To quote myself from an earlier post:
"Atheism IS NOT the belief that no gods exist, it is the DISBELIEF that gods DO exist. The difference is subtle, but it's there."
You can ONLY become a theist once you have decided on an answer, and that answer is "god(s) do(es) exist". Until you make that decision you are an atheist.
"I just think it's completely the wrong way to try to analyze something. It's a complete bastardization of psychology"
Psychologically, maybe, but from an investigative scientific point of view it's the best method of discovering truth. For that reason a great many scientists and like-minded people DO adopt a (quasi)foundationalist POV. If a claim is not redily apparent it's better to reserve judgement than to believe it to be true. It's a bullshit filter.
"If your answer to something is "I don't know," you are agnostic."
Yep. So what?
"If someone asks you if you believe god exists, and you state "I don't know," without an indication of polarity, this does not necessarily mean that you are atheist or theist"
No, it means you are an atheist because you lack the belief necessary to qualify as a theist. They are two sides of the same coin - on and off - binary - boolean... you cannot be both atheistic and theistic, nor can you be neither (depending on whether you're talking about implicit or explicit atheism). If you understand the concept of a God, anything short of "I believe they exist" makes you an atheist. Period. If you're only just hearing the claim, and have a completely neutral mindset as to it's truth value, you are still an ATHEIST.
This is why I consider atheism to be the default position, because to become a theist you need something EXTRA. To be an atheist you just need to know what a god is. To be a theist you need to know what a god is AND believe they exist.
Molzahn
August 3, 2009
Not in whole, but different components of your mind compute things by different means. Part of you is atheistic, and part of you is theistic; depending upon which side gains dominance you in entirety will either be an atheist or theist.
If you are unable to satisfactorily resolve the question of what you in entirety believe, you have not made an ontological claim to which philosophical value you hold, thus, you are neither atheistic nor theistic.
If you walk up to someone you don't know, are they an atheist until they can demonstrate verbally that they believe in god, they are an atheist by default? I think that's a ridiculous notion, and it would be more prudent just to say you are agnostic of their beliefs. Actions don't predicate belief. The unwillingness to verbally dictate what you believe is not proof that you hold an affirmative opinion of something. If Obama said "I believe in God," that doesn't necessarily make him a theist. And likewise, if someone refrained from vocalizing their belief in a god, that doesn't make them an atheist.
The number one point I can stress is that your mind is not a singular entity, it is composed of dozens of smaller parts that contribute to your cognition. If these parts are in chaos and can't summate to a single coherent answer, you cannot associate with either answer. If you are agnostic of your beliefs, coherently, you are not atheistic, and you are not theistic.
Atheism does not mean "not a theist," it comes from the Greek a-theos, which means "without a god." To say otherwise is akin to Kent Hovind saying universe means "a single spoken sentence." It's a fallacy of equivocation.
Agnosticism can refer to agnosticism of belief, or a description of conviction within a belief. This is why you can be an agnostic-atheist, agnostic-theist, or you can be an exclusive agnostic (in regards to theology).
Atheism is not just a lack of belief, it is a belief to the contrary. If you are an atheist, you are a sceptic of the proposition "a deistic force exists," if you are a theist, you are a proponent of the proposition. If you are agnostic of your position, you are neither a proponent, nor sceptic.
In the end, atheism is a philosophical choice, not a lack of theism.
NoeL-
August 3, 2009
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If you are not of the opinion that gods DO exist, you are an atheist. Period. Being atheistic is not making an ontological claim, it's a rejection or noncompliance with an ontological claim.
"If you walk up to someone you don't know, are they an atheist until they can demonstrate verbally that they believe in god, they are an atheist by default? I think that's a ridiculous notion"
Yes it is, but that's addressing a seperate claim entirely.
"it would be more prudent just to say you are agnostic of their beliefs"
Correct! But (a)theism isn't about determining from a distance the theological viewpoint of a stranger! Furthermore, again, agnosticism is NOT a position here! It's a seperate issue! Asking whether or not I KNOW someone holds a viewpoint is different than asking whether or not I BELIEVE they hold a certain viewpoint. And asking the question of what I believe another's theological beleifs to be is totally different to asking what MY theological beliefs are.
If you were asked what you BELEIVED the strangers stance on (a)theism was, saying "I don't know" IS NOT a default answer to that question - it's an answer to a completely different question. The defaults would be "I do not believe he is a theist" and "I do not believe he is an atheist". You are not making any claim as to whether they are atheistic or theistic - you are reserving judgement on both claims.
"If Obama said "I believe in God," that doesn't necessarily make him a theist. And likewise, if someone refrained from vocalizing their belief in a god, that doesn't make them an atheist."
Irrelevant. Again, it's not a question of determining what view another holds - it's about one's own position.
"The number one point I can stress is that your mind is not a singular entity, it is composed of dozens of smaller parts that contribute to your cognition."
Evidence, please.
"Atheism does not mean "not a theist," it comes from the Greek a-theos, which means "without a god." To say otherwise is akin to Kent Hovind saying universe means "a single spoken sentence." It's a fallacy of equivocation."
Atheism ORIGINATES from the Greek derogatory a-theos but has long since evolved to mean "not a theist". False equivocation or nay, language is directed by its usage. It's a sorry thought but it's likely "your" will eventually become an accepted spelling of "you're". Regardless of what atheism meant two thousand years ago, today it DOES mean (in its loosest sense) "not a theist".
"Atheism is not just a lack of belief, it is a belief to the contrary."
That's specifically strong atheism. Weak atheism does not necessitate a belief in the nonexistence of gods, merely a disbelief in the existence of gods. If we extend into implicit atheism then atheism IS just a "lack of belief".
"In the end, atheism is a philosophical choice, not a lack of theism."
No it's not. Look it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
Molzahn
August 3, 2009
And when we introspect, it's the exact same situation. By default, we reserve judgement on what we believe. We are neither atheistic, or theistic until we meet a resolution. When we look in the mirror for the first time, do we really know who we are? How are we any different from a stranger in the distance? Agnosticism is the default, because agnosticism is a lack of clear position. Atheism in its self IS a position.
When you look in a mirror and ask "who am I?" according to your line of reasoning, that is an absurd question to ask, because somehow we are supposed to automatically KNOW what we think and believe?
"Evidence, please."
Look up anything from multiple personality disorder, to any number of experiments they have done on the brain (particularly relating to lobotomies and the like). The mind (and its conceptual identity) is definitely composed of a plethora of smaller systems which contribute to the whole. There are physical systems and then virtual systems, but not one of them is distinctly "you."
"Atheism ORIGINATES from the Greek derogatory a-theos but has long since evolved to mean "not a theist". False equivocation or nay, language is directed by its usage. It's a sorry thought but it's likely "your" will eventually become an accepted spelling of "you're". Regardless of what atheism meant two thousand years ago, today it DOES mean (in its loosest sense) "not a theist"."
I think that's an absurd claim. Isn't it ironic that only atheists will refer to atheism as "not a theist," As if to turn the tide on swing voters. No one who labels them self as neutral or undecided wants to be called an atheist, it's a contrived term that carries an unnecessary toll of stigma. To say it's a dichotomy is a cop out in my opinion. The word hasn't evolved to the point where there is a consensus of its usage. And even on the wikipedia article, it mentions the fact that it's usage is under dispute. And just because kent hovind wants universe to mean "a single spoken sentence" doesn't mean that his million followers somehow change the official meaning of the word. I leave it up to the lexicographers to figure out, and so far, every legitimate dictionary I've come across has stated the atheism originated from the Greek for 'without a god' and that atheism refers to a position contrary to theism.
"weak atheism, strong atheism"
It's true, there are different levels of gnosticism within any position of belief. An agnostic atheist holds that his world view does not indicate, but does not exclude the possibility of a deity. This position is tentative because it is conditional to the evidence, but it is nonetheless a rejection of the concept based on the evidence (in the same way that science might reject an idea until evidence supports it sufficiently). A gnostic atheist (like Dhorpatan from youtube) holds that God does not, and cannot exist; regardless of evidence of any kind.
Even if I were to follow along the notion that atheism just means "not a theist," there is still a gapping hole in your dichotomy. If you looked yourself in a mirror and asked "am I a theist?" You could answer: yes (theist), no (atheist), or I don't know (indicating mixed feelings).
If there isn't a clear indication of whether you accept or refrain from a proposition, there is not enough information to make a judgement on what position you hold. If I had a random number generator, and asked you if you believed the generated number was odd. Would you answer no by default? Or refrain from making judgement?
Likewise, if you didn't know if you believed you were a theist or not, would you answer no by default? Or would you refrain from making judgement? I still think exclusive agnosticism is a valid description of theological position.
NoeL-
August 4, 2009
I really feel this is nothing but a battle of semantics.
"Agnosticism is the default, because agnosticism is a lack of clear position. Atheism in its self IS a position."
*claps* Well done. You have managed to contradict yourself beautifully here, and furthered my point in the process.
You say that agnosticism is a "lack of clear position". Using your own words it is a LACK of something. It is a NOTHING, not a SOMETHING. You also say agnosticism is the default position, which is contradictory because you are in essence claiming that NOTHING = SOMETHING. Agnosticism CANNOT BE A DEFAULT POSITION if it is a LACK OF A POSITION.
I think you're just misunderstanding the premise. You're thinking of the question as two seperate claims and trying to decide which is true and which is false. Theism only addresses ONE claim (i.e. gods exist) - you either believe it to be true or you do not believe it to be true. You DO NOT necessarily believe it to be false if you do not believe it to be true - that is a response to an entirely DIFFERENT claim (i.e. gods do not exist). If you DO believe the claim to be true you are a theist. If you DO NOT believe the claim to be true (this includes people who reserve judgement, and those who have no predisposition either way, as they are not yet of the opinion "this is true") you are an atheist. If you not only do not believe the claim to be true, but believe the claim to be FALSE as well, you are a strong atheist.
"The mind (and its conceptual identity) is definitely composed of a plethora of smaller systems which contribute to the whole. There are physical systems and then virtual systems, but not one of them is distinctly "you.""
Very cool, and now you mention it I do recall accounts of lobotomised people having rather drastic personality changes. However, I think you're dirfting a little off the mark. Regardless of whether or not theism is compartmentalised in the brain, what does it have to do with identifying a default position to the theistic claim?
"I think that's an absurd claim... To say it's a dichotomy is a cop out in my opinion."
Then we're really just arguing semantics.
"Isn't it ironic that only atheists will refer to atheism as "not a theist," As if to turn the tide on swing voters."
I don't think it's ironic at all, I DO think it's just a case of false equivocation. Theism = belief in the existence of deities, A = not, Atheism = no belief in the existence of deities.
"No one who labels them self as neutral or undecided wants to be called an atheist, it's a contrived term that carries an unnecessary toll of stigma."
That's why there are so many vocal atheists these days - to try and remove the negative stigma associated with the term. If people were more comfortable with the term I'm all but certain the number of people recognising themselves as "atheist" would skyrocket.
"The word hasn't evolved to the point where there is a consensus of its usage. And even on the wikipedia article, it mentions the fact that it's usage is under dispute."
Fine. Go and find every instance where I said atheism is the default, replace it with "weak atheism", and let's end this.
"And just because kent hovind wants universe to mean "a single spoken sentence" doesn't mean that his million followers somehow change the official meaning of the word."
If that definition of "universe" becomes popular enough it WILL change the official meaning of the word (or rather, 'universe' will have "a single spoken sentence" added to the list of definitions). That's just how it works, as much as purists may despise it.
"If you looked yourself in a mirror and asked "am I a theist?" You could answer: yes (theist), no (atheist), or I don't know (indicating mixed feelings)."
Answering "I don't know" only shows you're ignorant of your own position, not that you lack one. If I looked in the mirror and asked "am I a shazbok?" I could answer "yes", "no", or "what the fuck is a shazbok?". If shazbok is synonomous for male, then answering "I don't know" DOES NOT make me any less of a male (or a shazbok). I'm still as shazbokky as they come, even if I'm unaware of it.
If you ask yourself "do deities exist?" and your answer is "yes" then you are a theist. If your answer is ANYTHING ELSE then you are NOT a theist.
"If I had a random number generator, and asked you if you believed the generated number was odd. Would you answer no by default? Or refrain from making judgement?"
You're misunderstanding the claim. Answering "no" and refraining from judgement are the SAME THING! You are falsely equating an answer "no" with the statement "the number is even". If you are refraining from making a judgement then you are directly saying that you DO NOT believe the number is odd! If you DO believe the number is odd, then you have made a judgement.
"Likewise, if you didn't know if you believed you were a theist or not, would you answer no by default? Or would you refrain from making judgement?"
If I didn't know if I believed that I believed in deities? Wow, what a convoluted question! What exactly are you asking me?
Molzahn
August 4, 2009
I blame your side and all of its efforts to try to establish new definitions to suit a popularity grab.
"You also say agnosticism is the default position, which is contradictory because you are in essence claiming that NOTHING = SOMETHING."
0 is a value, despite it being nothing, yes.
"Agnosticism CANNOT BE A DEFAULT POSITION if it is a LACK OF A POSITION."
