Is there no such thing as an Christian?

[Gnos]

An argument I've heard a lot lately (on the Christian side) is that there can be no such thing as an atheist because atheism is a positive belief in the nonexistence of God. It is contended that the (purported) atheist claim "God doesn't exist" must be supported by knowledge or is invalid. Since one cannot know the nonexistence of God in the same way that one cannot know with certainty the nonexistence of <insert claimed existing thing here>, and, in fact, a person making a claim of the sort "<x> doesn't exist" would have to be omniscient themselves to "know", then there cannot be such a thing as an atheist, only an agnostic. *

I have some sympathy with this viewpoint. I refer to myself as an agnostic/atheist. But the point I really want to make in this thread is that, if we reverse things, by the same logic, a Christian can have no leg to stand on in their belief in God even were they to meet him personally.

God, as the Christians believe in, has certain qualities (such as omnipotence, omnipresence etc.) that are integral to what he is claimed to be. But, even if a Christian were confronted with "God", he/she could not "know" that the being in fact possessed those qualities.

For example:

Suppose God decides one day to take a Christian up to heaven. Suppose further that this Christian is (uncharacteristically) skeptical, and wants God to prove his claim to be God. Now suppose God proceeds to demonstrate his veracity by a display of power. What frame of reference would the Christian have to assess this display? I would contend that our Christian could not rationally distinguish between a truly omnipotent being and one that was merely extremely powerful but not omnipotent. The same applies to omniscience. Our Christian would him/herself have to be omniscient (or at least smarter than "God") to make a valid assessment.

As Arthur C Clarke's famous law goes: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." And I would contend that any sufficiently powerful being would be indistinguishable from God.

For all a Christian could ever really know, God is a super intelligent and super powerful higher dimensional alien.


* footnote: If I have failed to relate their case in an understandable way (or you aren't familiar with the argument), you might try a Google search for "There is no such thing as an Atheist" and read the first search return.

[NZSkep]

I've heard that "no such thing as an atheist" before and have to say it is one of the most retarded arguments ever.

an atheist doesn't claim to know there is no god, they simply lack a belief in one or maybe believe that there is no god.
Believing something to be true/untrue is not the same as claiming it is definitely true/untrue. For example, I believe that OJ was guilty. That doesn't mean I am making the claim that he definitely was guilty.

you might as well say there is no such thing as a person who claims unicorns don't exist because it is impossible to know for sure that there are no unicorns.

[Gnos]

"I've heard that "no such thing as an atheist" before and have to say it is one of the most retarded arguments ever."

I agree entirely with this and the rest of your post also.

But what is the best way to respond? Turning things around (as I have done here) may be an effective counter.

If a Christian can claim there is no such things as an atheist, but that an atheist must, in actuality, be an agnostics instead since he/she lacks absolute knowledge of the nonexistence of God. Then the same logic also demonstrates that there can be no such thing as a theist since the theist cannot know for certain that God is God.

[NZSkep]

"I've heard that "no such thing as an atheist" before and have to say it is one of the most retarded arguments ever."

I agree entirely with this and the rest of your post also.

But what is the best way to respond? Turning things around (as I have done here) may be an effective counter.

If a Christian can claim there is no such things as an atheist, but that an atheist must, in actuality, be an agnostics instead since he/she lacks absolute knowledge of the nonexistence of God. Then the same logic also demonstrates that there can be no such thing as a theist since the theist cannot know for certain that God is God.

correct.


You also might want to say this:

it depends entirely which god you are talking about. I am an atheist about gods which have been defined as logically impossible. I am agnostic about gods which I have never heard of.

If someone claims that there is such a thing as a four sided triangle, then I don't need to have seen the whole universe to know this is impossible.
Likewise when someone defines their god as omnipotent and omniscient I don't need to know everything about the universe to know that it is impossible for a being to be both omnipotent and omniscient (as commonly defined).

[Antiplastic]

I've heard that "no such thing as an atheist" before and have to say it is one of the most retarded arguments ever.

an atheist doesn't claim to know there is no god, they simply lack a belief in one or maybe believe that there is no god.

I'm an atheist and I know there is no god.

[Keith&Co.]

But what is the best way to respond? Turning things around (as I have done here) may be an effective counter. Why? It never works any place else.
Plugging the FSM or the INvisible Pink Unicorn into a 'proof' for their deity doesn't convince them that their logic is faulty. THey just dismiss it, "I'm not talking about just ANY God!" or claim that all atheists do is mock, or destroy or whatever.

Turning this argument around, they'll just

1) happily either point to something in creation, pull math out of their assumption and say they HAVE proof of god.
2) serenely say that they know they have no proof, it's a matter of faith.

[dettus]

How many reindeer's must I push off a building to "prove" that reindeer's can't fly? One, ten, a thousand, all of them? At what point can I say, "I know that reindeer's can't fly."

[Keith&Co.]

How many reindeer's must I push off a building to "prove" that reindeer's can't fly? One, ten, a thousand, all of them? At what point can I say, "I know that reindeer's can't fly."
Evidently, to the properly enlightened reindeer enthusiast or activist, you can say no more than 'Every reindeer tested has either been unable to fly, or has chosen not to fly, or i have failed to properly evaluate their flying ability because they chose to fly straight down.' (and, well, who can blame them? Who wants to live in a world with reindeer pushers?)

