Pointy-Haired Cartoonist? Scott Adams Misrepresents Atheism & Agnosticism
Scott Adams manages to combine two of the worst, less sensible arguments against atheism ever created — as if having each alone weren't bad enough:
In order to be certain that God doesn’t exist, you have to possess a godlike mental capacity – the ability to be 100% certain. A human can’t be 100% certain about anything. Our brains aren’t that reliable. Therefore, to be a true atheist, you have to believe you are the very thing that you argue doesn’t exist: God.
Perhaps you will argue that being 99.999999% certain God doesn’t exist is just as good as being 100% sure. That strikes me as bad math. As other philosotainers have famously noted, a small chance of spending eternity in Hell has to be taken seriously. Eternity is a long time.
Let me put this in perspective. You might be willing to accept a 10% risk of going skiing and getting hurt, but you wouldn’t accept a 10% risk of a nuclear war. The larger the potential problem, the less risk you are willing to tolerate.
An eternity in Hell is the largest penalty there could ever be. So while you might not worry about a .00000000001% chance of ending up in Hell, you can’t deny the math. .00000000001% of eternity is a lot longer than your entire mortal life. Infinitely longer.
I've linked to refutations to these common arguments (they are very popular with Christians who know nothing about atheism except what they hear from priests and apologists) and I have to wonder why Scott Adams displays such ignorance of them. It can't be that he was aware of the counter-arguments and simply doesn't find them convincing because he is presenting very superficial forms of these arguments and doesn't offer any responses to the common objections which he'd have to expect if he knew what he was talking about.
No, it's seems quite clear that he never did any investigation into these arguments to see if they were sound and if there were any stronger counter-arguments. Perhaps they appeared intuitively plausible to him and he deemed that sufficient. That, however, would be a mark of great arrogance.
Just for good measure, Adams finishes his post with a demonstration that he has no idea what atheism or agnosticism are — and thus shouldn't have been writing about them to begin with:
Update Bonus Question: What's the difference between a "weak atheist" and an agnostic? Don't both subscribe to uncertainty?
Perhaps if he had spent even a small amount of time researching the matter, he'd have learned what the difference between weak atheism and agnosticism is — and at the same time, he might have even learned how and why everything he wrote in his post was either factually incorrect or logically incoherent.
Comments about how intellectually weak and intellectually dishonest Pascal's Wager is — especially when presented in such a overweening, inept form — must have gotten to Scott Adams because he quickly followed up with a second post defending the Wager against its many criticisms. In the process, he demonstrates that he understands philosophy and theology no better than he understands atheism and agnosticism:
Chief among the alleged flaws in Pascal’s argument is that you still have to pick the correct religion among many, or else you go to Hell anyway.
Sure. But picking any religion that promises salvation slightly improves your odds over picking an option that doesn’t. You're still probably doomed, given your bad religion-picking skills, but a one-in-a-million chance of reducing the risk of eternal Hell is a move worth taking, mathmatically speaking.
Why does Scott Adams assume, without any apparent basis in evidence or logic, that picking a religion which claims to deliver salvation has any chance of actually delivering? Sure, it might be possible, but he's making a mathematical argument without any numbers to go by. Moreover, why does Scott Adams assume that the "eternal Hell" promised by the religions promising salvation is a threat worth worrying about?
In effect, he's assuming that these religions are telling him the truth in order to claim that it's worthwhile to risk assuming that they are true. This isn't even just a tiny bit valid in a logical sense, but Scott Adams offers it up as if it flowed directly from a supernatural font of wisdom.
Another noted "flaw" in Pascal's wager is that you can't rule out the possibility that only skeptics are spared from Hell. Perhaps, it is argued, God loves the spunky fact-loving personality of skeptics and saves them alone, or saves them in the greatest percentage. ...But what’s the reasonable explanation for God preferring skeptics?
Picking the "right" religion is a long shot no matter how hard you try. But if rational thought has any value at all, it's in narrowing down options and improving our odds of making good choices. Rational thought hasn't led anyone to conclude that there's a God who only saves people who don't believe he exists. We can't rule it out, but can't we rate its likelihood compared to a God who prefers that his lumps of clay hold him in higher esteem than their own eye crud?
It's completely justified to ask for a reasonable explanation for the idea that God would prefer skeptics. What Scott Adams fails to understand, though, is that this idea is offered in the first place to demonstrate that there's no independent, objective grounds for assuming that if there is a God, then it prefers adherents of any religion either. Adams is engaging in a blatant and obvious (though not obvious to him) double standard: he wants a reasonable explanation for why God would prefer skeptics, but he doesn't demand a reasonable explanation for why God would prefer adherents of this or that religion. That a religion asserts it is enough for him — a clear sign that he just doesn't understand how to be a skeptic himself.
Scott Adams is right that an important value in rational thought is the ability to winnow out claims that are unlikely to be true in order to stick with those most likely to be true. Unfortunately, Adams doesn't appear to have invested any time or effort in such a task. He claims that rational thought hasn't led anyone to concluded that there is a god which prefers skeptics, but he doesn't notice that rational thought hasn't produced good reasons to think that there is any god which prefers anyone at all. So how do we compare the likelihood of the two? Adams seems to think that the latter is much more likely but he offers absolutely no reasons to accept such a conclusion. Once again, the mere existence of religions making the claim appears to be enough for him.
Larry Hamelin, the Barefoot Bum, describes Scott Adams as an "idiot" for falling for what he calls the "worst apologetic ever." I find myself unable to come up with any reasons for disputing that conclusion. I fear that people who read his posts on atheism and religion will end up more ignorant than they were when they started.
Update: Scott Adams "responds":
Check out an angry atheist’s response to my two posts on Pascal’s Wager. I don’t think he appreciates the infotainment benefit of watching the Dilbert cartoonist whip people like him into a frenzy.
Translation: if I can call it a form of entertainment, I can claim to get away with saying just about anything, no matter how logically incoherent or false. If it's "entertainment," then I can say you're wrong for taking it so seriously... just before I proceed to restate my argument in a manner that is clearly meant to defend my original position as deserving serious consideration. It's magic!
The phrase “weak atheist” is apparently nothing but a weasel self-label for agnostics who have picked a side and don’t want to be seen as giving any opening to religion. It is politics disguised as philosophy.
