Don't atheists need to have absolute knowledge in order to be atheists?

[STer]

 

 

 

 

You basically keep sharing your belief system about this topic while not understanding that others have different ones, even if you might find them incorrect.

 

Actually i'm just evaluating statements rationally based on literal definitions. If you, as you have, want to insist on changing definitions or not being concerned with them, you are free to argue about super-human things and what percentage we believe in our own idea of super-human-things. I simply ask that you stop misusing words for which we already have definitions.

 

But many - even most people out there - do NOT evaluate statements rationally based on literal definitions. So if you want to know what they believe you cannot just assume what they mean by a word is the same as you mean when you use it. I get the idea that you have little interest in knowing what those people believe. I and some others do. So if you are not interested in accurately assessing their beliefs, this discussion really isn't very relevant for you. If you are then it will be crucial to work as hard as you can to clarify what people mean rather than simply focus on being frustrated that they are using words in ways you deem incorrect.

 

You make a strong case that most people are ignorant of the definitions; however, that's clearly not the case on this forum so I don't believe that's a fair point. I want as much to understand their meaning as you; however, you are repeatedly coming back to your mis-use of words (like atheist) and follow with complaints related to being called on that mis-use of the word. 

If you want to clarify what you mean, or simply make up a term for it, by all means do so. Just stop taking words we do know and re-tooling them to fit your arguments.

 

It's not very relevant to me what the case is on this forum since this forum contains about 1 millionth of the atheists out there, hardly a representative sample. I repeatedly say let's get past the words and stop debating the words and here you are again complaining of my "mis-use" of the words. I'm arguing for not using the words when investigating people's beliefs if you want to be more effective. They are loaded words and they obscure getting accurate data from people. That's my message here. If you want to keep focusing on proper vs. incorrect use of the words I'm not interested in that discussion. I'm interested in the discussion of the most effective method of ascertaining a given person's views in the public at large. I believe that is more effectively done by asking things the way I've been mentioning than by using the poorly understood labels involved here.

That's really all I have to say about it. If you disagree, feel free to continue talking to people using the labels. I predict it will get you confusing data that will not accurately reflect what many people actually believe. At some point you might test out using the other method and see if it helps. It's really your choice at this point.

[suomipoi]

 

....That's really all I have to say about it. If you disagree, feel free to continue talking to people using the labels. I predict it will get you confusing data that will not accurately reflect what many people actually believe. At some point you might test out using the other method and see if it helps. It's really your choice at this point.

Did you check the Videos that were posted on this thread recently. They touched the issue with labels pretty well.

I especially liked the examples with fairies. The court example didnt really open up to me.

[DoubtingThomas]

 

It's not very relevant to me what the case is on this forum since this forum contains about 1 millionth of the atheists out there, hardly a representative sample. I repeatedly say let's get past the words and stop debating the words and here you are again complaining of my "mis-use" of the words. I'm arguing for not using the words when investigating people's beliefs if you want to be more effective. They are loaded words and they obscure getting accurate data from people. That's my message here. If you want to keep focusing on proper vs. incorrect use of the words I'm not interested in that discussion. I'm interested in the discussion of the most effective method of ascertaining a given person's views in the public at large. I believe that is more effectively done by asking things the way I've been mentioning than by using the poorly understood labels involved here.

 

Ok, let's start with you then.

I believe there is a __ % chance that ___________ exists. I define ___________ as ________________________________________________________________. I describe myself as a _____________.

Cleansed of all those defined words, we have a madlib.

 

That's really all I have to say about it. If you disagree, feel free to continue talking to people using the labels. I predict it will get you confusing data that will not accurately reflect what many people actually believe. At some point you might test out using the other method and see if it helps. It's really your choice at this point.

 

I don't know what there is for me to disagree with, frankly. If you think the above madlib style produces anything like meaningful "data," then you will have to define what you mean by "meaningful data." But, I know how you feel about definitions.

[STer]

 

 

....That's really all I have to say about it. If you disagree, feel free to continue talking to people using the labels. I predict it will get you confusing data that will not accurately reflect what many people actually believe. At some point you might test out using the other method and see if it helps. It's really your choice at this point.

Did you check the Videos that were posted on this thread recently. They touched the issue with labels pretty well.

I especially liked the examples with fairies. The court example didnt really open up to me.

 

I'm painfully aware of the problem misunderstood labels pose in this situation. What I'm trying to do is offer an alternative. Not much interest in it here though But that's ok.

[STer]

 

 

It's not very relevant to me what the case is on this forum since this forum contains about 1 millionth of the atheists out there, hardly a representative sample. I repeatedly say let's get past the words and stop debating the words and here you are again complaining of my "mis-use" of the words. I'm arguing for not using the words when investigating people's beliefs if you want to be more effective. They are loaded words and they obscure getting accurate data from people. That's my message here. If you want to keep focusing on proper vs. incorrect use of the words I'm not interested in that discussion. I'm interested in the discussion of the most effective method of ascertaining a given person's views in the public at large. I believe that is more effectively done by asking things the way I've been mentioning than by using the poorly understood labels involved here.

 

Ok, let's start with you then.

I believe there is a __ % chance that ___________ exists. I define ___________ as ________________________________________________________________. I describe myself as a _____________.

Cleansed of all those defined words, we have a madlib.

 

That's really all I have to say about it. If you disagree, feel free to continue talking to people using the labels. I predict it will get you confusing data that will not accurately reflect what many people actually believe. At some point you might test out using the other method and see if it helps. It's really your choice at this point.

 

I don't know what there is for me to disagree with, frankly. If you think the above madlib style produces anything like meaningful "data," then you will have to define what you mean by "meaningful data." But, I know how you feel about definitions.

 

I made clear around a dozen times that you must first define what you're asking about. The question you ask is "What % likelihood do you believe there is that X, defined as [here you define what you're asking about], exists?" Or you can skip the X altogether if you wish and just ask "What % likelihood do you believe there is that [describe exactly what you're asking about], exists?" It is the questioner who describes precisely what they're asking about to make sure that the answer they get is actually what they're after. Rather than just asking someone "Are you an atheist?" or "Do you believe in God?" you ask it the way I said there and you are going to get more pinpointed answers.

[DoubtingThomas]

 

 

 

It's not very relevant to me what the case is on this forum since this forum contains about 1 millionth of the atheists out there, hardly a representative sample. I repeatedly say let's get past the words and stop debating the words and here you are again complaining of my "mis-use" of the words. I'm arguing for not using the words when investigating people's beliefs if you want to be more effective. They are loaded words and they obscure getting accurate data from people. That's my message here. If you want to keep focusing on proper vs. incorrect use of the words I'm not interested in that discussion. I'm interested in the discussion of the most effective method of ascertaining a given person's views in the public at large. I believe that is more effectively done by asking things the way I've been mentioning than by using the poorly understood labels involved here.

 

Ok, let's start with you then.

I believe there is a __ % chance that ___________ exists. I define ___________ as ________________________________________________________________. I describe myself as a _____________.

Cleansed of all those defined words, we have a madlib.

