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Atheism & Agnosticism are not the same thing!

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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 349 ✭✭talkinyite




  • Registered Users Posts: 8,628 ✭✭✭SeanW


    Pick a card, any card.

    OMG, what are the chances that you picked the one you happen to have in your hand!
    Assuming that you are using a standard deck, then 1 in 52, i.e. plausible.
    token56 wrote: »
    How exactly are you calculating those odds? I dont even think the greatest minds in the world would claim to be able to work out the probability of us existing in a purely materialistic world because we simply dont know enough about the world yet to make such a calculation. So I'm curious as to how you are calculated the odds of bazillion, quadrillon, gazillon to 1, or even how it is you think everything came to be, i.e. matter, planets, stars, the earth, life, etc.
    I have always felt that the totality of the question could theoretically be explained by science, but that even if probabilities were determined - which as you rightly say they cannot - then it's fairly obvious, at least to me, that the X:1 probability would have an extraordinarily high number.

    This view was reinforced when I saw a group of Channel 4 documentaries that explained the evolution of life on Earth as a group of catastrophes, each of which should have destroyed the planet or at least made it permanently incapable of supporting life (massive asteroid strikes, over oxegenation of the atmosphere, massive volcanic outbreaks etc), but instead had the opposite effect of 'guiding' the evolution of life on Earth, by acting in a very convenient and specific sequence.

    Did we really beat the odds? Did we just get super, duper, very very, extraodrinarily lucky? Science does suggest that it is possible, albeit extremely remove, but to accept it as unavoidable truth that we did, requires a certain belief in unbelievably extreme good fortune.

    I find that as bizarre and obtuse as any theistic viewpoint, worthy of being considered theistic in itself. Hence I reject it as such.

    Edit: It should have been very clear that I was not attempting to be scientific in my calculations :rolleyes: My point was that whatever the number is, I think it's stratospherically high - into the realm of statistically impossible.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 32,865 ✭✭✭✭MagicMarker


    SeanW wrote: »
    No, it's not. If Atheists (or Gnostic Atheists if you prefer) are right and there is nothing outside the physical realm

    Once again, like yourself, atheists simply have no belief in a god. I don't know why you continue to make up beliefs and apply them to all atheists.

    ''Nothing outside the physical realm'' has absolutely nothing to do with atheism, plenty of atheists believe there is something ''outside the physical realm''.

    You'd probably help your argument if you stopped making things up.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    SeanW wrote: »
    Assuming that you are using a standard deck, then 1 in 52, i.e. plausible.

    It's 1:1 (i.e. guaranteed) because the question ("What are the odds you'd pick that card?") was only asked after the card had been picked. Any card could have been picked and the question would have been asked but with "that card" referring to a different card.

    The point is by calculating the probabilities of something occurring after it occurred you are restricting your calculations by parameters which wouldn't have been relevant when the situation was unfolding.



    Most importantly though is that it's not of any importance to Atheists when the answer "I don't know how we came into existence" is sufficient.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,824 ✭✭✭ShooterSF


    Ok, take a deck of cards 999,999 of which are blank and 1has you win on it. Ask ten million people to draw a card and see if they win. Then return the card. Every person has minute 1 in a million odds but approx 10 people should win. Now picture the people are planets and the deck is their chance of creating advanced life (the win card) and you see the odds might not be so enormous. Now give the drawn win card sentience and it will look at its planet and think what are the odds of me on this planet but he doesnt realise that it could equally have been another planet, he was destined to exist. (odds pulled out of my ass)


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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,628 ✭✭✭SeanW


    It would also help your argument if you stopped ignoring the information and the realities. The 2 dimensional theist-atheist and gnostic-agnostic chart
    https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/attachments/25807/196111.png
    is a good description of religious views, but requires options just off the graph along each axis for people who self identify as one thing. For example, if you believe what is written in the Koran, you are a Muslim and you don't have to qualify that with (a)gnostic or (a)theist. One word sums up your view.

    Or if you actively assert the negative, you can call yourself an Atheist or a Gnostic Atheist or a Negative Theist or whatever you like, your self-identification is valid.

