Again, an FDR cross-post but essentially self-contained. I presume you know of or can access the basic agnostic and atheist arguments on the web.

Logical Refutations of God, and thereby Agnosticism:
Gods are usually defined as having supernatural powers, which is logical rubbish; anything which interacts with Universe must be part of the Universe and must behave in accordance with its properties; if either of these were false there is no logical meaning to 'existence'.

Omnipotence and omniscience are mutually incompatible, if one knows all future events one has no power to 'change' things; and the nonsensical supernatural 'omnipotence' makes foreknowledge impossible since no future conditions are based upon the properties of what presently exists.

Omnipotence likewise rules out a coherent Universe, if god 'exists' then it is impossible to make meaningful statements of any type, the fact that reality does exist demonstrates (necessarily) its coherency and thus ensures that god (along with all supernaturalism) is impossible.

Omniscience, have absolutely no relationship to identity. No personality/existential perspective is coherent, nor is any goal orientation.

Omnipresence just makes no sense whatsoever. A thing which has no spatial or material relationships does not 'exist everywhere', it simply does not exist.

No evidence for an omnipotent being could ever be produced, since all situations are 'compatible' with omnipotence, and thus there is no evidence which could ever weigh in favour of gods existence. It is therefor not meaningful to assert that such existence is 'possible', but if no conceivable evidence can be demonstrated even in principle then something can not be rationally justified.

'God' is a meaningless word, due to the above contradictions, and thereby does not existant by definition. Likewise, if no knowledge can be had of 'god' as agnostics claim then we do not know what 'god' means, IE it means nothing, and 'god' does not exist. All such debates regarding god's logical and scientific status are thus reduced to meaningless nonsense, where no one knows what he is talking about.

Empirical Refutations of God, and thereby Agnosticism:


Complexity Argument: The nonexistence of a Universe creator/runner is completely indefensible empirically because any being which could create what's here would exist without evolutionary processes, thus making his hyper-complex nature a totally outrageous assumption with no explanation whatsoever advanced.

Probability: Even if we granted god a possibly mysterious ontological status (which I do not), the impossibility of definite proof of nonexistence does not negate rational beliefs based on probability. Given all the evidence against, and the lack for, and the inherent problems with the concept, to say that god 'might exist' in this sense is like saying 'centipedes on Pluto might exist'; indeed gods ontological status has far more problems than Plutonian centipedes.


A person who lacks a belief in a god is an atheist, whatever he believes about the epistemelogical status of the question is. If one does not believe without evidence, IE without reason, an agnostic who believes knowledge is impossible must be an atheist and must remain so.

George H. Smith and Richard Dawkins both deal beautifully with the question of whether we can make statements about a 'gods' existence, as well as critiques of the agnostic position. I myself, as you might guess, hold agnosticism completely untenable and mostly camoulflage (since an agnostic must rationally be an atheist anyway). God I hold is a nonsensical bunch of gibberish, as all other supernaturalism, making this somewhat of a pet peeve of mine.

I hate such unwarranted deference from supposed 'free thinkers' to possibly the most absurd and refuted doctrine ever promoted; aside from supernaturalism generally. I think it also stems from the fact that even most liberal intellectuals have no real understanding of basic logic due to the positivist influence. Much of these last two paragraphs are also mirrored in economics/political economy. Why people bother to go ten miles out of their way to be rationalists and then act just like fundamentalist idiots when their PC doctrines are questioned I will never sympathise with, its an obnoxious hypocrisy and intellectual cowardice.

Of course there are honest agnostics (and statists) but that does not mean the doctrine has any claim to logical integrity; and I find that many people who hold these ideas go straight to pseudo-argumentative condescension which anyone interested in debating would refrain from.

Intersekt, your position is calling for your defense!

I'm not trying to build an defense of agnosticism here, but rather just going to go over these defenses of aethism 1 by 1.

vichy wrote:

Logical Refutations of God, and thereby Agnosticism: Gods are usually defined as having supernatural powers, which is logical rubbish; anything which interacts with Universe must be part of the Universe and must behave in accordance with its properties; if either of these were false there is no logical meaning to 'existence'.

