Why be an atheist if you can be an agnostic?

[QED]

In the topic titled Why would God be interested in free lunches?
Harvey asks us:

What else is left once we've looked at every known possibility and we see this deep prejudice against a God solution? Folks, it's not as if everyone on earth is saying you must believe God exists. Rather, the issue is why be an atheist if you can be an agnostic?

This is easy for me to answer; I see too much Irony and Pathos in the world for it to be under the direction of the entity worshipped by the faithful. Their very faith is testimony to the unequivocal existence of such a being who's existence is thoroughly ambiguous when all attempts to reason his existence are carefully considered. Now I agree that this much might indeed lead us to agnosticism but then there is plenty to tip this extremely fine balance in my view.

Principally I understand evolution by natural selection to be the force for the apparent design of all known life. Within this mechanism there is no latitude for divine whim or fancy, the "products" will be restricted to what is practical in the widest possible context taking into account a near infinite number of contingent events spanning billions of years. While some might suggest that God enjoys a challenge, it strikes me as absurd to imagine that everything could be rigged so as to eventually result in a nice race of people who perfectly reflect God's image. The methods and imperatives for reaching this exalted state are just too bloody for the ends to be justified by the means in my opinion.

This is why I mention Irony and Pathos because the ungodly ordeals faced by all living things including man are often too awful to permit the kind of God commonly posited. After all, if I were looking for somewhere peaceful to go on holiday shouldn't I be safe going to the "Holy Lands"? If we look at the predictions of a universe under God's direction versus those of a universe which is self-extracting then I can see a clear indication that it is of the latter in nature.

= Atheism.

[Goat]

In the topic titled Why would God be interested in free lunches?
Harvey asks us:

What else is left once we've looked at every known possibility and we see this deep prejudice against a God solution? Folks, it's not as if everyone on earth is saying you must believe God exists. Rather, the issue is why be an atheist if you can be an agnostic?

This is easy for me to answer; I see too much Irony and Pathos in the world for it to be under the direction of the entity worshipped by the faithful. Their very faith is testimony to the unequivocal existence of such a being who's existence is thoroughly ambiguous when all attempts to reason his existence are carefully considered. Now I agree that this much might indeed lead us to agnosticism but then there is plenty to tip this extremely fine balance in my view.

I am going to go answer this coming from the opposite direction, and deal with the assumptions. What Harvey basically is saying 'We don't know, so that is evidence of God'. I disagree with that premise. God is a matter of faith, and saying 'we don't know, therefore god' is the 'God of the Gaps'. What happens when we DO know? For those people who used the 'God of the Gaps' explanation, God 'retreats and becomes smaller. While there will always be places that are unknown to us, seeing this retreat of God might lead many to conclude that God does not exist.

[Cathar1950]

It seems we have a divide and conquer strategy going on by a /Christian/theist/pantheist.
He is trying to eliminate atheist even if he has to define God as something like reason so it sounds like we are rejecting reason. Reason is not the only ploy.

By his narrow selective definitions of God he limits the atheist response while rejecting the many meanings. Once everyone is in the agnostic camp then we will be presented with an epistemological challenge while endorsing Platonic views of God with Christological symbols on purely metaphysical speculation based on ancient scripts. Any way that is how I see it.
Here the end is to justify the means.


I think there is a little “Irony and Pathos” and psychology might be a better tool. It is a door that has been opened.

[juliod]

the issue is why be an atheist if you can be an agnostic?

The real question is why declare something "unknowable" when we have no examples of unknowable things to compare.

Agnosticism is based not on the principle that we don't currently know if god exists, but that we can't possibly know if god exists.

I don't think the idea of "unknowable things" has value. Mysteries of the past were solved, and we have every expectation that the mysteries of today will be solved as well.

I mean, no one ever said that it is impossible to tell if the sun or the earth is the center of the universe.

In my view, agnosticism is just a desperate rear-guard defense against overwhelming evidence agaisnt every significant religion. Being an agnostic atheist is an absurdity, but being an agnostic theist allows one to remain within one's church.

DanZ

[QED]

I am going to go answer this coming from the opposite direction, and deal with the assumptions. What Harvey basically is saying 'We don't know, so that is evidence of God'.

I don't think Harvey meant that. He has a number of arguments that explicitly call for a creator-God. I assume he means that we have no positive evidence for the nonexistence of God. This prompts him to wonder at how, in the supposed absence of such evidence, a person could believe that no God exists.

I disagree with that premise. God is a matter of faith, and saying 'we don't know, therefore god' is the 'God of the Gaps'. What happens when we DO know? For those people who used the 'God of the Gaps' explanation, God 'retreats and becomes smaller. While there will always be places that are unknown to us, seeing this retreat of God might lead many to conclude that God does not exist.

I would agree that Atheism is a limiting case of a vanishing God but why reinforce that by stating that God is a matter of faith? The debates we have in the Philosophy and Science and Religion sub forums tend to steer clear of faith -- focusing instead mainly on rational arguments.

[QED]

It seems we have a divide and conquer strategy going on by a /Christian/theist/pantheist.
He is trying to eliminate atheist even if he has to define God as something like reason so it sounds like we are rejecting reason. Reason is not the only ploy.

