| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Roger Roaster" |
| Date: |
28 Jul 2003 03:53:39 PM |
| Object: |
Re: Septic messes up on MIGHT versus MUST |
Virgil <vmhjr2@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<vmhjr2-BBB874.22421925072003@blade.randori.com>...
I do not have to conflate "belief" and "knowledge" to make them
overlap in meaning. Septic, however, must "deflate" both sets of
meanings to make them disjoint, as he claims.
Note that Septic's versions of "bellieve " and "know" require that
one never believe in anything one knows and never know anything that
one believes in. A curious sort of universe Septic must live in
WRT your constant fallacious attempt to conflate knowledge and belief:
I hate to be the one to tell you, but you are making the common error of
conflating (confusing) belief and knowledge, two entirely different human
behaviors. As I pointed out, Christianity, for example, is a belief (faith
in the truth of some proposition accepted as true, especially a particular
tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons, not resting on
logical proof or material evidence. In essence, neither atheism nor
agnosticism are beliefs. There is no proposition accepted as true, not
resting on logical proof or material evidence, in atheism or agnosticism,
just the lack of the one the particular theist has. Tra-la-la, ha-ha-ha,
you *****. If there is logical proof and material evidence that "Virgil's
magic sky-pixie exits" is known to be true, then we are talking "KNOWLEDGE",
not train conductors and kidney-pies, knucklehead. (No belief necessary, no
faith in the truth of some proposition accepted as true, especially a particular
tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons, not resting on
logical proof or material evidence.) That is fatal to your proposition that
belief is essential to agnosticism, and that agnosticism is a belief. No belief
is required to point out that any person is wrong to say they are certain of
the truth of their proposition unless they can provide objective evidence
that it is known to be ture. That is simply a proven principle of logic, the
science of reason. (See begging the question in any logic text.)
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| User: "Virgil" |
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| Title: Re: Septic messes up on MIGHT versus MUST |
28 Jul 2003 06:06:23 PM |
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In article <b0ef066.0307281253.1aa78540@posting.google.com>,
(Roger Roaster) wrote:
Virgil <vmhjr2@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:<vmhjr2-BBB874.22421925072003@blade.randori.com>...
I do not have to conflate "belief" and "knowledge" to make them
overlap in meaning. Septic, however, must "deflate" both sets of
meanings to make them disjoint, as he claims.
Note that Septic's versions of "believe " and "know" require that
one never believe in anything one knows and never know anything that
one believes in. A curious sort of universe Septic must live in
WRT your constant fallacious attempt to conflate knowledge and belief:
Septic's attempts to deflate them so that one cannot know what one
believes and cannot believe what one knows, is much more fallacious.
I hate to be the one to tell you, but you are making the common error of
conflating (confusing) belief and knowledge, two entirely different human
behaviors.
Since septic aparently knows, or believes, but not both, that
knowledge and belief are mutually exclusive, does he assert that he
believes me to be in error or that he knows me to be in error. He
has effectively said that he cannot do both.
As I pointed out, Christianity, for example, is a belief (faith
in the truth of some proposition accepted as true, especially a particular
tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons, not resting on
logical proof or material evidence.
In essence, neither atheism nor
agnosticism are beliefs.
Atheism can be, and often is, a _belief_ that there are no gods.
Since there can never be any proof of that belief, it cannot never
be transubstantiated into knowledge.
Agnosticism is, according to Huxley, a moral principle. This means
that it cannot be knowledge, as there is no way to test the "truth"
of a moral principle.
There is no proposition accepted as true, not
resting on logical proof or material evidence, in atheism or agnosticism,
just the lack of the one the particular theist has.
A true agnostic will also reject the unfounded claim "there is no
god" made by many atheists, as many times repeated quotes from
Huxley have demonstrated.
Any atheist who declares "there are no gods", and there are those
that do, is doing so in the absence of any "logical proof or
empirical evidence".
