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Revision as of 08:53, 3 October 2005

• Archive 1 - up to January 21 2004
• Archive 2 - up to May 3 2004
• Archive 3 - sections started 2004-05/2005-02-12.

Taking reasonable exception to the blatant bias in the statement, "Agnosticism differs from atheism in that (strong) atheists claim there is no God"

"There is no God" is not a claim (a statement standing in need of proof), it is the denial (the negation in logic) of one. -- 207.200.116.204 17:17, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Moved from the article:

"There is no God" is not a claim (a statement standing in need of proof), it is the denial (the negation in logic) of one. -- 207.200.116.204 17:17, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

One point of view has it that "Theists and strong atheists make statements about the world: the theist, that 'God exists', the strong atheist, that 'God does not exist'. Agnostics make the statement about these statements, 'one cannot know whether or not God exists'."

Two objections to the above point of view are:

1. How could anyone possibly know that it is impossible to know it if some hypothetical thing were to exist and interact with the world? Any such interaction would leave some kind of trail of evidence that could be demonstrated, wouldn't it?

And 2. The argument that there might actually BE (exist) an invisible deity is what is known as an EXISTENTIAL statement, not a "statement about the world" (universal statement) as the writer of the above paragraph asserts. The null, 'There is no invisible deity in evidence in the universe' is a universal statement (statement about the universe).

Thanks for your input, .204. In my dictionary, to make a claim is to make an assertion or to state something one takes to be true, ...

... which stand in need of proof.

not to make a statement that is in need of proof.

Any existential statement like, "There might be an invisible God" is an assertion that stands in need of proof. The denial is not an assertion, it is the denial of one, so it does not stand in need of proof. Look up fallacy of trying to shift the burden of proof to the non-believers.

But perhaps you would accept the wording "Agnosticism differs from atheism in that (strong) atheists assert that there is no God"? Banno 21:38, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

"There is no God" is not a claim (statement standing in need of proof), it is the denial (negation) of one.

Your (1) may indeed be correct, but nevertheless, it is what agnostics claim.

I am agnostic, and I do not claim any such thing, since it is nonsense. See Thomas Huxley's excoriation of the Christian Belief, "Agnosticism vs. Christianity." There you will find that agnosticism is not about knowledge at all, it is about the folly of believing things without evidence. Huxley says, and I agree, that the reasonable course is to unabashedly deny and repudiate any religious doctrine like Christianity or Islam for example, that there are existential propositions that people ought to believe without logically satisfactory evidence. Have you read it?

Yes, I have read it. Knowledge is belief that is both true and justified - see epistemology. Huxley was certainly aware of Plato, and was making use of the Theaetetus account. Huxley is advocating justified beliefs over unjustified - and so knowledge over belief. In other words, he is talking about knowledge. Banno 09:09, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Your equivocation, "Knowledge is belief" is sophistry, a standard obscurantist attempted conflation of scientific knowledge and religius belief, two entirely different things. That will fool only the most gullible. You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time. --207.200.116.204 22:15, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't see why "Dogs exist" is not a statement about the world - that it contains dogs. That is, not all statements about the world are universals. Also you might be aware that U(x)f(x) is equivalent to ~E(x)~f(x) - that is, all universal statements can be re-parsed as existential statements.

Only if you are trying to sell sophistry. Existential statements and universal statements are two different things. And why are you trying to change the subject to dogs? Dogs are known to exist. Look up 'conjecture' to learn about what we are discussing here. -- 207.200.116.204 07:12, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

There is a general policy on the Wiki of assuming good faith. Please do not accuse me of sophistry - I find it offensives.

I am not accusing you of anything, I am discussing content, not contributor, as per WikiPolicy Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks.

Comment on content, not on the contributor. Personal attacks damage the community and deter users.

I am taking exception to the content you are contributing because an attempted conflation of knowledge based on proof and religious belief without evidence, which are two entirely different things, fits the definition of sophistry. It doesn't stand up to critical thinking.

I am afraid you are mistaken, unless you are using unusual quantifiers. Check any introductory text on predicate calculus for confirmation.

