renderator

Hi Romansh.

Thank you very much.

Cool! ) Good night. For me it's an early morning now.

renderator

Yes, something like this, but there is a subtle difference. Atheism is not based on dogmas.
You don't have to believe that God doesn't exist, because it's you who takes these premises yourself to be rational. You just make a limitiation/ a premise:

"If God does not exist, if no miricle is possible, then I can have chance to be rational and prove that..."

It's just a premise, like any other premise you take before you start proving something by means of logical rules.

renderator

Of course it's not the only definition. But in the context I use for rational cognition of the world around us, there are only a few variants of Gods left possible to exist. I think there is no room left for any theistic God to exist at all.
I mean those variants of God that can influence on the world around us.

Explain it to me, please.

And how do you distinguish what is religion, mythology and ancient folk belief?
Especially how do you distinguish Jewish mythology from Jewish religion and from Jewish ancient folk belief?
Does it matter how many people believe in smth? Science is not democracy.
What does theology mean till it is not applied to the world? Nothing. Just like mathematics and geometry, being abstract, mean absolutely nothing till they are not applicable to the world.

renderator

The thing is you never know where to stop, where you're out of all rational explanations. You cannot just say "OK, now I know that I reached the limit of rational explanations and now I have to make an irrational one. It is the God/invisible gnome, who is the reason of this."
Because
a)it's impossible to know where is the limit of human cognition.
b)Irrational explanations are NOT explanations at all. You will not know more than you did. You cannot explain the unknown with the unknowable.

Yes, there is definite scientific methodology + epistemology(gnoseology) used in experiments.
"The object of investigation must be cognizable and not subjected to the influence of the supernatural" (c)Newton.

Ability to be comprehended with one's brain/intellect.
It's hard to explain it in English for me, but I'll try to explain what I mean as simple as I can. You have cognized smth rationally, if you can answer to the question why.
to know smth = to cognize rationally
to believe in smth = to cognize irrationally
Maybe you can give a better definition.

Of course not. But these are obligatory for any experiment.

For example, if you don't remove God, you cannot claim that the world existed two seconds ago, because God could create it only one second ago, already old, having put memory about the past into your head.
So it goes without saying that it is not so, otherwise all your claims about the past become false.

By the way they are not rational limitations, they are limitations for us to have a chance to be rational. The very initial premises without which any rational cognition is impossible. So they have to be accepted without any proof as axioms.

Vinterland

If you defined theism as: a Christian who staunchly believes God exists(many of the "agnostics" here speak of God as if it is exclusively the Christian God), and an atheists as: one who denies the existence of God, then yes you are correct about agnosticism being incompatible with either. However, It's too obvious that these are improper definitions of both which shoots down agnosticism as a valuable and unique concept. One could very well just say they are a "scientific atheist" and say as much.
I should note that I've comne to find most people who label themselves "agnostic" are far from it.

I believe he was looking for an explanation to their validity, not a history treatment.
Is this statement: "When one speaks German is instantly sounds like one is shouting and screaming," a false generalisation? Nearly everyone I know seems to agree with it (because they are ignorant of German cultur ein general), but no, I don't. It is a false generalisation no matter how much you believe it to be true; it is your opinion. So when you mean atheist by its' commercial dictionary useage, you are making a false generalisation simply because at the very least, half of all atheists are not strong-atheists.
And if he is using the word in an incorrect fashion, you should correct him. He didn't wrongly define theism(as far as I can tell from his first three posts I've read), but he did incorrectly define atheism and agnosticism in his initial post. I corrected him and it turns out he agrees with me.
Naturally, you see nothing wrong with this, but I believe eople cannot communicate meaningfully if they
a) can't agree on definition
b) are using wrong terms

It's like me playing a lute and just calling it an guitar to anyone who asks what the instrument is. That's correct, a lute is a guitar, but it is properly defined as a type of guitar which has its' own unique name and origin. Similarly, strong-atheism, which is what you were initially discussing, is a form of atheism. Just as a lute doesn not represent all guitars, strong-atheism does not represent all atheism and it would be wrong to continue the discussion that way.
The one which you were replying to when I quoted you.

I agree that's what makes science usefull it's practicality and application. I was getting at that theological faith based beliefs can be synthesized with scientific beliefs because science, many times does not affect the rationale supporting those beliefs.

__________________
And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a voice crying, "This is the sea. This is the deep sea. This is the vast and mighty sea." And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur.
And my soul said, "Let us pass on. He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment."
—Gibran Khalil Gibran, “The Greater Sea.”

Vinterland

If you believe that a personal God, or the Christian God cannot or doesn not exist, then you are not an agnostic, straight and simple. An agnostic entertains the possibility (without denying them as a strong-atheist would).
If you would care to, please state your reasons for saying there is "no room" for any personal God.

Is deism, a form of theism, based on dogmas? I think you will find th answer is no. The difference is the rationale and methodology used to attain these exxplanations.