I'm assuming that by supernatural you mean whose nature stems from something outside this universe. I don't see why this is logical rubbish. It just depends on where you define the borders of the universe. If you define the universe as that without borders, then you would be correct as the universe would include the supernatural. If you claim the universe is that which contains the consistent properties in which we are presently immersed, maybe not. To assume that there are no places where the properties of the universe are different from how they are here on earth, is a very lazy assumption. The known universe could be a bubble in a multi-verse it could be a computer program in the matrix, there could be whole regions of space where the cosmological constants are completely different. Anything that acts 100% within our part of the universe would have to act in a way in accordance with the properties in which it exists. Something else could exist which can cross property boundaries and still cohesively exist and interact with our "known" universe in a way that could be illogical to us. The fact that we have no evidence of this is irrelevant to the possibility. The fact that it is possible to us is only relevant to us to the extent that this possibility might someday be useful to us. Every person has to make a cost benefit analysis between dealing with known issues and dealing with possibilities. Dealing with the possibility that there may be an entity that created our "known" universe and has 100% power over it ranks pretty low in general utility, however, that didnt stop you from dealing with it in this post...

vichy wrote:

Omnipotence and omniscience are mutually incompatible, if one knows all future events one has no power to 'change' things; and the nonsensical supernatural 'omnipotence' makes foreknowledge impossible since no future conditions are based upon the properties of what presently exists.

First I don't think that omnipotence and omniscience are required as part of the definition of a god. When you remove that pre-requisite this is a non-argument.
However, If there is a universe for every possible quantum or supernatural action then it would be possible to be both omniscient and omnipotent at the same time. The choice could simply move the focus of the omnipotent, omniscient entity to a different universe. If your definition has no borders it doesn't make sense per say, but I don't think this is a problem with the agnostic definition. Even the theistic definitions or explanations have multiple universes, heaven, hell and earth... So I don't think we need to limit discussions to the universal universe. Even if we did I still believe there are scope limitations to logic which you are failing to take into account.

vichy wrote:

Omnipotence likewise rules out a coherent Universe, if god 'exists' then it is impossible to make meaningful statements of any type, the fact that reality does exist demonstrates (necessarily) its coherency and thus ensures that god (along with all supernaturalism) is impossible.

You made an assertion without even attempting to back it up logically or empirically. How does omnipotence rule out a coherent universe. What if this "universe" is a matrix simulation. The programmer could be considered god. Lets assume that he can exit the program at anytime, freezing it in place. At that time he can change anything and everything and reenter the program and start it running again. This would be omnipotence for everyone in the program. Considering he could also stop it and examine every piece of data, he would also be omniscient, IF and WHEN he wanted to be. This might not meet your preconceived notions of what omnipotence and omniscience are, but you would never be able to tell the difference as someone within the program/universe.

vichy wrote:

Omniscience, have absolutely no relationship to identity. No personality/existential perspective is coherent, nor is any goal orientation.

Again another unbased assertion. As before this might only be true if there is only one borderless universe. Also, I don't see where goal orientation or personality is a necessary prerequisite. Maybe for the anthropomorphous god of theists, but agnostics don't place this prerequisite here.
Also,(and again) I don't think the theists ever posited a single universe in which case this argument fails completely. God could be omniscient of our universe but not of the muliti(meta)-verse. Maybe the word universe is incompatible with the idea of multi-verses, but then we can use another word if you want. This reality? If you object to the very idea of multiple universes (by definition), then we can use a different word.

vichy wrote:

Omnipresence just makes no sense whatsoever. A thing which has no spatial or material relationships does not 'exist everywhere', it simply does not exist.

Besides from this being another unbased assertion, I don't think this makes much sense either. However, I don't think material existence is a necessary prerequisite for interacting with this universe. Certainly any interactions would appear to be illogical or without cause and effect and you may never be able to determine the causes if you exist 100% within the universe, that doesn't make it impossible. I guess an entity which is bigger than the universe, ie has spatial dimension in at least 3 dimensions and is larger than our universe, could overlap our universe and be omnipresent. For all we know its base molecules could be galaxies to it. Would this be our god, I don't think so (not without other attributes), but an omnipresent entity could exist.

vichy wrote:

No evidence for an omnipotent being could ever be produced, since all situations are 'compatible' with omnipotence, and thus there is no evidence which could ever weigh in favour of gods existence. It is therefor not meaningful to assert that such existence is 'possible', but if no conceivable evidence can be demonstrated even in principle then something can not be rationally justified.

