…and this is a 
It's a rite of passage on Scienceblogs…
Category: Godlessness
Posted on: August 28, 2007 2:06 PM, by PZ Myers
…that you have to take a sharp poke at the godless or godly to try and trigger a response, and now it's Chris's turn. He's arguing with the usual faith/empiricism continuum, and adds a third axis to the debate, as illustrated here.
OK, it's an interesting try. I don't think it quite works, though. That "cranks" zone on the left needs to be expanded up towards the faith vertex, and actually ought to be indistinguishable from "theists".
The other deep flaw is the position of "agnostics" (I have a suspicion that Chris would place himself in that group). I can think of several agnostics around here who ought to be classified as fanatically agnostic — they have greater zeal in arguing for their waffly and uninspiring position than any atheist, and with less cause.
While we're tweaking, how about nudging my data point to somewhere south of the bottom line? I'm actively anti-faith, and I think my coordinates on that axis ought to be negative.
Comments
We are the Militant Agnostics. Our battle cry is "We Don't Know, And Damn It, Neither Do You!"
Posted by: Galbinus_Caeli | August 28, 2007 2:18 PM
I don't think "'Einsteinian' religion" is in the right place; this diagram appears to fall prey to the common mistake of reading statements of wonder as statements of faith. Furthermore, after The Varieties of Scientific Experience, I'd have to put Sagan significantly closer to PZ and Dawkins. When things couldn't be reconciled, dammit, he said so. Even in The Demon-Haunted World, which everybody cites to prove that Uncle Carl was a "reconcilationist" or an "appeaser" (or whatever damn stupid words we're using today), he goes on to list a whole farrago of ways in which major religions make empirically testable claims, stepping way over the NOMA line.
In addition, I suspect that a better diagram would have different points for Ken Miller and Francis Collins, since the latter seems much more willing to ignore and/or misrepresent actual science to justify his faith.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 28, 2007 2:18 PM
Yeah; and where do the Extropian Immortalist Transhumanists fit in this so called "scheme" anyway?
Singularity is Near!
(just to be clear, I'm joking)
Posted by: Julian | August 28, 2007 2:21 PM
PZ, I don't know if you can label all agnostics "waffly and uninspiring". On the one hand, if you don't believe that you know something, it's better not pretend to. In this way, we're all agnostics [except perhaps the most obnoxious of us] about a great many things. I rather like Dawkins' differentiation of "temporary agnosticism in practice" [TAP], and "permanent agnosticism in principle" [PAP]. With the former, we don't know something, but that will likley change with the advance of science. With the latter, it's a commitment to the idea that we don't know something and CANNOT know that thing. I have no time for PAP, but I am very sympathetic to TAP. I don't think that the majority of agnostics are people who are naively fence sitting, and believing that they can get some magic benefit from it...I think it takes courage to live in ambiguity and to admit a lack of knowledge. Also, for many, whether you call yourself a TAP or an atheist is a matter of semantics.
Posted by: Oxytocin | August 28, 2007 2:29 PM
Ed could fanatically kick your butt with great zeal, nerd boy.
p.s.
Lunch Money
Posted by: Raging Braytard | August 28, 2007 2:30 PM
Have we had a proper flamewar over Kurzweil's nuttery yet? There was that one post back on the old server, but that was before PZ Myers sold his soul to Azazel for a larger readership.
Posted by: Dustin | August 28, 2007 2:32 PM
Also, Nisbet and Brayton both have — to my eye — their own kind of "zeal". Otherwise, we tin-eared insensitive arrogant uppity fundamentalist militant let's-sacrifice-Jesus-to-Moloch-and-make-a-pie-of-his-humbles-and-lights atheists would have conquered all ScienceBlogs by now.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 28, 2007 2:34 PM
Dustin:
Not that I remember. The subject of Kurzweil did come up once, but we didn't really flame over it.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 28, 2007 2:36 PM
I'm embarrassed to admit don't even get the basic idea. I get the idea of a continuum between faith and empricism, but is there a continuum between zeal and empiricism? Between zeal and faith?
It would make a little more sense to me if it were two dimensions:
• One axis a continuum between faith and empiricism
• One axis a continuum between zeal and, um apathy?
Posted by: Wicked Lad | August 28, 2007 2:37 PM
Mmmmm. Jesus Pie.
Posted by: PZ Myers | August 28, 2007 2:38 PM
the "zeal" should be a third axis. Zealous agnostic could otherwise not be placed anywhere on this chart.
.
BTW. It is not very wise to call the agnostic "waffly, uninspiring or with less cause" while the only negative evidence you hold in your hand are fragments of data all sampled on just one mossy pebble circling a clot of smoldering hydrogen mid nowhere. And even this truly negligible sample all tainted by congenjtal insanity of our species...