 

That's really all I have to say about it. If you disagree, feel free to continue talking to people using the labels. I predict it will get you confusing data that will not accurately reflect what many people actually believe. At some point you might test out using the other method and see if it helps. It's really your choice at this point.

 

I don't know what there is for me to disagree with, frankly. If you think the above madlib style produces anything like meaningful "data," then you will have to define what you mean by "meaningful data." But, I know how you feel about definitions.

 

I made clear around a dozen times that you must first define what you're asking about. The question you ask is "What % likelihood do you believe there is that X, defined as [here you define what you're asking about], exists?" It is the questioner who defines what they're asking about to make sure that the answer they get is actually what they're after. Rather than just asking someone "Are you an atheist?" or "Do you believe in God?" you ask it the way I said there and you are going to get more precise answers.

 

Do you believe in an omniscient, all-loving, all-powerful, invisible, unknowable being in the universe?

If so, what is your certainty of this thing?

In either case, what do you call yourself, based on this belief (or lack there of)?

[STer]

 

 

 

 

It's not very relevant to me what the case is on this forum since this forum contains about 1 millionth of the atheists out there, hardly a representative sample. I repeatedly say let's get past the words and stop debating the words and here you are again complaining of my "mis-use" of the words. I'm arguing for not using the words when investigating people's beliefs if you want to be more effective. They are loaded words and they obscure getting accurate data from people. That's my message here. If you want to keep focusing on proper vs. incorrect use of the words I'm not interested in that discussion. I'm interested in the discussion of the most effective method of ascertaining a given person's views in the public at large. I believe that is more effectively done by asking things the way I've been mentioning than by using the poorly understood labels involved here.

 

Ok, let's start with you then.

I believe there is a __ % chance that ___________ exists. I define ___________ as ________________________________________________________________. I describe myself as a _____________.

Cleansed of all those defined words, we have a madlib.

 

That's really all I have to say about it. If you disagree, feel free to continue talking to people using the labels. I predict it will get you confusing data that will not accurately reflect what many people actually believe. At some point you might test out using the other method and see if it helps. It's really your choice at this point.

 

I don't know what there is for me to disagree with, frankly. If you think the above madlib style produces anything like meaningful "data," then you will have to define what you mean by "meaningful data." But, I know how you feel about definitions.

 

I made clear around a dozen times that you must first define what you're asking about. The question you ask is "What % likelihood do you believe there is that X, defined as [here you define what you're asking about], exists?" It is the questioner who defines what they're asking about to make sure that the answer they get is actually what they're after. Rather than just asking someone "Are you an atheist?" or "Do you believe in God?" you ask it the way I said there and you are going to get more precise answers.

 

Do you believe in an omniscient, all-loving, all-powerful, invisible, unknowable being in the universe?

If so, what is your certainty of this thing?

In either case, what do you call yourself, based on this belief (or lack there of)?

 

First you didn't ask it the way I stated. Second, why on earth woud you go back to the labels when the entire point of it was to get away from the labels? Are you just playing around?

[DoubtingThomas]

 

First you didn't ask it the way I stated. Second, why on earth woud you go back to the labels when the entire point of it was to get away from the labels? Are you just playing around?

 

I defined what I was asking for, just like you said.

"What % likelihood do you believe there is that X, defined as [here you define what you're asking about], exists?"

If you can't see the similarity, i'll reformat more precisely:

What % likelihood do you believe there is that X, defined as an all-powerful, all-loving, infinite, invisible, and unknowable, exists?

[STer]

 

 

First you didn't ask it the way I stated. Second, why on earth woud you go back to the labels when the entire point of it was to get away from the labels? Are you just playing around?

 

I defined what I was asking for, just like you said.

"What % likelihood do you believe there is that X, defined as [here you define what you're asking about], exists?"

If you can't see the similarity, i'll reformat more precisely:

What % likelihood do you believe there is that X, defined as an all-powerful, all-loving, infinite, invisible, and unknowable, exists?

 

Exactly, that's how I recommend asking it. And the point of the thread for me was getting across that that is how I would recommend asking others about this. I'm not going to turn this thread into a discussion of my personal beliefs on the matter by laying out my own answer to the question as that's rather irrelevant to the point. If you're really interested in my own personal views on the matter, let me know why and maybe it can be discussed in another thread? Maybe you'd like to start a thread where you simply ask that question and ask people to respond to it. It would be interesting to see the answers given by people on this forum. If you do so you might want to make clear that that thread is not about debating anything else about the question, just about seeing what people's honest answers to it are. I'd be curious whether this board is full of 0%'ers or if there is actually more diversity even among the many self-proclaimed atheists here.

We've already seen at least one person in this thread mention that depending on how you describe what you ask about, he is not a 0%'er.

[DoubtingThomas]

 

Exactly, that's how I recommend asking it. And the point of the thread for me was getting across that that is how I would recommend asking others about this. I'm not going to turn this thread into a discussion of my personal beliefs on the matter by laying out my own answer to the question as that's rather irrelevant to the point.

 

It is entirely relavent to the point because you are depicting for us exactly how you envision this exchange.

 

If you're really interested in my own personal views on the matter, let me know why and maybe it can be discussed in another thread?

 

I don't know why you would start another thread to deal with this. I think we can make our points in a few more posts each.

 

I'd be curious whether this board is full of 0%'ers or if there is actually more diversity even among the many self-proclaimed atheists here.

 

I'd  be equally curious to know what a self-proclaimed theist has to say about the thing I described.

 

We've already seen at least one person in this thread mention that depending on how you describe what you ask about, he is not a 0%'er.

 

Given the infinite number of things you could ask for, there's no reason to assume anyone is a 0%'er.

 

[Libertus]

I respond with another post explaining how misguided it is to continue focusing on debating the labels at the expense of actually assessing the beliefs themselves and responding to them. The next couple posts go right back to the terminology. I give up.

If you keep saing Atheism is a belief, expect to be corrected. You're using the word wrongly. That has everything to do with definition of terms (what do certain words mean) and nothing to do whatsoever with linguistics (the study of human language), you know it, and that's why I think it's intellectually dishonest and frankly insulting to call it linguistics again and again and over again. In any serious discussion among adults, definition of terms has to be agreed upon. You can't have a grown-up discussion with vague wishy washy terms that you can define at will and then expect a meaningful result, or expect not to be called on it. 

How this conversation looks to me so far:

you: "Unicorns exist, they are regular horses. I was riding one last week."

me: "But horses don't have horns, they aren't Unicorns"

you: "They are just the same, only except for the missing horn! The horn is not essential."

me: "Those are just horses. Uni- meaning one, "corn" meaning "horn" (I'm guessing)

you: "Linguistics, linguistics, linguistics. Let's keep talking about how I was riding a unicorn last week."

Can you see the source of my frustration?

[STer]

 

I respond with another post explaining how misguided it is to continue focusing on debating the labels at the expense of actually assessing the beliefs themselves and responding to them. The next couple posts go right back to the terminology. I give up.

If you keep saing Atheism is a belief, expect to be corrected. You're using the word wrongly. That has everything to do with definition of terms (what do certain words mean) and nothing to do whatsoever with linguistics (the study of human language), you know it, and that's why I think it's intellectually dishonest and frankly insulting to call it linguistics again and again and over again. In any serious discussion among adults, definition of terms has to be agreed upon. You can't have a grown-up discussion with vague wishy washy terms that you can define at will and then expect a meaningful result, or expect not to be called on it. 