A claim is not a conjecture. Banno 09:09, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

There you go again, trying to change the subject, first to dogs, whinc are known to exist, now to math, which has nothing to do with what we are discussing. We are not discussing math, we are discussing the logic of plain language statements, informal logic

Any statement like, 'There might be an invisible God' remains conjecture until proof is produced, where proof is the cogency of evidence that compels acceptance of a truth, or the process of establishing the validity of a statement by derivation from other statements in accordance with principles of reasoning. --207.200.116.204 21:57, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Others will fix the problems you have introduced into the article. Some arguments are not worth the trouble, and I think this is one of them. Banno 00:06, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Translation: "Banno cannot come up with any reasonable objection to what was said, so Banno will just declare victory by the popularity of his bias and run like a scared rabit away from any reasonable discussion he cannot handle." -- 67.182.157.6

Yep. Or that Banno has more productive things to do. Banno 05:33, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Allright, how about we say "Agnosticism differs from atheism in that (strong) atheists say there is no God". Athiests say there is no god. The purpose of this article is not discuss whether god has any way of being said to exist. see Existance of God. correct me if I'm wrong but say doesn't imply anything about whether or not what is being said could be true. I am changing the article as above, however if someone reverses this I won't fight over it. Please considder whether these small semantic bias' can be fixed simply before engaging in a edit war. Olleicua 21:53, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

That just isn't true. All atheists do not assert that there is no god. Only strong atheists assert that there is no god. Weak atheists that are not strong atheists make no such assertion. Because theism is such a well definied category, not theism (atheism or more correctly weak atheism (the more general category)) is a very broad and general category. Babies, vegetables, and non-believers all fall into the category of atheist. And unless you make agnosticism a very quirky definition, not A or B is a subset of not A and agnostics are a subset of weak atheist. If you are going to say anything related to that at all it should be something to the tune of "Agnostics do not deny the existence of god and are not (strong) atheists". Your statement has misleading wording and the first clause is incorrect.(CHF 10:31, 20 September 2005 (UTC))

List latest issue on top

cf Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment#Article content

This is not the RfC page, which is a special case.

There shouldn't be any 'special cases', WikiPolicy should be universally consistent, don't you think, so things are done the same way on all pages?. --207.200.116.204 21:28, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

The convention is that new issues are added to the bottom of the page.

From my point of view, the sensible thing to do is to put the latest hot topic at the top so it is easier to find without having to wade through reams of stale issues; but you don't see it that way? Are you accustomed to getting your way on everything? --207.200.116.204 21:28, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Check out the order of the dates of the first entry of each section on this page - they progress from oldest at the top to youngest at the bottom. I will leave it to some else to re-move this to the bottom of the page, were it should be. Banno 08:10, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Ha! Some sections of this article do not conform to this convention - I should have checked first. But you will find in Misplaced Pages:Talk page guidelines#Layout: "Proceed vertically: Within each topic, the further down the contribution to talk, the later it was made."

Yeah, WITHIN each topic, that makes sense, just like we are doing right here, but the latest hot topic should be added at the top instead of buried under reams of stale issues, don't u stink? --207.200.116.204 21:28, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Also, you might note that the "Post a comment" feature places comments new sections at the end of the discussion, not at the top. Banno 09:25, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Then it's broken and needs to be fixed. How do I do that? Do I have to put in a Request For Change to the software? --207.200.116.204 21:28, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Try it, and let us know what response you get... Banno 23:59, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Please discuss any proposals to change the guideline on having new sections at the top at Misplaced Pages talk:Talk page guidelines, not here. — Jeandré, 2005-07-24t22:48z

Removed Large Section

Here is the section I removed:

One point of view has it that "Theists and strong atheists make statements about the world, the theist that 'God exists', the strong atheist that 'God does not exist'. Agnostics make the statement about these statements, 'one cannot know whether or not God exists'."

Two objections to the above point of view are:

1. How could anyone possibly know that it is impossible to know it if some hypothetical thing were to exist and interact with the world? Any such interaction would leave some kind of trail of evidence that could be demonstrated, wouldn't it?

And 2. The argument that there might actually BE (exist) an invisible deity is what is known as an EXISTENTIAL statement, not a "statement about the world" (universal statement) as the writer of the above paragraph asserts. The null, 'There is no invisible deity in evidence in the universe' is a universal statement (statement about the universe).