    Likewise my belief is guided by the evidence, which tells me that all claims to supernatural knowledge including the negative are equally laughable. That makes me an Agnostic and I feel no need to further qualify that.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,933 ✭✭✭Logical Fallacy


    ShooterSF wrote: »
    Ok, take a deck of cards 999,999 of which are blank and 1has you win on it. Ask ten million people to draw a card and see if they win. Then return the card. Every person has minute 1 in a million odds but approx 10 people should win. Now picture the people are planets and the deck is their chance of creating advanced life (the win card) and you see the odds might not be so enormous. Now give the drawn win card sentience and it will look at its planet and think what are the odds of me on this planet but he doesnt realise that it could equally have been another planet, he was destined to exist. (odds pulled out of my ass)

    10 people shouldn't win. Just because you have 10 million people drawing the cards does not mean there is an equal chance of each card being drawn once.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,628 ✭✭✭SeanW


    Seachmall wrote: »
    It's 1:1 (i.e. guaranteed) because the question ("What are the odds you'd pick that card?") was only asked after the card had been picked.
    The odds you'd pick that card out of a 52 card deck are still 1:52.
    Most importantly though is that it's not of any importance to Atheists when the answer "I don't know how we came into existence" is sufficient.
    But if there is nothing outside the spiritual realm, then luck had to play a very large part.
    ShooterSF wrote: »
    Ok, take a deck of cards 999,999 of which are blank and 1has you win on it. Ask ten million people to draw a card and see if they win. Then return the card. Every person has minute 1 in a million odds but approx 10 people should win. Now picture the people are planets and the deck is their chance of creating advanced life (the win card) and you see the odds might not be so enormous. Now give the drawn win card sentience and it will look at its planet and think what are the odds of me on this planet but he doesnt realise that it could equally have been another planet, he was destined to exist. (odds pulled out of my ass)
    If you accept the "Catastrophe Earth" scenario (and I have no reason not to) then 1:999,999 odds are extremely generous, probably 1:999,999,999,999,999,999 is closer (again I admit I am pulling these figures out of my rear end)

    You also have to consider that some parts of the galaxy are less hospitable than others, for example, if there had been a black hole anywhere near our solar system, it wouldn't matter that Earth could have sustained life, this planet and our entire solar system would have been crushed like a beer can a fraction of a second at some point in time. But surprise surprise, we're nowhere near a black hole or any other dangerous extra-terrestrial phenonmenon, except the goodies like those perfectly sized asteroids that whacked the planet at just the right time with the just the right amout of force.


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 34,941 Mod ✭✭✭✭pickarooney


    seamus wrote: »
    [Citation Needed]

    If that was the case then there would be very few atheists.

    It's a binary position.

    Consider the question, "Are you a stamp collector?"

    The answer is either "yes" or "no". There is no "I don't know" option. You either collect stamps or you don't. It's exactly the same for the question, "Do you believe in at least one God?".

    You do know whether you believe in a God or not. Your unsurity is in relation to the general question. But you cannot fall into the 50/50 position - it is not possible to simultaneously believe and not believe in a God. You either do or you don't.

    Theism is, "I believe in God"
    Atheism is the opposite of this; "I do not believe in God".

    Note that "I do not believe in God" is not the same as "I believe there is no God", and "I believe there is no God" is not the opposite of, "I believe in God".

    The key word is "believe", not "God". If you do not believe, then you are atheist. If you would consider yourself "undecided", then you are by default atheist because you cannot claim that you believe.

    Suppose you have one stamp that you like. You haven't exactly got a collection but you could well find another one you liked in the future and keep that as well.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,692 ✭✭✭Loomis




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  • Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    SeanW wrote: »
    The odds you'd pick that card out of a 52 card deck are still 1:52.
    But "that" card is only specified after the card has been picked.

    The odds of picking any specific card out of a deck are 1:52.

    The odds of picking any card out of a deck and retroactively assigning it importance is 1:1.

    Which is what's being done here.
    But if there is nothing outside the spiritual realm, then luck had to play a very large part.
    1. Whether or not your an atheist has nothing to do with other spiritual beliefs.
    2. An atheist can just as likely be a determinist which removes luck entirely.
    3. As there would be no one to ask the question if we did not exist an atheist might see your point as irrelevant.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 32,865 ✭✭✭✭MagicMarker


    SeanW wrote: »
    It would also help your argument if you stopped ignoring the information and the realities. The 2 dimensional theist-atheist and gnostic-agnostic chart
    http://m.boards.ie/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=196111&d=1331554433
    is a good description of religious views, but requires options just off the graph along each axis for people who self identify as one thing. For example, if you believe what is written in the Koran, you are a Muslim and you don't have to qualify that with (a)gnostic or (a)theist. One word sums up your view.

    Allah features pretty heavily in the Qur'an, so I think if you believe all of what the Qur'an says then you must be a theist.

    If you only believe a bit of the Qur'an are you still a Muslim? In which case, I must be a Muslim.
    SeanW wrote: »
    Or if you actively assert the negative, you can call yourself an Atheist or a Gnostic Atheist or a Negative Theist or whatever you like, your self-identification is valid.

    Likewise my belief is guided by the evidence, which tells me that all claims to supernatural knowledge including the negative are equally laughable. That makes me an Agnostic and I feel no need to further qualify that.

