Agnosticism IS the most dishonest position

[The Architect Of Fate]

It's becoming increasingly clear that our scientific method will remain absolutely silent on the big questions,

Nope the total opposite 

 and that we should seriously reconsider our opinion about theology, arguing from scripture, e

Theology is worthless and scripture needs to be taken as seriously as harry potter 

Because they are all we have

Nope it complete nothing and has zero worth 



Your superstitions are worthless

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Theology in a nutshell 





And what sane peoples reaction to it should be 

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Theology in a nutshell 

An appropriate receptacle.

Boru

[LadyForCamus]

I think I disagree that you can separate science and logic in that way. Logic is grounded in the physical realty we experience. The laws of logic are descriptive of that realty. Consider the law of identity. A, meaning “a thing,” must be identical to itself. Without a physical reality where things exist, there is nothing to describe or identify.  Many of the common logical arguments for god still depend on the truth or likely truth of their premises, and many of those premises are commenting on some purported truth or truths about the physical, detectable universe.

I didn't mean to say that in thinking carefully about the world we can separate science and logic. We use them together, though a given case may demand more of one than the other. 

A paradigm case is maybe Zeno's logical arguments as to why motion is impossible. Though the conclusions are obviously false -- because motion happens -- it's surprisingly hard to show why his logic is bad. Demonstrating through logic that Zeno is wrong led Aristotle to develop his whole system of act and potency, which has ever since affected the way we think about both theology and science.

Sure. Those paradoxes are definite mind benders, but perhaps the reason it seems there is no solution to say, the arrow paradox, is because it operates on false, faulty, incomplete or misunderstood assumptions about the physical nature of space-time. An incorrect understanding of the fundamental physics at play; a material issue; could certainly lead to false or seemingly unsolvable logical paradoxes that maybe aren’t truly irreconcilable paradoxes at all. 

Another way to approach it might be to think about math as a form of logic. It seems likely that math began for purely practical reasons in the real world. (If your tribe has 34 members, and consumes one wooly mammoth per month, how many mammoths do we need to make it to spring, assuming that as always one third of the tribe will die from disease during the winter?) But the logical development of math has led to negative, irrational, and imaginary numbers, which may have very little relevance to the material world. Math tells us that there are infinities of different sizes, which seems pretty unrelated to any mammoth problem I can think of.

Perhaps mathematics tells us what is possible, but not necessary actual in every instance. I’m no mathematician, so this is where things get fuzzy for me.

Natural theology works entirely as you say: it begins with purported truth about the world as we see it, and works from there. If people's logic seems wrong to us, then we either point to the empirical world as a rebuttal, or show that the logic is wrong. 

But our knowledge of the empirical world is often flawed. And our logic is often wrong as well. So it's an ongoing problem to use them in dialectic to improve out thinking.

Yet, you’ve drawn from logic and evidence of material world to reach that conclusion, lol. I’m fine to agree that our knowledge is often wrong, and our logic is often flawed, but we have to call on those things in order to make those very assessments of them, right? If not, what else is there? I’m not saying that a person can’t be convinced by, say, divine revelation, that a god exists, because I have no access to their experience. But, if we get to the point where we’re revering individual, subjective, unverifiable experience the same as logic and methodological naturalism, I think that’s a problem. If you tell me you have an invisible, pixie-farting unicorn in your basement, would it be wise for people to just take you at your word because, ‘there might be other ways to know things besides methodological naturalism’?

[Belacqua]

Sure. Those paradoxes are definite mind benders, but perhaps the reason it seems there is no solution to say, the arrow paradox, is because it operates on false, faulty, incomplete or misunderstood assumptions about the physical nature of space-time. An incorrect understanding of the fundamental physics at play; a material issue; could certainly lead to false or seemingly unsolvable logical paradoxes that maybe aren’t truly irreconcilable paradoxes at all. 

That's right. That's what prompted Aristotle and everybody after him to work out why the assumptions behind Zeno's paradoxes were incorrect. It was the beginning of a long history of careful thought, employing a dialectic of logic and empiricism. 

Yet, you’ve drawn from logic and evidence of material world to reach that conclusion, lol. I’m fine to agree that our knowledge is often wrong, and our logic is often flawed, but we have to call on those things in order to make those very assessments of them, right? If not, what else is there? 

