Enteebee said:
Because in claiming to be agnostic they are merely claiming to not have full knowledge. It's a philosophical position which leaves me also saying that ultimately I'm a Santa Claus agnostic. If you think this makes me any less of a non-believer in Santa Claus than someone who says "Santa Claus does not exist" you are wrong. There is no difference between my agnosticism in regard to Santa Claus or in regard to God, it is based off the sheer fact that we cannot possibly argue for the existence of something which is possibly (through magic) outside of the realm of rational/empirical inquiry.
Well of course you are just as much as of a non-believer in santa clause as the one who claims that santa clause does not exist! This is because you both lack the belief that santa clause exists - which is what I have been saying all along
The difference lies in that you're not even claiming that santa clause does not exist, which is why I can't see how weak atheism is any different to agnosticism with a different name.
Enteebee said:
How am I any more justified to dismiss the existence of flying reindeer than I am God?
Because you believe that you have provided sufficient testing to show that reindeer don't fly. If you don't believe you have provided sufficient testing to make a conclusion - then either it wasn't a good test to start with or you shouldn't be making a conclusion.
Enteebee said:
The point of my example was to show that such experiments are ultimately pointless when you're dealing with the potential for magic. Even by throwing 100,000 reindeer off a building it would just prove that 100,000 reindeer had not flown on that day and had fallen to their deaths. It could not prove that they nor any other reindeer do not have magic powers to fly.
If it can then I propose that I'll burn bibles, if god doesn't shoot me with a bolt of lightning then I'm justified in saying God doesn't exist. But you'll say "OH God doesn't work that way", well maybe flying reindeer don't work the way of throwing them off buildings either?
I can't help but wonder why, if you knew reindeer don't work that way, did you throw 100,000 off a building? Sounds like a faulty test to me.
The difference I suppose is that if you know they type of thing you are testing for, then you should know what type of evidence to find (and how to test for it). This is why atheists typically refer to things such as the suffering argument, since it does not seem align with what one would expect to find if a loving God existed.
Enteebee said:
I'm not really sure if there would be many strong atheists. I'd like to see examples of these people whom claim to have 100% foolproof knowledge (which is all that a lot of agnostics are denying). I'd say that even those that claim '100% God does not exist' are just using common non-philosophical terms... if you introduced them to the ideas of agnosticism they'd probably accept "well no, I don't know for certain" - This makes them an agnostic.
Plenty of strong atheists exist, just as do theists. It's not that they believe their arguments are fool proof - it is because they believe they have sufficient reason to make the jump to their claim. When both the strong atheist and theist are pressed I imagine that both of them will say that neither of them can show you 100% proof of their belief. This doesn't mean they are agnostics though (even if they do retain elements of agnosticism in their views)
Enteebee said:
How would you go about proving that something does not exist? I'm willing to accept that ultimately absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence... but I'm also unwilling to seriously consider things which have no evidence or strong logic as yet to be in existence. As far as I'm concerned, they do not exist, they may in the future be found to exist, but not yet.
Well as far as God is concerned, the atheist should try to show that the evidence one would expect to find if God did exist, does in fact not exist.
Enteebee said:
As for you example, no, not being able to prove your innocence doesn't mean you're claiming you're guilty - I'd like to hear the exact relevance.
Your original quote I was reply to was:
Enteebee said:
to claim to be AS YET unable to prove something does exist is in practical terms exactly the same as claiming something does not exist.
Taking this to the example I gave, If you claim to be unable to give proof of your innocence, this "is in practical terms exactly the same as claiming" that your innocence "does not exist". Hence, you would be guilty.
Enteebee said:
I AGREE that we're not being 100% logical all the time. I make the jump to say that things which have no evidence for their existence may as well not exist until there is evidence for them. This is 'faith' if you want to call it that, but I am consistent.
I just don't see how this is a good argument. If your trying to argue that being consistently illogical in your beliefs makes it better, I simply don't agree.
Enteebee said:
In order for there to be equivalence between my position and yours you would need to have a positive belief in everything which has no evidence.
Well, I don't think that I have claimed that at all. What I have said is that we should neither dismiss nor believe in something which we have no evidence for either way. To re-iterate, we should look for what evidence we would expect to find if such an entity did exist. If we cannot find any such evidence after knowing that our testing would have uncovered such evidence, we are rational in claiming that it does not exist. If we do find evidence one would expect, then one is rational in claiming that such an entity does exist.
Enteebee said:
If you think you have positive evidence for the existence of God then why even claim agnostics have good arguments? The arguments with you lay at the pillar of your positive evidence. I do not believe you have it nor can you demonstrate it at a level beyond that which anyone who believes in any supernatural entity will do.
Because the agnostic position makes perfect sense for the person who lacks belief both ways and makes no claims. We could of course start a debate based on the agnostic vs theistic (or atheistic) positions, but you would have to realize that you have moved into the agnostic camp (which I'm guessing you don't want to do).
Not sure what the second part of thoughts here are trying to suggest. If you're saying that I am terrible at demonstrating why I hold a theistic position, then that's okay, I'm used to coping a bit of flak around here. If you are however suggesting that, my lack of demonstration is good reason to adopt atheism, then I think you may have jumped a bit far!
Perhaps you are suggesting it is impossible for any theist to prove their beliefs to an unbeliever? If that is the case (not trying to draw up straw men here) then you must realize that is a very much an agnostic response, not an atheistic one. As well as this, I am not claiming to be able to prove or show my beliefs to be 100% foolproof - only that I find them more probable than an atheistic alternative.
Enteebee said:
I'm sure it matters to you, but the fact that you're dismissive of fairies because they're of no significance in your life still doesn't matter. What you should care about is the truth, whether that truth matters to you or not. I might not particularly care whether X is true, but if my reasoning for not believing in it comes into conflict with my reasoning for believing in something else I'd examine it.
For me I don't think it's even that I weigh up whether or not fairies exist. I lack any form of belief in regard to fairies, it simply becomes a non-issue that I don't even think about except in forums like these
Because there is not any evidence we should expect to find, it's not really an issue.
To be a little more typically consistent though, if a gun was placed to my head and I had to choose one or the other, I would say they don't exist. This is because their non-existence matches with what evidence I would expect if they did not exist - none! The issue is problematic with fairies though, because that is the same evidence one would expect to find if they also did exist (hence why it becomes a 'who cares then?' issue in my mind). Either way I choose, I don't think that the fairy example is comparable to God. Sure, we can't see either of them, but there is still things we would expect to find if God did exist, which isn't the case for fairies.
Enteebee said:
If in some sense there is an 'ultimate time' that began all time then we could quite easily say that to ask what came before that is silly because it's like asking what's north of the north pole...
The obvious thing for me to ask is, why if these forms of time are so different to as be independent of one another is it a problem for a further regress of past times to exist? Either way, it's seems we're debating about things we have no grounds to even guess about. Current cosmology suggests that time ultimately began at the big bang, so I don't know how worthwhile it is to be arguing about an infinite regress of independent realities of time.
Enteebee said:
It means that whether the universe has a beginning or not there is no lack of a logical possibility which doesn't require a god.
I don't think it's as easy to get out of as you would like it to be enteebee! Even if there were scientific evidence for an infinite universe, there are still philosophical problems one must deal with.