You can't prove anything. All science is theoretical. The odds are that any "proven" theory will hold true going forward but there is possibility that it wont. Since this possibility exists there is no conceivable way to prove 100% positively anything. Does that make all science irrelevant as well? Even putting aside empiricism as a potential flaw with a given theory, there is the possibility that another theory will come along and invalidate the previous theory and make it irrelevant? Does that make all knowledge irrelevant? I could be assign the characteristic of omnipotence to an entity with the same surety that I can say the law of gravity is universal. In other words, I could be pretty darn sure but never prove it. You you are illustrating is a weakness of logic and science not a disproof of anything.

vichy wrote:

'God' is a meaningless word, due to the above contradictions, and thereby does not existant by definition. Likewise, if no knowledge can be had of 'god' as agnostics claim then we do not know what 'god' means, IE it means nothing, and 'god' does not exist.

I think that non-contradictory definitions of god can be created. If you choose to set up a straw man how is that my concern? I could choose to call god, the creator of the "known" universe. Where known universe implies that multi-verses are possible and what we call the known universe is the quadrillions?? of light years of space and time that contains the energy in which we exist. I don't need to attach omnipotence to this definition, nor any of the other possibly contradictory attributes to it either. I'm pretty sick of of atheists always creating arguments that will lead to 1=2 and then saying "I told you so!"

vichy wrote:

All such debates regarding god's logical and scientific status are thus reduced to meaningless nonsense, where no one knows what he is talking about.

Yes, but you set up the straw man...

vichy wrote:

Complexity Argument: The nonexistence of a Universe creator/runner is completely indefensible empirically because any being which could create what's here would exist without evolutionary processes, thus making his hyper-complex nature a totally outrageous assumption with no explanation whatsoever advanced.

Any assumption about how god was created is baseless. It could have easily have evolved in a meta-verse or alternate universe.

vichy wrote:

Probability: Even if we granted god a possibly mysterious ontological status (which I do not), the impossibility of definite proof of nonexistence does not negate rational beliefs based on probability. Given all the evidence against, and the lack for, and the inherent problems with the concept, to say that god 'might exist' in this sense is like saying 'centipedes on Pluto might exist'; indeed gods ontological status has far more problems than Plutonian centipedes.

Well, I don't see how you could even begin to assign probabilities to it. In fact, its really quite inane to try. In any case, low probability does not negate possibility. This is an attack on theism not agnosticism. As such I'm not sure why you would include it. You basically said. "Even if I am an agnostic(i concede the possibility), I know the theists are full of shit"... good for you? I know theists are full of shit too.

vichy wrote:

A person who lacks a belief in a god is an atheist

Well if you want to define away the agnostic position feel free. Kind of silly to write a whole page about something you just made irrelevant. I'm not sure but this feels like an escape hatch to me. This feels like you are saying "If someone does find problems with my arguments, I am pretty sure they will not really believe in god, just his possibility, and as such I can escape to an alternative definition of atheism and I WIN!"

I personally don't use that definition. Its neither the strong nor weak definition I am accustomed to. In any case all your previous arguments were made from the traditional strong atheist position so I will ignore this statement from now out.

As for the rest of post... well, that sounds way too much like Holy Moly to me. Lets paint agnostics as childish, mentally imbalanced idiots, with no grasp of logic or reason who are as dangerous as theists... Now I see why you felt you needed the escape hatch you built in with the previous quote. I'm not sure why you wasted your time with this post? It seems you just wanted to have some pseudo logical grounds on which to bash people who disagree with you? At least with your "pet peeve" comment you fairly stated that you were arguing from emotion.

What most atheists seem to ignore is the win/lose structure of agnosticism/atheism debate.