Note that Scott Adams continues to misrepresent atheism — this is just the conclusion of an extended misrepresentation. He doesn't support any of his assertions nor does he trouble himself to explain why the corrections posted are wrong (or at least just unconvincing). No, he just repeats the same old falsehoods as if no one has pointed out his error.
After all, it's all just "entertainment"! If you take him seriously, you're at fault, but of course he can take himself seriously enough to keep posting to repeat his claims and defend his positions.
In many online contexts, this is known as a form of trolling: a person posts something designed to annoy others. People who take the time to correct and refute are too bitter and humorless to see the entertainment in it all; those who don't come away thinking that something serious and valid might have been said. It's a clever trick if no one catches on but I've never seen anyone create an entire blog devoted to trolling legions of devoted fans.
Comments
“In order to be certain that God doesn’t exist, you have to possess a godlike mental capacity – the ability to be 100% certain. A human can’t be 100% certain about anything.”
These are interesting claims, but I can’t take them seriously because I lack the godlike mental capacity to be 100% certain that they are correct.
I have to say you have lost credibility posting this article, especially since you claim to know his past yet at the sametime not know a damn thing about him.
Scott Adams has repeatedly said, in this very article in fact(”As other philosotainers have famously noted, a small chance of spending eternity in Hell has to be taken seriously.”) as well as before (http://feedraider.com/item/26046/The-Dilbert-Blog/Philosotainment/)
that he is not a philosopher, but a philosotainer.
Your arguement falls along the lines of, “This spagetti is defective because I cannot use it as a ladder!”
- Scott Adams
If you are an athiest, or a strong believer in anything in fact, I strongly advise you to keep your knee-jerk reaction in check before you decide to mount your horse and ride in.
Thanks for the link. I might also mention why I consider Pascal’s Wager the Worst. Apologetic. Ever.
Adams does not deserve even the prefix philoso-anything. And it’s unclear, at least concerning his blog, that he deserves the suffix.
The thing is, mathematically, .9999999999999999999999 (keep on repeating the 9), is equal to 1
So your point, The Barefoot Bum, is that you don’t like him. I hope that is correct, because thats all you said.
He’s being rediculous. But you’re being absurdly literal, and assuming that he wouldn’t inject any of his humor into his blog. Stop complaining and get a real job, you bum!
Mr. Cline, I’m afraid you’re horribly mistaken and are merely looking for someone to rebel against. I’m sure that Scott Adams has his flaws, but the words of his which you’ve quoted in this article have been grossly misinterpreted by you. I’d elaborate, but surely you’d find me to be as ignorant as Mr. Adams. In fact, if you haven’t misinterpreted something I’ve said within these past few sentences, I must be writing so simplistically that it would insult the intelligence of a third-grader. I hate to be so insulting, but I’d wager that you read Nietzsche.
Wow! A lot of negative comments. The only thing I would like to point out is Austin’s article is proven by Adams claim that he calls himself an atheist because explaining Spinoza’s version of god is too hard. Spinoza said what he did, how he did , under fear of death for being an atheist. How certain is Adams that Spinoza wasn’t giving his version of God to keep from being murdered. Any atheist would know the answer to that one.
Why are all of you losers defending the creator of “Dilbert” so fervently? He is using a 12 year old’s arguments against atheism…I don’t really care to explain to anyone here why your belief in religion makes you look silly, because you’d rather masturbate to Jesus Christ than pay attention to me, but Dilbert really isn’t that funny, or creative, or worth giving a shit about.
Picking a religion because you fear going to hell is bullshit. And trying to calculate your odds for still going there is bullshit too.
You should pick one in order to have something to believe in – IF you need something to believe in. Or in other words: God will send everyone to hell, who picked his religion only for avoiding eternal hell.
In order to be certain that God exist, you have to possess a godlike mental capacity – the ability to be 100% certain. A human can’t be 100% certain about anything. Our brains aren’t that reliable. Therefore, to be a true theist, you have to believe you are the very thing that you argue exists: God.
Come on pal ..
You don’t seem to understand what humour is. You atheists are a worse sense of humour than even religious bigots. Fanatic atheists and believers are both scum !
Are you the one and only true atheist?
(from one of the linked pages)
“As discussed elsewhere, atheism is simply the absence of any belief in the existence of any gods.”
Not everyone uses that definition, some use the definition of strong atheism.
I guess you picked the one that suited you. I much prefer your more differentiating definition on http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutatheism/p/atheism.htm
Oxford dictionary: “the belief that God does not exist.”
Encyclopedia Brittanica: “in general, the critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in God or spiritual beings.”
“We aren’t absolutely certain that the sun will rise tomorrow or that our brakes will work the next time we try to stop our car; nevertheless, we believe these things because we have ample reason to do so.”
So it’s rational to say that we “suppose our brakes will work” and not that we “know our brakes will work”, right?
“Atheists are thought to be closed-minded because they deny the existence of gods, whereas agnostics appear to be open-minded because they do not know for sure.
This is a mistake because atheists do not necessarily deny any gods”
That’s what you get for mixing up definitions and labels.
I wanted to get to the point, but I have work to do. Sorry.
And why is this a justification for repeatedly seeking to defending things that are factually incorrect and logically incoherent? Why do I “lose credibility” for pointing out all his errors and incoherency?
Or are you just upset that I am being critical of someone you like?
So, it’s OK to repeatedly defend statements that are factually incorrect and logically incoherent so long as you can say that it’s only “humor”? No, sorry, I don’t buy it. You don’t get a free pass to say anything without challenge or criticism for such a reason.
I love Scott’s work, but this post seemed so misguided I was also compelled to write a rebuttal:
http://3poundmass.wordpress.com/2007/08/02/gosh-darn-you-to-heck-and-tarnation/
Engage in much armchair psychology?
So, you think it’s appropriate to insist that I’m wrong, but not bother to support your accusation or claims. That’s intellectually dishonest. If you have a case to make, you should do so. If you don’t, you should insinuate that you do and pretend that you have something to offer, but make excuses for holding back.
Just because I don’t give a free pass to falsehoods and logically incoherent arguments doesn’t mean that I don’t know what humor is. This wasn’t one of Scott Adams’ comics, it was an attempt to stake out a position — and the fact that he utilizes humor in some parts doesn’t mean it’s wrong or inappropriate for others to point out errors elsewhere. To suggest otherwise, as you and his defenders consistently do, is a form of Speical Pleading.