Even pushing every reindeer alive won't allow you to conclude that previous, untested, generations were unable to fly, or that with proper husbandry, that flying gene may be reexpressed in future generations.

The logic of the properly enlightened reindeer enthusiast is unassailable.

[Atheos]

That is a damn good analogy Keith&Co. People only believe (long term) in unfalsifiable gods or prophets. The whole "you can't be an atheist unless you know every fact in the universe because unless you do the one fact you may not know is that there is indeed a god" argument is absolutely nothing but an appeal to unfalsifiability.

You can't know for sure that Santa doesn't exist for the exact same reason.

[joedad]

No Christians? No atheists? What is the Christian god if not atheist?

[Gnos]

But what is the best way to respond? Turning things around (as I have done here) may be an effective counter. Why? It never works any place else.
Plugging the FSM or the INvisible Pink Unicorn into a 'proof' for their deity doesn't convince them that their logic is faulty. THey just dismiss it, "I'm not talking about just ANY God!" or claim that all atheists do is mock, or destroy or whatever.

Turning this argument around, they'll just

1) happily either point to something in creation, pull math out of their assumption and say they HAVE proof of god.
2) serenely say that they know they have no proof, it's a matter of faith.

I don't think you'll be able to convince them of the nonexistence of their god, but, at least, you may convince a few of the illogic of the "There is no such thing as an atheist." argument.

Turning things around and demonstrating the double standard of proof they employ (where absolute proof is required for the nonexistence of God, but only relative proof is required for existence), appears to have a little more bite than the responses I typically hear.

[Keith&Co.]

I don't think you'll be able to convince them of the nonexistence of their god, but, at least, you may convince a few of the illogic of the "There is no such thing as an atheist." argument.Nope.
They didn't invent it and they don't keep using it because of the logic of the argument.
They like the conclusion. It appeals to them emotionally, to find a silver bullet argument that destroys atheism in one fell swoop. This one seems to use the 'logic' that atheists find so appealing to show that they can't be atheists.
Using logic against their emotional commitment to the argument, or rather to the conclusion they think the argument supports, isn't going to work.
Turning things around and demonstrating the double standard of proof they employ, appears to have a little more bite than the responses I typically hear.Logically, yes.
But as i said, they're not using logic, so logic can't harm their argument.

[Newfie]

How many reindeer's must I push off a building to "prove" that reindeer's can't fly? One, ten, a thousand, all of them? At what point can I say, "I know that reindeer's can't fly."

And how many gods must we stop worshiping and regard as mythical to "prove" that gods are human fabrications?

[Gnos]

I've heard that "no such thing as an atheist" before and have to say it is one of the most retarded arguments ever.

an atheist doesn't claim to know there is no god, they simply lack a belief in one or maybe believe that there is no god.

I'm an atheist and I know there is no god.

So do I (in a relative manner). Taking into account several lines of argument, I "know" there is no God. I have concluded this based on the available evidence (or, in some cases, lack thereof).

[Gnos]

Originally Posted by Keith&Co.
They didn't invent it and they don't keep using it because of the logic of the argument.
They like the conclusion. It appeals to them emotionally, to find a silver bullet argument that destroys atheism in one fell swoop. This one seems to use the 'logic' that atheists find so appealing to show that they can't be atheists.
Using logic against their emotional commitment to the argument, or rather to the conclusion they think the argument supports, isn't going to work.

If we confront theists only for their own benefit then we (mostly) waste our time regardless. But, for the benefit of any potential audience, we might as well use the arguments that have the most teeth.

Simply trying to explain the nuance of why we call ourselves atheists and not agnostics leaves their sophistry untouched.

[Keith&Co.]

Simply trying to explain the nuance of why we call ourselves atheists and not agnostics leaves their sophistry untouched.No. Breaking the sophistry down is possible without trying to turn it into an attack.

Take the high road for the benefit of lurkers and reviewers.

Poke a hole in the word balloon, not the speaker.

[Antiplastic]

I'm an atheist and I know there is no god.

So do I (in a relative manner). Taking into account several lines of argument, I "know" there is no God. I have concluded this based on the available evidence (or, in some cases, lack thereof).

Not only do I "know" it, I also know it.

[Gnos]

Simply trying to explain the nuance of why we call ourselves atheists and not agnostics leaves their sophistry untouched.No. Breaking the sophistry down is possible without trying to turn it into an attack.

Take the high road for the benefit of lurkers and reviewers.

Poke a hole in the word balloon, not the speaker.

I don't agree with the characterization "...turn it into an attack" (especially when combined with "Poke a hole in the word balloon, not the speaker.").

My argument is certainly not an ad hominem. In fact, I can't think of anything more relevant than to demonstrate how "There is no such thing as an atheist." has the undesired (for them) consequence of also proving there is no such thing as a theist.

[Gnos]

So do I (in a relative manner). Taking into account several lines of argument, I "know" there is no God. I have concluded this based on the available evidence (or, in some cases, lack thereof).

Not only do I "know" it, I also know it.

You mean you have unequivocal, absolute knowledge that there is no God?

[Atheos]

Not only do I "know" it, I also know it.

You mean you have unequivocal, absolute knowledge that there is no God?

You mean you have unequivocal, absolute knowledge that there is no Santa Claus?

It's the same thing.

[Gnos]

You mean you have unequivocal, absolute knowledge that there is no God?