How this conversation looks to me so far:

you: "Unicorns exist, they are regular horses. I was riding one last week."

me: "But horses don't have horns, they aren't Unicorns"

you: "They are just the same, only except for the missing horn! The horn is not essential."

me: "Those are just horses. Uni- meaning one, "corn" meaning "horn" (I'm guessing)

you: "Linguistics, linguistics, linguistics. Let's keep talking about how I was riding a unicorn last week."

Can you see the source of my frustration?

 

Any mention of the word "atheism" I have even made has only been in passing in order to make the point that it is a distraction to keep focusing on the terminology. In response, you prove my point by spending all this time hung up on it and focusing on the terminology. I couldn't ask for a better example to support my reasoning for why it's better to skip the labels and go right to the rough data. I could sit here and defend my usage of it but it would completely go against my point which is that whether any one person uses it accurately or inaccurately it is a widely confused term and thus very unhelpful in trying to get accurate information from people.

It is clear to me that your priority here is linguistics and talking about the correct vs. incorrect definition, as you see it, of the word "atheism." As I mentioned, this is a valid topic, just not the topic I was talking about or am interested in. A linguistic discussion of the meaning of "atheism" is precisely what I am arguing is a counterproductive waste of time for those whose main goal is to do useful investigation of people's beliefs and try to improve the world rather than to have semantic discussions.

So I leave you to your debate about the word's meaning. My suggestion is that it's a better use of time to just try to use more descriptive phrases, rather than using these loaded terms, as people will be more clear on what you're asking of them. If you prefer to keep using the loaded terminology, I would predict you will end up bogged down in inaccurate responses and the types of pointless neverending debates we're seeing in this thread every time the word is so much as mentioned - even, ironically enough, if it's mentioned precisely to say it's a term that will lead to more semantic debates than answers about actual beliefs.

You seem to be missing the point that I'm not saying to use the word "atheism" and then define it. I'm saying to not use the word when investigating other people's beliefs and simply skip to describing what you mean and use those words instead. You seem to be mixing up discussion on this forum with what I'm talking about which is how to talk to other people when asking about their beliefs. This thread has been, for me, a chance to offer suggestions about how to communicate with other people in other settings when you want to understand their beliefs more clearly.

[Hterag]

 

You seem to be missing the point that I'm not saying to use the word "atheism" and then define it. I'm saying to not use the word when investigating other people's beliefs and simply skip to describing what you mean and use those words instead. You seem to be mixing up discussion on this forum with what I'm talking about which is how to talk to other people when asking about their beliefs. This thread has been, for me, a chance to offer suggestions about how to communicate with other people in other settings when you want to understand their beliefs more clearly.

 

 

I've just spent a bit of time reading through this whole thread and all I'm seeing is STer using words then saying not to use words and people correcting the use of those words. I'd like to share some thoughts and see if I can help to move the discussion on a bit. I'm mostly replying to STer here.

You're right, the terms, "atheist", "theist", "agnostic", "gnostic", "agnostic theist", etc. are used all over the world on forums and in debates on the topic of religion and there is an immense amount of deliberate confusion and misunderstanding surrounding them. Though not so important, I totally agree with Libertus' definition of the terms - that theism is a belief and atheism is not believing. For example:

I can say, "I have $1 million." and you can believe me or not. You can look at me and see what kind of clothes I have and check my facial expressions etc. to gather some evidence for why you would believe me or not. You could also, as STer says, assign a, "percentage" to that certainty but reality is binary. I either have $1 million or I don't. If you say you think there's a 60% chance I have $1 million then that doesn't mean I do (unless I'm the government) or that I have $600,000 or something, as much as I'd like it to...

A claim is either true or not. How likely you think it is or how much you want it doesn't change reality.

That said, I think it really is important to describe what you're talking about. If someone says, "Do you believe in God?" then my first question is, "What do you mean?" I act like it's a totally new word to me because so often it is. We can then proceed with their definition as recently someone said, "Well, you know, God. The creator of the universe..." to which I said no. I'll show you how I arrive at my, "beliefs":

If you say to me, "Do you believe that Australia exists?" then we go over what you mean by Australia and find it's the land mass in the southern hemisphere etc. then I can say, "Yes. I believe Australia exists despite having no direct sensual evidence since what you're claiming is logically consistent and conforms to my other experiences of the world. You're claiming it's a big island with people, kangaroos, koalas, diggery doos and lots of barbecues, all of which I've seen before and have experience of... So, yes. Yes, I do believe Australia exists. I also know that practically everyone else around me thinks it's real and I have friends who claim to have gone there so I would be incredibly surprised if it doesn't exist and turns out to be a big hoax/conspiracy."

If, on the other hand, you say, "Do you believe that there's an island on the back of a giant turtle made of gold which moves around singing Christmas carols for all the orphans on the moon?" Well, of course I'm going to say, "No, I don't believe that exists. I have no direct sensual evidence and I've never seen anything even remotely similar and it totally goes against stuff I do have empirical evidence for."

In conclusion, I think defining terms is very important if there's any ambiguity. You (STer) have yet to do that with respect to the term, "God" but you've said you're not interested in discussing it, which is fine. I don't think anyone here would disagree that defining terms is very important and so I think your purpose has already been fulfilled. You said you wanted to get this point across and it seems to me that everyone is already acting in a way that suggests they agree (in that they're defining or attempting to define terms).

The problem seems to be:

"X means abc."
"No it doesn't! X means def!"
"What? X means ghi!"

People aren't just saying, "Let's forget what X means and focus on whether you accept/believe abc, def and ghi."

What are your thoughts?

[STer]

 

I've just spent a bit of time reading through this whole thread and all I'm seeing is STer using words then saying not to use words and people correcting the use of those words.

 

 

 

Yes there is a catch-22 in that in order to explain ways words are being misused you must "use" those words. But as I mentioned this is why we recognize two different "uses" of words. I keep trying to remember the terms I heard for this but there is actually utilizing a word (ie: "I ate an apple") vs. just referring to a word (ie: "The word apple starts with an a") I've been pretty much doing the latter here, commenting on the words themselves. And to whatever extent I haven't, it's only because - as is my point - this is a quicksand trap where it's hard not to fall into going back to those words which ultimately lead to more confusion. I think the probabilities are a way out of that trap but to agree to use them we first have to talk about it to get there and many seem to get trapped at that point

As for belief vs. reality, this thread is about belief, not reality. People differ in the likelihood they assign to various things being true or not. As you correctly point out, this often does nothing to change the reality of it. Although there are ways in which people's beliefs do affect reality. If many people believe something strongly, they act on that belief, and this has consequences in the real world. If they believe it less strongly, the consequences may be less. But this only applies in certain cases it seems.

In any case, this thread was, as far as I was concerned, about belief, not about the actual objective reality, which might differ from any person's beliefs. (ie: Their beliefs could be incorrect regardless of how weakly or strongly held). To me the thread became a discussion of how to discuss so as to most accurately glean what a person's beliefs on the issue of God are.

