

Beyond god and atheism: Why I am a 'possibilian' - cwtann
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727795.300-beyond-god-and-atheism-why-i-am-a-possibilian.html

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markstansbury
It's called agnosticism. It's not new.

"...in regard to the Olympic gods, speaking to a purely philosophical
audience, I would say that I am an Agnostic. But speaking popularly, I think
that all of us would say in regard to those gods that we were Atheists. In
regard to the Christian God, I should, I think, take exactly the same line."

-Bertrand Russell

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markstansbury
Here's a link to that Russell essay by the way. It's a good one.

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/8299499/Am-I-an-Atheist-or-an-
Agno...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/8299499/Am-I-an-Atheist-or-an-Agnostic-
Bertrand-Russell)

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ascuttlefish
What happened to being a good old agnostic? I think that in attempting to
fight against being pigeonholed as either a believer or a denier of god/gods,
he lights on the notion that somehow being a better (or real) scientist by
being open to possibilities is an alternative. With respect, there's already a
reasonable alternative to being either a believer in or denier of god/gods:
agnosticism. The open mind stuff just makes you a good scientist.

Edit: Oops, markstanbury beat me to it.

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lulin
I don't think agnosticism can really be called reasonable anymore. We now know
so much about the universe that believing in any specific deity, or even just
a general sense of the supernatural, seems akin to believing into Russel's
teapot. Being atheist and being open minded are not mutually exclusive.

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mike-cardwell
I don't quite get agnosticism. It's perfectly reasonable for me to say
"Superman doesn't exist" so why isn't it reasonable for me to say "God doesn't
exist" ? They're equally sensible statements...

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CamperBob
It's actually _more_ sensible for you to say "God doesn't exist," because at
least it's possible to get two people to agree on exactly who or what Superman
is.

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pjscott
If you ascribe a very low probability to the existence of a god, then I'd say
you're justified in just calling yourself an atheist. And vice versa for
theists. The big problem I notice among a lot of people who identify as
agnostics (or "possibilians", if you prefer) is that they're treating lack of
absolute certainty as synonymous with lack of _any_ certainty.

Of _course_ we can't be completely certain. But the same goes for most
everything else outside of mathematics, and I usually don't see people being
so exaggeratedly careful to withhold judgement like this except on really
touchy, emotionally charged subjects like religion. This is a double standard.

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nosse
Probability and religion are not well suited terms to use together,
probabilities are for stuff you can measure, religious stuff is usually
something you cant measure.

The math would go something like this X is gods existence with given
definition of god, Y is all the possibilities where god may or may not exist.
Then probability of god is X/Y and you should get somekind of percentage for
it.

Example, Let's define god as creator god, plus there is the possibility of no
god, wikipedia has 109 different entities for creator god and there is roughly
eight(?) different breeds of atheism. So we have 109/(109+8)

We get 93,2% probability of god existing.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Creator_gods>

I'm not really trying to say anything about gods existence. I'm trying to say
that don't use math where it's not applicable. To me probability is highly
mathematical concept.

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pjscott
That's just obvious misuse of probability, and if you made such silly
assumptions in a probability class you would be hard pressed to get any
partial credit. Who says that all the god-possibilities in Wikipedia are
equally likely? You could misapply probability to the proposition that various
forms of transportation would come crashing through my wall, and come up with
a fairly high probability of some form of automobile crashing through my wall.
The fact that you can do math wrong doesn't mean the math doesn't apply.

However, if you see (for example) someone turn into a pillar of salt, and hear
a booming voice from the sky proclaiming itself god, then that should make the
existence of that god more probable in your estimation. Ditto for cars
crashing through walls: if it happened more often, then this evidence should
raise your estimate of the probability of suddenly having your wall knocked
down by someone's car. This doesn't have to be complicated; it's actually very
straightforward.

To you, probability may be a highly mathematical concept that doesn't apply to
everything. To me, probability is how we express uncertainty. It's a powerful
way of describing the way the universe works, and we ignore or misrepresent it
at our own peril.

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cwtann
I like his take on this. I normally describe myself as an atheist but only
because I don't believe that any of the religions I've studied are true. But I
am open to other possibilities and I think this guy describes that well.

~~~
CamperBob
Is there anyone outside of a mental institution who _isn't_ open to other
possibilities? There has to be something seriously wrong with you if you are
willing to state _a priori_ that you will not consider unequivocal evidence of
a new phenomenon, should it appear.

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joshuacc
While it's true that few would explicitly state that, there are certainly
people on both sides that feel free to ignore inconvenient evidence.

Not exactly a shocking revelation, but humans aren't purely logic-driven
beings.

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pjscott
Could you name some inconvenient evidence that people on the atheist side tend
to ignore? I'm not claiming that there isn't such evidence, but often when
people criticize "people on both sides", they're committing an equivocation
fallacy because it sounds wise. I'm curious to see if you did, too.

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joshuacc
The argument from morality is the first that comes to mind. Few atheists are
willing to really embrace the moral nihilism that a materialist philosophy
seems to require.

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CamperBob
_Few atheists are willing to really embrace the moral nihilism that a
materialist philosophy seems to require._

My dog does OK with a philosophy of pure materialism, I figure I can, too.

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joshuacc
Unless your dog is uniquely talented, it is incapable of holding any
philosophy, materialist or not.

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CamperBob
And yet he doesn't kill and eat my family the moment I turn my back. He
doesn't need philosophy as a source of morality, and he doesn't need faith...
he only needs socialization.

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joshuacc
I think you're confusing moral nihilism (the philosophical proposition) and
moral/immoral behavior. The two are not directly correlated.

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CamperBob
Perhaps; can you elaborate on the difference? What exactly would be the
property of a social animal -- dogs, humans, whatever -- that allows it to
restrain its own baser instincts? In humans the term morality is often used to
describe this property, but I'll admit I don't know how correct that is.

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joshuacc
Well, to cite Wikipedia, "Moral nihilism is the meta-ethical view that nothing
is moral or immoral."

The primary opposing viewpoint is moral realism, which holds that statements
like "Intentionally killing an innocent person is immoral" are both meaningful
and capable of being evaluated as a truth claim.

In general, I believe the ability of a social animal to restrain "baser"
instincts would be referred to as social cooperation. For humans, a moral
realist would say that while morality is closely related, it also can't be
reduced to _merely_ social cooperation.

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CamperBob
_For humans, a moral realist would say that while morality is closely related,
it also can't be reduced to merely social cooperation._

Sure, I'd buy that. But I will also stand by my assertion that what you're
calling "social cooperation" is _sufficient_ for a workable morality to
emerge. At no point is there a necessity for religion.

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thisduck
Atheism is in response to theism. One can be a believer and be agnostic,
likewise you can be atheist and agnostic as well.

The existence of god is as yet unverifiable in the same way the existence of
Bilbo Baggins is unverifiable. So what?

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sophacles
I think this is a good example of meta-contrarianism. (see hn discussion/link
at: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1730731>).

