I believe the sun will rise tomorrow yet I don't know that the sun will rise tomorrow.
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Plain Agnostics - Do you believe in God or not?
- Thread starter The Sum of Awe
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I believe the sun will rise tomorrow yet I don't know that the sun will rise tomorrow.
Orias
Left Hand Path
a.k.a skepticism? In which case *high five*
Orias
Left Hand Path
Right. And if they recognize that they don't, then 'I don't know' is appropriate.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
If you recognize you don't hold a belief, then "I don't hold that belief" is even more appropriate. And useful.
But more words than necessary.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
Excellent point. In response to "do you hold this belief?" if you don't, the only word necessary is "no."
Koldo
Outstanding Member
No. That is not what he means
The wonders of using the word 'simple' when posing a contradiction to someone's else positions.
I don't know about that.
Koldo
Outstanding Member
Ignore that.
I suspect i misunderstood your post.
That is why i deleted it from mine.
laffy_taffy
Member
Exactly!:yes:
I'll give a prime example since I may not be explaining too well:
You are on a show called Opinions, the host asks you "Do you believe in the holy sock of the lamps?"
The first out of three people says: "Yes, I once experienced something I can't explain, nonbelievers give me natural explanations... You weren't there!"
2nd say: "No! I have not seen it or experienced it in any way or form, therefore I can't say it does."
First person jumps into argument: "YOU DON'T SEE AIR!!!"
Host: "Let's not get sidetracked, do you believe in it number 3?"
3rd person: "I don't know."
Host: "That's not an answer, nobody knows if it does or not, do you believe in it or not?"
3rd person: "Oh... in that case... I don't know."
Host: "What do you THINK is likely? It doesn't exist or it does?"
3rd: "Hmm... I don't know."
Host: "..."
You are on a show called Opinions, the host asks you "Do you believe in the holy sock of the lamps?"
The first out of three people says: "Yes, I once experienced something I can't explain, nonbelievers give me natural explanations... You weren't there!"
2nd say: "No! I have not seen it or experienced it in any way or form, therefore I can't say it does."
First person jumps into argument: "YOU DON'T SEE AIR!!!"
Host: "Let's not get sidetracked, do you believe in it number 3?"
3rd person: "I don't know."
Host: "That's not an answer, nobody knows if it does or not, do you believe in it or not?"
3rd person: "Oh... in that case... I don't know."
Host: "What do you THINK is likely? It doesn't exist or it does?"
3rd: "Hmm... I don't know."
Host: "..."
Perhaps it would make more sense if you just read a book on epistemology?
Amazon.com: Epistemology (9780133416459): Richard Feldman: Books
Orias
Left Hand Path
I guess what belief says can be different from what it dictates.
But I should of said that belief does indeed say what you don't know, because you believe you know it.
The wonders of using the word 'simple' when posing a contradiction to someone's else positions.
I know.
Thats why I said I believe that I don't know anything.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Whenever I question if I know anything for certain, I resort to mathematical equations and formulas to assure myself there are some definite truths. These are truths, that no matter what, will always be true. This is assurance that 100% knowledge is possible. If there is any possibility of free will, there is the power of social influence and biological predispositions and that awareness of can reduce and even sometimes minimize these influences. There are many truths in life, and many things that are merely a matter of individual perspective.
But as far as god is concerned, there is the question of how did anything come into being? This question is not only aimed at the universe, but god as well. How did anything come into being? You cannot get something from complete nothingness, thus how did the universe or god originate from nothingness? Actually I believe it is possible our universe was created by some entity, a god or non-god, that exist outside of our own universe, but it does not answer the question of where did this entity and this external universe come from. If you believe everything came about from natural causes there is the question of where did matter ultimately originate from, or even where did god originate from, and the very small odds of life here on Earth even starting. Philosophically, even chances that have decimal and a trillion zeros of happening can still happen, but they are never the less very small odds that we just do not see happening on earth. Now we cannot assume, by any means of the word, that what happens here on Earth is any sort of cosmological truth (even evolution on different planets will be subject to a difference in availability in elements and consequently influence the course of life development). Thus our own concept of evolution is based purely on nothing more than how we perceive it, and just like we know the color of the day-time sky is different on each planet due to elemental composure, it should be assumed that we have absolutely NO universal truths to be found on this planet.
But since we only have a guess at how life started on this planet (although a very good guess, but ultimately it is nothing more than a guess that since bodies of ice can carry the ingredients for life that comet impacts on earth carried the essential ingredients for life), how can we even begin to fathom if some divine being created the universe or not? We have such a very limited understanding of ourselves, of the nature on earth, of the nature of the Sol system, of the Milky Way galaxy, of our universe in general, that how can we even begin to reason there is or is not a god? Our understanding is so limited that we are in a cave and we really do not know what are casting the shadows on the wall that we see.
