A few times I’ve referred to my view about “the God question” as “radical agnosticism.” I thought it might be fun to work through what this means.
For the purposes of this discussion, by “God” I shall mean follow Hart’s definition of God as “the one infinite source of all that is: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, uncreated, uncaused, perfectly transcendent of all things and for that very reason absolutely immanent to all things” (The Experience of God, p. 30).
Next, I shall stipulate that our assertions about the world fall into two classes: those that take a truth-value in all possible worlds and those that take a truth-value only in the actual world. This is a contemporary version of “Hume’s Fork”: there are “relations of ideas”, “truths of reason”, analytic a priori claims and then there are “matters of fact”, “truths of fact,” synthetic a posteriori claims. (There are some reasons to be skeptical of this neat distinction but I’ll leave that aside for now.)
Whether or not God exists would therefore seem to be either a “truth of fact” or a “truth of reason”. I shall therefore now argue that it cannot be either.
Truths of fact are either directly observable phenomena or they are posited phenomena. (Though the boundary is strictly methodological and shifts over time.) But there are many presumptive truths of fact — claims with truth-value about the actual world — which we know have turned out to be false. And we know that because of empirical inquiry, and in particular, in the collection of techniques of inquiry called “science”. (I shall not insult anyone’s intelligence by assuming that there is a single thing called “the scientific method”).
Central to disciplined empirical inquiry, including and especially the sciences, is the act of measurement: intersubjectively verifiable assignments of quantitative variation across some interval of spatio-temporal locations. (It might be said that “the Scientific Revolution” is the historical period during which measurement slowly becomes the dominant conception of objectivity.)
But with that notion in place, it is perfectly clear that it is not even possible to take measurements of a perfectly transcendent being. A being that transcends all of space and time cannot be measured, which means that no claims about Him can be subjected to the tribunal of scientific inquiry. And hence no matters of fact about God can be verified one way or the other. That is to say that all claims about God that are restricted to the actual world have an indeterminate truth-value: they cannot be determined to be true or false
The epistemic situation is no better when we turn from a posteriori to a priori claims. In a priori claims, the tribunal is not science but logic, and the central epistemic concept is not measurability but provability. Can the existence of God be proven? Many have thought so!
But here two things must be pointed out: a proof, to be deductively valid, consists of re-organizing the information contained in the initial assumptions. One can generate a logically valid proof of the existence of God. (Gödel, for example, has a logically valid version of the Ontological Argument.) The process of proof-construction is not going to give you more information in the conclusion than was present in the premises.
Logic is limited in another important way: there are multiple logics. What can proved in one logic can be disproven in a different logic. It depends on the choice of logical system. Once you’ve chosen a logical system, and you’ve chosen some premises, then of course one can prove that God exists. But neither the premises nor the rules are “self-evident”, inscribed on the very face of reason or of reality, etc.
Hence we cannot determine that God exists or does not exist on the basis of logic alone, since provability is no more reliable here than measurability is.
On this basis, I conclude that it is not even possible for beings such as ourselves to assign any truth-value at all to the assertion that God exists. This yields a radical agnosticism. Whereas the moderate agnostic can accept the logical possibility of some future evidence or reasoning that would resolve the issue, the radical agnostic insists that beings with minds like ours are completely unable to resolve the issue at all.
Radical agnosticism is at the same time compatible with either utter indifference to the question of the existence of God (“apatheism”) or some quite definite stance (ranging from theism to pantheism to deism to atheism). All that radical agnosticism insists on here is that all definite stances on the God-question are leaps of faith — no matter what direction.
Because there is no consistent, repeatable, and predictable consequence to acting on truths supposedly from Mohammed, Vishnu, Zeus, the Christian god, Polyphemus, Sauron, or some gal next door.
In other words, it makes no difference to anyone’s existence whether the claim “god is truth” is actually true or not. How do I know? The 11 billion people that have come, exist, and have gone, all of whom have lived without any consistent consequence for any particular approach.
