Agnosticism IS the most dishonest position

[Abaddon_ire]

Its a classic and sterteotypye, and it shows how much i was right about his MO.

I pointed this out rather early on when he started posting and got shot down for it. Took a while for others to notice. Some have not yet to this day.

He wont bother to defend his own position, thus he is attacking (what he thinks is) the opponents´position.

Of course. Far easier to reverse the burden of proof. If one makes sufficiently vague claims, those are easy to defend.

Too bad that this position is "science works", so he only has one strawman which is scientism and something that makes everyone laugh him out of the room: "You cant prove science works".

All science is provisional. Science has no "proofs". As a matter of convenience, while I am certain that Bel knows this, it is useful to his argument to claim that "science has not proven X".

Sure, the rest of us say. It never claimed to in the first place.

Trying to shoehorn in "extremely useful" into the conversation. Its his *get out of jail free* card for sticking to science himself while talking it down in the same instance. Intellectual coward, as i said.

Indeed. The claim that science can't prove X is in itself a strawman. Science can't "prove" anything and has never claimed to do so. That is something which only exists in Bel's imagination.

Once again, all science is provisional. All of it. Every last bit. Bel quite obviously cannot grok that.

Real philosophers wouldnt stoop down that low. Real philosopers dont hide behind such cheap defenses. Real philosophers own the philosophy they subscribe to and they admit to the assumprtions, prerequisites and possible flaws of it. Belaqua is only here to stroke his ego, and philosophy is the tool he is using.

Not sure. It is entirely possible that he has merely been enamoured of the philosophers of antiquity such as Aristotle, Plato, Acquinas and so forth. But guess what? Philosophy has moved on from all that, as has science, as have people. Bel is merely stuck in the past. A lot in the past. He is much like an undergrad who discovers Aristotle or Plato for the very first time, yet never moved beyond that point.

Still, all of this is not the point. The original point was Rahns post to which Belaqua replied a few pages ago by basically agreeing with Rahn, but turned the conversation into a pseudo philosophical wankfest.

Case in point. This thread is not Bel's thread, it is someone else's. Nevertheless, the OP is lost amid the intellectual treacle that Bel has seen fit to vomit in this thread.

I am uncertain if it is even possible to drag this back to the topic at hand. Too many insanity peppers to go back now.

Perhaps the OP had a point to make. Who knows? It has now become about Bel spewing his crap and the hell with the OP and whatever they might have said.

[Deesse23]

Real philosophers wouldnt stoop down that low. Real philosopers dont hide behind such cheap defenses. Real philosophers own the philosophy they subscribe to and they admit to the assumprtions, prerequisites and possible flaws of it. Belaqua is only here to stroke his ego, and philosophy is the tool he is using.

Not sure. It is entirely possible that he has merely been enamoured of the philosophers of antiquity such as Aristotle, Plato, Acquinas and so forth. But guess what? Philosophy has moved on from all that, as has science, as have people. Bel is merely stuck in the past. A lot in the past. He is much like an undergrad who discovers Aristotle or Plato for the very first time, yet never moved beyond that point.

You may actually, possibly be right. Since he is admittedly a self educated philisopher, he may have similar problems every other person who didnt get a formal education in a particular field has.

[Abaddon_ire]

Not sure. It is entirely possible that he has merely been enamoured of the philosophers of antiquity such as Aristotle, Plato, Acquinas and so forth. But guess what? Philosophy has moved on from all that, as has science, as have people. Bel is merely stuck in the past. A lot in the past. He is much like an undergrad who discovers Aristotle or Plato for the very first time, yet never moved beyond that point.

You may actually, possibly be right. Since he is admittedly a self educated philisopher, he may have similar problems every other person who didnt get a formal education in a particular field has.  

I might be right, but make no such claim. Nevertheless, if it walks like a duck?

[Rahn127]

Let me try this

Bel, there is a box in front of you, sealed from every side.

Can you give me a definition of what is inside the box ?

[Mister Agenda]

The definitions for God remind me of the definitions for mythological trolls; there are so many that the very idea of trolls seems fundamentally incoherent. If one person's idea of a troll contradicts another person's idea of a troll in a sense that what they're talking about can't actually be the same thing; how can we reasonably agree that somehow they ARE talking about the same thing?

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M...eDifferent

[The Grand Nudger]

By reducing disparate accounts to those few shared characteristics.

The question of whether a person believes in gods has little to do with the specific characteristics of any one god. Like people, gods are very different from each other. This doesn't saddle us with any ambiguity as to whether or not people are people. People are not made incoherent by our difference or disagreement.

Our ability to discuss why we don't believe in gods, not just a specific god, demonstrates that there's no incoherence that a plurality of gods can reduce the subject matter to.

[R00tKiT]

I became convinced by means of reason, Klorophyll.  I'm not a skeptic, I'm an Objectivist

That's not an answer, pal. Objectivism, by the way, is heavily rejected by contemporary academic philosophers.

:  If by a deity you mean some kind of supernatural being, then I don't think such a thing is possible, to begin with.  The notion of the supernatural is fraught with contradictions and stolen concepts. 

It's not fraught with anything, it's your skeptical urge that tends to overcomplicate. Once you think clearly about an omniscient, omnipotent, eternal deity, you can't find a contradiction.

If you really want to know my reasons, you'll find them in the Objectivist Metaphysics and the Objectivist theory of concepts.

Yeah, sure. I was even planning to call Ayn Rand herself to share with us these reasons on your behalf, but it turns out she's dead.

[Mister Agenda]

She's dead.

[Abaddon_ire]

She's dead.

Correction.

He/she/it/housecat/broccoli is dead.

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't think that big mo is making house calls either.