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Why agnosticism fails

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    #182
    Zillah
    Registered Users Posts: 17,371 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    Zulu wrote: »
    its fairly straight forward tbh.

    I find it a little ironic that your simplistic lack of explanation is obscuring us from grasping the truth of your message.


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    #183
    Zulu
    Registered Users Posts: 10,965 ✭✭✭✭Zulu


    Zillah wrote: »
    I find it a little ironic that your simplistic lack of explanation is obscuring us from grasping the truth of your message.
    "Us" being... ...you? Do you honestly not understand it?
    I find it a little hard to believe you can't grasp the meaning of a six word sentence, particularly after crafting the sentence above.

    Why don't you stop with the baiting, and make your point/rebuttal?


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    #184
    Sam Vimes
    Registered Users Posts: 21,611 ✭✭✭✭Sam Vimes


    Zulu wrote: »
    "Us" being... ...you? Do you honestly not understand it?
    I find it a little hard to believe you can't grasp the meaning of a six word sentence, particularly after crafting the sentence above.

    Why don't you stop with the baiting, and make your point/rebuttal?

    To be honest, I was going to make the same point. The truth is not always simple, as in this case


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    #185
    Zillah
    Registered Users Posts: 17,371 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    Zulu wrote: »
    "Us" being... ...you? Do you honestly not understand it?
    I find it a little hard to believe you can't grasp the meaning of a six word sentence, particularly after crafting the sentence above.

    Why don't you stop with the baiting, and make your point/rebuttal?

    The only rebuttal I can give you is that the truth is often very far from simple. We need to create extraordinarily complicated methodology to extract the truth, in science, philosophy or even personal relationships, and the result we get often defy our ability to easily comprehend. General relativity, quantum mechanics, love/sex and religion being a few good examples.

    Now, maybe I'm not interpreting what you said correctly and you meant it in another fashion. If that's the case, I must, with a wry grin, ask you to explain in more detail.


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    #186
    Zulu
    Registered Users Posts: 10,965 ✭✭✭✭Zulu


    Because we can complicate things, doesn't mean we should.

    For instance, in this case, people seem intent on muddying the meaning of two specific words with clear definitions.

    Why is this? What is so important about the label of "atheist" that some people cling dearly to it? They've clearly moved into the realms of "agnostic", yet they seem reluctant to admit it. So much so, that we have this HR/PC type graph describing "weak" and "strong" atheists.

    ...and yet you'd have me explain a simple phrase that’s self explanatory. :confused:


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    #187
    Zillah
    Registered Users Posts: 17,371 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    Zulu wrote: »
    For instance, in this case, people seem intent on muddying the meaning of two specific words with clear definitions.

    This is a bit like saying "Why do people insist on muddying the waters instead of just accepting if they are right wing or left wing". As I already showed you, this is not something a couple of posters here are talking about, the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy goes into detail on it. There is implicit and explicit atheism, there is strong and weak atheism, there are definitions of agnosticism that allow you to be both atheist (I don't believe in God) and agnostic (no one can know if God exists).

    We're not making the situation complicated, the situation is complicated. Apparently you don't like that. Tough.


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    #188
    Sam Vimes
    Registered Users Posts: 21,611 ✭✭✭✭Sam Vimes


    Zulu wrote: »
    Because we can complicate things, doesn't mean we should.

    For instance, in this case, people seem intent on muddying the meaning of two specific words with clear definitions.

    Zillah's covered most of it but I'd add that rather than us muddying the waters, you're taking a far too strict interpretation of the words because you've become accustomed to the idea that you're agnostic and both theists and atheists are less rational than you but now you're finding out it's generally considered not to be as simple as that


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    #189
    Dades
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,558 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    Zulu, the problem lies with you attributing 'definites' to the definition, despite linking to a definition that merely deals with "belief". I highlighted the fly in the ointment below.
    Zulu wrote: »
    Atheism - believes nogod exists. This is a definite: there is NO god.

    Agnostics accept the potential chance a god(s) could exist, but without proof either way: there is NO definite.


    And here are the definitions you would have us adhere to:
    Zulu wrote: »
    ...and yet the english language provides us with the clear answer without the HR bullshit.

    Atheism

    1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
    2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

    Agnostic

    1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
    2. a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.
    I see no reference to a definitive stance - "there is no god(s)", only a disbelief.

    Now, I disbelieve in the existence of a supreme being or beings, but hold that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience. I am therefore an agnostic atheist.


    Can you see now how the common preconceptions of the two definitions are limited?


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    #190
    Zombrex
    Closed Accounts Posts: 25,848 ✭✭✭✭Zombrex


    Zulu wrote: »
    Because we can complicate things, doesn't mean we should.

    For instance, in this case, people seem intent on muddying the meaning of two specific words with clear definitions.

    Why is this? What is so important about the label of "atheist" that some people cling dearly to it? They've clearly moved into the realms of "agnostic", yet they seem reluctant to admit it. So much so, that we have this HR/PC type graph describing "weak" and "strong" atheists.

    ...and yet you'd have me explain a simple phrase that’s self explanatory. :confused:

    Because that in itself makes "agnostic" some what meaningless.

    If an atheist who totally rejects theist belief but who accepts the scientific position that we cannot know anything for 100% certain (which is most of them on this forum) is actually an agnostic, then what is an atheist? The tiny minority of people who actually believe they can know for 100% certain that theistic belief is imaginary?

    And if we have now decided that everyone here is actually an agnostic because they adhere to philosophical principles about knowledge, then what is a person who happily considers theistic belief as being both plausible and possibly likely, but has not decided which theistic belief to follow? Are they also agnostic?

    So you end up with the rather ridiculous situation where an agnostic is both someone who totally rejects theistic belief as much as they reject anything else and also someone who finds theistic belief quite plausible.


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