For an agnostic to be proven wrong is a win for everybody. An agnostic would gain knowledge and certainty from losing. Gaining certainty and knowledge is far more valuable than winning a debate. The atheist would win the argument. This would be awesome! Everybody wins!

On the other hand for the agnostic to win the argument, is a win lose situation. The agnostic wins the argument, but the atheist loses knowledge and certainty. This is both uncomfortable and scary.

This I think is why agnosticism angers atheists. Atheist are on the defensive just like theists. Agnostics are sad that it keeps turning into an emotional debate.

A god of monotheism (and others, Zeus is called 'all powerful) is explicitly described as being outside and beyond the laws of nature, or superior to them, prior to substance and not dependent on it. God is claimed to have created everything. Most of your defenses have no relationship to the actual 'god' figures, but rather something akin to Dan Simmon's 'gods' in his novel "Olympos".

You have in essence defended strangely dimensioned superhuman with vast powers would be god-like but not the god most religions defend, and there is still no coherent reason to presume the existence of such an entity is even possible. The laws of logic do not and can not vary, though there may be potential differences in physical laws as regards the properties of such a 'dimension' or whatnot, anything which exists has exists precisely because it obeys the laws of logic and physics; though their unusual composition, origin or other physical property may give them properties and capacities which can not be achieved by or within our present confines.

In addition, the fact that you can conceive a plausible outline of physics for this, all you're essentially doing is explaining their super-powers in comic book logic; there's no evidence or really theory to it. It demonstrates nothing, it explains nothing; there's nothing wrong with such speculation but there is also no reason to believe it is true, and we may discover that it is physically impossible at least to the degree of exceeding C in 3 dimensional space. It does no good to point out that other dimensions more amicable to velocity can be imagined to exist, I can imagine there is a platinum elephant the size of Texas at a distance too far to see, but it would be absurd to say that science can say nothing about the platinum elephant's existence; science (and reason, which underlies it) would simply dictate a lack of belief in the Platinum Elephant since to believe it did exist would be logically and empirically unjustified. The 'alien-god' whose physical makeup render him undetectable in principle (if this is even meaningful) would be in even worse shape since there would never be a good reason for his existence to be accepted. In fact the assertion of his existence, forever unknowable, makes it epistemelogically equivalent to non-existence. We would be as justified as saying 'There is no god' as we are in denying the existence of the distant platinum elephant.

If you are thinking that nonetheless the case remains that a 'god' could exist upon which science could have nothing to say is to ignore what science and knowledge are, which is to say reasons and facts examined in accordance with logical consistency and object relationship modeling. There is no 'absolute knowledge' whatsoever, such a concept has nothing to do with 'knowledge' in actuality. Absolute knowledge and proof is a completely mistaken notion, since all knowledge is and must be had by somebody in a specific situation; there is no valid basis for any statement of fact whatsoever except that which can be justified by such logical and evidential methods, and which can only be disproved by using logic and evidence to demonstrate the contrary. Indeed, the concept of a god who 'is undetectable in principle' has no cognitive content whatsoever, nor does the assertion that he 'exists'.

There is no known explanatory principle for the development of complex organisms other than evolution, and no such being could be said to have 'created' the Universe.

So to address gods proper all my initial points remain, that they are metaphysically, ontologically and epistemelogically meaningless and utterly impossible ten ways from sunday. As regards your alien supermen, they may be conceptually possible but there is absolutely no reason to believe they do exist, little reason to expect they would and even less to associate them with a deistic god (unless you're writing Star Trek episodes). Atheism even with this definition of a god is still the natural presumption, and it is hardly imaginable what sort of evidence could disprove it and would in any case have nothing to do with theistic gods and religion. Superheroes and aliens are certainly not 'worthy' of worship, nor 'divine' in origin; they may be superior in many ways even from our own perspective but they are nothing but existential beings within the same reality and ruled by the same laws of logic

As for the rest of post... well, that sounds way too much like Holy Moly to me. Lets paint agnostics as childish, mentally imbalanced idiots, with no grasp of logic or reason who are as dangerous as theists...
No, that's not what I meant at all. I simply meant that many people have psychological reasons for preferring it, as well as an unfamiliarity with the workings of alternatives. I do not doubt that one can be an honest agnostic (lack sufficient knowledge) but agnostics who believe something is unknowable in principle (the theological standard as well as the agnostic) ignores the fundamental logical structure of anything which exists; we may not in practice ever map the furthest star or unravel the makeup of the Universe but it is itself logical and, if we had the means, would be comprehensible in principle.