It is a position which in its self is describes a lack of commitment to either philosophical conclusion, yes. In this context it is a position relative to theology, whereas (a)theism is a position within theology.
"You DO NOT necessarily believe it to be false if you do not believe it to be true"
No... this is just another example of how you have been brainwashed into that nonsense. Atheism doesn't mean "not a theist." Remove the word "belief" from your explanation, and then try to describe what atheism and theism are.
"If you DO NOT believe the claim to be true"
In every other example of english, if you say you do not believe something is true, you by virtue of definition
, you are making a claim to the contrary.
In a binary system, if you do not believe the variable is 1, by virtue of the facts, you believe it is zero. Don't play games to dance around this.
"what does it have to do with identifying a default position to the theistic claim?"
If half of your brain says "yes" and the other half says "no," which is your true position? Neither, there is too much confusion to make a clear dictation of what you position you hold.
"Answering 'I don't know' only shows you're ignorant of your own position, not that you lack one... I'm still as shazbokky as they come, even if I'm unaware of it."
You're trying to equivocate belief with something physical and tangible. Belief is mostly a choice, not some unchangeable fact about the universe.
"Answering "no" and refraining from judgement are the SAME THING!"
No they aren't! That's what you are trying to establish, and I'm calling shenanigans on it. No and yes are two possible variables that can result from a question. "I don't know" is the remark that you were unable to resolve the question in yourself.
I think all of this would be resolved if you told me exactly what you expect would constitute a theist. What do they have to do/believe/think in order to qualify as a theist. What is this imaginary bar that distinguishes between belief and non-belief? If you can tell me a legitimate system I can measure this by, I might concede.
At what threshold does an atheist become a pantheist, and at what point does a pantheist become a theist?
And while your at it, what is the tell-tale sign to distinguish between a transition fossil, to see whether it is a non-human ape, or a human ape? At what exact point are such ontological transitions made?
Are there exact markers to determine the identity of something? Or are there legitimately grey areas which aren't necessarily distinctively either case?
What if someone has tendencies to be pantheistic one day, then atheistic the next. What are they? Atheist or theist?
NoeL-
August 4, 2009
Have a fucking cry about it then. Whatever the situation, lacking theism IS an accepted definition of atheism - even if it's not the most popular, or the most useful.
"0 is a value, despite it being nothing, yes."
So agnosticism is the mathematical value 0 now?
"No... this is just another example of how you have been brainwashed into that nonsense."
HA! Don't make me laugh. Leave the ad homs at the door.
"Atheism doesn't mean "not a theist." Remove the word "belief" from your explanation, and then try to describe what atheism and theism are."
That's kinda hard to since theism specifically refers to BELIEF! But anyway, what does (a)theism have to do with the statement "You DO NOT necessarily believe it to be false if you do not believe it to be true"? It's not nonsense at all - it's a very simple thing to grasp, I'm actually a little surpised you're disagreeing. Using the coin analogy again, if you don't believe the coin is heads that doesn't mean you believe it's tails.
"In every other example of english, if you say you do not believe something is true, you by virtue of definition, you are making a claim to the contrary."
Thankfully philosophy is a little more explicit than colloquial English. Saying "I don't believe X" is exactly that - you don't believe X. You make no statements about Y, regardless of its relationship to X.
"In a binary system, if you do not believe the variable is 1, by virtue of the facts, you believe it is zero. Don't play games to dance around this."
NO! BELIEFS ARE NOT BINARY IN THAT SENSE! By your definition a person CANNOT hold contradictory beliefs, yet lo and behold you'd be hard pressed to find someone without contradictory beliefs. You either believe X or you don't believe X. EVEN IF by virtue of facts the only alternative to X is Y THAT DOES NOT MEAN YOU BELIEVE Y!!! You know this! You call it "reserving judgement"! You are saying "I don't think it's X, and I don't think it's Y. I have no positive belief for either". Come on man, keep up!
"If half of your brain says "yes" and the other half says "no," which is your true position? Neither, there is too much confusion to make a clear dictation of what you position you hold."
Yes, that is identifying a POSITION. I asked what did it have to do with identifying a DEFAULT position.
"You're trying to equivocate belief with something physical and tangible. Belief is mostly a choice, not some unchangeable fact about the universe."
What!? Belief is not a choice! If you disagree, choose to believe you're a duck.
And no I'm not trying to equivocate belief with something physical, you completely missed the point I was making. If you look in the mirror and ask "am I a theist?", there is a FACTUAL answer to that question: you're either a theist or you're not. However, since theism is a theological position - a belief - you can't really believe you're a theist if you're not. You can't really ask yourself "am I a theist?", you have to ask yourself "do I believe gods exist?" - and again, behind that question is a FACTUAL answer: you either believe in gods or you don't (without going into your split brain shit).
"No they aren't! That's what you are trying to establish, and I'm calling shenanigans on it. No, and yes are two possible variables that can result from a question. "I don't know" is the remark that you were unable to resolve the question in yourself."
/facepalm
Please, try and think mathematically - forget all you know about the world, forget all you know about colloquial language.
Let's make Claim X1 = "X is true"
If someone makes Claim X1, you have two choices:
1) Accept the claim.
2) Don't accept the claim.
Those are the only two options - you either accept outright that X is true, or you do not accept outright that X is true. Even if you think X MIGHT be true, or COULD be true, you are not accepting that X IS true.
Let's make Claim X2 = "X is plausible"
1) Accept the claim.
2) Don't accept the claim.
If your response to Claim X1 was "I don't know" or "I'm going to reserve judgement", then you DID NOT ACCEPT that Claim X1 IS TRUE. You are trying to answer a hypothetical second claim - X is plausible.
From your argument you are rejecting X1 and accepting X2.
Look at a coin toss. We have two claims:
Claim H = "the coin is heads"
Claim T = "the coin is tails"
A person can either accept or reject each claim independently (though accepting both would be a little odd). Not accepting that the coin IS heads DOES NOT MEAN YOU ACCEPT THE COIN IS TAILS! You might think that MAYBE the coin is heads, but unless you believe the coin IS heads you are rejecting the claim "the coin is heads".
Now, where I'm coming from, we have the claim "gods exist". You can either:
1) Accept the claim (making you a theist)
2) Don't accept the claim (which is what I have been calling "atheist", as that is an accepted - though not the most prominent - use of the word)
There is no second claim to consider. You're trying to manufacture a second claim by arguing "I don't know" as an acceptible answer. It's not.
"I think all of this would be resolved if you told me exactly what you expect would constitute a theist. What do they have to do/believe/think in order to qualify as a theist. What is this imaginary bar that distinguishes between belief and non-belief? If you can tell me a legitimate system I can measure this by, I might concede."
A theist is a person that believes one or more personal gods DO exist as real and tangible entities. They are people that have accepted the claim "gods exist".
As for imaginary bar, I have no idea what you mean by "non-belief" so I can't really answer.
"At what threshold does an atheist become a pantheist, and at what point does a pantheist become a theist?"
Pantheists are atheists in it's loosest definition. A deist can even be considered an atheist. This isn't the more common usage, and it's not even a usage I think is the best, but it IS an accepted usage.
"And while your at it, what is the tell-tale sign to distinguish between a transition fossil, to see whether it is a non-human ape, or a human ape? At what exact point are such ontological transitions made?"
There are none. At what point does light become dark? Heavy become light? What's the point of this question?
"Are there exact markers to determine the identity of something? Or are there legitimately grey areas which aren't necessarily distinctively either case?"
Depends what somthing you're talking about. Is there legitimate grey area between hydrogen and helium? Is there legitimate grey area between having cake and not having cake? Even if you only have half a cake, you don't half have cake.
"What if someone has tendencies to be pantheistic one day, then atheistic the next. What are they? Atheist or theist?"
They're pantheists when they're pantheistic, and atheists when they're atheistic. What's so hard to understand about that? Are you saying people don't change their minds?
Molzahn
August 4, 2009
We're talking about two very different things. You're talking about whether someone knows if God exists, I'm talking about whether they know what they believe. Two different things!!
"Saying 'I don't know' makes you an atheist because you are NOT saying 'I believe in a god(s)', which is the necessary part of being a theist."
Again, you are trying to equivocate action to belief. It's not the same thing. You don't need to verbalize the fact you believe in a god in order to be a theist.. ugh!
I'll ask the question in a different way. How do you know when you believe something or not? No one believes or disbelieves something absolutely, so what level of doubt must you surpass to be able to qualify for theism? Where is the line?
"No it's not. It's the state of lacking knowledge on a particular subject."
I'm talking about ontology, and you're talking about epistemology.
*I think I might have been rereading your older post by mistake*
Carrying on.
"EVEN IF by virtue of facts the only alternative to X is Y THAT DOES NOT MEAN YOU BELIEVE Y!!!"
Okay, so you're defining belief as the sensation that something is more true than something else? How would you define belief?
"Yes, that is identifying a POSITION. I asked what did it have to do with identifying a DEFAULT position."
I'm saying that there isn't a clear cut default position. You can be predisposed to be theistic, or predisposed to be atheistic depending on your environment, and depending on your genetics.
"What!? Belief is not a choice! If you disagree, choose to believe you're a duck."
Ugh!! hypnotists make people believe that kind of rubbish all the time. The mind is flexible, physical facts are not.
"If you look in the mirror and ask 'am I a theist?', there is a FACTUAL answer to that question"
Even if I were to agree that on some physical level there was an indication of whether you were a theist or an atheist, by the fact of how your brain is structured at a certain point in time. The fact is beyond my knowing. I can still be left wondering whether I am an atheist or theist without any kind of consequential resolution.
"you can't really believe you're a theist if you're not."
Well considering you yourself make the determinations of whether you are a theist, I think it's pretty easy to trick yourself into believing or not believing (so long as you aren't hard-core polarized one way or the other).
"If someone makes Claim X1, you have two choices:
1) Accept the claim.
2) Don't accept the claim."
So what is the default position before someone punches their answer into the computer? Is the default 1, 2, or is it neither necessarily?
I have a better one for you. Let's say you have a data graph, and you know that the value for theism (X) is equal to 3. So if you check your chart, in most cases, you can either say, yes the input value is equal to X, or no the input is not equal to X. So the answer is either X, or not X. Perfectly analogous so far, I'm hoping?
So what if you get an input of "Y" ? Do you know if 'Y' is equal to X? Do you know if it isn't equal to X? How do you determine what 'Y' is by default? Should we automatically assume that Y doesn't equal X? If so, why??
"but unless you believe the coin IS heads you are rejecting the claim 'the coin is heads.'"
If you accept that the coin will land on heads, you are a gnostic-'headist.' If you are reserving judgement on the first claim, but accept the claim that the coin will likely land on heads you are a agnostic-'headist.' You cannot be a 'tailist' and a 'headist' at the same time, they are mutually exclusive, but, if you choose to only comment that both are equally plausible answers, you are neutral, you have not indicated a position of belief. Now, yes, in your definition of atheism, that would make you an 'aheadist.' But in my books, atheism IS an indication of belief, in my books, it doesn't cover the neutral ground. It is an indication of scepticism toward a proposition, whereas theism indicates that you are a proponent.
You have pretty much just inflated the term 'atheist' with a new term to replace its original meaning (the new word being 'antitheist'). It's a pointless charade of semantics which only serves to paint the middle ground a certain colour.
I think it is empty dance, because when I say a phrase like "I don't think you are correct" you can tell intuitively that that means I think you are incorrect/wrong in some regard. But by your game, I'm not actually stating my opinion at all, just that I do not hold the opinion that you are correct. It's a trap, it's garbage usage of language, it takes shortcuts in the name of politics but bastardizes the art of expression simultaneously.
Anyone who says they are an atheist is trying to communicate the idea that they think theism is incorrect. Language is instructional, not descriptive. If we threw away the pseudo-word "antitheist" and kept to the intended uses of the words, exclusive agnosticism would still be relevant in your books, and the term atheism wouldn't be clogging the middle-ground.
"Are you saying people don't change their minds?"
No, I'm saying people never absolutely make up their minds.
Here's another question. If atheism is a lack of belief, how can you be a gnostic, or agnostic athiest? How do those descriptions even function if atheism is a null value? What would you be gnostic or agnostic of?
Not only am I positive that this "atheism means not a theist" rubbish is a political game gone terribly wrong, but I'm starting to get the feeling that it was a poorly thought out political game.
NoeL-
August 4, 2009
Not exactly. I'm defining belief as the sensation that something is more true than not true (your "something else" is a little misleading, since the "something else" is just a rejection of the same claim).
I can illustrate this by pointing out that one need not have absolute knowledge in order to form a belief. You're arguing that rejecting heads = accepting tails... what if I didn't know what the other options were? Like I mentioned earlier, you COULD believe that the coin is both heads AND tails if you were not aware the options were contradictory. To use a more realistic example - say someone teaches you that the Bible the infallible, and you believe it. Then your science teacher tells you that the Earth is round, and you believe it. You are holding contradictory beliefs.
"I'm saying that there isn't a clear cut default position. You can be predisposed to be theistic, or predisposed to be atheistic depending on your environment, and depending on your genetics."