You mean you have unequivocal, absolute knowledge that there is no Santa Claus?

It's the same thing.

Within the context of what has been discussed, it sounded as though Antiplastic was making a claim to absolute knowledge. I was asking him within that context.

[Antiplastic]

Not only do I "know" it, I also know it.

You mean you have unequivocal, absolute knowledge that there is no God?

I mean I know it. I believe it, it is a justified belief, and it is a justfied true belief. That's as unequivocal as it gets. I don't know what it means to "absolutely" know something, since knowledge is a binary property. Perhaps you mean "know with no possibility that I might be mistaken", but of course I do not know with no possibility that I might be mistaken. I "merely" know it.

[Sapho]

You mean you have unequivocal, absolute knowledge that there is no God?

You mean you have unequivocal, absolute knowledge that there is no Santa Claus?

It's the same thing.

Look, I know that people have looked for Santa, but hes magical and hes hiding. Sheeesh.

[NZSkep]

I've heard that "no such thing as an atheist" before and have to say it is one of the most retarded arguments ever.

an atheist doesn't claim to know there is no god, they simply lack a belief in one or maybe believe that there is no god.

I'm an atheist and I know there is no god.

really? What about gods which you have never heard of? How can you know they don't exist?

What about a god which never interferes with the universe? How can you know there is none of those types of god?

[NZSkep]

You mean you have unequivocal, absolute knowledge that there is no God?

You mean you have unequivocal, absolute knowledge that there is no Santa Claus?

It's the same thing.

not necessairly (can't beleive I'm defending this :D )

Santa does logically impossible things - delivers to billions of kids in one night, all that sort of shit.

Whilst I can know the christian god doesn't exist because of the same reasons(omni-paradox for example), I cannot state that I know enough about every god concept ever to know that none of them are true. I can use induction to show that they are probably, or even almost certianly, all false, but cannot state it unequivocably.

[Antiplastic]

I'm an atheist and I know there is no god.

really? What about gods which you have never heard of? How can you know they don't exist?

What about a god which never interferes with the universe? How can you know there is none of those types of god?

Parsimony and induction from the ones I have heard of -- the same way I know everything else I know.

[Atheos]

You mean you have unequivocal, absolute knowledge that there is no Santa Claus?

It's the same thing.

not necessairly (can't beleive I'm defending this :D )

Santa does logically impossible things - delivers to billions of kids in one night, all that sort of shit.

Whilst I can know the christian god doesn't exist because of the same reasons(omni-paradox for example), I cannot state that I know enough about every god concept ever to know that none of them are true. I can use induction to show that they are probably, or even almost certianly, all false, but cannot state it unequivocably.

What you're saying is that you know that Santa as defined in one particular way, i.e., the Santa that does logically impossible things doesn't exist. But it could be that Santa still exists and uses other means to get the presents delivered. Perhaps Santa uses subliminal messages to coerce parents of good little boys and girls to give them presents "From Santa".

The Santa Claus analogy is nothing more than an illustration of the use of abstraction apologetics to make a god-myth less falsifiable. God-myths have evolved over the years by discarding or explaining as "metaphorical" any aspects that have become falsifiable as people have become more sophisticated. As an example, now that we know our world is considerably more than 6,000 years old and that the universe itself existed for billions of years before our solar system and planet developed, most modern followers of the "Yahweh" myths tend to think of the Genesis creation myth as a metaphor for how Yahweh initiated the "Big Bang". Similarly, as the myths of Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel have clearly become as patently absurd as Santa's mythical journey to every household on Christmas Eve, they have become metaphors for cataclysmic points in Yahweh's longsuffering indulgence of our species. Having said all this I know there are still plenty of YEC fundamentalists. I used to be one. But they are the Neandertals of christianity. They survive only by turning a blind eye to truth. Most modern christians have abandoned the absurdities attending YEC fundamentalism.

But if the theist is going to rig the game by redefining his favorite god-myth as he sees fit to explain away the absurdities attending said myth, then Santa's advocate should also get to play by the same rules. Make Santa's nightly journey a metaphor for the children he does visit with gifts, and make the milk and cookies a symbol of our willingness to give back a token for his kindness and all is well again. Parents eat the cookie and drink the milk as a gesture of support for all that Santa stands for. Santa lives.

[joedad]

Whilst I can know the christian god doesn't exist because of the same reasons(omni-paradox for example), I cannot state that I know enough about every god concept ever to know that none of them are true. I can use induction to show that they are probably, or even almost certianly, all false, but cannot state it unequivocably.You could say the same thing for square circle concepts.

The problem is the same with "gods" of the christian variety. It's not that they have an extremely low probability of existence. They have no possibiity of existence due simply to all the inherent contradictions. If one defines a christian variety god as something inherently contradictory, it becomes some weird inverted begging-the-question argument.

[Apostate1970]

You mean you have unequivocal, absolute knowledge that there is no God?

I mean I know it. I believe it, it is a justified belief, and it is a justfied true belief. That's as unequivocal as it gets. I don't know what it means to "absolutely" know something, since knowledge is a binary property. Perhaps you mean "know with no possibility that I might be mistaken", but of course I do not know with no possibility that I might be mistaken. I "merely" know it.

On your TJB version of knoweldge, when x has knowledge that y, then y is true. But when y is true then what does it mean to say that x could be mistaken about y? It might mean any number of things... perhaps it means something like this:

A: "y could have failed to be true while x would still have had justification for their belief that it were true."

