Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by mhss1992

I have read that before, thanks.

Anyway, I actually even thought of this myself: as science proves certain things, the concept of "God" evolves and becomes harder to kill.
Something on the lines of:
A: God made this nest.
B: Actually, this nest was made by this bird.
A: God made this bird.
B: This bird became what it is due to evolution.
A: God made evolution!
And so on...

You're assuming that you can induce that this thing would happen ad infinitum, because it has happened many times in the past, even if they're just differenct theories with the same name. Though I actually believe that there's a much bigger barrier when it comes to the definition of the laws of physics themselves, it can also be said that this is like putting the goalposts as far as possible. So this is a fair point.

I'm not assuming it would happen ad infinitum. I am saying that given what we know, we're showing that when it comes to the global scope of our existence, we're finding that more and more (and by this, I mean everything to date) is explainable with our natural laws and science, and we push God further and further out of the picture. Therefore "God" becomes less and less likely. That's all it is -- a lowering a probability. Nowadays, that probability is so absurdly low that it's honestly not worth considering anymore until proven otherwise. That's where my stance derives from.

I am not denying the possibility that that chain would stop at some point. But what does it really mean to "consider it as a possibility"? How are you going to treat this "possibility"? We both have said outright that we don't deny this possibility. But what then? Where do we differ, specifically? Are you saying that God is simply more probable than I am suggesting despite the evidence?

Originally Posted by mhss1992

This is exactly why I hate dogmas. But if that's not a personal concern, I don't know what else is.

Yes, dogmatic justifications can be very dangerous, which is why I think it's always a good idea to make reasoned decisions based off *evidence* that is true for me, true for you, and true for anyone else making the observation.

[Reach]

Why are atheists so attached to the specific Christian God?

They're not. It just comes up a lot in debate.

There is really no 'specific Christian God'. Rather, the Abrahamic God is essentially the same God in Christianity (All variants), Judaism and Islam. You can call him whatever you want; Yahweh, Jehova, Elohim, Allah etcetera, but it's the same god in different variations that more than half of the entire population of the Earth believes in.

The point here is the people believe God to be a supernatural creator and overseer of the universe.

The question then becomes, is this likely? While creator remains a possibility, overseer becomes more and more unlikely as we elucidate more and more theory of how the universe functions as an autonomous system.

It's harder to look at the issue of creation because we can't look at time before the creation of time (i.e. the Big Bang), though we can infer one thing. Complex, organized systems arise from simple ones, as we see from the evolution of our universe. It is therefore reasonable to assume it is unlikely God could represent a complex and organized system (There is nothing to precede him if he is indeed responsible for creation).

In that sense, I don't feel this view represents how most people conceptualize God, meaning it is unlikely that Abrahamic-like Gods exist. There is no way to define probabilities here, but we can still say it's unlikely based on what we know about the universe.



Anyway, Fishbone brings up a lot of good points with respect to the semantic issues I was going to address, and Rubix has contributed so much I really don't have anything else to add.

[mhss1992]

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

I'm not assuming it would happen ad infinitum. I am saying that given what we know, we're showing that when it comes to the global scope of our existence, we're finding that more and more (and by this, I mean everything to date) is explainable with our natural laws and science, and we push God further and further out of the picture. Therefore "God" becomes less and less likely. That's all it is -- a lowering a probability. Nowadays, that probability is so absurdly low that it's honestly not worth considering anymore until proven otherwise. That's where my stance derives from.

I am not denying the possibility that that chain would stop at some point. But what does it really mean to "consider it as a possibility"? How are you going to treat this "possibility"? We both have said outright that we don't deny this possibility. But what then? Where do we differ, specifically? Are you saying that God is simply more probable than I am suggesting despite the evidence?

Less and less likely...
Think about it for a while: if there were a known fixed number of "things left to be explained", maybe we could speak of a probability.
For example:
"99.99% of everything about existence has been explained by science, and .01% is unexplained."

However, the actual number of "unknown" things to be explained is, well, UNKNOWN.
What if we know only .0000001% of existence? Well, that speaks very little about the probability of existence of God. It's by no means "absurdly low".

My point is: unknown probabilities are unknown.

