The most logical belief

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

I never said it didn't.

It also supports the "a dragon might fall on your head at 2.43 tomorrow morning" position.

Indeed it does. An agnostic may logically hold this position, while stating that it's so unlikely as to be effectively impossible - certainly below the "worry" threshold. They may hold that God is equally unlikely, but not impossible per se - that's what makes them an agnostic, even though for all practical purposes they're an atheist. To actually be an atheist they need to deny the possibility of God, a denial for which there is no logical reason, and which is therefore a statement of belief.

That's why your analogy doesn't hold up - it doesn't disprove dragons, so it is not an argument for atheism.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

Fair enough, if there is a dictionary that says

God - creator of the universe

I think that is a pretty silly definition since they could end up creating a universe in a particle accelerator and the scientits wouldn't be gods under any concept of god I'm aware off.

This is all in StarGate, the concept of powerful aliens being considered gods but in fact being false gods ... once again Richard Dean Anderson has shown the way.

Actually, I would think that the only thing that defines a god is being worshipped. The concept of "false god(s)" only has relevance if there are "true god(s)".

cordially,
Scofflaw

Playboy

Wicknight wrote:

There is, but it isn't mathematical logic, it is philisophical logic.

I stated it above

Doesn't anyone read my posts :eek:

Ha! please dont drag me into these insufferable debates with remarks like that.

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

That's why your analogy doesn't hold up - it doesn't disprove dragons, so it is not an argument for atheism.

You don't need to prove there isn't a god to be an atheist. You just have to reject the belief. I don't believe in God, I reject the concept.

This is a judgement, but then every single thing we ever think we know or believe is ultimately a judgement, be it God or dragons or anything. You're belief that you are actually typing on a keyboard in front of a keyboard is a judgement. You can never prove you are, so as such you can never know for certain. But thats not how the real world works.

If for all practicle purpose you are an athiest then you are an atheist.

Tar.Aldarion

Wicknight wrote:

Where is that from?

My best friends Enclyopedias/dictionary.

Although I'm sure it is on the net in dictionaries too.
/looks.

The term God is used to designate a Supreme Being; however, there are other definitions of God. For example: *Many religious and philosophic systems consider a God to be the creator of the universe.

God by definition is the uncreated creator of the universe

God is considered to be the creator of the universe.

Etc.

Fair enough, if there is a dictionary that says

God - creator of the universe

I think that is a pretty silly definition since they could end up creating a universe in a particle accelerator and the scientits wouldn't be gods under any concept of god I'm aware off.

This is all in StarGate, the concept of powerful aliens being considered gods but in fact being false gods ... once again Richard Dean Anderson has shown the way.

It is but one definition of a god and is only a bit silly to you if you have an exclusionist view.
You espouse an exclusionist view, holding to one sole definition of God, with the Christian god basically a god foundation. This should only be held by people who believe in a particular religion and it is in err. An inclusionist view, accepting the possibility of more than one definition of God to be true at the same time is much more accurate.

As always Richard Dean Anderson does show the way, but the ascended show a better representation than the Goa'uld.

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

You don't need to prove there isn't a god to be an atheist. You just have to reject the belief. I don't believe in God, I reject the concept.

If for all practicle purpose you are an athiest then you are an atheist.

That's one point of view, that equates atheist with non-believer - the inclusive atheist position. In your view, then, there are no agnostics, since an agnostic either believes or doesn't, and is therefore either a theist or an atheist.

Looks like this:

if P(God(s)) as assigned by person = 1 : person -> theist;
else : person -> atheist;

whereas I prefer:

if P(God(s)) as assigned by person = 1 : person -> theist;
else if P(God(s)) as assigned by person = 0 : person -> atheist;
else : person -> agnostic;

Well, you know what they say - "there are only two type of people in the world - those who believe there are only two types of people, and everyone else". Dividing the world into black and white certainly makes it easier to classify, but you miss out on the colours...