We really need to try and define "default" better.
"Ugh!! hypnotists make people believe that kind of rubbish all the time. The mind is flexible, physical facts are not."
Ugh! Are you a duck? No. I'm saying you can't CHOOSE to believe or disbelief something! You can willfully put yourself in a position that will reinforce a particular belief, but you cannot CHOOSE to believe!
"So what is the default position before someone punches their answer into the computer? Is the default 1, 2, or is it neither necessarily?"
It's 2 necessarily, because you have not acepted the claim. Until your mind punches in that answer the default is 2.
"So what if you get an input of "Y" ? Do you know if 'Y' is equal to X? Do you know if it isn't equal to X? How do you determine what 'Y' is by default? Should we automatically assume that Y doesn't equal X? If so, why??"
First of all, regardless of whether or not we can know the value of Y, it must necessarily be equal to either X or not X. Should we assume that Y doesn't equal X? Of course not - nor should we assume that it does! The claims "Y = X" and "Y =/= X" should BOTH be rejected until you have some reason to accept either.
"If you accept that the coin will land on heads, you are a gnostic-'headist.'"
Yes... kinda. If you claim to know for a fact that the coin will land on heads then you're a gnostic headist.
"If you are reserving judgement on the first claim, but accept the claim that the coin will likely land on heads you are a agnostic-'headist.'"
Close enough.
"You cannot be a 'tailist' and a 'headist' at the same time, they are mutually exclusive"
Wrong. You cannot be a tailist and a headist without holding contradictory points of view, but you CAN be both a headist and a tailist.
"but, if you choose to only comment that both are equally plausible answers, you are neutral, you have not indicated a position of belief"
Which is, speaking in mathematicalesque terms:
I reject Claim H
I reject Claim T
"Now, yes, in your definition of atheism, that would make you an 'aheadist.'"
Yes. Aheadism =/= tailism.
"But in my books, atheism IS an indication of belief, in my books, it doesn't cover the neutral ground."
Good for you. In my books - and others - it does. We're practically on agreement here, you're just arguing what terminology should be used.
"You have pretty much just inflated the term 'atheist' with a new term to replace its original meaning (the new word being 'antitheist'). It's a pointless charade of semantics which only serves to paint the middle ground a certain colour."
I have inflated nothing. It is an accepted use of the term - if you don't like it, fine, but crying about it won't change anything.
"I think it is empty dance, because when I say a phrase like "I don't think you are correct" you can tell intuitively that that means I think you are incorrect/wrong in some regard"
Have you never heard people say things like "I don't think you're right, but I don't think you're wrong"?
"But by your game, I'm not actually stating my opinion at all, just that I do not hold the opinion that you are correct."
Bingo!
"It's a trap, it's garbage usage of language, it takes shortcuts in the name of politics but bastardizes the art of expression simultaneously."
That's logic for ya. Dry those eyes and get used to it.
"Language is instructional, not descriptive. If we threw away the pseudo-word "antitheist" and kept to the intended uses of the words, exclusive agnosticism would still be relevant in your books, and the term atheism wouldn't be clogging the middle-ground."
I could make exactly the same argument that agnosticism is clogging the middle ground by being a testament about KNOWLEDGE when we're talking about BELIEFS. Keeping things as simple as they possibly can - if you believe gods do exist you're a theist, if not you're an atheist.
"Here's another question. If atheism is a lack of belief, how can you be a gnostic, or agnostic athiest? How do those descriptions even function if atheism is a null value? What would you be gnostic or agnostic of?"
Because (a)gnosticism refers to KNOWLEDGE and (a)theism refers to BELIEF. I can accept or reject a claim as a matter of BELIEF (e.g. I reject the claim "aliens exist") but having KNOWLEDGE that your rejection is factually consistent is a completely different ball game. Saying "I do not believe it is heads" is NOT the same as saying "I KNOW it is not heads".
If someone, either an agnostic or an atheist to use both our descriptions, said "I do not believe gods exist" or "I reject the claim that theistic deities DO exist" or "I don't know", they are NOT necessarily claiming their position to be a factual (i.e. claiming knowledge).
One can be a gnostic atheist by rejecting the theistic claim AND claiming that their rejection is consistent with fact. One can be an agnostic atheist by rejecting the theistic claim WITHOUT claiming that their rejection is consistent with fact.
For example, a person who is a Molzahnian agnostic (aka a NoeLian agnostic atheist) responds to the two claims thusly:
1) I reject the claim that gods exist
2) I reject the claim that gods do not exist
A gnostic atheist would respond to the claims:
1) I reject the claim that gods exist
2) (the second claim is irrelevant, though a gnostic atheist that rejects the second claim would be a pretty screwed up guy)
And ALSO proposes a third claim, which they accept:
3) My rejection of the theistic claim is consistent with fact.
"Not only am I positive that this "atheism means not a theist" rubbish is a political game gone terribly wrong, but I'm starting to get the feeling that it was a poorly thought out political game."
You say this after learning just a day ago that "atheism" CAN mean "lack of theism". I'm starting to get the feeling you're not as good at thinking things through as I thought you were.
Molzahn
August 5, 2009
Your making a definition in context of peripheral information, and once again, that leads back to coherentism. By necessity, within coherentism, something replaces the truth value. In order to withdraw from a belief, you must have an alternative interpretation of the concept. To substantiate this, there is not one person who would call themselves an atheist, and does not have a rationale for their dismissal. Not one. And if you can give me an example, I would be glad to yield the point. But by necessity, there is always a truth value in your mind associated with the concept. That's just how the mind works.
"- say someone teaches you that the Bible the infallible, and you believe it. Then your science teacher tells you that the Earth is round, and you believe it. You are holding contradictory beliefs."
That's not true either. Unless you were trying to say that you would hold the belief that the bible is infallible and absolutely literal. In which case, yes, that would lead to a nasty patch of cognitive dissonance.
"We really need to try and define 'default' better."
I don't think it's the definition of default that's of concern, it's your unsubstantiated claim of what the default is. I'm not making a claim to what the default is (which is described by ontological agnosticism).
"Ugh! Are you a duck?"
A DUCK! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTdDN_MRe64
"you cannot CHOOSE to believe!"
I disagree - and potentially, that's an entirely different philosophical debate altogether: freewill and determinism.
"Until your mind punches in that answer the default is 2."
That's your own philosophical choice on what you would choose by default, it however isn't a universal and inherent default. Both are equally viable answers, there is nothing to differentiate between the two other than your own philosophical prerogative.
I think it's a little hypocritical though, why have you made a choice? What have you chosen a belief? Shouldn't you logically reject both inputs and refuse to press any buttons? Because, aren't these two separate claims as you would say? You have arbitrarily favoured one over the other. Despite the fact you claim that atheism is only a sentiment of disbelief, rather than contrary belief. I'm not buying it.
"The claims "Y = X" and "Y =/= X" should BOTH be rejected until you have some reason to accept either."
Throw out this entire notion of claims. We're not dealing with claims, we're dealing with a single question or a single proposition. Does Y = X?
How would respond to this? Either:
a ) Yes (in whatever form), Y = X
b ) No (in whatever form), Y =/= X
c ) I don't know, (error)
There's nothing to reject, only a question to be answered.
"You cannot be a tailist and a headist without holding contradictory points of view, but you CAN be both a headist and a tailist."
Either you're agreeing to the premise that the mind is composed of smaller parts that can disagree, or you're pulling some weird paradoxical nonsense out of your hat. Pardon me while I sit in the corner to cry *sobs*
"I reject Claim H
I reject Claim T"
Again, I think the idea of "claims" are misleading. What if your not basing your ideas off of other people's claims? What if you are just brainstorming for yourself? If you think on those terms, you might catch where I'm coming from, and why.
"Aheadism =/= tailism."
Okay, so again, you are defining atheism as a rejection of a claim, and defining... (um. antitheism I suppose?) as the belief that there are no gods?
I don't think the term 'atheism' should be referring to claims, because under that premise, if there were no theists in the world, there would be no atheists either. :/
"In my books - and others - it does. We're practically on agreement here, you're just arguing what terminology should be used."
Let's be frank, we both (I would hope both) figured out that this was an argument based on how terminology should be used. lol, for gods' sake, we never even started to argue beliefs, we've just been making quips at each other for the last novel and a half. We should sell these works somewhere when we're done, haha.
"I don't think you're right, but I don't think you're wrong"?
That's a good point, but there's a reason that people add the "but I don't think you're wrong" to the end when trying to indicate neutrality. Any time I've seen someone pull that line, is because there is usually a contextual confusion. Which is to say they are right in one context, but completely wrong in another.
Functionally, I would argue that it is linguistically equivalent to the phrase "I think you're right, but I also think you're wrong." I can't imagine any condition where these two aren't interchangeable.
"That's logic for ya. Dry those eyes and get used to it."
I'll fight it to the bitter end, in the same way that I fight rapper slang and useless pseudo-words. *cries*
"I could make exactly the same argument that agnosticism is clogging the middle ground by being a testament about KNOWLEDGE when we're talking about BELIEFS."
You require knowledge of your beliefs, I think it's perfectly suited in the middle ground.
"One can be a gnostic atheist by rejecting the theistic claim AND claiming that their rejection is consistent with fact."
That is the definition of a belief. To "know" something, is to have a strong belief that the case is true. And a claim is an assertion of truth. So either:
a ) atheism can be a description of a claim in its self;
b ) 'gnostic atheist' is not a valid title
Either atheism is a claim, or it isn't, but it can't be both.
Here's another weird thought. If atheism is contingent upon theistic claims, then it is also dependent on the existence of gnostic theists, not agnostic theists. Under your definition, if there were no gnostic theists in existence, there would be no atheists. The entire world would by your definition, would be composed of agnostic theists. And that is just too bizarre for me to touch on.
"You say this after learning just a day ago that 'atheism' CAN mean 'lack of theism.'"
Entertaining your claim is not the same thing as accepting your claim. And that has more to do with casual acceptance and the whole coherentism spiel, but that too is a slightly different topic.
NoeL-
August 5, 2009
Edit | Reply
But you don't need to replace anything to FORM a belief - which is exactly how I defined a belief. Someone presents a claim. If your prior knowledge/beliefs/genetic disposition or whatever leads you to accept that claim as truth, a belief is formed. If you believe you have witnessed the manifestation of this belief in reality, it becomes knowledge.
"To substantiate this, there is not one person who would call themselves an atheist, and does not have a rationale for their dismissal. Not one. And if you can give me an example, I would be glad to yield the point."
Go to a secular Scandinavian country. You will find a lot of people that simply haven't given a thought to the existence of gods. Does "I've never given it any serious thought" classify as a rationale for their dismissal?
I would contend that as far as predominantly secular countries are concerned you've got it arse-backwards. Atheism is the norm and people are replacing that truth value with theism.
"That's not true either. Unless you were trying to say that you would hold the belief that the bible is infallible and absolutely literal. In which case, yes, that would lead to a nasty patch of cognitive dissonance."
So you agree with me, you're just nit-picking my example =P Naughty boy!
"I don't think it's the definition of default that's of concern, it's your unsubstantiated claim of what the default is. I'm not making a claim to what the default is (which is described by ontological agnosticism)."
Well I do. I don't know what you mean by "default" in this context. Please elaborate.
"I disagree - and potentially, that's an entirely different philosophical debate altogether: freewill and determinism."
Then you must at least accept that there are limits to what you can and cannot choose to believe. For example, again I challenge you to believe you're a duck! If you're not immediately shocked at the realisation you don't have feathers, you didn't believe it for a second.
"That's your own philosophical choice on what you would choose by default, it however isn't a universal and inherent default. Both are equally viable answers, there is nothing to differentiate between the two other than your own philosophical prerogative."
It's not my choice, it's a logical necessity. Do you at least understand what I'm talking about? If you are yet to agree with something, you do not agree with it. You didn't agree that geblathotors are ghensgrops because (I'm assuming) you'd never heard of either of them until just now. So you can't possibly be in agreement with a claim if you've never heard the claim (I guess the only exceptions would be instinctual reactions to something). If you can't be in agreement with something, by definition you don't agree with it - it's impossible. This is why I say the default to all claims is one of disbelief, and the default to the theistic claim is atheism.
"I think it's a little hypocritical though, why have you made a choice? What have you chosen a belief? Shouldn't you logically reject both inputs and refuse to press any buttons? Because, aren't these two separate claims as you would say?"
NO! They are two seperate RESPONSES to a SINGLE claim! (i.e. "I accept it", or "I do not accept it"). In fact, responses probably isn't the best word - they are the only two exclusive and polar opposite states a person can be in regarding any single claim. I'm saying the default is 2 (I do not accept it) by necessity because you cannot accept a claim until you know what the claim is. You're confusing yourself with your own inept computer selection analogy.
The way I see it, there are an infinite number of claims that can be made about reality, and each claim is singular in nature. Corresponding to each claim, every person has a belief switch inside their head that is off by default (i.e. in the "I do not accept" position). If they were all on by default, you would believe everything and have infinite knowledge, and hold infinite contradictory beliefs - it would be a whole mess, and I think we can agree that it's a bit silly to suggest that babies are born with knowledge of everything, and the switches get flipped off as the baby grows.