So unless your god is a liar and has created an illusion regarding said consequences (which you say is impossible, but of course you can’t actually know that), there’s no evidence that god being truth or not makes any difference.
It is an equivocation if one uses the term to mean both interchangeably without differentiating the context.
Actually, we’re talking about your interpretation of said god after all. Be that as it may, we are actually talking about aspects of some god. Such concepts depend on context. Leaving out the context creates an equivocation.
Quite so! Note the different contexts. Might want to try doing that when you refer to this god of yours.
FMM is just running with an erroneous interpretation of certain passages of the bible. Verses like:
And of course
People who put forth such interpretations either don’t understand the story style, never mind the rules for Koine or Aramaic, or simply argue that the scholarly context understanding is wrong. So here’s my response:
There are those who say that God is Truth, but I say such denies The Truth.
Not pejorative among civilized, educated, middle class people, anyways. In the banlieues it’s surely pejorative. Potentially fatally so.
Part of the problem is that USA has never been a civilized country, in many ways. My perception of that includes factors beside the non-religious/religious divide, but that divide does seem to be getting worse. I’m naturally pessimistic so I try to discount my own fears when projecting a future. But … I would not be surprised at christians shooting people merely for identifying themselves as atheist.
walto, to Allan:
You’re only now realizing that one can reject a claim without asserting its negation?
I’m curious what qualifies a country as civilized.
would imprisoning Oscar Wilde, or harassing Allen Turing to death count as civilized? How about having entire towns in which the police protect child prostitution rings?
How about being the epicenter of a religion that employs and protects child rapists?
Is Germany civilized?
Is the country that beheaded Lavoisier civilized?
Is there some amount of time without atrocities that qualifies a country?
Just curious.
No. What’s nice about ‘rejection’ is that rejecting P says more than failing to believe P without any particular assertion being entailed at all.
Very good observation, but I suspect they call it “intelligent design”. They do it to avoid the word “create”. There occur phrases like “caused by design” as if design had causal powers. Creator God of course would have causal powers. You can replace “caused by design” with “created by God” without any loss/alteration of meaning.
The difference between IDist Designer and classical God is that, in classical theism, God is the creator and sustainer of the universe, the single ultimate cause of it, not a fine-tuner or tinkerer among other causes.
Some people like to say that we were all born atheist. Is this something you would say too?
I grew up as a churchgoer, but without any strong pressure to believe anything. I was taught to recite the creeds and was confirmed, but my family didn’t talk about faith.
I think not believing is the default state, absent any social pressure. My kids grew up with me singing in a choir, which meant going to church twice a week. They had no religious training, and experienced no hostility to religion — just the absence of indoctrination. They have never shown any need for church or faith, but they have a close friend who is a priest.
Erik, keiths seems to have forgotten that his buddy wrote this:
And now he’s hoping nobody will notice that he’s unhitching his leash from that star and joining me in lauding Allan’s ‘rejection,’ which obviously invlves more than a failure to believe something or ‘a lack of belief’.
Anyways, he’s welcome.
Given the discussion, I’ve decided I will never use that term again. I’m going to try to limit my designations of religious positions to “apatheist”, “apathist”, “theist”, “pantheist”, “panthist”, “deist”, “polytheist”, and “agnostic”. I think those are sufficient to cover the spectrum of religious positions.
As such, I say I’m a Southern apathist – I don’t dance and I don’t care.
Who the fuckity fuck cares if something is lauded or not.
The point of discussion is to communicate.
You cannot communicate if someone attaches unwanted bags to something you say.
This discussion has proceeded as if we were at Hogwarts, and the success of a spell depends on how you pronounce the incantation. It’s the worst sort of apologetics. It divides people without providing any light.
walto:
I never “hitched my leash” to that view in the first place. You just made that up, as usual. It fits your prejudices, so why bother to check the evidence?
Here’s what I actually did:
1. I defended Patrick against your false claim that he was confusing knowledge with belief — a claim you still haven’t retracted.