If I'd known that was your viewpoint, I wouldn't have bothered arguing against your dragons analogy - it would be sufficient to point out that it only holds true if you assume a necessary theist/atheist dichotomy, with no room for agnosticism in between.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Tar.Aldarion

Scofflaw wrote:

That's one point of view, that equates atheist with non-believer - the inclusive atheist position. In your view, then, there are no agnostics, since an agnostic either believes or doesn't, and is therefore either a theist or an atheist.

Well, you know what they say - "there are only two type of people in the world - those who believe there are only two types of people, and everyone else". Dividing the world into black and white certainly makes it easier to classify, but you miss out on the colours...

If I'd known that was your viewpoint, I wouldn't have bothered arguing against your dragons analogy - it would be sufficient to point out that it only holds true if you assume a necessary theist/atheist dichotomy, with no room for agnosticism in between.

cordially,
Scofflaw

What I consider to be agnostic, atheist and theist holds that people are either agnostic or illogical/close minded but peoples definitions vary. Some would call what I consider to be agnostic, an atheist or theist view.

You remind me of ne of my favourite lines. There are 10 types of people in the world, those that understand binary, and those that don't.

It's hard not to sign off with cordially when replying to you, it seems ever so polite.

pH

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

It's hard not to sign off with cordially when replying to you, it seems ever so polite.

Signing off "In the manner of a concentrated fruit-flavoured drink, which is usually diluted before being drunk" seems ever so polite?

I am much troubled by the vexed question of what it is to be atheist vs agnostic. However in the spirit of this thread where one merely redefines linguistic terms (or even probability theory) to their own end, I offer my new definitions of these terms, which from now on I will use.

Theist - One who worships God(s).
Atheist - One who doesn't worship God(s).
Agnostic - Individual whose backside is sore from sitting on a fence.

Also given the fortuitous coincidence of both profound probability knowledge and an abundance of mythical creatures appearing in the one thread, could our budding maths guy calculate the probability that Carl Sagan actually did have a Dragon in his garage?

Tar.Aldarion

pH wrote:

Signing off "In the manner of a concentrated fruit-flavoured drink, which is usually diluted before being drunk" seems ever so polite?

I take it you do know the adjective cordial then?

1. Warm and sincere; friendly: a cordial greeting; cordial relations. See Synonyms at gracious.

Scofflaw

pH wrote:

I am much troubled by the vexed question of what it is to be atheist vs agnostic. However in the spirit of this thread where one merely redefines linguistic terms (or even probability theory) to their own end, I offer my new definitions of these terms, which from now on I will use.

Theist - One who worships God(s).
Atheist - One who doesn't worship God(s).
Agnostic - Individual whose backside is sore from sitting on a fence.

Hmm. Same as Wicknight, which means that your third category can't actually exist. Convenient, since they can't then be offended...

pH wrote:

Also given the fortuitous coincidence of both profound probability knowledge and an abundance of mythical creatures appearing in the one thread, could our budding maths guy calculate the probability that Carl Sagan actually did have a Dragon in his garage?

No, but we could assign it one, if we wanted to. To do so we would only need sufficient knowledge of probability. While some seem to dislike what has been done here with probability, which is the assignment of initially equal probabilities to two possibilities, none have offered a reason why the probabilities should be unequal if we're assigning them.

in the manner of a concentrated fruit-flavoured drink,
which is usually diluted before being drunk,
but more probably "warmly",
although not entirely in this case, thus,

tartly,
Scofflaw

robindch

> Serious debate please.

Just out of interest, are my posts visible to you?

Valmont

Wicknight wrote:

For me the logic that supports atheism is that we (humans) invented the concept of gods, so how can God exist if he/it was just an invention of our collective culture. The likelyhood, the probability, that something we invented actually existing in the universe, is relatively slim as to be quite improbable.

As Scofflaw and others will probably point out I can't know we invented God for certain, or that even if we invented the concept of a god that doesn't mean that we by pure fluke got it absolutely correct and such an entity does actually exist. But then again I can't technically know anything, from a logic position. The only things that are actually true are logical tautologies, which only exist in theoretical logic class rooms.