Another detail: Our current science depends on the current laws of physics. Everything discovered by it depends on them. If we consider that something might have determined these laws, then, by definition, this thing is not subjected to the same laws.

Is there any mistake here?

[Patashu]

It's not so much that they're anti-Christian God, but that there's no need for them to rebuke Gods that aren't being postulated.

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by mhss1992

Less and less likely...
Think about it for a while: if there were a known fixed number of "things left to be explained", maybe we could speak of a probability.
For example:
"99.99% of everything about existence has been explained by science, and .01% is unexplained."

However, the actual number of "unknown" things to be explained is, well, UNKNOWN.
What if we know only .0000001% of existence? Well, that speaks very little about the probability of existence of God. It's by no means "absurdly low".

My point is: unknown probabilities are unknown.

Another detail: Our current science depends on the current laws of physics. Everything discovered by it depends on them. If we consider that something might have determined these laws, then, by definition, this thing is not subjected to the same laws.

Is there any mistake here?

You need to understand that while unknown probabilities ARE unknown, this means we can't say anything about them one way or the other. The unknown factor could be useless and small. It could be massive and important. It could be anything. It could be nothing. We don't know if it exists or not. Therefore, it is of no use to anyone in any way. We can treat it as not existing UNTIL SHOWN OTHERWISE. Like that Sagan story showed, what's the difference between a dragon that you can't sense, see, smell, touch, detect, interact with, etc -- and a dragon that just doesn't exist at all? Nothing. What does it mean for such a dragon to even "exist," then? In the context of our universe/existence, it doesn't mean anything at all.

If you are going to discount all probabilities as being useless because there could always be a huge, unknown variable then by that note you may as well say all knowledge is useless because "you just never know for sure."

I understand that you are wise enough to keep an open mind, as I think we all should. There are things we had no idea existed that had huge impacts on the way we see reality (such as relativity, quantum mechanics, etc). I understand that maybe everything we know about reality is only local to our universe and that it could be an entirely different ballpark outside of that.

But the problem lies in the fact that when we don't know something, we don't know something. It does nothing for us to pick something at random and "believe" in it. You can be open-minded to the possibility, but that's it. I am open-minded to the possibility of God, but I am also open-minded to the concept of there being an alternate universe where humans are blue-colored and planets are made of peanut butter. I am open-minded to the notion that Zeus and Thor exist. I am open-minded to these concepts because they aren't disprovable or impossible, but I can say that I don't think any of them are very likely within the context of our universe. But I am not going to waste my time with any such arbitrary beliefs until I have proof that I *should*. Again, all those beliefs are like invisible dragons.

Even if there is a God -- what if that God exists in a realm that we can never observe or experience? What if there's no way for a creator to interact with his creations besides just setting everything into motion? How does that solve our fundamental desire to ask "What caused everything?" Even if the answer to "What made the universe?" IS "God," then we aren't any closer to our fundamental desired answer. What made God, then? Are we really so satisfied with the answer "God did it?" Are we okay with "God" being an uncaused cause, and yet NOT okay with the universe itself being an uncaused cause? They're both "complex" entities in their own right. So what makes "God" God and not the "universe" it's own "God"? Even if such a God existed that we couldn't possibly interact with, we would never know about it. We would have no idea whether or not it was a God or some other explanation/entity/concept at the helm/root of the answer. All would be just as unknown as any other randomly invoked theory. But if we can't know about it, we can't say anything -- and we may as well simplify things by treating all unknown, unobservable concepts as nonexistent until shown otherwise.

[mhss1992]

You know what? We actually agree in most points. If we consider the possibility of God existing in our universe as something observable, then it's most definitely a ridiculously small probability. I guess the difference is that I tend to think too much about things we don't know (several universes and etc.). It just bothers me that you treat certain probabilities, like the "absurdly low" probability of existence of God, as practically certain. Again, such probability is only valid if we don't consider every possibility. That's what I've been trying to say in the whole thread.

I was actually afraid that you'd say something like "the probability of our knowledge of existence being so small is very small", so thanks for NOT saying that.

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

You need to understand that while unknown probabilities ARE unknown, this means we can't say anything about them one way or the other.