Sorry, but that is not enough for ANY conclusion. IMHO.
Posted by: T_U_T | August 28, 2007 2:39 PM
No, that diagram is all wrong. Everyone has faith on that diagram, so that muddies everything all up.
Posted by: Ric | August 28, 2007 2:42 PM
I'd be down below the line too, possibly even south of you, PZ.
As to this business of zeal, there should be a zone to the left side of the figure, labeled "anti-zeal."
For instance, scads of godders see the vigorous rejection of their claptrap as zealotry, but it isn't. Responding vigorously to attacking zealots is NOT the same as being a zealot. It's negative zeal.
And come to think of it, a lot of fundamentalist godding comes off as definite anti-empiricism, so maybe there should be a negative zone to the right of the figure too.
Posted by: Hank Fox | August 28, 2007 2:43 PM
I think that where this graph fails, is that it is trying to simulate a ternary (3 component) phase diagram, and the lines are coming out in impossible places (like, for example, the line between "atheist" and "agnostic" that runs right into the "empiricism" corner. Phase boundaries never do that on a real phase diagram).
A better model would be a binary (2 component) phase diagram, with the components being "faith" and "empiricism". Then, instead of being a separate component, "zeal" would correspond to temperature. On that graph, "agnostic" would correspond to a low-temperature eutectic composition, while "atheist" would correspond to the nearly pure "empirical" component and "cranks" to the nearly pure "faith" component (and in both cases, the maximum "zeal" would increase as the purity of the component increased).
It's still silly, but I think it makes more sense.
Posted by: tceisele | August 28, 2007 2:43 PM
T_U_T:
The problem is that all the gods and goddesses ever worshiped by human beings in the history of our species were based on our experiences on that one mossy pebble. When their holy books did speak of things outside the tiny fraction of a dot in which their human authors lived, they got the facts wrong. So why should we, in the final reckoning, give them any regard other than as artifacts of human development?
We don't know today what happened in the first instants of time. Perhaps we never will know. But nothing in the world of evidence and reason suggests that the myths born out of our ancestors' dreams must have any relevance to the details of our grandchildren's science.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 28, 2007 2:46 PM
I'm a unicorn agnostic. Sure, I have every reason to think that they're the inventions of an active imagination, and no evidence to support their existence, but I think it's better to park my ass on a fence and condescend to anyone who happens by. Rejection of parsimony sure does make me look smart!
You aunicornists won't learn. You just have a planet. In a universe. And stuff. You can't simply declare that there aren't any unicorns.
Posted by: Dustin | August 28, 2007 2:48 PM
Probably need one axis for Faith/Empiricism, a second for Zeal/Apathy, and a third for Evangelism/Internalism.
Of course this does nothing for those people who are can hold differing views in different areas of their lives, like petroleum geologists who are also young earth creationists.
Posted by: Galbinus_Caeli | August 28, 2007 2:48 PM
Great idea! Then we can use complex numbers to quantify your religious viewpoint. Then one can ask such meaningless questions as "who is my complex conjugate?"
Posted by: Brian Thompson | August 28, 2007 2:56 PM
Is this trying to tell me that there are no fundamentalists in the 'crank' region?
Posted by: Randy | August 28, 2007 2:58 PM
waffly and uninspiring position
I see what you mean, but it makes me want to make a slightly different point about why agnosticism is a undesirable stance.
Perhaps you are not making an aesthetic argument against agnosticism, in which case I am perhaps farting into the great Chinook. If so, pardon me.
Being 'unwaffly' is not a compelling reason to favor a position, if waffliness is warranted. Some stuff we don't know, or the interpretation is cloudy. The question is whether the waffliness of agnosticism is warranted, I think.
Agnosticism grants that the epistemological assumptions of science might not apply if theists are correct. My problem with that is that there is no reason to think so, and plenty of reason think that theists have it wrong, so agnosticism seems to privilege a certain position (i.e. Goddidit, and this assertion trumps data, and we cannot a priori rule this out) without any reason to give theism this special dispensation. There is no reason to waffle, but some agnostics agree to anyway.
"Uninspiring" also seems to be an aesthetic complaint. Linear algebra is uninspiring to me, but I still like it and use it all the time, because it works and tells me important stuff. Plenty of theists claim they believe things because they do find them inspiring. I don't agree that what they believe is inspiring, but I also don't find atheism inspiring. It just seems likely to be an accurate assessment of things, given the evidence.
Posted by: Flummox | August 28, 2007 2:59 PM
Ed and PZ as brawling Catholic schoolgirls?
I shudder at the image...
Posted by: W. Kevin Vicklund | August 28, 2007 3:08 PM
Blake, if the question were, "are any deities of any current or past religion real ?" it would be realy a no-brainer. Duh. Of course, they are discredited through and through. But this is not the *hard* question. The divide betwen atheism in general and theism in general is, whether this universe is an artifact of some (what evet it means)higher inteligence or not. And I think we have neither the empirical evidence nor the knowledge nor the sanity the needed to come up with any plausible answer yet.