2. I pointed out that you, while scolding Patrick for asserting that his definition of “atheist” was the right one, had done exactly the same thing and had never retracted your statement:
3. I pointed out that your haystack/stone argument was a response to a definition that no one had presented, as far as I could see. I asked you for a link to the definition you were disputing. You still haven’t provided it. Does it even exist?
Instead of making stuff up, why not respond to my points?
I’ve already answered 1-3 several times and explained those answers to you at some length, I can’t help you any further evidentally. BTW, I’ve reproduced his definition a couple of posts above yours. Just look up about three inches.
I’m glad you want to switch, but sorry you still want to fight. I guess, though, it’s what you like best.
Here’s a little thought experiment I engage occasionally.
Imagine it is possible to get agreement on the definition of key words in a philosophical discussion.
It doesn’t matter if the definitions are “correct” as long as all participants agree.
It should then be possible for a moderately sophisticated computer program to engage in philosophy with as much success as programs engage in chess and checkers.
That computers can’t engage in philosophy says [to me] that there is something about language that is orthogonal to reason. I think of this orthogonal aspect as connotation or poetry.
FWIW, petrushka, I think you are one of the worst offenders of the very stuff you are decrying in this post In fact, this post is just one more example of it.
I mean Jesus. What percentage of your posts here are at least partly devoted to informing everyone that the posters you don’t agree with have the wrong attitude and should be more like you? I note that these snipes are usually made in a nasty, condescending manner, too, not just offered as advice.
Because the rest of your posts (and sometimes–though not here–the remainder of your offending posts) are often interesting and insightful, I’m guessing few people have or will put you on ignore–I know I won’t. But I do think you should try to get over this need to insult and simply try to respond to the substance of what has been written instead of regularly informing everyone about how your attitude is just….better. I mean, even when you’re not complaining about moderation complaining on the moderation thread, you’re doing it elsewhere.
Take a break!
That’s what I’ve said since the beginning of this thread. The rest of your post would apply to formal systems only, not philosophy generally.
walto,
No, you haven’t. Links or quotes, please.
Also, let’s see your link to where I claimed there was only one “right” definition of “atheist”. You won’t be able to provide one.
woof grrrrrrr. WOOOF!
Well good luck. I don’t know of any interesting questions in theology or philosophy that can be formalized. It’s probably just my temperament, but I prefer evocative language to denotative language.
It does require good will on behalf of all participants, so it’s utopian.
walto,
So we end up where we usually do: I’m making arguments and providing evidence for them, and you’re making growling noises.
Rrrowrrrarguments Grrrrrrevidence…..rrrrrwooof wooof. Wooof!
Seriously, go back and look for yourself. You know damn well all that stuff is there a half dozen times. You just want to fight. Grrrrrrr
Is there tacit rejection of skepticism in your framing of radical agnosticism?
Interesting question. If we lived in a world where theism was a minority view, the word atheism wouldn’t be necessary. Since we’re nowhere near that ideal, it’s useful to have words to distinguish between those who do believe in a god or gods and those who do not. Theism/atheism are useful in that regard because they form a true dichotomy when atheism is understood as a lack of belief.
One could say that a belief in a god or gods is the defining characteristic of a theist and atheists are all those that are not theists, but it means the same thing.
I think of belief and nonbelief as behaviors, not necessarily having any linguist component.
Nonbelief appears to be an active choice only because it is impossible to live in an environment in which religion is not omnipresent. It’s a bit like being a vegetarian.
I remember a couple of instances of atheists being beaten by loving Christians. My Google-Fu is letting me down, but I did find these reports of death and rape threats against atheists, several of them teenagers. God bless America.
I would second that. I’m very busy at the moment and I only skimmed the comments but it seems like Glen Davidson has come the closest to understanding what I’m saying.
I find that to be very surprising I never would have expected it given my usual effect on him
When I get a little time I will look closer and see If I need to respond to anything.
again thanks Glen
peace
I like this version, from a usenet post by linguist Jaques Guy:
But I don’t see language as orthogonal to reason. It’s perhaps orthogonal to logic, but we should understand reason as broader than logic.