I'll admit I'm having a bit of a hard time understanding what you mean. What is your native language?
True, similarly, you could give me a naturalistic, logical explanation as to why people get sick and one could still claim it was witches. It is not science's realm to assume there is no supernatural entity that exists, but to derrive naturalistic explanaton. Any hypothesis such as "fairies under the bed" is irrelevant to science. So, one can be scientific and yet still accept various supernatural explanations.

I do agree with one of your main points, however. Skepticism, which leads to atheism should be the rational default. There just isn't proportionate evidence to the claims that are made by theism.

So, weak atheism is rightly the default position. Your strong atheism holds an equal amount of burden of proof because it makes an objective claim on reality: God does not exist. You made the claim, the burden of proof is on you.

I don't understand your first statement, but I agree with your second. We have no way to prove or disprove God...and that is generally an established tenet in many theistic religions.

Like I said earlier, there isn't a grand difference between the two, but keep in mind that religious experience cannot be explained away without assuming it is false. For all you know, it could be how God reveals Himself, Itself.

__________________
And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a voice crying, "This is the sea. This is the deep sea. This is the vast and mighty sea." And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur.
And my soul said, "Let us pass on. He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment."
—Gibran Khalil Gibran, “The Greater Sea.”

romansh

Dobri dein renderator
Correct; I assume god or whatever is not affecting the experiment (though, I am a scientist and think it woud explain a lot ).... but I don't assume there is not a god.

And what if the miracle is the fact I can do the experiment, and I exist and can think rationally and logically, (some may argue the accuracy of this statement, ). I understand that there are perfectly rational theories/hypotheses that make god unnecessary, nevertheless, they do not rule out the possibility of a god.

Consequently I choose not to believe that god exists and not to disbelieve that god exists ..... I'm sorry it gives me a headache aswell. ... Consequently I consider myself an agnostic

all the best

__________________
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ........... Douglas Adams

renderator

Only those variants of God that can influence on the world we live in is important for rational cognition.
If God exists but cannot influence on the world (deism) it has no impact on rational cognition. We can easily abstract from Him, of course only if it is not the issue of the origine of the world.


Deism is not a form of theism. It's another Weltanschauung (ideology), different from theism. The difference is that deistic God does not influence on the world around us, but theistic God does.
Ideologies are not based on dogmas. "God exists and does not influence" - is not a dogma. It's the definition of deism (confinement). Dogmas can be inside ideologies, after you have defined the latter.

Russian.

It's the issue of psychology.

Of course, it's not science's realm. But without having taken the premise that God does not exist(atheism) scientists can prove nothing. In fact scientists use even more restrictions that atheists do, but because science is not belief, so atheism is not belief too.

Yes, it's relevant! You cannot say that the physical body you have put on the scales really weights 5kg for example if you haven't assumed that there are no quickly hiding fairies inside your scales who can fake the result of your experiments. Of course these premises are formulated more seriously in science.
For any abstract science like geometry or math these restrictions are not obligatory, but any abstract science does not have to prove the existance of anything. They are completely speculative.

Of course a physicist or a biologist can be theist in his personal life, but he MUST be atheistic in his scientific research.

No, the burden of proof is on you, not on me, because only positive statements are to be proved. It's impossible to prove that smth does not exist, only that smth exists. So if it is you who advances the hypothesis of God, then you have to prove it.
It's impossible to prove that there are no fairies in the Universe, but it's possible to prove that there they are. You just only need to catch one of them.

The fact is that before you begin proving(not persuading me) the existance of God, you have to take the premise that God does not exist and you will come to contradiction.

The first statement is equivalent to the second one.

Yes, you are right here.

The thing is that you cannot cognize anything rationally if you give to God even a small possibility to exist. If you give Him this possibility (even if it is very small) you become a believer in everything.

romansh

I have a hard time agreeing with this statement .... is it not just our language(s)?... if we had a true word for godless then it would up to the atheists to prove we were ungodless. No; the burden of proof is on both atheists and deists/theists. This is one of the reasons I like being an agnostic.

all the best

__________________
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ........... Douglas Adams

renderator

Good afternoon, romansh. It's so pleasant to see the native lanuage.

Yes you can as long as you are an ATHEISTin your research. If you give me a supernatural explanation (for a example you're a physicist, and explain that there are lightnings in the sky because Zeus throw them) you become irrational and illogical because this statement cannot be proved, it can be only the matter of your belief.
If you're mathematician for example, it does not matter, because math is completely spectacular and does not deal with the existance of anything.

Can you disprove it, what I've written above?

The absence of the supernatural things like God, gods, fairies etc is not a theory/hypothesis. It's necessity for anyone to prove anything logically and rationally.

No it is not.
By the way how else can one prove anything without using language(s)? (Of course if it is not a fact because facts are true by default)


Don't try to prove or disprove God.
Try to prove anything in physics or biology without having taken these premises? It's IMPOSSIBLE!

For example that I = U/R or F = m*g? You can have a good deal of experiments proving that it is so only if God does not exist, only if the reality is objective etc.

all the best