Agnosticism IS the most dishonest position

[Abaddon_ire]

Correct. And If you asked him, he would give that answer. He believes in no god/s, he is unsure/on the fence, or he believes in some god. 

Now ask him. Pin him down for a solid answer. No judgment from here about whatever answer that might be. But plenty of judgment for evading the question.

In any event, you waste time asking me. Ask him. I am not in his head.

Yeah...

While I have had interesting and fun interactions with Bel, he is the king of obfuscation with regards some questions.

It's called "pop-phil". Read Ayn Rand? Think you have the answer to everything. Read Chopra? Think you have the answer to everything. And on it goes.

Bel always reverts to Plato, and aristotle, and Acquinas and such as though no thought of any stripe had occurred in all the intervening centuries. Even though they have. He seems unaware of Hume, or Russell, ar any amount of latter philosophers. Indeed, Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and even Hitchens are modern day philosophers. I could go on with a list of present day philosophers.  But why bother? Bel always reverts to Plato and Aristotle. Always. Because he is enamoured of them for reasons unexplained. 

Tough. Aristotle was right on some things and wrong on others. So was Plato. So was Newton. So was Einstein. So was Hawking. So are we all. That is the nature of our daily reality.

But no. Bel wants to put Plato and Aristotle and Acquinas on some imaginary pedestal of his own creation. Because.

[LadyForCamus]

We constantly harp on theists here for being so afraid to say, “I don’t know” about questions related to reality, that they just accept, with absolute certainty, some other answer that can’t be demonstrated. Meanwhile, Bel is here basically saying, “I’m not sure what I believe yet; I don’t know yet; I’m still reading and learning”, and you guys can’t wait to jump all over him, and call him a liar. That’s simply unfair. Not every atheist has to be a gnostic atheist just because you are. No one is intellectually obligated to hurry up and get to where you are on the spectrum of belief. Different people can be in different places on the same path, you know. I was an agnostic theist for three times as many years as I have been a strong atheist. Bel is clearly a voracious reader, and has a particular interest in several areas of philosophy related to the nature of our realty and of being. That doesn’t make someone a closet theist. I’m interested in those things too. Maybe you guys are the ones who are uncomfortable with the answer “I don’t know” when it comes to people who are still figuring out what their beliefs are.

Correct. And If you asked him, he would give that answer. He believes in no god/s, he is unsure/on the fence, or he believes in some god. 

Now ask him. Pin him down for a solid answer. No judgment from here about whatever answer that might be. But plenty of judgment for evading the question.

In any event, you waste time asking me. Ask him. I am not in his head.

Aaaaaand, you’ve gone and missed my point entirely.

[Belacqua]

And what is an abstraction?  It is the result of a process of measurement omission.

I'm not seeing yet why that should be so.

Justice, for example, is an abstraction. And it certainly can't be measured as an abstraction. It may well be a concept we come up with through life experiences, namely: just and unjust acts. But these acts can't be measured either. Some things just aren't quantifiable. 

You can't infer a god's existence by looking at nature.  The concept of inference rests on the primacy of existence principle.  The notion of gods assumes the primacy of consciousness principle.  Therefore any attempt to infer gods existence is not only invalid but unsound since the claim that a god exists is self-contradictory.  Inference from nature can only get you to something that is natural.  That's my view anyway. 

Well, you understand that there are different views about this. I don't understand what you mean when you say that the "notion of gods assumes the primacy of consciousness principle." Does this just mean that we have to be conscious before we understand the notion? Because that seems true enough. 

Nor do I see why the claim that a god exists is self-contradictory. It exists or it doesn't, but claiming one way or another may be self-consistent. 

It may be that "inference from nature can only get you to something that is natural." I'd have to see the argument behind that to know if it makes sense to me. The word "supernatural" is notoriously hard to define, but in natural theology it just means something that is transcendent and necessary for the existence of the natural. 

you are using the term conceive here in a much more colloquial way than I am

I admit that I know nothing at all about Ayn Rand's philosophy of concepts. Is there a brief explainer for me, to get me up to speed? A link or a book (under 800 pages)? I think it would be unfair of me to request a remedial class from you, since I'm too stingy to send you green tickets in exchange!

[The Architect Of Fate]

Aaaaaand, you’ve gone and missed my point entirely.

Not really

[Abaddon_ire]

Correct. And If you asked him, he would give that answer. He believes in no god/s, he is unsure/on the fence, or he believes in some god. 

Now ask him. Pin him down for a solid answer. No judgment from here about whatever answer that might be. But plenty of judgment for evading the question.

In any event, you waste time asking me. Ask him. I am not in his head.

Aaaaaand, you’ve gone and missed my point entirely.

I think not. Sure, it is not unusual for the in group to gang up. I get that. It is largely unwarranted and I eschew it.

Nevertheless, I have no issue pointing out dishonesty. In groups and ganging up are irrelevant in such a case. Dishonesty is dishonesty. There is no way to coat dishonesty in a magic sugar pill.

