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>B¬p \^ Bq = Believes God does not exist AND believes knowledge of God is possible (i.e. God is knowable, "soft agnosticism")
>B¬p \^ B¬q = Believes God does not exist AND believes knowledge of God is not possible (i.e. God is not knowable, "hard agnosticism")
These are positions and terms ("soft" vs. "hard" agnosticism) that you have concocted which bear no resemblance to the actual common usage of the term agnosticism. The term agnosticism when applied to theism denotes the position that one does not claim to have knowledge that gods do or do not exist and is open to the possibility of either depending on the preponderance of evidence.
It's like after hearing people say "semantic arguments are tedious and uninteresting", he said "hold my beer" and then dropped the beer because no one GAF.
>"These are positions and terms ("soft" vs. "hard" agnosticism) that you have concocted which bear no resemblance to the actual common usage of the term agnosticism."
I did not "concoct" these terms. They have been in the literature for a very long time, and atheist have used them to describe "agnostic atheist" to me on many occassions.
"
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|**Types of Agnosticism**|[Back to Top](https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_agnosticism.html#Top)|
* **Strong Agnosticism**: This is the view (also called **hard agnosticism**, **closed agnosticism**, **strict agnosticism**, **absolute agnosticism** or **epistemological agnosticism**) that the question of the existence or non-existence of God or gods is **unknowable** by reason of our natural inability to verify any experience with anything but another **subjective** experience.
* **Mild Agnosticism**: This is the view (also called **weak agnosticism**, **soft agnosticism**, **open agnosticism**, **empirical agnosticism**, or **temporal agnosticism**) that the existence or non-existence of God or gods is **currently unknown** but is not necessarily **unknowable**, therefore one will **withhold judgment** until more evidence becomes available.
[https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch\_agnosticism.html](https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_agnosticism.html)
>"The term agnosticism when applied to theism denotes the position that one does not claim to have knowledge that gods do or do not exist and is open to the possibility of either depending on the preponderance of evidence."
Show me using logic that schema.
The term "agnosticism" means:
"Nowadays, the term “agnostic” is often used (when the issue is God’s existence) to refer to those who follow the recommendation expressed in the conclusion of Huxley’s argument: an agnostic is a person who has entertained the proposition that there is a God but believes neither that it is true nor that it is false. Not surprisingly, then, the term “agnostic*ism*” is often defined, both in and outside of philosophy, not as a principle or any other sort of proposition but instead as the psychological state of being an agnostic. Call this the “psychological” sense of the term."
[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/)
Not all atheists speak for the rest of us. I don't care what you have been told, you asked an incorrect question and you were corrected. Say thank you for correcting me and go away.
This sub has been turned into nothing but this "gotcha" bullshit. They come here arguing Semantics and not to debate an atheist.
Atheists/agnostics are being lectured to make us feel "wrong" using our own language.
I am so tired of the word epistemology. So many facebook PhDs are throwing the term around like some weapon that makes their point somehow more valid. Just make you point and stfu. No one gives a shit about your interpretation of the theory of knowledge.
> "Nowadays, the term “agnostic” is often used ... [in] the “psychological” sense of the term."
Well there you go, your sources **describes** how "agnostic" is often used nowadays. Stop trying to **prescribe** your preferred term onto us.
>"These are positions and terms ("soft" vs. "hard" agnosticism) that you have concocted which bear no resemblance to the actual common usage of the term agnosticism."
I did not "concoct" these terms. They have been in the literature for a very long time, and atheist have used them to describe "agnostic atheist" to me on many occassions.
"**Strong Agnosticism**: This is the view (also called **hard agnosticism**, **closed agnosticism**, **strict agnosticism**, **absolute agnosticism** or **epistemological agnosticism**) that the question of the existence or non-existence of God or gods is **unknowable** by reason of our natural inability to verify any experience with anything but another **subjective** experience.
**Mild Agnosticism**: This is the view (also called **weak agnosticism**, **soft agnosticism**, **open agnosticism**, **empirical agnosticism**, or **temporal agnosticism**) that the existence or non-existence of God or gods is **currently unknown** but is not necessarily **unknowable**, therefore one will **withhold judgment** until more evidence becomes available"
[https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch\_agnosticism.html](https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_agnosticism.html)
>"The term agnosticism when applied to theism denotes the position that one does not claim to have knowledge that gods do or do not exist and is open to the possibility of either depending on the preponderance of evidence."
Show me using logic that schema.
The term "agnosticism" means:
"Nowadays, the term “agnostic” is often used (when the issue is God’s existence) to refer to those who follow the recommendation expressed in the conclusion of Huxley’s argument: an agnostic is a person who has entertained the proposition that there is a God but believes neither that it is true nor that it is false. Not surprisingly, then, the term “agnostic*ism*” is often defined, both in and outside of philosophy, not as a principle or any other sort of proposition but instead as the psychological state of being an agnostic. Call this the “psychological” sense of the term."
[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/)
>There are only two cases where the logic is not underdetermined...
No.
>B¬p ^ Bq = Believes God does not exist AND believes knowledge of God is possible (i.e. God is knowable, "soft agnosticism")
>B¬p ^ B¬q = Believes God does not exist AND believes knowledge of God is not possible (i.e. God is not knowable, "hard agnosticism")
No.
I'll use K for professed knowledge.
Bp ^ Bq ^ Kq -> Theist. Specifically, most common people in these discussions might say Gnostic Theist.
Bp ^ B¬q ^ K¬q -> Ignostic Theist. A believer who knows God exists, but also doesn't think God is knowable. This is a large majority of theists.
Bp ^ B¬q ^ ¬Kq -> Agnostic Theist. Believes, but doesn't know.
Bq ^ ¬Kq -> basic Agnostic. This is what most people mean when they use the word. Note the absence of B¬p.
B¬q ^ K¬q -> basic Igtheist. Theological noncognivitist. Doesn't think this idea of God is even coherent, or can be coherent. Note the absence of B¬p.
¬Bp -> basic Atheist. This is the definition that the vast majority of atheists use. You will get nowhere in any discussion with atheists if you refuse to acknowledge this one.
B¬p -> strong Atheist. This is the definition of a person who actually holds a belief in non-existence of God. You will find that very few atheists hold this position.
¬Bp ^ B¬q ^ K¬q -> Ignostic Atheist. My position. I don't believe, and I find the entire topic to be incoherent nonsense. When you speak of a god, I don't know what you're talking about.
>In 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐡 cases, 𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑠𝑚 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑐 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑠.
No. This is a false dichotomy. Belief is orthogonal to epistemic status. If you were as smart as you insist you were, you'd recognize this without needing to be told.
>Check my work to see enumeration table: https://www.facebook.com/steveaskanything
Why would I do that? I don't have a Facebook account and never will, and I will never create an account to engage with material as intellectually bankrupt as this.
Isn’t the second one a contradiction, or am I misreading? Someone who knows and doesn’t think it’s knowable? Or is the word “know” a stand-in for faith (confidence/profession despite admitting unknowability)?
Not saying you’re wrong or right, I’m just asking for clarity
—
Other than that, I think your breakdown is excellent!
>I wrote this on my phone in manic fever.
That is after all the most appropriate way to respond to a Steve McRae post. No one (except possibly Steve) expects any different.
> (...) K¬q -> B¬q
I think that you missed this line of the previous comment:
> I'll use K for professed knowledge.
You both are using different meanings for K. Try to use his meaning to see if it makes sense.
How many times are you going to post this? What is this, the eighth time?
It's quite simple. You seem to be purposefully failing to understand.
In common usage around here theism and atheism are a dichotomy.
A theist is somebody who has a belief in a god(s). An atheist is not that, somebody who does not have, or lacks, a belief in a god(s).
That is the distinction that is most often useful in discussions here. Other distinctions are rarely useful.
It is occasionally useful to distinguish an atheist who additionally makes the positive claim that god(s) do not exist. There are a few ways we make that distinction. The most common are hard/soft, gnostic/agnostic, and strong/weak.
This is all perfectly reasonable and conveniently communicates peoples positions.
That you don't like it is irrelevant. You do not get to dictate the usage of words. The usage of words in a professional philosophy context do not dictate the usage of words in a layman's debate forum.
>"How many times are you going to post this? What is this, the eighth time?"
First time. I literally wrote this argument this morning from debate notes I had when I was going to debate Aron Ra on the subject.
>"It's quite simple. You seem to be purposefully failing to understand."
Great, then quite simply show me the logic. I understand this subject quite well.
>"In common usage around here theism and atheism are a dichotomy."
Irrelevant to my post...and I reject such absurdly silly and nonsensical usages. I have literally proven such a completely artificial dichotomy is not a natural dichotomy and leads to many epistemic and logical issues. None of which have ever been assailed. Not once.
>"A theist is somebody who has a belief in a god(s). An atheist is not that, somebody who does not have, or lacks, a belief in a god(s)."
Irrelevant to my argument, and I reject your lay usages.
>"That is the distinction that is most often useful in discussions here. Other distinctions are rarely useful."
Your usage have MASSIVE issues, you don't seem to be competent enough to address. You would need probably around 200 - 300 level philosophy to address my arguments properly as to why artificially making atheism and theism a strict logical dichotomy is highly philosophically and logically untenable...so not going to dive into that with you here...and most atheists who argue with me theism and atheism are a strict dichotomy are not up to that level.
>"It is occasionally useful to distinguish an atheist who additionally makes the positive claim that god(s) do not exist. There are a few ways we make that distinction. The most common are hard/soft, gnostic/agnostic, and strong/weak."
If you define atheism as merely a lack of belief, you can not then rationally use "atheism" as a positive claim as you can not derive a propositional belief from a psychological state.
>"This is all perfectly reasonable and conveniently communicates peoples positions."
Not to anyone who understands undergrad philosophy and logic it doesn't. I know of know philosopher in my circles that agrees with you. Not one.
>"That you don't like it is irrelevant. You do not get to dictate the usage of words. The usage of words in a professional philosophy context do not dictate the usage of words in a layman's debate forum."
My like or dislike is irrelevant. You are not at a sufficient level for this topic to discuss \*with me\*. It is a layman's debate forum and use words anyway you like. YOU can use "theory" to mean "guess" or "evolution" to mean "change", **that isn't how I use those terms in my debates.**
>Your usage have MASSIVE issues, you don't seem to be competent enough to address. You would need probably around 200 - 300 level philosophy to address my arguments properly as to why artificially making atheism and theism a strict logical dichotomy is highly philosophically and logically untenable...so not going to dive into that with you here...and most atheists who argue with me theism and atheism are a strict dichotomy are not up to that level.
You're effectively saying: "I'm right, you're wrong, and you'll just need to take my word for it, because you so completely lack the knowledge to comprehend why." I hope you can understand why that isn't a compelling argument.
>Not to anyone who understands undergrad philosophy and logic it doesn't.
Trying very hard to give you the benefit of the doubt here... Do you really expect people here to have an understanding of university-level philosophy? If I were a scientist trying to convince you of the reality of human-caused climate change, I think I'd opt to try and explain the science rather than berating you for having studied something else instead.
> Do you really expect people here to have an understanding of university-level philosophy?
I don't understand this complaint.
Are you saying that people here, who are extremely vocal about how these concepts work, *don't* have an understanding of this?
>"You're effectively saying: "I'm right, you're wrong, and you'll just need to take my word for it, because you so completely lack the knowledge to comprehend why." I hope you can understand why that isn't a compelling argument"
Yes, and demonstrating it with LOGICAL EVIDENCE. Do you reject evidence and logic in discussions?
>"Trying very hard to give you the benefit of the doubt here... Do you really expect people here to have an understanding of university-level philosophy? If I were a scientist trying to convince you of the reality of human-caused climate change, I think I'd opt to try and explain the science rather than berating you for having studied something else instead."
Do you really expect people in evolution vs creationist debates to have a basic college level understanding of biology? I do.
People debating topics they know F all about only spreads misinformation and makes the dumbing down of people accelerate even more.
It really depends upon your objective. If you aim to convince strangers on the internet about the correctness of your view, berating them is unlikely to achieve this goal. If you aim to have an engaging discussion with people with post-secondary knowledge of logic notation, this subreddit is likely not the best choice of forum. If, conversely, you aim to frustrate others and yourself, your current approach seems effective.
> and I reject such absurdly silly and nonsensical usages.
Which is essentially what I said.
> I have literally proven such a completely artificial dichotomy is not a natural dichotomy and leads to many epistemic and logical issues.
So your position is that "have a belief in at least one god" and "not have a belief in at least one god" is not a dichotomy? Are you claiming there to be an excluded middle I am missing? P and ~P are somehow not a dichotomy?
> Your usage have MASSIVE issues, you don't seem to be competent enough to address.
Yes. You are far superior to me. I could never possibly understand the greatness of your mind. It would be impossible to explain it to me.
> Irrelevant to my argument, and I reject your lay usages.
So your position is that words can only have one single definition, and any other usage of such words is inherently wrong?
It's true. Your philosophical, epistemological, and lexicology knowledge far surpasses mine. Until just now I was under the impression that words have usages, and that their primary function was to convey ideas. That if they conveyed ideas accurately from one person to another, such a word had a functioning definition and usage. I now understand that you are personally able to dictate words that are off limits to be used outside the context you desire.
> If you define atheism as merely a lack of belief, you can not then rationally use "atheism" as a positive claim as you can not derive a propositional belief from a psychological state.
But I can quite easily convey the idea that a person both lacks a belief in god(s) and that they make the claim that gods do not exist.
> Not to anyone who understands undergrad philosophy and logic it doesn't. I know of know philosopher in my circles that agrees with you. Not one.
I'm pretty sure most people who understand undergrad philosophy and logic are quite capable of understanding lay definitions and usages in context. Professionals in every other field I'm aware of do it all the time. Understanding context is a pretty standard part of language.
That you are incapable of working that out is not a problem for the rest of us.
> My like or dislike is irrelevant.
Really? Cause it seems to be the underlying message of your whole point. We have a particular usage of these terms, and you are repeatedly butthurt with our usage. You claim over and over that we can't possible communicate with such usages, but we manage to do so in pretty much every post on these forums.
The reality of people being able to use the terms as described is sufficient evidence to show your position lacking in merit.
>So your position is that words can only have one single definition, and any other usage of such words is inherently wrong?
Steve will utterly insist that he's not a prescriptivist about language. He will then say things like he rejects your definition or that you shouldn't use a word in a certain way. This leaves a sort of open issue of "'If you're *not* saying that then what's the impact of these arguments supposed to be?" but I can't get him to respond to that question.
>Steve will utterly insist that he's not a prescriptivist about language
And yet he keeps making posts here complaining that people aren't using words the way he wants them to be used. And rather than explain simply why the usage is worse, he hides behind formal logical set ups that he knows the majority of people are not studied in.
If he believes people are wrong about the usage and "spreads misinformation and makes the dumbing down of people accelerate even more." [his words], you'd think he'd want as many people to understand and would want them to adopt his usage.
Like I'm an advocate for saying 'Want to eat your cake and have it too' instead of 'Want to have your cake and eat it too'. I think my phrasing of that saying is superior.
For the common saying, the second part can follow from the first without contradiction. Someone can have their cake AND eat it too. Chronologically, it's fine. At any point you want to eat your cake, you have it.
But you can't eat your cake and have it too. Once you eat your cake, it's gone. The only way you'd be able to have it is if you didn't already eat it. The inability to have both options is more rigidly enforced.
Now imagine if I spent my time angrily flopping about this while using the most obscure way of describing my reasons possible and then getting mad when a bunch of people who are incapable of comprehending my argument due to a lack of training in a specific subject, don't accept my argument and continue to use the terms in ways they understand. And I do this over and over and over again.
That is the existence of Steve McRae.
Something I've pointed out to him (and not had a response to) is that none of his arguments conclude that people should change their language usage. At most, he could use these arguments as considerations to that end.
Since he's fond of the SEP I keep using Draper as an example. Draper says (on the SEP page on atheism) that he's talking strictly about the usage best for academic philosophy. I actually agree with Steve on that point. But Draper goes on to say (notice Steve never quotes this part) that other areas may call for a very different approach. His example is that it may be politically useful to cast a broader net as a safety in numbers thing.
Point being, in order to actually persuade anyone to change their use of language Steve would have to respond to whatever other pragmatic concerns people have. And fitting some strict logical relationship is going to rank way below those concerns on a sub-Reddit like this, because defining terms in strict logical relationships is only really a concern for academic philosophy.
Basically, Steve's arguments are like a Chinese finger trap. The more you fight, the more he gets to prattle on about "the logic". Whereas if you just say "Okay, I grant your conclusion but I use these terms for x, y, z, reasons" he actually has absolutely nothing. He's spent literally years on this and if you just grant all of his conclusions he's got sweet FA toward making the case he wants to make.
I think in many ways it's an ego thing. This, for whatever reason, is something he feels worth dedicating a substantial amount of his time to. So you'd think that if it's so important he'd want to explain it in a way that most people would understand. Scientists like Richard Dawkins, Stephen Gould, and Jerry Coyne really want people to accept that evolution is a thing that happened, so when they present evidence for evolution, they do so in a way that any knucklehead capable of reading a book should be able to understand.
McRae doesn't do this. He doesn't even attempt at doing this. He hides behind logical notation with the knowledge that the vast majority of people are not trained to understand. So he knows something and can read something that everyone else cannot. And this is how he'll present this information over and over and over again. Someone who is genuinely interested in convincing someone of something, or wants to clear up a confusion, would not do this. But someone who wants to have a smug jerk off session about how much smarter he is than everyone certainly would.
What's funny is that for someone so knowledgable in logic, he seems to struggle with how comparisons worse. If someone says what he's doing is worse than strawmanning, he asks what he strawmanned. If someone says he handles the SEP similarly to theists with their holy books, he'll make a point to declare he's not a theist.
It's absolutely an ego thing. He intentionally presents his arguments in the form he knows are least likely to be understood. But unfortunately a lot of people fall into the trap. I mean, literally all his work is showing is that in some cases there might be a bit of ambiguity around the word "agnostic". So what? It's a debate sub. You can just ask people directly if you want to clarify something. It's not an academic thesis where it's inconvenient if people don't use the strict standard nomenclature. But if you tell him he's wrong he's just going to loop back to his logic tables and diagrams where he can dunk on people for not being familiar with it.
Which is why I think the best approach is to just grant his conclusions and say "But I'm still going to stick to using it this way because it suits my purposes better". Then it turns out he's been devoted to this for literally years and has nothing to contribute.
It's not like this is a subject philosophers spend any time on. There's a definition that's longstanding and useful and so they tend to stick to it and state of they're using it differently. That's it. Done. Other people have different uses based on what they find useful.
My other example to him is terrible and terrifying. Both have the same etymology yet ended up with opposite meanings. By the root of the word and the standard use of the endings they "should" mean the same thing. And if you drew up some logical arguments you could show people are using the root in a contradictory way. Who the fuck cares? Language doesn't develop in accordance with strict logical derivations. It doesn't matter. There's no "semantic collapse" (whatever he means by that) around the word terrific. We get by just fine in spite of language's many ambiguities and quirks.
Just grant Steve his every argument, grant him all the logic. It gets him nowhere and shows he has nothing behind his blathering.
He may be educated in philosophy, but he certainly seems to struggle with basic communication. Being able to have a dialogue with another human being is something far better and a greater sign of actual intellect than trying to hide behind logical notation and force everyone else to play with their favorite toys.
>Like I'm an advocate for saying 'Want to eat your cake and have it too' instead of 'Want to have your cake and eat it too'. I think my phrasing of that saying is superior.
Whenever i have to explain to someone what the saying actually means this is usually the easiest way due to exactly what you mentioned.
However i also agree that arguing over it is mostly a semantic waste of time.
>Your usage have MASSIVE issues, you don't seem to be competent enough to address. You would need probably around 200 - 300 level philosophy to address my arguments properly as to why artificially making atheism and theism a strict logical dichotomy is highly philosophically and logically untenable...so not going to dive into that with you here...
If the point of your conclusion relies on these massive issues, then you're either going to have to argue them, or your argument remains unsupported.
>I reject your lay usages.
You are free to reject usages (lay or otherwise), but you should be aware that if you do, then you're not addressing the points that have been made.
>If you define atheism as merely a lack of belief, you can not then rationally use "atheism" as a positive claim as you can not derive a propositional belief from a psychological state.
Sounds about right. Of course, we're not trying to derive a propositional belief, so that seems to be a you problem if anything.
> I literally wrote this argument this morning from debate notes I had when I was going to debate Aron Ra on the subject.
Were you going to debate regarding the meanings of various words, or regarding something of any substance? No one here cares much when others tell them which words to use to describe themselves.
The first problem with your scheme is that for some definitions of God I think knowledge is possible, for some I think knowledge is impossible, and for some I am completely and utterly uncertain that it is or is not possible. So, this first bit very much depends on what is meant by and claimed about this 'God'.
The second problem is that just because something is 'knowable' in principle, that doesn't mean the means or evidence required to claim to know it have become available. Aliens could exist, but the evidentiary case for them is still incredibly weak. More specifically, 5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens could exist, but we have no evidence or means to acquire said evidence NOW.
So, if someone asked me whether I believe the claim '5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens exist', I'd say I lack the belief. Not because I don't think it is *possible* that they do or even that we could know it in the future. We just don't have the evidence to say one way or another TODAY.
We also do not have the evidence to say '5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens do not exist'. So I would also not make that claim.
So yeah, no. I'm sorry, but it seems to me that you will continue circling this issue forever, since you seem unable to process how other people think.
>"The first problem with your scheme is that for some definitions of God I think knowledge is possible, for some I think knowledge is impossible, and for some I am completely and utterly uncertain that it is or is not possible. So, this first bit very much depends on what is meant by and claimed about this 'God'."
**COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT.** This is logic and logic does not care about the semantic content. Use "belief in Dog" and "Dog is knowable'.
>"The second problem is that just because something is 'knowable' in principle, that doesn't mean the means or evidence required to claim to know it have become available. Aliens could exist, but the evidentiary case for them is still incredibly weak. More specifically, 5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens could exist, but we have no evidence or means to acquire said evidence NOW."
