• silverwhisper said on May 19, 2008....

  it astonishes me every time i encounter an honest-to-goodness atheist. the vast majority of the vocal atheists i encounter are the angry atheists, who are still smarting over some injury done to them by god.
  
  they're almost as bad as the freshly-born-again evangelicals in their zeal, IMHO.
  
  i'm curious, what's your philosophical position re: god? theist or agnostic?
  
  ed

• mulgere-hircum said on May 19, 2008....

  Well my philosophical position is I am agnostic.  This might be long, but let me explain. After taking epistemology, which is the philosophy of Knowledge, I have learned the hard way that we really don't know much, if anything, at all.  You see, it used to be held that Justified, True, Belief (JTB) equals knowledge.  And when I say used to be, I mean for thousands of years. From Plato until 1963, when Edmund L. Gettier published his brilliant and yet frustrating 2 page paper entitled "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?"
  
  There were a few different formulations but all of them were trying to equate JTB with knowledge.  Here are a couple of examples given of which I am extrapolating from Edmund L. Gettier's paper:
  
  Plato's round about definition of Knowledge is formulated as such:

  X knows that Y       IFF (if and only If)
  

  1. Y is true
  2. X believes that Y, and
  3. X is justified in believing that Y

  Roderick M. Chisholm, another famous 20th century epistemologist has formulated it this way:

  X knows that Y      IFF

  1. X accepts Y,
  2.  X has adequate evidence for Y, and
  3. Y is true
  Finally, A.J. Ayer tried to formulate knowledge this way:
  
  X knows that Y      IFF
  1. Y is true,
  2. X is sure that Y is true, and
  3. X has the right to be sure that Y is true.

  Okay, now this might be confusing but basically people are trying to work within the JTB = K understanding of how we arrive at knowledge.  We have Plato's formulation.  In the twentieth century, people such as Chisholm and Ayer tried to slightly reformulate JTB=K in order to more adequately secure it as being a fact for understanding how we arrive at knowledge.  Well, Edmund Gettier disagreed with JTB=K and didn't see how that could always, universally, get us to knowledge.  So he wrote a 2 page paper refuting JTB=K (http://www.ditext.com/gettier/gettier.html).
  
  I would suggest reading his short little paper which is linked directly above.  Basically, he states that We can believe something, be justified in our belief, and out belief can be true; yet, we can still not have arrived at knowledge.  He gives some brief an witty examples that literally blow our knowledge right out of the water.  I won't butcher his examples here, but check them out by clicking the link above.
  
  So to get back on point.  I am agnostic intellectually, because there is no way for me to really know if there is a God.  I am fully open and willing to admit that.  It is hard to prove that my knowledge of God even meets up to the traditional understanding of JTB=K.  I would say that I am, others would disagree.  Here is what I mean.

  m-h knows that God exists          IFF
  

  1. God's exsitence is true
  2. m-h believes that God exists
  3. m-h is justified for believing that God exists

  I believe that God exists, so I meet the belief clause.  I feel I meet the justified clause because of my own experiences, the collective experiences of the church throughout history, and because of the orderedness of nature and the universe.  There other reasons, but I will leave these just for the example.
  
  Others will argue that while I may believe that God exists, that I am hardly justified for believing that God exists because of the lack of scientific, non-subjective, evidence in support of a God.  This is of course assuming that life itself isn't such evidence.  But all-knowing science would say that life appeared randomly.
  
  I would argue back that none of us have true knowledge because of our inability to know all of the possibilities that go into any given event.  This was David Hume's argument.  Let me type several paragraphs written by Hume so that you get the gist of his argument:

  "Complex ideas, may, perhaps be well known by definition, which is nothing but an enumeration of those parts or simple ideas, that compose them.  But when we have pushed up definitions to the most simple ideas, and find still some ambiguity and obscurity; what resource we are then possessed of?  By what invention can we throw light upon these ideas, and render them altogether precise and determinate to our intellectual view!  Produce the impressions or original sentiments, from which the ideas are copied.  These impressions are all strong and sensible.  They admit not of ambiguity.  They are not only placed in a full light themselves, but may throw light on their correspondent ideas, which lie in obscurity...
  