But if A is true, then how do we know that A is not exactly how things are now? In other words, how do we know that, after all, you do have knowledge?

This is the "skeptical wedge" which I will criticize further on.

Furthermore, if there are any things such that, if true they are also necessarily true, then this particular y, "God exists.", would seem to be one of them. This makes your claim that x could have TJB knowledge that y and yet possibly be mistaken that y extremely difficult to understand since the justificatory method involved in coming to know that y could, arguably, require x also to know "Necessarily y." (not to mention the meta-knowledge of knowing that x knows y, and knowing that, etc., etc.).

My point here is simply that it is perfectly fine for Gnos to ask for "absolute" knowledge.

My own opinion is that yes, there are many things on which we have absolute knowledge... knowledge without the faintest possibility of doubt and without any room for the skeptical wedge to enter into. Most of these things are of the hum-drum ordinary empirical sort... namely, what your co-occurent qualia are (ie. the phenomenal contents of your own ongoing life). However some of these things are "abstracta" such as basic mathematical propositions and the knowledge that certain classes are necessarily empty... for example, the class of certain kinds of gods, even gods of strange or alien or imaginary cultures that neither I nor perhaps anyone else has ever heard of or thought about at all. I can know that none of them exist in the same way that I know propositions of geometry, without having to consider each of the infinite stories of them separately. Oddly enough, I do not believe that anyone can know in this way that classes which are merely possibly empty are actually empty... they can only know that of necessarily empty classes.

The religious apologist defends the notion that belief in god is reasonable in the same way that the skeptic defends the notion that disbelief in, for example, our ordinary phenomenal constituents is reasonable... by driving in a "wedge" that attempts, in the first case, to show the possibile truth of it and, in the second case, the possible falsehood of it. But in doing this they are surreptitiously replacing the actual object of knowledge with something else. The skeptic is replacing the actual phenomenal contents of our experience (in which there is no possibility of doubt) with overgeneralizations about that content, and then calling those generalizations into doubt. The religious is replacing one incoherent god concept (in which there is no possibility of belief) with another ambiguous or perhaps even coherent concept. We need to reject what both of these people do. Making free use of the enemy's metaphor, "They do the devil's work! The prince of lies!". (I hope someone else appreciates the double pun there.)

On something of a sidenote but regarding an issue which was brought up in this thread: I think it is really very clear that the contemporary reconstrual of atheists as people who merely lack god-relevant belief... that is, of atheism as "negative atheism"... is wrong. "Atheist" has always had the overriding colloquial meaning of one who believed that a god or gods at least probably did not exist. It has had this meaning for so long and so strongly that anyone inventing a new meaning is guilty of serious revisionism. I think that this revisionism is probably politically motivated by atheists both to make their numbers seem larger than they really are and to convince people (agnostics, nonbelievers, etc.) to accept a new appellation for themselves in hopes that, with the new name, their beliefs themselves will eventually also change to be in accord with colloquial usage. It's really clever in a way. But I think that it's is a grave mistake on their part because what it means is that they are artifically swelling their ranks with people who simply don't have the intellectual courage or clear-thinking capacity to come out and say "Rubbish!" to all of the foolishness of religion. Stranger still, they are artificially swelling their ranks with people who don't have the same courage or capacity to see the revisionist efforts themselves for what they are.

Here is a fine article from this library making the case that the relatively recent calls for construal of atheism as "negative atheism" are misguided.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/definition.html

In summary: Atheists should have the courage to stand up and say "Yes, I know beyond any shadow of a doubt the falsehood of your religion and the nonexistence of your god. I know that because, even if I were wrong and the sun had stood still in the sky and a few loaves had fed 5,000 or whatever other foolishness that you wish to maintain, your god would still not be worthy of the sort of adoration which would be due a god, and so, is no god at all. Ironically this is the one thing on which we can probably agree... namely, what it is that is truly worthy of love and adoration. But your desire to concretize the object of this adoration is horribly, pitiably misplaced and puts you at odds with most of what is good in the desire. Your feelings are directed not to a god but to an abomination made all the more hideous by the fact that you and so many others revere it. Thus it is that you still engage in a sort of idolatry which your own religious tradition has, in word if not in practice, condemned.". And they should say this, without exception, of and to every religion that has ever been or is likely to be on the face of the earth.

[Antiplastic]

I mean I know it. I believe it, it is a justified belief, and it is a justfied true belief. That's as unequivocal as it gets. I don't know what it means to "absolutely" know something, since knowledge is a binary property. Perhaps you mean "know with no possibility that I might be mistaken", but of course I do not know with no possibility that I might be mistaken. I "merely" know it.

On your TJB version of knoweldge, when x has knowledge that y, then y is true. But when y is true then what does it mean to say that x could be mistaken about y? It might mean any number of things... perhaps it means something like this:

A: "y could have failed to be true while x would still have had justification for their belief that it were true."

But if A is true, then how do we know that A is not exactly how things are now? In other words, how do we know that, after all, you do have knowledge?

We know that I have knowledge when it is true that I have knowledge, we believe that I have knowledge, and this belief is grounded in good reasons for believing that I have knowledge.