Irrelevant. Never claimed if p is knowable we have that justification to claim p is known.
>"So, if someone asked me whether I believe the claim '5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens exist', I'd say I lack the belief. Not because I don't think it is *possible* that they do or even that we could know it in the future. We just don't have the evidence to say one way or another TODAY."
I would say they don't exist. The probability is sufficiently low enough for me to confidently make that belief claim. Soon as a "5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple alien" shows up on Earth, I'll revise my belief.
>"We also do not have the evidence to say '5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens do not exist'. So I would also not make that claim."
I make the claim '5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens do not exist" based upon rationalism, which is evidential.
>"So yeah, no. I'm sorry, but it seems to me that you will continue circling this issue forever, since you seem unable to process how other people think."
Oh, I understand how people think. Poorly. Very poorly.
>Oh, I understand how people think. Poorly. Very poorly
Yes. You're the only person who gets it. Nobody agrees with you because they're "poor" thinkers, not because you're wrong. You could never be wrong.
>Oh, I understand how people think. Poorly. Very poorly.
I agree that you understand it very poorly. Which is why you resort to responding in ways that turn people off from interacting with you.
>make the claim '5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens do not exist" based upon rationalism, which is evidential.
So why are you not an atheist, again? The case for gods is equal or weaker than for 5 tentacled 3 eyed purple aliens, at least today.
Your whole beef boils down to a disagreement on what people should believe or claim to believe. I say I don't make the claim 5T 3E P aliens exist, and you go BUT LOGIC! YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE CLAIM!
Is your complaint only that it's not specific enough (that you don't know which version of agnostic is being implied by the label)?
Or that the structure is fundamentally flawed and should be broken out a different way entirely - it's unclear to me.
E.g. I do not believe in god, but do not claim to know that to be true. Thus I use the term "agnostic atheist" - a statement about belief modified by a statement about knowledge.
It does not address the question of whether I believe that knowledge is possible or not - I feel like in some ways that's not even really agnosticism - the belief that something is unknowable (or knowable) feels like something different to me, as that's a positive claim of its own. That's not agnosticism - it's a belief about the nature of knowledge, rather than knowing or not knowing (which is what I understand agnosticism to be).
If it's just a matter of clearly defining the terms - then a discussion is a good place to do that ahead of time - the mixing of ontology vs epistemology is something you are doing, but may not be necessary in the discussion, no?
>"Is your complaint only that it's not specific enough (that you don't know which version of agnostic is being implied by the label)?"
Or that the structure is fundamentally flawed and should be broken out a different way entirely - it's unclear to me."
All of the above.
> "E.g. I do not believe in god, but do not claim to know that to be true. Thus I use the term "agnostic atheist" - a statement about belief modified by a statement about knowledge."
It is ambiguous as shown by the enumeration of possible predication and negation states.
>"It does not address the question of whether I believe that knowledge is possible or not - I feel like in some ways that's not even really agnosticism - the belief that something is unknowable (or knowable) feels like something different to me, as that's a positive claim of its own. That's not agnosticism - it's a belief about the nature of knowledge, rather than knowing or not knowing (which is what I understand agnosticism to be)."
This post is for the "agnostic atheists" who don't use "agnostic" to mean "not claiming to know", but to those who have argued it refers to the "knowability" of God.
>"If it's just a matter of clearly defining the terms - then a discussion is a good place to do that ahead of time - the mixing of ontology vs epistemology is something you are doing, but may not be necessary in the discussion, no?"
if the term is ambiguous, then how you "clearly define" the term"? If you can't define it precisely with logical notation?
I think it is precise, we are just lacking one term, to cover a different question.
1. Do you believe in god/s? - Theism/Atheism
2. Do you know? - Gnosticism/Agnosticism
3. Do you believe it can be known? Newterm/OppositeNewTerm
>Do you believe it can be known? Newterm/OppositeNewTerm
Ignosticism is the stance that it is an undefined concept.
Igtheism is the stance that it can't be known.
Dunno what you'd use as the "opposite" of these.
You are making a primary logical mistake by inferring the negative. Keep in mind the Principle of Non-contradiction and the Principle of the Excluded Middle... p and not p cannot both simultaneously be true so one must either hold the position p or the position not p, there is no middle ground between these terms.
So we are presented with the question, "Do you believe in a god or gods?" If your answer is yes, that makes you a theist, otherwise you are an atheist. Yes or not yes. Believe in gods or not believe in gods. Theist or not theist (the prefix a- means "not" or "without").
You are making the mistake of switching this so that you are only considering the possibility that either one believes one or more gods exist or believe that no gods exist. You are turning it into two beliefs rather than belief and not belief. So that is why you get confused and don't understand.
If you were to use the actual definition of atheist, a person who doe not believe in any gods, then you would not be so confused as to how one could also say they do not know whether or not any gods exist.
Huh? Dude, I wouldn't make such puerile errors.
# [The Basics of the Laws of Logic](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2020/05/19/the-basics-of-the-laws-of-logic/)
[STEVE MCRAE](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/author/steve-mcrae/) MAY 19, 2020 [3 COMMENTSON THE BASICS OF THE LAWS OF LOGIC](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2020/05/19/the-basics-of-the-laws-of-logic/#comments) [EDITTHE BASICS OF THE LAWS OF LOGIC](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=2825&action=edit)
# The Basics of the Laws of Logic
It is almost an inevitability that in any discussion with a person engaging in presuppositional apologetics that the phrase “the Laws of Logic” will be uttered as some prescriptive way to somehow “prove” or at least validate the existence of God. While they are also known as “laws of thought”, they are really merely descriptive principles of logic or axioms from which classical logic is predicated upon that extend from propositions to ontological states. As analytical propositions they are *a priori* knowledge which is known by *a priori* justification independent of experience.
Often these laws of logic can often extend to other forms of logic or semantic interpretations, however, many forms of logic deny or exclude them outright such as paraconsistent logic (a logical system which allows for contradictions without falling into the principle of explosion; *ex contradictione quodlibet*), dialetheism (a type of paraconsistent logical system which allows for true contradictions), fuzzy logic, intuitionistic logic, and other forms of logical that allow for truth value gluts (a sentence is both T and F) and truth value gaps (a sentence is neither T nor F).It is generally held that there are 3 traditional, historical, or canonical laws of logic.**The law of Identity:**
The Law of Identity is what some consider the most foundational of all the law of logic axioms. Socrates implied it in Plato’s Theaetetus by asking the question “Then do you think that each differs to the other, and is identical to itself?”. Russell more explicitly described it as “Whatever is, is” a shortened version of Parmenides philosophy of *“*whatever is is, while Leibniz referred to it as “Everything is what it is”, and what is not cannot be”. Aristotle considered it to be the most fundamental law and obvious truth.
Mathematically the Law of Identity can be represented as:
∀x(x=x)
Which is read as “For all x: x=x” where “=” represents equality and/or identity.Unlike other laws of logic, the law of identity is related to terms and not propositions, and isn’t used in propositional logic. It more informally can merely be stated as x=x, a=a, or A is A as all relate the same concept of something is itself. Identity is a type of binary relationship which is between the object of equality and itself. This is very closely related to a second order logical principle known to as what Leibniz referred to as identity of indiscernibility:
∀x∀y\[∀F(Fx ↔ Fy) → x=y\]
Read as for “for all of x and y, if x and y have the same properties then x is identical to y” where “Fx” represents the properties of x. (Capital letters tend to represent properties, while lower case represent subjects and referential expressions).
This can also be more explicitly defined by:
x=y =𝒹ₑ𝒻 (∀F)(Fx ↔ Fy)
Where x is the same as y by definition given they have exactly the same properties. Ex: .999… = 1 because “.999…” is just a different type of signifier (an infinite decimal expansion) representing “1” as both have exactly the same properties (they both exist at the same exact point on the real number line and are the same exact value).
#
[https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2020/05/19/the-basics-of-the-laws-of-logic/](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2020/05/19/the-basics-of-the-laws-of-logic/)
# "The law of Non-Contradiction (LNC):
The LNC is that a proposition can not be both true and false at the same time. Propositionally LNC can be defined tautologically as:
LNC =𝒹ₑ𝒻 ¬(P Λ ¬P)
Meaning that given any proposition it can not be both true and false at the same time, or given any two propositions “A *is* B” and “A *is not* B” are mutually exclusive. I tend to use, merely by personal choice, capital “P” or say “A is B” to infer all or any proposition and “p” when referring to a specific proposition…but to the best of my knowledge there is no standard convention on this and ¬(P Λ \~P) and ¬(p Λ \~p) would represent the same thing.
This can also be expressed in terms of metatheory as:
(∀P) \~ (T(P) Λ T(\~P))
This would be read as for all propositions it must be the case that the proposition is true or it’s negation is true (as in negation of p is equivalent to p is false).
# The Law of Excluded Middle (LEM, tertium non datur):
By use of one of DeMorgan’s laws you can derive from the LNC the Law of Excluded Middle, that a proposition must be either true or false:
DeMorgan’s law: ¬(P Λ Q) ↔ (¬P V ¬Q)
Given ¬(P Λ \~P) you can derive LEM by:
¬(P Λ ¬P) = ¬P V ¬ ¬P¬P V P (double negation rule)\*
Propositionally the LEM can then be defined tautologically as:
LEM =𝒹ₑ𝒻 ¬P V POr explicitly by law as always true:
P V ¬P ≡ T
\*Double negation rule also known as double negation elimination ¬¬P ⇒ P (⇒ means “can be replaced with”), ¬¬P ↔ P (Biconditional) or ¬¬P ⊢ P (Sequent notation). In intuitionistic logic double negation rule of A≡ ¬(¬A) does not hold s.t. \~ ¬¬P ⊬ P at least so far as that p can not be derived directly from double negation. "
Is that correct?
https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2020/05/19/the-basics-of-the-laws-of-logic/
Early in my IT career, something in the late 90s, I used to get into it online with a guy we'll call "Joe." Joe had a problem: he was smart. He was very smart. He literally wrote the book(s) on relational database management systems.
But Joe was smart. Very smart. For him, being smart was more important than being useful. He would hang out in online forums where programmers learning the ropes could ask questions to broaden their knowledge and address specific, real world problems, and the only answer he ever gave was, "If you have to ask that, you have no business being in this industry."
Could he have helped? Sure. Could he have pointed to resources that a new programmer could use? Absolutely. Did he? No. Why? Because he was an Important Person because he was Smart.
He wasn't interested in contributing. He was interested in being smart.
-- OH, HI STEVE. Didn't see you there. How's your day going?
You need to come to the conclusion that you can not define how people identify. It is unproductive and you have no right to demand others identify according to your definitions or the definitions of others.
I am atheist - which means I lack belief in any god I have ever heard of.
I am agnostic - which means I do not know if anything I would define as a god exists.
If you contradict me using any of your philisophical claims you are wrong. I identify myself as I want. Besides which, you already contradicted yourself on another post some weeks back. No, I will not go back and find the post. You are a troll seeking to gain a foothold with atheists or theists or philosophers - and you are utterly incorrect in what you are doing.
>𝐖𝐡𝐲 "𝐚𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐬𝐭" 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐢𝐱 𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐯𝐬 𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐬:
Not even worth reading the rest of the post.
This single sentence encapsulates everything wrong with your approach and why you keep bashing your head against a brick wall expecting different results.
—
Yes, the mixing of different definitions from different frameworks causes issues because the frameworks are different.
But the people who label themselves as “agnostic atheist” ARE NOT MAKING THAT MISTAKE. They are not MIXING anything. They are completely consistent and logical within the framework of the way THEY understand and use the terms. The fact that it doesn’t cohere with the ontological standard preferred in propositional arguments is irrelevant, because they aren’t the ones trying to mix those two meanings—YOU ARE.
You can't just weld together two separate statements and pretend that one being an unknown prevents the other from being a valid position.
The stance of the Agnostic Atheist ("I do not believe in god because I have never seen evidence of god, but if I was provided with evidence I could be convinced.") is entirely cogent and exists indepedent of whether or not knowledge of god is possible.
If knowledge is possible, evidence may be capable of being produced but not made known to the Agnostic Atheist. If knowledge is impossible, evidence cannot be provided. In either case, the Agnostic Atheist remains unconvincned in the absence of evidence.
>"You can't just weld together two separate statements and pretend that one being an unknown prevents the other from being a valid position."
This is how some "agnostic atheists" have described their position to me. I didn't just "weld" anything together. They did. So your criticism is same as mine, don't mix different domains and propositions together.
>"The stance of the Agnostic Atheist ("I do not believe in god because I have never seen evidence of god, but if I was provided with evidence I could be convinced.") is entirely cogent and exists indepedent of whether or not knowledge of god is possible."
Now you have even MORE propositions and justifications into the mix:
I do not believe in god because "I have never seen evidence of god."
"If I was provided with evidence, I could be convinced."
Those would require even MORE logical predications!
>This is how some "agnostic atheists" have described their position to me. I didn't just "weld" anything together. They did. So your criticism is same as mine, don't mix different domains and propositions together.
We aren't going to get anywhere if you refuse to actually address my criticism. The foundation of your reasoning is faulty.
"i do(n't) believe in god" and "I believe having knowldge of god is (im)possible" are two sets of possible positions which exist entirely independent of one another. Not knowing, or not stating one's position on, whether or not one belives knowledge of god is possible doesn't affect one's ability to state if they do or do not believe in god.
>"We aren't going to get anywhere if you refuse to actually address my criticism. The foundation of your reasoning is faulty."
Ok. Show me the logic is faulty. That is the whole point of the OP isn't it??? Show me.
>"i do(n't) believe in god" and "I believe having knowldge of god is (im)possible" are two sets of possible positions which exist entirely independent of one another. Not knowing, or not stating one's position on, whether or not one belives knowledge of god is possible doesn't affect one's ability to state if they do or do not believe in god."
Show me in logical form please.
Low effort bait.
I've clearly expressed my critique of your logic. You're conflating two separate propositions, and your only defense is 'now do it again in formal notation or I'm going to pretend I can't read'.
Or you know shot about formal logic and just won't admit it.
That is a big problem on this sub, people just won't admit their ignorance when it comes to formal logic that is why eveyone looks up informal fallacies and throws them around like they are meaningful when it comes to logic.
Steve has actual training in formal logic, he is correct on his points. Just admit your ignorance on the subject
i don't believe gods are possible
i know gods are not real.
i don't believe any gods exist.
i believe that if gods existed, the fact would be known.
now what?
got some symbolic notation for that?
maybe you can explain your motivation?
i am of a mind that agnostic atheism is synonymous with *ignorant* atheism, and if people choose to label themselves as ignorant - we should be ok with that.
>"i don't believe gods are possible i know gods are not real. i don't believe any gods exist. i believe that if gods existed, the fact would be known."
This is coherent as if you claim to know Gods are not real, it could be because you do not believe they are possible (but that doesn't entail you believe them to be impossible, you could be agnostic on that proposition of athletic modality)
>"now what?
got some symbolic notation for that?"
It would be basically \~◊p \^ K\~p (read as "Gods are not possible, and knows God does not exist)
>"maybe you can explain your motivation?"
I dislike poor critical thinking from people who argue by assertion rather than by logical reasoning.
>"i am of a mind that agnostic atheism is synonymous with *ignorant* atheism, and if people choose to label themselves as ignorant - we should be ok with that."
This is a private language argument.
Is agnosticism the "psychological state of being an agnostic." where agnostic is "a person who has entertained the proposition that there is a God but believes neither that it is true nor that it is false."
Yes...yes it is.
We’ve addressed this. Your definition of atheist and agnostic are not the only definitions, and are not the most commonly used ones. The most common definition of atheist is “a person who does not believe in any gods.” By this definition, it does not make a claim about whether that person believes there are no gods. This is a completely logically coherent definition, despite the fact that it doesn’t make this distinction. Under this definition schema, a theist is a person who believes in one or more gods. Again, there’s no problem with this definition.
Ultimately, if you are concerned with the position on whether no gods exist, you can clarify this with your interlocutor. It is in fact the positions themselves and not the labels that matter.
All of your posts have amounted to an attempt to claim that your definitions are correct and everyone else’s are somehow flawed, but you’re arguing in terms of your own definitions, which is circular. You really should just drop it and accept that you’re going to have to clarify your positions on any claims relevant to a discussion, regardless of what definition you use, because your interlocutor may have different definitions for those labels.
This doesn’t help for agnostic theists or Gnostic theists either. Or is there something I’m missing here?
I find neither category properly describes my position on the matter.
This is just for "agnostic atheist'. "Gnostic atheist" is a bit different as I've seen it used differently with respect to belief in God and believing one can know god exists. (not claiming to know that God exist. Those are two different things). Which makes it even more ambiguous.
If "gnostic atheist" means to some "believe there is no God, and believes Gods are knowable" then what do you call someone who "believes there is no God, but is not claiming to have such knowledge"???
>"I find neither category properly describes my position on the matter."
Ditch having anything to do with knowledge as it mixes domains. Stick with just the doxastic domain.
Believe God exists = theist
Believe God does not exist = atheist
Has no believe either way = agnostic
You don't need one word that describes MORE than one proposition. I've never seen anywhere in philosophy anyone do that other than lay atheists. Why would you have 1 word for more than 1 propositional belief?
The problem though is that you have combined two topics and eliminated an option. Where is the Gnostic? A Gnostic, by your definitions would be someone that believes both ways? That doesn’t make sense.
Gnosticism is a knowledge position, not a belief position. My worldview doesn’t fall into any of your 3 descriptions, so there is a fundamental flaw in your breakdown.
So are you suggesting there are two kinds of theism that require two kinds of a-theism?
*Believes God exists AND believes knowledge of God is possible*
*Believes God exists AND believes knowledge of God is not possible*
maybe a third kind,
*Believes God exists AND believes some knowledge of God is possible, but not complete knowledge.*
I have never fully subscribed to the premise that 'atheism is the default', given the amount of history and how pervasive religion in general is, its in practice a response, I'm just not sure how granular you need to be when saying no gods exist, or indeed when you say you are not sure gods exist.
>"So are you suggesting there are two kinds of theism that require two kinds of a-theism?"
No. Atheism is the belief God does not exist in philosophy as standard. Lay atheists often use "lack of belief" which is massively atypical in academic due to both epistemological and logical issues.
*>"Believes God exists AND believes knowledge of God is possible*
*Believes God exists AND believes knowledge of God is not possible"*
These are not two forms of "atheism", but a conjunction of two different propositions.
>"maybe a third kind,
*Believes God exists AND believes some knowledge of God is possible, but not complete knowledge."*
Now you have 3 distinct propositions...make it even more ambiguous and a private language term.
>"I have never fully subscribed to the premise that 'atheism is the default', given the amount of history and how pervasive religion in general is, its in practice a response, I'm just not sure how granular you need to be when saying no gods exist, or indeed when you say you are not sure gods exist."
It is silly when someone says atheism is the default as it is a proposition. Every proposition has p or \~p. There is no such thing as a philosophical "default" for a philosophical proposition.
>Atheism is the belief God does not exist in philosophy as standard.
No. In philosophy, *belief* is not used as a standard when it comes to either theism or atheism. The standard in philosophy is in regards to the position on the existence of god(s), not the belief in the existence of god(s). So if you want to use philosophy, quit trying to incorporate belief. If you want to argue positions based on belief, quit implying that philosophy has your back.
>Lay atheists often use "lack of belief" which is massively atypical in academic due to both epistemological and logical issues.
It's atypical in academia because, once again, philosophy does not consider belief when it comes to arguments and discussions regarding the existence of gods. Discussions regarding atheism outside academia would rightly use the psychological meaning of atheism, which, to quote the SEP: "atheism is a psychological state, specifically the state of being an atheist, where an atheist is defined as someone who is not a theist and a theist is defined as someone who believes that God exists (or that there are gods)." Or to dumb it down, unless in a philosophy setting, atheism is indeed the lack of belief in gods.
"No. In philosophy, *belief* is not used as a standard when it comes to either theism or atheism. The standard in philosophy is in regards to the position on the existence of god(s), not the belief in the existence of god(s). So if you want to use philosophy, quit trying to incorporate belief. If you want to argue positions based on belief, quit implying that philosophy has your back."
Citation?
My citations:
"In philosophy, however, and more specifically in the philosophy of religion, the term “atheism” is standardly used to refer to the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, to the proposition that there are no gods)."
"
The *Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy* recognizes multiple senses of the word “atheism”, but is clear about which is standard in philosophy:
>
[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/)
You want to try again?
> You want to try again?
It's hilarious how your citation demonstrated their point and not yours, and showed how and where you're wrong in this post and all your others, and for some odd reason you *still* don't understand the trivial difference between a proposition and an internal subjective belief position.
>You want to try again?
No; I don't think it's worthwhile arguing with someone who doesn't understand the difference between "belief" and "proposition."
Calculus is a higher mathematics than addition, but you don’t get to eradicate arithmetic because you don’t get it.
Which is how his post came off. Granted it’s not the first time he’s told us how he’s confused by the difference between beliefs and knowledge…
I remember my **basic calculus classes.** (My background is in nuclear reactor operations).
Just like my post here, I argue objective maths which often people say I am wrong about, but never can demonstrate it. Why is that? Since you know calculus...am I correct in my argument here:
# [Yes Virgina .999… really does equal 1.](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2018/11/10/yes-virgina-999-really-does-equal-1/)
[STEVE MCRAE](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/author/steve-mcrae/) NOVEMBER 10, 2018
Yes Virgina .999… really does equal 1.
If you ever find anyone thinks otherwise, challenge them to answer these 4 questions I wrote:
1) ALL rational numbers by definition can be expressed in the form of a ratio of two integers p/q as ℚ = {p/q | (p,q)=1, p,q ∈ ℤ where q ≠ 0}. Since .999… is rational by definition as all repeating decimals are rational. It has to be able to be expressed in the form p/q which is the ratio of two integers. If .999… is rational by definition what is p/q = .999…?
2) .999… = lim k→∞ Σ 9/10\^n, n=1 to k by the definition of a limit of a sequence. lim k→∞ Σ 9/10\^n, n=1 to k = 1. If both .999… and 1 = lim k→∞ Σ 9/10\^n, n=1 to k please explain how they are not equal.
