agnosticism is the only rational conclusions
…but, of course, my theism does not step purely from rationality; I am thinking meat, but also believing meat.
Kelly makes an oustanding case for agnosticism over atheism:
http://kmgordon.com/blog/?p=42
So your stance, if I understand it correctly, is that yes, indeed, the likelihoods of the existences of a Judeo-Islamo-Christian God, unicorns, and Flying Spaghetti Monsters are all approximately equal. Well, see, I do think this stance is frivolous. Do you really feel that this God that we’re talking about, this God that is the basis of three religions that have profoundly shaped western civilization for around 3,000 years, that this God can be dismissed in the same breath as an intellectual prop fabricated by some graduate student? Now, I’m not saying that 3,000 years of backstory means that you must, lemming-like, go along with 89% of the rest of the population of this country and *believe* in God. But, surely you must recognize the difference here between these two hypotheses?
I guess what I’m saying is that, out of respect for the rather large majority of thinking, reasoning, good human beings who believe, I’m willing to go to greater lengths to keep my mind open about the existence of a personal God than that of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I think the collective belief of millions adds up to evidence that I’m willing to consider despite the fact that it’s not empirical.
Well said, Kelly!
July 5th, 2007 at 12:17 am
This is, again, the same argument made for Geocentrism, widely believed for the 10,000 years of recorded human history. Even today 40% or so of the developed world believes in some form of it. It doesn’t mean it is, or ever was, true.
Billions of people over thousands of years have beleived things that turned out not to be true. The fact that they do is not really any kind of evidence, at least not evidence of physical fact.
July 5th, 2007 at 12:47 am
In its proper and historical sense, ???????? (atheismos, in case the Unicode gets munged) was the impropriety (or, sometimes, crime) of not worshipping all gods: Jews, being “cut off” (sorry) from genteel bathhouse society, were often grudgingly tolerated in this eccentricity, but from a gentile it was a serious affront. The atheism of early Christians was the leading cause of their political troubles, from the Flavian era through to Constantine.
So anyone who does not believe in unicorns, the flying spaghetti monster, Gaia and Xenu and whatever else is going around the circle with the water pipe, is clearly an atheist and a spoilsport, in the original, etiquette-rooted sense: he cares more about his own fastidious principles than about his host’s feelings, and won’t eat what’s put in front of him.
The argument Kelly seems to be making is a direct appeal to the bandwagon, and as such is nonsense with regard to subjective belief states. If I don’t like the taste of ice cream, or communion wafers, or grape Kool Aid, the number of other people who do like them has precisely no weight on my own evaluation. Faith isn’t something I can force down like Brussels sprouts against my own spiritual gag reflex.
However, the related argument about social convention does follow the bandwagon. If your neighbors care a lot about you putting a pinch of incense on Jove’s altar, then you can’t dismiss paganism lightly: you have to accommodate it, resist it (lions), or cut yourself off from your neighbors by ignoring it and them (ghetto). In this sense only, atheism with respect to the deity of US Treasury coinage is different from atheism with respect to the FSM: the former costs you a lot more friends, including most of your favorite writers all the way back to David the psalmist.
July 5th, 2007 at 12:49 am
In its proper and historical sense, atheïsmós was the impropriety (or, sometimes, crime) of not worshipping all gods: Jews, being “cut off” (sorry!) from genteel bathhouse society, were often grudgingly tolerated in this eccentricity, but from a gentile it was a serious affront. The atheism of early Christians was the leading cause of their political troubles, from the Flavian era through to Constantine.
So anyone who does not believe in unicorns, the flying spaghetti monster, Gaia and Xenu and whatever else is going around the circle with the water pipe, is clearly an atheist and a spoilsport, in the original, etiquette-rooted sense: he cares more about his own fastidious principles than about his host’s feelings, and won’t eat what’s put in front of him.
The argument Kelly seems to be making is a direct appeal to the bandwagon, and as such is nonsense with regard to subjective belief states. If I don’t like the taste of ice cream, or communion wafers, or grape Kool Aid, the number of other people who do like them has precisely no weight on my own evaluation. Faith isn’t something I can force down like Brussels sprouts against my own spiritual gag reflex.