    To be an atheist you don't have to assert a negative. You simply must be without a positive assertion. Believing there is no god is not the same as having no belief in a god. That's why you're an atheist.


  • Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    Suppose you have one stamp that you like. You haven't exactly got a collection but you could well find another one you liked in the future and keep that as well.
    Indeed, there's nothing stopping someone from jumping the gap and changing their mind. Someone's belief status is not an indelible mark. It can be changed as often as one likes, but at any specific moment in time they do or they don't.
    But if there is nothing outside the spiritual realm, then luck had to play a very large part.
    This is the problem with assigning value or purpose to an event after the event.

    Equally we could be hit with another asteroid tomorrow, 99% of life is wiped out, and when another sentient self-aware species evolves in 100 million years, they start to remark on how incredibly lucky that it was an asteroid just happened to hit the planet 100 million years ago, otherwise they would never have existed.

    You seem to be assigning some specific value to our being right here at this moment in time - rather consider that we just happen to be here as the natural consequence of a series of natural and unconnected events. There is no "Why did the asteroid hit the earth?". It just did, for no reason.

    Or to look at it another way - think about where you are right now, in your life. And all of the things which happened to you in your life in order to get you to where you are right now. Think about how unlikely it was that all of those exact things happened in exactly that order. If you calculated it out, the odds would be extraordinary. But you can't calculate odds like that, that's not how probability works.
    Every outcome of your life was equally unlikely. But there had be one, and you're in it.

    In other words, no matter what the universe looked like at any point in time, you could look back at the events which caused it to reach that configuration and say, "Wow, that was extremely unlikely".


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,628 ✭✭✭SeanW


    seamus wrote: »
    Indeed, there's nothing stopping someone from jumping the gap and changing their mind. Someone's belief status is not an indelible mark. It can be changed as often as one likes, but at any specific moment in time they do or they don't.
    You missed the whole point. The fictitious person is not a stamp collector, but they're not disinterested in stamps either. They keep a single stamp because they like it, too many to be not a stamp collector, to few to be a stamp collector.
    Equally we could be hit with another asteroid tomorrow, 99% of life is wiped out, and when another sentient self-aware species evolves in 100 million years, they start to remark on how incredibly lucky that it was an asteroid just happened to hit the planet 100 million years ago, otherwise they would never have existed.
    You're right. They would be incredibly lucky. Ridiculously so.
    You seem to be assigning some specific value to our being right here at this moment in time - rather consider that we just happen to be here as the natural consequence of a series of natural and unconnected events. There is no "Why did the asteroid hit the earth?". It just did, for no reason.
    Thank you for making my point for me. Because what you're basically saying is, we just got extraordinarily lucky!

    Thanks for the clarification.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    SeanW wrote: »
    Thank you for making my point for me. Because what you're basically saying is, we just got extraordinarily lucky!

    Thanks for the clarification.

    That's not what he's saying but anyway I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on how we got here.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,628 ✭✭✭SeanW


    Seachmall wrote: »
    That's not what he's saying but anyway I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on how we got here.
    :Facepalm again:

    Did the term "Agnostic" and the repeated statements that "I reject all explanations" not give you a hint, Sherlock?


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    SeanW wrote: »
    :Facepalm again:

    Did the term "Agnostic" and the repeated statements that "I reject all explanations" not give you a hint, Sherlock?

    So, Watson, one can deduce your explanation as to how we got here is "I don't know".

    Congratulations, a typical atheist response.


  • Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    SeanW wrote: »
    You missed the whole point. The fictitious person is not a stamp collector, but they're not disinterested in stamps either. They keep a single stamp because they like it, too many to be not a stamp collector, to few to be a stamp collector.
    I didn't miss the point. The point is that it's self-determinism. Someone considers themself to be a stamp collector or not. There is no "I don't know" answer to the question.
    Thank you for making my point for me. Because what you're basically saying is, we just got extraordinarily lucky!

    Thanks for the clarification.
    I guess it depends on the individual's definition of the word "lucky". If you consider it to be the result of a predetermined set of a events resulting in a positive outcome for you, then that's not really luck at all.

    If you prefer to label "**** happens" as "lucky" when **** has happened in your favour, then you'd be perfectly justified in considering your existence to be "lucky".


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,628 ✭✭✭SeanW


    Seachmall wrote: »
    I want to hear those words, Watson.
    Ok. I'll try this one more time. Science can probably explains HOW we got here, i.e. the big bang, the formation of the planets, the events surrounding the development of Earth. It doesn't explain why. That comes back to belief.

    Why we're here? I have no clue: and that's where I differ from the religious and fundamaterialist-atheists.