In groups and gang mentality can go live in whatever bubble as far as I am concerned. Honesty/dishonesty is a very black and white issue and I have little tolerance for it. One is either honest, or one is not.

We are not talking the little "fudge" or "white lie" here. Everyone does that. We are talking the honking great freight train of BS.

Now you can colour me cynical, but lying for jebus is a thing. I have seen it over and over again. Mostly, it is trivially dealt with. But some originate a slimey new version of the tactic. Those in the atheist community of a pleasant, benign disposition ( which I once was) fall for it.

Not any more. I am too old and cynical to be lead up that garden path again.

[Belacqua]

Correct. And If you asked him, he would give that answer. He believes in no god/s, he is unsure/on the fence, or he believes in some god. 

Now ask him. Pin him down for a solid answer. No judgment from here about whatever answer that might be. But plenty of judgment for evading the question.

In any event, you waste time asking me. Ask him. I am not in his head.

Aaaaaand, you’ve gone and missed my point entirely.

@Abaddon_ire

I genuinely do not understand why I should be the topic, since I am not a particularly interesting person. But if a solid answer is somehow required:

I do not believe in the God of the Bible.
I do not believe in the Greek gods.
I do not believe in Hindu polytheism.
I do not believe there are kami in rocks and trees.
I do not believe in animism of any kind.
I do not believe in conscious invisible spirits or ghosts. 
I do not believe that my cats are gods, although they think they are.

It would be safer for everyone to set "he does not believe in X god" as the default mode, until I say otherwise. 

Typing this out will probably just increase everyone's ire rather than help anything.

[Abaddon_ire]

Aaaaaand, you’ve gone and missed my point entirely.

@Abaddon_ire

I genuinely do not understand why I should be the topic, since I am not a particularly interesting person. But if a solid answer is somehow required:

I do not believe in the God of the Bible.
I do not believe in the Greek gods.
I do not believe in Hindu polytheism.
I do not believe there are kami in rocks and trees.
I do not believe in animism of any kind.
I do not believe in conscious invisible spirits or ghosts. 

It would be safer for everyone to set "he does not believe in X god" as the default mode, until I say otherwise. 

Typing this out will probably just increase everyone's ire rather than help anything.

I did not ask what you do NOT believe in, I asked what you DO believe in.  And you couldn't help but be dishonest. Question answered.

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Aaaaaand, you’ve gone and missed my point entirely.

@Abaddon_ire

I genuinely do not understand why I should be the topic, since I am not a particularly interesting person. But if a solid answer is somehow required:

I do not believe in the God of the Bible.
I do not believe in the Greek gods.
I do not believe in Hindu polytheism.
I do not believe there are kami in rocks and trees.
I do not believe in animism of any kind.
I do not believe in conscious invisible spirits or ghosts. 
I do not believe that my cats are gods, although they think they are.

It would be safer for everyone to set "he does not believe in X god" as the default mode, until I say otherwise. 

Typing this out will probably just increase everyone's ire rather than help anything.

So now that you have wasted your time answering a question NOBODY ASKED, howabout you  answer the question that WAS ASKED.

What is it that you do believe?

---

Correct. And If you asked him, he would give that answer. He believes in no god/s, he is unsure/on the fence, or he believes in some god. 

Now ask him. Pin him down for a solid answer. No judgment from here about whatever answer that might be. But plenty of judgment for evading the question.

In any event, you waste time asking me. Ask him. I am not in his head.

Aaaaaand, you’ve gone and missed my point entirely.

Seems that Bel just made my point. Take it up with him.

[Belacqua]

@Objectivist

Still thinking of examples...

So let's imagine that at the dawn of man, certain cavemen started scratching pictures in the sand. After they had made enough of these, much later, they were able to abstract from the actual drawings the concept "drawing." Drawing as a noun.

So people knew what "drawing" meant even when they didn't have a specific example in mind.

Long long ago I was working at a museum that decided to have a juried group exhibition of drawings. Lots of people submitted works. Right away, the judges realized they had a problem -- a lot of the pictures looked like paintings instead of drawings. (Artists are notorious for not following guidelines well.) Clearly, they had a concept which was not well-defined. What is the boundary between painting and drawing.

So they spent the first hour of the jury time by defining the concept. Eventually they decided that a drawing can have color if the medium is dry (e.g. colored pencils), and it can be a wet medium if it's monochrome (e.g. brush and ink). But if it's both wet and colored, it's a painting, and not eligible for the show.

What's interesting about that, I think, is that they set up the whole show with a very fuzzy definition. Then they refined the concept when necessary. Though no one had the clearer concept earlier in the day, they all thought the definition they went with was easy to accept. (They didn't ask me, I was just there to carry stuff.)

No quantification is possible in the arts. The drawing show was organized before they had a clear definition.

Is "drawing" not a concept? Does it fail to meet the criteria in some way? It sounds like one to me.

[The Grand Nudger]

Just as god as "the ground of being" - it's an insufficient mode of expression. Clearly, in the case of "jesus" and "drawing"...something more was both expected and required.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Art and drawing still work under his system ....Fail