I agree, and have said over and over again, that until you define what someone means by the thing they're asking your belief about, it's not a constructive conversation. I agree with your method of insisting on strong clarification of that thing (God, Australia, whatever). But as for the belief itself, I think it's less useful to describe it with a term and more useful to describe it as a number.

I'm not sure why this continues to be misunderstood but I'll try yet again. There is no reason for ME to define God. My point is when two people - any people - are talking about their beliefs regarding God, I believe the most constructive way to go about it is:

1) The person who is asking must first be encouraged to precisely define what THEY mean by God (ie: What definition of God THEY are asking someone's belief about).

2) Once that is defined, the person whose beliefs are being asked about responds with the % likelihood they believe there is that that definition exists.

Notice the key to the whole thing is that when you ask someone for their beliefs about God, there are two elements. The "God" part needs to be defined. The "beliefs" part is often expressed using words like atheism, agnostic, theist and so on. I agree that the first part needs to be defined (by whoever is asking in whatever situation, not by me here. I'm not asking anyone their particular beliefs. I'm commenting on the process by which these discussions can be had more effectively in general). The second part, the belief, I believe is more effectively communicated in number form. Why? Because the numbers speak for themselves precisely. If you use words like atheist, agnostic, theist, then, if you really want to know what the person believes accurately, you'll have to go through another whole round of defining what those mean to that person to make sure you're on the same page. With the % likelihood number, you skip that. Afterwards, if you feel like translating the number into one of those terms, you can sit there and make sure you share the same understanding of which one applies to which situations and so on. But this way you don't have to do that.

It's kind of like if you're measuring something. You can tell someone the thing is 5 feet long. Or you can say "small" or "medium" or "large". Well knowing the exact number is a lot more efficient. People may have different ideas of what is "small" vs. "medium" vs. "large." Maybe one person thinks 5 feet is medium and another thinks it's large. If you just say "it's large" one will think that 5 feet could fit in that category and one will think it couldn't. But we all agree pretty consistently on what 5 feet is. "Small" and "medium" and "large" are shortcuts we use which give up some precision when we don't feel it's necessary to be precise.

Similarly words like "atheist" and "agnostic" and "theist" are shortcuts we use to save time going into deeper precision about our stance. But my point is that there is so much confusion over what these words mean that I think we end up losing time and accuracy. If you're going to use a shortcut, you need to make sure that it's consistently understood and in a situation where precision isn't important. I don't think that applies here.

I agree with those who say that words like "atheist" and "agnostic" and "theist" do have definitions. They aren't as subjective as "small" or "medium" or "large." But they're so poorly understood by the public at large that the effect is similar. So going right to the numbers makes more sense to me.

Hope this clarifies.

 

 

[STer]

One more note:

For anyone still having trouble with this "probability" issue, think of it like this.

After you define a thing, you could ask someone how likely they think it is that that thing exists. But another way to put it would be in betting terms. If you had to put your money where your mouth is, what odds would you require on that bet?

So to use Hterag's example of Australia. If someone defines Australia the way he initially did and asks "How likely do you think it is that Australia, so defined, exists?" Hterag may say "100%" if he is the type that believes in certainty. Or maybe 99.99999% if not. (This 100% vs. just short of 100% difference is itself interesting).

But we could also ask "If you had to bet $100 on whether it exists, what are the odds you'd require?" I think on this bet Hterag would take just about any odds no matter what they were since he'd see it as an almost, if not certain win for him.

Now the caveat is that with some issue like the existence of God (depending on the definition the asker gives for God), we may never be able to verify the actual outcome of the bet. But the question still applies. The question is IF we could verify it and you knew someone was going to appear and tell us the answer, what odds would you require? I think many people would require much better odds in their favor on a bet like that than on the existence of Australia the way Hterag initially defined it. But then there are some who might be so strong in their belief that they'd bet God exists or doesn't exist with just as much certainty - in other words, require the same odds - as they would for the bet on Australia's existence.

Now I'm not sure if probability vs. odds in betting is exactly the same question. I can imagine people thinking differently about them and giving somewhat different answers. But the principle is the same. And the issue of it being more precise to get a number like that than just a shortcut label stands.

Also note that while this may conjure it to mind, this has nothing to do with something like Pascal's Wager. Pascal was advising people to choose what to believe as if the belief itself was the placement of a bet. This scenario does not prescribe that you should hold any particular belief. It's simply drawing out how strong your belief is, regardless of what it is.

[Hterag]

 

If many people believe something strongly, they act on that belief, and this has consequences in the real world. If they believe it less strongly, the consequences may be less. But this only applies in certain cases it seems.

Yes, this is true for a belief that, if you hold it and don't want to be hypocritical, you have to act on it. Like, if I believe that hitting people is the best way to solve problems then I'll be acting in that way.

 

In any case, this thread was, as far as I was concerned, about belief, not about the actual objective reality, which might differ from any person's beliefs. (ie: Their beliefs could be incorrect regardless of how weakly or strongly held). To me the thread became a discussion of how to discuss so as to most accurately glean what a person's beliefs on the issue of God are.

This is where I'd like to make a distinction between belief and knowledge. If I ask, "Do you believe Australia exists?" then would you really say, "99.9999%"? I don't know, maybe you would... But here's another example. A guy steals your car, you know who did it but now you have to convince a DRO/jury or whatever. You present your case, show the CCTV footage and his finger prints etc. He presents his case, calls his alibi, etc. to show how he didn't steal it and the jury decides a vote of 54% guilty. Well, what do we do with that? Does he now pay 54% of the restitution? Or would they just say, "He is guilty and should pay restitution."? Of course it's whether they believe you or not and if they say 10%, what then? Does he still pay 10% restitution?

My problem with this is how it would actually apply if I were to live like this. I can't imagine myself using this kind of percentile belief system in many things. Yeah, abstract ideas that are fun to discuss... Fine. How do I then apply the same things to every other aspect of my life? It seems like it'd be incredibly inefficient when I can just say, "Yes, I believe what you're saying." or, "No, I don't believe what you're saying." These things are all based on the fact that I don't know. If I know, I don't say, "I believe you." I say, "Yes, that's true. I know it's true. If I know that fire burns, I don't want to say, "Well, there's a 99.999999% chance that you'll get burned if you touch it." I'll just say, "Don't touch it, it'll burn you." because I know from direct sensual and empirical evidence.

[STer]

 

 

If many people believe something strongly, they act on that belief, and this has consequences in the real world. If they believe it less strongly, the consequences may be less. But this only applies in certain cases it seems.

Yes, this is true for a belief that, if you hold it and don't want to be hypocritical, you have to act on it. Like, if I believe that hitting people is the best way to solve problems then I'll be acting in that way.

 

Actually it's true for any belief that people choose to act on for whatever reason, whether that they feel strongly about it morally or that they just think it's fun to act on, as long as it has to do with things they have an influence over. But that's really a tangent.

 

In any case, this thread was, as far as I was concerned, about belief, not about the actual objective reality, which might differ from any person's beliefs. (ie: Their beliefs could be incorrect regardless of how weakly or strongly held). To me the thread became a discussion of how to discuss so as to most accurately glean what a person's beliefs on the issue of God are.