    The fundamentalists put it down to their specific god via Creationism, or more reasonably, Intelligent Design.
    The fundamaterialists put it down to their god, i.e. incredibly good fortune.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,648 ✭✭✭desertcircus


    SeanW wrote: »
    Nonsense, atheists simply have no belief in a god, that's all. They can still believe in an afterlife, a soul, ghosts, or fairies if they so wish.
    Only if the term atheist is defined in a ridiculously broad fashion. By any sensible definition, Atheism should be regarded as a belief in the negative.

    Any sensible definition of atheism would take into account that the core argument of atheism is that belief in anything without evidence doesn't make sense. Defining atheism as a belief in the negative is nonsensical, since even Dawkins is at pains to point out that his lack of belief is based purely on appraisal of the evidence and that not only does he not know for sure, he regards it as impossible to know more or less anything for sure.

    A definition of atheism which would exclude Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris is a pretty poor definition.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    SeanW wrote: »
    It doesn't explain why.

    Why we're here? I have no clue: and that's where I differ from the religious and fundamaterialist-atheists.

    The fundamentalists put it down to their specific god via Creationism, or more reasonably, Intelligent Design.
    The fundamaterialists put it down to their god, i.e. incredibly good fortune.

    Why do you continue to assign defining attributes to atheists that simply don't exist?


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 32,865 ✭✭✭✭MagicMarker


    It would appear SeanW, the atheist, doesn't like atheists.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,329 ✭✭✭✭starlit


    Can we get a proper definition before this thread gets closed as this plethora is an ongoing debate which will go on forever...


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Politics Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 81,310 CMod ✭✭✭✭coffee_cake


    this is just like the non-catholics trying to insist they're catholic


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    doovdela wrote: »
    Can we get a proper definition before this thread gets closed as this plethora is an ongoing debate which will go on forever...

    Atheist;
    (noun)
    1. Someone who is not a Theist.


  • Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    It would appear SeanW, the atheist, doesn't like atheists.
    Well considering that in good old Catholic Ireland, being atheist has always been a step below being a homosexual, it's not surprising that people would invent new ways of defining themselves without having to come out and admit to themselves that they're an actual atheist.

    That involves eating babies and burning churches and murdering sprees, doesn't it?


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,329 ✭✭✭✭starlit


    Seachmall wrote: »
    Atheist;
    (noun)
    1. Someone who is not a Theist.

    I still don't get it!?

    So basically one doesn't believe in anything while the other believes there is a God but doesn't believe in a religion? Which is which? Different concept yes....I get confused on this.

    I get confused which is which...


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,628 ✭✭✭SeanW


    You may have noticed that I've started using the term fundamaterialist instead, it's the closest word I can think of, other than Atheist, for someone who asserts the negative.

    It has always been my understanding that those who assert the negative would describe themselves as atheists. I have always, up until now at least considered Atheism = Certainty of no god, i.e. the opposite of Theism = Certainty of god.

    Even if that does not hold, I still self-identify as agnostic because I consider the impossibility of knowledge to be the defining feature of my beliefs.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    doovdela wrote: »
    I still don't get it!?

    So basically one doesn't believe in anything while the other believes there is a God but doesn't believe in a religion? Which is which? Different concept yes....

    Theist;
    (noun)
    1. Someone who believes in the existence of God(s).


    Atheist;
    (noun)
    1. Someone who is not a theist.


    Therefore, an atheist is someone who does not believe in the existence of God(s).

    That is the only characteristic of an atheist. It is the literal one and the most widely used among those who refer to themselves as atheists.

    Being atheist does not mean you do not believe in other supernatural things, it does not mean you don't believe in fate, it does not mean you do not believe in a balancing force such as Karma, etc.

    While these things may be common among some atheists it is not what makes them atheists.
    SeanW wrote:
    You may have noticed that I've started using the term fundamaterialist instead, it's the closest word I can think of, other than Atheist, for someone who asserts the negative.
    They're called Gnostic Atheists, or Strong Atheists ("Gnostic Atheists" is more descriptive though).


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  • Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    doovdela wrote: »
    I still don't get it!?

    So basically one doesn't believe in anything while the other believes there is a God but doesn't believe in a religion? Which is which? Different concept yes....I get confused on this.

    "Theist" is a blanket term for someone who believes in at least one God, creator(s) of existence.

    It includes religious and non-religious people alike. Equally "Atheist" is the opposite and is a blanket term for someone who does not believe in any God(s). It too includes religious and non-religous people. Yes, there are religions which are atheist.

    These are very blanket terms in the same way that "Human" is a very blanket term. Some people have difficulty with this (or more specifically with the "atheist" label) and seek to define themselves as something else, despite still being under the umbrella term.

    It's a little bit like a Catholic trying to argue that they're not a Christian.


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