Can Someone be Simply "An Agnostic?"
June 17, 2014 at 12:32 pm
(This post was last modified: June 17, 2014 at 2:06 pm by Rampant.A.I..)
When you evaluate truth claims, you compare the available evidence to establish whether or not the claim is coherent within the network of other justified true beliefs.
Concluding a given claim is true or false in the absence of sufficient evidence for or against the claim is, by definition, forming an irrational belief.
The claim <God Exists> is claim about the supernatural no evidence can possibly exist for.
Theists like to claim "creation is evidence of God," but such arguments are always non-falsifiable arguments from ignorance, and don't qualify as rational beliefs. There's no way to test the claim, prove or disprove <God Exists.> We have thousands of years of ontological arguments to demonstrate this.
Even though the likelihood of <God Exists> seems very low, based on empirical evidence about the world, there's no way to evaluate the truth of the claim. It's not empirically testable, it's non-falsifiable, so it doesn't meet the criteria to even be evaluated as a true or false claim.
When Bertrand Russell introduced his Tea pot claim to demonstrate the untenability of an ontological argument, he formulated it in such a way that it was unfalsifiable with the technology of the day.
Since truth claims are true or false independent of belief, it makes no sense to me to form a belief about a truth claim I can't evaluate in any meaningful way.
That said, claims about the nature of and actions of specific Gods are falsifiable. The more claims about the Abrahamic God that are shown to be false (the great flood, garden of Eden, 900 year old people, created the earth in six days) the lower the likelihood that specific God exists.
If I tell you I have a pet newt, and start describing characteristics that sound vaguely newt-like (he likes to swim, I have to keep water in the tank, he has four legs) and part way through you realize I'm describing a red-eared box turtle, the newt doesn't exist, and I'm talking about a different creature entirely.
Concluding a given claim is true or false in the absence of sufficient evidence for or against the claim is, by definition, forming an irrational belief.
The claim <God Exists> is claim about the supernatural no evidence can possibly exist for.
Theists like to claim "creation is evidence of God," but such arguments are always non-falsifiable arguments from ignorance, and don't qualify as rational beliefs. There's no way to test the claim, prove or disprove <God Exists.> We have thousands of years of ontological arguments to demonstrate this.
Even though the likelihood of <God Exists> seems very low, based on empirical evidence about the world, there's no way to evaluate the truth of the claim. It's not empirically testable, it's non-falsifiable, so it doesn't meet the criteria to even be evaluated as a true or false claim.
When Bertrand Russell introduced his Tea pot claim to demonstrate the untenability of an ontological argument, he formulated it in such a way that it was unfalsifiable with the technology of the day.
Since truth claims are true or false independent of belief, it makes no sense to me to form a belief about a truth claim I can't evaluate in any meaningful way.
That said, claims about the nature of and actions of specific Gods are falsifiable. The more claims about the Abrahamic God that are shown to be false (the great flood, garden of Eden, 900 year old people, created the earth in six days) the lower the likelihood that specific God exists.
If I tell you I have a pet newt, and start describing characteristics that sound vaguely newt-like (he likes to swim, I have to keep water in the tank, he has four legs) and part way through you realize I'm describing a red-eared box turtle, the newt doesn't exist, and I'm talking about a different creature entirely.