The division is exactly why I emphasize that the distinguishing characteristic of all atheists is lack of belief in a god or gods. It’s the most inclusive definition. Neil opines that being an asshole is part of the definition, hotshoe_ wants it reserved for those who are “godless and proud”, Atheism+ insists that it includes all manner of SJW positions, and at least one wannabe shock blogger derides “dictionary atheists” and associates the words with his regressive, authoritarian leftist views.
I’m the arms open wide, welcoming, kumbaya atheist. Go figure.
It’s doesn’t follow in the slightest that you are being reasonable.
Nor does it disfollow.
Arms may be open, but he seems to have lost his yorkie to a rejectionist with some kibble.
Do you need a hug, Mung?
Poor walto. Add “team play” to the list of claims he is unable to support.
Not quite. But there’s an explicit rejection of Cartesian skepticism in my pragmatic naturalism, and pragmatic naturalism underlies my version of radical agnosticism.
Maybe this would apply to atheism as defined by you. It doesn’t apply to real-life atheism which, when official, can be militantly repressive and certainly seeks to positively define itself as scientism and materialist dialectics.
Erik,
Has there been any ‘official atheism’ anywhere in the world in the last 50 years? Certainly fear of official theism is much more sensible these days. It’s both savage and widespread. And dialectical materialism is as dead as any philosophical position has ever been or will ever be. Not even any ‘official atheists’ believed it 50 years ago. Fear of that is sillier than fear of a vampire code.
I don’t think this is right — as in, not at all.
A computer can “play” chess or checkers by virtue of being programmed with what we say are the correct rules and strategies. It can compute the “best” strategy, but the program itself makes no contribution to what counts as the best strategy — it simply computes the most efficient game based on the information it is given.
In contrast to a very young child, no program can understand itself as beholden to the rules that it is following. Strictly speaking, a chess program is playing chess in the same sense that a flight simulator is flying.
Even AlphaGo is basically doing the same thing — it is still computing the most efficient strategy given the parameters embedded in the training cycles.
Deep Blue, Watson, and AlphaGo are no more capable to engaging in discourse about what norms we ought to follow and why than is a thermostat. But that kind of discourse is constitutive of rationality, in the “playing the game of giving and asking for reasons” sense of rationality. But acquiring that capacity happens in the course of normal cognitive development. Philosophers who want to understand rationality should spend less time tinkering about with AI and more time playing with children (and talking with child psychologists).
The conclusion isn’t that language is orthogonal to reason, or even (as Neil Rickert said) that language is orthogonal to logic but that there is far more to linguistic rationality than mere computation.
Trouble is, it does matter if the definitions relate to the meaning. You can shift definitions and it might work out just fine, but if you’re actually talking about different things it won’t work out. Which is why the whole “atheist definition” squabble continues, because a definition broad enough to include babies as “atheists” seems not to really relate the meaning of what most people denote when they say “atheist,” at least not most of the time (yet the fact that ithis comes up points to the fact that we’re not really all that sure what to call the “religion” or “a-religion” of the baby, and are at least tempted to call it “atheist”).
Would it care either way, though?
More to the point, how would it discuss the experiences of cognitive development, or the relationship of knowledge to perception? I’m not suggesting that it couldn’t deal with either one at any level, but that it knows nothing about human learning and perception that isn’t already formalized, while these are what humans have experienced and often struggle to formalize as a consequence.
There is much about human life that is orthogonal to reason. While reason works on perceptions, emotions, and experience, it neither explains these nor gives us any reason to care about them. Yet we care about them, one reason for philosophy.
I think of it as life. Reason helps to make sense of what we experience, but it is only a bit of that experience, a bit (or bits–reason isn’t a single thing) that evolved to help to deal with the rest of what we experience.
Glen Davidson
KN, Glen,
Yes, petrushka gives a basically positivist view of the world there–that everything is either reducible to science or analytic (or meaningless/poetic). That’s not a position that floats my boat either.