However, the related argument about social convention does follow the bandwagon. If your neighbors care a lot about you putting a pinch of incense on Jove’s altar, then you can’t dismiss paganism lightly: you have to accommodate it, resist it (lions), or cut yourself off from your neighbors by ignoring it and them (ghetto). In this sense only, atheism with respect to the deity of US Treasury coinage is different from atheism with respect to the FSM: the former costs you a lot more friends, including most of your favorite writers all the way back to David the psalmist.
July 5th, 2007 at 12:51 am
Sorry, first try reported an error, so I repeated it without the Greek, not expecting the previous one to post. Delete the first one, Travis, if you decide to clean up.
July 5th, 2007 at 1:17 am
50 million Elvis fans can’t be wrong. Not only is he still alive, but he’s a God.
July 5th, 2007 at 1:23 am
If traditional theists believe God made man in His own image, presumably FSMists believe God made noodles in His own image. If a belief in universal human rights is a consequence of the belief that humans are theomorphic, would FSMists believe that noodles have rights? If so, what kind of rights would noodles have?
July 5th, 2007 at 1:33 am
Elvis isn’t God. Elvis is the Messiah. He has been acknowledged as King by all the nations…
July 5th, 2007 at 9:12 am
s? If so, what kind of rights would noodles have?
Peaceable assembly. Secure in persons and effects. No double jeopardy, or cruel and unusual punishment.
And the right to stick a feather in their cap and call it macaroni.
July 5th, 2007 at 11:57 am
I have to agree with Joshua and Mark here, peer pressure isn’t really persuasive in matters like these.
Far more simply put than Josh’s observations – surely the certainty that FSM exists is no more foolish that the certainty that FSM doesn’t? In both cases, we have a black box with the label “supernatural” on it, and are faced with either shrugging and saying “let me know when you’ve got it open”, or standing around in front of it, disagreeing over what we just know the contents are.
July 5th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
“let me know when you’ve got it open”,
QFT
July 5th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Mark, I can’t tell if you’re agreeing with me, or suggesting that you opened the supernatural box and found Quantum Field Theory inside?
July 5th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Elvis is the Messiah. Elvis is God. He is the Holy Dynamic Duo.
July 5th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
“I guess what I’m saying is that, out of respect for the rather large majority of thinking, reasoning, good human beings…”
The majority of thinking, reasoning, good human beings in my personal social circle are atheists. Included in this group are also Muslims, Catholics, Jews, Mormons, etc. But none of that has anything to do with my personal religious views. One’s religious beliefs are not (and should not) be based on statistics, but on what one personally feels to be true.
July 5th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
My viewpoint is not based on empirical evidence. I’ll freely admit that. There really is no objective way that I know of to distinguish between these competing hypotheses. That’s pretty much why I call myself an agnostic.
Subjectively, however, one’s reaction to the idea that Elvis is God, or that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, tends to be “whoever thinks that is a whackjob”. The reason for this is that, even though we can’t disprove these hypotheses, most of us mentally assign a very small likelihood to the possibility of these hypotheses being true. If we assign an equally small likelihood to the possibility of the existence of God, then are we to come to the same conclusion, that all the people around us who believe in God are whackjobs?
This subjective feeling that I have, that Elvis worshippers are whackjobs and that God worshippers are still within the pale, could be entirely based on cultural norms and the weight of numbers- maybe I *am*, subconsciously, just trying to make friends to stay out of the ghetto. But I don’t really know that for sure either. I just know that I perceive the two hypotheses differently. Hence, agnosticism.
July 5th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
That’s one difference between Kelly and myself.
:-)
July 5th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
I like your logic. But if it is the age of the belief, does that mean that you find the likelihood of God existing to be the same as that of Baal, or Zeus? And if it is the amount of believers, does that mean you find the likelihood the same as that of WMDs having existed in Iraq (which an astonishing amount of people believe)?