Indeed, there is better empirical evidence to the contrary in the
eyewitness accounts supporting the existence of a god or gods.
So what evidence there is opposes the "there are no gods" manifesto.
That atheists try to "explain away" that evidence does not
invalidate it any more than a criminal's denying evidence of his
guilt invalidates it.
In order to invalidate such evidence, one must convince
disinterseted parties of its invalidity , and those anti-theist
atheists are not disinterested parties.
If there is logical proof and material
evidence that "Virgil's magic sky-pixie exits" is known to be
true, then we are talking "KNOWLEDGE", not train conductors and
kidney-pies, knucklehead.
There is evidence that "Virgil's magic sky pixie" is entirely a
figment of Septic the sophist's creative imagination.
Septic has created this figment entirely as a straw man to attack
because Septic has neither the wit nor the skill to attack true men
successfully.
(No belief necessary, no faith in the
truth of some proposition accepted as true, especially a
particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of
persons, not resting on logical proof or material evidence.) That
is fatal to your proposition that belief is essential to
agnosticism, and that agnosticism is a belief.
Another straw man. Septic works very hard here to refute a position
no one holds so that he can aviod failing to refute the positions
that people are actually holding. For lessons on what Agnosticism
actully is see
:
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/bib1.html
The following is from "Agnosticism: A Symposium (1884)",
interestingly never quoted by Capon :
<start quote>
"Some twenty years ago, or thereabouts, I invented the word
"Agnostic" to denote people who, LIKE MYSELF, confess
themselves to be HOPELESSLY IGNORANT concerning a variety of
matters, about which metaphysicians and theologians, both
orthodox and heterodox, dogmatise with the utmost confidence;
and it has been a source of some amusement to me to watch the
gradual acceptance of the term and its correlate, "Agnosticism"
(I think the Spectator first adopted and popularised both),
until now Agnostics are assuming the position of a recognised
sect, and Agnosticism is honoured by especial obloquy on the
part of the orthodox. Thus it will be seen that I have a sort
of patent right in "Agnostic" (it is my trade mark); and I am
entitled to say that I can state authentically WHAT WAS
ORIGINALLY MEANT by Agnosticism. What other people may
understand by it, by this time, I do not know. If a General
Council of the Church Agnostic were held, very likely I should
be condemned as a heretic. But I speak only for myself in
endeavoring to answer these questions.
1. Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or
modern. IT SIMPLY MEANS THAT A MAN SHALL NOT SAY HE KNOWS OR
BELIEVES THAT WHICH HE HAS NO SCIENTIFIC GROUNDS FOR PROFESSING
TO KNOW OR BELIEVE.
< N.B. Huxley specifically says "KNOWS or BELIEVES"... how
about that, Capon? By the way, do you claim to "know" or
"believe" there is no god? >
2. Consequently Agnosticism puts aside not only the greater
part of popular theology, BUT ALSO THE GREATER PART OF
ANTI-THEOLOGY. On the whole, the "bosh" of heterodoxy is more
offensive to me than that of orthodoxy, because heterodoxy
professes to be guided by reason and science, and orthodoxy
does not.
3. I have no doubt that scientific criticism will prove
destructive to the forms of supernaturalism which enter into
the constitution of existing religions. On trial of any
so-called miracle the verdict of science is "NOT PROVEN". But
true Agnosticism will not forget that existence, motion, and
law-abiding operation in nature are more stupendous miracles
than any recounted by the mythologies, and that THERE MAY BE
THINGS, not only in the heavens and earth, but BEYOND THE
INTELLIGIBLE UNIVERSE, which "are not dreamt of in our
philosophy." The theological "gnosis" would have us believe
that the world is a conjuror's house; the anti-theological
"gnosis" talks as if it were a "dirt-pie" made by the two blind
children, Law and Force. AGNOSTICISM SIMPLY SAYS THAT WE KNOW
NOTHING OF WHAT MAY BE BEYOND PHENOMENA."
<end quote>
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