It might be safer to say that computers can’t currently engage in philosophy. I read your comment shortly after reading this article on an AI lawyer. While English is far from a formal system, law and philosophy strike me as being similar in the sense of being more formal. If this technology (based on Watson) can assist lawyers, perhaps something similar could be used by philosophers.
I don’t recall anyone giving a definition of atheist that would include babies or cabbages or rocks, or anything not capable of making the statement, I am an atheist. This is a thinly disguised straw man. The discussion is not about — mostly adult — humans discoursing — mostly on the internet (but possibly through books and articles and in drawing rooms).
The issue I see is that of adhering to Elizabeth’s rule, which is to assume good faith on the part of one’s interlocutors. I cannot speak for Patrick, but I would prefer to chat with people who do not claim the ability to read my mind, or see Freudian-like emanations behind simple statements of position.
Atheist, like Muslim, covers a lot of waterfront. I suspect most people here would be offended if I said Muslims believe in honor killing. But you are happy to extrapolate the attributes of some atheists to all. Why is stereotyping acceptable when applied to atheists?
Watson is a kind of Google. Such systems are getting better, but I suspect they are just doing word and phrase associations. Google translate is a kind of weasel program that scores translation of phrases by frequency of occurrence in published human translations.
It is a sore point among competitor translating programs that copy and paste translation works better than analytical translation. We still don’t know how to tell what utterances mean, except in very formal contexts.
I would amend much to nearly all.
Actually it’s unapologeticly Christian. There are some affinities with Platonic/Pythagorean thinking but only where it lines up with Christian thought.
Right this is definitively a question of inside verses outside. I’m quite confident that folks who don’t share my worldview won’t get it.
That is why I don’t go to the trouble to spell out many details in a forum such as this. If I am asked specific questions I will respond as clearly as I can but don’t expect long soliloquies. I will keep it as brief as possible.
I will say that the Greek idea of God as the ONE or the infinite is also flawed in that the sort of unity they envisioned has no place for the diversity we see.
Again Christianity comes to the rescue in that God is a Trinity. Three persons one God. Unity in diversity defined
peace
Yes, and Muslims bomb people and toss homosexuals from the tops of buildings, and this defines what it means to be Muslim.
Some of you guys are defending the most egregious form of stereotyping. You would be embarrassed if your arguments were paralleled in the context of skin color.
Well, too bad for your recall. Patrick wrote:
Earlier comment in thread
It’s what he’s said, a lot. You have added the part about being able to make the statement, rather later on, but you haven’t actually dealt with what that would mean to those saying so (no doubt differing from one to another), which surely matters to the meaning of the term “atheist.” So you have a late caveat to try to save your sloppy thinking, but it’s still far from coming to grips with the meaning of the term when people actually state “I am an atheist.”
Do try to keep up with what people have said, rather than where your maunderings have taken you.
Bullshit. You’ve been very insistent on rather nebulous terms, and not at all responsive to issues of what people mean when saying “I am an atheist,” or at least as importantly, what others mean when saying “That person is an atheist.”
Well, what the fuck is it about? More importantly, what’s that bizarre string of words above about?
If you really cared about that you wouldn’t be writing rank nonsense about no one making claims that would include anything not capable of making the statement “I am an atheist.” That’s late on your part, not worked out coherently along with your insistent claims of being right even later, and it isn’t what Patrick has said, that I have seen anyway.
Since it wasn’t all about you, either you’re trying to speak for Patrick or this is a strawman on your part. I don’t care about the nebulous bullshit that you never squared with anything you’d claimed previously, especially since it isn’t the totality to which I was referring.
Untrue. I’m interested in including under the term “atheist” those who would typically be meant by the term “atheist.” But you are happy to misrepresent what I am saying to fit your specious claims.
Why is making all of this out to be you, and fitting the narrative to your unthinking claims and emendations sans clarity or the consideration of what it means for someone to say “I am an atheist,” fine with you?
Glen Davidson
Isn’t “meant by the term atheist” the contentious topic?
Yes.
What’s important is that it isn’t just about what you, or Patrick, mean by the term “atheist.”
Glen Davidson