The Shallow, Self-refuting, Incoherent, and Illogical Thinking of `Agnositc` ~ Vincent Bugliosi

Religio-Poltical Talk (RPT) ^ | 8-26-2011 | Papa Giorgio

[SeanG200]

[Listen to audio from Vincent Bugliosi]

✓ Atheism: The belief that there is no God. This is typically the conviction that there is no personal Creator of the universe, and no powerful, incorporeal, perfect being in heaven or anywhere else.

✓ Agnosticism: The state of not-knowing whether there is a God or not. The humble agnostic says that he doesn’t know whether there is a God. The less humble agnostic says that you don’t, either. The least humble agnostic thinks that we can’t ever really know.

Tom Morris, Philosophy for Dummies (Foster City, CA: IDG Books, 1999), 238.

[...]

….To begin, pantheists claim that God is unknowable because it [God] is above and beyond human logic. In other words, we are told that we cannot intellectually comprehend God because he is beyond all understanding. However, this is nonsensical and self-defeating statement. Why? “Because the very act of claiming that God is beyond logic is a logical statement about God.” Also, to say that we cannot know or comprehend God, as do the agnostics, is to say that we know God. How? I will answer this with a response to agnostic claims by the associate professor of philosophy and government at the University of Texas at Austin:

[...]

[SeanG200]

When a statement fails to satisfy itself (i.e., to conform to its own criteria of validity or acceptability), it is self-refuting…. Consider some examples. “I cannot say a word in English” is self-refuting when uttered in English. “I do not exist” is self-refuting, for one must exist to utter it. The claim “there are no truths” is self-refuting. If it is false, then it is false. But is it is true, then it is false as well, for in that case there would be no truths, including the statement itself.

[Artemis Webb]

I can’t tell from the excerpt if Vincent Bugliosi is a proponent or an opponent of agnosticism. Does it matter though? Does anybody who reads “Helter Skelter” (Bugliosi’s only claim to fame) really give a crap what his religious beliefs are?

I didn’t think so.

[dog breath]

My pantheist friends which include Buddhists and Neopagans believe God is knowable because from their beliefs God is inherent in the blades of grass and within themselves. They do believe that some things are a mystery but that discovering the divinity is one of their functions in life. My Agnostic friends, who are not pantheists are the ones who claim that God is unknowable, which I think is a cop- out.

[FromTheSidelines]

Ultimately, if you could know for certain that there is a God, then you have no need for faith. Faith in God requires that you cannot know for certain there is a God - you simply believe it must be true.

[running_dog_lackey]

“Faith in God requires that you cannot know for certain there is a God - you simply believe it must be true.”

But then faith in God is really faith that the men who wrote the bible didn’t lie, isn’t it?

[FromTheSidelines]

Tangentially, but even then not required. Faith, by definition, means belief without basis; faith is simply belief without cause. Belief in God does not mandate belief in the men who wrote the Bible, or even their accuracy. It simply is.

Looking for logic or reason or consistency or factual basis when dealing with faith is to look for spoons for worms or smartphones for chickens; they have nothing to do with faith, they are orthogonal to the question of faith and the beliefs carried.

[RitchieAprile]

some quotes:

The Christian God: “God cannot be all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing at the same time. These are irreconcilable virtues in a world overflowing with the bloody crops of evil.”

Darwin and evolution: “Although they may be right, I can say that viscerally I fine it difficult to conceptualize the notion of bacteria evolving into Mozart.”

Intelligent Design: “How modern Christianity can hang its supposedly intellectual, logical, and reasoned hat on this theory is beyond me.”

Prayer: “In my opinion, two working hands can achieve far more that 100 million coupled ones.”

Atheism: “If the fulcrum of the debate is faith, since faith can be defined as the belief in something that cannot be proved by evidence, why isn’t the belief that there is no God any less faith-based than the belief by theists that there is?”

In his defense of agnosticism, Bugliosi contends, “Because God and the meaning of life are impenetrable mysteries, agnosticism is the only intelligent, strong position one can take on the question of God’s existence. Doubt is divine in that it impels a search for the truth. It opens the door to knowledge. Faith puts a lock on the door.”

[muir_redwoods]

How about I say that no one has stated any positive assertion regarding the existence of god convincingly to my satisfaction? That is a logical statement that requires no further proof since it is subjective and it makes no impact upon the beliefs others hold.

[SeanG200]