Why is this "lol"? Of course I've used logic and evidence of the material world. Where have I argued otherwise?

if we get to the point where we’re revering individual, subjective, unverifiable experience the same as logic and methodological naturalism, I think that’s a problem. If you tell me you have an invisible, pixie-farting unicorn in your basement, would it be wise for people to just take you at your word because, ‘there might be other ways to know things besides methodological naturalism’?

I wonder how you think revelation works. 

If you write a letter to the Pope describing your pixie-farting unicorn revelation, he will dismiss it out of hand. He has an internally consistent system, built up over centuries, by which he judges claims of revelation. Most religious people are just as aware as you or I that people can be mistaken, deceived, or dishonest. Claims of purported revelation are subjected to logical analysis in which the premises of the religion are held as standards, and if you claim that God is made of ice cream your claim will be judged inconsistent with those premises. 

(And before the scolders start to scold me: I am aware that you and I and the other superior people on this forum do not accept the Pope's premises. I am not claiming they are true. I am only claiming that he uses them as standards of judgment and does not accept purported revelation without them.)

No doubt there are silly people in the world who believe anything that pops into their heads to be true revelation. If they want pizza, it's the word of God. These people are not thinking clearly. This is why I think the advice that atheists often give to believers is insufficient. We say "think for yourself," but the problem is that they are already thinking for themselves, but they are thinking stupid things. The advice would be better as: "think for yourself, but never believe what you think." And I think this is necessary for all of us. All of what we hold to be true is best subjected to the widest possible critique.

[R00tKiT]

Except that we do know, lol.
https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/a...flake-made

I didn’t see ”hand-designed by a god” mentioned anywhere in that article. Even if god were the one who set all the natural laws in motion in order to allow for snowflakes to form, it’s still a natural formation that is no mystery to scientists. 

I really think you didn't understand a word I've written. Something that is of no mystery to scientists is nevertheless there because a supposed god wanted it to be there. The fact that we know a process only means ... that we know the process. we still have to account for the prior causes that brought the whole thing.

What you know is the how, not the why. You've only got half of the answer through science, you're gonna have to delve into philosophy and theology for the other half.

Do you believe each snowflake was hand designed by a god?

I didn't say hand designed, I simply said designed, which includes all the intermediary, implicit steps that took place, like crafting every law of chemistry out there to allow its existence.

Correct, which means the formation of snowflakes is still a blind and natural process, lol. You’re still equivocating.  And, I’ll ask again and maybe a real answer this time: how weak is god that he has to fine tune the entire universe and all of its physical laws, just to get a snowflake to form?

Your question is ill-formed. "The entire universe and all of its physical laws" seems a lot of work only to us, I'll make it clearer : there is no logical problem with a god bringing a slice of pizza into existence through billions of years of extremely complicated quantum operations. "billions of years" and "extremely complicated" are an additional unnecssary cost only for creatures, not for a deity with infinite resources. Wasting time and resources is undefined for any entity with infinite attributes.

Another point is that, nobody claimed the snowflake was the central purpose of fine tuning, and I frankly don't get why you're framing the question in such a way to assert that. But clearly a supposed god allowed the snowflake to be there, in "the background", or as an acceptable result of his laws intended for a higher purpose, so he did design it implicitly.

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And though people understand somewhat more than rats, it seems very likely that there are all kinds of things beyond what our brains can handle.

And that's why the so called skeptics should greatly adjust their posture with regards to the supposed prophets. There are things about the universe that we will never know, demonstrably so. A fortiori, anything about purpose is absolutely beyond us, billions of layers away. 
As a result, any existent deity already revealed itself. And that's my central argument in this thread.

The first part of this seems certain to me. Science will never and can never address certain things that humans need. I was raised without religion, so I don't necessarily think that we should turn to theology when we ponder the non-science questions. Still, the fact that religion has been a fundamental part of the human psyche for all of history means that I'm not one of those people who just want to toss it all.

I don't see any other way to treat these non science questions. Philosophy didn't bring one bit of an answer with regards to anything metaphysical. Contemporary philosophy doesn't seem to concern itself with such questions anymore.

And from what I could read in this forum, people do misunderstand basic aspects of theology, and arrogantly think that their "rational thought" higher ground will somehow save them when it comes to cumulative arguments about why a historical figure might very much be really a prophet.

If I'm understanding you right, this is an Aristotelian concept, and so perhaps something I can get a handle on. To pass  a quality on to different things, the causal force must possess that quality.

Exactly. It's something entirely reasonable to assume. And with this principle, it becomes possible to know more about a first cause of everything. We already know a good deal of what "everything" looks like, it's safe to infer some attributes about the preceding cause, at least the most obvious ones.