Agnosticism has suffered more than most expressions of philosophical position from terminological vagaries. Examples come from attempts to associate agnosticism with atheism. The "freethinking" tradition of atheism calls a lack of belief in the existence of any deities, "weak atheism" (or "negative atheism"). However, one can still draw a distinction between weak atheism and agnosticism by drawing a distinction between belief and knowledge, leading those who believe knowledge of God is not possible to claim agnosticism is about knowledge, while atheism/theism is about the lack of belief. Agnostic atheism is a combination of both.

I removed that section because:

• it is badly written (lots of questions)
• it is pretty blatant POV (assertions not attributed to any source)

I know we don't all agree on the definition of agnosticism, but the Variations subcategory should not have back and forth fighting. The part about "as the writer of the above paragraph asserts" is just unprofessional and silly. This is an encyclopedia, not a discussion board. Let each section say what it wants to say, and discuss your disagreement with "the writer of the above paragraph" here on the Talk page. Miketwo 22:09, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Belief system

Agnosticism is a philosophic position - that knowledge is not possible. Some agnostics believe in god & some do not. To say agnosticism is a belief system is to fly in the face of the meaning of the word to put forth a POV agenda. --JimWae 01:06, 2005 September 6 (UTC)

To what proposition do you claim agnostics assent? You are pushing an agenda & a POV. The vandalism is all yours. Your comments below are non-responsive, saying only to look elsewhere - --JimWae 01:15, 2005 September 6 (UTC)

Definition of "Belief" as applied to Agnosticism

Misconstruing the meaning of "belief" is the core of the tug-of-war content confusion here. Misplaced Pages has a fine definition of belief, and we should agree to abide by its very reasonable content.

There is otherwise a glaring lack of clear thinking here regarding what a "belief" (or ethereal "lack of belief") is. Also, see Merriam-Webster's definition of "belief" . It is otherwise 'dancing on air' to not ground this discussion in commonly accepted definitions of words.--66.69.219.9 01:07, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but for more fun check out the history of the word belief, for what its worth. Khirad 06:03, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Whither Robert G. Ingersoll?

Before anything anybody want me to write agnostic in Greek ? I don't know if its been seen as unecessary, or if nobody else wanted to do it? Well, I think this is it nonetheless: ἄγνωστος.

Now, forgive me for interrupting the discussions on the finer points of style and the minutiæ of logic, but I am wondering about a question of simple content. Most namely, why isn't Robert Ingersoll mentioned? I checked the talk archives and didn't see him. If I missed him, I apologize. If there's a good reason he's not here I also apologize. His Why I am Agnostic is brilliant in the way he is able to communicate the loftiest ideas in the plainest of speech. When people want to know what I 'believe' I have them read that speech. Perhaps, a noteworthy counterpoint to the scientific oriented Agnostic thinkers already mentioned in the article for his unpretentious, "folksy" style alone. His ability to see things abstractly, offers a different perspective from the hyperfocused Huxley (whom I admire for that ability). For those not familiar with him (I'm not implying any of you do or don't) -in addition to the wiki article - there is a good, brief column on the contemporary views of him here. If he has been left out for reasons of modern influence (and lack thereof), his indirect influence, is perhaps, at least worthy of a footnote. For those with some time on their hands there is his complete works at infidels.org.

I'm not saying I don't like what is in the article at all! I just thought it was odd not to find Ingersoll here in addition to the other great Agnostic thinkers. I might also suggest, though he was more famous as a lawyer, Clarence Darrow's Why I Am An Agnostic. I realize what I've written is preaching to the choir and bordering on chutzpah, so thank you for being patient with me! Khirad 06:03, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Neutrality tag

This is my first attempt to contribute to a talk page, so I hope I'm not screwing up. How long does a warning remain when there is a dispute about neutrality? I'd have thought that the complaint has been sufficiently answered, so the warning could be removed, or a vote could be taken, etc. Should I RTFM? Where is the Manual? Are these questions inappropriate here? Rats 21:06, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

These questions are perfectly legitimate on the talk page. Only they should go to the end of the page, like any new discussion. Here you are :) You can either be bold and remove the tag yourself or, if you think some people would object, start a vote Jules LT 14:37, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I did it... anyone feel free to put back

Template:POV-because

so we can know why... I think the standard NPOV tag shouldn't be used at all, in fact. Jules LT 15:53, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

129.24.95.224's view on agnosticism

My point is this: if you are going to do away with something (some long-established convention, such as God, or the monarchy, that has been accepted as a cornerstone of life for centuries, and has been guiding things), you had better think about it first. ...