 

 

This is where I'd like to make a distinction between belief and knowledge. If I ask, "Do you believe Australia exists?" then would you really say, "99.9999%"? I don't know, maybe you would...

 

It's irrelevant to this conversation what I would say. What's important is that there are people - many people - who don't believe humans can know anything with certainty. Indeed, Socrates is probably the most famous of those. So those people would never say they had 100% certainty for anything. I guess it also depends what you define "knowledge" as. Does knowledge mean something you believe is true with 100% certainty? Or is a very very high level of belief good enough? I would say, in everyday layman's discussion, that I know the sun will rise tomorrow, but technically it's possible it wouldn't. For all practical matters, I can treat my almost certainty as certainty in that case. But if we are having an epistemology discussion, I'd admit that I'm rounding up and in reality there is a small chance it won't happen.

But here we are, to an extent, tangenting again because of the usual reason - defining of terms precisely because we refuse to just use the numbers. Even the word "knowledge" means different things to different people, whatever the technical definition may be. Some would argue knowledge requires 100% certainty, others that it requires a bit less.

 

But here's another example. A guy steals your car, you know who did it but now you have to convince a DRO/jury or whatever. You present your case, show the CCTV footage and his finger prints etc. He presents his case, calls his alibi, etc. to show how he didn't steal it and the jury decides a vote of 54% guilty. Well, what do we do with that? Does he now pay 54% of the restitution? Or would they just say, "He is guilty and should pay restitution."? Of course it's whether they believe you or not and if they say 10%, what then? Does he still pay 10% restitution?

 

I believe in criminal cases, the standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt." Our legal system (I'm in the US) says that if the case is proven beyond that standard, then the person is convicted and treated as guilty. It's interesting that the legal system - which deals with practical matters - never gets into certainties. In theory, we talk about certainties, but those who deal with practical matters like crime and punishment or actual gambling and so on rarely ever seriously talk about 100% certainties.

It's also worth noting that whether or not people have %'s of belief is not dependent on whether you're comfortable with the implications of it.

 

My problem with this is how it would actually apply if I were to live like this. I can't imagine myself using this kind of percentile belief system in many things. Yeah, abstract ideas that are fun to discuss... Fine. How do I then apply the same things to every other aspect of my life? It seems like it'd be incredibly inefficient when I can just say, "Yes, I believe what you're saying." or, "No, I don't believe what you're saying." These things are all based on the fact that I don't know. If I know, I don't say, "I believe you." I say, "Yes, that's true. I know it's true. If I know that fire burns, I don't want to say, "Well, there's a 99.999999% chance that you'll get burned if you touch it." I'll just say, "Don't touch it, it'll burn you." because I know from direct sensual and empirical evidence.

 

It's interesting to hear you talk about how you would apply this "if you were to live like this." I would submit that you do live like this. If you go back to my post with the betting example, there are countless things you deal with every day where you would require varying levels of odds if you were to bet on them. You don't have 100% certainty on what is going to happen. But you don't need it. If you think something is 99% or 95% or even 75% likely, most of the time you'll bet on it.

Humans are doing these probability calculations on an unconscious level all the time. If we needed to be certain about everything before we could make decisions, we wouldn't have lasted very long on this planet.

[Hterag]

Actually it's true for any belief that people choose to act on for whatever reason, whether that they feel strongly about it morally or that they just think it's fun to act on, as long as it has to do with things they have an influence over. But that's really a tangent.

It is a tangent and I only mentioned it in passing because I wanted to get at the idea that if I say, "I believe that an invisible intangible unicorn floats around the universe but never comes within 100 billion light years of Earth." then it's not going to affect how I live my life in any significant way other than me possibly talking about it compared to if I think that chocolate ice cream is a daily necessity then I'll be eating chocolate ice cream daily but I don't think it's worth taking this any further.

What's important is that there are people - many people - who don't believe humans can know anything with certainty. Indeed, Socrates is probably the most famous of those. So those people would never say they had 100% certainty for anything.

It seems to me that you might be worried that when I say, "I know..." or, "I believe..." that that's the end of it. It's really not. I say right now that I believe Australia exists, despite not having been there. If it turned out that it was all a big conspiracy and someone showed me that the photos were faked, the animals were all in Africa or something then of course I'd have to change my position. Saying, "I believe it." just means, "Given the evidence I've been presented and my understanding of reality until this point, it seems more likely than not to be true." I've changed my position on the moon landings a few times, though, whether it were true or not isn't going to change much for me. 

When it comes to most religious people, they'll use an example like, "I believe it because look at all the animals. Something must have created them." and after presenting all the evidence for evolution the position doesn't change. "I still believe it. I have faith." and that's where we have problems. That's where we have, "certainty" where certainty has no justification. The certainty comes from somewhere else, perhaps fear of rejecting the idea and facing the scarier reality, the anxiety of societal rejection and loss of social network, the idea that the time invested already was a waste... Etc.

I think that might be where you're coming from but I want to ask if you could explain exactly how you arrive at the numbers. You've given some example numbers already but you're saying what you think is totally irrelevant. I think it's absolutely essential to help me understand your methodology. How exactly do you quantify it and so make it more accurate?

[Arius]

I think the thread title is incorrect.  It should read: Don't people need absolute knowledge to believe anything?

Alternatively (not asked as a rhetorical question): Nothing can really be believed.

Problem solved.  It's epistemological nihilism.

 

[STer]

 

Actually it's true for any belief that people choose to act on for whatever reason, whether that they feel strongly about it morally or that they just think it's fun to act on, as long as it has to do with things they have an influence over. But that's really a tangent.

It is a tangent and I only mentioned it in passing because I wanted to get at the idea that if I say, "I believe that an invisible intangible unicorn floats around the universe but never comes within 100 billion light years of Earth." then it's not going to affect how I live my life in any significant way other than me possibly talking about it compared to if I think that chocolate ice cream is a daily necessity then I'll be eating chocolate ice cream daily but I don't think it's worth taking this any further.

 

There is really no end to the absurdity of what some people will do based on beliefs. Perhaps what you say is true for you, but another person, perhaps mentally ill or perhaps just quite eccentric, might say the floating unicorn will never come near earth yet demands some sort of worship ritual...and off we go. It's truly incredible the myriad ways beliefs affect actions. And here we're only talking about the conscious interaction. On a subconscious or unconscious level, beliefs may play another layer of role.

What's important is that there are people - many people - who don't believe humans can know anything with certainty. Indeed, Socrates is probably the most famous of those. So those people would never say they had 100% certainty for anything.

 

It seems to me that you might be worried that when I say, "I know..." or, "I believe..." that that's the end of it. It's really not. I say right now that I believe Australia exists, despite not having been there. If it turned out that it was all a big conspiracy and someone showed me that the photos were faked, the animals were all in Africa or something then of course I'd have to change my position. Saying, "I believe it." just means, "Given the evidence I've been presented and my understanding of reality until this point, it seems more likely than not to be true." I've changed my position on the moon landings a few times, though, whether it were true or not isn't going to change much for me.