So while being agnostic in relation to God is technically the most logical position, that position isn't based on the idea that there is a lot of good reasons to think there might be a God, more on the logical reality that you cannot ever know for certain anything. There are in fact, as far as I'm concerned, no good reasons to think there might actually be a God.

Which is why, out here in the real world away from the logic class rooms, I'm an atheists because I believe, based on my understanding of human history and culture, that we invented the concept of gods and as such they can't exist in the real world, any more than the invisable green unicorn sitting beside me (called Bob).

If something "god-like" does actually exists it is something else, some as yet unknown entity, because the clasification "god" is invalid to begin with.

Yes!!!! I agree with every word. That is what I always thought, I just lacked the eloquence of language to express it, seriously thanks.

Valmont

Wicknight wrote:

Thats kinda of the point, if words can mean anything you like then communication begins to break down.

That right there is why most of the arguments on this forum are inconclusive

Dades

Valmont wrote:

That right there is why most of the arguments on this forum are inconclusive

That's what keeps us in business.
Up to my beard in work - but enjoying keeping an eye on this great thread.

Zombrex

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

As always Richard Dean Anderson does show the way, but the ascended show a better representation than the Goa'uld.

Touche

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

Hmm. Same as Wicknight, which means that your third category can't actually exist. Convenient, since they can't then be offended...

I wouldn't use the word "worship"

I think that

- An theist accepts the concept of gods as valid and believes in a particular god or gods exist

- An atheists rejects the concept of gods as valid and as such doesn't believe any god or gods exist

- An agnostic accepts the concept of gods as valid but isn't sure if any actually exist

Its prefectly possible to have an agnostic position, but I don't.

Zombrex

Scofflaw wrote:

While some seem to dislike what has been done here with probability, which is the assignment of initially equal probabilities to two possibilities, none have offered a reason why the probabilities should be unequal if we're assigning them.

Its not that they were initally assigned, you can assign X and Y anything you like, any value is going to be equally meaningless.

It was the fact that once X and Y had been assigned 0.5 and 0.5, conclusions were then being draw from this inital assignment. That is illogical.

If I assign X (God exists) 0 and assign Y (God doesn't exist) 1 as default values can I then conclude that it is impossible for God to exist?

pH

Wicknight wrote:

Its not that they were initally assigned, you can assign X and Y anything you like, any value is going to be equally meaningless.

It was the fact that once X and Y had been assigned 0.5 and 0.5, conclusions were then being draw from this inital assignment. That is illogical.

If I assign X (God exists) 0 and assign Y (God doesn't exist) 1 as default values can I then conclude that it is impossible for God to exist?

QFT

Here's the same discussion making 30 pages.

Also the book
The Probability of God:
A Simple Calculation That Proves The Ultimate Truth by Stephen D. Unwin, PH.D.

He ends up with 67% probability of God, after starting at 50/50.

Because he's going to use Bayesian probability he uses an even more contrived, position stating that:

"In the Bayesian world, this is precisely what a probability represents: a degree of belief or level of confidence that some proposition is true."

So in his view 50/50 represents (in Bayesian terms) a position "of maximum ignorance".

Here's a review

robindch

Unwin, yeah, he was the guy I was trying to remember yesterday who'd expanded this thread out to book-length by including even more logical blunders and winbaggery and god-bothering than we've seen here to date. Even the title's as confused as the contents - "A Simple Calculation That Proves The Ultimate Truth". Well, if it's an ultimate truth, then why should it need to be proved? Shouldn't it be self-evident or at least axiomatic? And if he ends up with a 67% chance, well, didn't he just demonstrate that the balance of proabilities indictes that his Ultimate Truth is more likely to be true than false, rather than "prove" it which needs a 100% proability. And if it was a simple calculation, then why did he have to write a darn book about it? What a waste of paper.