Infants are genetically predisposed to learning, and so right from the get go a lot of these switches start flicking on with no critical thought necessary (and some of these sqitches will activate well into adulthood as well). This provides a sort of bedrock POV for critical thinkers to judge new claims by.
Whenever someone is exposed to a new claim about reality, one of two things can happen:
1) They accept the claim is true (and the switch for that particular claim switches to "I accept")
2) They remain in a state of non-acceptance (the switch stays in its default position).
Sometimes flicking on a switch DOES lead to other switches changing state as well (i.e. when a person is aware of the consequences of such a claim being true, e.g. accepting the claim "It is night" will deactivate the claim switch "It is day"), but this is not necessary even if two contradictory switches exist. As long as the person is unaware of the contradiction, the beliefs will hold.
"Throw out this entire notion of claims. We're not dealing with claims, we're dealing with a single question or a single proposition. Does Y = X?
There's nothing to reject, only a question to be answered."
You're just looking at the exact same scenario but with a more complicated angle. Maybe it's because I'm so familiar with coding, but I see combining two claims into a single proposition a convolution of data. Even in your own little model option c returns an error - that alone indicates that there's something internally wrong with that position as it cannot produce any meaningful information.
Furthermore, we're not dealing with the question "Does Y = X", we're dealing with the question "do you BELIEVE Y = X".
I'm going to use your model to construct what I think is going on. We have:
Q1 - Does God exist?
This is a question of FACT. It doesn't concern any person or their beliefs at all, it is a question to determine the reality of something. If you ask someone this question they can reply:
a ) Yes
b ) No
c ) I don't know
You said it in an earlier post that in fact there is only two possible answers to the question, despite three positions one can hold regarding the question. We both agree that God must either exist or not exist - he can't "I don't know" exist, whatever the hell that would look like. Now, the REAL question:
Q2 - Do you BELIEVE God exists?
a ) Yes
b ) No
c ) I don't know
If the answer to Q2 is (speaking as a matter of fact, not opinion) 'Yes', you are a theist. If the answer is 'No' you are what I have been referring to as "atheist". The answer 'I don't know' does not exist as a factual option - only an OPINION. A belief can't "I don't know" exist any more than God can - it either exists or it doesn't.
If a person is telling the truth, and they answer C to Q1, then their answer to Q2 is either A (if they're an agnostic theist) or B (if they are a Molzahnian agnostic/NoeLian atheist or an agnostic atheist). If the person answers C for Q2, they are ignorant of their own position. Since we've already established that C does not exist as a factual position, we KNOW the factual answer can only be A or B. Since they answered C to Q1, and C to Q2, they DON'T KNOW if God exists and DON'T KNOW what they believe. If they are ignorant of the entire proposition they cannot possibly believe God exists, making the answer to Q2 necessarily B by process of elimination. They lack the affirmitive belief that God exists.
"Either you're agreeing to the premise that the mind is composed of smaller parts that can disagree, or you're pulling some weird paradoxical nonsense out of your hat. Pardon me while I sit in the corner to cry *sobs*"
There there... *pets*
Headism doesn't include "rejection of tailism" in its definition, nor does tailism include "rejection of headism" - each is defined as the belief that the coin will land either heads or tails face up, respectively. If a person believes, for whatever reason, that upon landing all coins open up like a clam shell with both heads and tails face up (for example) then they can believe that the coin will land heads up (headist) AND that the coin will land tails up (tailist). It's only our knowledge of coins that makes the dual headist-tailist position sound absurd, and indeed all it would take to alter their beliefs would be to flip a coin and show that it doesn't fold out like a clam (unless they're very stubborn, then it might take a few flips, or maybe you'll never convince them).
You could make the argument that because he had such an absurd belief about the behaviour of coins that he could not have been a headist OR a tailist, but this is simply not true. To prove this, can show me two theists that believe in the exact same god? Just a passing glance is enough to prove that "god" carries a degree of ambiguity - even if they claim to believe in the same god (Protestants and Mormons both believe in the Jewish god YHWH, but they each apply very different attributes to him). Unless believing in clam coins excludes you from the headist/tailist positions (like how believing in a personal god excludes you from the deist position), it is not impossible to be both.
"Again, I think the idea of "claims" are misleading."
I think having a hypothetical third option that cannot manifest in reality is misleading, but what the hell, as long as you can make sense of it.
"What if your not basing your ideas off of other people's claims? What if you are just brainstorming for yourself? If you think on those terms, you might catch where I'm coming from, and why."
Then you're basing your ideas on your own claims regarding your observation of the universe, or rather, the universe itself is presenting claims to you. Brainstorming is the same thing, except you're reading from a cache of observations, not real time ones. If you see a bird flying in the sky and subsequently believe that birds can fly, you are accepting the claim "birds can fly". Don't think of the word "claim" as a statement someone is making, but a statement of fact (or fiction) that can come from anywhere.
"Okay, so again, you are defining atheism as a rejection of a claim, and defining... (um. antitheism I suppose?) as the belief that there are no gods?"
Not exactly, but very very close. Atheism is both the rejection of the theistic claim (i.e. gods exist) and/or the acceptance of the claim "gods do not exist", which I guess COULD be called antitheism, but is commonly just called strong atheism.
"I don't think the term 'atheism' should be referring to claims, because under that premise, if there were no theists in the world, there would be no atheists either. :/"
You got it - which is why atheism is often argued as a "lack of belief" rather than a belief in itself. But even if you got rid of the weak atheist definition and said that atheism is strictly for those that believe no gods exist, it would STILL be a completely redundant position without theism. Who really cares if you don't believe in magical cheese sandwiches? Unless there are people that DO believe in them, it's pointless to say that you don't.
"Let's be frank, we both (I would hope both) figured out that this was an argument based on how terminology should be used. lol, for gods' sake, we never even started to argue beliefs, we've just been making quips at each other for the last novel and a half. We should sell these works somewhere when we're done, haha."
Yep =P Now, onto the REAL question - what do you mean by "default"?
"Any time I've seen someone pull that line, is because there is usually a contextual confusion. Which is to say they are right in one context, but completely wrong in another."
Or there's an apparent paradox that they can't figure out.
"Functionally, I would argue that it is linguistically equivalent to the phrase "I think you're right, but I also think you're wrong." I can't imagine any condition where these two aren't interchangeable."
Linguistically I would have to agree, as do/don't and right/wrong (i.e. correct/incorrect) are true dichotomies, but mathematically the two phrases couldn't be more different - one is saying you lack two things, one is saying you posess two things.
"I'll fight it to the bitter end, in the same way that I fight rapper slang and useless pseudo-words. *cries*"
You cannot defeat logic! Resistance is hyperfutile, biatch!
"You require knowledge of your beliefs, I think it's perfectly suited in the middle ground."
Now you're just trying to annoy me -_-!
"That is the definition of a belief. To "know" something, is to have a strong belief that the case is true."
You don't consider accepting that your belief is factually true a "strong belief"? How much stronger can it get!? I have a feeling you misunderstood me... but I don't know how else to put it. Try re-reading.
"And a claim is an assertion of truth. So either:
a ) atheism can be a description of a claim in its self;
b )'gnostic atheist' is not a valid title"
Hmm... no. This is really hard to put into words, but I'll do my best.
Using your own words, having a strong belief in the truth of a case = having knowledge. I would contest that believing a case IS consistent with objective fact (i.e. you believe that you are NOT WRONG) constitutes "having a strong belief", yes?
Now, I don't know how you're using the word "case", but I would take it to mean "a position in relation to a claim". For example:
*"The Earth is a spheroid" is the claim.
*"I believe the Earth is a spheroid" is the case (acceptance of the claim).
*"I KNOW the Earth is a spheroid" is knowledge, or a "strong belief" that the case is true, or an assertion that the case is consistent with objective fact.
The definition of 'gnostic atheism' would be:
"The acceptance of the claim: "my case regarding the claim "gods exist" is consistent with objective fact"".
Accepting a claim is believing it to be true.
Believing a case to be consistent with objective fact is knowledge.
Believing that aliens exist is one thing. Believing that that belief is uncontestable is something else. That is the difference between believing something and knowing something.
Atheism CANNOT be a description of a claim, as it is not a claim, but a case.
'Gnostic atheist' IS a valid title, as it is a label for a person posessing the case: "I believe the claim: "my case regarding the claim "gods exist" is consistent with objective fact" is true."
"Either atheism is a claim, or it isn't, but it can't be both."
Atheism isn't a claim any more than theism is - and I never claimed that it was (pun intended). I do, however, reject your claim that therefore 'gnostic atheist' is not a valid title.
"Entertaining your claim is not the same thing as accepting your claim."
Did you READ the Wiki article? *rolls eyes, then prays to Wiki*
(wow, that took me a long time to write... four hours apparently! A loooot of thinking)
NoeL-
August 4, 2009
Molzahn
August 5, 2009
You do realize collectively, we've probably successfully written the same amount as a small novel? I swear, with the right marketing techniques and enough time collaborating, we could be kings of the arena.
Anyway,
"But you don't need to replace anything to FORM a belief - which is exactly how I defined a belief. Someone presents a claim. If your prior knowledge/beliefs/genetic disposition or whatever leads you to accept that claim as truth, a belief is formed."
Okay, so I'll take the time to scribble out claim, and put in 'proposition,' unless we're keeping to the idea that an atheist requires a theistic claim to exist. Other than that, there's nothing I disagree with here.
"Go to a secular Scandinavian country. You will find a lot of people that simply haven't given a thought to the existence of gods."
That's part of cultural norming, I suppose. If the majority of people are one way, there is a higher chance of an individual adopting an identity that is culturally normal. That's something I'll have to give thought to. If someone is born in a society, they will pick up on the traits of their role models, and if they aren't taught about theism, I suppose arguably they are conditioned to be atheistic. I suppose that's a fair assertion though, not everyone thinks critically on the matter of theism versus atheism, they just adjust their beliefs according to what they are conditioned to believe without questioning it. You're right, there's always going to be sheeple clouding the works.
I'd imagine in those types of societies, theistic routines, like vocally addressing the universe and the like would be suppressed and frowned upon as something considered anti-social. Thus crafting individuals to be predominately atheistic.
I'll readjust my initial sentiment. In every instance where the idea of god is dismissed, there is either a counter rationale, or it is the result of cultural pressuring (based in emotion).
And even that can be analyzed by coherentism as a conditioning which leads to a predisposition to choice.
However, this particular question bothers me still. Because, if a person had never heard of the terms 'theist' or 'atheist,' or God, can he really be an atheist? This of course is supposing that atheism isn't based on claims.
It comes down to a matter of determining whether the mind of the child is in alignment with something that resembles a theistic structure, or a non-theistic structure. Which I don't think we could necessarily figure out.
If a person behave in the exact same manner as a classical theist, except that he doesn't use the word "God," is he a theist, or is he not?
Is the term theistic descriptive or subscriptive? I'm not sure anymore, because if theistic is descriptive (like I usually interpret it to be), the child could be a theist without realizing it; but if theist is a subscriptive term (like you try to illustrate it) the child would indeed be an atheist.
That's another concept that is splitting hairs between our interpretations, you see theism as something you have to subscribe to, whereas I see it as something that describes a belief type.
Moving along,,
"I don't know what you mean by default"
As far as I knew, default was just referring to the choice which takes precedence over the others in the case of ambiguity.
"Children are born atheist, until theism or some such is grafted on." - Seth Miller, 1999.
The idea that babies are born atheistic is considered by some a default, because they see "atheistic" as a part of a blank slate. Tabula Rasa (the blank slate) is a philosophical view I generally reject.
"Then you must at least accept that there are limits to what you can and cannot choose to believe. For example, again I challenge you to believe you're a duck!"
She's a witch!~
It would take a lot of conditioning (whether by a hypnotist or some other brainwashing technician), but I definitely still think it's possible to believe you are a duck. You would definitely need to expose yourself to the idea to an unhealthy degree, but I think it's fair to say, given the right control, you can make anyone believe anything.
And what if this was some weird Far-side 'duck matrix,' where in actuality we are ducks hooked into machines despite the fact we think we are human... maybe it's not so quack!
"It's not my choice, it's a logical necessity. Do you at least understand what I'm talking about? If you are yet to agree with something, you do not agree with it."
I understand where you're coming from, but that goes back to the idea that beliefs are subscriptive rather than descriptive, and I'm still more of a fan of the latter.
"I'm saying the default is 2 (I do not accept it) by necessity because you cannot accept a claim until you know what the claim is."
I would argue that it would depend on your preconditions. Factors like your society, and general social conditioning that model the way you think. But again, that's under my rules that beliefs are descriptive, but yes, if beliefs are subscriptive that would indeed be the case.
"The way I see it, there are an infinite number of claims that can be made about reality, and each claim is singular in nature. Corresponding to each claim, every person has a belief switch inside their head that is off by default"
That's Tabula Rasa, so yes, you've made a philosophical choice of how to interpret what you are analyzing. But it's not a necessary philosophy, and you don't necessarily start with it (you don't necessarily not start with it either though).