I don’t think appealing to popularity works in supporting an argument (there is even a term for the fallacy: ad populam). There are a lot of things the majority have been wrong about.
July 5th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Given that Iraqi Kurds are known to have been killed in the thousands by WMDs, it’s astonishing how many people don’t believe they existed.
But hey – you to your religion, and me to mine.
July 6th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Let me say first, no one, but no one, actually believes in the existance of the FSM. That’s the whole point.
“If we assign an equally small likelihood to the possibility of the existence of God, then are we to come to the same conclusion, that all the people around us who believe in God are whackjobs? ”
yes.
It’s a truly terrifying moment in one’s life when this is really absorbed and understood. Most folks go through fairly elaborate rationalizations to avoid this conclusion, but really, it’s true.
July 9th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
I think the distinction between agnosticism and atheism is a social posture. It doesn’t really have any meaning. You are either a believer in unsubstantiated claims of special knowledge, or you aren’t.
The distinction between attitudes of “I’ll believe it when I see it” and “I just don’t believe it” is purely academic. The burden of proof lies with the party making the extraordinary claim. So if they can’t prove their claim, they should be the ones getting a label. Proponents of Unproven Religion A.
Labeling the unconvinced with agnostic or atheist as if this is their official religious category is just silly. Here’s why. If not believing in somebody’s hypothetical god makes you an atheist, then we are all FSM Atheists. So check that on the census form. And all Christians are Allah Atheists, I believe.
Where should this end? When I turn somebody away from my doorstep and tell him I just don’t buy it, he points at me and dismissively and refers to me as an Unbeliever. Unless I already subscribe to another religion, in which case I am a Heretic. Or maybe I’m Jewish, which means I believe in some but not all, and that’s another special category. Every one of these labels is an excuse for the believer as to why other people don’t buy the nonsense. Well I say put the label where it belongs. There aren’t any agnostics or atheists. There are just rubes who accept extraordinary claims without sufficient evidence.
July 9th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
“whackjobs”.
Note that neither myself, nor TJIC, have claimed that a belief in a deity is rational. In fact, we’ve both said that we hold it to be ir-rational.
My position is, and continues to be, that the only actually rational position is uncertainty as there can be no proof in any meaningful sense of the word.
You can say “for all intents and purposes it is safe to assume there is no deity” but this is a more limited thing than actual knowledge of fact. I don’t think abandoning the primacy of doubt is a good thing.
Nothing anyone has said here has addressed this issue except my making unsubstantiated statements of belief, or by arguing points which are essentially unrelated to the central tenet.
Y’all are welcome to believe anything you want. But you haven’t done a whit to convince me that the complete denial of the possibility of a deity is a purely rational belief system.
July 9th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
And all Christians are Allah Atheists, I believe.
Why on earth would you believe that?
July 16th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Courtesy is fine, but being courteous is not an argument for agnosticism over atheism. The fact that the Judeo-Islamo-Christian God has prospered over unicorns and Flying Spaghetti Monsters speaks only to The Clerical Publicity Machine and is not an argument for the existence of the purported deity claimed by that machine. It’s a fallacious “argument to popularity” to hold that the fact that many have been taught to believe in this Judeo-Islamo-Christian conception signifies that the teachings are valid.
If the prevailing publicity structure had instead insisted upon the existence of the Great Unicorn in the Sky, on which we would all Ride to Heaven, then priests (presumably adorned with unihorned hats) would be extolling the virtues of this Mythical, Supernatural, All-Loving Creator of Humans.
On the basis of logic alone, it could be argued that the agnostic view, which holds that it simply is not knowable whether or not whatever deity exists, is more philosophically rigorous than stating that there is no God.
However, certain *falsified* falsibiable claims are made about the Judeo-Islamo-Christian God, so the *falsification* of these claims renders Atheism the most rational conclusion.
I grow tired of being polite to people merely because they have been brainwashed into collective belief in a non-existent, demanding, invented deity.
September 14th, 2009 at 10:58 am
If Elvis isn’t g-d, who is?