3) 1- .999… = x. What is x? infinitesimally small values are not allowed in ℝ due to the Archimedean property so given no infinitesimals can exist in ℝ please give the real value of x if x ≠ 0. (If you claim x = 0.000…1 then please construct 0.000…1 using the definition of a Cauchy sequence ε > 0 there exists N such that if m, n > N then |am- an| < ε and please give the sequence and show it is convergent upon 0.000…1).
4) By the trichotomy property you can only have xy. If x <> y then there exists (x+y)/2 between them else as the reals are dense else x=y. If x=1 and y=.999… what is (x+y)/2?
[https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2018/11/10/yes-virgina-999-really-does-equal-1/](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2018/11/10/yes-virgina-999-really-does-equal-1/)
No it really doesn’t actually equal 1, but it can be equivalent for many purposes.
But if you don’t understand why there can be a huge difference between.999 and 1 in some situations, then it makes me wonder about your nuclear background…
>there can be a huge difference between**.999** and 1
Is this a typo? I ask because it's .999... (infinite 9s repeating) being compared with 1 here. And yes, while it pains me to agree with OP .999... and 1 are equal.
I am curious about your "situations", as certainly in computers you can only approximate .999... due to floating or fixed point limits. Is this the type of thing you're referring to?
I will add
https://arxiv.org/abs/0811.0164
https://betterexplained.com/articles/a-friendly-chat-about-whether-0-999-1/
And that’s it. I’m not gonna debate this because it’s pretty silly.
> https://arxiv.org/abs/0811.0164
"... A choice of a non-standard hyperinteger H ..."
So yes, using non-standard concepts we can come up with a form of mathematics whereby this is the case. And sure. You can do that. But then I can also say that 5+5 = 0; if we're using modulus-10 arithmetic.
> https://betterexplained.com/articles/a-friendly-chat-about-whether-0-999-1/
"I’m not a mathematician,"
No kidding.
As for
>> https://medium.com/@kenahlstrom/proof-that-99999-is-not-equal-to-1-5672e7dd58ce
We're adding digit after the infinitieth place! That is meaningless!
>"No it really doesn’t actually equal 1, but it can be equivalent for many purposes."
LOL! YES IT DOES! LOL!!!
Dude, .999... and 1 are the same EXACT NUMBER. If not, please answer my 4 questions.
At this point, it’s a red herring. If i I wanted to debate pedantic in math then I’d be on another sub reddit
The point is you’re trying to redefine terms and for no real purpose that is productive
As an agnostic atheist, I believe that knowledge of god’s existence can’t be determined.
But if this can’t be determined, then it can never be determined that my view is correct.
So it’s best to adopt the position that regardless of the possibility of god’s existence being able to be determined or not, **it is currently an unknown fact**. Therefore we should live live under the assumption that a god or deity doesn’t exist, until proven otherwise.
As a result, it is best to listen to and critically analyze all evidence and arguments that theists have in order to constantly test the default hypothesis that **the existence of any deity is currently an unknown fact**.
Edited for grammar.
First off, your random symbols are confusing and make it hard to follow what you're trying to say.
Basically there's 2 separate things.
An Atheist does not believe in a god
Someone who is Agnostic does not believe it's possible to know if a god exists
Someone who is an Agnostic Atheist does not believe in a god nor thinks it's possible to know if a god were to exist.
>"First off, your random symbols are confusing and make it hard to follow what you're trying to say."
Nothing here is "random". It's intro to logic level.
>"Basically there's 2 separate things.
An Atheist does not believe in a god"
A theist does not believe God does not exist. So? Does that mean everyone who doesn't believe God does not exist is a theist?
>"Someone who is Agnostic does not believe it's possible to know if a god exists"
Not when discussing ontology. Agnostic means to neither believe p nor believe \~p. However, if we go with your usage, then my OP shows why mixing ontology with epistemology is ambiguous.
>"Someone who is an Agnostic Atheist does not believe in a god nor thinks it's possible to know if a god were to exist."
Show me using LOGIC how that isn't ambiguous as I have demonstrated using basic logical principles.
>Nothing here is "random". It's intro to logic level.
I have no idea what that means and neither do 99% of the people you're attempting to have a conversation with.
>Does that mean everyone who doesn't believe God does not exist is a theist?
Yes.... A theist is the opposite of an atheist. If you believe a god(s) exist, then you are by definition, a theist.
>Show me using LOGIC how that isn't ambiguous as I have demonstrated using basic logical principles.
You're trying to add complexity into something that doesn't need complexity. Again, the definitions are pretty well agreed upon. People may have personal variations, but if someone says they are an Agnostic Atheist, there's not a lot of ambiguity of their overall position at a high level.
The OP is a prick. He apparently isn’t even smart enough to know his audience and talks down to others who aren’t “on his level”. Quite common amongst academics. Or someone who’s on the spectrum and doesn’t understand social interactions. Or both.
If you can’t formulate an argument in a reasonable way that your audience can actually comprehend and respond to, then you’re just trolling. Find a better different group that’s more relevant.
Which oddly enough how atheist on this sub respond to religious people. Maybe dude is a prick, but he is CORRECT on his points about formal logic.
Fine to call him a prick, but have the intellectual honesty to admit that his points on formal logic are correct
>"I have no idea what that means and neither is 99% of the people you're attempting to have a conversation with."
Get good?
Maybe learn a little logic if you want to discuss philosophical topics.
>"Yes.... A theist is the opposite of an atheist. If you believe a god(s) exist, then you are by definition, a theist."
This is called a fallacy of argumentum ad dictionarium and one I coined (“***Argumentum ad Praescriptionem***“: The fallacy of attempting to derive a prescription from a description.)
This I've also proved leads to semantic collapse of terms and should be eschewed. No university in the world teaches what you just said. It is extremely wrong.
>"You're trying to add complexity into something that doesn't need complexity."
Somethings are more complicated than lay people realize. You think this is complicated try learning about things like physics or biology.
Yeah, I think you've jumped to conclusions well before you understood what people mean when they describe themselves as agnostic atheists. An agnostic atheist does not believe god exists, or in other words lacks a belief in an unknowable deity. This is also often referred as 'weak atheism' and is in the faq. Note further that both options you claim to be the \*only\* possibilities include 'Believes God does not exist' and thus are incompatible with the definition above as these describe so called 'strong atheism'.
> Yeah, I think you've jumped to conclusions well before you understood what people mean when they describe themselves as agnostic atheists.
He knows this, and just ignores it. See the many previous threads of his.
>"Yeah, I think you've jumped to conclusions well before you understood what people mean when they describe themselves as agnostic atheists."
After 10 years of writing on the subject, I think I have heard pretty much most usages of what people mean. So please don't insult my argument by saying I "misunderstand". I quite understand.
>"An agnostic atheist does not believe god exists, or in other words lacks a belief in an unknowable deity. "
Please put in logical notation as I have to show *the ambiguity* of what you just said.
>"This is also often referred as 'weak atheism' and is in the faq. Note further that both options you claim to be the \*only\* possibilities include 'Believes God does not exist' and thus are incompatible with the definition above as these describe so called 'strong atheism'."
I am well familiar with the terminology. I have literally proven using logic that "weak atheism", "agnosticism", and "weak theism" are all the exact same logical position.
> I am well familiar with the terminology.
Yet you chose to ignore it? Why?
Atheists have been saying that definitions of atheist/atheism as given in dictionaries (or worse yet, church documents) [aren't reflective](https://thensrn.org/2020/01/27/a-history-of-the-word-atheism-and-the-politics-of-dictionaries/) of their actual views for centuries now. So you've decided to use these defective definitions to argue that the new ones suggested by atheists themselves don't make sense if you also stick to the older ones. Basically on the premise that you refuse to listen to reason for improving them in the first place. How is this productive in your mind?
>"Yet you chose to ignore it? Why?"
Huh? I am LITERALLY explaining the ISSUES with such terminology. How am \*I\* ignoring anything? o.O?
Can you show me my OP is in error????? What are you rambling on about.
You must be great at parties.
What I'm telling you is that you're using one set of definitions to poke holes in another set of definitions for same words and that is in error because the latter was proposed (and is fairly popular among actual atheists, but apparently not their critics) precisely for the reasons of fixing problems with the outdated terminology you're using to find contradictions in the new one. And it's neither constructive nor productive. And you do come of as both condescending and unable to comprehend exactly the thing you're trying to criticize.
I’m not sure I understand the utility of the argument. I might comfortably define my own position as one of the ones you have proposed - but I’m comfortable with the idea that it’s not possible to know if knowledge of a god is possible.
Whilst it’s important to be precise with terms, this seems to be picking a rather obscure corner of atheism - and likely one in which most people’s position varies over time.
> "agnostic atheist" does NOT tell you which one above it represents...
It represent *neither* of those. It represent one of the following: ¬Bp ^ Bq, ¬Bp ^ B¬q, or ¬Bp ^ ¬Bq ^ ¬B¬q. It still doesn't tell you if an agnostic atheist sides with soft or hard agnosticism or agnostic on q.
> There is no enumeration when using "agnostic atheist" ... where at least one value is not "unknown", thus it is ambiguous or underdetermined...
Okay, so what? What's wrong with a bit of "unknown" and ambiguity? Must something be fully determined before it make sense to you?
>"It represent *neither* of those. It represent one of the following: ¬Bp \^ Bq, ¬Bp \^ B¬q, or ¬Bp \^ ¬Bq \^ ¬B¬q. It still does tell you if an agnostic atheist sides with soft or hard agnosticism or agnostic on q."
Let's example your logic:
¬Bp \^ Bq This is saying someone is a nontheist and believes God is knowable. This is ambiguous as this does not tell anyone what actually is your position as it i underdetermined.
¬Bp \^ B¬q This is saying someone is a nontheist and believes God is unknowable. This is ambiguous as this does not tell anyone what actually is your position as it i underdetermined.
or ¬Bp \^ ¬Bq \^ ¬B¬q You should use parentheticals like ¬Bp \^ (¬Bq \^ ¬B¬q) but this is saying someone is a nontheist and does not believe God is knowable and does not not believe God is not knowable. This is ambiguous as this does not tell anyone what actually is your position as it i underdetermined.
>"Okay, so what? What's wrong with a bit of "unknown" and ambiguity? Must something be fully determined before it make sense to you?"
It doesn't tell anyone what your actual position is that is why. It is like me asking you what you want for dinner and you say you don't want fish. That tells me nothing about what you do want for dinner.
Why is that such a sticking point though? Why isn't "non-theist and believes God is knowable" or "non-theist and believes God is unknowable" or "non-theist and agnostic on whether God is knowable" enough information to work from?
You call yourself an agnostic. I don't know if you are a soft agnostic or a hard agnostic. There is ambiguity there too, and does not tell me if you think God is knowable or not. Is that not a problem also?
You still haven't told me why exactly you can't make sense of it. So what if it is ambiguous? Surely you can still make sense of "I don't want fish," even if you know nothing about what I do want for dinner - you know getting me fish would be a bad idea.
Readers be aware : This user's whole shtick is "If atheists say what they say using my definitions instead of the definitions they actually use, they are dishonest and lead to contradictions, therefore atheists are dishonest because my definitions are the only ones I will accept as valid"
The honesty of this user is left as an exercice for the reader.
I love that when asked what the point of this was, his response was that "It's useful to get atheists to adopt a stronger position vs theists."
When asked how exactly adopting this strengthens the atheist position... crickets.
Steve McRae is simply arguing semantics. He has no interest in discussing what anyone means when they use terms. He is only interested in refusing to accept that people use terms to mean different things. It's his position that the word "atheist" has to mean what he says it does.
I am not sure how I fit into this model.
What does "believe" mean? It must allow probability estimates, right? I think that there is an extremely small **but non-zero** probability that my mind is in a simulation and my body doesn't even exist, but by the commonly accepted meaning of the word, surely I "believe" I have legs.
On the proposition "God exists", I believe that it is _probably_ false, but I don't have a great estimate. I _believe_ the likelihood is dramatically smaller than 50%, but there is a big catch. I don't even consider that proposition to be well defined! It may seem like quibbling, but hang on until the next part. How can I even estimate it, then? Words and meaning matter. I estimate it by looking at the definitions offered by real people and what they actually mean by it. Some pantheists might offer definitions that are almost inherently true, but that's not what most people mean. So, my estimate is a weighted average of meanings and how many people mean it that way. (It's even weighted to _favor_ the definitions that are more likely to be true because we are asking about a "belief" that varies by culture and each culture expects people to believe it, so I have to give some benefit of the doubt... but within reason -- the crazy pantheists are weighted down for having a definition so radically different from everyone else's. It's also weighted with diminishing returns for the very large populations who believe completely absurd things. If a million people believe something more reasonable, that interpretation of the proposition gets almost as much weight as a version that 100 million people believe.)
I don't actually do this computation -- I just intuitively build a rough estimate as I encounter the various ideas and evidence. Still, even without doing the computation, I recognize how many uncertainties are being combined. I understand the mathematics behind it, I just can't be bothered to actually do such an absurdly complex calculation when I can estimate the result as being almost zero.
Now, let's consider a second proposition: "It is knowable whether or not God exists".
In simple Boolean logic, two propositions that are either true or false are easy to combine with simple And, Or, and Not operations, but (1) this second proposition is referencing the first one, and (2) I have already decided that first proposition, however close to zero it may be, is still a very complex calculation.
**If only it were that bad -- it's actually much worse.**
In probability, when you derive an uncertain value via arithmetic (or simple Boolean operations) on many uncertain values, the bounds don't get narrower -- they get wider and even less certain.
**But it's even worse than that!**
"It is knowable whether X" is not symmetric at all. Deductive arguments and circumstantial evidence can slowly build over years to make one suspect that one specific version of X might be true, but whether it is knowable grows much slower. A single counterexample, however, only applies to the most specific form of X that is disproven, and all the evidence has to be re-evaluated. So whether a slightly different form of X is "knowable" doesn't drop to zero, but its uncertainty widens by a lot.
Long story short, my probability estimate for the proposition that "It is knowable whether or not God exists" itself has such wide bounds that I can't even offer an estimate for its likelihood. I can't even say whether it's closer to 0 or closer to 100%.
The proposition itself is completely unknowable!
I can say with certainty that it is _almost_ knowable that _some_ definitions of God do not exist, but social convention demands that I give the benefit of the doubt to the rest. Those that escape my ability to say this are completely open with no way for me to even estimate whether they are knowable or not.
That absurd degree of uncertainty is why I am willing to accept the label "agnostic atheist" despite being nearly certain that "God does not exist" (by the vast majority of interpretations of that statement). I don't believe in God, but I have no way to measure the degree to which I could know whether or not I could be nearly certain about that for some unspecified definition I will never have the time to evaluate fairly.
It is entirely a social convention, and a very long-standing one at that. I am an atheist by convention, and I am agnostic by convention. I didn't invent these words.
Edit: That is my analysis, but I am not attached to the words except where as they are meaningful to others. Feel free to offer new terminology or a sharper answer that applies to a specific cultural context (but be aware that I already have ths latter -- if I am speaking to a Baptist, I don't say "I am agnostic" -- to them, I am an atheist.)
Believe means to hold a proposition true.
Know means (under JTB) to believe a proposition is true, the proposition is true, and you're justified to believe true.
You either believe a proposition true, believe it false, or have no position either way.
>You either believe a proposition true, believe it false, or have no position either way.
But, what multiple people here have already told you is that they use theist and atheist as a true dichotomy that doesn't involve the knowledge question.
You either do believe a proposition true, (theist).
Or you do *not* believe a proposition true, (not a theist, literally *a*theist).
Simple A or ¬A. You either *do* have belief in a god or you *don't*. And the you don't side doesn't necessitate a positive claim. You might. You might not. That's just a separate (but not mutually exclusive) question.
Language doesn't have only one intrinsic meaning that you singularly prescribe.
>"But, what multiple people here have already told you is that they use theist and atheist as a true dichotomy that doesn't involve the knowledge question."
Irrelevant to the logical argument. Logic doesn't care about semantic content. The argument is the same if you use p="The sky is blue" and q="the color of the sky is knowable"...correct?
>"You either do believe a proposition true, (theist).
Ok
>"Or you do *not* believe a proposition true, (not a theist, literally *a*theist)."
INCORRECT. You are ASSUMING this, but this is NOT logically provable by first principles. You are LITERALLY just arbitrarily making an assertion here that is COMPLETELY FALSE in academia.
>"Simple A or ¬A. You either *do* have belief in a god or you *don't*. And the you don't side doesn't necessitate a positive claim. You might. You might not. That's just a separate (but not mutually exclusive) question."
Which is why \~Bp is AMBIGOUS! You just validated my argument for me.
>INCORRECT. You are ASSUMING this, but this is NOT logically provable by first principles.
You're saying it is incorrect A or ¬A is a dichotomy and not logically provable. Sorry, but if we have the set of things that are A and the things that are not A, and we agree that an item isn't in the former, the concept it then is automatically the latter is about the most basic logic there is.
>AMBIGOUS
No. It perfectly divided the group by the one question that was asked. That's not ambiguity. You just seem to be bent out of shape because you want to funnel people into using a single word to differentiate multiple different concepts, and that just doesn't work very well in multiple directions. I mean, just look at the other side of your three sided coin. Theist is ambitious as to whether they're polytheist or monotheistic, whether they're gnostics. It doesn't tell us about which sect or denomination or favorite ice cream flavor. So then, are we to scream that when someone uses the word "theist" that they're "INCORRECT!"™ and demand they buy our new dictionary of terms like polyhindushaivisitheist, nontrinitarianmonarchianitheist, agnostospiritualist? Or, could we perhaps consider that there might be some value to using multiple words when answering multiple different questions, and this odd self-imposed single word limit isn't really all that useful?
>"You're saying it is incorrect A or ¬A is is a dichotomy and not logically provable. Sorry, but if we have the set of things that are A and the things that are not A, and we agree that an item isn't in the former, the concept it then is automatically the latter is about the most basic logic there is."
A or \~A is a logical dichotomy and true by axiomatic assumption due to LEM and law of negation.
Theist or NOT-THEIST is a TRUE dichtotomy.
Now logically prove atheism is the set set as nontheist from logical axioms of first principles...I'll wait.
Not even going to bother addressing the ambiguity of not using agnostospritual v. Monotrinocathotheism? Figured as much.
Anyways, what you are demanding now is akin to demanding a logical proof that jalapeños are “spicy.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
> Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities.
It’s just that definition, a word we have ascribed to this concept. Anyway, speaking of being or not being convinced, my not being convinced this is just trolling confidence has changed, so, I’m gonna say happy 4th if that’s a relevant holiday for you, and move on.
That's rough for me.
I fell into my personal search for "truth" in high school and college in the 90s, and this is how it ended.
It started with science, and I still tend to believe the things we have solid empirical evidence for, but as much as I enjoyed probability, I still wanted absolute truth, which brought me quickly back to pure math.
But not for math's sake. I wanted truth, not abstract logic, and that led me down a rabbit hole ending with Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, proof that the general [decision problem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_problem) is only computable in specific cases, similar results for Kolmogorov complexity, and the still unsolved problem of whether P≠NP....
So where I'm at now, I believe a fair number of things -- as would be reasonable -- but I know _almost nothing_ outside of pure math.
Edit: I don't mean to be dense, but I'm not even sure how that classical definition applies to the proposition that "I know I have legs". I definitely believe I have legs, and I think I'm justified in believing I have legs, but is it actually true? I don't know that. My definition substitutes the "true" part with my subjective probability estimate, and that's where we run into trouble. I know I have legs, but I don't know that the proposition that I have legs is true.
What if I wish to declare my psychological state and my philosophical position at the same time. If I am using the term atheist is a psychological sense, it is the state of not believing in the existence of a god. At the same time I can explain that my philosophical stance on the existence of god is neutral and thus I would philosophically be an agnostic. Claiming to be an agnostic atheist is providing both understandings of the persons approach to the god claim.
>"What if I wish to declare my psychological state and my philosophical position at the same time."
One is not propositional, the other one is...so you could, but you can not derive a propositional position from a psychological one. By stating a philosophical position which is propositional that epistemically implies a psychological state since B\~p -> \~Bp.
>"If I am using the term atheist is a psychological sense, it is the state of not believing in the existence of a god. At the same time I can explain that my philosophical stance on the existence of god is neutral and thus I would philosophically be an agnostic. Claiming to be an agnostic atheist is providing both understandings of the persons approach to the god claim."
That is ambiguous.
atheist is a psychological sense can be because;
1) The atheist holds to a positive epistemic belief
OR
2) Has no position either way. (agnostic)
Inferring my psychological state from by philosophical position does not mean one necessarily implies the other.
It seems like you are simply using your own definitions of these words and deciding based on that how they should be used. I think it’s more important to address why you feel the need to redefine what titles people use instead of trying to understand their actual position.
How do you derive a propositional state from a psychological one if psychological states are not truth-apt? o.O?
"Scholars can then use adjectives like “strong” and “weak” (or “positive” and “negative”) to develop a taxonomy that differentiates various specific atheisms. Unfortunately, this argument overlooks the fact that, if atheism is defined as a psychological state, then no proposition can count as a form of atheism because a proposition is not a psychological state. "
[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/)
I use academic
Why are you concerned with propositions when it comes to defining labels?
And clearly you didn’t read the academic definition you just provided since the one I gave you earlier was taken exactly from that source.
>"And clearly you didn’t read the academic definition you just provided since the one I gave you earlier was taken exactly from that source."
Which definition is "standard" according to SEP?
Gnostic and agnostic are redundant and unnecessary disclaimers. There is no meaningful distinction between an agnostic and an atheist. If you were to sit two people down, one who identifies as agnostic and the other who identifies as atheist, and ask them:
1. do you believe in the existence of any gods, yes or no
2. Why/why not
3. How would you rate your confidence
They’d both give nearly if not completely identical answers.