"I think we can agree that it's a bit silly to suggest that babies are born with knowledge of everything, and the switches get flipped off as the baby grows."
Haha, actually, you would be surprised to see the philosophies out there, some of which do in fact posit such a thing. Someone had the idea that we only have access to infinite knowledge when we are completely powerless to use it, like in a dream or in our extreme youth.
From the coherentism model I usually work off of these days, I would say that the switch doesn't exist until the concept is presented, and even then, it's flickering at the halfway mark, (but again, I'm interpreting belief as descriptive).
"This provides a sort of bedrock POV for critical thinkers to judge new claims by."
That's foundationalism in a nutshell, and I don't agree with it. It's philosophically valid, but I don't feel that it gives an accurate representation of what is actually there.
"Furthermore, we're not dealing with the question 'Does Y = X', we're dealing with the question 'do you BELIEVE Y = X'"
Knowledge is just strong belief (well unless if we're talking about transcended knowledge, but that's a different topic altogether). But for all practical purposes, knowledge is strong belief, so asking "does y = x" is asking for a subjective interpretation of the question anyway. It's unnecessary to tack on the 'do you believe' portion because it's already understood that any answer will be subjective, it's redundant.
"Q2 - Do you BELIEVE God exists?"
The only possible reason I could see someone tacking on the "do you believe" part is to:
1) make the assertion that God is unknowable, or knowledge of God is unobtainable (which is an agnostic-based bias, bad NoeL, bad!) Which only serves to re-enforce an agnostic position rather than gnostic.
2) possibly to bring into play the idea that believes are subscriptive (I definitely think this is another philosophical bias). Which also serves to weave out any description of uncertainty or mixed feelings as a failure to subscribe to a concept.
"A belief can't 'I don't know' exist any more than God can - it either exists or it doesn't."
You know my usually response to something like this. I would argue that because the mind is a multiplicity, you can hold a belief and not hold a belief simultaneously.
I'm sure, because you believe beliefs are subscriptive, you would say something like anything less than full belief of the majority of parts does not constitute a belief.
Which is to say, that I'm sure you would argue along the lines of: within a sine graph, 1 = belief, anything less than 1 = not belief
"If the person answers C for Q2, they are ignorant of their own position."
But, would it be possible to be ignorant of your own position though (supposing beliefs are subscriptive)?
Isn't it fair to say that you can be subscribed to ideas that you weren't even aware of? (as the result of social conditioning or what-have you)
For instance let's say that you suddenly adopted the belief that stealing was okay, and you robbed a store, but slowly you noticed that you felt guilty and eventually came to the realization that you actually weren't okay with stealing? I suppose you would say this is a case of holding contradicting beliefs. But the real question is whether we have to be conscious of belief in order to hold it. At the moment you rob the store, the belief that "stealing is wrong" might be out of your mind, but if beliefs are subscriptive, that doesn't change the fact that you believed it (or does it?).
"Headism doesn't include "rejection of tailism" in its definition, nor does tailism include "rejection of headism" - each is defined as the belief that the coin will land either heads or tails face up, respectively. If a person believes, for whatever reason, that upon landing all coins open up like a clam shell with both heads and tails face up (for example)..."
whoa, whoa, would this happen right as the universe spontaneously organizes its self into the number 42? I'd definitely say that this one was a little of the wall. I'm definitely questioning how it might be useful for analysis though. With this you could start making all sorts of weird paradoxical arguments like God exists and doesn't exist at the same time, and the like, or the entire shrodinger's cat scenario. Though, as far as philosophy goes, that's pretty high up on the eccentric list. Haha, I have to give you kudos, I'll have to call this the clam-shell-coin scenario. hmm... but is a coin still a coin if it's split in two? strange thoughts.
"can show me two theists that believe in the exact same god?"
Oh, you're trying to slip in the argument that you can be a theist and an atheist at the same time. You really can't. It's just as off rails as a square-circle. Theism doesn't deal with any particular claims, it is only the acceptance that some intelligent agency exists which supersedes the natural realm.
If you believe that that agency carries specific properties (like a diestic god, a personal God named Yahweh, A personal God name FSM, a multiplicity of gods, etc) those are all secondary. Just because you do not agree with someone else's interpretation of god does not mean that you are an atheist as a result.
atheism and theism are mutually exclusive.... well supposing you don't pummel me with more of those clam-coin manoeuvres.
"Atheism is both the rejection of the theistic claim (i.e. gods exist) and/or the acceptance of the claim "gods do not exist", which I guess COULD be called antitheism, but is commonly just called strong atheism."
And that's exactly what I don't like about atheism covering the middle ground, it's giving it two meanings depending on the context, but because of the ambiguity with the usage, it's too easy to get mixed up in the notion that someone on the fence is actually against the idea.
To me, it just sends red flags off in my head because you will sometimes see theists use the same kind of tactic to try to promote you to associate with their side more.
Strong atheism becomes a description of a claim, whereas, weak atheism becomes a lack of a claim, and than there are the strong atheists who say they aren't making a claim because atheism doesn't refer to belief, and the rest of that strange metaphoric shapeshifting that goes on because the term is vague.
Even under your method of interpretation, atheism becomes a claim at some point, and for me, it seems very necessary to ensure that there is a clear distinction between someone who is making claims, and someone who isn't. I don't want atheism to become some sort of passe label that's just non-chalantly tossed around but doesn't carry a coherent message.
"Or there's an apparent paradox that they can't figure out."
Oh true, true. In the case where there is no right or wrong answer, I hadn't thought of that. But the point remains, if someone specifically says the phrase "I don't think you are correct," I think unless they are just learning the nuances of the english language, they are trying to communicate the idea that they think you are wrong. From an absolutely literal approach, it's true that they aren't actually saying that you are wrong. But pragmatism plays a very important roll in deciphering meaning in a message. The context of when and how they say something makes all the difference of how someone else is going to pick up the cues.
"You cannot defeat logic! Resistance is hyperfutile, biatch!"
I don't care if I have to start WWIII, we shall see who is illogical! (lol on the "hyperfutile" haha)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyhhFzE5O5U
"Atheism isn't a claim any more than theism is - and I never claimed that it was."
oh the PUNishment of it all!
"having a strong belief in the truth of a case = having knowledge"
okay, I'm following so far.
""I believe the claim: "my case regarding the claim "gods exist" is consistent with objective fact" is true.""
Okay, so it's a claim, that a position of belief is correct in the context of truth. But what is a position of belief indicating?
At some point in this view, there is going to have to be a transition from the absence of belief in soft-atheism, to an actual belief to the contrary of theism with hard-atheism. Maybe I'm just not seeing something, but I'm thinking that there is either a double-standard going on, or the method of interpretation isn't adequate to properly describe a distinction between atheism which makes a case, and that which dismisses a case.
(omg I'm surprised the sheer size of this page hasn't crashed my browser yet, haha, great way to lose track of time though. oh my!)
*edits wikipedia*
enjoy your cake! ;D
NoeL-
August 5, 2009
That's when implicit and explicit atheism come in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_and_explicit_atheism
"If a person behave in the exact same manner as a classical theist, except that he doesn't use the word "God," is he a theist, or is he not?"
He is a theist. Whether you call it God, Allah, Vishnu, Thor, Zeus, it doesn't matter. What you're describing is a theistic deity, and if you believe they exist you're a theist.
"but if theist is a subscriptive term (like you try to illustrate it) the child would indeed be an atheist."
Not necessarily. People can respond to claims subconsciously (in fact, most of the time they do). The child can be a theist without realising it, but that theism had to come from somewhere - the child subscribed to that idea at some time.
"That's another concept that is splitting hairs between our interpretations, you see theism as something you have to subscribe to, whereas I see it as something that describes a belief type."
Where did that belief originate? I think you made the argument that some people are genetically predisposed to theism, but I don't buy that for a second. I guess the only way to test it would be to raise a group of children in a secular environment, with no mention of any kind of theistic or deistic force, and then ask them if they believe a higher order of life that controls the universe exists. I don't know for sure, but I would assume that no child would would be theistic. I think the idea of gods originated when people first began critically thinking about their environment, and came to believe that the sun was responsible for the universe as they know it. Fully grown adults raised in a completely secular environment might come to be theists through the same critical thinking skills, but I strongly doubt people are BORN theists (there's a good argument we're born as dualists, but not theists IMO).
"As far as I knew, default was just referring to the choice which takes precedence over the others in the case of ambiguity."
I wouldn't define default that way - perhaps that's where the disagreement is. I would define "default" as the initial base value, and change to that value requires some kind of stimulus. My argument being that you cannot believe in a god unless you have some concept of what a god is, and so I agree with Seth Miller that people are born atheist.
The default isn't a choice, it's a starting point - an initialisation. To make any kind of choice requires some kind of rationale, and I think that if a rationale is influencing the "default", it's not really a default because there is something acting upon it.
"It would take a lot of conditioning (whether by a hypnotist or some other brainwashing technician), but I definitely still think it's possible to believe you are a duck."
Of course, but that's not the point. Can you CHOOSE to believe you're a duck? You can choose to be subject to intensive condition that may result in the belief that you're a duck, but you didn't CHOOSE that belief, it's the product of conditioning.
"maybe it's not so quack!"
Maybe it is! =P
"I understand where you're coming from, but that goes back to the idea that beliefs are subscriptive rather than descriptive, and I'm still more of a fan of the latter."
Again, how did that belief originate?
"I would argue that it would depend on your preconditions. Factors like your society, and general social conditioning that model the way you think."
Well that's no different to my switch analogy. The factors you mention are nothing but a collection of previously subscribed beliefs.
"That's Tabula Rasa, so yes, you've made a philosophical choice of how to interpret what you are analyzing. But it's not a necessary philosophy, and you don't necessarily start with it (you don't necessarily not start with it either though)."
Fair enough. I don't suppose there's any science to point the favour in any which way?
"From the coherentism model I usually work off of these days, I would say that the switch doesn't exist until the concept is presented, and even then, it's flickering at the halfway mark, (but again, I'm interpreting belief as descriptive)."
I still don't understand the concept of "half believing" something. How can you have half a belief?
"That's foundationalism in a nutshell, and I don't agree with it. It's philosophically valid, but I don't feel that it gives an accurate representation of what is actually there."
Why not?
"Knowledge is just strong belief"
Theism ISN'T knowledge - it's belief.
"It's unnecessary to tack on the 'do you believe' portion because it's already understood that any answer will be subjective, it's redundant."
No it's not. Theism is defined as the BELIEF in the existence of deities, not the KNOWLEDGE of the existence of deities. If "alienism" was defined as having a belief in the existence of aliens, one needn't answer "yes" to the question "Do aliens exist?" to be an alienist. They can answer "I don't know" and then follow up with "but I BELIEVE they do". People say it all the time: "Well I don't KNOW, but...". This is why the labels "gnostic theist" and "agnostic theist" exist, to define the difference in how one answers the first question (Does God exist?).
"The only possible reason I could see someone tacking on the "do you believe" part is to:"
or 3) Because IT IS NECESSARY to define if someone is a theist or not. If someone is asked "Does God exist?" they do NOT necessarily assume the person is asking for their subjective opinion (even if you might, I certainly don't). For such a reason, if they are an agnostic theist they will answer "I don't know", even if they believe the answer to be yes.
"You know my usually response to something like this. I would argue that because the mind is a multiplicity, you can hold a belief and not hold a belief simultaneously."
Well what is "not hold[ing] a belief"? Is it akin to claiming the contrary, or not accepting a claim? If it's merely not accepting a claim then 1 + 0 = 1. If you hold that belief somewhere in your brain, you believe it. Otherwise, what reason do you have to believe (in absense of multiple personalities) one part of the mind holds a belief whilst another part holds a belief to the contrary?
"I'm sure, because you believe beliefs are subscriptive, you would say something like anything less than full belief of the majority of parts does not constitute a belief."
What I'm saying is that you can't have half a belief. If your argument is that different parts of the brain hold different beliefs, then all you're saying is that the mind as a whole can't form beliefs - only the segments within. How can each of those segments hold "half a belief" without segmenting further ad infinitum?
"Which is to say, that I'm sure you would argue along the lines of: within a sine graph, 1 = belief, anything less than 1 = not belief"
I'm saying any value besides 1 or zero is impossible. So yes, if it's less than 1 it's necessarily zero, which = not belief.
"But, would it be possible to be ignorant of your own position though (supposing beliefs are subscriptive)?"
Yes and no. You can be ignorant in the sense that you lack the conscious awareness of your belief necessary to be able to vocalise that belief (which is what I meant in that example), but you cannot have a belief without some knowledge of it - even if it's subconscious knowledge... though you could argue that beliefs are necessarily conscious, so yes, it would be impossible for someone to be ignorant of their own beliefs. It would be impossible for someone to truthfully answer "I don't know" to Q2 without misunderstanding the question.
"Though, as far as philosophy goes, that's pretty high up on the eccentric list. Haha, I have to give you kudos, I'll have to call this the clam-shell-coin scenario."
