|
An Agnostic Perspective
| quote: |
I'd like to hear what you guys have to say... agree, disagree? |
Good post melech_mike. I don't agree with you entirely, but you made a lot of good points.
| quote: |
In contrast, it is impossible to be rational and know with certainty that g-d does not exist, just as it is impossible to be rational and know that any person, object, or force does not exist.
|
You can be certain something does not exist if and only if that thing is defined as having self-contradictory properties: a triangle with four sides, for instance. Some atheists argue that God has self-contradictory properties. I do not, however, feel that their argument is valid. Therefore I would call them irrational.
| quote: |
First, it is possible (at least in theory) that g-d might introduce himself to you. Although we have a right to view any such claim with extreme scepticism, we must also admit that someone could possess absolute certainty about g-d's existence through such an event.
|
Were our perceptions perfect, you would be correct. However, what if God introduced himself to you shortly after someone spiked your drink with some hallucinogen.
Also, consider that if you were to travel 3000 years into the past, brining with you a plethora of modern technologies, it would probably not be difficult to convince the people living then that you were God.
| quote: |
Second, one could come to know that g-d exists through indirect evidence, that is, through circumstances and phenomena that cannot be explained without positing g-d's existence.
|
To some extent, I agree. Just as you can know something does not exist if and only if it has self-contradictory properties, you can know something does exist only when its absence would create a contradiction.
I don't see how it could reasonably be asserted, though, that God fits this profile. The most frequent argument stems from the lack of a strong alternative explanation for all phenomena of the universe. But since there are a theoretically infinite number of possible explanations for the phenomena of the universe, most of these explanations never have been contemplated (indeed, this would be true no matter how many had been contemplated). Therefore it would obviously be ludicrous to claim certainty that God exists merely because he might be the most justifiable explanation that has been contemplated.
| quote: |
A great deal of what we know today, we know only through such indirect evidence. For example, we know that there was once an American president named Abraham Lincoln. We know this not because we knew or met Lincoln, but because there is no other reasonable way to explain the existence of a universally accepted tradition that he lived.
|
I think a distinguishment needs to be made between three types of belief:
1. "Passive Belief" or "Suspicion" is a state of belief in which one is aware that one has no way of really knowing with certainty whether or not something is so, but has an irrational feeling one way or the other. With this form of belief, one would not traditionally modify their behavior in any significant way because of the belief.
2. "Conditioned Belief" is a state of belief arising from past experiences either directly or vicariously from sources of information you deem reliable. For example, you believe that you ought not to touch the hot stove, because either you did once, and it burned you, or you expect that it would burn you through a source of information you believe to be legitimate.
3. "Active Belief" or "Certainty" is a state of belief in which one is or believes themselves to be absolutely certain of whether or not something is true or false. Rationally, it can only arise through contradiction or axiom.
I have a passive belief of the former existence of Abraham Lincoln. I have a passive belief that my body is composed of cells. I have a conditioned belief that when I look down and see the road in front of me, I can take a step forward without falling into an invisible hole. I have an active belief that a triangle has three sides.
A theist who claims to have an active belief, or certainty, that God exists, is one I would call irrational.
|
)before 