Anyhow, the Ultimate Truth is 42. Everybody knows that.

Scofflaw

Wicknight wrote:

Its not that they were initally assigned, you can assign X and Y anything you like, any value is going to be equally meaningless.

It was the fact that once X and Y had been assigned 0.5 and 0.5, conclusions were then being draw from this inital assignment. That is illogical.

If I assign X (God exists) 0 and assign Y (God doesn't exist) 1 as default values can I then conclude that it is impossible for God to exist?

Sigh. In case anyone missed my point of several posts back - the conclusions drawn from an assignment of 0.5 probability of existence to God are as meaningful as the original assignment - not one bit. Just to be sure - any such conclusions have no force, validity, or meaning. They do not explain anything at all, nor is it possible for them to lend any element of credibility to any conclusions that may be drawn from them. They are purely a statement of ignorance, and the only thing they allow us to conclude is that we are ignorant, which we knew already.

We can draw some inference from the fact that we cannot assign a realistic, or even meaningful, probability to the existence of God - we can conclude that either the postulate is meaningless, or that the postulate is incapable of resolution. Neither of these are any particular surprise.

So, as you say, it's illogical (captain). Humour often is, and the absurd almost invariably so.

Of course, I can't answer for the OP, but that's my point of view, and my reason for engaging in this pseudo-statistical exercise - sheer absurdity.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Dades

Scofflaw wrote:

We can draw some inference from the fact that we cannot assign a realistic, or even meaningful, probability to the existence of God - we can conclude that either the postulate is meaningless, or that the postulate is incapable of resolution. Neither of these are any particular surprise.

Coincidentally a thread on the philosophy board seems to echo this conclusion...
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054863603

At least people got to open up that old favourite unicorns and dragons argument.

Any more thoughts Alex S?

Alex S.

The Atheist wrote:

Coincidentally a thread on the philosophy board seems to echo this conclusion...
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054863603

At least people got to open up that old favourite unicorns and dragons argument.

Any more thoughts Alex S?

Hi,
I put in a lengthly rebuttal of the dragons / unicorn arguement, but it wasn't published. I will now try again and summarize my opinions.

Right, this unicon/s dragons analogy is not valid, here's why.
Unicorns and Dragons belong to mythology, they do not belong to meta physics, they are not the same as the God concept.
Let me be clear, when I say P(God(s)), I am not arguing about the Christian God, in fact I am not arguing any specific God.
I am arguing a very abstract concept, of an intelligent being that has more control over the universe than we do.
That's all. I am not even arguing the cardinality of this God, I am leaving that open, there could be 1, 5 or 78 God(s).

Furthermore, when I say God, I don't mean Aliens, or any lifeform that are just more intelligent than us, who are then only superceded by more aliens light years away etc.
P(god(s)) is the ultimate power w.r.t. the universe. It doesn't even have to be in the universe. I repeat it very abstract concept. It
doesn't have to care about you, maybe he does maybe he doesn't. That's a separate argument.
I argue that
P(God(s)) is 50%, because it is equal probability of existing and not existing. I base this on the reason that there is no strong argument for it, none against it.
The atheist argues P(god(s)) = 0, but has no logical reason.
Or in this thread, several athesists appear to have argued P(god(s)) = unknown, which is actually an agnostic belief an agnostic conclusion.

The agnostic belief is a belief with logically reasoning, in fact it is the only one in my opinion where the conclusion follows logic.
Atheists try to counter argue agnostics by saying we just on the fence, or using dragon analogies. These are just ridiculous arguements. One could sat this has been vindicated by the fact that when they actually reason, as they have in this thread, they themselves end up P(God(s)) = unknown, which by defintion is not consistent with atheism. It is agnostic conclusion, by defintion.

Rev Hellfire

I would say that most agnostics doubt the existence of an all knowing omnipresent being who has taken an interest in us. This it seems to me to be an idea exclusive to both atheists and theists, it provides an easy definition for atheists of a god(s) who can be easily discarded and for the theists it offers an emotional comfort.
Its just lazy thinking.

