debate-points, semantics, philosophy, ignosticismDiscussed elsewhere are the differences between ignostic and atheistic positions and how they manifest in both semantics and behavior.
But my question is whether anyone knows of any way to assail the ignostic or theological noncognitivist positions (described below)?
I’ll use the same quote regarding the definition of ignosticism as in the other discussion.
[Ignosticism] can be defined as encompassing two related views about the existence of God:]1
- The view that a coherent definition of God must be presented before the question of the existence of god can be meaningfully discussed. Furthermore, if that definition is unfalsifiable, the ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the question of the existence of God (per that definition) is meaningless. In this case, the concept of God is not considered meaningless; the term “God” is considered meaningless.
- The second view is synonymous with theological noncognitivism, and skips the step of first asking “What is meant by ‘God’?” before proclaiming the original question “Does God exist?” as meaningless.
———-EDIT———-
Any successful answer will not confuse agnosticism with ignosticism, they are completely different. They do not even have the same kinds of consequences: the agnostic is making a claim about what can be known, while the ignostic is making a claim about the (potential) non-meaningfulness of words. In the same way that you wouldn’t say you don’t know whether or not blicket exists, because the word “blicket” doesn’t mean anything, the ignostic doesn’t say that she doesn’t know whether god exists, because the word “god” doesn’t mean anything. Additionally, if the word “god” does mean something, then by premise, “god” is falsifiable and meets the criterion for most skeptics to be potentially believed in and cannot be rejected out of hand.
OK, OK…so a joke answer wasn’t up your…alley.
The way you’d “attack” ignosticism depends on which form it takes.
For form 1) propose a falsifiable definition of “God” - done. Ignostic can then take a position on the existence of the thing so defined.
For form 2) prove that there is a cognitive concept behind the word “God” - done. Ignostic must refute the proof, abandon this variant of ignosticism, or abandon the pursuit of truth.
(Before we start, let’s agree to one idea: the term “God” cannot simply refer to Nature in any meaningful way, since it makes no sense to have two terms for the exact same thing. And since Nature is the less controversial of the two, we should use Nature if we mean Nature. That means that Pantheism is really nothing by Metaphysical Materialism with a fuzzy-wuzzy name).
The problem with “Ignosticism” is the same as with Deism. There’s a distinction without a cause made here, where the “concept” of God is considered distinct somehow with “God” itself. The fundamental problem with Deism is that the concept of God they promote is one where God does not (cannot, will not) have any effect in the world. There’s certainly no credible evidence of divine intervention in Nature. That means that:
There’s no God, however defined, as long as it implies that such a “thing” could impact the world in any way. (Atheism)
There’s an x, which does not, cannot or will not act in Nature, which means it has no bearing at all on the Universe, but which may have created it . [Note the inherent contradiction]. That x is what is to be referred to as God. (Deism)
There might be an x, which could possibly have created the world, but which certainly does not act in Nature, since there’s no credible evidence for it. In any case, we can never know even if the idea of x makes sense. (Ignosticism).
In both cases 2 and 3, X is a useless concept, not just a useless word (“God”). As long as we agree that there’s no evidence of divine intervention in the world, X has no effect; if it has no effect, it cannot be used to explain anything, and hence can be completely dispensed with. That is why I’m an atheist, and nothing else.
There are 2 possible exit clauses for this the way I see it:
Well, there’s no evidence for it. That in itself is an issue. There’s not even a proposed theoretical mechanism or hypothetical explanation as to how such a Creation by a X outside of Nature could possibly occur. Saying X created the Universe explains absolutely nothing. Just the fact that we may need to explain how the Universe started does not justify the creation of a hypothesis that does not explain how the Universe started.
Of course this is utterly contradictory, but it is a view held by many. They will admit that there’s no evidence of divine intervention in the world, but they will also claim that they have a “soul”, which has “free will” and is not really of the world, but which is the true source of their actions.
So what’s the point of claiming to be able to say nothing about a “God”? Does that excuse maintaining a belief in such a X, however you define it? All I need to know about X to discuss it is that it is understood to stand outside Nature. I do not need to define it further than that.
One of the more interesting parts of Dawkins’ ‘The God Delusion’(in my opinion) is where he talks about agnosticism. There is a subset of the atheist community that holds agnostics are simply too afraid to recognize that god doesn’t exist.
It seems to me that ignosticism is fundamentally related to agnosticism in that both effectively assert that we don’t know if god exists; the difference is that the ignostic would assert that we don’t really know what god is supposed to be so how can we know one way or another?
Taking this position is both reasonable and frustrating. By beginning with a standard for definition that effectively invalidates the god of every religion doesn’t do anything but maintain that the god of those religions doesn’t exist.
So if that’s the position, why not just say god doesn’t exist? Why even open yourself up to the criticism that Dawkins aims at agnostics? I think it might even be more appropriately aimed at ignostics, who seem more inclined to engage a theist in this kind of a debate.
All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.