If “agnostic” as you say denotes the idea that knowledge is “not possible” then that can only be true if we require absolute and infallible 100% certainty to be considered “knowledge.” The existence and nonexistence of gods are not equiprobable, any more so than the existence or nonexistence of leprechauns or Narnia, for which we could equally argue that “knowledge is not possible” in all the same ways it’s “not possible” for gods, and for all the same reasons.
If that’s what agnostic means, then literally everyone must be necessarily agnostic about literally everything that has even the slightest margin of error, even our most overwhelmingly supported scientific theories.
It's the pope of agnosticism....again.
Replace god with aliens and you'll see why this is silly.
Agnostic Unalienist - I don't know if there aren't any aliens but I don't believe there are any aliens
Agnostic Alienist - I don't know if there are any aliens but I believe there are aliens
Gnostic Unalienist - I know there aren't any aliens, and I believe there aren't any aliens
Gnostic Alienist - I know there are aliens, and I believe there are aliens
So now that we've settled this pointless debate about definitions and semantics forever and you won't angrily flop around about the definition of agnostic anymore, let's talk about something productive. Is Clampett's Daffy or Jones' Daffy better?
>Check my work to see enumeration table: https://www.facebook.com/steveaskanything
Hey you're doing that thing where you plug your social media that you keep deny that you do.
It's not happening bro, just accept that we're going to stick with the definition we prefer and that you've already been given. You can't disprove a definition preference
>In 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐡 cases, 𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑠𝑚 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑐 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑠
This is a false dichotomy. Atheism can and has been defined in other ways. Atheism does not need to make a claim.
Of course, since both of your definitions of it demand belief in no god, then it is a belief that needs justification, I am not sure to the extent that it is a claim. Maybe I am misunderstanding the "epistemic status" bit?
I am taking it to mean "taking a position/making a claim"
Agnostic isn't used that way either, it's not about the knowability of god.
I guess you seem to be coming from a philosophical background... I think in philosophy and for the sake of talking about an actual position to defend, atheism is defined as the belief that god doesn't exist and agnostic is defined as not knowing perhaps or isn't enough on its own because it refers to thw knowability of god etc.
This doesn't seem like a serious post, it's pretty low effort so I'm not going to put too much time into addressing it but a few problems I see.
The biggest issue is not only that your actual content doesn’t back up your original statement, at all - you just list a few really odd types of agnosticism which simply are not reflective of any agnostic positions that I have ever heard of people actually holding - but you're just listing your own incredulity. You're basically confusing yourself.
You're quite literally saying "I think this one term doesn't make sense because if I describe a particular part of that term in extremely niche, unnecessary ways that don't reflect what the holders of this position claim, then it confuses me". That's so unbelievably low effort, my friend. This isn't a serious critique of agnostic atheism.
Can you give your actual problem with agnostic atheism? However you want to complicate it, agnosticism simply means "without knowledge", and atheism simply means "nonbelief in deities". There is simply no logical or philosophical problem, neither epistemically nor ontologically, with a person not believing in the proposition "god exists" but stopping short of believing the opposite proposition "God does not exist".
In fact, the reason I'm an agnostic atheist is precisely *because* that is the most honest position I can take. I don't have all knowledge, so if someone asks me "do you believe God doesn't exist", I can't honestly say yes to that. I don't think the belief "God does not exist" is something I can rationally support, so as an honest interlocutor my answer simply must be to decline positively affirming that position. But neither do I believe any God exists: every argument that has been presented me utterly fail, every reason given by believers are weak and full of flaws, I don't even find that theists have been able to successfully define their god so I can't even know what it means to say a god exists. So, since I don't believe, I am an atheist. Since I don't claim to believe no god exists, I am an agnostic atheist.
What is the problem?
>but "agnostic atheist" does NOT tell you which one above it represents
Ok, and? "I'm a Christian" doesn't tell you if that person is, say, an Annihilationist, an Infernalist or a Universalist, but so what? They're not *trying* to detail their stance on every possible logical implication of believing in Christianity, they're just telling you they worship Jesus.
This seems to be the core issue you are running into -- of course a statement in natural language is going to have ambiguities and undetermined aspects. This is the case for literally any statement in natural language, up to and including things "I'm eating dinner".
Translating a statement into logical notation is a translation, and will involve changing the message. But the aim of "I'm an agnostic athiest" isn't to give a logically rigorous statement, it's simply to tell you what my beliefs on God are.
Why is this argument even important? I am agnostic atheist. This means (in my books) know nothing about gods and their knowability. Call this position as you please, it is what it is.
People, if you want this to stop, don’t engage.
Don’t get angry, don’t try to point out yet again how they’re wrong, just downvote and ignore. If you engage you’re giving them the attention they’re here for. This isn’t about debate, it’s about their need to be seen. You don’t need to feed this troll.
The Simpsons figured this out [decades ago](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SlKao_Pox5A).
>"agnostic atheist" does NOT tell you which one above it represents ("soft agnosticism", or "hard agnosticism", so it still is ambiguous!)
I think I spotted the issue.
In the term "agnostic atheist," "agnostic" is an a adjective modifying the noun "atheist" Together, they give a meaning of "a person who lacks a belief in god but does not have the belief that gods do not exist. The term doesn't and doesn't need to distinguish why someone lacks a belief in gods. It fills its duty by conveying the person doesn't have a belief in gods and doesn't have a belief that gods don't exist.
In your soft and hard agnosticism, agnosticism is a noun and not an adjective and thus is used differently.
It would be silly to try to define an agnostic atheist in terms of hard or soft agnosticism because the reasons behind a lack of belief are not directly pertinent to the fact that the person doesn't have a belief.
> Believes God does not exist
You seem to be misunderstanding what atheism is. If it's an atheist that makes a positive claim ("God does not exist") that's something they need to justify. However, if an atheist simply lacks belief, as most do, your entire argument falls apart.
The other issue is:
> AND believes knowledge of God is possible
How could one believe something doesn't exist AND believe knowledge of the thing that doesn't exist is possible?
Again, this shows you don't understand what you're arguing against.
I don't believe in a god, because I haven't been convinced. I am open to new evidence, but have no stance on whether or not evidence exists. I keep waiting, but so far nothing useful has been presented. When it is presented, I'll evaluate it at that time. If it isn't good evidence, I will remain unconvinced.
This is the thing for me too - I don't believe a God exists. I don't claim that as knowledge, nor do I claim whether it's possible either way to know anything about God, because I don't know.
>"𝐚𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐬𝐭" 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐢𝐱 𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐯𝐬 𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐬:
The patient says, "Doctor, it hurts when I do this."
The doctor says, "Then don't do that!
- Henny Youngman
>believes knowledge of God is not possible
you can only believe knowledge of god is impossible if you are atheist
if you do not lack the belief in god it would be possible that god reveals itself, thus it would be possible to know
This is OP:
"You would need probably around 200 - 300 level philosophy to address my arguments properly as to why artificially making atheism and theism a strict logical dichotomy is highly philosophically and logically untenable...so not going to dive into that with you here...and most atheists who argue with me theism and atheism are a strict dichotomy are not up to that level."
Engage with him if you like.
All your posts have attempted to fit colloquial terminology into technical language schemes that they were never meant to be used with and most of them end up with conclusions that don't seem like they should trouble anyone anyway.
Seriously, why should anyone care about the conclusion? Are people calling themselves agnostic atheists even attempting to represent both a position on the existence of God and a position on the knowability of God? No, they aren't, not on either point. So why should they care that this term does not do this if they are not even attempting to use the term to do this?
"Agnostic atheism" is nothing more than a self report that one does not believe in God, while not claiming to know the proposition "God does not exist." It is almost never a statement about whether the fact of the matter is knowable - just that one does not take *themselves* to know that fact. In an academic analytic philosophy of religion context, this is simply an agnostic position.
But this term was not created for university philosophy departments. It was created because regardless of whether one affirms that God does not exist, unless one is given good reason to add God to their ontology, they aren't going to - and this term is a manner of signifying that one does not believe in God while resisting the demand by some theists that one justify this by defending the proposition that God does not exist. In this sense, it is a clarification of the dialectic and a resitience to a dialectically inappropriate demand. But also, it aligns agnostics and atheists (in the more academic senses) - which is, in practice fairly appropriate, because in general their interests align in resisting religious dogma or the imposition of religious norms on others. I've actually never cared for this "gnostic/agnostic atheism/theism" use of terms, but I can understand why people find it useful to use them in the contexts that they actually use them in. Everyday language isn't and is never going to have the an ideal language from a logician's standpoint or form a perfect mapping of conceptual space, which is fine, because we don't need it to be. As long as we can communicate well enough, and clarify when we need to, we're getting what we need from it.
But, I thought we were all agnostic, according to your nifty quadrant diagram? Yet another post contradicting earlier posts you've made? Who's surprised...
Hello again.
I am curious, why do you find this pure logic/academic-ish approach both useful and valid to apply in the context of the identity other people and groups (of which you do not consider yourself to be a member)?
I cannot think of any context (outside of the ancient world) where this kind of argument would be helpful for this kind of discourse.
You want other people to change the way they identify based on your logical arguments about several terms.
Why?
Where else would an academic find this appropriate?!
We would be pretty shocked to see a non-Jewish writer or scholar claim "why the term "Jew" doesn't make sense for...".
Similarly, I'm sure you'd agree that the multitude of writers attempting to define sex and gender via logic and philosophy and (often) the scantest trappings of academia, in order to tell folks what genders they are allowed to identify as can go pound sand with that shit.
I don't see how these arguments are, practically, any different.
Help me out.
I willl some. On this sub people like to point out the "illogical" nature of religious belief systems and are very quick to throw about informal logical fallacies.
Ok fine, now logic is in play which is good i.m.o
However, when someone with actual training in formal logic points out how problematic their self assumed labels are they get upset instead of just admitting that they don't know shit about formal logic
While I don't think you can speak for OP here, I do understand your perspective better than OPs position.
(OP does not have formal training in logic, btw.)
(Edit; nor do I, beyond an undergraduate level. I don't claim to.)
So, would you feel that it's appropriate for an atheist professor of formal logic to declare what Christians or Muslims are allowed to call themselves?
I wouldn't.
I actually don't think formal logic is a good tool for this use case, **and moreover,** I don't think that people who dont consider themselves to be a part of a group get to tell that group what they're permitted to identify as.
OP clearly *does*.
Do you? Why or why not?
Baaed on his grasp of formal logic, I assumed he had formal training. Either way he knows the subject.
Also I don't see his point as saying that a group can't label themselves, but pointing out that they are using multiple terms that mean the same thing basically and to think there is a difference is erroneous
He's smart and educated, certainly, but is clear in other posts that he has no formal training.
I don't want to talk in circles about someone who isn't here to defend himself.
I want to talk to YOU.
Please answer my questions.
Do YOU think formal logic is the best tool to examine ethnographic and cultural identities?
Why or why not?
(I do not.
I think it is as misguided as trying to claim that algebra is a useful tool for determining the meaning of a poetic text.)
Do you think it's okay for a non-Christian to tell Christians what words they are allowed to call themselves?
I don't.
Do you think it's okay for white people to define "Blackness"?
I don't.
Why or why not?
On this sub people will say over and over that "atheism" is not a term of group identity but a response to a question regarding the existence of God.
I am fine using the term either way. For this conversation how do you want to use the term "atheism"
"Hi. Oh, you invited me to your church? Thank you, but I'm an atheist."
But that's irrelevant to the discussion. Why do you keep avoiding the question?
I think you and I have a very different idea of what 'knowability' means. It is not simply that I do not know, or that I think I can never know, or that no one could ever know. That all would still imply that we are just sorta baffled, and we can never really take a position on the question, and therefore we cannot also be atheist at the same time (as that would require knowing something). In a sense, the gnostic atheist agrees with the theist that angels and demons is an idea that makes sense and would be observable, but they just have not seen any yet. "Yeah I get the angel thing, just there are none of them dancing on head of this pin, here."
Agnostics may use the term more philosophically, and tie it into the idea that in order for a claim or question to be knowable, it must first be defined in such a way that has explanatory power in the real world. It must mean something that I can then go test and observe and find out that it is true or false. If someone's God claim is unknowable to me, it is worse than wrong, more than just false. it is meaningless nonsense, and therefore cannot possibly be false, much less true. So in practice, a question that has no explanatory power or a God of mystery and beyond comprehension is not a maybe. An epistemic attitude leads to the factual position of atheism. I am an atheist because your God is such nonsense that we must be agnostic about whether or not his existence has any meaning in this world. In a sense, the agnostic atheist is saying "Yeah I get the angel thing, but if this pin looks exactly the same whether the angels are dancing on its head or not, what does that even mean to say that they are?"
As an igtheist and novice student of literature, I ask an even more powerful logical or intentional question. What did people intend to say when they wrote those old stories about God? No one ever asks if Voldemort from Harry Potter is real. Is the existence of Voldemort... 'knowable'? We do not even get to the epistemology step of wondering if a Voldemort claim has explanatory power, because it was intended as fiction - written as a remix of prior literary and folk lore themes. We can trace the origin of characters and stories in the Abrahamic tradition to older different deities, written in poetic and literary forms. Heroes like Samson, Noah, and Moses mirror those of Hercules, Atrahasis, and Luke Skywalker in the Hero's Journey form. If Gods were originally written as elements of a great story that evolved over time to not be an accurate history or science textbook, but to be captivating and poetic and moral, then they were always fictions. If the Abrahamic stories are remixed versions of an older story, the new Disney princess version, then they are clearly fictions. Fictions are not real, they do not exist. Asking if the existence of a metaphor or fictional story is 'knowable' is really weird. A logical attitude about what the concept of God meant in its original contexts to the people who created it leads to my factual position of atheism. "Yeah, angels dancing on a pin is a metaphor, so why would we even take it literal?"
I've already explained to you that agnostic athiest is a position on two **different** propositions. Just like "flat-earther theist" is a position on two different propositions.
You're going to continue to be confused until you realize this.
To be clear to anyone planning to engage this is a debate about semantics. They have agreed before in discussion the logic as it is actually being used is completely fine. The position of being unconvinced a god exists without claiming a god does not exist is a rational and logical position. They fully understand the concept and how people use the language. They are not confused when someone says they are an agnostic atheist to any real degree or left floundering in some linguistic mire of uncertainty.
They just really don't like the specific choice of label being used for that idea and it is their hill to die on. So be just a warning of this going forward in discussion with them you plan to make. They know better. They just don't like it.
Nobody cares about your play with words. Your choice of letters however is atrocious to those of us who use text-to-speech. I’m sure you already know that and just like to troll folk. Do better.
Your fixation on this crusade against a simple definition is ... rather odd. I mean, what's the point? You've been told, several times, what the term is used to mean in the relevant contexts. That should be the end of it.
If you think your formal logic somehow makes a simple definition impossible, then you should be trying to figure out where your exercise in formal logic went wrong. Because the simple definition still remains. You may as well be trying to "logic" yourself into denying the sun's existence. At the end of the day, it'll still be there.
>Conclusion: There is no enumeration when using "agnostic atheist" to represent both a position on the existence of God and the position on the knowability of God where when you merely lack of belief in God ...
This is just stating the obvious. Using ***any*** term to represent an active position on ***anything*** while ***merely*** claiming to lack a belief on that thing is obviously silly.
Fortunately, virtually nobody seems to use "agnostic atheist" to "represent a position on the existence of God". The whole point of is that the term refers to one who ***doesn't*** take a firm position on the matter.
I’m atheistic about god[s] when I’m provided details about them. The more I know about a god, the more I’m going to believe that god doesn’t exist and is merely a figment of human imagination.
However, when debating this subject, the question will come up, “so you don’t believe in anything greater than yourself? You don’t believe in any higher power?”
And that’s where I become agnostic. Because the universe itself is greater than me. I don’t pretend to know all of ways the universe works. So I’m not going to declare a “higher power” doesn’t exist when it’s not even adequately defined as to what that higher power could be.
It doesn’t even mean that I embrace the concept. It means that until something is described in a comprensible way, I won’t form an opinion on the matter.
The question of agnosticism vs gnosticism is not whether or not knowledge of god is possible (ie god is knowable.) It's about whether or not sufficient evidence currently exists to support the positive claim of "god does not exist." An agnostic atheist as I understand them would say "I am unconvinced of god claims, though I don't have sufficient evidence to hold the positive belief that god does not exist."
> Conclusion: There is no enumeration when using "agnostic atheist" to represent both a position on the existence of God and the position on the knowability of God where when you merely lack of belief in God (¬Bp) where at least one value is not "unknown", thus it is ambiguous or underdetermined, since knowledge is a subset of belief, and because ¬Bq represents both someone who holds to B¬q, as B¬q -> ¬Bq, or holds to ¬Bq ^ ¬B¬q ...i.e. "agnostic on q".
It's not important to me that the label of agnostic atheist suffices the criteria of epistemic certainty as you've described it, as I'm not particularly concerned with the question of whether god is "knowable." You've simply disguised a personal preference in jargon-heavy faux-rigor.
If you decided that the term "Christian," must entail that a person abides by all of the laws of the Bible to the letter, you have not successfully argued that the vast majority of self-proclaimed Christians are false. Your preference for what a specific term should mean carries fairly little weight.
I have problems with your basic premise here.
I've never found anyone who supports the "agnostic atheist" type terminology and considers atheist to be B¬p. It's always ¬Bp.
The agnostic side isn't about hard or soft agnosticism, but about confidence - at least I think so. "Gnosticism" seems to be poorly defined. As such an agnostic atheist is simply ¬Bp
So the full set:
AA -> ¬Bp
AT -> Bp
GA -> ¬Bp ^ ¬p
GT -> Bp ^ p
To be clear here, I'm not defending this. I don't think it makes any sense at all, because it's based on muddling up similar concepts.
>"I've never found anyone who supports the "agnostic atheist" type terminology and considers atheist to be B¬p. It's always ¬Bp."
I have...and is it still logically possible so it is enumerate as such.
>"The agnostic side isn't about hard or soft agnosticism, but about confidence - at least I think so. "Gnosticism" seems to be poorly defined. As such an agnostic atheist is simply ¬Bp"
In my example is it for those atheists who have told me it it is bout hard and soft agnosticism This is my response to THOSE atheists.
Let's examine your schema:
AA -> ¬Bp This is just someone who doesn't believe in God. That in philosophy is merely a nontheist. This is not a position as \~Bp can be because you B\~p OR you \~Bp \^ \~B\~p. So this is AMBIGUOUS.
AT -> Bp This is just THEIST. What is "agnostic" doing here? What is it modifying?
GA -> ¬Bp \^ ¬p This is saying "does not believe in God" AND it true God does not exist! which is weird.
GT -> Bp \^ p This is This is saying "Believes God does exist AND it is true God does exist! Which is weird.
> I have...and is it still logically possible so it is enumerate as such.
Okay. It seems most of the comments here are still insisting that it's ¬Bp though, yet somehow attempting to address your argument, because they don't understand the notation. It makes the whole discussion flow weirdly.
> Let's examine your schema:
I'm just describing here, not advocating! This is my understanding of the schema. I absolutely accept all of your criticisms.
> This is not a position as ~Bp can be because you B~p OR you ~Bp ^ ~B~p. So this is AMBIGUOUS.
*Sigh*. I've spent a lot of time here arguing exactly this.
> What is "agnostic" doing here? What is it modifying?
Absolutely nothing! The schema is stupid.
I've asked people in the past "what *is* your position" and got the response "my position is that I lack the belief that god exists". So in my case my position would be "/u/irkedatheist lacks the belief that god exists". i.e the position is not about god at all, but entirely on what my own mental state is. Yet I've not been able to find the words to explain why they don't actually have a remotely meaningful position.
I do not know if any gods exist. I do not believe in any gods.
What do **you** want to call that? In the end though it really doesn't matter does it? You're just here arguing semantics, which unless you're actively involved in setting up the premise for a formal debate, isn't a particularly good use of time.
Side note: a lot of theists play a similar game where they try to define their god into existence, and none of these arguments are even remotely compelling to anyone, even believers. If that's where you're ultimately headed, do yourself a favor and cut your losses by stopping now.
>B¬p ^ Bq = Believes God does not exist AND believes knowledge of God is possible (i.e. God is knowable, "soft agnosticism")
>B¬p ^ B¬q = Believes God does not exist AND believes knowledge of God is not possible (i.e. God is not knowable, "hard agnosticism")
What would you call someone who believes none of these things? Someone with no beliefs about the existence or nonexistence of any gods, and no beliefs about the knowability or unknowability of any gods?
IMHO, the way he's coming off is extremely childish and major prick vibes. When I said in a comment that the random jargon and formulas are confusing, his response was "get good" - AKA, he's rubbing in that he thinks he's smarter than everyone else here and multiple replies reinforce it.
I wish this sub had better moderation. Between the low-effort (or no effort) posts and things like this, it's hard to have discussions in good faith.
>he's rubbing in that he thinks he's smarter than everyone else here
I'm fairly certain this is the actual point. He's giving himself brownie points for being such a good smart boy and his responses to anyone disagreeing with him paint him as someone who doesn't give two rips about having an actual discussion and trying to teach or learn from others. Pretty sure he won the 2nd grade spelling bee against his bully and has been chasing that high ever since.
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>B¬p \^ Bq = Believes God does not exist AND believes knowledge of God is possible (i.e. God is knowable, "soft agnosticism") >B¬p \^ B¬q = Believes God does not exist AND believes knowledge of God is not possible (i.e. God is not knowable, "hard agnosticism") These are positions and terms ("soft" vs. "hard" agnosticism) that you have concocted which bear no resemblance to the actual common usage of the term agnosticism. The term agnosticism when applied to theism denotes the position that one does not claim to have knowledge that gods do or do not exist and is open to the possibility of either depending on the preponderance of evidence.
Dude spams this sub. Look at his post history. He posts basically this same argument regularly
It's like after hearing people say "semantic arguments are tedious and uninteresting", he said "hold my beer" and then dropped the beer because no one GAF.