Furthermore, if there are any things such that, if true they are also necessarily true, then this particular y, "God exists.", would seem to be one of them. This makes your claim that x could have TJB knowledge that y and yet possibly be mistaken that y extremely difficult to understand since the justificatory method involved in coming to know that y could, arguably, require x also to know "Necessarily y." (not to mention the meta-knowledge of knowing that x knows y, and knowing that, etc., etc.).

The possibility is epistemic possibility, not modal. It is modally impossible to know a false thing. To say that it is epistemically possible that I might be mistaken is to say I can imagine some series of observations that would alter my belief.

My point here is simply that it is perfectly fine for Gnos to ask for "absolute" knowledge.

"Absolutely" wrong. No one ever -- ever -- tries to pull this bullshit in ordinary life. Not once have I taken an exam in Chinese history where my answers were marked incorrect because I did not have infallible certainty that they were correct. Not once has anyone (even a philosopher!) scoffed at my pretensions when I claimed to know the way back to the interstate. Not once has anyone affected an acute existential paralysis when I asked them if they know the phone number of the pizza place.

The only time this ever pops up is when someone tries to use it as some sort of knock-down "gotcha" argument against disbelief in gods. It's a pet peeve of mine.

The religious apologist defends the notion that belief in god is reasonable in the same way that the skeptic defends the notion that disbelief in, for example, our ordinary phenomenal constituents is reasonable... by driving in a "wedge" that attempts, in the first case, to show the possibile truth of it and, in the second case, the possible falsehood of it. But in doing this they are surreptitiously replacing the actual object of knowledge with something else. The skeptic is replacing the actual phenomenal contents of our experience (in which there is no possibility of doubt) with overgeneralizations about that content, and then calling those generalizations into doubt. The religious is replacing one incoherent god concept (in which there is no possibility of belief) with another ambiguous or perhaps even coherent concept. We need to reject what both of these people do. Making free use of the enemy's metaphor, "They do the devil's work! The prince of lies!". (I hope someone else appreciates the double pun there.)

I have no small amount of philosophical training, but I can't see how this is different from any disagreement about any other empirical claim. I'll wager dollars to donuts you don't talk like this when two people disagree about whether there's enough gas in the tank, or who the 23rd president was.

<snipping "definition of atheism" material>

In summary: Atheists should have the courage to stand up and say "Yes, I know beyond any shadow of a doubt the falsehood of your religion and the nonexistence of your god. I know that because, even if I were wrong and the sun had stood still in the sky and a few loaves had fed 5,000 or whatever other foolishness that you wish to maintain, your god would still not be worthy of the sort of adoration which would be due a god, and so, is no god at all. Ironically this is the one thing on which we can probably agree... namely, what it is that is truly worthy of love and adoration. But your desire to concretize the object of this adoration is horribly, pitiably misplaced and puts you at odds with most of what is good in the desire. Your feelings are directed not to a god but to an abomination made all the more hideous by the fact that you and so many others revere it. Thus it is that you still engage in a sort of idolatry which your own religious tradition has, in word if not in practice, condemned.". And they should say this, without exception, of and to every religion that has ever been or is likely to be on the face of the earth.

I don't see what this has to do with anything.

[Apostate1970]

The multiple quoting thing baffles me so I will simply bold the responses to which I'm replying.

I'm afraid that in posting what follows I'm really going too far from the main question of the thread. But then I don't see myself as being the initiator of this tangent though. To both address the thread's main question and establish the relevance of my previous post I'd just say that any argument to the effect that "There is no such thing as an atheist." or "There is no such thing as a christian." is nothing more than rhetorical sleight of hand. Obviously there are both christians and atheists. However these arguments do both have a force which rests on the legitimate notion that people ought not be held to believe impossible positions... if christians were said to really believe impossible things (ex. that 3 is 1 or that good is evil) (and perhaps of just sufficiently foolish or insane things such as that the sun stood still or that dinosaurs walked the earth with men) then that would be an argument that there simply were no christians. The sleight of hand comes in when confusing "christian" with a body of belief at all... but it is not... it is a body of feelings and practices and of confused, disconnected, and often misguided belief-declarations, not actual beliefs. When applied oppositely, the sleight of hand comes in when misdescribing what atheists believe. My further claim would be that people not only are justified in taking very firm stances and even making "absolute" claims in this area but that it is right for them to do so. When the believer asks the atheist or when the atheist asks the believer "But do you know that there's (no) god?", the interrogated should have the courage to take a stand and answer "Most definitely!". And if they are not prepared to do that then they ought not call themselves either atheist or believer. This was the thrust of my last post. We do not nor should answer this question in the way that we might answer someone if they asked us "But do you know that that is the correct number to the pizza parlor?", arching their eyebrow and looking at us accusatorily in the process.

On to my responses:

"We know that I have knowledge when it is true that I have knowledge, we believe that I have knowledge, and this belief is grounded in good reasons for believing that I have knowledge."

You never answered what your stance is on A. You never answered when it is and is not true that you have knowledge. I'll repeat A for you

A: "y could have failed to be true while x would still have had justification for their belief that it were true."

My own stance is that A is clearly false at least in this context because, here, justification would entail truth.

"The possibility is epistemic possibility, not modal. It is modally impossible to know a false thing."