Posted by: T_U_T | August 28, 2007 3:08 PM
Plus, this way it would be a hell of a lot easier to draw.
Posted by: The Disgruntled Chemist | August 28, 2007 3:12 PM
I don't know if I've met an evangelist yet who wasn't pretty zealous about the thing he was evangelizing.
Have you never met a salesperson?
They can be quite evangelical, yet not care a damn about what they're selling. It could be used cars or computers, it's all the same to them.
In religions we call these folks "con men", but the principle is the same.
Posted by: NonyNony | August 28, 2007 3:19 PM
There are also people who believe very strongly in whatever it is they believe in, but have little or no interest in sharing that belief. Many orthodox Jews fall into that category.
Posted by: Galbinus_Caeli | August 28, 2007 3:25 PM
Good point, NonyNony. I guess I mentally blocked out the televangelists, most of whom I suspect are deeply cynical about the whole religion thing and who are just out to make some money (Benny Hinn comes especially to mind).
Posted by: The Disgruntled Chemist | August 28, 2007 3:25 PM
Sometimes I wish I could rate the comments on this site, just so I could give someone (e.g., Dustin (#16)) some props. Awesome.
Posted by: Chris Gruber, FCD | August 28, 2007 3:43 PM
Agnosticism and atheism are NOMA.
Posted by: Louis | August 28, 2007 3:47 PM
I agree with most of the comments here that zealousness and empiricism are not necessarily at odds. Where do you place a dot that is zealous about empiricism? This grid seems to assume that full empiricists must lead a Spock-like existence, shunning all emotion for fear it will corrupt their evidence-processing abilities.
Also, regardless of your feelings on religion, lumping all theists in with all cranks seems a bit extreme. I will assume that was a joke.
Posted by: rob | August 28, 2007 4:04 PM
Galbinus_Caeli - unless you happen to be of Jewish origin, then they're after you at full force:(
Posted by: HadasS | August 28, 2007 4:07 PM
T_U_T, I think you've got it. For many agnostics, it's not a question of whether Shiva or Allah or Zeus exists, but rather, whether some deist type entity might exist. Of course any of the individual religious MIGHT be correct, but only in the sense that millions of wee fairies MIGHT be holding my apartment's plumbing in place; it is improbable.
Posted by: Oxytocin | August 28, 2007 4:11 PM
That's why we have the Mollies.
Posted by: Kristjan Wager | August 28, 2007 4:22 PM
Is "zeal" always a bad thing?
Posted by: wildlifer | August 28, 2007 4:28 PM
There's also the possibility of a "contrariness" axis (this might be the "anti-zeal" described above). More on this later, as I was thinking about this earlier and braindumped on my boyfriend, who might remember what I said but he's in the shower.
Posted by: octopod | August 28, 2007 4:38 PM
Binary phase diagrams are cool but I'm thinking that we need to go 3d on this one and in the manner of Dr West, my old prof, look at a tertiary phase diagram.
The vertical axis could be zeal with another label for place occupied by zeal now. Maybe reason or argument but now I'm waffling.
Any better ideas?
Posted by: Dave C | August 28, 2007 4:46 PM
This summer I met an agnostic, liberal, vegan scientist. I thought, "Surely we will get along very well." Then she told me atheism was a religion: "You have faith that there is no god!" I realized I was wrong to think of agnostics as wishy-washy and unzealous. At least one agnostic I know sounds like a theist.
Posted by: j | August 28, 2007 4:56 PM
Fundamentalist should overlap with the crank quadrant.
Posted by: MarkH | August 28, 2007 5:09 PM
I think apathy is fine as an 'anti-zeal'.
Of course, this means we'll need a fourth axis: Agreeable to Contrary.
Its use seems functionally and graphically limited, though.
Posted by: stogoe | August 28, 2007 5:13 PM
What? Of course there are plausible answers, one of them is "NO".
Don't you see that intelligence is just as much an artifact of this one mossy pebble as anything else? Or more, since we can observe plenty of stuff outside it, but no intelligence. Why on earth would you expect one feature of animal behaviour lie behind the structure of the universe?
Intelligence is an evolved thing as far as we know. If the question whether it was involved in the origin of the universe is merited, then how about these:
Is this universe the product of a higher sexuality?
Is this universe the product of a higher excretory system?
or, if you prefer:
Does the universe ride on the back of a Higher Turtle?
Posted by: windy | August 28, 2007 5:15 PM
windy @ #39 for OM!
Posted by: Trip the Space Parasite | August 28, 2007 5:26 PM
Basically two-thirds of that thing should just say "kookoo butterheads" and be done with em.