You better credit me on it! *shakes fist*
"Oh, you're trying to slip in the argument that you can be a theist and an atheist at the same time."
No, I'm trying to show you that people don't have to agree on the specifics to be a theist in order to show that one need not believe that coins aren't clam-coins to be a headist. You can't be a theist and an atheist at the same time because their definitions specifically exclude the other (if you're a theist you believe gods exist, and so you cannot believe that they don't exist simultaneously). That isn't the case with headism and tailism, because the flip side to "I believe it is heads" is "I do not believe it is heads". It is NOT "I believe it is tails".
The same with square circles - a square has four corners by definition, and so cannot be a circle because it has none. You're comparing apples and oranges here.
"atheism and theism are mutually exclusive.... well supposing you don't pummel me with more of those clam-coin manoeuvres."
No I agree. But the reasons as to why atheism and theism are mutually exclusive DO NOT carry over to headism and tailism. Atheism and theism are contradictory by DEFINITION, headism and tailism are only contradictory by FACT, and we've already established that people CAN hold multiple beliefs regardless of their factual contradictions.
"And that's exactly what I don't like about atheism covering the middle ground, it's giving it two meanings depending on the context, but because of the ambiguity with the usage, it's too easy to get mixed up in the notion that someone on the fence is actually against the idea."
I agree. I don't like how wind and wind are spelt exactly the same, but I can't change the fact that they are by crying about it.
"To me, it just sends red flags off in my head because you will sometimes see theists use the same kind of tactic to try to promote you to associate with their side more."
Can you give an example?
"Strong atheism becomes a description of a claim, whereas, weak atheism becomes a lack of a claim, and than there are the strong atheists who say they aren't making a claim because atheism doesn't refer to belief, and the rest of that strange metaphoric shapeshifting that goes on because the term is vague."
I think it's got more to do with the fact that you don't understand the specific uses of the term. It's quite dynamic, and you're frustrated that you can't keep up. There's no shape shifting going on, it's just that people aren't often descriptive enough in their usage. It's like when someone points to a horse and says "that's a mammal" and you reply "that's not a mammal, it's a horse! Elephants are mammals, are you saying horses and elephants are the same thing?"
"Even under your method of interpretation, atheism becomes a claim at some point, and for me, it seems very necessary to ensure that there is a clear distinction between someone who is making claims, and someone who isn't."
No, only strong atheism can be seen to be making a claim, (that claim being "gods do not exist"), but the claim need not be presented like that. A gnostic non-acceptance of "gods exist" is strong atheism, and only by virtue of fact forms an affirmative response to "gods do not exist".
"I don't want atheism to become some sort of passe label that's just non-chalantly tossed around but doesn't carry a coherent message."
You just hate atheists
"From an absolutely literal approach, it's true that they aren't actually saying that you are wrong. But pragmatism plays a very important roll in deciphering meaning in a message. The context of when and how they say something makes all the difference of how someone else is going to pick up the cues."
Of course. The point I was making is that someone saying "I don't think you're right" DOES NOT NECESSARILY mean they think you're wrong, even if they do 99% of the time. It is not a true dichotomy.
"oh the PUNishment of it all!"
LOL!
"At some point in this view, there is going to have to be a transition from the absence of belief in soft-atheism, to an actual belief to the contrary of theism with hard-atheism. Maybe I'm just not seeing something, but I'm thinking that there is either a double-standard going on, or the method of interpretation isn't adequate to properly describe a distinction between atheism which makes a case, and that which dismisses a case."
The introduction of gnostic/strong atheism forms a positive case of antitheism as a by-product, and a positive case of antitheism will form the associated gnostic rejection of theism. One cannot exist without the other, and are synonomous in practice, but not in theory. They're two methods of achieving the same outcome, if you will.
"*edits wikipedia*
enjoy your cake! ;D"
You heathen bastard! But...
I'm not even angry.
I'm being so sincere right now.
Molzahn
August 6, 2009
From a descriptive sense, members of Buddhist-like religion could be described loosely as theistic, even if they never directly refer to a god.
But, if beliefs are considered subscriptive, at what point does the Buddhist become a theist?
If a person refers to everything in the same manner that a theist would, just without affirming whether or not there is a god of some sort. Are they still theistic, or are they atheistic? How can we determine what beliefs they are subscribing to?
What is the defining factor for what constitutes a god? If something like karma were personified, that would be a god, but is personification necessary for a theistic belief? Christians apologists like Saint Thomas Aquinas argued that we imagine god as a person only because that is the simple way we understand things, he argued that god is beyond anything we can conceive of. And surely, pantheists are the loosest theists because they too don't necessarily believe that the deistic force is personified. Deists too, don't necessarily believe in a personified force.
So is something like karma inherently 'god-like'? I think, in the case of Buddhism, you can describe it either way, and that's part of the reason I see 'beliefs as descriptive' as a more useful analysis of the situation.
Now, then again, the outright rejection of theism draws some strange results. Like, are things like karma rejected to? What about a pantheistic view, is that rejected to? Or are there specific factors that play into the rejection, on a person to person basis?
And to use the clam-coin analogy, what if all the switches are turned on at birth, the rejection of a deistic agency, and the acceptance of a diestic agency.
What if someone says the word 'universe' instead of 'god.' Are they theistic or atheistic?
"the child subscribed to that idea at some time."
But what if it's part of the child's inherent nature to associate unexpected events to intelligent agencies? Just like we all inherently have the instinct to fight or flight when something catches us off guard. We associate the unexpected bush movement with the presence of a predator (whether it's rationale or not is another story).
But that again has to do with Tabula Rasa, and why I'm not a fan.
"People can respond to claims subconsciously (in fact, most of the time they do). The child can be a theist without realising it, but that theism had to come from somewhere - the child subscribed to that idea at some time."
So more on my war against Tabula Rasa, what if our subconscious comes pre-programmed? We already know that there are psychological characteristics that all of us (or close enough to all) are born with (like empathy, facial expression, our basic psychological profiles, etc), why couldn't systems of subconscious belief be part of that?
"I guess the only way to test it would be to raise a group of children in a secular environment, with no mention of any kind of theistic or deistic force, and then ask them if they believe a higher order of life that controls the universe exists."
The problem comes when you would have to make sure there is a perfectly neutral system to test the hypothesis, and that's almost impossible to have.
Let's say that you choose a select few volunteers to raise the children, these volunteers are going to inadvertently influence the children with there own predetermined systems of belief. Maybe it's a question that a child has about a unifying force in the universe, and even though the parent may consciously give a neutral answer, all it takes is a subtle subconscious reaction like a flicker of an eyebrow and the child could be deterred from that system of belief.
From what we know anthropologically though, is that every major civilization from the past has had some sort of deistic force that they recognized. From the Mayans, to Aztechs, to Egyptians, to Greeks. Given long enough, any society will produce theistic tendencies (or in some cases, tendencies designed specifically against theism).
But, even in this case, it's begging that fuzzy line of what constitutes theism.
"I would define "default" as the initial base value, and change to that value requires some kind of stimulus."
haha, yes, yes. The difference between our definitions comes from the difference in our interpretations, that entire descriptive versus subscriptive bit.
"Can you CHOOSE to believe you're a duck? You can choose to be subject to intensive condition that may result in the belief that you're a duck, but you didn't CHOOSE that belief, it's the product of conditioning."
Okay, so, in the case that you are strongly polarized to believe you are a human, you have little to no choice in the matter. But if you're on that fuzzy line, where you have been conditioned to freely associate with any number of strange ideas (a state that someone like a hypnotist could bring you into), you could freely believe between being a duck or not.
If beliefs are subscriptive, another strange thought is that we are born not believing that we are human. Now that's pretty cool
To backtrack a bit. Should we believe that babies are born with a stable sense of what they believe? Maybe "they" aren't really a coherent identity yet, maybe we shouldn't think of them as a thing which can be measured by beliefs.
Just like I might say to a rock "you seem like a happy human," I think I'm safe to say that that's a pretty illegitimate description. And if it wasn't, I call the rock an atheist, or better yet, I could walk up to a theist and tell him that every single cell in his brain is an atheist, and ask him why doesn't he conform.
There has to be some minimum bar for what kind of thing can hold a belief versus not hold a belief. I don't think a newborn should be considered to have the capability to hold or not hold beliefs, and therefore shouldn't be eligible for the title of atheist or theist. Regardless of what it is pre-disposed to believe, and regardless of whether Tabula Rasa is true, regardless of descriptive versus subscriptive. I don't think a newborn should be considered either-or, until it reaches a point that it can demonstrate it's preference of belief versus non-belief. And maybe that means the point where it learns to speak, or maybe it means the point at which it makes a judgement based on internal logic, but just like I wouldn't call a rock an atheist, I wouldn't call a unformed person one either.
"People can respond to claims subconsciously (in fact, most of the time they do). The child can be a theist without realising it"
A very interesting thought.
"[subscriptive versus descriptive] Again, how did that belief originate?"
How does a belief originate. I think that's a valid philosophical question that has no clear answer.
Both perspectives are just a matter of interpretation, I would argue that "descriptive belief" does a better job at painting the picture, but that's just my subjective stance.
Under descriptive belief, I would define a belief as an interpretation of information that corresponds to pre-existing patterns. I see belief being just as subjective as terms like "beautiful," they are a recap of raw information that corresponds to a conclusion. But just as you can have mixed feelings about a painting, or what seems like an absence of feeling, there is no clear absence of belief, and there is no clear promoted belief. Because we are mostly unaware of our subconscious mind, I would want to refrain from describing the state of belief in a neutral person as a non-belief or belief, I would just say they haven't created a preference to identify with.
To take it back to the thousand-light-switch scenario, if we are born with the capability to belief any combination of light-switches, doesn't that mean that on some level, in some form, every possible conception already exists in a simpler pre-existing form in your mind. Where a refined belief is only a complex combination of simpler beliefs? A conscious belief wouldn't be a single light that is turned on, but a pattern of lights. Every piece of circuitry already exists that is necessary, the only difference is the relative level of electrical stimulation flowing through the circuit, and whether or not we can see the results form consciously.
The light-switch would be the representation of a consciously recognized belief. Whether or not we flip the switch, there is still minute electrical charges running through the wire on every possible wire, even if two switches are designed to cancel eachother out consciously. And consciously, we may experience different subconscious polarizations when we are trying to reorganize the subconscious. Like dreaming about being a duck for instance =P
The lights that turn on as a result of the flipping switches would be a conscious recognition of belief, but not a true representation of the subconscious beliefs that exist behind the wall. If a person can be unaware of the fact they believe something (by virtue of it being subconscious), then I would argue that at any point in time that they have not made a choice, they are (to use a clam-coin) simultaneously anti-theist and a theist at the same time.
I just think it's a lot more dynamic than just a case of "there" or "not there." I think there's a lot more ambiguity, more vaguery than we can successfully decipher. A belief about how beliefs work - that just sends too many flags off in my head, no matter what belief you make (whether you decide subscriptive, descriptive, or any other possible option), with nearly absolute certainty, it's going to be an unfalsifiable philosophy.
"[Tabula Rasa] Fair enough. I don't suppose there's any science to point the favour in any which way?"
I would argue that genetic-biology, psychology, and neurology all argue against Tabula Rasa, but it's a philosophical issue more than scientific.
Just like metaphysical naturalism has little to do with science, but it's often misconstrued as something of scientific consequence.
"I still don't understand the concept of "half believing" something. How can you have half a belief?"
Back to the lightswitch analogy, if you have a lightswitch at the half-way point, where it causes the light to flicker, but don't hold a continual connection. If the light is flickering, is it on or off?
How would you describe what you are seeing? Would you say there is belief, or would you say there isn't? Or would you jump out of the usual assessment and say 'option 3' or something alike?
If we go back to the idea that a belief is a pattern of light rather than just one switch, imagine you have a complete pattern with just one flickering light. Is the pattern there or not? I would say I'm not sure, because realistically, the one light could suddenly reach a point where it stops flickering, but without touching the switch, you wouldn't know which way it's going to go. Whether it's going to stabilize with the on or off.
That's just my take from a descriptive sense though. From a descriptive sense, the person viewing the lights is making the determination, but from a subscriptive sense, I'm guessing that each instance it is on or off would give the distinction between whether it was belief or not-belief.
"This is why the labels "gnostic theist" and "agnostic theist" exist, to define the difference in how one answers the first question (Does God exist?)."
I always saw belief as an indication of what someone thought was true. And then, the description of (a)gnosticism just as a remark of how verifiable the conclusion was based on auxiliary information.
For instance, a gnostic atheist (or NoeLian gnostic anti-theist) would believe that gods do not exist, and feels that he has sufficient secondary information to demonstrate the validity of his belief. An agnostic atheist (from a descriptive-belief sense) would be someone who doesn't believe that gods exist, but doesn't feel that he doesn't yet have sufficient secondary evidence to completely dismiss the notion.
From a coherentism interpretation, a gnostic atheist is just someone who is highly polarized to the position of belief that gods do not exist, an agnostic is someone who isn't as polarized. Under that, atheism/theist refers to a resolved position of belief.