 

You said " it seems more likely than not to be true". My point is simply that the most precise we can get is to ask exactly how much more likely than not? That's all that all this discussion boils down to.

 

When it comes to most religious people, they'll use an example like, "I believe it because look at all the animals. Something must have created them." and after presenting all the evidence for evolution the position doesn't change. "I still believe it. I have faith." and that's where we have problems. That's where we have, "certainty" where certainty has no justification. The certainty comes from somewhere else, perhaps fear of rejecting the idea and facing the scarier reality, the anxiety of societal rejection and loss of social network, the idea that the time invested already was a waste... Etc.

 

It seems to me you're raising whole other discussions than what I'm talking about in this thread. They are interesting discussions but separate ones. I'm not concerned in this particular discussion with why or how someone comes to be certain or uncertain or whether it's justified. I'm simply offering a more effective way of having a conversation if you want to figure out what their beliefs are. That's it. Not if you want to judge their beliefs or talk about whether you agree with their beliefs. Just if you want to find out and accurately understand what they believe.

 

I think that might be where you're coming from but I want to ask if you could explain exactly how you arrive at the numbers. You've given some example numbers already but you're saying what you think is totally irrelevant. I think it's absolutely essential to help me understand your methodology. How exactly do you quantify it and so make it more accurate?

 

Did you read my post on betting? I'm really confused why this is such a difficult concept. Every day people place bets on countless beliefs. They give or take different odds based on how strongly they feel about their belief.

One person believes that a certain team will win tomorrow. Another person believes the same, but believes more strongly and therefore will take 2 to 1 odds whereas the other will only take 3 to 1 odds. Another person believes the other team will win, and believes it very very strongly and will take even odds.

The same principle can apply to betting on any belief you have, even if the bet is only hypothetical. Again, is this really that confusing a concept? What is not being understood exactly?

[STer]

 

I think the thread title is incorrect.  It should read: Don't people need absolute knowledge to believe anything?

Alternatively (not asked as a rhetorical question): Nothing can really be believed.

Problem solved.  It's epistemological nihilism.

 

 

Looking at Merriam Webster's, "believe" has several definitions. And the differences between them show why this is complicated.

For instance, one definition says: "to have a firm religious faith"

Another says: "to hold an opinion : think <I believe so>"

You can see the gap in certainty between these. The first sounds quite certain. The second sounds very open to doubt. You can easily hear the second one continue with "I believe so...but I could be wrong. In fact, I'd say there is a 20% (or 30, or 40 or whatever) chance that I'm wrong)"

Yet both of these fit the dictionary definition of believe.

Proving yet again why it's such an almost willful generation of confusion to insist on using these words, even when they clearly aren't getting the job of creating understanding done, instead of going for the probabilities.

And I point out another example. The bookies, who deal in these kinds of guesses and beliefs and knowings and hunches and so on in a practical way every day...they don't put out lines that say "Certain to win" or "Believe they will win" or "We know they will win." They just put the numbers. The numbers give us MORE information than the words, and have the nice side effect of taking barely any longer to express. What they do do though is force us to think harder and, at least hypothetically, consider if we had to put our money where our mouth is. The reason I think some people try to stick to using the broader words, which are more open to interpretation, is because they actually are not comfortable with realizing how much probability calculation is going on underneath or enjoy the flexibility of not having to commit the way the numbers force one to do, at least verbally, if not with actual resources.

[fingolfin]

To be objective, we have to remove subjective terms like belief, faith, opinion, knowledge and proof from the equation.

This is the problem with theism/agnosticism/atheism. They're all making the same arguments from the same paradigm of thinking. Each hinges on belief or knowledge, or proof etc. But existence is objective, and could care less what we belief or "know" or prove to one another. The moon, if it exists, exists regardless of whether we know about it, agree upon it, or believe in it.

God is exactly the same. It's not the word god that is important, it's the word exist (syn: real).

If someone wants to propose an object called "god" for the purpose of explaining their theory (e.g. how "he" creates the universe), then that's up to them. If god exists, he has physical presence. Period. All they need to do is illustrate a god shape of some kind, then show us their theory of god creating matter from nothing.  If an atom, black hole, leprechaun or chair exist, they too have physical presence – exactly the same process.

We can only assume (hypothesize) existence, we cannot know it. Belief and opinion is irrelevant, therefore theism, agnosticism and atheism are all irrational positions and should be thrown out forever.

[Hterag]

I have neither the patience nor the motivation to respond to every single thing someone says in a forum so I'll focus on this one point:

Did you read my post on betting? I'm really confused why this is such a difficult concept. Every day people place bets on countless beliefs. They give or take different odds based on how strongly they feel about their belief.

One person believes that a certain team will win tomorrow. Another person believes the same, but believes more strongly and therefore will take 2 to 1 odds whereas the other will only take 3 to 1 odds. Another person believes the other team will win, and believes it very very strongly and will take even odds.

The same principle can apply to betting on any belief you have, even if the bet is only hypothetical. Again, is this really that confusing a concept? What is not being understood exactly?

I understand what you're saying but I'm asking you to tell me how you derive these numbers. How do you think bookies get these odds? They don't just give it out at random and if they do then they're going to lose a lot of money. They base it on massive amounts of data, previous records for teams/horses/players, the weather, etc. The same with insurance companies, they set the price you pay per month based on enormous amounts of data they collect from all of their customers. Even things like the stock market. I can't just say, "Ah, this commodity should be worth $17.14" because I don't have enough information to say that. The market sets the price and the price is based on millions of people interacting together and using their combined information and predictions to say what they're willing to pay and sell for.

This is the problem I have with your proposition and this is what I'd like you to clarify: How do you personally get these numbers? 

I don't care what other people may or may not say, I'm talking to you. If you don't address this, I'm very unlikely (78.65%) to reply again as it's getting tiring.

[STer]

 

I have neither the patience nor the motivation to respond to every single thing someone says in a forum so I'll focus on this one point:

Did you read my post on betting? I'm really confused why this is such a difficult concept. Every day people place bets on countless beliefs. They give or take different odds based on how strongly they feel about their belief.

One person believes that a certain team will win tomorrow. Another person believes the same, but believes more strongly and therefore will take 2 to 1 odds whereas the other will only take 3 to 1 odds. Another person believes the other team will win, and believes it very very strongly and will take even odds.

The same principle can apply to betting on any belief you have, even if the bet is only hypothetical. Again, is this really that confusing a concept? What is not being understood exactly?

I understand what you're saying but I'm asking you to tell me how you derive these numbers. How do you think bookies get these odds? They don't just give it out at random and if they do then they're going to lose a lot of money. They base it on massive amounts of data, previous records for teams/horses/players, the weather, etc. The same with insurance companies, they set the price you pay per month based on enormous amounts of data they collect from all of their customers. Even things like the stock market. I can't just say, "Ah, this commodity should be worth $17.14" because I don't have enough information to say that. The market sets the price and the price is based on millions of people interacting together and using their combined information and predictions to say what they're willing to pay and sell for.

This is the problem I have with your proposition and this is what I'd like you to clarify: How do you personally get these numbers? 

I don't care what other people may or may not say, I'm talking to you. If you don't address this, I'm very unlikely (78.65%) to reply again as it's getting tiring.