Posted by: garth | August 28, 2007 5:54 PM
Didn't the druids of the Disc decide the universe was made of four elements...Charm, Persuasion, Uncertainty, and Bloody-mindedness. Seems a right spell better explanation.
Posted by: garth | August 28, 2007 5:57 PM
Not in my experience. You see, over here those few theists who have devoted a little thought to the issue and talk about it* believe in an extremely ineffable deity that scrupulously avoids -- according to some on purpose! -- doing anything that might come close to being testable. Still personal, but nevertheless more ineffable than Einstein's god. Sort of extending the separation between church and state to a separation between church and (physical) reality.
Sure, this hangs in the air, so I'm not capable of believing in it. And of course, "the invisible and the inexistent look very similar". But a) it's completely impossible to disprove, and b) we don't know if applying the principle of parsimony would be an unjustified extrapolation -- it clearly would be an extrapolation way beyond any other application. That makes me an apathetic agnosticist: I don't know, and I don't care.
Now, could someone tell me how "I don't know, and I don't care" is a "waffling" position?
It is entirely uninspiring, to be sure. But so what. Science is interesting enough for me. What for do I need inspiration! :-)
* In Europe you don't talk about your religious views or lack thereof unless asked, and even then you make your answers as short as possible. And you are hardly ever asked. After all, you don't normally tell people if you like blowjobs either -- that, too, is a private affair and nobody else's business.
Posted by: David Marjanović | August 28, 2007 6:07 PM
"Agnosticism" is an empty category. Do I know that God does not exist? No; if there is some omnipotent (or even some finitely-but-exceptionally powerful) deity that exists and does not want me to know about it, I'm guessing it could pull that off. Do I believe God exists? Not at all; the observable world appears as one would expect it to if it were a natural phenomenon, and I don't have any inclination to play metaphysical Marco-Polo in search of creator whose own believers say isn't even in the pool. If you suspect (but do not know) that God DNE, then you are a weak atheist, like me. If you assert that no one can know if a God exists... well, that's just crap: An all-powerful God could make absolute knowledge of his existence a fundamental part of our being. If no God exists, then you are calling yourself a special name to remind everybody that our absolute knowledge about God is no more certain than our knowledge about anything else we haven't observed. It would seem that all of that goes without saying, and therefore without need of any special designation.
Posted by: J Myers | August 28, 2007 6:09 PM
Oh, if only that were true. Americans do blabber about that, too, unfortunately.
Posted by: Dustin | August 28, 2007 6:12 PM
The best description of an agnostic that i heard was the following:
an agnostic neither asserts nor denies the existence of a god that wipes their ass, but they make a conscious decision that this god doesn't exist every time they reach for the roll.
Get off the fence, there's nothing but discomfort and splinters. Wait, i've got it - agnosticism is the non-believing form of martrydom. Let's call agnostics "atheist martyrs"!!!!!!
Posted by: qedpro | August 28, 2007 6:13 PM
agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive. They both address different questions. Agnosticism addresses what you have knowledge of. Atheism addresses what you believe.
But if you're not sure that there is a god, then that means you don't believe there is one. That makes you an atheist whether you choose to call yourself one or not.
Say someone were to ask you if you liked a certain band. But you've never heard this band before. You're answer would be "i don't know". But at the same time, you can't possibly like the band, because you haven't heard them before. This doesn't mean you dislike them just that you don't posess any...liking?...of them.
That's the best analogy i can come up with.
Posted by: Brian W. | August 28, 2007 6:14 PM
I agree with #44 here. I enjoy telling agnostics they're just another kind of atheists. They hate it and I get to practice my evil laugh.
Also, Ed Brayton calls himself a deist, not an agnostic. He also seems to think this means he isn't a theist, although I don't understand why. As far as I know deists are a subset of theists.
Posted by: Leni | August 28, 2007 6:22 PM
Sorry, windy but even the "our" aspect of animal behaviour is about to produce its own smaller universes inhabitated by virtual creatures, hopefully showing the same aspect of behaviour.
Of course it is true, that if there is a system "higher" than this universe, then, anything else being equal the universe could as be a product of "higher farthing" as of "higher intelligence" or a "higher" process utterly dissimilar to anything down there.
But, any evidence from here suggests, that intelligence is more likely to do the trick. ( I have written a dozen of virtual simulation myself, but I haven't excreted any yet ).
So, "NO" is surely a possible answer, but not more backed up by evidence than "YES".