If someone asked whether the earth was flat, and you responded "no." You aren't necessarily saying that you absolutely know that the earth is not flat, but it is justified within your system of information far enough to be satisfied in dismissing the opposition. You consider it fact, even though science is tentative. You could be called a gnostic 'a-flatist,' because you would be making the claim that something is fact.
If you were an agnostic 'a-flatist,' as I see it, you are making the remark that you have at least a preference to the idea that the earth is not flat, but you're not going so far to claim that it is fact.
If somehow, you are convinced by someone that the earth is actually flat as a fact (hopefully he doesn't believe he's a duck too), if you started as a gnostic 'a-flatist,' you have moved from 'knowing' that the earth is not flat to knowing that the earth is flat.
But again, that's running from the angle that atheist is an indication of what someone's interprets to be true, rather than the subscriptive standard "not a theist."
I'm still trying to rap my head around how an atheist (as a non-subscriber of theism) has multiple grades of belief... er, non-belief I mean. If someone 'knows' that non-belief is justified, I would think they are referring to external information which verifies the idea that god does not exist (which subtly hints to the existence of a belief to the contrary). If someone doesn't know if their non-belief is justified,,, okay, nevermind, I see what you're saying, in the case of the subscriptive-belief interpretation, gnosticism would refer to the validity of the position of belief... in accordance to what is believed to be true? So agnosticism would describe the lack of satisfactory verification for the validity of a belief or non-belief.... in accordance to what is believed to be truth (knowledge)? I'm having a hard time believing that 'non-belief' isn't a form of belief in its self.
"but you cannot have a belief without some knowledge of it - even if it's subconscious knowledge... though you could argue that beliefs are necessarily conscious, so yes, it would be impossible for someone to be ignorant of their own beliefs"
I see a slippery slope into an identification problem. If beliefs are necessarily conscious, doesn't that mean that a theist is really an atheist when he or she sleeps? Or whenever they aren't thinking about god?
I definitely think it's a little far to say that there is a conscious necessity. Even if we were to say "consciously obtainable" there is still the dilemma of 1) response time, and 2) coherent identity. Someone with Alzheimer's would be all over the place with beliefs, as they have a dozen different identities that they are transiting through, Someone who was just in a car accident probably isn't in the right frame of mind to access their beliefs relating to anything they weren't passionate about. State of mind would definitely impact what is consciously accessible.
"Atheism and theism are contradictory by DEFINITION, headism and tailism are only contradictory by FACT, and we've already established that people CAN hold multiple beliefs regardless of their factual contradictions."
Fact versus definition, that's a good way to put it. One being a tautological distinction, the other is a distinction made by the senses.
But suppose we made the tautological determination that all real numbers are either even or odd. By saying that the number is not odd, you have tautologically established that the number is even.
If we were to throw a monkey wrench into the works and ask whether someone believed the number was even or odd "I don't believe it's odd" won't necessarily mean that it isn't odd, it's just indicating where you stand on the issue. Which would probably be more useful to say "I have no preference to the belief of odd" which would probably translate better to "my sensory information does not indicate a higher probability in an odd outcome." And that's the subscriptive-belief system if I'm right. And if that's right, it means that belief is used slightly differently between the subscriptive/descriptive explanations. From my end, you would be using the word "belief" in the way I might use the phrase "investment in the likelihood of a claim"
"Do you believe God exists?" to me, still seems to be smuggling in agnosticism, and more over, it almost feels like a functional equivalent to that phrase is "do you deny God exists?" Which feels like a very weighted question. It feels like the former is emphasizing attention on acceptance more than it needs to.
"I think it's got more to do with the fact that you don't understand the specific uses of the term. It's quite dynamic, and you're frustrated that you can't keep up."
It has nothing to do with keeping up, it's just the fact that the subscriptive-belief form of interpretation is horribly prone to breeding misinterpretations and misconceptions, fallacious arguments and the works.
It's a needless obfuscation of previously accepted terminology, and relies heavily on several questionable philosophies and formerly (or presently) pseudo-definitions for important terms. And as far as I see it, it's still a shameless shell-game to try to win over the middleground. It jumps around the question "does god exist" and then throws in its own interpretation of belief and asks "do you believe god exists." I understand it, I'm just not buying it.
If I were to ask, "Does God exist?" and you had to give an answer, you could say "in accordance to the information I have available, yes He does," or "in accordance to the information I have available, no He does not" or "I don't know. The information I have available does not indicate either state of affairs." Classically of course, that would have been 'theist,' 'atheist,' and 'agnostic.' But in your line of thought, "yes" and "no" are reduced to gnosticism, and "I don't know" gets rendered into agnosticism. And then the next question gets tossed in there, "do you BELIEVE that God exists" ... ugh! duck moment...
Subscriptive-belief plays it off as though knowledge is talking about ultimate reality or transcended revelation. I don't think it's legitimate to call 'knowledge' anything more than strong belief.
If I ask you the proposition "Does God exist" and you answer no, you have inadvertently answered answered yes to a separate proposition: "Does God exist only in the mind." At any point in time you have answered yes to a proposition, you hold a belief. If you don't belief that God is actual, by de facto you belief that God exists only in the mind. Belief describes what you consider true, I definitely wouldn't say it's like a club that you have to pay a subscription fee for.
"Of course. The point I was making is that someone saying 'I don't think you're right' DOES NOT NECESSARILY mean they think you're wrong, even if they do 99% of the time. It is not a true dichotomy."
Okay, fair enough - technically it doesn't, but considering that pretty much 80% of what your telling someone is made up in how you say it, if you were talking to a stranger, as to minimize confusion as much as possible, I would definitely shoot for the method of speech that's has the greatest ability to cultivate mutual understanding. If you went up to random people on the street, speaking Shakespearean english and metaphoric nonsense about you being a duck, you wouldn't be incorrect in your use of language, but it might not be understood that you're being metaphoric.
And it's like that with the belief of subscriptive-beliefs, like I said before, it's valid, but it's philosophically heavy and I find it doesn't suit the kinds of expressions and messages that people might want to send. I have very high doubts that I am the only person who uses the descriptive-belief method.
pheww. okay, so for the sake of recapping what off the top of my head:
"Subscriptive" versus "Descriptive beliefs"
"Tabula Rasa" versus "not-so-Tabula Rasa"
foundation from blank state; versus:
coherent from patterns of information
"not a theist" versus "without a god"
"agnostic atheist as a neutrality" versus "exclusive agnostic to indicate neutrality."
I swear, these take longer and longer to write, and every time I add on, it's like Jenga, you just know it's going to crash someone's browser at some point! we must have what? 23 pages of this so far? if only I put this much effort into highschool, haha.
Suffice it to say:..
These points of data make a beautiful line.
We're all of beta - we're releasing on time~
NoeL-
August 7, 2009
Edit | Reply
[/I]
Hopefully that worked. ONWARDS!!!
"From a descriptive sense, members of Buddhist-like religion could be described loosely as theistic, even if they never directly refer to a god."
I don't see how... but I'm not terribly familiar with Buddhism.
"But, if beliefs are considered subscriptive, at what point does the Buddhist become a theist?"
I don't believe they are. Every source I've read defines Buddhism as an atheistic religion. I guess when they start believing in theistic deities they become theists =P
"If a person refers to everything in the same manner that a theist would, just without affirming whether or not there is a god of some sort. Are they still theistic, or are they atheistic? How can we determine what beliefs they are subscribing to?"
They're theistic. Another example:
You watch a guy playing basketball. You ask him what he's doing and he replies "playing football". Either he's a smart arse, or his definition of football is synonymous with your definition of basketball. They're just different words describing the same thing.
Likewise, if someone believes in the existence of what we would call "gods", whether or not they choose to call them gods is neither here nor there.
Or are you suggesting that they believe gods to exist but refuse to express that belief verbally? Or are you asking if they carry some of the many beliefs associated with theism (heaven/hell style afterlife, souls, etc) but not affirm the existence of gods? In such a case they wouldn't be theists. The ONLY thing that constitutes theism is a belief in god(s) of some sort - without that you ain't no theist.
"What is the defining factor for what constitutes a god?"
Generally speaking I would define it as a higher-order consciousness/being concerned with the plight of humanity and/or lower ordered life (aka a deity), but categorically it would be any kind of higher-order being.
"If something like karma were personified, that would be a god, but is personification necessary for a theistic belief?"
I kinda see personification and anthropomorphism as synonymous terms, and I don't believe a god has to necessarily be an anthromorphisation, only that it is aware and has some kind of intelligence. That said, most - if not all - gods I've heard of are anthros.
"Christians apologists like Saint Thomas Aquinas argued that we imagine god as a person only because that is the simple way we understand things, he argued that god is beyond anything we can conceive of."
I've always found that angle contradictory. People say shit like "God is immaterial and infinite so you can't define him!" ... but they've just defined him as immaterial and infinite! Perhaps he's not being contradictory though, as you could argue the appearance of atoms is inconceivable, which is why we use models to describe them.
"And surely, pantheists are the loosest theists because they too don't necessarily believe that the deistic force is personified. Deists too, don't necessarily believe in a personified force."
Pantheism is a tricky one. They're considered theists only because they consider nature to be a god, and I would argue that theism SHOULD apply to deities only, but the worship/elevation of nature in the case of pantheists is significantly different to those that take nature at face value. If I can use atheism in its loosest term, then pantheism and deism are also kinds of theism (I'm not contradicting myself when I said both of those were atheism earlier, just using a more liberal definition of theism here).
"So is something like karma inherently 'god-like'?"
I wouldn't consider it any more god-like than gravity (except that it's imaginary *snicker snicker*), it's more of a law than a god.
"I think, in the case of Buddhism, you can describe it either way, and that's part of the reason I see 'beliefs as descriptive' as a more useful analysis of the situation."
To be honest with you... what's the difference between descriptive and subscriptive beliefs? ^^!
"Now, then again, the outright rejection of theism draws some strange results. Like, are things like karma rejected to? What about a pantheistic view, is that rejected to? Or are there specific factors that play into the rejection, on a person to person basis?"
It really depends what definition of theism you're rejecting.
"And to use the clam-coin analogy, what if all the switches are turned on at birth, the rejection of a deistic agency, and the acceptance of a diestic agency."
Which is a good argument against all-believing babies - it raises infinite contradictions... that's not really analogous with clam-coins though.
"What if someone says the word 'universe' instead of 'god.' Are they theistic or atheistic?"
Depends how they're defining those words. If someone says "there is an immaterial and infinite universe that loves each and every one of us dearly, and after we die our souls go up to heaven where we get to worship the universe for eternity! ... and the universe has a big white beard" I would say they're theistic =P If they were pantheistic you'd need to take into account their feelings towards the universe (is it holy, divine, etc).
"But what if it's part of the child's inherent nature to associate unexpected events to intelligent agencies? Just like we all inherently have the instinct to fight or flight when something catches us off guard. We associate the unexpected bush movement with the presence of a predator (whether it's rationale or not is another story)."
I've actually heard someone else use the exact same rustle-in-the-bushes analogy (except I think they were arguing that the burden of proof is therefore on the atheists... ridiculous), and this is where we get to draw that fun line between belief and instinct! =D Does a baby BELIEVE that sucking on a nipple will lead to milk or is nipple sucking something else?
I don't consider instincts to be beliefs. I don't believe there is any connection between the flight or fight response and "default" theism for a few reasons:
1) The fight or flight response only activates when there is an abnormality in our environment. In the past (and even now) there are very few environmental abnormalities that aren't the result of animal life (trees/branches falling and landslides are the only ones that come to mind, but I'm sure there's a few more). As a result of evolution we instinctually associate ABNORMALITIES to possibly threatening intelligent agents. This is partially responsible for beliefs in things like ghosts and monsters... and yes, I suppose malevolent deities as well, so I'm disagreeing with myself here.
2) ... well there was only one reason.
The case I was trying to make was against the "default" belief in creator beings, the reason being we only associate unexpected/unexplained events with intelligence (fight or flight), but whilst the existence of the universe is an unexplained phonomenon, and it's manifestation is an unexplained event, the universe is not unexpected or abnormal in any way (at least not in a way analogous to the fight or flight response).
So while it may be a child's nature to believe in a threatening god more similar to a monster or ghost, I reject that it's in anyone's nature to assume an intelligent Creator or omnibenevolent force.
"But that again has to do with Tabula Rasa, and why I'm not a fan."
Well, tabula rasa only refers to mental CONTENT, so I would class instinct and genetic disposition as part of the slate itself. To look at it like an empty hard drive, the drive would "know" how to add and delete content "intinctually", and the information added and removed to that drive is dependant upon HOW the drive adds and removes content. So a baby can still have methods of doing stuff without having any "content" (i.e. beliefs/knowledge).
"So more on my war against Tabula Rasa, what if our subconscious comes pre-programmed? We already know that there are psychological characteristics that all of us (or close enough to all) are born with (like empathy, facial expression, our basic psychological profiles, etc), why couldn't systems of subconscious belief be part of that?"
Well, I think the notion of "pre-programming" is absurd, but again I would consider hard-wired characteristics part of the slate itself. For the record though, how would you define a "system of subconscious belief"?