In my experience, there is literally nothing Scott Adams can’t say that a certain dedicated group of regular readers won’t defend. No matter how false, illogical, irrational, or unreasonable his position or arguments are, they will march forth and attack all who dare criticize him.
Their favorite argument, as you can see here, is that he is just a “humorist” and thus anyone who notices flaws in his arguments must “lack a sense of humor.” Apparently, everything that issues forth from his mouth or keyboard must be classified as “humor” and given a free pass with respect to even rudimentary standards of accuracy or logic.
His logic is lacking. Being trapped in hell for all times is pretty unrealistic. I mean, have any of you ever talked to anyone who’ve experienced any religious hell? Or ever heard of anyone non-fictional who’ve had? Do any of you have any proof of hell being real? Hell, have any of you ever seen any real evidence of God that can be convincing enough?
I agree with the comment above from god. I’m disgusted by both believers and non-believers alike. Everyone, lighten the f*** up already.
The definition of strong atheism is… the definition of strong atheism. The definition of atheism encompasses more than just strong atheism. I didn’t “pick” a definition that “suited,” I simply use the definition properly — which is to say, I use the broad definition that encompasses the full range of atheism rather than singling out just one narrow type of atheism and pretend that that’s atheism entire.
Well, next time don’t waste time misrepresenting the definitions of basic concepts.
Good job! Nice to see someone is standing up to Scott Adam’s stupidity. Bigotry disguised in humour is still bigotry!
Woeful: what, exactly, have nonbelievers done to upset you so much? Is the existence of people who disbelieve in gods that much of a problem?
Like, hum, I think he was being ironic.
Wow. I had no idea Scott Adams was so blatantly ignorant and devoid of the capacity for logic. I mean…so many of his comics poke fun at the irrationality and lack of logic in the modern workplace; this seems like such a contradiction. I mean, the probability issue itself is just so pathetically 2nd grade, it makes me shudder to even contemplate having to actually refute it to anyone except a 2nd-grader. Pascal’s wager is infintely fallacious as well; the most blatant fallacy therein is the assumption that there is no “cost” in believing: after it’s all said and done, and god turns out to be nonexistent, then you’ll have devoted your entire life to a wisp in the wind…thus robbing your mind of a lifetime of rational thought. And that’s not a “cost”? It’s not like all you have to do is get a free membership card. You’ve got to arrange your life around a central governing construct: namely, that there’s hoobajoob in the sky (or some other such nonsense) that has created all of this. That’s a rather large cost, in my view. And none of this is to even mention the very real cost of wasting time and money worshipping and going to church. If god doesn’t exist, I’d say that that would cost you quite a bit.
So sad…Scott Adams could have just read the God Delusion, where Dawkins refutes every single point here in searing detail…and thus saved himself the time and embarrassment of this whole fiasco.
I’m actually disappointed quite a bit with Mr. Adams’ screed. Working in a corporate environment, much of his comic work is immensely ammusing, but I doubt I’ll ever get as much enjoyment out of it knowing that this is how he feels…
“In my experience, there is literally nothing Scott Adams can’t say that a certain dedicated group of regular readers won’t defend. No matter how false, illogical, irrational, or unreasonable his position or arguments are, they will march forth and attack all who dare criticize him.”
Scott is god to his god-like followers
Very loyal…
I believe Scott’s posts are mostly ironic to the point where many don’t see the humor in it. His irony makes you think as Austin did with a great rebuttal post. Both posts were very interesting and educational. They elicit discussion as they should.
I fail to understand how an omnipotent, omniscient, (supposedly) omnipresent being would cast any of its creations into hell for any reason. Or would need constant reassurance and worship.
Seems a bit too…human…to me.
I’m a little shocked at how agressively reasonable logical claims are being attacked here.
Obviously I agree that some of Adams claims are dubious. Far too much time is spent on whether atheism is a faith that requires 100%, a semantic argument of little interest. Pascal’s Wager has always had major flaws, but Adams is clearly aware of this and tries to expand the argument.
A couple of the most disputed claims here are in fact logically sound. For example, Adams claim about Hell seems accurate. We have little to no evidence in it, so we can say that it is extremely unlikely to exist (or, as he puts it, a “.00000000001% chance”). But the chance is still non-zero. This gives an extremely bad expected return when one considers the degree of badness of Hell. Does this mean that the proper response is to go off and decide that some random theist religion is true? Of course not. That IS illogical. It simply means that, mathematically speaking, this is something that we should be concerned about. If you prefer, substitute Hell with the oblivion that most materialist atheists predict. That’s actually a statistically very likely outcome, and none too pleasant a prospect. And this is the result if atheists are RIGHT. Overall, the expected return for atheistic belief is extremely low. Of course, this provides absolutely no indication of it’s correctness.
I admit that the whole of the argument, considering all possibilities, is more complicated than this. But based on the probabilities of the different theories, it is not unreasonable for someone to attempt to approximate the expected return of various belief systems, as Adams has attempted.
“I believe Scott’s posts are mostly ironic to the point where many don’t see the humor in it.”
Please point out instances of said irony and/or humor in the topic blog entry. Perhaps I’m just too jaded to see all the wonderful irony and humor in it, but instead, all I see is an intellectual weakling with an ego that has been overinflated by his success to a point where he feels like he can “run with the big dogs” without doing the tiniest bit of research. That post was devoid of any worthwhile “humor”, regardless of your claims of all this wonderfully hidden irony that supposedly just went right over our ignorant heads.
Cline,
You’re a hack. I am agnostic but everything that Adams wrote and you ridiculed him for is logically consistent. You can split hairs on whether or not agnostic is the lack of a belief or the positive existence of non-belief, but if you accept his culturally fair definition of atheist, he is correct. You cannot positively know there is no God unless you do possess perfect knowledge of the universe. And your little, “proof” against him is equally silly. Simply because you can prove the negative by a definition, e.g., “There are no married bachelors” doesn’t mean that you can disprove the existence of things in the cosmos by fiat. Is there other intelligent life in the cosmos? It seems likely, but it exists whether you play a definitional game of its existence or not (I’m not equating intelligent life with God, simply stating an example). The universe doesn’t care whether or not you believe in it. And the same goes with God.
As far as your rebuttal on distinguishing reasonable belief and certainty, absolutely there’s a difference. But Adams’ point would be that the more important of a decision you’re making, the closer to absolute certainty you would want to be. You might have a reasonable belief that your next sexual partner is AIDS free, but you may require proof (to the extent that’s possible) to replace that reasonable inference.