Misplaced Pages is not a forum. This page is for discussion of specific edits to the article, not a place for evangelism. Banno 00:38, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I got a bit carried out. I moved my "contribution" to my talk page. Jules LT 04:16, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

You forgot to move it. I just did it for you, okay?--Adrigo 21:25, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Beliefs as possibilities

"Some Agnostics embrace all beliefs as possibilities, albeit of variable likeliness; they do not confirm or reject any belief, and assert only their own unability to know for sure."

I know from personal experience that this view is shared by some agnostics, at least. If you're tempted to rv, please comment beforehand. Jules LT 18:28, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

"Some Agnostics embrace all beliefs as possibilities". Maybe. But who? And where? And what exactly did they say? We need some actual citations from actual Agnostics. Huxley was certainly willing to reject some beliefs, as an acquaintance with what he actually wrote would soon reveal. And that's what this article needs in order to avoid all the POV squabbling. It's obvious that the word agnostic has been used in divergent ways: the entry just needs to tell the reader how these ways have been characterised, by who, and where and when. --Dannyno 20:53, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't know of a precise author who said it, but then again I'm not that familiar with that kind of litterature. You can say it's unsourced, but certainly not that it's nonsense. The argument goes thus:

Any belief can actually be accurate, as contradictory as it may seem, because the contradictions may only be misconceptions on our part, be it from misjudgement or from lack of appropriate data (see Descartes's "evil demon" hypothesis or the "brain in a jar" hypothesis). This is only a recognition of one's unability to know anything for sure. Un-knowledge; A-gnosticism; it's only an extension of that principle.

But since, to live, we must act as if some specific set of facts are true. We use our experience and confront it to the facts to deem many things to be less likely. It doesn't make them impossible, but we have to act as if they were because one can't remain in doubt and inactive forever (David Hume, somewhere).

One example I really like is how a turkey, from experience, knows that whenever the farmer comes out every morning he's going to give it grain. In the same way, we know that the sun will come up, the experiment will work again, such behaviour will have such consequences... Only one day the farmer might be coming with an axe. If someone had told you otherwise, you wouldn't have believed him. And you would have been right, because you simply can't believe whatever you're told. Especially when that's against all experience (Bertrand Russell's inductivist turkey)

Oops. look at what I found:

As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods."

— Bertrand Russell, Collected Papers, vol. 11, p. 91

There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago."

— Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind, 1921, pp. 159–60; cf. Philosophy, Norton, 1927, p. 7

Jules LT 16:15, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

"Various meanings" top section

As I suggested on the Atheism page, I think that here too we need to insert a typology of the different kinds of atheism that exist (before the views of precise philosophers). I think that we can distinguish 3 kinds: those who considerthat the answer to the question "Does God exist?" is unknowable, those who consider that we just don't know and the solution might, in principle, be known at some point, and those who consider that the question itself is incoherent (I think only logical positivists qualify for the last one, though).

Thus, we would be able to explicit what these views mean and imply, and give the result of the above discussion which will then hopefully never happen again.

Jules LT 08:05, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

((The discussion in question was enterely reverted, as it had been stirred up by a sockpuppet of an injoined user , which I am grateful for, because during this "discussion" I was found extremely guilty of copiously feeding the troll, as it has been pointed out to me)) - Jules LT 04:34, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd be careful with the logical positivists. Language Truth and Logic not only rejected theism and (strong) atheism, but also agnosticism, on the grounds they all thought the topic was meaningful. And the point is, it's "meaningfulness" in a very particular sense, not as might be generally understood. --Dannyno 12:10, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I wasn't sure about that point either.. Jules LT 19:58, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

In fact, there was already such a section in the article, only it was strangely located at the very end of it. I moved it to the top of the article, after editing it, moving a large bit that was unnecessarily developed here into where it belonged (namely, agnostic theism) and cleaned up the receiving article entirely and developed it as I went through. Jules LT 23:55, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Does anyone disagree with having the variations section at the top and why? Please comment before re-reverting. Jules LT 20:35, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Adrigo (injoined user) is back (?)