 

Again, what I'm doing is offering a suggestion, in general terms, on how to best talk to any person and learn what their beliefs are more accurately on this subject. It is totally and completely irrelevant how I myself "get" these numbers. Everyone gets them differently. We aren't concerned with HOW they got these numbers in this conversation. All we're concerned with is what their numbers are.

Let's take the example of bookies again. Do all bookies get the numbers the same way? Of course not. That's why they sometimes differ on the numbers. And there are even some people who take bets and just go on their hunches. Some people are more analytical, some are more emotional, some just flat out guess. Of course the more professional ones do more number crunching, the amateur ones probably differ more on their methods.

But this is not relevant to what we're talking about here. It's a very very important subject, but a different subject. Do you see that?

If you want to know why someone believes there is 100% or 10% or 0% or 5% chance of something, then go ahead and ask them. That will give you some insight into their epistemology. But that's a separate discussion. If you just want to know what their belief is, you don't need to know how they arrived at it.

The fact you keep asking me personally shows me you're completely and utterly missing the point. This is not a thread about my epistemology or how I personally make decisions. Basically I saw some people talking about a topic and I came up and said "Hey I think if you ask this way and you answer this way, you'll understand each other better." It's a suggestion on how they can more effectively discuss the topic. Turning to me and asking me for my answers on the questions is completely missing the point. I'm just suggesting a way to have the conversation, not volunteering to be in the conversation.

I've even given 1, 2, 3 step by step examples of how to have a conversation about beliefs this way so I really don't see what's not getting across at this point.

[STer]

 

To be objective, we have to remove subjective terms like belief, faith, opinion, knowledge and proof from the equation.

 

If your goal is simply a practical one of understanding someone as best you can, then it doesn't even matter if the words are "subjective." It just matters if they are often misused and misunderstood. Regardless of how well-defined they actually are to those who might study them closely, unless both people involved in the conversation have the same understanding of them, the words can diminish your ability to accurately communicate. Hence, using something less easily confused like numbers can help.

 

This is the problem with theism/agnosticism/atheism. They're all making the same arguments from the same paradigm of thinking. Each hinges on belief or knowledge, or proof etc. But existence is objective, and could care less what we belief or "know" or prove to one another. The moon, if it exists, exists regardless of whether we know about it, agree upon it, or believe in it.

God is exactly the same. It's not the word god that is important, it's the word exist (syn: real).

If someone wants to propose an object called "god" for the purpose of explaining their theory (e.g. how "he" creates the universe), then that's up to them. If god exists, he has physical presence. Period. All they need to do is illustrate a god shape of some kind, then show us their theory of god creating matter from nothing.  If an atom, black hole, leprechaun or chair exist, they too have physical presence – exactly the same process.

We can only assume (hypothesize) existence, we cannot know it. Belief and opinion is irrelevant, therefore theism, agnosticism and atheism are all irrational positions and should be thrown out forever.

 

Belief and opinion may be irrelevant to what the reality is in some cases. But they are not irrelevant for human relations. There are many reasons why two people may want to discuss or come to understand each other's beliefs, regardless of how much influence those beliefs have on anything else. You might want to know if someone would make a good partner for you or if you are comfortable with them teaching your child or many other things. In all of these cases, you might wish to know their beliefs more clearly. All I'm saying is that, when you are seeking to glean what their beliefs are, if you really want to be more confident you understood correctly, it will be helpful to try to talk in terms of probabilities, rather than just using English terms like agnostic, atheist, etc. It's that simple.

[Hterag]

It is totally and completely irrelevant how I myself "get" these numbers. Everyone gets them differently.

That's what I was waiting for you to say.

This discussion is over because you're claiming we can more accurately represent how we personally feel about the truth value of a statement yet you're saying different people will arrive at it in different ways. So, it's still no more accurate because what I say is, "60%" may be something you arrive at as, "12%". Assuming you're correct, we can safely say that our conclusions can be totally different and don't give any additional clarification.

If you'd given me an objective way of deriving truth (like the scientific method) then clearly you'd have already accepted that it can be objective and that there are things we can say are true/false (pending review of possible contradictory evidence in the future etc.) anyway.

Thanks for giving me the chance to think this stuff through but I'm out at this point unless something staggeringly new comes to the table.

 

EDIT: And one last thing, you should really look into Socratic dialogue because the essense of that is about discussing personal experience and not appealing to other sources.

[STer]

 

It is totally and completely irrelevant how I myself "get" these numbers. Everyone gets them differently.

That's what I was waiting for you to say.

This discussion is over because you're claiming we can more accurately represent how we personally feel about the truth value of a statement yet you're saying different people will arrive at it in different ways. So, it's still no more accurate because what I say is, "60%" may be something you arrive at as, "12%". Assuming you're correct, we can safely say that our conclusions can be totally different and don't give any additional clarification.

If you'd given me an objective way of deriving truth (like the scientific method) then clearly you'd have already accepted that it can be objective and that there are things we can say are true/false (pending review of possible contradictory evidence in the future etc.) anyway.

Thanks for giving me the chance to think this stuff through but I'm out at this point unless something staggeringly new comes to the table.

 

EDIT: And one last thing, you should really look into Socratic dialogue because the essense of that is about discussing personal experience and not appealing to other sources.

 

I am completely confused as to why you're repeatedly (it seems to me )not understanding that when I talk about accuracy, I'm not talking about whether the person's belief accurately assesses reality. I'm talking about whether we accurately have comprehended what their belief is, no matter how true or false it is. The fact you might assess something as 60% likely to be true and me 12% is the entire point. People assess likelihoods differently. If I understand that you think there is a 60% chance and you understand that I think there is a 12% chance, then the process worked. We now know what each other believe, which was the goal. What am I missing?

[Existing Alternatives]

 

I am completely confused as to why you're repeatedly (it seems to me )not understanding that when I talk about accuracy, I'm not talking about whether the person's belief accurately assesses reality. I'm talking about whether we accurately have comprehended what their belief is, no matter how true or false it is. The fact you might assess something as 60% likely to be true and me 12% is the entire point. People assess likelihoods differently. If I understand that you think there is a 60% chance and you understand that I think there is a 12% chance, then the process worked. We now know what each other believe, which was the goal. What am I missing?

 

I’ve been following this debate with great amusement for some time now. I think what STer is saying (pls forgive me if I'm wrong) is that we make most decisions in life not based on absolute truth, but rather on our estimate of what being presented is indeed truth. Every estimate has a confidence interval around it, as one can never be certain without complete evidence.

For example, I am pretty sure the original asker (who seems to have received his answer long time ago, btw) is under 25 years of age. Why I say that, is not important. But what is important is that I am 80% confident that he is. Is there a chance that he is older? Yes! Could I be over confident? Maybe! Could somebody else be more or less confident in this estimate? Most likely!

The reality is that I will never be 100%, or absolutely, certain of his age. Can I just ask him? Yes, but he can lie. Although, his positive answer will increase my confidence, perhaps, to 90%. Can I ask him for a birth certificate? Sure, but, you know, people forge those. Although, this will once again increase my confidence, to let’s say 98%. Can I perform some kind of DNA test? If he lets me, but even that could be faulty. At some point I will reach some crazy 99.99% confidence, but NEVER 100%.