And you’re certainly not smarter than Pascal. Let’s look at your points (approximately):
* Picking a God is as useless as not believing in a God because there’s so many, you might choose wrong. Absolutely not true. You may as well as say that you have just as good of odds of picking the right winner of the Masters Tournament by not picking a golfer. Sure, it’s a big field, but any pick is better than no pick.
* Your True God might not mind disbelief and might reward rational behavior. True, it might, but all the religions/mythologies that I’ve encountered have had a pre-requisite of belief if nothing else.
* The idea of equal likelihood as being requisite as a, “safe bet” … do you have health insurance? Do you think that there’s an, “equal likelihood” that you’ll end up in a hospital this month? Clearly not (at least I hope). The math on, “safe bets” and risk avoidance is very simple: it is reasonable to make a bet when the cost of the bet multiplied times the probability of winning is less than the potential reward. So I can sell you a lottery ticket that has a 1-in-10 probability of winning for $1, but if the jackpot is $1,000, it’s still a very positive expected value to purchase, and a, “safe bet”, even though the outcome isn’t 50-50. What Adams, and Pascal, would argue is that the cost of being wrong is infinite pain so that any small probability of being wrong is greater than the small discomfort of belief during a fixed lifespan.
* Your final problem is simply a conditional. It’s like, when I sell you the lottery ticket, I say that you only win the prize if your number is drawn and you flip a heads on a coin. All you do is decrease your probability of winning by a slight amount. But again, when the cost is infinite pain, any conditional will not sufficiently decrease the probability so as to make it worthwhile.
To wrap up, you really sadden me. I find myself strongly in the agnostics camp in life because I cannot make belief in religion comport with my own experience and rationality. But that makes logic and reason all the more important in my life. And you throw the equivalent of mental spitballs at Adams’ well-reasoned critique. You really should be embarrassed. I know I am for you.
“For example, Adams claim about Hell seems accurate. We have little to no evidence in it, so we can say that it is extremely unlikely to exist (or, as he puts it, a “.00000000001% chance”). But the chance is still non-zero. This gives an extremely bad expected return when one considers the degree of badness of Hell. Does this mean that the proper response is to go off and decide that some random theist religion is true? Of course not. That IS illogical. It simply means that, mathematically speaking, this is something that we should be concerned about.”
By your very same mathematic equation, we should be equally “concerned” about every single possibility ever conceived or will be conceived. How can I put this more simply…if I said that there’s a .00000000000001% chance that, if you don’t cut the head off of a kitten every Tuesday, then when you die, you’ll be transported to a magical land on the other side of the milky way where the teletubbies rape you all day for the rest of eternity…then you should be equally “concerned” about that possibility JUST AS MUCH as you should be concerned about the possibility of an eternity in some flaming pit of torture.
In other words, you should be concerned about every single possible outcome that your mind can ever possibly concoct, no matter how improbable.
Personally, I don’t have the time to be “concerned” with such improbabilities—whether they be satan torturing me in hell, or the teletubbies raping me because I didn’t behead enough kittens on Tuesdays. Instead, I’ll spend my short time on this earth concerned with the much more probable events…like me meeting my demise while driving down the interstate, or bearing children and having a happy life with my wife.
Just because something is mathematically possible does not mean that it warrants “concern”, no matter how dire that outcome may be. The only way that all of these vanishingly small possibilities would warrant “concern” is if our time here were infinite. Of course, it’s not, so I cannot bare to waste my short time worrying about every remote possibility.
“But based on the probabilities of the different theories, it is not unreasonable for someone to attempt to approximate the expected return of various belief systems, as Adams has attempted.”
It is absolutely unreasonable, not least because the entire assumption of being able to avoid hell by believing in god is EQUALLY improbably as being able to avoid hell by denying god’s existence. I’m quite curious how it is “reasonable” to “approximate” anything based on nothing but unfounded assumptions and imaginary number pulled out of the sky.
Even if it were reasonable, it’s a waste of time, as I could sit here for the rest of my life and “approximate” the “rate of return” for various hypothetical, improbable scenarios, and never even scratch the surface of the entirety of possible outcomes.
Unfortunately, special consideration is given to those outcomes which conform to the predictions of certain salvationist religions…as if “approximating” the return on the investment of these belief systems is any more worthwhile than “approximating” the return on the investment of my hypothetical kitten-beheading cult. Why is that? Because lots of people believe in salvationist religion? Appeal to authority via majority? Again, faulty logic.
Upon what basis can you claim that the chance is non-zero? Is this a claim of objective or epistemic probability?
It may be true that it is “not unreasonable for someone to attempt to approximate the expected return of various belief systems,” but it is definitely not true that this is what Adams has done. In order to mount such a project, they must first calculate the likelihood that a belief system is right in the first place. It should go without saying that the expected return of system A and system B will be greatly impacted if the likelihood of A being correct is 50% and the likelihood of B being correct is 0.000000000000001%. Unfortunately, this does need to be said because neither Adams nor any of his defenders seems to have thought to even mention it, much less try it.
Moreover, it is only “reasonable to “attempt to approximate the expected return of various belief systems” if you adopt beliefs based on what they get for you rather than based on whether they are true or not. If their truth value is irrelevant, then I suppose it wouldn’t make much sense to spend time trying to figure out if a system has any reasonable chance of being true.
No, he’s not. Even if we narrowed the correct definition of atheism to simply strong atheism, he’s still incorrect. To be a strong atheist, you don’t have to “possess perfect knowledge of the universe.”
Yes, you can, depending on how they are defined. Some definitions of god include logically contradictory characteristics.
This is true. Unfortunately, Adams fails to provide any reason to think that the decision in question is important.
Why is any pick better than no pick? First there must be a reason to think we even need to pick, then there must be some basis for thinking that not picking is bad, then we need some basis for narrowing the field. I see none on all counts.
Yes, they do, and there is no reason to think they are right. On the contrary, at the very least all but one must be wrong — and there is no basis for picking out which might be the one.
What Adams, Pascal, and you fail to do, though, is provide any reasonable likelihood that the “infinite pain” consequence will occur. The chances of needing insurance – sickness, injury, checkups – are good enough to usually make insurance worth the payments. It’s possible to arrive at real, valid numbers for the odds of this. There are no real, valid numbers which indicate that believing in any religion is a “safe bet.” In order to think so, one first has to already accept that religion’s premises as true. In other words, it’s a circular argument.