Typo?
If you actually meant "this doesn't mean we can't say anything about them one way or the other.", my answer is: if what we know about existence is as little as that percentage I mentioned, then we practically can't say anything at all. But, again, such percentage is unknown.

That doesn't mean that we can't postulate probabilities about things that have been observed in our universe. It's just that when it comes to possibilities beyond our universe, we REALLY can't say anything. Did you see the "Matter A/Matter B" thought experiment I mentioned in an earlier post? The problem is that you always link these possibilities with insanely specific things like Sonic the Hedgehog or the invisible dragon, even when I mentioned that we can't treat groups containing infinite possibilities as something as specific as that.

Originally Posted by Reincarnate

Even if there is a God -- what if that God exists in a realm that we can never observe or experience? What if there's no way for a creator to interact with his creations besides just setting everything into motion? How does that solve our fundamental desire to ask "What caused everything?" Even if the answer to "What made the universe?" IS "God," then we aren't any closer to our fundamental desired answer. What made God, then? Are we really so satisfied with the answer "God did it?" Are we okay with "God" being an uncaused cause, and yet NOT okay with the universe itself being an uncaused cause? They're both "complex" entities in their own right. So what makes "God" God and not the "universe" it's own "God"? Even if such a God existed that we couldn't possibly interact with, we would never know about it. We would have no idea whether or not it was a God or some other explanation/entity/concept at the helm/root of the answer. All would be just as unknown as any other randomly invoked theory. But if we can't know about it, we can't say anything -- and we may as well simplify things by treating all unknown, unobservable concepts as nonexistent until shown otherwise.

Trying to answer everything in order:
As long as we are in this universe, this possibility is more likely. I can't say anything about that. I don't actually believe there was a "first cause" meaning a "beggining" of existence, because, if we try to apply causality to everything, such cause would be either eternal or caused by something else, in an endless chain (and I like causality very much). I can't say anything about that. No. No. Intelligence, at least according to the definition.

Also, I already got the "God doesn't explain anything" long ago. The thing is, like I said, the existence of things doesn't depend on their utility to us. Is it really such a big deal for a scientist to answer just "I don't know" when someone asks them whether God exists or not?

[Reincarnate]

I think on the whole we agree on most posts as delivered in that recent post.

[teh_masterers]

There's always one missing link when it comes to falsifying or proving the existance of God, but when the quantity of evidence AGAINST God outweighs the quantity of evidence FOR God, it's not an idiotic thing to expect more evidence for God's existance...

[mhss1992]

Originally Posted by teh_masterers

There's always one missing link when it comes to falsifying or proving the existance of God, but when the quantity of evidence AGAINST God outweighs the quantity of evidence FOR God, it's not an idiotic thing to expect more evidence for God's existance...

Why do I even bother answering...

There is no evidence against God if you consider every possibility. This has been covered a thousand times already. There only is evidence against specific concepts of God, but not all of them.

[Izzy]

There would be evidence against god if we weren't using the premise that god would be above the laws of physics and natural existence.

But since anything that we can use to disclaim the idea of god then obviously there is no evidence against it.

But if we were assuming that all things had to abide by normal rules then there would be a whole slew of evidence against it.

[Yieldsign]

Originally Posted by mhss1992

Why do I even bother answering...

There is no evidence against God if you consider every possibility. This has been covered a thousand times already. There only is evidence against specific concepts of God, but not all of them.

and you unwittingly nail home the point...

...who cares?

[mhss1992]

Originally Posted by Izzy

But if we were assuming that all things had to abide by normal rules then there would be a whole slew of evidence against it.

By "normal rules" you mean "rules we can observe", right?
Nothing can be said about what we cannot observe.

Existence beyond our universe is not "slightly unknown" or "partially unknown". It's COMPLETELY unknown. Assuming that there is nothing beyond the laws we can observe is every bit as illogical as assuming there is something, that's the point of the thread.

Originally Posted by Yieldsign

...who cares?

I'm starting to get seriously pissed off at people who post in threads to say nothing but "who cares?", "nobody cares". The fact that you actually bother answering to something you don't care about is paradoxal and stupid.

[devonin]

Not only do you have every right to get pissed off at such people, they are in fact violating the rules of the forum and need to stop lest they be banned.