"Modal" means of or pertaining or mimicking the language of possibility and of duals in general... it includes epistemic, deontic, alethic and other modalities. What you should have said is that it is not "alethic" possibility or "alethic" modality at issue. But of course it's not. I'm not confused on the issue and I don't think I inappropriately shifted from one to the other. Epistemic possibility is all I was interested in since it's exactly what the knowledge/belief question involves. And it is not only alethically impossible to know a falsehood, it is also epistemically impossible (the former implies the latter on most accounts, including my own... accounts in which it is not possible to believe in impossibilia). It is, however, possible in both senses to believe a falsehood. And the question was the skeptical question of "How do we distinguish knowledge from mere belief." You have not answered that at all.

As for my claim that Gnos is not only justified but entirely right in demanding absolute knowledge in this context, your response was :

""Absolutely" wrong. No one ever -- ever -- tries to pull this bullshit in ordinary life. Not once have I taken an exam in Chinese history where my answers were marked incorrect because I did not have infallible certainty that they were correct. Not once has anyone (even a philosopher!) scoffed at my pretensions when I claimed to know the way back to the interstate. Not once has anyone affected an acute existential paralysis when I asked them if they know the phone number of the pizza place.

The only time this ever pops up is when someone tries to use it as some sort of knock-down "gotcha" argument against disbelief in gods. It's a pet peeve of mine."

But the whole point here was that that we are NOT asking for a phone number and we are NOT in a Chinese history class. And you are wrong in saying that the argument only comes up in religious apologism (ie. in an effort to produce a "knockdown argument against disbelief in gods"). It also comes up in efforts to produce such arguments against belief in gods... and it comes up in many other areas as well. The fact is that indubitability, certainty, and whatever other name you wish to give it is the only appropriate standard of knowledge in some areas. Does the mathematician eyeball a proof, shrug his shoulders and say "Good enough!" or "Seems reasonable to me!".

But I want to go further and make the claim that this sort of knowledge is relevant even to phone numbers and history classes. It is because, in brief, when someone says to you "The number to the pizza-parlor is such-and-such." they can, in general, be interpreted as reporting what's going on inside their head alongside "pizza" and not just as reporting what would actually happen if we dial the number. This former piece of information is something that they can not be mistaken about.

This is first-person, introspective, or absolute knowledge. This sort of knowledge is somewhat solipsist in nature... it is like knowing what the color green is... just something you can't communicate... either someone else already shares the same experience or else they don't. And the standard of justification or evidence here is, rightly, absolute. In fact, talk of "justification" or "evidence" (but not of "knowledge") is really almost beside the point since there is no other experience that we point to as justification of the experience in question. My own position is that this is the standard we should apply to much of the aesthetic and religious and other debate. You ridicule the standard because you believe, I suppose, that it is too high or misplaced. I disagree. I think it is commonplace and entirely appropriate. I am with the skeptic in this regards in maintining that this is the correct standard. However the skeptic reaches the incoherent conclusion "Therefore there is no knowledge.", while I maintain that there is.

What we might call "interpersonal" or "extrospective" or "reliabilist" knowledge then would be the sort you're interested in... a sort which is aimed at harmonizing and systematizing the belief reports of various persons, the registers of various instruments or tests, etc.. The problem with this sort of knowledge is that it is extraordinarily difficult to elucidate exactly what makes it up or what counts as having it. There are painfully many at least superficially diverse accounts. I tend to favor anti-subjectivist, frequentist/extensionalist, realist/naturalist accounts of induction as what constitutes justification (as opposed to rejections of induction or subjectivist accounts of it).

This whole problem of what constitutes justification, and thereby of knowledge, can be seen as one of what many have called, in the last decade or so, "traditional epistemology" (concerned with producing an account of justification) as opposed to "descriptive epistemology" (concerned merely with describing how people make knowledge claims). I strongly favor descriptivist approaches and think that more traditional approaches succeed only insofar as they accomplish the descriptivists' goal... in fact I think that they're really just confused attempts to do that. I think that, on a purely descriptivist account, it would be clearly wrong to say that the mathematician, aesthetician, atheologian, etc. are making precisely the same sort of knowledge claim as the person reporting a phone number to us. The latter hold themselves to, and should be held to, a different or higher standard. There is nothing wrong with this. My only further claim is that we could hold the person reporting the phone number to a similar standard (by, as above, reinterpreting his claim) and that, if we were to opt for one single sort of knowledge then we should favor this very high one of certainty as opposed to some more muddled or inexact one.

As for my example of whta the atheist might and ought to say to the believer your response was:

"I don't see what this has to do with anything."

But the relevance I hope was shown in the opening paragraphs of this post.



Here are some links anyone interested in this tangent on the thread may be interested in:

this one is rather involved but delves into these issues

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/induction-problem/

this one is a subarticle

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-naturalized/

a more partisan paper from the 20th wcp on the same subject as last link

http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/TKno/TKnoBrad.htm

seop's article on religious epistemology

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/religion-epistemology/

a nice site everyone here might be interested in and its page on "the argument from religious experience" which should be clearly relevant here.

http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/?page_id=41

post-script: There are other accounts of knowledge which don't make use of nor are modifications of the TJB framework at all... ex. Timothy Williamson's account which completely rejects TJB and makes knowledge a primitive relation that isn't further analyzable. But i think that these accounts are either wrong or just unnecessary. I do favor Robert Nozick's account of knowledge as truth-tracking, which you can read about here:

http://www.erin.utoronto.ca/~jnagel/333h16.htm

[Antiplastic]

The sleight of hand comes in when confusing "christian" with a body of belief at all... but it is not... it is a body of feelings and practices and of confused, disconnected, and often misguided belief-declarations, not actual beliefs.