Or, if you prefer, If you have absolutely no clue on what you are standing on, you shouldn't assert it is not a turtle :)
Posted by: T_U_T | August 28, 2007 6:26 PM
agnostic... they have greater zeal in arguing for their waffly and uninspiring position than any atheist, and with less cause
I strongly disagree. Carl Sagan said it best, "Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence." Agnosticism is a logical and honest position for the simple fact that, while evidence elucidating a god does not exist now, it may be found at a later date. This does not mean that I'm stumping for a Christian/Muslim biblical sky god, it means that currently available evidence does not necessarily discount some future model of understanding which will be more accurate than the current one and that somehow requires a creator. The simple truth is that there is a lot we don't yet know about our universe and a lot we might still learn that could surprise us.
An absolutist standpoint that does not have the flexibility to change with the evidence fails when it meets evidence that contradicts it. Atheism, while more evidence driven than theism, can still fail scientifically because it is based upon a hypothesis that we cannot currently test, just like theism. The most accurate position is that we do not know, which is neither waffly nor uninspiring. If anything, I would suggest that it means agnostics are more imaginative than atheists because we can allow for yet unknown hypotheses that could meet occam's razor better than atheism while incorporating a creator.
Posted by: viggen | August 28, 2007 6:36 PM
Re: Atheist vs. Agnostic. Here's a comment I left on another website the other day:
Posted by: Fatboy | August 28, 2007 6:53 PM
It's about time someone put those militant agnostics on the map.
Posted by: Automath | August 28, 2007 6:53 PM
How quaint. Yet another hopelessly awkward attempt to stretch a uni-dimensional dichotomy into a 2-dimensional trichotomy. A 3-D "quadchotomy" would hardly improve the model. If we know anything about how the human mind orders its associational links between concepts, one would have to assign every association between any two concepts with a dimension. Even THEN, assigning where individuals or groups are located in that x-dimensional "omnichotomy" is utterly arbitrary from person to person, and therefore a futile exercise, unless one confined oneself to one's own personal opinions. Such a mapping can only be a significant model for individual minds, not what groups of people think.
Posted by: Arnosium Upinarum | August 28, 2007 7:36 PM
I get it. This is PZ's attempt to show me that he can out do me on a comment thread without trying. By the way, the diagram is flawed because I am zealous, man. Real zealous. I insist on rigidly demarcated areas of uncertainty.
Posted by: John Wilkins | August 28, 2007 7:39 PM
Wait a minute - didn't you say that all our knowledge was mere fragments of data all sampled one mossy pebble by crazy apes, and we shouldn't imagine it extends everywhere? Now you say that humans making virtual simulations is a good (if much smaller scale) model for a higher intelligence creating a universe! You can't have it both ways: can we extrapolate from earthly observations beyond the origin of the universe, or not?
I dunno, you have probably excreted whole ecosystems more complex than any you have modelled (and that's not meant as an insult). Perhaps the universe was pooped by a creature like Futurama's Nibbler, which would explain the extreme density of matter in the beginning?
Posted by: windy | August 28, 2007 8:04 PM
Ternary diagrams are based on additivity of the components. But "zeal" is independent of the "faith"-"empiricism" axis, so such plots will be distorted.
I would go for a higher-dimensional plot to better illustrate the groupings.
Agnostics like to think so. The smell test for why this isn't so is that only descriptions of gods that explicitly meets a certain requirement, typically "we can't know whether gods exist or not", are allowed.
In reality a defensible position of atheism is that "the probability of gods is low, effectively zero" as this is what we can conclude from commonly used definitions and common observations.
It is obviously flexible but also revisable by evidence. While philosophical agnosticism is truly a stillborn child of faith which will never move an inch when poked with evidence.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | August 28, 2007 9:54 PM
I resent (again) the idea that science is empiricist. It isn't, not any more than it is rationalist.
Posted by: Keith Douglas | August 28, 2007 10:04 PM
"the "zeal" should be a third axis. Zealous agnostic could otherwise not be placed anywhere on this chart.
"
Actually you are wrong about the placement of zealous agnostics. The point is clearly labeled "crank" in the diagram. In fact the graph assumes implicitly that those in the exact center of the faith-emiricism continum have the most leeway in becoming zealous. The most pure of empiricists and those most pure in faith must according to the graph have zero zeal.
Posted by: Brian Macker | August 28, 2007 11:14 PM
I agree with the person that said that Francis Collins and Ken Miller need seperate points. It seems to me that Francis Collins is a bit more of a faith-head then Ken. I haven't read any books by either of them, although I will be reading Finding Darwin's God shortly which should be an interesting read.
Re atheism versus agnosticism. I like Richard Dawkins' way of putting it "I am as agnostic about God as I am about the existence of faeries." Nobody says "well you can't KNOW faeries don't exist" when people say "I don't believe in faeries". Why should God be any different? Why should we be required to be one hundred percent certain before we can say "I believe that no gods exist". Nobody demands that kind of certainty for disbelief in alien abductions or ESP or astrology.