More thread-appropriate example would be that when an atheist saying “there is no God,” he is likely somewhere between 51% and 99% certain that God does not exist. Or, to flip that, between 1% and 49%, that God indeed exists.

[STer]

 

 

I am completely confused as to why you're repeatedly (it seems to me )not understanding that when I talk about accuracy, I'm not talking about whether the person's belief accurately assesses reality. I'm talking about whether we accurately have comprehended what their belief is, no matter how true or false it is. The fact you might assess something as 60% likely to be true and me 12% is the entire point. People assess likelihoods differently. If I understand that you think there is a 60% chance and you understand that I think there is a 12% chance, then the process worked. We now know what each other believe, which was the goal. What am I missing?

 

I’ve been following this debate with great amusement for some time now. I think what STer is saying (pls forgive me if I'm wrong) is that we make most decisions in life not based on absolute truth, but rather on our estimate of what being presented is indeed truth. Every estimate has a confidence interval around it, as one can never be certain without complete evidence.

For example, I am pretty sure the original asker (who seems to have received his answer long time ago, btw) is under 25 years of age. Why I say that, is not important. But what is important is that I am 80% confident that he is. Is there a chance that he is older? Yes! Could I be over confident? Maybe! Could somebody else be more or less confident in this estimate? Most likely!

The reality is that I will never be 100%, or absolutely, certain of his age. Can I just ask him? Yes, but he can lie. Although, his positive answer will increase my confidence, perhaps, to 90%. Can I ask him for a birth certificate? Sure, but, you know, people forge those. Although, this will once again increase my confidence, to let’s say 98%. Can I perform some kind of DNA test? If he lets me, but even that could be faulty. At some point I will reach some crazy 99.99% confidence, but NEVER 100%.

More thread-appropriate example would be that when an atheist saying “there is no God,” he is likely somewhere between 51% and 99% certain that God does not exist. Or, to flip that, between 1% and 49%, that God indeed exists.

 

You're correct on what I'm saying except for two things:

1) Regardless of whether you or I think anyone can actually be justifiably 100% certain on something, there are many people who, at least consciously, profess to being 100% sure of things. We call them fundamentalists, for example. So if you want to know what people believe about things and ask them, you will get people saying 100% and that is worth knowing. There are people who believe things with 100% certainty, no matter how misguided some of us may feel that is.

There are even delusional people who not only believe with 100% certainty that God exists, but believe with 100% certainty that they are God. So you will find every range of belief level in this world, from 0 to 100. But that does not mean anyone actually is justified in having those levels of belief and that's another discussion.

2) My point, building on what you mentioned here (as I've repeated ad nauseum) is that not only do people assign these probabilities to things, but talking directly about the probabilities in number form is often more effective than talking about beliefs in terms of verbal labels we then assign on top of those probabilities.

With those two caveats, I think you actually grasped what I'm saying. Phew

[Existing Alternatives]

 

You're correct on what I'm saying except for two things:

1) Regardless of whether you or I think anyone can actually be justifiably 100% certain on something, there are many people who, at least consciously, profess to being 100% sure of things. We call them fundamentalists, for example. So if you want to know what people believe about things and ask them, you will get people saying 100% and that is worth knowing. There are people who believe things with 100% certainty, no matter how misguided some of us may feel that is.

There are even delusional people who not only believe with 100% certainty that God exists, but believe with 100% certainty that they are God. So you will find every range of belief level in this world, from 0 to 100. But that does not mean anyone actually is justified in having those levels of belief and that's another discussion.

2) My point, building on what you mentioned here (as I've repeated ad nauseum) is that not only do people assign these probabilities to things, but talking directly about the probabilities in number form is often more effective than talking about beliefs in terms of verbal labels we then assign on top of those probabilities.

With those two caveats, I think you actually grasped what I'm saying. Phew

 

 

 

You are (probably) correct:

1)      One can say or even convince himself that he is 100% confident. That actually would be a pretty good definition of a “fundamentalist.”

2)      I am sure there are plenty of 51% and 99% Atheists. If they focus on the “numbers” instead of the label, they would have plenty to debate about.

[Existing Alternatives]

 

In order to state that God doesn't exist we have to have absolute knowlege which we don't have. The most scientific statement I could think of would be that science can neither confirm nor deny the existance of God. Isn't this un-scientific simply deny the existense of God?

 

 

 

Coming in late into this conversation… Maybe this has been already addressed, but I have not seen any evidence of it…

I think there are three questions that need to be answered prior to starting the debate:

1.       What do you mean by “absolute knowledge”? Does it even exist?

2.       If atheists are required having it to make their case, would not theists be required having it as well?

3.       If neither party has it, can they still use the labels?

[STer]

 

2)      I am sure there are plenty of 51% and 99% Atheists. If they focus on the “numbers” instead of the label, they would have plenty to debate about.

 

There are also 100% atheists. And so yes, the fact that this one word, "atheist," is used to refer to this whole range of people who actually may have some real disagreements among them is just one of multiple reasons why I think it's more effective to go to the numbers if you really want to understand beliefs. When we're on the run and don't have time and just want a rough approximation, the words can be helpful as a quick and dirty shortcut. But I don't think just getting one of those words should give you much confidence that you've really ascertained someone's beliefs well. And when using the words is leading to endless semantic debates, at that point continuing to use them and not even try going to the numbers may reflect a desire to argue for argument's sake rather than to actually discuss each other's beliefs.

[STer]

 

 

In order to state that God doesn't exist we have to have absolute knowlege which we don't have. The most scientific statement I could think of would be that science can neither confirm nor deny the existance of God. Isn't this un-scientific simply deny the existense of God?

 

 

 

Coming in late into this conversation… Maybe this has been already addressed, but I have not seen any evidence of it…

I think there are three questions that need to be answered prior to starting the debate:

1.       What do you mean by “absolute knowledge”? Does it even exist?

2.       If atheists are required having it to make their case, would not theists be required having it as well?

3.       If neither party has it, can they still use the labels?

 

You'll notice that my suggestion of using the numbers quickly clarifies all of these questions.

1. By absolute knowledge, I believe he means having 100% certainty in belief that can also be justified objectively. He does not believe it is something human beings are capable of (neither do I, by the way.) They are capable of 100% certainty in belief, but not with the objective justification part thrown in.

2. This depends on how you define theists. Is a theist someone with 100% certainty that God exists? Or is a theist someone who has just enough certainty to believe God exists more than that he doesn't exist, for example 51% or 60% certainty? This shows why, in my view, it's easier to avoid even spending time on that question and go directly to the %'s. Anyone who believes with 100% certainty in belief would have the same requirements you mention. Less than 100% certainty in belief, whatever term you use for that person, would not.

3. Again this is basically asking "What % of certainty in belief is necessary to qualify for each term." It's a great question and one that anyone using the terms should clarify with the person they're speaking with before using them. But even if we clarify them here, the next person you talk to out in the world may have a different understanding of the word and you'll have to define them all over again. But if you use the numbers, you'll never have to bother with that and I honestly don't see the benefit of doing so.