I must say that it does seem as though Harvey could morph pantheism into any of the major world religions without too much difficulty. Does this mean that they're all on the right tracks or does it mean that with God defined as being the ultimate ultimate you can make him serve any purpose?

By his narrow selective definitions of God he limits the atheist response while rejecting the many meanings. Once everyone is in the agnostic camp then we will be presented with an epistemological challenge while endorsing Platonic views of God with Christological symbols on purely metaphysical speculation based on ancient scripts. Any way that is how I see it.

I would have thought that Christianity was the most difficult of all religions to arrive at when starting out from Plato's theory of universals but there you are. The Christian doctrine puts Man at the centre of the cosmos, a position that looks to me to be thoroughly dubious.

[OccamsRazor]

The real question is why declare something "unknowable" when we have no examples of unknowable things to compare.
I mean, no one ever said that it is impossible to tell if the sun or the earth is the center of the universe.
In my view, agnosticism is just a desperate rear-guard defense against overwhelming evidence agaisnt every significant religion.

But this argument does not work because one can never prove that there is no God. Therefore if God does not exist then the reality of the existence or non-existence of God is indeed unknowable. If God does exist and (assuming that religious scripture is wrong) may never choose to present us with proof, again making the question of God unknowable.

In answer to the argument

Why be an atheist if you can be an agnostic?

I say that I may make a pragmatic decision in favour of the non-existence of a thing when no evidence to support its existence is presented.
For example I may say the I do not believe that we exist inside a computer simulation (like the Matrix) purely because I have seen no evidence to say that we do. This is a purely pragmatic decision because such a view of reality may be unknowable and even if we do live in such a system, the program may be written such that we can never prove its existence.

[harvey1]

What else is left once we've looked at every known possibility and we see this deep prejudice against a God solution? Folks, it's not as if everyone on earth is saying you must believe God exists. Rather, the issue is why be an atheist if you can be an agnostic?

This is easy for me to answer; I see too much Irony and Pathos in the world for it to be under the direction of the entity worshipped by the faithful. Their very faith is testimony to the unequivocal existence of such a being who's existence is thoroughly ambiguous when all attempts to reason his existence are carefully considered. Now I agree that this much might indeed lead us to agnosticism but then there is plenty to tip this extremely fine balance in my view.

We should tie this issue into the issues which you've said that you do not have an answer for, and which there is lacking even a conceivable answer. When this is considered, there's no reason to think that any scale has been tipped.

Principally I understand evolution by natural selection to be the force for the apparent design of all known life.

I would disagree by saying that the evolution is more of an issue of complexity and dynamical systems than it is of natural selection. It's just that principle of natural selection is easier for us to understand than the principles of dynamical systems, so natural selection has so far been the most popular explanation for evolution.

Within this mechanism there is no latitude for divine whim or fancy, the "products" will be restricted to what is practical in the widest possible context taking into account a near infinite number of contingent events spanning billions of years. While some might suggest that God enjoys a challenge, it strikes me as absurd to imagine that everything could be rigged so as to eventually result in a nice race of people who perfectly reflect God's image. The methods and imperatives for reaching this exalted state are just too bloody for the ends to be justified by the means in my opinion.

Even if I were to grant that the laws of dynamical systems has little to do with a teleological direction in evolution, I still do not see how this would justify your atheism. A deist and a pantheist could argue that the evolutionary nature of the world is enough to satisfy God's desire for a populated universe of stuff. Even if God has no control whatsover would not be enough to assert that God most likely does not exist.

This is why I mention Irony and Pathos because the ungodly ordeals faced by all living things including man are often too awful to permit the kind of God commonly posited.

God doesn't have to conform to what most theists believe.

After all, if I were looking for somewhere peaceful to go on holiday shouldn't I be safe going to the "Holy Lands"?

The natural mind is still predominate in the world, and war is a natural outcome of having a natural mind.

If we look at the predictions of a universe under God's direction versus those of a universe which is self-extracting then I can see a clear indication that it is of the latter in nature. = Atheism.

So, then, you ought to be able to provide answers to many of the issues I have raised. If you cannot do so, then why aren't you a theist or agnostic?

[harvey1]

It seems we have a divide and conquer strategy going on by a /Christian/theist/pantheist. He is trying to eliminate atheist even if he has to define God as something like reason so it sounds like we are rejecting reason. Reason is not the only ploy. By his narrow selective definitions of God he limits the atheist response while rejecting the many meanings. Once everyone is in the agnostic camp then we will be presented with an epistemological challenge while endorsing Platonic views of God with Christological symbols on purely metaphysical speculation based on ancient scripts. Any way that is how I see it.
Here the end is to justify the means.

Interesting. But, notice Cathar, you never responded to this post and then you continue to argue as if you had responded with excellent wit. First, respond with excellent wit, then we will discuss your caustic remarks here.

[Cathar1950]

I wasn't done yet in the other thread Harvey. I am trying to get back to it.
You got me tied up with Tarski. I have been reading a few things to see why I find it so objectionable. At least the way I see you using it. I am finishing Scott Soames' book" Understanding truth" it helped a little.
Way to much notation, I like using my mood ring and magic 8 ball.
So I have not forgot and should get back shortly.

The natural mind is still predominate in the world, and war is a natural outcome of having a natural mind.

I have some major issues with statements like the above. Some where it seems rather circular and meaningless.
More of an article of faith then a reasoned idea.