Adams “critique” is logical garbage, full of falsehoods and logical failings that wouldn’t’ survive an introductory philosophy class.
Thank you, though, for making the case that Adams is not trying to be “humorous” and engage in anything but a serious attempt at making a logical case for a real position. You might want to help his various fans understand this.
As I’ve tried to note more than once: this argument only works if you start out by accepting the validity of one particular religion’s basic premises. In a Christian culture, people take this argument as a reason to adopt Christianity — it would never occur to them to use it to adopt the religion of the Aztecs because they regard that religion’s basic premises as nonsense. Not being able to willing to apply the same standards of reasoning to the beliefs that they grew up with and/or surround them, the fall for the logical trap in Pascal’s Wager.
This is why the argument does not provide any valid reasons for believing any religion. Instead, it merely provides plausible-sounding rationalizations for people who already believe, are inclined to believe, or want to believe and still want to maintain an image of reasonableness and rationality.
Matt,
“But Adams’ point would be that the more important of a decision you’re making, the closer to absolute certainty you would want to be. You might have a reasonable belief that your next sexual partner is AIDS free, but you may require proof (to the extent that’s possible) to replace that reasonable inference.”
But while contracting AIDS, as well as conducting an HIV test prior to intercourse, are very probable outcomes, an eternity in a fiery torture pit is not. Certainly, the more dire the consequences, the more sure one should be of ones choices—nobody is denying that—but not all dire hypothetical situations are equally probable. Simply by scientific fact, it is infinitesimally more likely that I’ll get struck by lightning, rather than die by falling off the face of the earth into space. Both are very dire situations for me—but is it reasonable to concern myself with both of them equally? No, of course not. The condition of an outcome is not enough to warrant concern—I could sit here and dream up 100 hypothetical horrible after-life situations in the next ten minutes, just as bad as “hell”. No, what is required for any real concern or attention to be paid to these hypothetical situations is any real probability that they will happen. Just being horrible is NOT ENOUGH.
“Picking a God is as useless as not believing in a God because there’s so many, you might choose wrong. Absolutely not true. You may as well as say that you have just as good of odds of picking the right winner of the Masters Tournament by not picking a golfer. Sure, it’s a big field, but any pick is better than no pick.”
What you fail to understand is that merely “picking” a winner of the Masters is costless. It doesn’t cost you anything. You say “Tiger’s gonna win”. No cost. But the cost of “picking” a religion can be very great indeed. It forces you to live your life upon one single construct: that there’s a god and an afterlife. Many people, such as Muslim suicide bombers, have paid the cost of this belief—they were easily willing to give up this life because they believed there was another, better one waiting on the other side. There is a HUGE cost to believing in religions—it’s not just like picking a winner in a golf tourny.
You discredit yourself with the personal attacks on him.
I engage in no personal attacks. What I do is criticize his ignorance of the facts, lack of basic research, and failure to engage in minimal logic.
Given that you don’t dispute any of my criticisms, can we conclude that you agree that his posts were atrociously wrong?
I have little to say, since most arguments were already said…
I like comment #1 though, since it ironically points out the absurdity of defining ‘knowledge’ as ‘to be >= 100.0% certain’.
It’s an obvious fallacy and using it to “make weird ideas reasonable” (especially when combined with abstract mathematical concepts like infinity) is rather pathetic.
Just to take my share of “fun with infinity”:
Say there is a 1% chance that there is “something” besides nature and that there is an inifinite number of possibile “somethings”. The cost of choosing the wrong one is infinite too.
The risk taken for an atheist:
(0.01/infinite possibilities) * infinite cost = 1%
The risk taken for a theist:
(0.01/(infinite possibilities-1)) * infinite cost = 1%
No difference on the risk side. On the cost side the theist is losing though.
I’m somewhat confused about the defenders of this article. Is the idea that it was meant like A Modest Proposal and atheists who are taking Adam’s point seriously are missing his joke? Is he actually spoofing believers?
If he’s not, the quotes posted here represent ignorant mischaracterizations of atheism and ill use of logic. Saying atheism and agnosticism are indistinguishable, for example, because they both represent uncertainty, dismisses the meanings of the words entirely:
I can’t be certain a horse I bet on will win a race. I can’t be certain my car will work properly on the way home. However, a malfunctioning car is not the same thing as a horse race.
And Adam’s fails to address practical reality. While in matters such as Adam’s describes (such as god’s existence), it is impossible to say there is no god with 100 percent certainy (while god is an amorphous non-defined nothing–the claim would be meaningless), in practical terms, saying god doesn’t exist is no different than saying leprechauns don’t exist. Is Adams saying that’s an indefensible statement as well? Would he mock those who do not believe in leprechauns? Because it’s the same argument.
And statements like this are bait and switch:
>So while you might not worry about a .00000000001% chance of ending up in Hell, you can’t deny the math. .00000000001% of eternity is a lot longer than your entire mortal life.
Just because anyone assumes there is a small chance a hell exists (which I don’t in practical terms–there’s no more reason to believe in hell as in fairies). That’s not the same as saying hell exists and represents .00000000001% of eternity. A percentage of doubt does not translate to a percentage of reality. A person can have doubts about the existence of extra terrestrials. But that has no bearing on whether or not they actually are existent or to what degree.
And his entire reason for belief seems to be fear of hell fire; and yet there is not one shred of evidence that hell fire is any more than a myth. Why fear hell fire any more than alien abduction? Does he worry about that as well? Does he wear a tin foil hat so they can’t read his mind? I mean, they _could_ be “out there,” right?
I really like Dilbert, but I’m disappointed to see the logical and practical errors and ignorance Adams is presenting here. I guess I assumed he was a little brighter than this.
To just address some points raised…
* Would Adams definitely say there aren’t any leprechauns? No, I don’t think he would. Either would I. I would call it extremely, extremely unlikely but definitely not? No. And anyone who has the hubris to do so lacks the wisdom to decline. Also, Adams is not mocking those who do not believe in God. He is simply laying out a rational reason to do so.
At Evan re: the cost
I dunno. Certainly the cost of believing in a deity varies. Suicide bombers obviously carry a great cost. My parents, who do believe in God, probably benefit from it. They donate whatever amount each Sunday and in exchange enlarge their community of friends and contacts. Living in a farm town in Minnesota, they would not find the same type of community of Humanists.