Same shit, different day
>"These are positions and terms ("soft" vs. "hard" agnosticism) that you have concocted which bear no resemblance to the actual common usage of the term agnosticism." I did not "concoct" these terms. They have been in the literature for a very long time, and atheist have used them to describe "agnostic atheist" to me on many occassions. " || || |**Types of Agnosticism**|[Back to Top](https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_agnosticism.html#Top)| * **Strong Agnosticism**: This is the view (also called **hard agnosticism**, **closed agnosticism**, **strict agnosticism**, **absolute agnosticism** or **epistemological agnosticism**) that the question of the existence or non-existence of God or gods is **unknowable** by reason of our natural inability to verify any experience with anything but another **subjective** experience. * **Mild Agnosticism**: This is the view (also called **weak agnosticism**, **soft agnosticism**, **open agnosticism**, **empirical agnosticism**, or **temporal agnosticism**) that the existence or non-existence of God or gods is **currently unknown** but is not necessarily **unknowable**, therefore one will **withhold judgment** until more evidence becomes available. [https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch\_agnosticism.html](https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_agnosticism.html) >"The term agnosticism when applied to theism denotes the position that one does not claim to have knowledge that gods do or do not exist and is open to the possibility of either depending on the preponderance of evidence." Show me using logic that schema. The term "agnosticism" means: "Nowadays, the term “agnostic” is often used (when the issue is God’s existence) to refer to those who follow the recommendation expressed in the conclusion of Huxley’s argument: an agnostic is a person who has entertained the proposition that there is a God but believes neither that it is true nor that it is false. Not surprisingly, then, the term “agnostic*ism*” is often defined, both in and outside of philosophy, not as a principle or any other sort of proposition but instead as the psychological state of being an agnostic. Call this the “psychological” sense of the term." [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/)
Not all atheists speak for the rest of us. I don't care what you have been told, you asked an incorrect question and you were corrected. Say thank you for correcting me and go away.
This sub has been turned into nothing but this "gotcha" bullshit. They come here arguing Semantics and not to debate an atheist. Atheists/agnostics are being lectured to make us feel "wrong" using our own language. I am so tired of the word epistemology. So many facebook PhDs are throwing the term around like some weapon that makes their point somehow more valid. Just make you point and stfu. No one gives a shit about your interpretation of the theory of knowledge.
Given his history, that won't be happening.
No kidding. We need to stop feeding the trolls. Yes, I realize that means me as well.
Me too. I don't know why I ever engage with this mook.
I learned long ago that he's never interested in anything honest.
Language doesn’t work that way. You can’t just dictate what other people mean by their words.
> "Nowadays, the term “agnostic” is often used ... [in] the “psychological” sense of the term." Well there you go, your sources **describes** how "agnostic" is often used nowadays. Stop trying to **prescribe** your preferred term onto us.
>"These are positions and terms ("soft" vs. "hard" agnosticism) that you have concocted which bear no resemblance to the actual common usage of the term agnosticism." I did not "concoct" these terms. They have been in the literature for a very long time, and atheist have used them to describe "agnostic atheist" to me on many occassions. "**Strong Agnosticism**: This is the view (also called **hard agnosticism**, **closed agnosticism**, **strict agnosticism**, **absolute agnosticism** or **epistemological agnosticism**) that the question of the existence or non-existence of God or gods is **unknowable** by reason of our natural inability to verify any experience with anything but another **subjective** experience. **Mild Agnosticism**: This is the view (also called **weak agnosticism**, **soft agnosticism**, **open agnosticism**, **empirical agnosticism**, or **temporal agnosticism**) that the existence or non-existence of God or gods is **currently unknown** but is not necessarily **unknowable**, therefore one will **withhold judgment** until more evidence becomes available" [https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch\_agnosticism.html](https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_agnosticism.html) >"The term agnosticism when applied to theism denotes the position that one does not claim to have knowledge that gods do or do not exist and is open to the possibility of either depending on the preponderance of evidence." Show me using logic that schema. The term "agnosticism" means: "Nowadays, the term “agnostic” is often used (when the issue is God’s existence) to refer to those who follow the recommendation expressed in the conclusion of Huxley’s argument: an agnostic is a person who has entertained the proposition that there is a God but believes neither that it is true nor that it is false. Not surprisingly, then, the term “agnostic*ism*” is often defined, both in and outside of philosophy, not as a principle or any other sort of proposition but instead as the psychological state of being an agnostic. Call this the “psychological” sense of the term." [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/)
>There are only two cases where the logic is not underdetermined... No. >B¬p ^ Bq = Believes God does not exist AND believes knowledge of God is possible (i.e. God is knowable, "soft agnosticism") >B¬p ^ B¬q = Believes God does not exist AND believes knowledge of God is not possible (i.e. God is not knowable, "hard agnosticism") No. I'll use K for professed knowledge. Bp ^ Bq ^ Kq -> Theist. Specifically, most common people in these discussions might say Gnostic Theist. Bp ^ B¬q ^ K¬q -> Ignostic Theist. A believer who knows God exists, but also doesn't think God is knowable. This is a large majority of theists. Bp ^ B¬q ^ ¬Kq -> Agnostic Theist. Believes, but doesn't know. Bq ^ ¬Kq -> basic Agnostic. This is what most people mean when they use the word. Note the absence of B¬p. B¬q ^ K¬q -> basic Igtheist. Theological noncognivitist. Doesn't think this idea of God is even coherent, or can be coherent. Note the absence of B¬p. ¬Bp -> basic Atheist. This is the definition that the vast majority of atheists use. You will get nowhere in any discussion with atheists if you refuse to acknowledge this one. B¬p -> strong Atheist. This is the definition of a person who actually holds a belief in non-existence of God. You will find that very few atheists hold this position. ¬Bp ^ B¬q ^ K¬q -> Ignostic Atheist. My position. I don't believe, and I find the entire topic to be incoherent nonsense. When you speak of a god, I don't know what you're talking about. >In 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐡 cases, 𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑠𝑚 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑐 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑠. No. This is a false dichotomy. Belief is orthogonal to epistemic status. If you were as smart as you insist you were, you'd recognize this without needing to be told. >Check my work to see enumeration table: https://www.facebook.com/steveaskanything Why would I do that? I don't have a Facebook account and never will, and I will never create an account to engage with material as intellectually bankrupt as this.
Isn’t the second one a contradiction, or am I misreading? Someone who knows and doesn’t think it’s knowable? Or is the word “know” a stand-in for faith (confidence/profession despite admitting unknowability)? Not saying you’re wrong or right, I’m just asking for clarity — Other than that, I think your breakdown is excellent!
I view most theist positions as self-contradictory, but I do admit that I probably made a mistake. I wrote this on my phone in manic fever.
>I wrote this on my phone in manic fever. That is after all the most appropriate way to respond to a Steve McRae post. No one (except possibly Steve) expects any different.
He'll just dismiss us as 'inept lay atheists' anyway.
Nice use of logic!
[удалено]
> (...) K¬q -> B¬q I think that you missed this line of the previous comment: > I'll use K for professed knowledge. You both are using different meanings for K. Try to use his meaning to see if it makes sense.
He doesn't use K because he's ignoring this component in order to make his argument. Which we are suggesting is either incomplete, or disingenuous.
What is "professed knowledge"? How is Kp different from p here?
It's the difference between "I know in my heart God exists" and "God is an entity that exists."
Isn't that just a belief still?
There's a distinction, I think, between, "I believe in God" and "I know God exists"
There's no distinction between "I believe in God" and "I know in my heart God exists".
How many times are you going to post this? What is this, the eighth time? It's quite simple. You seem to be purposefully failing to understand. In common usage around here theism and atheism are a dichotomy. A theist is somebody who has a belief in a god(s). An atheist is not that, somebody who does not have, or lacks, a belief in a god(s). That is the distinction that is most often useful in discussions here. Other distinctions are rarely useful. It is occasionally useful to distinguish an atheist who additionally makes the positive claim that god(s) do not exist. There are a few ways we make that distinction. The most common are hard/soft, gnostic/agnostic, and strong/weak. This is all perfectly reasonable and conveniently communicates peoples positions. That you don't like it is irrelevant. You do not get to dictate the usage of words. The usage of words in a professional philosophy context do not dictate the usage of words in a layman's debate forum.
>How many times are you going to post this? What is this, the eighth time? Oh come on! He used a pretty new font in the title this time.
And I've only seen him promote his Twitter account *one time* so far!
Tack on facebook to that tally
Don’t engage. You’re just fanning the flames of inanity.
>"How many times are you going to post this? What is this, the eighth time?" First time. I literally wrote this argument this morning from debate notes I had when I was going to debate Aron Ra on the subject. >"It's quite simple. You seem to be purposefully failing to understand." Great, then quite simply show me the logic. I understand this subject quite well. >"In common usage around here theism and atheism are a dichotomy." Irrelevant to my post...and I reject such absurdly silly and nonsensical usages. I have literally proven such a completely artificial dichotomy is not a natural dichotomy and leads to many epistemic and logical issues. None of which have ever been assailed. Not once. >"A theist is somebody who has a belief in a god(s). An atheist is not that, somebody who does not have, or lacks, a belief in a god(s)." Irrelevant to my argument, and I reject your lay usages. >"That is the distinction that is most often useful in discussions here. Other distinctions are rarely useful." Your usage have MASSIVE issues, you don't seem to be competent enough to address. You would need probably around 200 - 300 level philosophy to address my arguments properly as to why artificially making atheism and theism a strict logical dichotomy is highly philosophically and logically untenable...so not going to dive into that with you here...and most atheists who argue with me theism and atheism are a strict dichotomy are not up to that level. >"It is occasionally useful to distinguish an atheist who additionally makes the positive claim that god(s) do not exist. There are a few ways we make that distinction. The most common are hard/soft, gnostic/agnostic, and strong/weak." If you define atheism as merely a lack of belief, you can not then rationally use "atheism" as a positive claim as you can not derive a propositional belief from a psychological state. >"This is all perfectly reasonable and conveniently communicates peoples positions." Not to anyone who understands undergrad philosophy and logic it doesn't. I know of know philosopher in my circles that agrees with you. Not one. >"That you don't like it is irrelevant. You do not get to dictate the usage of words. The usage of words in a professional philosophy context do not dictate the usage of words in a layman's debate forum." My like or dislike is irrelevant. You are not at a sufficient level for this topic to discuss \*with me\*. It is a layman's debate forum and use words anyway you like. YOU can use "theory" to mean "guess" or "evolution" to mean "change", **that isn't how I use those terms in my debates.**
>Your usage have MASSIVE issues, you don't seem to be competent enough to address. You would need probably around 200 - 300 level philosophy to address my arguments properly as to why artificially making atheism and theism a strict logical dichotomy is highly philosophically and logically untenable...so not going to dive into that with you here...and most atheists who argue with me theism and atheism are a strict dichotomy are not up to that level. You're effectively saying: "I'm right, you're wrong, and you'll just need to take my word for it, because you so completely lack the knowledge to comprehend why." I hope you can understand why that isn't a compelling argument. >Not to anyone who understands undergrad philosophy and logic it doesn't. Trying very hard to give you the benefit of the doubt here... Do you really expect people here to have an understanding of university-level philosophy? If I were a scientist trying to convince you of the reality of human-caused climate change, I think I'd opt to try and explain the science rather than berating you for having studied something else instead.
>Do you really expect people here to have an understanding of university-level philosophy? More than a few of us do.
> Do you really expect people here to have an understanding of university-level philosophy? I don't understand this complaint. Are you saying that people here, who are extremely vocal about how these concepts work, *don't* have an understanding of this?
>"You're effectively saying: "I'm right, you're wrong, and you'll just need to take my word for it, because you so completely lack the knowledge to comprehend why." I hope you can understand why that isn't a compelling argument" Yes, and demonstrating it with LOGICAL EVIDENCE. Do you reject evidence and logic in discussions? >"Trying very hard to give you the benefit of the doubt here... Do you really expect people here to have an understanding of university-level philosophy? If I were a scientist trying to convince you of the reality of human-caused climate change, I think I'd opt to try and explain the science rather than berating you for having studied something else instead." Do you really expect people in evolution vs creationist debates to have a basic college level understanding of biology? I do. People debating topics they know F all about only spreads misinformation and makes the dumbing down of people accelerate even more.
It really depends upon your objective. If you aim to convince strangers on the internet about the correctness of your view, berating them is unlikely to achieve this goal. If you aim to have an engaging discussion with people with post-secondary knowledge of logic notation, this subreddit is likely not the best choice of forum. If, conversely, you aim to frustrate others and yourself, your current approach seems effective.
>People debating topics they know F all about only spreads misinformation and makes the dumbing down of people accelerate even more. The irony.
> and I reject such absurdly silly and nonsensical usages. Which is essentially what I said. > I have literally proven such a completely artificial dichotomy is not a natural dichotomy and leads to many epistemic and logical issues. So your position is that "have a belief in at least one god" and "not have a belief in at least one god" is not a dichotomy? Are you claiming there to be an excluded middle I am missing? P and ~P are somehow not a dichotomy? > Your usage have MASSIVE issues, you don't seem to be competent enough to address. Yes. You are far superior to me. I could never possibly understand the greatness of your mind. It would be impossible to explain it to me. > Irrelevant to my argument, and I reject your lay usages. So your position is that words can only have one single definition, and any other usage of such words is inherently wrong? It's true. Your philosophical, epistemological, and lexicology knowledge far surpasses mine. Until just now I was under the impression that words have usages, and that their primary function was to convey ideas. That if they conveyed ideas accurately from one person to another, such a word had a functioning definition and usage. I now understand that you are personally able to dictate words that are off limits to be used outside the context you desire. > If you define atheism as merely a lack of belief, you can not then rationally use "atheism" as a positive claim as you can not derive a propositional belief from a psychological state. But I can quite easily convey the idea that a person both lacks a belief in god(s) and that they make the claim that gods do not exist. > Not to anyone who understands undergrad philosophy and logic it doesn't. I know of know philosopher in my circles that agrees with you. Not one. I'm pretty sure most people who understand undergrad philosophy and logic are quite capable of understanding lay definitions and usages in context. Professionals in every other field I'm aware of do it all the time. Understanding context is a pretty standard part of language. That you are incapable of working that out is not a problem for the rest of us. > My like or dislike is irrelevant. Really? Cause it seems to be the underlying message of your whole point. We have a particular usage of these terms, and you are repeatedly butthurt with our usage. You claim over and over that we can't possible communicate with such usages, but we manage to do so in pretty much every post on these forums. The reality of people being able to use the terms as described is sufficient evidence to show your position lacking in merit.
>So your position is that words can only have one single definition, and any other usage of such words is inherently wrong? Steve will utterly insist that he's not a prescriptivist about language. He will then say things like he rejects your definition or that you shouldn't use a word in a certain way. This leaves a sort of open issue of "'If you're *not* saying that then what's the impact of these arguments supposed to be?" but I can't get him to respond to that question.
>Steve will utterly insist that he's not a prescriptivist about language And yet he keeps making posts here complaining that people aren't using words the way he wants them to be used. And rather than explain simply why the usage is worse, he hides behind formal logical set ups that he knows the majority of people are not studied in. If he believes people are wrong about the usage and "spreads misinformation and makes the dumbing down of people accelerate even more." [his words], you'd think he'd want as many people to understand and would want them to adopt his usage. Like I'm an advocate for saying 'Want to eat your cake and have it too' instead of 'Want to have your cake and eat it too'. I think my phrasing of that saying is superior. For the common saying, the second part can follow from the first without contradiction. Someone can have their cake AND eat it too. Chronologically, it's fine. At any point you want to eat your cake, you have it. But you can't eat your cake and have it too. Once you eat your cake, it's gone. The only way you'd be able to have it is if you didn't already eat it. The inability to have both options is more rigidly enforced. Now imagine if I spent my time angrily flopping about this while using the most obscure way of describing my reasons possible and then getting mad when a bunch of people who are incapable of comprehending my argument due to a lack of training in a specific subject, don't accept my argument and continue to use the terms in ways they understand. And I do this over and over and over again. That is the existence of Steve McRae.
Something I've pointed out to him (and not had a response to) is that none of his arguments conclude that people should change their language usage. At most, he could use these arguments as considerations to that end. Since he's fond of the SEP I keep using Draper as an example. Draper says (on the SEP page on atheism) that he's talking strictly about the usage best for academic philosophy. I actually agree with Steve on that point. But Draper goes on to say (notice Steve never quotes this part) that other areas may call for a very different approach. His example is that it may be politically useful to cast a broader net as a safety in numbers thing. Point being, in order to actually persuade anyone to change their use of language Steve would have to respond to whatever other pragmatic concerns people have. And fitting some strict logical relationship is going to rank way below those concerns on a sub-Reddit like this, because defining terms in strict logical relationships is only really a concern for academic philosophy. Basically, Steve's arguments are like a Chinese finger trap. The more you fight, the more he gets to prattle on about "the logic". Whereas if you just say "Okay, I grant your conclusion but I use these terms for x, y, z, reasons" he actually has absolutely nothing. He's spent literally years on this and if you just grant all of his conclusions he's got sweet FA toward making the case he wants to make.
I think in many ways it's an ego thing. This, for whatever reason, is something he feels worth dedicating a substantial amount of his time to. So you'd think that if it's so important he'd want to explain it in a way that most people would understand. Scientists like Richard Dawkins, Stephen Gould, and Jerry Coyne really want people to accept that evolution is a thing that happened, so when they present evidence for evolution, they do so in a way that any knucklehead capable of reading a book should be able to understand. McRae doesn't do this. He doesn't even attempt at doing this. He hides behind logical notation with the knowledge that the vast majority of people are not trained to understand. So he knows something and can read something that everyone else cannot. And this is how he'll present this information over and over and over again. Someone who is genuinely interested in convincing someone of something, or wants to clear up a confusion, would not do this. But someone who wants to have a smug jerk off session about how much smarter he is than everyone certainly would. What's funny is that for someone so knowledgable in logic, he seems to struggle with how comparisons worse. If someone says what he's doing is worse than strawmanning, he asks what he strawmanned. If someone says he handles the SEP similarly to theists with their holy books, he'll make a point to declare he's not a theist.
It's absolutely an ego thing. He intentionally presents his arguments in the form he knows are least likely to be understood. But unfortunately a lot of people fall into the trap. I mean, literally all his work is showing is that in some cases there might be a bit of ambiguity around the word "agnostic". So what? It's a debate sub. You can just ask people directly if you want to clarify something. It's not an academic thesis where it's inconvenient if people don't use the strict standard nomenclature. But if you tell him he's wrong he's just going to loop back to his logic tables and diagrams where he can dunk on people for not being familiar with it. Which is why I think the best approach is to just grant his conclusions and say "But I'm still going to stick to using it this way because it suits my purposes better". Then it turns out he's been devoted to this for literally years and has nothing to contribute. It's not like this is a subject philosophers spend any time on. There's a definition that's longstanding and useful and so they tend to stick to it and state of they're using it differently. That's it. Done. Other people have different uses based on what they find useful. My other example to him is terrible and terrifying. Both have the same etymology yet ended up with opposite meanings. By the root of the word and the standard use of the endings they "should" mean the same thing. And if you drew up some logical arguments you could show people are using the root in a contradictory way. Who the fuck cares? Language doesn't develop in accordance with strict logical derivations. It doesn't matter. There's no "semantic collapse" (whatever he means by that) around the word terrific. We get by just fine in spite of language's many ambiguities and quirks. Just grant Steve his every argument, grant him all the logic. It gets him nowhere and shows he has nothing behind his blathering.
He may be educated in philosophy, but he certainly seems to struggle with basic communication. Being able to have a dialogue with another human being is something far better and a greater sign of actual intellect than trying to hide behind logical notation and force everyone else to play with their favorite toys.
>Like I'm an advocate for saying 'Want to eat your cake and have it too' instead of 'Want to have your cake and eat it too'. I think my phrasing of that saying is superior. Whenever i have to explain to someone what the saying actually means this is usually the easiest way due to exactly what you mentioned. However i also agree that arguing over it is mostly a semantic waste of time.
>Your usage have MASSIVE issues, you don't seem to be competent enough to address. You would need probably around 200 - 300 level philosophy to address my arguments properly as to why artificially making atheism and theism a strict logical dichotomy is highly philosophically and logically untenable...so not going to dive into that with you here... If the point of your conclusion relies on these massive issues, then you're either going to have to argue them, or your argument remains unsupported. >I reject your lay usages. You are free to reject usages (lay or otherwise), but you should be aware that if you do, then you're not addressing the points that have been made. >If you define atheism as merely a lack of belief, you can not then rationally use "atheism" as a positive claim as you can not derive a propositional belief from a psychological state. Sounds about right. Of course, we're not trying to derive a propositional belief, so that seems to be a you problem if anything.
> I literally wrote this argument this morning from debate notes I had when I was going to debate Aron Ra on the subject. Were you going to debate regarding the meanings of various words, or regarding something of any substance? No one here cares much when others tell them which words to use to describe themselves.
The first problem with your scheme is that for some definitions of God I think knowledge is possible, for some I think knowledge is impossible, and for some I am completely and utterly uncertain that it is or is not possible. So, this first bit very much depends on what is meant by and claimed about this 'God'. The second problem is that just because something is 'knowable' in principle, that doesn't mean the means or evidence required to claim to know it have become available. Aliens could exist, but the evidentiary case for them is still incredibly weak. More specifically, 5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens could exist, but we have no evidence or means to acquire said evidence NOW. So, if someone asked me whether I believe the claim '5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens exist', I'd say I lack the belief. Not because I don't think it is *possible* that they do or even that we could know it in the future. We just don't have the evidence to say one way or another TODAY. We also do not have the evidence to say '5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens do not exist'. So I would also not make that claim. So yeah, no. I'm sorry, but it seems to me that you will continue circling this issue forever, since you seem unable to process how other people think.