  "The impulse of one billiard ball is attended with motion in the second.  This is the whole that appears to the outward senses.  The mind feels no sentiment or inward impression from this succession of objects:  Consequently there is not, in any single, particular instance of cause and effect, anything which can suggest the idea of power or necessary connection…

  "We know, that, in fact, heat is a constant attendant of flame; but what is the connection between them, we have no room fo much as to conjecture or imagine.  It is impossible, therefore, that the idea of power can be derived from the contemplation of bodies, in single instances of their operation; because no bodies ever discover any power, which can be the original of this idea.
  
  "Since, therefore, external objects as they appear to the senses, give us no idea of power or necessary connection, by their operation in particular instances, let us see, whether this idea be derived from reflection on the operations of our own minds, and be copied from any internal impression...
  
  "The motion of our body follows upon the command of our will. Of this we are every moment conscious.  But the means, by which this is effected; the energy, by which the will performs so extraordinary an operation; of this we are so far from being immediately conscious, that it must for ever escape our most diligent inquiry...
  
  "But philosophers, who carry their scrutiny a little farther, immediately perceive that, even in the most familiar events, the energy of the cause is as unintelligible as teh most unusual, and that we only learn by experience the frequent conjunction of the objects, without being ever able to comprehend anything like connection between them..."  - David Hume, from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.
  
  Now, I haven't read Hume in a long while, so I am not even sure I am pulling the best of his arguments, but he has a major point when it comes to who we come to understandings of things, even in the scientific world.  We base our knowledge off of supposed evidence.  But evidence is merely repetitive experience?  Is it not.  We experience, thousands of times, that a+ b = c and thus we make the educated assumption that 'a' and 'b', together, must cause 'c.'  And yet, is that sufficient to prove that 'c' is caused by 'a' and 'b'?  I think not.  There are so many other possibilities, beside 'a' and 'b' that could factor into 'c'.  So do we truly "Know" what causes 'c'.  We have the belief that 'a' and 'b' cause 'c'.  It is true that when 'a' and 'b' are put together we have 'c'.  And, therefore, we are justified in holding the belief that a+b=c.  But does that mean we know that a+b=c?
  
  Okay, so I think that about puts every human being, be they theist, deist, agnostic or atheist in the same boat.  We are all intellectually agnostic when it comes to the knowledge of God.  But I don't let my agnostic nature keep me from functioning in life.  If any skeptic was truly skeptical, they would not get in a car every morning to get to work. They could not stay in a house, but then again they could not stay out doors either.  They don't know whether the house will collapse on them any more than they know the probability of getting struck by lightning that day, or a tree collapsing on them, or some wacky air born virus entering their respiratory system and killing them.  The perceived odds of getting into an accident would keep any true skeptic from driving.  I could continue with this ad nauseum, but I won't.
  
  So, humans primarily function on Faith.  You can take the definition of Faith in Hebrews 11:1 and apply it anywhere in life: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."  We hope to get to work on time and safely, but we cannot know we will.  We are convicted enough to get up and drive to work in hopes to make money and maintain our job, but we have not seen what the roadway holds for us on the way there. We have not seen the possibilities.
  
  So the question then becomes, what do you place your faith in.  And here is my answer...lol...finally.  I am a theist.  Despite the uncertainty, I place my faith in Jesus Christ.  Other's place there faith in science, or in no-god, or in a distant unresponsive god.  I place my faith in Jesus Christ and thus I am a theist.

• anonymous said on May 19, 2008....

  m-h: your last bit reminded me of a certain Johannes Climacus (aka Søren Kierkegaard) who wrote this about faith, "Without risk there is no faith.  Faith is precisely the contradiction between the infinite passion of the individual's inwardness and the objective uncertainty...If I wish to preserve myself in faith I must constantly be intent upon holding fast the objective uncertainty, so that in the objective uncertainty I am out 'upon the seventy thousand fathoms of water,' and yet believe."

• silverwhisper said on May 20, 2008....

  m-h, that's a very thorough response, but sadly i lack the time to digest it properly just now--i shall return later when time permits.
  
  ed

• mulgere-hircum said on May 20, 2008....