At Clive re: the Aztecs…
The choice of any faith being random doesn’t win the argument. Sure, it’s generally accepted now that Christianity is the thing and that Ra is a myth. But again, all that does is make it less likely that you will choose the correct one. It doesn’t undermine the central premise. Not at all.
Re: the argument in general…
Calling Adams’ argument not worthy of an entry-level philosophy course was itself unworthy. Since it was logically consistent within a construct that there was some non-zero probability of some type of God existing. Although it’s not as much a philosophy argument as it is a public policy cost/benefit analysis. Or a direct application of Learned Hand’s standard for negligence: B
cont’d….
Or a direct application of Learned Hand’s standard for negligence: B
hm.
Meant to type B less than PL. You can argue about the values of B, P, and L, but you can’t say that the argument itself is ridiculous.
Adams isn’t mocking atheists, he’s just providing a rational reason to mock atheists? That doesn’t make sense.
Who said anything about randomness? The point you’re missing is that the claim that there is a “risk” is unsupported and only presumed if one also presumes the validity of some particular religion. Without that, there is only an alleged risk which is allegedly non-zero. Who is telling us that the risk is real? Why, the people trying to sell us the means for avoiding that risk! How terribly convenient. Luckily for them, few people think or care enough to ask questions — they just lap it up and beg for more.
No, it’s the truth because it’s based on factual errors and makes numerous basic logical errors. For example:
You cannot estimate the cost/benefit of believing some religion without entering into some calculation of how likely it is that the religion is true. To use your own analogy: it’s like trying to calculate the cost/benefit of insurance without ever considering how likely it is that what you are insuring against might happen.
The risk of getting struck by a meteorite is non-zero, but you would never entertain thoughts of even getting insurance against it, much less stop to consider what you’d pay, without some hard numbers about what the risk really is.
That, however, is precisely what Adams recommends: he recommends that we seriously consider adopting some “insurance” (religion) against some “risk” (hell) without ever knowing what the real odds involved are. We don’t hear anything about how likely it is that the risk is real, that the “insurance” agents are telling the truth, that the “insurance” really covers it, whether another “insurance” might be better, etc.
Serious adult would laugh at anyone selling insurance on such a basis; Scott Adams tries to sell religion on such a basis and defenders come out of the woodwork to sagely inform us about how wise, logical, and sensible it all is. Sorry, but that’s beyond absurd.
If people who sell insurance or used cars via such methods are “con artists,” what do you call someone who tries to sell religion via such means? If people who buy insurance or a used car on such a basis are “suckers,” what do you call people who buy religion on a similar basis?
To use humor as a defense, you have to, you know, at least try to be funny.
Adams is not mocking those who do not believe in God. He is simply laying out a rational reason to do so.
Adams isn’t mocking atheists, he’s just providing a rational reason to mock atheists? That doesn’t make sense.
Right. Because you didn’t read the sentence correctly. The phrase, “to do so” refers to believing in God, not to make fun of atheists. An awkward construction, admittedly, but sensible in context.
Who said anything about randomness?
Well, you did.
As I’ve tried to note more than once: this argument only works if you start out by accepting the validity of one particular religion’s basic premises. In a Christian culture, people take this argument as a reason to adopt Christianity — it would never occur to them to use it to adopt the religion of the Aztecs because they regard that religion’s basic premises as nonsense.
What you’re implying, correctly, is that presuming there is a true religion out there doesn’t mean that what is currently being promoted is it. But it doesn’t logically follow that you say, “Sod it” and punt on all of them. You just have lower odds.
If people who sell insurance or used cars via such methods are “con artists,” what do you call someone who tries to sell religion via such means? If people who buy insurance or a used car on such a basis are “suckers,” what do you call people who buy religion on a similar basis?
I’d probably tell them the same thing that I’d tell to people who would reject it on the basis that they presume they know the values: good luck. You go into histrionics about the irrationality of the salesman yet you imply that you know the probabilities. By definition, these things are unknowable so neither side has the better of the argument. But to ridicule the formulation is to insult logic and that I take offense at.
I wonder what possible value it might have to attempt to devise a logically sound formula for incalculable odds.
>* Would Adams definitely say there aren’t any leprechauns? No, I don’t think he would. Either would I. I would call it extremely, extremely unlikely but definitely not? No.
If a person feels that any suggested item cannot be said to not exist, then “nonexistence” is rendered meaningless–as is existence. The words no longer mean anything. If existence is not manifestation–what does it mean to say that anything “exists”?
What we’re actually claiming in this case is that nothing can be said to not exist. So then existence must be said to encompass all items, even those which do not, in fact, exist.
This is the problem I run into with this line of reasoning.
1. Items that manifest.
2. Items that can manifest, but are not yet known to manifest.
3. Items which are not, and so shall never manifest.
If we say that category 2 must be included in category 1, then category 3 is included by default, since we have no means to discern between category 2 and category 3.
Existence then means all things–even nonexistent items.
That’s not rational to me. It makes more sense to define existence as the set of manifesting items. Some items may “be”–but be unmanifesting either now or ever; but in that case, they are indiscernable from “nothing”–and I can’t see any way to label them as “existing”–without invalidating the very core of what it means to exist.
A person (as far as I know) cannot just ‘turn on’ true belief in something.
In other words, if pascal’s wager says that we should believe because there is a risk to unbelief… that only matters as long as one can make oneself believe.
If a person held a gun to my head and said that I will kill you unless you convince me that you truely belief in angels. I think I could come up with some convincing BS but I don’t think I could actually make myself believe.
“Serious adult would laugh at anyone selling insurance on such a basis….”
Not quite. The idea of a “black swan problem” is regularly debated in the field, with smart people coming down on various sides of the issue. The famous failure of Long Term Capital Management, however, shows that in the financial world at least, extremely unlikely events (thought by many experts to be impossible) *do* in fact occur, despite no history of them happening and no way to model or “price” them. You might start by looking at Taleb’s work in this area (to name a current author with a best seller in the area) to get the general idea.
Austin, the point is, you are speaking from a credible well thought out stand point on a specifically stated and by design non-credible statement. You are rebelling against a brick wall because it offended you.
Anne Coulter is trying to truly make points from supremely bad logic, she is an idiot and thats who you should tear apart.
