Is Pre Big-Bang Agnosticism a Belief?

Their reply might be: He is a person I know well, this man in Guam. You could call him a friend I suppose. In any case, someone I trust saw his webcam broadcast online and he was standing on a couch, touching his nose, holding a newspaper, and wearing a yellow shirt. Of course, as always, his shoes were untied. That he served in Vietnam and got married on a Friday is not new information. This I know from my personal interaction with him. Why do you doubt this? What makes you so skeptical? If only you checked out his web page, he might reveal himself to you online. You should know though that he does not broadcast his webcam to all. Surely this doesn’t mean that he is not real or that the broadcasts he DOES make aren’t real.

There’s a difference between not believing in god and believing that god doesn’t exist. Both get called atheism, but the latter requires belief.

It astounds me that you actually have to express this. An A-theist is by the simplest definition, someone who is not a theist and therefore does not believe the things believed by a theist. An agnostic is, again by the simplest definition, someone who maintains not to have the knowledge which would support the things believed by a theist. These are, of course, pefectly valid positions to take on the subject. It is incumbent on believers of any religious scripture to argue convincingly for their preference. If atheists and agnostics remain unconvinced, then using sophistry like “Atheism is also a belief” is not going to change that.

By the way, I have a different view of what you write here: “If one were to claim that nowhere, anywhere in the universe, is there anything that could be construed as a god, that would be a belief. So, yes, I would agree that that form of strong atheism is a belief.” In my opinion, you can believe that a negative is true, but that would not necessarily be a belief, at least not in the religious sense of a theist’s ‘beliefs’ (unless perhaps you were a nature or sun-worshipper or something like that). It wouldn’t matter how strong an atheist you were.

I have to express it because I hate seeing people who don’t believe grouped with people who believe adamantly that there is no god. I

@Carl

Yes, that is the response (nice articulation, by the way), but does it make it any less strange?

I’ve a couple of things to respond to.

First, I agree with Martin’s first paragraph. But, I agree with Daniel’s assertion that the example he gives of a form of strong atheism is a belief. Certainly MANY things other than belief in the existence of something ought to be classified as belief. Many people believe that a universe without a creator is impossible. Some believe that good and evil are meaningless outside of a religious context. Surely these are beliefs. If someone believes that there is no creator, surely this too qualifies as a belief (as distinguished from someone who simply asserts that the evidence presented to him or her so far falls short of being convincing evidence for such a creator).

Second, Daniel, in the context of your man in Guam, I wouldn’t find the response I posted particularly strange. (What you’re really asking is whether the analogous response to the question of whether a particular religion is true is strange. I guess this would depend on how good you think the analogy is.) Of course, you would probably agree that the existence of the man in Guam is verifiable to standards you would accept (thus asserting that the analogy isn’t perfect). You’ll claim that there’s a difference between the man in Guam and God. (I’d agree.) But let me continue with that analogy a bit to see where it might take us.

Our believer (the guy from my first post above) continues to urge you to view the website. He points out that even if you don’t believe that the Man was standing on a couch touching his nose, you have to at least admit that many of the things He has to say are Wise (yes, our believer like to use capital letters to show his respect for the man in Guam). The believer would have you believe that not only is the Man wise, but if everyone in the world lived according to the philosophy espoused by the Him, then the world would be a better place! So, partly to humor the believer, partly to gather evidence you can use in an argument against him, and partly to satisfy your own curiosity, you go to the website and read. There’s a lot of good stuff there. You notice a variation of the Golden Rule: “Treat others as you would wish to be treated.” You’d agree (I’d guess) that this is good advice, but you’re not convinced that this means that the man in Guam has anything worth your continued time. Still, you read on. You find a few other bits that make a lot of sense and taken as a package, you see evidence that this guy might be different from others. He makes sense. Maybe the world WOULD be a better place … You also find some things that you find disturbing or simply wrong, but still, taking the parts that you like, you can see why someone might support this guy. This isn’t to say that you believe he exists. But, at least you can understand why people might wish to believe that such a person exists (even with the parts that you find disturbing or wrong).

Discussion questions:

In which contexts are the believer’s beliefs harmful (and to whom)?

In which contexts are they beneficial (and to whom)?

To what extent do these answers change if “Man in Guam” is replaced by “God?” (You’ll have to change the website to the Bible or other holy text.)

To what extent do these answers change if “Man in Guam” is replaced by “Ron Paul?” (You’ll not need to change anything else.)

I think that there is a qualitative difference between belief in a positive statement, e.g. “God exists” and belief in a negative statement, e.g. “God doesn’t exist (and wouldn’t be worth believing in if He did)” A difference between a belief in something (active) and a belief that something is not so (reactive). To me, that which could be described as ‘Militant (strong) Atheism’is not an action but a reaction. A powerful reaction to the damage caused by fundamental religious believers (if there were no theists, there would be no need for atheists). If such atheists want to believe adamantly that there is no God and don’t want to be grouped with ‘fence-sitters’, I don’t have a problem with that. However, someone who makes a positive statement can be challenged to provide supporting evidence. How do you prove a negative? Personally I don’t see the point in expending valuable energy on belief in a negative statement, but that’s just my opinion. It doesn’t mean I don’t have respect for that point of view.

The unobserved past, future, God, and Information Risk?

Belief statements could be said to be probability statements. So what you’re doing here is not much different than what’s happening in IRM – there is an absolutely unknown state for which we have some level of evidence, and some level of uncertainty surrounding the conclusions we can draw from that evidence. Asserting that you can move from State of Nature to State of Knowledge to State of Wisdom about God or Non-God requires that you express your certainty and/or the reasons for your lack of uncertainty along the way with each prior and posterior.

It has been my experience that most Atheists and Theists ignore the uncertainty in their evidential claims, but the Agnostic uses that uncertainty to conclude that they can draw no conclusion. But that’s not an absolute. There are Atheists and Theists who are comfortable acknowledging uncertainty within the context of their belief statement, to be sure. Similarly, there are Agnostics who are express absolute certainty concerning the quality of data. The important requirement for any discussion is that all 3 states carry the burden of their uncertainty.

So while much of what you say above concerning uncertainty, beliefs and currently accepted scientific theories is not uncommon observational experience, it’s not absolute. Atheists & Agnostics can be (and are) “pretentious enough” to claim State of Wisdom (i.e. they think their belief statement is most probably right with an uncharacteristically high level of certainty).

Today’s post on overcoming bias:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/02/believing-too-l.html

“There are two mistakes you can make when you read a scientific paper: You can believe it (a) too much or (b) too little.”

time was created in the big bang, so there is no “before”, just as there is no “outside” the universe. read hawking…

Your analogy of the person in Guam is not even remotely analogous to belief in the big bang nor belief in God. The person in Guam is physical were as the big bang and God are metaphysical. Since it is impossible for God not to exist and since God exists by necessity of His own nature, it would be verisimilitudinous to postulate an analogy of belief in the big bang with belief in God.