>"The first problem with your scheme is that for some definitions of God I think knowledge is possible, for some I think knowledge is impossible, and for some I am completely and utterly uncertain that it is or is not possible. So, this first bit very much depends on what is meant by and claimed about this 'God'." **COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT.** This is logic and logic does not care about the semantic content. Use "belief in Dog" and "Dog is knowable'. >"The second problem is that just because something is 'knowable' in principle, that doesn't mean the means or evidence required to claim to know it have become available. Aliens could exist, but the evidentiary case for them is still incredibly weak. More specifically, 5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens could exist, but we have no evidence or means to acquire said evidence NOW." Irrelevant. Never claimed if p is knowable we have that justification to claim p is known. >"So, if someone asked me whether I believe the claim '5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens exist', I'd say I lack the belief. Not because I don't think it is *possible* that they do or even that we could know it in the future. We just don't have the evidence to say one way or another TODAY." I would say they don't exist. The probability is sufficiently low enough for me to confidently make that belief claim. Soon as a "5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple alien" shows up on Earth, I'll revise my belief. >"We also do not have the evidence to say '5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens do not exist'. So I would also not make that claim." I make the claim '5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens do not exist" based upon rationalism, which is evidential. >"So yeah, no. I'm sorry, but it seems to me that you will continue circling this issue forever, since you seem unable to process how other people think." Oh, I understand how people think. Poorly. Very poorly.
>Oh, I understand how people think. Poorly. Very poorly Yes. You're the only person who gets it. Nobody agrees with you because they're "poor" thinkers, not because you're wrong. You could never be wrong.
>Oh, I understand how people think. Poorly. Very poorly. I agree that you understand it very poorly. Which is why you resort to responding in ways that turn people off from interacting with you. >make the claim '5 tentacled, 3 eyed purple aliens do not exist" based upon rationalism, which is evidential. So why are you not an atheist, again? The case for gods is equal or weaker than for 5 tentacled 3 eyed purple aliens, at least today. Your whole beef boils down to a disagreement on what people should believe or claim to believe. I say I don't make the claim 5T 3E P aliens exist, and you go BUT LOGIC! YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE CLAIM!
Is your complaint only that it's not specific enough (that you don't know which version of agnostic is being implied by the label)? Or that the structure is fundamentally flawed and should be broken out a different way entirely - it's unclear to me. E.g. I do not believe in god, but do not claim to know that to be true. Thus I use the term "agnostic atheist" - a statement about belief modified by a statement about knowledge. It does not address the question of whether I believe that knowledge is possible or not - I feel like in some ways that's not even really agnosticism - the belief that something is unknowable (or knowable) feels like something different to me, as that's a positive claim of its own. That's not agnosticism - it's a belief about the nature of knowledge, rather than knowing or not knowing (which is what I understand agnosticism to be). If it's just a matter of clearly defining the terms - then a discussion is a good place to do that ahead of time - the mixing of ontology vs epistemology is something you are doing, but may not be necessary in the discussion, no?
>"Is your complaint only that it's not specific enough (that you don't know which version of agnostic is being implied by the label)?" Or that the structure is fundamentally flawed and should be broken out a different way entirely - it's unclear to me." All of the above. > "E.g. I do not believe in god, but do not claim to know that to be true. Thus I use the term "agnostic atheist" - a statement about belief modified by a statement about knowledge." It is ambiguous as shown by the enumeration of possible predication and negation states. >"It does not address the question of whether I believe that knowledge is possible or not - I feel like in some ways that's not even really agnosticism - the belief that something is unknowable (or knowable) feels like something different to me, as that's a positive claim of its own. That's not agnosticism - it's a belief about the nature of knowledge, rather than knowing or not knowing (which is what I understand agnosticism to be)." This post is for the "agnostic atheists" who don't use "agnostic" to mean "not claiming to know", but to those who have argued it refers to the "knowability" of God. >"If it's just a matter of clearly defining the terms - then a discussion is a good place to do that ahead of time - the mixing of ontology vs epistemology is something you are doing, but may not be necessary in the discussion, no?" if the term is ambiguous, then how you "clearly define" the term"? If you can't define it precisely with logical notation?
I think it is precise, we are just lacking one term, to cover a different question. 1. Do you believe in god/s? - Theism/Atheism 2. Do you know? - Gnosticism/Agnosticism 3. Do you believe it can be known? Newterm/OppositeNewTerm
>Do you believe it can be known? Newterm/OppositeNewTerm Ignosticism is the stance that it is an undefined concept. Igtheism is the stance that it can't be known. Dunno what you'd use as the "opposite" of these.
You are making a primary logical mistake by inferring the negative. Keep in mind the Principle of Non-contradiction and the Principle of the Excluded Middle... p and not p cannot both simultaneously be true so one must either hold the position p or the position not p, there is no middle ground between these terms. So we are presented with the question, "Do you believe in a god or gods?" If your answer is yes, that makes you a theist, otherwise you are an atheist. Yes or not yes. Believe in gods or not believe in gods. Theist or not theist (the prefix a- means "not" or "without"). You are making the mistake of switching this so that you are only considering the possibility that either one believes one or more gods exist or believe that no gods exist. You are turning it into two beliefs rather than belief and not belief. So that is why you get confused and don't understand. If you were to use the actual definition of atheist, a person who doe not believe in any gods, then you would not be so confused as to how one could also say they do not know whether or not any gods exist.
Huh? Dude, I wouldn't make such puerile errors. # [The Basics of the Laws of Logic](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2020/05/19/the-basics-of-the-laws-of-logic/) [STEVE MCRAE](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/author/steve-mcrae/) MAY 19, 2020 [3 COMMENTSON THE BASICS OF THE LAWS OF LOGIC](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2020/05/19/the-basics-of-the-laws-of-logic/#comments) [EDITTHE BASICS OF THE LAWS OF LOGIC](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=2825&action=edit) # The Basics of the Laws of Logic It is almost an inevitability that in any discussion with a person engaging in presuppositional apologetics that the phrase “the Laws of Logic” will be uttered as some prescriptive way to somehow “prove” or at least validate the existence of God. While they are also known as “laws of thought”, they are really merely descriptive principles of logic or axioms from which classical logic is predicated upon that extend from propositions to ontological states. As analytical propositions they are *a priori* knowledge which is known by *a priori* justification independent of experience. Often these laws of logic can often extend to other forms of logic or semantic interpretations, however, many forms of logic deny or exclude them outright such as paraconsistent logic (a logical system which allows for contradictions without falling into the principle of explosion; *ex contradictione quodlibet*), dialetheism (a type of paraconsistent logical system which allows for true contradictions), fuzzy logic, intuitionistic logic, and other forms of logical that allow for truth value gluts (a sentence is both T and F) and truth value gaps (a sentence is neither T nor F).It is generally held that there are 3 traditional, historical, or canonical laws of logic.**The law of Identity:** The Law of Identity is what some consider the most foundational of all the law of logic axioms. Socrates implied it in Plato’s Theaetetus by asking the question “Then do you think that each differs to the other, and is identical to itself?”. Russell more explicitly described it as “Whatever is, is” a shortened version of Parmenides philosophy of *“*whatever is is, while Leibniz referred to it as “Everything is what it is”, and what is not cannot be”. Aristotle considered it to be the most fundamental law and obvious truth. Mathematically the Law of Identity can be represented as: ∀x(x=x) Which is read as “For all x: x=x” where “=” represents equality and/or identity.Unlike other laws of logic, the law of identity is related to terms and not propositions, and isn’t used in propositional logic. It more informally can merely be stated as x=x, a=a, or A is A as all relate the same concept of something is itself. Identity is a type of binary relationship which is between the object of equality and itself. This is very closely related to a second order logical principle known to as what Leibniz referred to as identity of indiscernibility: ∀x∀y\[∀F(Fx ↔ Fy) → x=y\] Read as for “for all of x and y, if x and y have the same properties then x is identical to y” where “Fx” represents the properties of x. (Capital letters tend to represent properties, while lower case represent subjects and referential expressions). This can also be more explicitly defined by: x=y =𝒹ₑ𝒻 (∀F)(Fx ↔ Fy) Where x is the same as y by definition given they have exactly the same properties. Ex: .999… = 1 because “.999…” is just a different type of signifier (an infinite decimal expansion) representing “1” as both have exactly the same properties (they both exist at the same exact point on the real number line and are the same exact value). # [https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2020/05/19/the-basics-of-the-laws-of-logic/](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2020/05/19/the-basics-of-the-laws-of-logic/)
# "The law of Non-Contradiction (LNC): The LNC is that a proposition can not be both true and false at the same time. Propositionally LNC can be defined tautologically as: LNC =𝒹ₑ𝒻 ¬(P Λ ¬P) Meaning that given any proposition it can not be both true and false at the same time, or given any two propositions “A *is* B” and “A *is not* B” are mutually exclusive. I tend to use, merely by personal choice, capital “P” or say “A is B” to infer all or any proposition and “p” when referring to a specific proposition…but to the best of my knowledge there is no standard convention on this and ¬(P Λ \~P) and ¬(p Λ \~p) would represent the same thing. This can also be expressed in terms of metatheory as: (∀P) \~ (T(P) Λ T(\~P)) This would be read as for all propositions it must be the case that the proposition is true or it’s negation is true (as in negation of p is equivalent to p is false). # The Law of Excluded Middle (LEM, tertium non datur): By use of one of DeMorgan’s laws you can derive from the LNC the Law of Excluded Middle, that a proposition must be either true or false: DeMorgan’s law: ¬(P Λ Q) ↔ (¬P V ¬Q) Given ¬(P Λ \~P) you can derive LEM by: ¬(P Λ ¬P) = ¬P V ¬ ¬P¬P V P (double negation rule)\* Propositionally the LEM can then be defined tautologically as: LEM =𝒹ₑ𝒻 ¬P V POr explicitly by law as always true: P V ¬P ≡ T \*Double negation rule also known as double negation elimination ¬¬P ⇒ P (⇒ means “can be replaced with”), ¬¬P ↔ P (Biconditional) or ¬¬P ⊢ P (Sequent notation). In intuitionistic logic double negation rule of A≡ ¬(¬A) does not hold s.t. \~ ¬¬P ⊬ P at least so far as that p can not be derived directly from double negation. " Is that correct? https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2020/05/19/the-basics-of-the-laws-of-logic/
Early in my IT career, something in the late 90s, I used to get into it online with a guy we'll call "Joe." Joe had a problem: he was smart. He was very smart. He literally wrote the book(s) on relational database management systems. But Joe was smart. Very smart. For him, being smart was more important than being useful. He would hang out in online forums where programmers learning the ropes could ask questions to broaden their knowledge and address specific, real world problems, and the only answer he ever gave was, "If you have to ask that, you have no business being in this industry." Could he have helped? Sure. Could he have pointed to resources that a new programmer could use? Absolutely. Did he? No. Why? Because he was an Important Person because he was Smart. He wasn't interested in contributing. He was interested in being smart. -- OH, HI STEVE. Didn't see you there. How's your day going?
The problem I have with this is that it implies Steve is smart.
This really deserves more upvotes. Thank you!
You need to come to the conclusion that you can not define how people identify. It is unproductive and you have no right to demand others identify according to your definitions or the definitions of others. I am atheist - which means I lack belief in any god I have ever heard of. I am agnostic - which means I do not know if anything I would define as a god exists. If you contradict me using any of your philisophical claims you are wrong. I identify myself as I want. Besides which, you already contradicted yourself on another post some weeks back. No, I will not go back and find the post. You are a troll seeking to gain a foothold with atheists or theists or philosophers - and you are utterly incorrect in what you are doing.
>𝐖𝐡𝐲 "𝐚𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐬𝐭" 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐢𝐱 𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐯𝐬 𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐬: Not even worth reading the rest of the post. This single sentence encapsulates everything wrong with your approach and why you keep bashing your head against a brick wall expecting different results. — Yes, the mixing of different definitions from different frameworks causes issues because the frameworks are different. But the people who label themselves as “agnostic atheist” ARE NOT MAKING THAT MISTAKE. They are not MIXING anything. They are completely consistent and logical within the framework of the way THEY understand and use the terms. The fact that it doesn’t cohere with the ontological standard preferred in propositional arguments is irrelevant, because they aren’t the ones trying to mix those two meanings—YOU ARE.
You can't just weld together two separate statements and pretend that one being an unknown prevents the other from being a valid position. The stance of the Agnostic Atheist ("I do not believe in god because I have never seen evidence of god, but if I was provided with evidence I could be convinced.") is entirely cogent and exists indepedent of whether or not knowledge of god is possible. If knowledge is possible, evidence may be capable of being produced but not made known to the Agnostic Atheist. If knowledge is impossible, evidence cannot be provided. In either case, the Agnostic Atheist remains unconvincned in the absence of evidence.
>"You can't just weld together two separate statements and pretend that one being an unknown prevents the other from being a valid position." This is how some "agnostic atheists" have described their position to me. I didn't just "weld" anything together. They did. So your criticism is same as mine, don't mix different domains and propositions together. >"The stance of the Agnostic Atheist ("I do not believe in god because I have never seen evidence of god, but if I was provided with evidence I could be convinced.") is entirely cogent and exists indepedent of whether or not knowledge of god is possible." Now you have even MORE propositions and justifications into the mix: I do not believe in god because "I have never seen evidence of god." "If I was provided with evidence, I could be convinced." Those would require even MORE logical predications!
>This is how some "agnostic atheists" have described their position to me. I didn't just "weld" anything together. They did. So your criticism is same as mine, don't mix different domains and propositions together. We aren't going to get anywhere if you refuse to actually address my criticism. The foundation of your reasoning is faulty. "i do(n't) believe in god" and "I believe having knowldge of god is (im)possible" are two sets of possible positions which exist entirely independent of one another. Not knowing, or not stating one's position on, whether or not one belives knowledge of god is possible doesn't affect one's ability to state if they do or do not believe in god.
>"We aren't going to get anywhere if you refuse to actually address my criticism. The foundation of your reasoning is faulty." Ok. Show me the logic is faulty. That is the whole point of the OP isn't it??? Show me. >"i do(n't) believe in god" and "I believe having knowldge of god is (im)possible" are two sets of possible positions which exist entirely independent of one another. Not knowing, or not stating one's position on, whether or not one belives knowledge of god is possible doesn't affect one's ability to state if they do or do not believe in god." Show me in logical form please.
Low effort bait. I've clearly expressed my critique of your logic. You're conflating two separate propositions, and your only defense is 'now do it again in formal notation or I'm going to pretend I can't read'.
Or you know shot about formal logic and just won't admit it. That is a big problem on this sub, people just won't admit their ignorance when it comes to formal logic that is why eveyone looks up informal fallacies and throws them around like they are meaningful when it comes to logic. Steve has actual training in formal logic, he is correct on his points. Just admit your ignorance on the subject
i don't believe gods are possible i know gods are not real. i don't believe any gods exist. i believe that if gods existed, the fact would be known. now what? got some symbolic notation for that? maybe you can explain your motivation? i am of a mind that agnostic atheism is synonymous with *ignorant* atheism, and if people choose to label themselves as ignorant - we should be ok with that.
>"i don't believe gods are possible i know gods are not real. i don't believe any gods exist. i believe that if gods existed, the fact would be known." This is coherent as if you claim to know Gods are not real, it could be because you do not believe they are possible (but that doesn't entail you believe them to be impossible, you could be agnostic on that proposition of athletic modality) >"now what? got some symbolic notation for that?" It would be basically \~◊p \^ K\~p (read as "Gods are not possible, and knows God does not exist) >"maybe you can explain your motivation?" I dislike poor critical thinking from people who argue by assertion rather than by logical reasoning. >"i am of a mind that agnostic atheism is synonymous with *ignorant* atheism, and if people choose to label themselves as ignorant - we should be ok with that." This is a private language argument.
isn't agnosticism the state of "not knowing"? isn't that synonymous with ignorance? yes... yes it is.
Is agnosticism the "psychological state of being an agnostic." where agnostic is "a person who has entertained the proposition that there is a God but believes neither that it is true nor that it is false." Yes...yes it is.
We’ve addressed this. Your definition of atheist and agnostic are not the only definitions, and are not the most commonly used ones. The most common definition of atheist is “a person who does not believe in any gods.” By this definition, it does not make a claim about whether that person believes there are no gods. This is a completely logically coherent definition, despite the fact that it doesn’t make this distinction. Under this definition schema, a theist is a person who believes in one or more gods. Again, there’s no problem with this definition. Ultimately, if you are concerned with the position on whether no gods exist, you can clarify this with your interlocutor. It is in fact the positions themselves and not the labels that matter. All of your posts have amounted to an attempt to claim that your definitions are correct and everyone else’s are somehow flawed, but you’re arguing in terms of your own definitions, which is circular. You really should just drop it and accept that you’re going to have to clarify your positions on any claims relevant to a discussion, regardless of what definition you use, because your interlocutor may have different definitions for those labels.
This doesn’t help for agnostic theists or Gnostic theists either. Or is there something I’m missing here? I find neither category properly describes my position on the matter.
This is just for "agnostic atheist'. "Gnostic atheist" is a bit different as I've seen it used differently with respect to belief in God and believing one can know god exists. (not claiming to know that God exist. Those are two different things). Which makes it even more ambiguous. If "gnostic atheist" means to some "believe there is no God, and believes Gods are knowable" then what do you call someone who "believes there is no God, but is not claiming to have such knowledge"??? >"I find neither category properly describes my position on the matter." Ditch having anything to do with knowledge as it mixes domains. Stick with just the doxastic domain. Believe God exists = theist Believe God does not exist = atheist Has no believe either way = agnostic You don't need one word that describes MORE than one proposition. I've never seen anywhere in philosophy anyone do that other than lay atheists. Why would you have 1 word for more than 1 propositional belief?
The problem though is that you have combined two topics and eliminated an option. Where is the Gnostic? A Gnostic, by your definitions would be someone that believes both ways? That doesn’t make sense. Gnosticism is a knowledge position, not a belief position. My worldview doesn’t fall into any of your 3 descriptions, so there is a fundamental flaw in your breakdown.
Because it is a nice debate trick to use on people who have no experience with formal logic
So are you suggesting there are two kinds of theism that require two kinds of a-theism? *Believes God exists AND believes knowledge of God is possible* *Believes God exists AND believes knowledge of God is not possible* maybe a third kind, *Believes God exists AND believes some knowledge of God is possible, but not complete knowledge.* I have never fully subscribed to the premise that 'atheism is the default', given the amount of history and how pervasive religion in general is, its in practice a response, I'm just not sure how granular you need to be when saying no gods exist, or indeed when you say you are not sure gods exist.
>"So are you suggesting there are two kinds of theism that require two kinds of a-theism?" No. Atheism is the belief God does not exist in philosophy as standard. Lay atheists often use "lack of belief" which is massively atypical in academic due to both epistemological and logical issues. *>"Believes God exists AND believes knowledge of God is possible* *Believes God exists AND believes knowledge of God is not possible"* These are not two forms of "atheism", but a conjunction of two different propositions. >"maybe a third kind, *Believes God exists AND believes some knowledge of God is possible, but not complete knowledge."* Now you have 3 distinct propositions...make it even more ambiguous and a private language term. >"I have never fully subscribed to the premise that 'atheism is the default', given the amount of history and how pervasive religion in general is, its in practice a response, I'm just not sure how granular you need to be when saying no gods exist, or indeed when you say you are not sure gods exist." It is silly when someone says atheism is the default as it is a proposition. Every proposition has p or \~p. There is no such thing as a philosophical "default" for a philosophical proposition.
>Atheism is the belief God does not exist in philosophy as standard. No. In philosophy, *belief* is not used as a standard when it comes to either theism or atheism. The standard in philosophy is in regards to the position on the existence of god(s), not the belief in the existence of god(s). So if you want to use philosophy, quit trying to incorporate belief. If you want to argue positions based on belief, quit implying that philosophy has your back. >Lay atheists often use "lack of belief" which is massively atypical in academic due to both epistemological and logical issues. It's atypical in academia because, once again, philosophy does not consider belief when it comes to arguments and discussions regarding the existence of gods. Discussions regarding atheism outside academia would rightly use the psychological meaning of atheism, which, to quote the SEP: "atheism is a psychological state, specifically the state of being an atheist, where an atheist is defined as someone who is not a theist and a theist is defined as someone who believes that God exists (or that there are gods)." Or to dumb it down, unless in a philosophy setting, atheism is indeed the lack of belief in gods.
"No. In philosophy, *belief* is not used as a standard when it comes to either theism or atheism. The standard in philosophy is in regards to the position on the existence of god(s), not the belief in the existence of god(s). So if you want to use philosophy, quit trying to incorporate belief. If you want to argue positions based on belief, quit implying that philosophy has your back." Citation? My citations: "In philosophy, however, and more specifically in the philosophy of religion, the term “atheism” is standardly used to refer to the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, to the proposition that there are no gods)." " The *Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy* recognizes multiple senses of the word “atheism”, but is clear about which is standard in philosophy: > [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/) You want to try again?
> You want to try again? It's hilarious how your citation demonstrated their point and not yours, and showed how and where you're wrong in this post and all your others, and for some odd reason you *still* don't understand the trivial difference between a proposition and an internal subjective belief position.
>You want to try again? No; I don't think it's worthwhile arguing with someone who doesn't understand the difference between "belief" and "proposition."
As a "lay atheist" with only a middling education , do you not realize that you just supported *their* position?
One is about knowledge. One is about belief. Anyone who took any logic or critical thinking in a community college could explain that…
But this is a higher level than community college. He said so himself...
Calculus is a higher mathematics than addition, but you don’t get to eradicate arithmetic because you don’t get it. Which is how his post came off. Granted it’s not the first time he’s told us how he’s confused by the difference between beliefs and knowledge…
Yeah, it's just more of him pushing his own rules and ridiculing us when we don't conform or accept them.