I don't see any evidence for gods, we have not discovered any phenomenon that requires the existence of a god to explain it, therefore it is unnecessary to postulate that a god exists, and I apply Occam's razor.
Posted by: anti-nonsense | August 29, 2007 2:47 AM
Where is the scale for rating whether you'd be good to drink beer with on a lazy Saturday afternoon, especially after helping a friend move to a new apartment?
Posted by: Ed Darrell | August 29, 2007 3:46 AM
Given that I think the agnostics issue has been addressed....
Wait, theists and cranks indistinguishable?
So all theists are cranks?
Someone who does quite respectable work in mainstream science, say, but believes in the existance of a higher power, is indistinguishable from HIV denialists, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, and climate change denialists, and people who sell medical treatments based on "Atlantean quantum consciousness"?
The American "founding fathers" were cranks?
Harsh. And, perhaps, just a wee bit stupidly oversimplified. We all know your opinion of faith, but classing these groups of people together does your ability to categorise no favours.
Posted by: Luna_the_cat | August 29, 2007 5:20 AM
I prefer agnostic because I admire Thomas Henry Huxley, who invented the term. So there!
Posted by: Adam Cuerden | August 29, 2007 9:13 AM
Re #62, indeed, Huxley coined 'agnostic' in 1869 as a label intentionally at odds with Christian 'gnosticism', those who claimed revealed knowledge. Huxley pointed out that agnosticism is "not a creed but a method" based on skepticism applied to personal beliefs as well as to scientific matters.
As for the parent topic's multidimensional maps of beliefs, #53's conceptual critique is apt, and I'll add Nietzsche's aphorism: roughly, "nothing with a history can be understood solely by analysis". All these conceptual points have vivid histories.
The intricate and contested maps reminded me of similar charts attempted for the history of sects and denominations in Christianity - wikipedia is convenient here. The splintering is laughable but persistent and somehow motivates people - it seems the greatest profusion of new denominations is in periods of Great Awakenings. So maybe PZ's proposals to fractionate disbelief are a sign of vitality among unbelievers now?
Posted by: thwaite | August 29, 2007 11:47 AM
#56: What an almost untangleable conflation of things. What is the value of this alienating response, I wonder?
I see no rational basis to assail agnosticism--empirical agnosticism, at least. And I see no inconsistency with modern atheism. Leave your "smell tests" and hand waving outside the blog, and logically defend why you believe it is correct (and useful) to castigate agnosticism, please. I'm not talking about popular and incorrect usages of the term, but the proper, Huxley-based notion of agnosticism.
Regarding an interventionist, observable supernature, atheists and agnostics are precisely the same: the evidence is lacking, the probability is low, the questions are typically ill-posed, so we remain unconvinced until proof is offered -- though still ready to evaluate evidence and claims once they are presented.
The only place where positive atheism and empirical agnosticism differ is on the question of unobservable supernature. I class non-interventionist, cosmological arguments in this category, though I wont speak for all agnostics in this respect.
I (as an agnostic) maintain that employing skepticism to answer this question is like using a knife on your soup. What is the function of the knife in this case? What, exactly, is being separated? The question is nonsensical and cannot be answered with reason, and thus reason should not be employed. You choose to disbelieve, I choose to eschew the issue of belief altogether ... that is, I reject the utility of answering the question at all. There is only a subtle distinction between these views.
I will employ skepticism when it is useful to do so, but I will not arbitrarily decide to believe or disbelieve something that has no naturalistic basis in the first place -- and when I see no utility in the division created by (dis)belief. I relegate the question to the realm of "amusing pondering", and out of the category of "useful concepts to consider". A difference from disbelief, but a subtle one to be sure.
Indeed, empirical agnosticism is virtually identical to atheism in the vast majority of practical applications. Moreover, non-theists (in the US, anyway) are a small enough minority of people as it is. What is the utility of separating yourself from them in a fundamental way? What is the utility of being offensive toward them?
"Stillborn child of faith" or no, you will have to offer a more compelling argument than ad hominem to convince me to invest one jot of energy in any kind of belief or disbelief in something immeasurable in the natural world. Meanwhile, about Christ rising from the dead or walking on water, we are in total agreement.
Save your vitriol for those that would foist creationism on our science classes, please.
As for the diagram, again I see no purpose to silly vague and overgeneralized classifications of people. Has any such classification of non-theism ever proved to have any real value (aside from satisfying those that created the classification method)?
Does PZ seriously propose to "fractionate disbelief"? Can someone point out the post so I can read it? I am very doubtful that such a intentional dismemberment of the non-theist community is in any way prudent.
Posted by: R. Paul Wiegand | August 29, 2007 3:48 PM
R. or whatever.
Are you agnostic about zeus and thor too?
Posted by: Steve_C | August 29, 2007 3:54 PM
#65: Yes.