Scofflaw

Rev Hellfire wrote:

I would say that most agnostics doubt the existence of an all knowing omnipresent being who has taken an interest in us. This it seems to me to be an idea exclusive to both atheists and theists, it provides an easy definition for atheists of a god(s) who can be easily discarded and for the theists it offers an emotional comfort.
Its just lazy thinking.

While the "benevolent omnipotent all knowing omnipresent being who has taken an interest in us" is precisely the god who I don't accept the existence of, I don't see how this is lazy thinking. Such a God is posited primarily because it is clear that one "should" worship such a God.

There may be Gods who are not benevolent, not omniscient, not omnipotent, or not omnipresent (and hence incapable of being omnipotent) - but are they worth worshipping?

I'm an agnostic in the sense that I don't rule out God(s) as simply impossible, but I think I can at the moment rule out the existence of a God who I would worship, which makes me, to all intents and purposes, an atheist.

Categories, of course, are just categories. They exist for convenience, not for accuracy.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Tar.Aldarion

Scofflaw wrote:

There may be Gods who are not benevolent, not omniscient, not omnipotent, or not omnipresent (and hence incapable of being omnipotent) - but are they worth worshipping?

I'm an agnostic in the sense that I don't rule out God(s) as simply impossible, but I think I can at the moment rule out the existence of a God who I would worship, which makes me, to all intents and purposes, an atheist.

Hold the show, who says anything about worshipping? I don't think there could possibly be something I would worship because it was a god. I rule out a god that I would worship, don't believe that make me anymore of an atheist though.

I often wondered when I was young, did anybody actually worship a god because of thankfulness or just because there was bad consequnces if tehy didn't, example, hell. I concluded that if there was a god, I would no need to worship it, maybe say thanks, treat it to a show and dinner.
I would be much more thankful to my parents for creating me and looking after me.

Scofflaw

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

Hold the show, who says anything about worshipping? I don't think there could possibly be something I would worship because it was a god. I rule out a god that I would worship, don't believe that make me anymore of an atheist though.

I often wondered when I was young, did anybody actually worship a god because of thankfulness or just because there was bad consequnces if tehy didn't, example, hell. I concluded that if there was a god, I would no need to worship it, maybe say thanks, treat it to a show and dinner.
I would be much more thankful to my parents for creating me and looking after me.

I define a god by virtue of worship, so an unworshippable god is therefore not a god. If there are no gods I would worship, then I'm an atheist, because by my own definition of gods, there are no gods - I have defined them out of my universe. From what you say, that would apply to you too.

The question is - is that a reasonable definition of gods, or is there a better one?

apparently circularly,
Scofflaw

Dades

And so here we find ourselves again at the crux of the issue - what is god? This is the reason why person A with essentially the same thoughts as person B, can be agnostic, where B is atheist.

Person A defines god to be an entity we don't understand, that may or may not have a hand in our conception, and who who may have nothing to do with us anymore. Person B might define a god in the original sense, in that there must be a direct and continuing relationship between said god and our existance.

Like Scofflaw (and others) a god for me is what a god is for a theist. An entity with characteristics. I am an athiest - that is I reject the notion of the gods of theists. I don't reject the notion that somewhere there could be something else other than us. Whatever else there may be out there in the universe - it is not a god. It does not demand recognition - it does not interfere - it is simply something beyond our comprehension.

Alex S. wrote:

Right, this unicon/s dragons analogy is not valid, here's why.
Unicorns and Dragons belong to mythology, they do not belong to meta physics, they are not the same as the God concept.
Let me be clear, when I say P(God(s)), I am not arguing about the Christian God, in fact I am not arguing any specific God.
I am arguing a very abstract concept, of an intelligent being that has more control over the universe than we do.

The fact that Dragons and Unicorns now belong to mythology is part of the analogy. However any analogy falls down when the "item" you are making a comparision with, goes beyond the realm of definition - such as your definition of god has.