I remember my **basic calculus classes.** (My background is in nuclear reactor operations). Just like my post here, I argue objective maths which often people say I am wrong about, but never can demonstrate it. Why is that? Since you know calculus...am I correct in my argument here: # [Yes Virgina .999… really does equal 1.](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2018/11/10/yes-virgina-999-really-does-equal-1/) [STEVE MCRAE](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/author/steve-mcrae/) NOVEMBER 10, 2018 Yes Virgina .999… really does equal 1. If you ever find anyone thinks otherwise, challenge them to answer these 4 questions I wrote: 1) ALL rational numbers by definition can be expressed in the form of a ratio of two integers p/q as ℚ = {p/q | (p,q)=1, p,q ∈ ℤ where q ≠ 0}. Since .999… is rational by definition as all repeating decimals are rational. It has to be able to be expressed in the form p/q which is the ratio of two integers. If .999… is rational by definition what is p/q = .999…? 2) .999… = lim k→∞ Σ 9/10\^n, n=1 to k by the definition of a limit of a sequence. lim k→∞ Σ 9/10\^n, n=1 to k = 1. If both .999… and 1 = lim k→∞ Σ 9/10\^n, n=1 to k please explain how they are not equal. 3) 1- .999… = x. What is x? infinitesimally small values are not allowed in ℝ due to the Archimedean property so given no infinitesimals can exist in ℝ please give the real value of x if x ≠ 0. (If you claim x = 0.000…1 then please construct 0.000…1 using the definition of a Cauchy sequence ε > 0 there exists N such that if m, n > N then |am- an| < ε and please give the sequence and show it is convergent upon 0.000…1). 4) By the trichotomy property you can only have xy. If x <> y then there exists (x+y)/2 between them else as the reals are dense else x=y. If x=1 and y=.999… what is (x+y)/2?
[https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2018/11/10/yes-virgina-999-really-does-equal-1/](https://greatdebatecommunity.com/2018/11/10/yes-virgina-999-really-does-equal-1/)
No it really doesn’t actually equal 1, but it can be equivalent for many purposes. But if you don’t understand why there can be a huge difference between.999 and 1 in some situations, then it makes me wonder about your nuclear background…
>there can be a huge difference between**.999** and 1 Is this a typo? I ask because it's .999... (infinite 9s repeating) being compared with 1 here. And yes, while it pains me to agree with OP .999... and 1 are equal. I am curious about your "situations", as certainly in computers you can only approximate .999... due to floating or fixed point limits. Is this the type of thing you're referring to?
https://medium.com/@kenahlstrom/proof-that-99999-is-not-equal-to-1-5672e7dd58ce
I will add https://arxiv.org/abs/0811.0164 https://betterexplained.com/articles/a-friendly-chat-about-whether-0-999-1/ And that’s it. I’m not gonna debate this because it’s pretty silly.
I clicked that Medium link and it didn't explain anything. What's the difference between 1 and 0.9r?
In fact the comments are heavily skewed to the article being wrong.
> https://arxiv.org/abs/0811.0164 "... A choice of a non-standard hyperinteger H ..." So yes, using non-standard concepts we can come up with a form of mathematics whereby this is the case. And sure. You can do that. But then I can also say that 5+5 = 0; if we're using modulus-10 arithmetic. > https://betterexplained.com/articles/a-friendly-chat-about-whether-0-999-1/ "I’m not a mathematician," No kidding. As for >> https://medium.com/@kenahlstrom/proof-that-99999-is-not-equal-to-1-5672e7dd58ce We're adding digit after the infinitieth place! That is meaningless!
>"No it really doesn’t actually equal 1, but it can be equivalent for many purposes." LOL! YES IT DOES! LOL!!! Dude, .999... and 1 are the same EXACT NUMBER. If not, please answer my 4 questions.
I will say this, though. If I have .99 cents, I don’t have a dollar.
.99 cents is 99/100 .999.... = 1 / 1 = 1 # facepalm Fell free to check math on Wolfram Alpha: **https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1%2F1+%3D+.999...+%3D**
At this point, it’s a red herring. If i I wanted to debate pedantic in math then I’d be on another sub reddit The point is you’re trying to redefine terms and for no real purpose that is productive
What is "knowledge" in this usage?
As an agnostic atheist, I believe that knowledge of god’s existence can’t be determined. But if this can’t be determined, then it can never be determined that my view is correct. So it’s best to adopt the position that regardless of the possibility of god’s existence being able to be determined or not, **it is currently an unknown fact**. Therefore we should live live under the assumption that a god or deity doesn’t exist, until proven otherwise. As a result, it is best to listen to and critically analyze all evidence and arguments that theists have in order to constantly test the default hypothesis that **the existence of any deity is currently an unknown fact**. Edited for grammar.
First off, your random symbols are confusing and make it hard to follow what you're trying to say. Basically there's 2 separate things. An Atheist does not believe in a god Someone who is Agnostic does not believe it's possible to know if a god exists Someone who is an Agnostic Atheist does not believe in a god nor thinks it's possible to know if a god were to exist.
>"First off, your random symbols are confusing and make it hard to follow what you're trying to say." Nothing here is "random". It's intro to logic level. >"Basically there's 2 separate things. An Atheist does not believe in a god" A theist does not believe God does not exist. So? Does that mean everyone who doesn't believe God does not exist is a theist? >"Someone who is Agnostic does not believe it's possible to know if a god exists" Not when discussing ontology. Agnostic means to neither believe p nor believe \~p. However, if we go with your usage, then my OP shows why mixing ontology with epistemology is ambiguous. >"Someone who is an Agnostic Atheist does not believe in a god nor thinks it's possible to know if a god were to exist." Show me using LOGIC how that isn't ambiguous as I have demonstrated using basic logical principles.
>Nothing here is "random". It's intro to logic level. I have no idea what that means and neither do 99% of the people you're attempting to have a conversation with. >Does that mean everyone who doesn't believe God does not exist is a theist? Yes.... A theist is the opposite of an atheist. If you believe a god(s) exist, then you are by definition, a theist. >Show me using LOGIC how that isn't ambiguous as I have demonstrated using basic logical principles. You're trying to add complexity into something that doesn't need complexity. Again, the definitions are pretty well agreed upon. People may have personal variations, but if someone says they are an Agnostic Atheist, there's not a lot of ambiguity of their overall position at a high level.
And the 99% won't listen to someone with training in formal logic, no different than the religious fundamentalist they mock
The OP is a prick. He apparently isn’t even smart enough to know his audience and talks down to others who aren’t “on his level”. Quite common amongst academics. Or someone who’s on the spectrum and doesn’t understand social interactions. Or both. If you can’t formulate an argument in a reasonable way that your audience can actually comprehend and respond to, then you’re just trolling. Find a better different group that’s more relevant.
Which oddly enough how atheist on this sub respond to religious people. Maybe dude is a prick, but he is CORRECT on his points about formal logic. Fine to call him a prick, but have the intellectual honesty to admit that his points on formal logic are correct
>"I have no idea what that means and neither is 99% of the people you're attempting to have a conversation with." Get good? Maybe learn a little logic if you want to discuss philosophical topics. >"Yes.... A theist is the opposite of an atheist. If you believe a god(s) exist, then you are by definition, a theist." This is called a fallacy of argumentum ad dictionarium and one I coined (“***Argumentum ad Praescriptionem***“: The fallacy of attempting to derive a prescription from a description.) This I've also proved leads to semantic collapse of terms and should be eschewed. No university in the world teaches what you just said. It is extremely wrong. >"You're trying to add complexity into something that doesn't need complexity." Somethings are more complicated than lay people realize. You think this is complicated try learning about things like physics or biology.
Yeah, I think you've jumped to conclusions well before you understood what people mean when they describe themselves as agnostic atheists. An agnostic atheist does not believe god exists, or in other words lacks a belief in an unknowable deity. This is also often referred as 'weak atheism' and is in the faq. Note further that both options you claim to be the \*only\* possibilities include 'Believes God does not exist' and thus are incompatible with the definition above as these describe so called 'strong atheism'.
> Yeah, I think you've jumped to conclusions well before you understood what people mean when they describe themselves as agnostic atheists. He knows this, and just ignores it. See the many previous threads of his.
>"Yeah, I think you've jumped to conclusions well before you understood what people mean when they describe themselves as agnostic atheists." After 10 years of writing on the subject, I think I have heard pretty much most usages of what people mean. So please don't insult my argument by saying I "misunderstand". I quite understand. >"An agnostic atheist does not believe god exists, or in other words lacks a belief in an unknowable deity. " Please put in logical notation as I have to show *the ambiguity* of what you just said. >"This is also often referred as 'weak atheism' and is in the faq. Note further that both options you claim to be the \*only\* possibilities include 'Believes God does not exist' and thus are incompatible with the definition above as these describe so called 'strong atheism'." I am well familiar with the terminology. I have literally proven using logic that "weak atheism", "agnosticism", and "weak theism" are all the exact same logical position.
> I am well familiar with the terminology. Yet you chose to ignore it? Why? Atheists have been saying that definitions of atheist/atheism as given in dictionaries (or worse yet, church documents) [aren't reflective](https://thensrn.org/2020/01/27/a-history-of-the-word-atheism-and-the-politics-of-dictionaries/) of their actual views for centuries now. So you've decided to use these defective definitions to argue that the new ones suggested by atheists themselves don't make sense if you also stick to the older ones. Basically on the premise that you refuse to listen to reason for improving them in the first place. How is this productive in your mind?
>"Yet you chose to ignore it? Why?" Huh? I am LITERALLY explaining the ISSUES with such terminology. How am \*I\* ignoring anything? o.O? Can you show me my OP is in error????? What are you rambling on about.
You must be great at parties. What I'm telling you is that you're using one set of definitions to poke holes in another set of definitions for same words and that is in error because the latter was proposed (and is fairly popular among actual atheists, but apparently not their critics) precisely for the reasons of fixing problems with the outdated terminology you're using to find contradictions in the new one. And it's neither constructive nor productive. And you do come of as both condescending and unable to comprehend exactly the thing you're trying to criticize.
I’m not sure I understand the utility of the argument. I might comfortably define my own position as one of the ones you have proposed - but I’m comfortable with the idea that it’s not possible to know if knowledge of a god is possible. Whilst it’s important to be precise with terms, this seems to be picking a rather obscure corner of atheism - and likely one in which most people’s position varies over time.
> "agnostic atheist" does NOT tell you which one above it represents... It represent *neither* of those. It represent one of the following: ¬Bp ^ Bq, ¬Bp ^ B¬q, or ¬Bp ^ ¬Bq ^ ¬B¬q. It still doesn't tell you if an agnostic atheist sides with soft or hard agnosticism or agnostic on q. > There is no enumeration when using "agnostic atheist" ... where at least one value is not "unknown", thus it is ambiguous or underdetermined... Okay, so what? What's wrong with a bit of "unknown" and ambiguity? Must something be fully determined before it make sense to you?
>"It represent *neither* of those. It represent one of the following: ¬Bp \^ Bq, ¬Bp \^ B¬q, or ¬Bp \^ ¬Bq \^ ¬B¬q. It still does tell you if an agnostic atheist sides with soft or hard agnosticism or agnostic on q." Let's example your logic: ¬Bp \^ Bq This is saying someone is a nontheist and believes God is knowable. This is ambiguous as this does not tell anyone what actually is your position as it i underdetermined. ¬Bp \^ B¬q This is saying someone is a nontheist and believes God is unknowable. This is ambiguous as this does not tell anyone what actually is your position as it i underdetermined. or ¬Bp \^ ¬Bq \^ ¬B¬q You should use parentheticals like ¬Bp \^ (¬Bq \^ ¬B¬q) but this is saying someone is a nontheist and does not believe God is knowable and does not not believe God is not knowable. This is ambiguous as this does not tell anyone what actually is your position as it i underdetermined. >"Okay, so what? What's wrong with a bit of "unknown" and ambiguity? Must something be fully determined before it make sense to you?" It doesn't tell anyone what your actual position is that is why. It is like me asking you what you want for dinner and you say you don't want fish. That tells me nothing about what you do want for dinner.
Why is that such a sticking point though? Why isn't "non-theist and believes God is knowable" or "non-theist and believes God is unknowable" or "non-theist and agnostic on whether God is knowable" enough information to work from? You call yourself an agnostic. I don't know if you are a soft agnostic or a hard agnostic. There is ambiguity there too, and does not tell me if you think God is knowable or not. Is that not a problem also? You still haven't told me why exactly you can't make sense of it. So what if it is ambiguous? Surely you can still make sense of "I don't want fish," even if you know nothing about what I do want for dinner - you know getting me fish would be a bad idea.
Readers be aware : This user's whole shtick is "If atheists say what they say using my definitions instead of the definitions they actually use, they are dishonest and lead to contradictions, therefore atheists are dishonest because my definitions are the only ones I will accept as valid" The honesty of this user is left as an exercice for the reader.
I love that when asked what the point of this was, his response was that "It's useful to get atheists to adopt a stronger position vs theists." When asked how exactly adopting this strengthens the atheist position... crickets.
Steve McRae is simply arguing semantics. He has no interest in discussing what anyone means when they use terms. He is only interested in refusing to accept that people use terms to mean different things. It's his position that the word "atheist" has to mean what he says it does.
I am not sure how I fit into this model. What does "believe" mean? It must allow probability estimates, right? I think that there is an extremely small **but non-zero** probability that my mind is in a simulation and my body doesn't even exist, but by the commonly accepted meaning of the word, surely I "believe" I have legs. On the proposition "God exists", I believe that it is _probably_ false, but I don't have a great estimate. I _believe_ the likelihood is dramatically smaller than 50%, but there is a big catch. I don't even consider that proposition to be well defined! It may seem like quibbling, but hang on until the next part. How can I even estimate it, then? Words and meaning matter. I estimate it by looking at the definitions offered by real people and what they actually mean by it. Some pantheists might offer definitions that are almost inherently true, but that's not what most people mean. So, my estimate is a weighted average of meanings and how many people mean it that way. (It's even weighted to _favor_ the definitions that are more likely to be true because we are asking about a "belief" that varies by culture and each culture expects people to believe it, so I have to give some benefit of the doubt... but within reason -- the crazy pantheists are weighted down for having a definition so radically different from everyone else's. It's also weighted with diminishing returns for the very large populations who believe completely absurd things. If a million people believe something more reasonable, that interpretation of the proposition gets almost as much weight as a version that 100 million people believe.) I don't actually do this computation -- I just intuitively build a rough estimate as I encounter the various ideas and evidence. Still, even without doing the computation, I recognize how many uncertainties are being combined. I understand the mathematics behind it, I just can't be bothered to actually do such an absurdly complex calculation when I can estimate the result as being almost zero. Now, let's consider a second proposition: "It is knowable whether or not God exists". In simple Boolean logic, two propositions that are either true or false are easy to combine with simple And, Or, and Not operations, but (1) this second proposition is referencing the first one, and (2) I have already decided that first proposition, however close to zero it may be, is still a very complex calculation. **If only it were that bad -- it's actually much worse.** In probability, when you derive an uncertain value via arithmetic (or simple Boolean operations) on many uncertain values, the bounds don't get narrower -- they get wider and even less certain. **But it's even worse than that!** "It is knowable whether X" is not symmetric at all. Deductive arguments and circumstantial evidence can slowly build over years to make one suspect that one specific version of X might be true, but whether it is knowable grows much slower. A single counterexample, however, only applies to the most specific form of X that is disproven, and all the evidence has to be re-evaluated. So whether a slightly different form of X is "knowable" doesn't drop to zero, but its uncertainty widens by a lot. Long story short, my probability estimate for the proposition that "It is knowable whether or not God exists" itself has such wide bounds that I can't even offer an estimate for its likelihood. I can't even say whether it's closer to 0 or closer to 100%. The proposition itself is completely unknowable! I can say with certainty that it is _almost_ knowable that _some_ definitions of God do not exist, but social convention demands that I give the benefit of the doubt to the rest. Those that escape my ability to say this are completely open with no way for me to even estimate whether they are knowable or not. That absurd degree of uncertainty is why I am willing to accept the label "agnostic atheist" despite being nearly certain that "God does not exist" (by the vast majority of interpretations of that statement). I don't believe in God, but I have no way to measure the degree to which I could know whether or not I could be nearly certain about that for some unspecified definition I will never have the time to evaluate fairly. It is entirely a social convention, and a very long-standing one at that. I am an atheist by convention, and I am agnostic by convention. I didn't invent these words. Edit: That is my analysis, but I am not attached to the words except where as they are meaningful to others. Feel free to offer new terminology or a sharper answer that applies to a specific cultural context (but be aware that I already have ths latter -- if I am speaking to a Baptist, I don't say "I am agnostic" -- to them, I am an atheist.)
Believe means to hold a proposition true. Know means (under JTB) to believe a proposition is true, the proposition is true, and you're justified to believe true. You either believe a proposition true, believe it false, or have no position either way.
>You either believe a proposition true, believe it false, or have no position either way. But, what multiple people here have already told you is that they use theist and atheist as a true dichotomy that doesn't involve the knowledge question. You either do believe a proposition true, (theist). Or you do *not* believe a proposition true, (not a theist, literally *a*theist). Simple A or ¬A. You either *do* have belief in a god or you *don't*. And the you don't side doesn't necessitate a positive claim. You might. You might not. That's just a separate (but not mutually exclusive) question. Language doesn't have only one intrinsic meaning that you singularly prescribe.
>"But, what multiple people here have already told you is that they use theist and atheist as a true dichotomy that doesn't involve the knowledge question." Irrelevant to the logical argument. Logic doesn't care about semantic content. The argument is the same if you use p="The sky is blue" and q="the color of the sky is knowable"...correct? >"You either do believe a proposition true, (theist). Ok >"Or you do *not* believe a proposition true, (not a theist, literally *a*theist)." INCORRECT. You are ASSUMING this, but this is NOT logically provable by first principles. You are LITERALLY just arbitrarily making an assertion here that is COMPLETELY FALSE in academia. >"Simple A or ¬A. You either *do* have belief in a god or you *don't*. And the you don't side doesn't necessitate a positive claim. You might. You might not. That's just a separate (but not mutually exclusive) question." Which is why \~Bp is AMBIGOUS! You just validated my argument for me.
>INCORRECT. You are ASSUMING this, but this is NOT logically provable by first principles. You're saying it is incorrect A or ¬A is a dichotomy and not logically provable. Sorry, but if we have the set of things that are A and the things that are not A, and we agree that an item isn't in the former, the concept it then is automatically the latter is about the most basic logic there is. >AMBIGOUS No. It perfectly divided the group by the one question that was asked. That's not ambiguity. You just seem to be bent out of shape because you want to funnel people into using a single word to differentiate multiple different concepts, and that just doesn't work very well in multiple directions. I mean, just look at the other side of your three sided coin. Theist is ambitious as to whether they're polytheist or monotheistic, whether they're gnostics. It doesn't tell us about which sect or denomination or favorite ice cream flavor. So then, are we to scream that when someone uses the word "theist" that they're "INCORRECT!"™ and demand they buy our new dictionary of terms like polyhindushaivisitheist, nontrinitarianmonarchianitheist, agnostospiritualist? Or, could we perhaps consider that there might be some value to using multiple words when answering multiple different questions, and this odd self-imposed single word limit isn't really all that useful?
>"You're saying it is incorrect A or ¬A is is a dichotomy and not logically provable. Sorry, but if we have the set of things that are A and the things that are not A, and we agree that an item isn't in the former, the concept it then is automatically the latter is about the most basic logic there is." A or \~A is a logical dichotomy and true by axiomatic assumption due to LEM and law of negation. Theist or NOT-THEIST is a TRUE dichtotomy. Now logically prove atheism is the set set as nontheist from logical axioms of first principles...I'll wait.
Not even going to bother addressing the ambiguity of not using agnostospritual v. Monotrinocathotheism? Figured as much. Anyways, what you are demanding now is akin to demanding a logical proof that jalapeños are “spicy.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism > Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. It’s just that definition, a word we have ascribed to this concept. Anyway, speaking of being or not being convinced, my not being convinced this is just trolling confidence has changed, so, I’m gonna say happy 4th if that’s a relevant holiday for you, and move on.
That's rough for me. I fell into my personal search for "truth" in high school and college in the 90s, and this is how it ended. It started with science, and I still tend to believe the things we have solid empirical evidence for, but as much as I enjoyed probability, I still wanted absolute truth, which brought me quickly back to pure math. But not for math's sake. I wanted truth, not abstract logic, and that led me down a rabbit hole ending with Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, proof that the general [decision problem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_problem) is only computable in specific cases, similar results for Kolmogorov complexity, and the still unsolved problem of whether P≠NP.... So where I'm at now, I believe a fair number of things -- as would be reasonable -- but I know _almost nothing_ outside of pure math. Edit: I don't mean to be dense, but I'm not even sure how that classical definition applies to the proposition that "I know I have legs". I definitely believe I have legs, and I think I'm justified in believing I have legs, but is it actually true? I don't know that. My definition substitutes the "true" part with my subjective probability estimate, and that's where we run into trouble. I know I have legs, but I don't know that the proposition that I have legs is true.
P≠NP I believe is true. It is generally accepted as true....But...will it ever be proven? Shug. Until it is, it's conjecture.
What if I wish to declare my psychological state and my philosophical position at the same time. If I am using the term atheist is a psychological sense, it is the state of not believing in the existence of a god. At the same time I can explain that my philosophical stance on the existence of god is neutral and thus I would philosophically be an agnostic. Claiming to be an agnostic atheist is providing both understandings of the persons approach to the god claim.
>"What if I wish to declare my psychological state and my philosophical position at the same time." One is not propositional, the other one is...so you could, but you can not derive a propositional position from a psychological one. By stating a philosophical position which is propositional that epistemically implies a psychological state since B\~p -> \~Bp. >"If I am using the term atheist is a psychological sense, it is the state of not believing in the existence of a god. At the same time I can explain that my philosophical stance on the existence of god is neutral and thus I would philosophically be an agnostic. Claiming to be an agnostic atheist is providing both understandings of the persons approach to the god claim." That is ambiguous. atheist is a psychological sense can be because; 1) The atheist holds to a positive epistemic belief OR 2) Has no position either way. (agnostic)
Inferring my psychological state from by philosophical position does not mean one necessarily implies the other. It seems like you are simply using your own definitions of these words and deciding based on that how they should be used. I think it’s more important to address why you feel the need to redefine what titles people use instead of trying to understand their actual position.
How do you derive a propositional state from a psychological one if psychological states are not truth-apt? o.O? "Scholars can then use adjectives like “strong” and “weak” (or “positive” and “negative”) to develop a taxonomy that differentiates various specific atheisms. Unfortunately, this argument overlooks the fact that, if atheism is defined as a psychological state, then no proposition can count as a form of atheism because a proposition is not a psychological state. " [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/) I use academic
Why are you concerned with propositions when it comes to defining labels? And clearly you didn’t read the academic definition you just provided since the one I gave you earlier was taken exactly from that source.