If someone posits the notion that there is a materially observable (or inferrable) God called Zeus, then my position is identical to that of an atheist's: I don't see it, and until I see evidence of it, I will disbelieve.
I am agnostic to the postulate that there is a Zeus (or fairy, or Thor, or Spaghetti Monster) that is entirely immaterial. If I cannot pose the question meaningfully, and/or the question cannot be answered via observation of the natural world, then I see no difference in the utility belief or disbelief ... I reject the question (i.e., it's navel-gazing).
Let's be clear: I am a skeptic; however, skepticism is a tool ... and I just see no reason to pull the tool out of my toolbox if it is unnecessary.
In some ways, I believe empirical agnosticism is not in between atheism and theism, rather it is farther to the extreme than atheism. After all, you're willing to actually treat the question seriously, whereas I reject the question altogether as pointless.
Posted by: R. Paul Wiegand | August 29, 2007 4:44 PM
Paul Wiegand:
Considering that agnostics typically claim a belief ("we can't know whether gods exist or not") or at least ignorance ("we don't know whether gods exist or not"), could you define the meaning of "empirical agnosticism" here? I sincerely doubt there is any empirical component in an agnostic position.
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | August 29, 2007 11:28 PM
Paul, I'd be interested in some additional clarification as well; I can't claim to have grasped the distinction as you've presented it.
I've never cared for the phrase "choose to believe"... I don't believe it has any meaning (and I cannot simply choose to believe otherwise). I understand beliefs to be those things we accept as or expect to be true, and reality is not ours to specify. Though you may consider it meaningless to form a belief about a particular thing, your opinion about the significance of that belief (or disbelief) does not influence whether or not you have (or don't have) the belief (not to imply there are only those two options; there is of course a continuum). Any additional insight would be appreciated.
Posted by: J Myers | August 30, 2007 12:34 AM
"I sincerely doubt there is any empirical component in an agnostic position."
Isn't that the whole point? The positions which agnostics are agnostic ("unsure") about are the ones where empiricism gets you nowhere! Knife cutting soup, as Paul says.
Posted by: magma | August 30, 2007 5:23 AM
But how do they know in which subjects empiricism gets you nowhere? Looks like you first need to try empiricism across the board before you can make any such statements.
Like Torbjörn said,
Except it looks to me that the agnostic definition of gods has an empirical basis, since any aspect of god that could be in the danger of being exposed has been whittled away by empiricism and science.
Posted by: windy | August 30, 2007 8:25 AM
J. Myers indeed raises an interesting question, and I appreciate the more constructive tone.
I take your point and agree with it only to a small degree: (dis)belief is not like a light switch. However, I think people can influence their own beliefs, though admittedly there's a lot of momentum to them, so it will often require some effort. Our process to belief includes factors we do not control (culture, family norms instilled during formative years, etc.), as well as factors we do control (reading others' views, arguments on blogs, the ability to posit and analyze many options, etc.).
But I am not asking atheists to divest themselves of disbelief. In fact, I have no problem with the atheist disbelief in [Gg]od(s). My singular request was for a bit more comradeship among non-theists -- an end to pointless and destructive aggression. It certainly isn't very convincing.
At any rate, perhaps how one treats belief is a matter of personality? I find it very difficult to form them about things that I perceive no value difference between belief and disbelief. I guess it comes down to epistemology in the end: I am a relativist and a utilitarian about knowledge. Whatever is useful, I retain. There's simply no node for an immaterial supernature in my ontology (whereas an atheist has a node, and it is set to "false").
I think belief is an emotional investment in the truth of something, and it is different than supposition. I can suppose many things, and operate under such suppositional models, without investing in the truth of the matter. Suppositions are easy to change because there's no investment.
Larsson: I refer you to Huxley's writings to get a better understanding of agnosticism. You may define your terms however you like, but I am very comfortable with the term I've used to describe my (lack of) beliefs. I've read and pondered these issues, and I see no good reason to abandon my terms. Perhaps you can be more specific in your complaint?
I already described (twice in this thread) the sense in which in my agnostic stance is consistent with empiricism. Feel free to be specific: point out the inconsistency in my previous statements and we can talk about those. But I think this is a straw-man: You've decided that agnosticism is waffly, uncertain, and indecisive, and you attack that model of (un)belief. Unfortunately for you, that demonstrates (in my opinion) an ignorance of agnosticism as it was originally postulated. Certainly it is not at all a good representation of my position.
More importantly (and my main point): I think Larsson is (and many others on this thread are) being unnecessarily pejorative. Again I ask: What is the value of being insulting? As my original post stated, our views have a lot more in common than not in common ... and our public policy decisions about how science is treated in education and otherwise are likely to be highly aligned. Why do you seek to alienate me? In any event, if you want to convince me my position should be revised, you'll have to to take a different tack ... I tend to take the intent to insult as a sign of weakness of conviction and/or position.