Perhaps the concept of "god", which used to be such a simple one, has now in a form of self-preservation taken on the form of anything bigger than us we don't understand. Ultimately is doesn't matter if we're talking of the God of the new testament or the fluffy psuedo-god that drifts as a cloud on the other side of the 5th dimension - it's all endless conjecture at any rate.

Zombrex

Alex S. wrote:

they are not the same as the God concept.

Actually they are, which is the point.

You have basically invented an imaginary concept, called it God, and then said it is not possible to know it does or does not exist. I can do exactly the same for a dragon or unicorn, or anything for that matter.

What you have done is what humans have been doing since the dawn of time, which is fitting what we know and understand around what we don't or understand. Your concept of "God" is really no different than any western religious except their is a lot more developed.

You are taking the concept of a creator and controller, a very human concept, that we see every day, and applying to to a specific thing, in this case the universe. That is abstracting human behaviour out into an ominpresent being that controls and has power over the universe in the same way a human has control and power over a loaf of bread.

It makes logical sense to you, and to most humans, because that is the way we think, the way we view the world. Concepts like infinate time, singularities, warped universes, infinate probability, multiple dimensioned space etc don't map to our common everyday experience and as such we have a very hard time getting our heads around them. Concepts like gods do map to what we commonly know, and as such we prefer to apply them to questions such as the origin of the universe.

Dragons made logical sense to humans 1000 years ago for exactly the same reason, the application of known to the unknown. The reason you reject a "dragon" is the same reason why atheists reject a "god", they are simply products of attempts to rationalise the unknown.

Alex S. wrote:

they themselves end up P(God(s)) = unknown, which by defintion is not consistent with atheism. It is agnostic conclusion, by defintion.

It is, but then that isn't the reason why a lot of atheists are atheists.

They are atheists because they reject the concept in the first place as being simply an invention of the human imagination, the human need to understand the non-understandable in concepts familar to us. And as such atheists recongise that a concept like a god almost certainly doesn't actually exist, even one as abstract as yours.

Zombrex

The Atheist wrote:

I don't reject the notion that somewhere there could be something else other than us. Whatever else there may be out there in the universe - it is not a god. It does not demand recognition - it does not interfere - it is simply something beyond our comprehension.

Well said.

Simply put, we don't understand what is "out there", so us trying to put definitions and words on what is "out there" is nonsensical, since any of our imaginings are probably going to be way off.

We imagine based on our very limited experience of life on Earth. We assign terms like "creator", "ruler", "lord", "master" etc and then attempt to abstract them out to huge concepts like the origin of universe. We assume that if something is here it must have started and it might have a creator, since if you see a loaf of bread you assume it was made at some point possibily by someone.

But how do you apply the concept of a "creator" to something like time looping back on itself. How do you assign the concept of ruler if all possibilities are possible and happen in some dimension? Are concepts become invalid in the first place when applied to something as huge and unintelligable as the universe. The simply don't fit any more, so arguing over if they are true or not is rather pointless.

We are slowly realising that the universe exists in ways that are so far beyond our understanding and ability to understand, that our notions of how life works don't apply.

To me an atheists does not simply reject god, he rejects this line of thinking and reasoning, the idea that we can apply what we know from human experience to such mind boggling concepts as the origin of the universe.

An atheist such as myself rejects an concepts we come up with to explain things we can't possibly understand such as the origin of the unvierse, and as such any concept we come up with are at most a misguided, most likely incorrect, guesses.

Asiaprod

The Atheist wrote:

Like Scofflaw (and others) a god for me is what a god is for a theist. An entity with characteristics. I am an athiest - that is I reject the notion of the gods of theists. I don't reject the notion that somewhere there could be something else other than us. Whatever else there may be out there in the universe - it is not a god. It does not demand recognition - it does not interfere - it is simply something beyond our comprehension.

Very well explained. I go along with this definition.