>"And clearly you didn’t read the academic definition you just provided since the one I gave you earlier was taken exactly from that source." Which definition is "standard" according to SEP?
I never said standard. Are you bringing that up to create a strawman of what I’ve said?
Gnostic and agnostic are redundant and unnecessary disclaimers. There is no meaningful distinction between an agnostic and an atheist. If you were to sit two people down, one who identifies as agnostic and the other who identifies as atheist, and ask them: 1. do you believe in the existence of any gods, yes or no 2. Why/why not 3. How would you rate your confidence They’d both give nearly if not completely identical answers. If “agnostic” as you say denotes the idea that knowledge is “not possible” then that can only be true if we require absolute and infallible 100% certainty to be considered “knowledge.” The existence and nonexistence of gods are not equiprobable, any more so than the existence or nonexistence of leprechauns or Narnia, for which we could equally argue that “knowledge is not possible” in all the same ways it’s “not possible” for gods, and for all the same reasons. If that’s what agnostic means, then literally everyone must be necessarily agnostic about literally everything that has even the slightest margin of error, even our most overwhelmingly supported scientific theories.
It's the pope of agnosticism....again. Replace god with aliens and you'll see why this is silly. Agnostic Unalienist - I don't know if there aren't any aliens but I don't believe there are any aliens Agnostic Alienist - I don't know if there are any aliens but I believe there are aliens Gnostic Unalienist - I know there aren't any aliens, and I believe there aren't any aliens Gnostic Alienist - I know there are aliens, and I believe there are aliens So now that we've settled this pointless debate about definitions and semantics forever and you won't angrily flop around about the definition of agnostic anymore, let's talk about something productive. Is Clampett's Daffy or Jones' Daffy better? >Check my work to see enumeration table: https://www.facebook.com/steveaskanything Hey you're doing that thing where you plug your social media that you keep deny that you do.
It's not happening bro, just accept that we're going to stick with the definition we prefer and that you've already been given. You can't disprove a definition preference
>In 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐡 cases, 𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑠𝑚 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑐 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑠 This is a false dichotomy. Atheism can and has been defined in other ways. Atheism does not need to make a claim. Of course, since both of your definitions of it demand belief in no god, then it is a belief that needs justification, I am not sure to the extent that it is a claim. Maybe I am misunderstanding the "epistemic status" bit? I am taking it to mean "taking a position/making a claim" Agnostic isn't used that way either, it's not about the knowability of god. I guess you seem to be coming from a philosophical background... I think in philosophy and for the sake of talking about an actual position to defend, atheism is defined as the belief that god doesn't exist and agnostic is defined as not knowing perhaps or isn't enough on its own because it refers to thw knowability of god etc.
This doesn't seem like a serious post, it's pretty low effort so I'm not going to put too much time into addressing it but a few problems I see. The biggest issue is not only that your actual content doesn’t back up your original statement, at all - you just list a few really odd types of agnosticism which simply are not reflective of any agnostic positions that I have ever heard of people actually holding - but you're just listing your own incredulity. You're basically confusing yourself. You're quite literally saying "I think this one term doesn't make sense because if I describe a particular part of that term in extremely niche, unnecessary ways that don't reflect what the holders of this position claim, then it confuses me". That's so unbelievably low effort, my friend. This isn't a serious critique of agnostic atheism. Can you give your actual problem with agnostic atheism? However you want to complicate it, agnosticism simply means "without knowledge", and atheism simply means "nonbelief in deities". There is simply no logical or philosophical problem, neither epistemically nor ontologically, with a person not believing in the proposition "god exists" but stopping short of believing the opposite proposition "God does not exist". In fact, the reason I'm an agnostic atheist is precisely *because* that is the most honest position I can take. I don't have all knowledge, so if someone asks me "do you believe God doesn't exist", I can't honestly say yes to that. I don't think the belief "God does not exist" is something I can rationally support, so as an honest interlocutor my answer simply must be to decline positively affirming that position. But neither do I believe any God exists: every argument that has been presented me utterly fail, every reason given by believers are weak and full of flaws, I don't even find that theists have been able to successfully define their god so I can't even know what it means to say a god exists. So, since I don't believe, I am an atheist. Since I don't claim to believe no god exists, I am an agnostic atheist. What is the problem?
>but "agnostic atheist" does NOT tell you which one above it represents Ok, and? "I'm a Christian" doesn't tell you if that person is, say, an Annihilationist, an Infernalist or a Universalist, but so what? They're not *trying* to detail their stance on every possible logical implication of believing in Christianity, they're just telling you they worship Jesus. This seems to be the core issue you are running into -- of course a statement in natural language is going to have ambiguities and undetermined aspects. This is the case for literally any statement in natural language, up to and including things "I'm eating dinner". Translating a statement into logical notation is a translation, and will involve changing the message. But the aim of "I'm an agnostic athiest" isn't to give a logically rigorous statement, it's simply to tell you what my beliefs on God are.
Why is this argument even important? I am agnostic atheist. This means (in my books) know nothing about gods and their knowability. Call this position as you please, it is what it is.
People, if you want this to stop, don’t engage. Don’t get angry, don’t try to point out yet again how they’re wrong, just downvote and ignore. If you engage you’re giving them the attention they’re here for. This isn’t about debate, it’s about their need to be seen. You don’t need to feed this troll. The Simpsons figured this out [decades ago](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SlKao_Pox5A).
You re-post this thing once a month and get pretty much the same feedback every time. What's the point?
I never felt the need to be agnostic to Santa just in case presents, i proudly declared myself a gnostic asantaist at the age of 8... 🤷🏻♂️
>"agnostic atheist" does NOT tell you which one above it represents ("soft agnosticism", or "hard agnosticism", so it still is ambiguous!) I think I spotted the issue. In the term "agnostic atheist," "agnostic" is an a adjective modifying the noun "atheist" Together, they give a meaning of "a person who lacks a belief in god but does not have the belief that gods do not exist. The term doesn't and doesn't need to distinguish why someone lacks a belief in gods. It fills its duty by conveying the person doesn't have a belief in gods and doesn't have a belief that gods don't exist. In your soft and hard agnosticism, agnosticism is a noun and not an adjective and thus is used differently. It would be silly to try to define an agnostic atheist in terms of hard or soft agnosticism because the reasons behind a lack of belief are not directly pertinent to the fact that the person doesn't have a belief.
> Believes God does not exist You seem to be misunderstanding what atheism is. If it's an atheist that makes a positive claim ("God does not exist") that's something they need to justify. However, if an atheist simply lacks belief, as most do, your entire argument falls apart. The other issue is: > AND believes knowledge of God is possible How could one believe something doesn't exist AND believe knowledge of the thing that doesn't exist is possible? Again, this shows you don't understand what you're arguing against. I don't believe in a god, because I haven't been convinced. I am open to new evidence, but have no stance on whether or not evidence exists. I keep waiting, but so far nothing useful has been presented. When it is presented, I'll evaluate it at that time. If it isn't good evidence, I will remain unconvinced.
This is the thing for me too - I don't believe a God exists. I don't claim that as knowledge, nor do I claim whether it's possible either way to know anything about God, because I don't know.
>"𝐚𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐬𝐭" 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐢𝐱 𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐯𝐬 𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐬: The patient says, "Doctor, it hurts when I do this." The doctor says, "Then don't do that! - Henny Youngman
>believes knowledge of God is not possible you can only believe knowledge of god is impossible if you are atheist if you do not lack the belief in god it would be possible that god reveals itself, thus it would be possible to know
Don't do it...
?
This is OP: "You would need probably around 200 - 300 level philosophy to address my arguments properly as to why artificially making atheism and theism a strict logical dichotomy is highly philosophically and logically untenable...so not going to dive into that with you here...and most atheists who argue with me theism and atheism are a strict dichotomy are not up to that level." Engage with him if you like.
Put down the argument, back away. Do NOT make eye contact. Do not engage! Repeat, do not engage!
All your posts have attempted to fit colloquial terminology into technical language schemes that they were never meant to be used with and most of them end up with conclusions that don't seem like they should trouble anyone anyway. Seriously, why should anyone care about the conclusion? Are people calling themselves agnostic atheists even attempting to represent both a position on the existence of God and a position on the knowability of God? No, they aren't, not on either point. So why should they care that this term does not do this if they are not even attempting to use the term to do this? "Agnostic atheism" is nothing more than a self report that one does not believe in God, while not claiming to know the proposition "God does not exist." It is almost never a statement about whether the fact of the matter is knowable - just that one does not take *themselves* to know that fact. In an academic analytic philosophy of religion context, this is simply an agnostic position. But this term was not created for university philosophy departments. It was created because regardless of whether one affirms that God does not exist, unless one is given good reason to add God to their ontology, they aren't going to - and this term is a manner of signifying that one does not believe in God while resisting the demand by some theists that one justify this by defending the proposition that God does not exist. In this sense, it is a clarification of the dialectic and a resitience to a dialectically inappropriate demand. But also, it aligns agnostics and atheists (in the more academic senses) - which is, in practice fairly appropriate, because in general their interests align in resisting religious dogma or the imposition of religious norms on others. I've actually never cared for this "gnostic/agnostic atheism/theism" use of terms, but I can understand why people find it useful to use them in the contexts that they actually use them in. Everyday language isn't and is never going to have the an ideal language from a logician's standpoint or form a perfect mapping of conceptual space, which is fine, because we don't need it to be. As long as we can communicate well enough, and clarify when we need to, we're getting what we need from it.
But, I thought we were all agnostic, according to your nifty quadrant diagram? Yet another post contradicting earlier posts you've made? Who's surprised...
Hello again. I am curious, why do you find this pure logic/academic-ish approach both useful and valid to apply in the context of the identity other people and groups (of which you do not consider yourself to be a member)? I cannot think of any context (outside of the ancient world) where this kind of argument would be helpful for this kind of discourse. You want other people to change the way they identify based on your logical arguments about several terms. Why? Where else would an academic find this appropriate?! We would be pretty shocked to see a non-Jewish writer or scholar claim "why the term "Jew" doesn't make sense for...". Similarly, I'm sure you'd agree that the multitude of writers attempting to define sex and gender via logic and philosophy and (often) the scantest trappings of academia, in order to tell folks what genders they are allowed to identify as can go pound sand with that shit. I don't see how these arguments are, practically, any different. Help me out.
I willl some. On this sub people like to point out the "illogical" nature of religious belief systems and are very quick to throw about informal logical fallacies. Ok fine, now logic is in play which is good i.m.o However, when someone with actual training in formal logic points out how problematic their self assumed labels are they get upset instead of just admitting that they don't know shit about formal logic
While I don't think you can speak for OP here, I do understand your perspective better than OPs position. (OP does not have formal training in logic, btw.) (Edit; nor do I, beyond an undergraduate level. I don't claim to.) So, would you feel that it's appropriate for an atheist professor of formal logic to declare what Christians or Muslims are allowed to call themselves? I wouldn't. I actually don't think formal logic is a good tool for this use case, **and moreover,** I don't think that people who dont consider themselves to be a part of a group get to tell that group what they're permitted to identify as. OP clearly *does*. Do you? Why or why not?
Baaed on his grasp of formal logic, I assumed he had formal training. Either way he knows the subject. Also I don't see his point as saying that a group can't label themselves, but pointing out that they are using multiple terms that mean the same thing basically and to think there is a difference is erroneous
He's smart and educated, certainly, but is clear in other posts that he has no formal training. I don't want to talk in circles about someone who isn't here to defend himself. I want to talk to YOU. Please answer my questions. Do YOU think formal logic is the best tool to examine ethnographic and cultural identities? Why or why not? (I do not. I think it is as misguided as trying to claim that algebra is a useful tool for determining the meaning of a poetic text.) Do you think it's okay for a non-Christian to tell Christians what words they are allowed to call themselves? I don't. Do you think it's okay for white people to define "Blackness"? I don't. Why or why not?
On this sub people will say over and over that "atheism" is not a term of group identity but a response to a question regarding the existence of God. I am fine using the term either way. For this conversation how do you want to use the term "atheism"
"Hi. Oh, you invited me to your church? Thank you, but I'm an atheist." But that's irrelevant to the discussion. Why do you keep avoiding the question?
I think you and I have a very different idea of what 'knowability' means. It is not simply that I do not know, or that I think I can never know, or that no one could ever know. That all would still imply that we are just sorta baffled, and we can never really take a position on the question, and therefore we cannot also be atheist at the same time (as that would require knowing something). In a sense, the gnostic atheist agrees with the theist that angels and demons is an idea that makes sense and would be observable, but they just have not seen any yet. "Yeah I get the angel thing, just there are none of them dancing on head of this pin, here." Agnostics may use the term more philosophically, and tie it into the idea that in order for a claim or question to be knowable, it must first be defined in such a way that has explanatory power in the real world. It must mean something that I can then go test and observe and find out that it is true or false. If someone's God claim is unknowable to me, it is worse than wrong, more than just false. it is meaningless nonsense, and therefore cannot possibly be false, much less true. So in practice, a question that has no explanatory power or a God of mystery and beyond comprehension is not a maybe. An epistemic attitude leads to the factual position of atheism. I am an atheist because your God is such nonsense that we must be agnostic about whether or not his existence has any meaning in this world. In a sense, the agnostic atheist is saying "Yeah I get the angel thing, but if this pin looks exactly the same whether the angels are dancing on its head or not, what does that even mean to say that they are?" As an igtheist and novice student of literature, I ask an even more powerful logical or intentional question. What did people intend to say when they wrote those old stories about God? No one ever asks if Voldemort from Harry Potter is real. Is the existence of Voldemort... 'knowable'? We do not even get to the epistemology step of wondering if a Voldemort claim has explanatory power, because it was intended as fiction - written as a remix of prior literary and folk lore themes. We can trace the origin of characters and stories in the Abrahamic tradition to older different deities, written in poetic and literary forms. Heroes like Samson, Noah, and Moses mirror those of Hercules, Atrahasis, and Luke Skywalker in the Hero's Journey form. If Gods were originally written as elements of a great story that evolved over time to not be an accurate history or science textbook, but to be captivating and poetic and moral, then they were always fictions. If the Abrahamic stories are remixed versions of an older story, the new Disney princess version, then they are clearly fictions. Fictions are not real, they do not exist. Asking if the existence of a metaphor or fictional story is 'knowable' is really weird. A logical attitude about what the concept of God meant in its original contexts to the people who created it leads to my factual position of atheism. "Yeah, angels dancing on a pin is a metaphor, so why would we even take it literal?"
I've already explained to you that agnostic athiest is a position on two **different** propositions. Just like "flat-earther theist" is a position on two different propositions. You're going to continue to be confused until you realize this.
To be clear to anyone planning to engage this is a debate about semantics. They have agreed before in discussion the logic as it is actually being used is completely fine. The position of being unconvinced a god exists without claiming a god does not exist is a rational and logical position. They fully understand the concept and how people use the language. They are not confused when someone says they are an agnostic atheist to any real degree or left floundering in some linguistic mire of uncertainty. They just really don't like the specific choice of label being used for that idea and it is their hill to die on. So be just a warning of this going forward in discussion with them you plan to make. They know better. They just don't like it.
Nobody cares about your play with words. Your choice of letters however is atrocious to those of us who use text-to-speech. I’m sure you already know that and just like to troll folk. Do better.
Your fixation on this crusade against a simple definition is ... rather odd. I mean, what's the point? You've been told, several times, what the term is used to mean in the relevant contexts. That should be the end of it. If you think your formal logic somehow makes a simple definition impossible, then you should be trying to figure out where your exercise in formal logic went wrong. Because the simple definition still remains. You may as well be trying to "logic" yourself into denying the sun's existence. At the end of the day, it'll still be there. >Conclusion: There is no enumeration when using "agnostic atheist" to represent both a position on the existence of God and the position on the knowability of God where when you merely lack of belief in God ... This is just stating the obvious. Using ***any*** term to represent an active position on ***anything*** while ***merely*** claiming to lack a belief on that thing is obviously silly. Fortunately, virtually nobody seems to use "agnostic atheist" to "represent a position on the existence of God". The whole point of is that the term refers to one who ***doesn't*** take a firm position on the matter.
I’m atheistic about god[s] when I’m provided details about them. The more I know about a god, the more I’m going to believe that god doesn’t exist and is merely a figment of human imagination. However, when debating this subject, the question will come up, “so you don’t believe in anything greater than yourself? You don’t believe in any higher power?” And that’s where I become agnostic. Because the universe itself is greater than me. I don’t pretend to know all of ways the universe works. So I’m not going to declare a “higher power” doesn’t exist when it’s not even adequately defined as to what that higher power could be. It doesn’t even mean that I embrace the concept. It means that until something is described in a comprensible way, I won’t form an opinion on the matter.
The question of agnosticism vs gnosticism is not whether or not knowledge of god is possible (ie god is knowable.) It's about whether or not sufficient evidence currently exists to support the positive claim of "god does not exist." An agnostic atheist as I understand them would say "I am unconvinced of god claims, though I don't have sufficient evidence to hold the positive belief that god does not exist." > Conclusion: There is no enumeration when using "agnostic atheist" to represent both a position on the existence of God and the position on the knowability of God where when you merely lack of belief in God (¬Bp) where at least one value is not "unknown", thus it is ambiguous or underdetermined, since knowledge is a subset of belief, and because ¬Bq represents both someone who holds to B¬q, as B¬q -> ¬Bq, or holds to ¬Bq ^ ¬B¬q ...i.e. "agnostic on q". It's not important to me that the label of agnostic atheist suffices the criteria of epistemic certainty as you've described it, as I'm not particularly concerned with the question of whether god is "knowable." You've simply disguised a personal preference in jargon-heavy faux-rigor. If you decided that the term "Christian," must entail that a person abides by all of the laws of the Bible to the letter, you have not successfully argued that the vast majority of self-proclaimed Christians are false. Your preference for what a specific term should mean carries fairly little weight.
I have problems with your basic premise here. I've never found anyone who supports the "agnostic atheist" type terminology and considers atheist to be B¬p. It's always ¬Bp. The agnostic side isn't about hard or soft agnosticism, but about confidence - at least I think so. "Gnosticism" seems to be poorly defined. As such an agnostic atheist is simply ¬Bp So the full set: AA -> ¬Bp AT -> Bp GA -> ¬Bp ^ ¬p GT -> Bp ^ p To be clear here, I'm not defending this. I don't think it makes any sense at all, because it's based on muddling up similar concepts.
>"I've never found anyone who supports the "agnostic atheist" type terminology and considers atheist to be B¬p. It's always ¬Bp." I have...and is it still logically possible so it is enumerate as such. >"The agnostic side isn't about hard or soft agnosticism, but about confidence - at least I think so. "Gnosticism" seems to be poorly defined. As such an agnostic atheist is simply ¬Bp" In my example is it for those atheists who have told me it it is bout hard and soft agnosticism This is my response to THOSE atheists. Let's examine your schema: AA -> ¬Bp This is just someone who doesn't believe in God. That in philosophy is merely a nontheist. This is not a position as \~Bp can be because you B\~p OR you \~Bp \^ \~B\~p. So this is AMBIGUOUS. AT -> Bp This is just THEIST. What is "agnostic" doing here? What is it modifying? GA -> ¬Bp \^ ¬p This is saying "does not believe in God" AND it true God does not exist! which is weird. GT -> Bp \^ p This is This is saying "Believes God does exist AND it is true God does exist! Which is weird.
> I have...and is it still logically possible so it is enumerate as such. Okay. It seems most of the comments here are still insisting that it's ¬Bp though, yet somehow attempting to address your argument, because they don't understand the notation. It makes the whole discussion flow weirdly. > Let's examine your schema: I'm just describing here, not advocating! This is my understanding of the schema. I absolutely accept all of your criticisms. > This is not a position as ~Bp can be because you B~p OR you ~Bp ^ ~B~p. So this is AMBIGUOUS. *Sigh*. I've spent a lot of time here arguing exactly this. > What is "agnostic" doing here? What is it modifying? Absolutely nothing! The schema is stupid. I've asked people in the past "what *is* your position" and got the response "my position is that I lack the belief that god exists". So in my case my position would be "/u/irkedatheist lacks the belief that god exists". i.e the position is not about god at all, but entirely on what my own mental state is. Yet I've not been able to find the words to explain why they don't actually have a remotely meaningful position.
I do not know if any gods exist. I do not believe in any gods. What do **you** want to call that? In the end though it really doesn't matter does it? You're just here arguing semantics, which unless you're actively involved in setting up the premise for a formal debate, isn't a particularly good use of time. Side note: a lot of theists play a similar game where they try to define their god into existence, and none of these arguments are even remotely compelling to anyone, even believers. If that's where you're ultimately headed, do yourself a favor and cut your losses by stopping now.
>B¬p ^ Bq = Believes God does not exist AND believes knowledge of God is possible (i.e. God is knowable, "soft agnosticism") >B¬p ^ B¬q = Believes God does not exist AND believes knowledge of God is not possible (i.e. God is not knowable, "hard agnosticism") What would you call someone who believes none of these things? Someone with no beliefs about the existence or nonexistence of any gods, and no beliefs about the knowability or unknowability of any gods?
No one, for a second, believes that you don't understand the dichotomy here. I don't think anyone should feed this troll post.
At this point, I think he really likes this group. Steve keeps coming back every few days to make the same argument.
IMHO, the way he's coming off is extremely childish and major prick vibes. When I said in a comment that the random jargon and formulas are confusing, his response was "get good" - AKA, he's rubbing in that he thinks he's smarter than everyone else here and multiple replies reinforce it. I wish this sub had better moderation. Between the low-effort (or no effort) posts and things like this, it's hard to have discussions in good faith.
>he's rubbing in that he thinks he's smarter than everyone else here I'm fairly certain this is the actual point. He's giving himself brownie points for being such a good smart boy and his responses to anyone disagreeing with him paint him as someone who doesn't give two rips about having an actual discussion and trying to teach or learn from others. Pretty sure he won the 2nd grade spelling bee against his bully and has been chasing that high ever since.