  Hi Silver, no problem...I recognize I went on a bit, but I had to write it in order to give you a full explanation of where I am coming from.  I am a philosopher...lol...what can I say?  ;^)

• silverwhisper said on May 21, 2008....

  OK, now that i've had the time to read: i respect and understand what others might perceive as a disconnect re: your philosophical & spiritual stances.
  
  for a long time, i've felt that logic represents only half the path to understanding--in your analysis of the section you quoted from hume, you mention the idea that generally speaking, evidence is based upon our perception of events. yet perceptions are often couched in an emotional context as well as a factual context: if i observe a couple arguing loudly & angrily on multiple occasions, i might form a conclusion about the way in which they communicate or their relationship.
  
  speaking of knowledge in a philosophical sense is almost meaningless b/c knowledge depends, as plato's formulation indicates, upon the existence of an objective truth, and if one cannot accept that given, the subsequent reformulations are required by its absence to allow for the prospect that an objective truth cannot be a given.
  
  thank you for that extended but quite rewarding response, m-h. :>
  
  ed

• mulgere-hircum said on May 21, 2008....

  Silverwhisper, you are quite welcome.  I agree with you.  The fact that we cannot strip any given event from the complexities of our subjectivity means that we can never be objective or come to know pure objective fact.  I believe in an absolute truth, but I do not believe any subjective human being can ever know it.  And that puts human beings in a predicament.  We want to know, we long to know, we crave and scrape for knowledge.  And the one thing we desire the most, is the one thing we can never have.
  
  But most people don't realize this.  Most people think that there is no limitation to human capabilities.  Many people believe that if we keep thinking and discovering, we will eventually perfect science to the point where we will know everything. Heck, some people think we are already there, the way they tout and flaunt science around as if it is the end-all to answers.  But belief in science is no more valid then a belief in miracles, according to David Hume.
  
  We draw conclusions, in part, based upon repetition of specific events; however, we are subjectively looking for something in those events.  We draw conclusions based off of what we see, but we are no more possessing knowledge about that than a religious person is possessing knowledge of miracles when they see a sick person, who is expected to die, get well suddenly.  They take the experience of the event they witnessed, mix it with other experiences they've had, the experiences of those they know, the experiences of those they've heard about, etc. and draw the conclusion that miracles exist.  But what causes them to draw such a conclusion?  It is the  subjective beliefs they hold that cause them to look in a direction that someone like Hume, who is also subjective, would never look in.
  
  Ultimately, though, it is faith that causes us to put our best foot forward.  The religious person has faith in the existence of the Divine.  Thus, the religious person sees things through that Faith.  The Atheist, such as Christopher Hitchens, has Faith that there is no existence of the Divine.  Thus, the atheist sees things through that Faith.  The one who claims agnosticism, appears to be the most realistic and faithless person of them all.  But a closer examination shows that even they live by faith.  Agnostics state that they don't know so they choose to abstain from belief, but do the really abstain?  They claim that they won't act unless they know, and yet they function in life just like the rest of us.  Clearly, they act in many areas where knowledge, rationality and logic don't come into play.  Areas such as love, driving to work, living in a home, seeking after success, and just about every function that they perform is acted upon without knowledge of the consequences, possibilities, etc.
  
  Thus they place their faith in what they think to be rational cautiousness due to lack of knowledge, and yet they aren't being completely honest with how much they don't know.  They require knowledge for a belief in the divine, but not for living.  Anyway, these are my thoughts.  I respect everyone's right to choose their own path, but ultimately it is Faith, by definition, that leads everyone down their respective paths.
  

• mulgere-hircum said on May 21, 2008....

  Anon, I am familiar with Kierkegaard.  Thanks for the post.
  

• silverwhisper said on May 22, 2008....

  m-h, the kind of exchange we've had is the kind of thing that keeps drawing me back here. :> thank you.
  
  ed

• mulgere-hircum said on May 22, 2008....

  Silverwhisper, no problem.  Thanks for coming.

Comment on "Bitchin' Hitchens"

Currently tagged	atheism Christopher Hitchens god (Click to add tags below)
Tag this post	(Separate tags using commas, for example: New York, dating, vegetarian)
Your comment
	Comment Anonymously