You are yelling at peter pan because he doesn’t understand the laws of physics.
You therefore lose credibility since you did not do your research, or you did and decided to ignore it.
Scott Adams is funny and his thoughts are interesting Even if they aren’t complete, they are thought provoking.
“I may not agree with what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it”
The world is not harmed by opinions. If you think it is garbage, disregard and move on. If you think it is worth your time, then go ahead and spend valuable time on it. Despite your harsh words, you obviously thought Scott’s opinions were worth your time. I would be careful how you verbally abuse someone who you seem to think isn’t worth the time of day.
This is false. Some opinions, like racism and anti-Semitism, cause a great deal of harm.
So garbage should never be criticized or rebutted? That makes no sense.
What I thought was worth my time was presenting the facts to prevent too many people from being led astray.
I would be careful about accusing others of verbal abuse without support.
If that is the case, then why do so many people defend the basic position as credible, reasonable, and logical?
The fact that unlikely things do occur does not in any way rebut my position or even address my analogy.
So, contrary to what others say, he isn’t writing a humorous position which by definition and design is not supposed to be credible. Yet, at the same time, it’s based on factual errors and faulty logic.
Well, no, I didn’t.
I have only “lowered my odds” under your model if the correct provides infinite punishment for non-belief, but not all religions do. Moreover, by lacking any calculations as to any religions being true, you cannot show that I have lowered my odds. You only say so on the basis of assuming the validity of the type of religion in question.
That’s a circular argument. In order to avoid circular arguments, you must start from a zero-point position: not assume the validity, truth, or reasonableness of any of these religions. They are all equal from the start with no a priori reasons to suppose that any of them have anything going for them. All may be wrong, and at most one may be a little right. From that position, what is my risk in not believing any of them? Is it any worse than picking one that doesn’t promise eternal punishment?
I don’t need to know the probabilities — I just need to know the dishonesty of the sales tactic. For some reason, you keep focusing on alleged probabilities that you don’t know and thus cannot provide, despite repeated requests. Throughout, you ignore the lack of information on your part and excuse it on the part of others. You are completely unmoved by the intellectual and moral dishonesty of it all.
“The fact that unlikely things do occur does not in any way rebut my position or even address my analogy.”
Your newest statement entirely misses the point. Your claim was that “[s]erious adult would laugh at anyone selling insurance on such a basis….”
You had previously described that “basis” as follows:
“That, however, is precisely what Adams recommends: he recommends that we seriously consider adopting some ‘insurance’ (religion) against some ‘risk’ (hell) without ever knowing what the real odds involved are.”
I merely pointed out that your claim was false, as some elementary research would have disclosed. Various types of “insurance” are in fact regularly sought and bought within the financial markets without the ability to know or even assess “the real odds.” It’s also a key reason for the reinsurance industry. The “serious adults” in the field, despite your ignorant claim, do in fact take the issue quite seriously — it’s no laughing matter, as the LTCM experience demonstrates so dramatically.
It is your claim that is false, because you are omitting a key portion of the basis of my claim: “We don’t hear anything about how likely it is that the risk is real, that the “insurance” agents are telling the truth, that the “insurance” really covers it, whether another “insurance” might be better, etc.”
This is called “lying by omission.” Since there is no possible way to articulating a good excuse for this, further comments from you will be deleted. We don’t need that level of dishonesty here.
“It is your claim that is false, because you are omitting a key portion of the basis of my claim: “We don’t hear anything about how likely it is that the risk is real, that the “insurance” agents are telling the truth, that the “insurance” really covers it, whether another “insurance” might be better, etc.””
If the risk can’t be calculated, this complaint doesn’t make any sense.
They are all equal from the start with no a priori reasons to suppose that any of them have anything going for them. All may be wrong, and at most one may be a little right. From that position, what is my risk in not believing any of them? Is it any worse than picking one that doesn’t promise eternal punishment?
————
Nope. Although I would assume if you could ask Pascal, he would say believe in one of them that does promise eternal punishment since the rest would be freebies. He wasn’t a theist or a priest; he was just a mathmatician.
I have only “lowered my odds” under your model if the correct provides infinite punishment for non-belief, but not all religions do.
———–
Logically false statement.
Basic premise was you said why believe in Christianity; maybe the Aztecs got it right. I said all that the addition of more religions does is dilute your probabilities. As long as more than one of them promises eternal punishment, your odds are further diluted. It’s just less diluted (which makes taking Pascal’s Wager even more worthwhile) for the ones that you get a pass on.
Also, probabilities are different from a priori facts. Every die has a 1-in-6 chance of rolling a 1 until you actually find out what the result of the roll was. That’s also true for die rolls which have already occurred, but you don’t know the results. So, if we were to assume that there was one true religion, and further assume that religion was a, “everyone gets a good afterlife” the probability of the wager now, as we see it, is completely unchanged.
For some reason, you keep focusing on alleged probabilities that you don’t know and thus cannot provide, despite repeated requests. Throughout, you ignore the lack of information on your part and excuse it on the part of others.
——————–
Well, I’m not going to apologize for not being able to provide the probability on the existence of God. Sadly, my MacBook Pro doesn’t have that computing power. But the rationale for excusing Adams and Pascal in not providing values for their numbers and in lampooning you for persecuting them is that they don’t need to specify the probabilistic value for the existence of God… they simply require it to be anything other than zero because of the magnitude of harm. So they’re not saying that God exists or that God has a 50% or 25% chance of existing… all they’re saying is that they don’t know. And that given even a tiny sliver of uncertainty on the subject, it’s worthwhile to buy a lottery ticket while you can. To argue against that is to presume that the probability of the existence of God has to be precisely zero. Given that one century ago we didn’t even know of the existence of atoms, that would require more hubris that I possess.
Just remember why Socrates decided the Oracle of Delphi announced him the wisest of the Athenians.
tracieh,
I loved your comment (#50). Clear and succinct. I’m going to use that argument if you don’t mind.
Austin,
You have immense patience. Having spent most of the last decade teaching college statistics, I have to say that I am appalled by Adams’ ignorance of probability, but I am even more concerned that so many people seem to think that his arguments have some sort of mathematical validity. They don’t, and neither do the arguments presented by his supporters here. My head hurts from reading these posts.
And thus you admit that Pascal’s Wager is invalid.