I increasingly believe that User:Ehrlich is a sockpuppet of Adrigo/DotSix (Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/DotSix).

• He has the same peculiar theses (See what he says on Talk:Atheism:; my explanations:)
• He is a very recent user who nevertheless knows wikipedia policies well
• He edits the same pages as the injoined user did (contributions)

Yesterday, I asked User:Theresa knott for IP check (an arbitrator on the case; not sure she can actually do the check) and warned Banno (seems to me, the most active witness in the case). I didn't get any answer yet.

additional evidence here that made me write this in the first place:

• : recent radical edit by User:Ehrlich. Note the Huxley quote made prominent.
• Repeated use of this Huxley misquotation (See why it is one: ) in Adrigo's "rethoric":

Ehrlich's edit is at the moment reverted (by User:Nathan Ladd, not me), and I would encourage anyone who saw a controversial edit by User:Ehrlich (contributions) to revert it immediately with the edit summary simply stating "rv: injoined user". I'll post all of this and more in the case's page as soon as possible.

Jules LT 19:30, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

• Repeated use of this Huxley misquotation (See why it is one: )

What do you mean, 'misquotation'? Do you have a reading problem? Huxley definitely says in "Agnosticism and Christianity" (1899) that agnostics rightly deny and repudiate, as immoral, any religious doctrine like Christianity for example, that there are statements like the tenets of Christianity for example, that people ought to believe without logically satisfactory evidence? What is there about this simple statement of one of the most basic principles there is that you are not able to grasp? --Ehrlich 22:36, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I am not familiar with the word "injoined" , it means partially and temporarily banned? — Jeandré, 2005-09-29t22:22z

It means being the subject of an injunction by the Misplaced Pages Arbitration Committee. In this case, this one: --Nate Ladd 23:12, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

You are mistaken, I am not a party to that request for arbitration. Why are you all ignoring Misplaced Pages:Assume good faith? --Ehrlich 22:36, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I was assuming good faith until you proved that I should not do so with the above comment and your disingenous edit summaries. Welcome back, Donald.--chris.lawson 02:00, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Philosophical opinions: Huxley, Darwin, Russell

I have major problems with this section. For one, Darwin called himself an agnostic but did not actually make any philosophical contributions to agnosticism. Russell is absolutely not an agnostic "in the original sense", as the article currently claims. This ought to be obvious from the quotes that are actually in the article. Basically, Russell didn't know what to call himself, was willing to say that the traditional anthropomorphic god could be disproved (how many agnostics "in the original sense" would say that?), and doesn't actually seem to have contributed much to agnostic thought. Where is Leslie Stephen? Where is WK Clifford?

This article really really needs rewriting, no? --Dannyno 14:34, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

The Darwin passage is just an anecdote that does add any information about agnosticism, so I agree that it should be deleted. --Nate Ladd 18:36, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

As for Russell, I think that all the open agnostics would agree that "God's existence is not necessarily unknowable"; the traditional anthropomorphic God can be disproved in the sense that any alleged occurence in the physical word can, in principle, be disproved. For deities that are said not to intervene, that's not possible. He seems every bit of an agnostic to me, as is anyone who would say "I don't know whether God exists"... What would that agnostic "in the original sense" be, to you? (In fact, my personal stance is closest to Russell, so I'm really interested). Jules LT 23:22, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Assuming "in the original sense" means "as Huxley defined it", it could mean at least two things (Huxley used it in different ways). As he first used the word, it meant that he "didn't know" all the things that others claimed to know. As he subsequently explained it in print, it meant "methodological agnosticism" - i.e. knowledge claims must be supported by evidence: a synonym for rationalism, really. Other people then got hold of it and it came to mean "suspension of judgement" or "don't know either way". As is quite obvious, Russell was a victim of the usual confusions and called himself an agnostic or an atheist inconsistently. If he was so confused himself, it seems extremely highhanded of us to try to resolve it for him.

--Dannyno 08:53, 3 October 2005 (UTC)