[Abaddon_ire]

I didn't say hand designed, I simply said designed, which includes all the intermediary, implicit steps that took place, like crafting every law of chemistry out there to allow its existence.

Still haven't figured out why this thrashes your argument yet?


Nope.

[The Architect Of Fate]

I didn't say hand designed, I simply said designed, which includes all the intermediary, implicit steps that took place, like crafting every law of chemistry out there to allow its existence.

Still haven't figured out why this thrashes your argument yet?


Nope.

He never will he's completely hopeless

[R00tKiT]

Still haven't figured out why this thrashes your argument yet?


Nope.

I don't think you even understand the argument.

We, as mortal, transcient creatures, have absolutely no saying about what is inherently designed, and what appears designed, that's why I extended the definition of design, it's simply the right definition to use in a formal argument. In this world, we simply pick existent stuff and work with it, we never ever create something ex nihilo.

Still haven't figured out why this thrashes your argument yet?


Nope.

He never will he's completely hopeless

What about grabbing a fucking grammar book and disappearing for a few years? This is getting tiresome.

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It's only dishonest if one knows there is no god but claims to be agnostic.  I was once an agnostic theist.  I didn't know if there was a god but I wanted there to be and I believed there was (for really bad reasons).  I was being honest.  I then stopped believing that there was a god even though I wasn't sure there wasn't one.  I was an agnostic atheist.  I was being honest.  Then after much study and thought I became convinced that there was no god and there never could be.

I am curious to know how you became convinced that there is no god. There are very few atheists who make such a claim, not even the most hardcore skeptic can claim to have an argument against any possible deity.

Rather than be dishonest and say I was an agnostic atheist because people wouldn't like it much if I said I was a hard atheist, I chose to be honest and stated that I was a strong atheist, after all I don't care what people think of me.  I'm going, to be honest, no matter who doesn't approve.  So you see, at no point in my life have I been dishonest with regard to this issue.

There is no way for me or anyone to check that you're truly honest. We should either just take your word for it, or ask you to clarify your reasons for asserting that there is no god.

[Abaddon_ire]

Still haven't figured out why this thrashes your argument yet?


Nope.

I don't think you even understand the argument.

We, as mortal, transcient creatures, have absolutely no saying about what is inherently designed, and what appears designed, that's why I extended the definition of design, it's simply the right definition to use in a formal argument. In this world, we simply pick existent stuff and work with it, we never ever create something ex nihilo.

Nope. That is not why your argument fails.

Try again.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Still haven't figured out why this thrashes your argument yet?


Nope.

I don't think you even understand the argument.

We, as mortal, transcient creatures, have absolutely no saying about what is inherently designed, and what appears designed, that's why I extended the definition of design, it's simply the right definition to use in a formal argument. In this world, we simply pick existent stuff and work with it, we never ever create something ex nihilo.

He never will he's completely hopeless

What about grabbing a fucking grammar book and disappearing for a few years? This is getting tiresome.

---

It's only dishonest if one knows there is no god but claims to be agnostic.  I was once an agnostic theist.  I didn't know if there was a god but I wanted there to be and I believed there was (for really bad reasons).  I was being honest.  I then stopped believing that there was a god even though I wasn't sure there wasn't one.  I was an agnostic atheist.  I was being honest.  Then after much study and thought I became convinced that there was no god and there never could be.

I am curious to know how you became convinced that there is no god. There are very few atheists who make such a claim, not even the most hardcore skeptic can claim to have an argument against any possible deity.

Rather than be dishonest and say I was an agnostic atheist because people wouldn't like it much if I said I was a hard atheist, I chose to be honest and stated that I was a strong atheist, after all I don't care what people think of me.  I'm going, to be honest, no matter who doesn't approve.  So you see, at no point in my life have I been dishonest with regard to this issue.

There is no way for me or anyone to check that you're truly honest. We should either just take your word for it, or ask you to clarify your reasons for asserting that there is no god.

Or how about you disappear period and take your wall of apologist bullshit with you .Because it's what's tiresome around here dumbass.

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I don't think you even understand the argument.

We, as mortal, transcient creatures, have absolutely no saying about what is inherently designed, and what appears designed, that's why I extended the definition of design, it's simply the right definition to use in a formal argument. In this world, we simply pick existent stuff and work with it, we never ever create something ex nihilo.

Nope. That is not why your argument fails.

Try again.

He will try 100 times and fail each time