There are many atheists and agnostic who have poor or muddled reasons for their beliefs, however I see no way for it to be reconciled with epistemology, metaphysics, ontology or to make anything coherent about it at all. Especially in the form which treats knowledge of god as impossible and then acts as though that means chances are '50/50' for his existence it seems nothing more than an arbitrary assertion about one particular nonsensical proposition which has no special status except in the minds of people who didn't know any better. Propositions about god are no different than any other proposition, logic is logic, there is only one reason which exists and anyone who says there are 'alternative' forms of reason has failed to grasp what reason is; essentially saying that some things are not true while being true. This renders the statement itself into as much gibberish as a trascendential omnipotent deity. Vacuous notions abound in theology, and most agnostic arguments suffer from the same problems for (in the first place) treating nonsense as though it could be meaningfully discussed, and employing various techniques of solopsism or (existential) scepticism; in their own arguments they undermine the possibility of knowledge, meaning, communication and understanding (omnipotence poses the same problem); anything which exists does so within a strictly logical, consistent reality where knowledge is possible by the standard of reason. Any attempt to undermine this is only meaningless sound.[/i]

Note to self: respond to this when you get home!

(So it goes into my conversations window...)

(I'm an agnostic)

Just got back and wanted to finish my reply.

It seems to me that you have this notion that agnosticism is a concession to theists. I think that this notion is important because it colors all your criticism of agnosticism. I do not argue that there are agnostics who are agnostic because they are cowards. Basically they are skeptical of god but they don't want to anger their peers (theists) so they throw up their arms and say "I don't know". These people deserve only a modicum more respect than theists. I myself think that atheism is as bad as theism in many respects. Both are incredibly arrogant views. Simply because they claim certainty about metaphysics. Metaphysics by definition simply can never be physically proven.

To claim that logic is universal is a metaphysical argument. I see logic as a short cut to empiricism. Its a useful tool. Rather than having to empirically validate consistency within the universe, people have created rules and rules sets that allow them to skip the empirical validation and make assumptions. This is what logic is. It is a set of rules created through empirical observation that allow you to quickly make truth judgments without doing all the necessary empirical validation. This is a creation of mind. To assume that everything that ever is and ever will be behaves logically is a pretty big leap. To assume that things will stop acting logically in your lifetime or in this area of space, is also a pretty big leap, but I am not running around making absolute claims. I understand the utility of logic and scientific method and use it for its utility. You see this utility and call it truth. Because in your mind don't believe that logic will ever lose its utility you consider this truth to be universal. This is understandable but also ego-centric and self serving.

I consider the usefulness of atheism to come down to simply this. It is a weapon against theists, and apparently agnostics too. It serves no other real purpose. It is not a basis for building other knowledge. It wont teach you science, (if anything your certainty in this area could blind you to other possibilities in other areas). Its most useful function is as a way to attack other people. You could help theists remove their faulty beliefs without ever stating that you know for a fact god doesn't exist. So you don't need atheism to cure people of illusion. You can simply point out that they have no basis other than hearsay to believe what they were taught and that the people had a lot of selfish reasons for lying to them. But atheism is about tearing down what it considers to be illusions, not shining a light on them. It is an us vs them mentality. Atheists are angered by agnostics because agnostics claim to believe in the utility of logic and rational thought but come to a different conclusion. How dare they!!! Don't they know its a war???? In a war if you claim to be on the same side and then refuse to attack the enemy with every weapon availabile you are a traitor and worse than the enemy! At the end of my stay at FDR I added the Moby Dick quote to my signature. Because it seemed to me that Stef was on a crusade to kill his white whale(family,theism,state which he groups as one entity). In my podcast with him he even emphatically proclaimed "Don't give them an out!!!". Meaning that somehow agnostics are aiding and abetting the enemy! This is the feeling I get from a lot of hard core atheists. So intent on taking down theists that they have accepted another unprovable argument based solely on the fact that it is contradictory to the enemies base argument and as such more direct in its ability to attack them.