I was a christian and I had actual beliefs.

When applied oppositely, the sleight of hand comes in when misdescribing what atheists believe. My further claim would be that people not only are justified in taking very firm stances and even making "absolute" claims in this area but that it is right for them to do so.

Your terminology is baffling. What's the difference between an absolute claim and an "absolute" claim?

When the believer asks the atheist or when the atheist asks the believer "But do you know that there's (no) god?", the interrogated should have the courage to take a stand and answer "Most definitely!". And if they are not prepared to do that then they ought not call themselves either atheist or believer. This was the thrust of my last post.

There mos-def ain't no gawdz, dog.

We do not nor should answer this question in the way that we might answer someone if they asked us "But do you know that that is the correct number to the pizza parlor?", arching their eyebrow and looking at us accusatorily in the process.

But you have provided no argument for this. So I will continue not giving theological claims any epistemic affirmative action.


"We know that I have knowledge when it is true that I have knowledge, we believe that I have knowledge, and this belief is grounded in good reasons for believing that I have knowledge."

You never answered what your stance is on A. You never answered when it is and is not true that you have knowledge. I'll repeat A for you

A: "y could have failed to be true while x would still have had justification for their belief that it were true."

Yes, I indeed answered it, and you quoted it above, and I will repeat it for you. We know that I have knowledge when it is true that I have knowledge, we believe that I have knowledge, and this belief is grounded in good reasons for believing that I have knowledge. Kennethamy over in P has much more patience in explicating this than I do; you'd do well to run it by him in one of the 9,999,999 threads on it there.

My own stance is that A is clearly false at least in this context because, here, justification would entail truth.

But if Y is false, then it is false that X knew it. It is modally impossible to know a false thing, but it is a commonplace to know things which are not modally necessary. Most of the things we know might have been false.

And if certain constructive-empiricist or pragmatist theses are correct, and truth does indeed collapse into justification, I wouldn't be that bothered.

"The possibility is epistemic possibility, not modal. It is modally impossible to know a false thing."

"Modal" means of or pertaining or mimicking the language of possibility and of duals in general... it includes epistemic, deontic, alethic and other modalities. What you should have said is that it is not "alethic" possibility or "alethic" modality at issue. But of course it's not. I'm not confused on the issue and I don't think I inappropriately shifted from one to the other. Epistemic possibility is all I was interested in since it's exactly what the knowledge/belief question involves. And it is not only alethically impossible to know a falsehood, it is also epistemically impossible (the former implies the latter on most accounts, including my own... accounts in which it is not possible to believe in impossibilia). It is, however, possible in both senses to believe a falsehood.

To say that something is epistemically possible is just to assign a nonzero subjective probability to it. And it is perfectly possible for it to be true that Jane knows her state capitals even if Jane assigns a subjective probability of <1 that the capital of Texas is Austin, and it is perfectly reasonable for her to say that she knows.

And the question was the skeptical question of "How do we distinguish knowledge from mere belief." You have not answered that at all.

The difference, as you must know by now, is that known beliefs are also (at least) justified and true.

But the whole point here was that that we are NOT asking for a phone number and we are NOT in a Chinese history class.

And you are "not" giving an argument for why this particular empirical claim is qualitatively different from any other empirical claim. Which is all I'm really interested in pointing out.

And you are wrong in saying that the argument only comes up in religious apologism (ie. in an effort to produce a "knockdown argument against disbelief in gods"). It also comes up in efforts to produce such arguments against belief in gods... and it comes up in many other areas as well. The fact is that indubitability, certainty, and whatever other name you wish to give it is the only appropriate standard of knowledge in some areas. Does the mathematician eyeball a proof, shrug his shoulders and say "Good enough!" or "Seems reasonable to me!".

But the existence of Yahweh is just an empirical claim, like the price of eggs in Singapore. You haven't given any argument for why it's different.

<snipping stuff on incorrigible reports> My own position is that this is the standard we should apply to much of the aesthetic and religious and other debate. You ridicule the standard because you believe, I suppose, that it is too high or misplaced. I disagree. I think it is commonplace and entirely appropriate.

But you haven't given any argument why e.g. "a man was born from a virgin", "an intelligent agent is responsible for at least some biological facts", or "Mohammed was in telepathic communication with a powerful extraterrestrial force" are not empirical claims.

I think that, on a purely descriptivist account, it would be clearly wrong to say that the mathematician, aesthetician, atheologian, etc. are making precisely the same sort of knowledge claim as the person reporting a phone number to us.

Mathematical epistemology and normative epistemology are of course different kettles of fish. But I have seen no argument for why "the creator of the universe was carried around in a box by some bronze-age goat herders" is not an empirical claim.

(By now vigilant readers will have noticed a pattern in these responses.)

[Deleet]

I've heard that "no such thing as an atheist" before and have to say it is one of the most retarded arguments ever.

an atheist doesn't claim to know there is no god, they simply lack a belief in one or maybe believe that there is no god.

I'm an atheist and I know there is no god.

I second that. -- Gnostic strong atheist.

[Apostate1970]

Anti, I just hope you keep reading up on and trying to think clearly and fairly about epistemology because you clearly don't get it now. I'm sorry if I've said anything to confuse you.