I will post a conversation I had with a Buddhist that is included in my chapter of my book: • My initial engagement: Does the idea of "violence" as a moral good or a moral evil truly exist in the Buddhist mindset? What I mean is that according to a major school of Buddhism, isn't there a denial that distinctions exist in reality... that separate "selves" is really a false perception? Language is considered something the Buddhist must get beyond because it serves as a tool that creates and makes these apparently illusory distinctions more grounded, or rooted in "our" psyche. For instance, the statement that "all statements are empty of meaning," would almost be self refuting, because, that statement -- then -- would be meaningless. So how can one go from that teaching inherent to Buddhistic thought and say that self-defense (and using WWII as an example) is really meaningful. Isn't the [Dalai] Lama drawing distinction by assuming the reality of Aristotelian logic in his responses to questions? (He used at least three Laws of Logic [thus, drawing distinctions using Western principles]: The Law of Contradiction; the Law of Excluded Middle; and the Law of Identity.) Curious. • They Call Him James Ure, responds: You're right that language is just a tool and in the end a useless one at that but It's important to be able run a blog. That or teach people the particulars of the religion. It’s like a lamp needed to make your way through the dark until you reach the lighthouse (Enlightenment, Nirvana, etc.) Then of course the lamp is no longer useful unless you have taken the vow to teach others. Which in my analogy is returning into the dark to bring your brothers and sisters along (via the lamp-i.e. language) to the lighthouse (enlightenment, Nirvana, etc.) • I respond: Then... if reality is ultimately characterless and distinctionless, then the distinction between being enlightened and unenlightened is ultimately an illusion and reality is ultimately unreal. Whom is doing the leading? Leading to what? These still are distinctions being made, that is: “between knowing you are enlightened and not knowing you are enlightened.” In the Diamond Sutra, ultimately, the Bodhisattva loves no one, since no one exists and the Bodhisattva knows this:  “All beings must I lead to Nirvana, into the Realm of Nirvana which leaves nothing behind; and yet, after beings have been led to Nirvana, no being at all has been led to Nirvana. And why? If in a Bodhisattva the notion of a “being” should take place, he could not be called a “Bodhi-being.” And likewise if the notion of a soul, or a person should take place in him. So even the act of loving others, therefore, is inconsistent with what is taught in the Buddhistic worldview, because there is “no one to love." This is shown quite well (this self-refuting aspect of Buddhism) in the book, The Lotus and the Cross: Jesus Talks with Buddha. A book I recommend with love, from a worldview that can use the word love well. One writer puts it thusly: "When human existence is blown out, nothing real disappears because life itself is an illusion. Nirvana is neither a re-absorption into an eternal Ultimate Reality, nor the annihilation of a self, because there is no self to annihilate. It is rather an annihilation of the illusion of an existing self. Nirvana is a state of supreme bliss and freedom without any subject left to experience it.” (http://www.comparativereligion.com/Buddhism.html) • My Final Response I haven't seen a response yet. Which is fitting... because whom would be responding to whom? Put another way, would there be one mind trying to actively convince the other mind that no minds exist at all?

[Pres Raygun]

“Ultimately, if you could know for certain that there is a God, then you have no need for faith. Faith in God requires that you cannot know for certain there is a God...”

Faith, by definition, means belief without basis; faith is simply belief without cause. Belief in God does not mandate belief in the men who wrote the Bible, or even their accuracy. It simply is.”

Logically these two declarations of yours are inconsistent if not contradictory. I can accept the first while categorically rejecting the second. One can not know something with total certainty, but still have very good reasons for believing it. In fact there are very few things we know with absolute certainty, but nonetheless they have an extremely high probability of being true. I believe that my wife loves me and will be faithful to me throughout the rest of our lives. Do I know that with 100% certainty. No, but based on 31 years of marriage I know it to be highly probable bordering on certitude. My understanding of the Bible is that belief in the God of the Bible is highly probable. In fact David says that only a fool says there is no God. Faith in the Bible is a belief that God is good that he will provide for those who trust Him in this life and in the next. Simply this means that we believe that He has our best interests at heart (provided we are loyal to Him) and that He has the power to overcome evil in the long run. Although we can't know this for certain there is abundant evidence to believe that it is true, thus making it a rational belief. Faith and reason are not opposites.

[tophat9000]

Bugliosi as a lawyer should understand ...logic vs reason...to be beyond doubt vs beyond reasonable doubt

Logic tell me that while no matter how many witness' testify to event, unless I was was a witness to event I can not be absolutely perfectly sure it is true...

But by reason we can accept something is it true to degrees of certainty

In the case on God as creator of all ...as no one was a witness other then God...

By logic I can not be beyond doubt ....but by reason and faith I can

I must accept or reject but by pure logic I can not prove

[Rocky]

Paragraphs are your friends.

[Rocky]

You wrote: Faith in God requires that you cannot know for certain there is a God - you simply believe it must be true.

Faith in God may be simply trust in His goodness. You may have experienced His presence, His life-changing power within your soul. But day-to-day tests and challenges require you to demonstrate trust in Him under new circumstances.

Faith in God may not mean that you don't know for sure that He exists. Rather, it may be the challenge to exhibit trust, as a child who will jump from a tree branch when his daddy says, "Jump, I will catch you." Except that in the adult's walk of faith, he doesn't have the advantage that the child does of hearing an audible voice.

[ez]

I moved from agnostic to believer years ago. It is not possible to quantify God, but whatever you believe, you must admit that He at least exists as a “concept.” Just as real as a circle, love, or the soul of a man.

[Pres Raygun]

Faith in God may be simply trust in His goodness.

Well said.

It occurred to me last night that the Bible takes the existence of the God of Israel as a given. "In the beginning God created...". Genesis presents no arguments for God's existence. Likewise the faith in the Gospels is faith that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God and that He can and will save us from our sins. Once again God's existence is a given.

It is true that there are a few passages that touch on evidence for God's existence, but the vast majority of the Bible treats His existence as obvious.