And I have to ask, why cannot knowledge come before a believe? For example, I have knowledge that an ongoing Russian experiment has yielded one group of very tame and domesticated foxes, and another group of highly aggressive foxes. I know of many examples of research and experiments that show a very strong relationship between biological inheritance and behavior. I know that some genes cause aggressiveness, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and even intelligence. It is my believe that genetic inheritance plays a more important role in our behavior and personality that most people are willing to admit. I believe this because I know that various neurotransmitters do indeed control various aspects of our personality, behavior, and current mental state.
As for God I know there are hardly any scientific proofs, yet scientific proofs as of yet do not offer what I consider to be a satisfactory answer to the ultimate origins of life and the universe. Of course the answer may not be god, but only the blind cannot appreciate the very extremely small odds of life happening, on this planet or any planet. And of course there are phenomena of which science does not have an answer for. There is a saying of "science is magic explained."
Some scientist are trying to convince us that an ever-changing number of dimensions exist. There is absolutely no evidence outside of these formulas that these dimensions do actually exist. Thus we are forced to accept that even scientific explanations do step outside of what should be expected from the scientific perspective of needing empirical evidence to support a hypothesis. We call it string theory, but really these dimensions of four through whatever the current number is has just as much evidence as any randomly selected god from any randomly selected mythos has.
Religion does not provide any answers. Science, while more credible than religion, is not exempt from the same problems that dictate religious thought. Thus it is my belief that we have the here and now, nothing more or less, and our only real knowledge is about the here and now. God is simply outside of our scope of examination, at least for now.
But even if we could ask someone brought back from the dead, I can think of many reasons as to why that person would not know if God exist or not, or if we have souls or not. The main reason being a split between brain and soul, in which the soul would be experiencing things in which the body obviously wouldn't be. So I really doubt even asking the resurrected would be beneficial.
And because there are so many philosophical reasons that must be considered, in the pursuit of keeping in balance of what we have knowledge of and what we believe, I believe there may be a god, or goddess, or multiple divine entities, or there may not be any.
I simply do not have sufficient knowledge to form a believe that exist outside of this view of "may or may not."
As for the sun rising tomorrow, I am simply assuming it will appear to rise tomorrow. I am fully aware that one of many disasters may happen and it may not "appear" to rise tomorrow or I will not be around to see the sunlight of a new day. It should rise, but I believe, that as far as my own perspective is concerned, it may not.
I believe my academic pursuits will end with multiple doctorates, but realistically I know this may not be the case, based on a number of variables. I may even die in a car crash on my way to school next week. But with god there is far less knowledge to base any sort of believe on other than what lies in the middle of "maybe or maybe not."
You're right, math is probably certain. At least the basics. I don't trust some the higher stuff.
But, just because we might know something for certain doesn't mean that we are assured that we can know anything else for certain.
Shadow Wolf said:
Whoa.
Anyway, I tend to agree. We don't know much, and most if not all of what we think we know is likely very incomplete or not completely true.
But, I also think that for the sake of sanity and for normal day-to-day living, we make choices that we find to be the most probable based upon what we think we know. I think that god is a hypothesis that had been around for a very long time, and that evidence for such an extraordinary hypothesis has not yet been found. I see no reason to treat the god hypothesis any differently than I would any other sort of hypothesis. I don't defer judgement on unicorns or time travel or whether humans rode dinosaurs; I don't see why I should also defer judgement on God.
I understand why you would choose your position; I just don't think that's how our brains generally work regarding most beliefs.
Most of our beliefs are based upon what we consider to be knowledge. However, I don't believe that we know anything (with a few exceptions) for certain; just because we consider something to be knowledge doesn't mean that it is. But, we don't (and can't) indefinitely defer beliefs because we are not certain; we would become paralyzed, unable to act, if we did so.Shadow Wolf said:
Just out of curiousity, what other things do you withhold beliefs on regarding existence? What about fairies, et al? How do you have any more information regarding them than god?Shadow Wolf said:
Orias
Left Hand Path
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."- Albert Einstein
I think 100% is a goal post, knowledge is limited to will.
That is how I feel about it too. Usually, my only exception to my "100% certainty, aka knowledge, doesn't exist" stance is the knowledge that I exist. But, I do find it hard to argue how 2 + 2 couldn't equal 4. So math is in my "maybe that really is 100% certain" category.
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