"The problem comes when you would have to make sure there is a perfectly neutral system to test the hypothesis, and that's almost impossible to have."
Yep. I never said it was feasible - or ethical. =P
"haha, yes, yes. The difference between our definitions comes from the difference in our interpretations, that entire descriptive versus subscriptive bit."
Those terms are still a little grey for me.
"Okay, so, in the case that you are strongly polarized to believe you are a human, you have little to no choice in the matter. But if you're on that fuzzy line, where you have been conditioned to freely associate with any number of strange ideas (a state that someone like a hypnotist could bring you into), you could freely believe between being a duck or not."
I still reject the notion that a belief can be formed by choice. I think beliefs form independantly in response to observation (and of course how your brain processes it), and there's no way to really control it.
"If beliefs are subscriptive, another strange thought is that we are born not believing that we are human. Now that's pretty cool"
That's what I consider to be the case, though I do think we instinctually associate other humans as being "like me". I think feral children are quite interesting in this regard, and it's interesting to wonder whether they consider themselves human (by realising the similarities in appearance) or consider themselves animal (by realising the similarities in behaviour with whatever animal raised them).
"To backtrack a bit. Should we believe that babies are born with a stable sense of what they believe? Maybe "they" aren't really a coherent identity yet, maybe we shouldn't think of them as a thing which can be measured by beliefs."
Interesting... I think just having the ability to learn and form beliefs is enough to have an identity - or at least a potential identity.
"And if it wasn't, I call the rock an atheist, or better yet, I could walk up to a theist and tell him that every single cell in his brain is an atheist, and ask him why doesn't he conform."
Lol! Again, I would argue that individual cells (or rocks) lack the capacity to form beliefs in gods and so their alleged atheism is redundant... but if you had a robot with some AI, and you provided input to the degree that it computed "gods exist" as if it were true, would you call it a theist?
... I would... if it was intelligent enough to have a conversation about it.
"There has to be some minimum bar for what kind of thing can hold a belief versus not hold a belief. I don't think a newborn should be considered to have the capability to hold or not hold beliefs, and therefore shouldn't be eligible for the title of atheist or theist."
Very true. I think the atheist title can still apply, but just like a rock it becomes redundant and meaningless. Like we were talking about before - without theism atheism becomes meaningless, and if babies can't be theists...
... let it be known that I renounce implicit atheism as a useful classification, and consider the claim "Babies are born atheist" redundant and meaningless!
"I see belief being just as subjective as terms like "beautiful," they are a recap of raw information that corresponds to a conclusion. But just as you can have mixed feelings about a painting, or what seems like an absence of feeling, there is no clear absence of belief, and there is no clear promoted belief."
Ah I get it now. Descriptive is analogue, subscriptive is digital =P
"If a person can be unaware of the fact they believe something (by virtue of it being subconscious), then I would argue that at any point in time that they have not made a choice, they are (to use a clam-coin) simultaneously anti-theist and a theist at the same time."
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to the T. Until the wave-function collapse of realising a belief, it is both true and false simultaneously =P. Not exactly clam-coin, but definitely Schrodinger's Cat!
"I just think it's a lot more dynamic than just a case of "there" or "not there." I think there's a lot more ambiguity, more vaguery than we can successfully decipher."
Seems that way.
"I would argue that genetic-biology, psychology, and neurology all argue against Tabula Rasa, but it's a philosophical issue more than scientific."
I disagree.
"Back to the lightswitch analogy, if you have a lightswitch at the half-way point, where it causes the light to flicker, but don't hold a continual connection. If the light is flickering, is it on or off?
How would you describe what you are seeing? Would you say there is belief, or would you say there isn't? Or would you jump out of the usual assessment and say 'option 3' or something alike?"
I would throw the Belief Switch Theory out the window, since it doesn't allow for flickerings (unless the person just changes their mind at a very rapid rate).
"in the case of the subscriptive-belief interpretation, gnosticism would refer to the validity of the position of belief... in accordance to what is believed to be true?"
Yes.
"So agnosticism would describe the lack of satisfactory verification for the validity of a belief or non-belief.... in accordance to what is believed to be truth (knowledge)?"
Yes.
"I'm having a hard time believing that 'non-belief' isn't a form of belief in its self."
Well from a subscriptive interpretation 'non-belief' is almost synonymous with descriptive agnosticism. A 'non-belief' is just saying you're not in the positive. If you're Molzahnian agnostic then you have a non-belief in the claim AND its respective anti-claim, which if you put on a polar scale of descriptive true/false would land you smack in the middle. Gnosticism is when a stance on either the claim or anti-claim shifts from non-belief to belief, and forces the alternative to remain in non-belief as a result... unless people can believe something is what it isn't, and I'd imagine their mind would have to be broken for that to even be plausible.
So non-belief isn't a belief, but a gnostic non-belief requires a belief to the contrary (unless they're insane).
"I see a slippery slope into an identification problem. If beliefs are necessarily conscious, doesn't that mean that a theist is really an atheist when he or she sleeps? Or whenever they aren't thinking about god?"
I was talking about a belief that the person was conscious of, not a belief that existed in their present consciousness. If you're a theist, and you're aware you're a theist, you're aware of the belief - the belief is a conscious one. If hearing a bell makes you salivate, do you 'believe' the bell is associated with food BEFORE someone points it out to you? The question being, is there a difference between a conditioning that elicits a response, and a belief that influences an action? (in my switch theory there was no difference except one was a 'conscious belief' and the other was a 'subconscious belief')
"But suppose we made the tautological determination that all real numbers are either even or odd. By saying that the number is not odd, you have tautologically established that the number is even."
Yups, but if you said you didn't BELIEVE the number is odd, you are not saying that you DO believe it's even - even if you're aware no other options exist. Also, you couldn't believe it is both, and you couldn't believe it is neither. A true agnostic would answer no to all four claims (odd (or 'not even'), even (or 'not odd'), both, neither). As they would indicate, they have no answer - they don't know.
"And that's the subscriptive-belief system if I'm right. And if that's right, it means that belief is used slightly differently between the subscriptive/descriptive explanations. From my end, you would be using the word "belief" in the way I might use the phrase "investment in the likelihood of a claim""
Pretty much.
""Do you believe God exists?" to me, still seems to be smuggling in agnosticism, and more over, it almost feels like a functional equivalent to that phrase is "do you deny God exists?" Which feels like a very weighted question. It feels like the former is emphasizing attention on acceptance more than it needs to."
I don't. I just see it as just a clearer theist-defining question than "Does God exist?". What about "do you THINK God exists?"?
"It has nothing to do with keeping up, it's just the fact that the subscriptive-belief form of interpretation is horribly prone to breeding misinterpretations and misconceptions, fallacious arguments and the works."
Perhaps, but it all depends on what you're familiar with. To me it comes very naturally and it's very easy to understand and is so much more precise than descriptive, but naturally precision breeds complexity and complexity breeds error... but it's horribly cumbersome.
"It's a needless obfuscation of previously accepted terminology, and relies heavily on several questionable philosophies and formerly (or presently) pseudo-definitions for important terms. And as far as I see it, it's still a shameless shell-game to try to win over the middleground."
I'm pretty sure the philosophy wasn't made to serve as a middleground-stealing mechanism for atheists.
"It jumps around the question "does god exist" and then throws in its own interpretation of belief and asks "do you believe god exists." I understand it, I'm just not buying it."
Was just saying, since it didn't look like you were keeping up.
"But in your line of thought, "yes" and "no" are reduced to gnosticism, and "I don't know" gets rendered into agnosticism. And then the next question gets tossed in there, "do you BELIEVE that God exists" ... ugh! duck moment..."
It's precision. Ask a precise question, get a precise response. Asking an open ended question like "Does God exist?" is just asking for long-winded answers that require extra information to properly answer the question in an unambiguous way. If someone says "yes" you don't know if they're stating what they believe to be probable, what they believe to be true, or what they know to be a fact. If all you're interested in is whether they believe God exists (to determine theism) then why not ask that question instead of something much more prone to ambiguity?
"Subscriptive-belief plays it off as though knowledge is talking about ultimate reality or transcended revelation."
No, it's talking about what a person believes to be ultimate reality.
"I don't think it's legitimate to call 'knowledge' anything more than strong belief."
I agree, and never claimed otherwise.
"If I ask you the proposition "Does God exist" and you answer no, you have inadvertently answered answered yes to a separate proposition: "Does God exist only in the mind." At any point in time you have answered yes to a proposition, you hold a belief."
I agree - but if the question is "Do you believe God exists?" you CAN answer no without inadvertently saying "God exists only in the mind" - that's how the whole non-belief stuff works.
"If you don't belief that God is actual, by de facto you belief that God exists only in the mind."
Wrong. If you believe God exists only in the mind, by de facto you don't believe God is actual, but it doesn't work in reverse. A square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square. A rectangle is a parallelogram, but a parallelogram is not a rectangle. You get the idea, right?
"if you were talking to a stranger, as to minimize confusion as much as possible, I would definitely shoot for the method of speech that's has the greatest ability to cultivate mutual understanding."
Of course - and if you're talking to a mathematician or a programmer or something like that the best method of speech is going to be one that minimises ambiguity, asks well defined questions, gives well defined answers, and works with the bare bones. If you're talking to a scientist you want to talk in terms of discrete facts and evidence. If you're talking to a crystal healer you want to use as much ambiguity as you can to disguise the fact none of it makes any sense.
"If you went up to random people on the street, speaking Shakespearean english and metaphoric nonsense about you being a duck, you wouldn't be incorrect in your use of language, but it might not be understood that you're being metaphoric."
Hmm... am I wearing a duck suit at the time?
"And it's like that with the belief of subscriptive-beliefs, like I said before, it's valid, but it's philosophically heavy and I find it doesn't suit the kinds of expressions and messages that people might want to send. I have very high doubts that I am the only person who uses the descriptive-belief method."
I have doubts I'm the only one who uses subscriptive, but different strokes for different folks. As long as each person can clarify what it is they're actually talking about, how they're defining words, etc. we should be able to get some conversation.
What appears (to me) to be the case is that subscriptivism/foundationalism/tabula rasa is like digital and relativistic, where everything has a set value and conforms to predictability, and descriptivism/coherentism/not-so-tabula rasa is like analogue and quantum mechanics, where everything is ambiguous and uncertain. The former works great in explaining macro-belief but falls apart in the micro, the latter works great in micro-belief but evaporates into ambiguity in the macro.
... or maybe it's like Newtonian mechanics and relativity. One works ok and is easy to understand, the other works better but is counter-intuitive.
NoeL-
August 30, 2009
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October 1, 2009
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As for your analogy with the earth being flat, that applys to knowlegde- NOT desire. The vast majority of people from all cultures in history, the "democracy of the dead" has an inate disire for the infinite- a desire that cannot be satisfied...without God. All other inate human disires have something that can satify them( see link at bottom) why would this be the exeption? It seems that denying it is the supersition, both logic and historical evidence point towards it.
You bring up a good point about the nature of "default" that we are talking about- but you misunderstand me. I would say that everyone, deeply, inatly( a disire that is being repressed in our culture now) in some sence KNOWS that God exists- since we are not just physical beings, we have a spirital dimention.
Here are two articles that show about what I am saying- http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/history.htm
http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/desire.htm
Note- this proof is not the strongest proof for the existance of God...far from it! I am just using this because it pertains to the thread.
October 1, 2009
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Of course
Of course you are a human person, and in some sense you DO long for God- although in our culture we are ingrained from our youth towards secularism, and this inate trait expresses itself in other ways, vainly trying to fill this desire through other mediems.As for your analogy with the earth being flat, that applys to knowlegde- NOT desire. The vast majority of people from all cultures in history, the "democracy of the dead" has an inate disire for the infinite- a desire that cannot be satisfied...without God. All other inate human disires have something that can satify them( see link at bottom) why would this be the exeption? It seems that denying it is the supersition, both logic and historical evidence point towards it.
You bring up a good point about the nature of "default" that we are talking about- but you misunderstand me. I would say that everyone, deeply, inatly( a disire that is being repressed in our culture now) in some sence KNOWS that God exists- since we are not just physical beings, we have a spirital dimention.
Here are two articles that show about what I am saying- http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/history.htm
http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/desire.htm
Note- this proof is not the strongest proof for the existance of God...far from it! I am just using this because it pertains to the thread.
Weydon
October 6, 2009
Besides, Tech's not that bad sometimes lol And Mud just assumes the world will end soon for the most part, but I don't see him doing many harmful things aside from that. He actually has a more reasonable interpretation of how homosexuals and other religions and atheists will be treated in the afterlife too.
Molzahn
October 7, 2009
I'm assuming that you were directing the comment to Noel, but that drug analogy is an amazing point. Just wanted to throw it out there, haha.
Weydon
October 7, 2009
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GinryuStargazer
October 8, 2009
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Ha ha!
I liked your comparisons; I am now picturing my friend (who is a chess maniac) trying to play checkers with the same rules. I know I switched it around, but it's pretty hilarious!!Sorry, carry on.
October 10, 2009
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October 10, 2009
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