Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Simon Paynton on July 27, 2012 at 12:51pm

Yeah, it's closed-minded. 

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Permalink Reply by Simon Paynton on July 27, 2012 at 1:08pm

How can you treat a probability as a certainty?  It doesn't wash.  This is the kind of thing that holds back progress. 

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Permalink Reply by Stutz on July 28, 2012 at 4:00am

We treat probabilities as certainties all the time. Read Hume. You don't know the light will turn on when you flick the switch, you don't know the sun will come up in the morning, you don't know you won't get hit by a meteorite in five minutes. There are no certainties. But some things are so unlikely that it would be SILLY and illogical to act as if they weren't certainties.

Is it closed-minded to disbelieve in unicorns and to be certain they don't exist? Does that hold back human progress? I think it's the exact opposite, actually.

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on July 28, 2012 at 9:11am

Acting LIKE you are certain isn't the same as being certain in any absolute sense.

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Permalink Reply by Simon Paynton on July 28, 2012 at 2:16pm

Nail - head. 

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on July 27, 2012 at 1:31pm

As I said, a lot of agnostics are also atheists. I don't believe God exists. I think it's a virtual impossibility. However, until I can prove I'm not in a pod a la The Matrix movies, I'm an agnostic also.

Once Chuangtse dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Chuangtse. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakably Chuangtse. But he didn't know if he was Chuangtse who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly currently dreaming he was Chuangtse.

In the West, we might relate this to Cartesian Doubt.

We can FEEL certain, but that's not the same as being correct.

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Permalink Reply by William Boyd on July 27, 2012 at 9:48pm

A big huge round of applause for this guy here....well said sir

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Permalink Reply by Reg The Fronkey Farmer on July 26, 2012 at 7:57pm

Apparently I lack humility because I do not believe in the existence of any specific god. I am also intellectually arrogant for “believing in Science”. Not accepting their god “into my heart” is a sign of how closed my mind is. I had not realised I was so morally weak for making the life style choice of denying their gods existence. Now it turns out my Atheism requires even more Faith than believing in a god. This “not believing” attitude is becoming hard work!! I must do better!! I will try to open my heart in case I appear to be a hypocrite compared to those who are humble enough to tell me that they have knowledge of a divine revealed truth and are also morally superior to me. They have no problem knocking on my front door to tell me all this.

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Permalink Reply by Jason D. Johnson on July 26, 2012 at 9:41pm

Yeah....  If you're "arrogant" because you're certain there is no God, then he is "ignorant" for his refusal to acknowledge that the evidence against God creates an enormous and undeniable probability that God doesn't exist at all, and a probability of that size is more than enough to be certain.

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Permalink Reply by Raymond Baker on July 26, 2012 at 11:53pm

Agnosticism is the intellectual high ground on almost any subject, and its easy.  Our evidence is always limited, and even expected to change, therefore holding any belief to a degree of certainty above reproach is never a good policy as far as intellectual integrity is concerned.  However, I hate how people who decide to label themselves agnostics as some  sort of high ground over those that would say they are atheistic.  Agnosticism is implied by nearly all rational people, but the best evidence in the world has no hint of supernatural intervention of any kind, so most people who give low weight on the possibility of a god as thought of in a religious context label themselves as 'atheist'. Its easy and most adequately describes their  position.  Most people I have encountered who like to differentiate themselves from atheists like to hold religious (usually one particular religion) perspective at equal weight, as if considering all of mankind's accumulated knowledge and science as equivalent to religious superstition.

  'I just can't make up my mind is santa claus real or not real, seems 50/50 to me'. 

The idea that all ideas that can't be proven directly should have equal weight is downright stupid, I could make up a religion on the spot (flying spagetti monster... et. al.) and this should have as much validity in the supposed agnostics point of view (if he was being intellectually honest), because he can't rule it out.

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on July 27, 2012 at 12:25am

Certainty can still be open to reconsideration. If it can't, it borders on religion.

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Permalink Reply by Simon Paynton on July 27, 2012 at 2:16pm

I put it at about 95/5.  I still call myself an atheist, I think to call myself an agnostic would be tiresome and splitting hairs. 

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