Posted by: R. Paul Wiegand | August 30, 2007 8:47 AM
Windy (#70) Misunderstands (me, at least).
It has nothing to do with knowing what "subjects" cannot be approached empirically. Anything observable, or logically inferrable from observations, can be approached empirically. It isn't a question of recognition, but one of denotation.
There are many claims lodged by many people on the subject of theology. As an empiricist, I will evaluate claims from an empirical point of view, which indeed rejects many theological claims. It certainly rejects any kind of interventionist God, etc. I am in line with atheists on such matters ... as Huxley himself would have been.
But the more subtler apologists dig deeper into cosmological arguments that are (at best) semantically unclear and (at worst) entirely unprovable one way or the other by means of observation and inference from observation. Empiricism cannot address them because the claims are specifically predicated by the notion that they are not empirical.
Here is sole point of disagreement: how to treat theological claims that are defined by the idea that evidence of the claim cannot be experienced materially in any way. Let's consider an example.
A proposal: Suppose a clockwork God, whose existence cannot be substantiated via natural observation. Suppose further that God has bestowed on us an immortal soul (also unmeasurable), and evaluates our soul according to our choices in life, punishing us if we fail some moral test.
The rational response is that this is but one of an infinite number of imaginations we might make regarding matters we cannot confirm. What is so special about this one that I should believe in it? Quite so. I agree.
But I go further and say that the question doesn't even make sense in the first place. What is a "clockwork God"? What is a "soul"? How can I be "punished" without a body or mind ... etc. What does it mean for something to exist but be entirely undetectable and uninferrable?
The atheist takes the proposal and stamps "reject" on it and files it in their "disbelieve" drawer. And most atheists on this board seem to believe that agnostics stack these on the corner of their desk with a sticky note labeled, "Pending..." A more accurate analogy would be that the agnostic hands the entire sheet back to the submitter and says, "This is not a proposal. Give me something meaningful and testable."
There's only a subtle difference here. I wonder why it receives so much static?
Posted by: R. Paul Wiegand | August 30, 2007 12:30 PM
Oh, come off it. That's exactly what atheists say! They simply add the judgement of non-existence on top of that. Incoherent claims do not merit a special category for us.
And when you say "This is not a proposal": proposal for what? The theists are usually proposing that gods, souls, whatever, exist. If you are not accepting that as a valid proposal, sounds like you are saying that those things don't exist!.
Pink unicorns? Don't exist.
Invisible pink unicorns? Incoherent. But such things don't exist, either!
Immaterial invisible pink unicorns? Even more incoherent, but still non-existent.
If most agnostics came out and said that god-claims are incoherent, like you do, there probably wouldn't be! Far be it from me to question your self-identification as agnostic, but plenty of them treat god-claims as entirely respectable.
Posted by: windy | August 30, 2007 4:54 PM
By proposal, I meant a given claim, yes. However, a proposal that is predicated by the notion that it cannot be evaluated empirically cannot be excluded empirically (by definition). I recognize no special categories ... I merely take the claim as it is given and decide what to do with based on how it is presented.
As it turns out, what I "do with it" is to discard the question as non-sensical or pointless (if truly unanswerable). More importantly, I think most theism ultimately boils down to immaterial issues once the extraneous matters are dispatched (i.e., faith). That is why it is an important distinction (to me).
On Unicorns: I have no belief or disbelief in unicorns that are entirely immaterial and cannot be empirically verified. I would not say that they don't exist, I would say, "So what if they exist?" I see no function in any investment in its veracity.
I don't see how this view is the same as disbelief. If it is in your mind, so be it. I wont tell you what to think. But I am not convinced.
I cannot say what most people who call themselves agnostics claim. I can only go by what Huxley wrote, and my own understanding of agnosticism. I believe my appellation is the most precise for my view. I agree that the popularization of the word represents a gross distortion of Huxley's notions ... but I don't really know how many people identify themselves with that distortion.
I respect the atheist viewpoint. I just wish more of the atheists on this board respected mine. There just seems to be a lot pointless vitriol. That you appear to concede something like respect at the end of your message is encouraging, I suppose. (Assuming I do not misread you).
But I still have not heard a response to my main point: What is the utility of abusing fellow non-theists? It seems to work against the cause in several respects.
Posted by: R. Paul Wiegand | August 30, 2007 9:32 PM
R. Paul Wiegand wrote "There's simply no node for an immaterial supernature in my ontology (whereas an atheist has a node, and it is set to "false")."
Actually, this atheist's 'node' is set to "probably false", as the probability of true is, on the existing evidence, infinitesimal. I.e. my position is based purely on the evidence, or rather the lack of. This reflects the position of the majority of the atheist I know.