For examples: When I said "But when do you have knowledge." you answered "When I have good reasons to believe that I do and it's true that I do.". and you just repeated this twice. But this is not an answer... all you did was tell me that you have knowledge when you have justification, truth and belief. I want to know when you have justification... and I want to know how it is that justification guarantees truth. When someone asks you, "But when do you have x?", where having x (knowledge) entails having y (justification) and the interrogator already agrees to this entailment, it is not good enough to tell them "I have x when I have y and it's true that I have x.". You might as well just say "I have it when I have it.". You could at least have given examples of justificatory methods you use to acquire knoweldge of various sorts (barometers, wind vanes, books, testimony, telescopes, mirrors, your eyes, your nose, etc. etc.), and I would have called those into doubt. But you didn't even do this... you just said "I have it when I have it.".

But in a way, this is appropriate and is all you could say because it's the skeptical challenge that I posed to you... and my entire contention has been that your answer should confront this inability to address the skeptical challenge on its own terms. I think it would have been more informative however if you had said that you have knowledge when you have direct experience or acquaintance with the object of knoweldge, and that all your communication presumes that the person you're talking to has had relevantly similar experiences. Your answer should be that justification of your beliefs is simply the actual presence before and availability to you of the belief contents... and that someone to whom these contents simply are not available, such as the skeptic (probably dishonestly) claims to be, can not have this justification.

My contention was that this sort of justification, experience, is absolute and infallible and is the only appropriate standard of justification for many of our knowledge claims including ones in the religious realm. That is why I provided links to "the argument from religious experience". I agreed that there were other justificatory standards but that they were harder to explicate and were generally not infallible. I do agree that we can have knoweldge without having an infallible justificatory standard but I was simply maintaining that we also can have at least a lot of it with such a standard.

As for your talk about "man was born from a virgin" not being an empirical claim. It certainly is an empirical claim. I never argued and never intended to argue otherwise and you've completely misunderstood me if you think I did. In fact I expressly gave examples (sun standing still) of foolish and indefinsible claims which I think we should ask the proposers of "Did you see that? Were you there?". I think that the propensity of the religious to not merely make such foolish claims but, often, to put them at the center of their belief system and to obstruct scientific progress as a result is deplorable. But, although occuring within and as part of a religious tradition, these are not the sort of distinctly religious claims that I was considering, and they should be of no interest except to psychopathologists, sociologists, historians, literature students, comedians, etc..

There's really no point for me to continue this discussion.

[Antiplastic]

Anti, I just hope you keep reading up on and trying to think clearly and fairly about epistemology because you clearly don't get it now. I'm sorry if I've said anything to confuse you.

For examples: When I said "But when do you have knowledge." you answered "When I have good reasons to believe that I do and it's true that I do.". and you just repeated this twice. But this is not an answer... all you did was tell me that you have knowledge when you have justification, truth and belief. I want to know when you have justification... and I want to know how it is that justification guarantees truth. When someone asks you, "But when do you have x?", where having x (knowledge) entails having y (justification) and the interrogator already agrees to this entailment, it is not good enough to tell them "I have x when I have y and it's true that I have x.". You might as well just say "I have it when I have it.". You could at least have given examples of justificatory methods you use to acquire knoweldge of various sorts (barometers, wind vanes, books, testimony, telescopes, mirrors, your eyes, your nose, etc. etc.), and I would have called those into doubt. But you didn't even do this... you just said "I have it when I have it.".

Well, if you wanted a list of justifications, you could have...asked. But I assumed (apparently correctly) that you are perfectly familiar with the forms justification takes.

But in a way, this is appropriate and is all you could say because it's the skeptical challenge that I posed to you... and my entire contention has been that your answer should confront this inability to address the skeptical challenge on its own terms. I think it would have been more informative however if you had said that you have knowledge when you have direct experience or acquaintance with the object of knoweldge, and that all your communication presumes that the person you're talking to has had relevantly similar experiences. Your answer should be that justification of your beliefs is simply the actual presence before and availability to you of the belief contents... and that someone to whom these contents simply are not available, such as the skeptic (probably dishonestly) claims to be, can not have this justification.

My contention was that this sort of justification, experience, is absolute and infallible and is the only appropriate standard of justification for many of our knowledge claims including ones in the religious realm. That is why I provided links to "the argument from religious experience". I agreed that there were other justificatory standards but that they were harder to explicate and were generally not infallible. I do agree that we can have knoweldge without having an infallible justificatory standard but I was simply maintaining that we also can have at least a lot of it with such a standard.

As for your talk about "man was born from a virgin" not being an empirical claim. It certainly is an empirical claim. I never argued and never intended to argue otherwise and you've completely misunderstood me if you think I did. In fact I expressly gave examples (sun standing still) of foolish and indefinsible claims which I think we should ask the proposers of "Did you see that? Were you there?". I think that the propensity of the religious to not merely make such foolish claims but, often, to put them at the center of their belief system and to obstruct scientific progress as a result is deplorable. But, although occuring within and as part of a religious tradition, these are not the sort of distinctly religious claims that I was considering, and they should be of no interest except to psychopathologists, sociologists, historians, literature students, comedians, etc..

There's really no point for me to continue this discussion.

There will always be an open door for you to begin the discussion by providing an argument for why atheists should be held to a double standard.