The theist definitions of god were never conceptualized in order to be logically consistent, but rather, they were created to enslave people. So atheists attack at this weak point, its lack of logical consistency! When an agnostic or devils advocate offers a logically consistent definition of god, retreat to lack of empiricism, reframe the debate, throw up strawmen arguments... do anything because open mindedness is not efficient enough to attack theism. God damn it we need a weapon! Atheism is a weapon! Agnosticism makes no claims how is that useful in attacking theists?!?

Sorry to be overly dramatic. Anyway, before you imply... again... that I don't believe in logic. That's not true. I just don't accept its universality as an axiom. It may very well be universal and it generally is more useful to accept its universality(to my life which is a pretty narrow scope) than to not, but that is not proof of its universality. Apparently you seem to think that logic's universality doesn't need to be proven (that its some metaphysical truism beyond question) or you achieved meta-omniscience, a prerequisite to proving logic's Universality. You realize that you have essentially made logic to be your godhead?

Anyway, like i said before. As soon as you conceded that there are definitions of god that are logically consistent, you conceded the logical argument. So your belief in the divinity of logic is besides the point.

All that's left is empiricism. All I can say is we know next to nothing about the universe as a whole. The human race has been like a nanosecond as compared to the life of a man and from this tiny fleck of time, you claim to know the man? The planet earth is like an electron on the toenail of a man and you claim to know the man? Please. Its an embarrassing argument.

My two cents: Towards a Plausible Agnosticism

I honestly don't have the energy to make an elaborate defense, but the notion that logic is 'empirically derived' is nonsensical, unless one simply means that awareness is a prerequisite to knowledge. As I have said before, I am an Aristotiliean to a great extent and perhaps the most important thing I take from Aristotle is that non-contradiction is not a logical principle, it is a metaphysical principle without which there is no 'existence' whatsoever. Every attempt to deny the universality of logic, moreover, is utterly gibberish in the first place since it must appeal to a consistent logic by which true and false both exist and are discernable in principle. When someone says "logic is not universal" or, alternatively, says "other forms of logic are possible" that person is not making any statement whatsoever. There is no need, or even meaning, to 'argue' with such a contention because its an empty phrase, on can merely break it down and demonstrate its erroneous nature.

The idea that the Universe does not behave 'logically' is corellary to saying that nothing exists, nothing happened and no statements are or could be made. And, scientism's popularity aside, neither quantum physics and chaos theory nor a thousand monkeys with black holes could alter this one iota. Another point is that scientists are often totally lacking in an understanding of philosophy outside a narrow range of criticality and empiricism (And often faultily educated at that) and their extrapolations of metaphysics from functional mathematics is completely asinine and backwards.

Wittgenstein took care of this problem 80 years ago in the Tractatus.
Reminds me that Witty was twice the philosopher Bertrand Russell was.

A interesting thing on logic.
Calculus was considered illogical. Zero wasn't used in Greece because it was considered illogical. How can something non-existent be counted? The Mayans didn't have logic to hinder them.

DeCartes was the first to put 0 before 1 and refused negative numbers because they were illogical. How about i?

Georg Cantor was hounded to insanity by his teacher for his "illogical" ideas on infinity.

I just read Zero The Biography of a Dangerous Idea.

Sometimes things that appear illogical are not and the very logic we use isn't worth any more than the assumptions we insert into it.

Whatever our position on specific instances or conclusions, which are debateable, to argue against non-contradiction is to literally argue against the possibility of argument. To reject non-contradiction is to invalidate all statements.
Whatever was or is considered illogical is beside the point, the point is that no argument has any meaning whatsoever divorced from the principle of non-contradiction. God and supernaturalism in general fall to this because they quite frankly don't mean anything. Empty statements aren't even false, they're gibberish.