No, I never said that and that wasn’t the purpose behind Adams’ post. If your question is “why believe Christianity,” you have already picked that out of all other religions for no apparent reason and thus the whole “lower my odds” argument is a red herring. You didn’t pick Christianity based on odds, so why pretend that they matter now?
Why are we assuming this?
That’s only one of many probabilities in question, without which the probabilities you are trying to provide are worthless.
So, by pointing out their factual and logical errors, I’m “persecuting” them? I didn’t know that the standards of persecution had fallen so low.
Do you feel persecuted now?
The magnitude of alleged harm, which this religion will allegedly solve. Sadly, you and Adams are completely uninterested in investigating whether either allegation is true, or how likely it is to be true. Merely making the allegation somehow magically becomes a non-zero probability that has to be taken seriously.
Of course one won’t know… if one spends zero time investigating the matter. How convenient.
As noted more than once, the assumption that buying provides more benefit than not buying is based on a circular argument.
Nope, since the problems thus are have more to do with the claims being made by religions other than the existence of gods.
If these risks cannot be calculated, then it’s the claim that one religion is magically superior and a “better bet” than others that doesn’t make any sense. Indeed, the claim that betting on one religion is safer than not betting at all also makes no sense.
Not being able to provide the probability of the existence of God is certainly nothing that one should apologize for…I mean, you’re certainly in good company (the rest of human existence, for example). So, please, nobody has asked for an apology. Not knowing something that nobody knows is certainly excusable.
What is not excusable is your (and Adams’) attempt to build a logical argument based on probability & risk, despite this lack of knowledge which you readily admit.
Given that you cannot absolutely prove a negative, you’ve instantly lowered the bar as far down as it can go with regards to those hypothetical situations that should be given serious consideration. As such, all I have to do is dream up a horrible hypothetical situation that you cannot absolutely disprove, and voila, that hypothetical situation is instantly worthy of serious consideration.
Just for fun, let’s try it out, okay!? So, let’s say that unless I wear green pants and dance around like a chicken on the third wednesday of every month, then when I die, I’ll be sent to a place worse than hell. I’ll have to sit there for the rest of time watching everyone I ever loved being tortured horrifically by an evil clone of that deep-voiced guy from Everybody Loves Raymond. Sounds pretty horrible, right? I mean, jeez, check out the magnitude of harm on that sucker! Well, I guess since the magnitude of harm of my hypothetical situation is so large, and given that you cannot absolutely disprove the possibility of it happening, then it’s instantly worthy of serious consideration. Right? Dang, well, just to hedge my bets, I really should start wearing green pants and dancing like a chicken on the third wednesday of every month. Yep.
These claims, in terms of the “mathematical probability” that Adams and Pascal utilize, are NO DIFFERENT from those of christianity or islam or FSM or any other hoobajoob religion. So why should this hypothetical “hell” be worthy of consideration, but not every single other possible hypothetical situation that has a large “magnitude of harm”? You simply cannot get around this inescapable crack in your argument.
Given that you cannot absolutely prove a negative, you’ve instantly lowered the bar as far down as it can go with regards to those hypothetical situations that should be given serious consideration. As such, all I have to do is dream up a horrible hypothetical situation that you cannot absolutely disprove, and voila, that hypothetical situation is instantly worthy of serious consideration.
——————
Evan,
I’ll respond to this since Austin seems determined to take things out of context and their framework of discussion and not address them squarely. Your point, however, is completely valid.
Maybe the path to redemption is green pants and chicken dancing. Maybe it’s sitting in a cave eating bat guano. Maybe it’s sleeping submerged in peanut butter. Who knows.
But for whatever reason, organized religion has been a persistent presence throughout human history, across unconnected cultures. Personally, I ascribe it to a combination of keeping the masses in line when there’s no obvious immediate repercussions (you come across your neighbor’s wallet on the street at night) and the human tendency to organize the unknown into terms of the known. But it’s not a terrible conclusion to say that maybe this is because there is some sort of persistent truth that they’re all getting at.
In any case, I find a much less serious attempt at logic and discourse here than I do in reading the snippets of Adams which were quoted.
Maybe, at the end of the day, to steal from the band James, God is just as self-righteous and bigoted as those who created him. Who knows. But this discussion seems played out.
According to yours and Adams’ position, you can’t take the chance not to believe it! You accuse me of taking things out of context, but only here to you even begin to approach the point of dispute… and then completely fail to appreciate it for what it is. Without a basis for concluding that Evan is any less reliable or genuine that any traditional religion, then the risk of not believing him is no less than not believing anything else. People like you and Adams only single out religion for special treatment based on circular and logically invalid reasoning. This is why Pascal’s Wager is not a “reason” for adopting a religion; it’s only a rationalization for what one already believes or wants to believe and serves to maintain one’s image as a reasonable person.
If the discussion has “played out,” it’s because apologists for Scott Adams cannot demonstrate that he has written anything sensible, reasonable, logical, or coherent on these matters.
>I loved your comment (#50). Clear and succinct. I’m going to use that argument if you don’t mind.
Please feel free. My biggestproblem with people in dialogues is a lack of clear definition. Sometimes the fault is mine, sometimes it is others’; but in this case, I think we need to define:
1. What does existence signify?
and
2. What criteria must something meet before it can qualify as a known existent item?
If something is not manifesting in some way, then no one has any reason to be claiming it exists.
Xians generally will try to use the courtroom “evidence” tactic for existence for their god. They feel a need to only “prove” god in so far as things that occurred in the past (like the resurrection). But the problem is that even if all those things occurred, we have no way to know they were not misattributed. Let’s say some weird force brought Jesus back from the dead, we could verify it, and he claimed it was god. Does that prove god exists? Of course not. It proves Jesus came back from the dead, and Jesus believes god brought him back from the dead. Period. That fact that anyone believes X doesn’t make X true.
Xians do not claim god _used_ to exist, but no longer does. They claim god exists even _now_. And things that exist _now_ produce an objective, examinable/verifiable, consensus manifestation. That’s what “existing” is–isn’t it? If X doesn’t have that going for it–then saying X “exists” is completely meaningless. It’s no different in that case than saying X doesn’t exist. The statements become logical equivalents because existence is now defined as anything that does OR does not manifest. And what the h*ll is that, then?
Some Xians will say it’s like an idea. Love, for example, can be said to exist. However, when you ask if they are claiming that god exists like an idea–a concoction in their mind–they will give you a resounding “no.” So, the “love” and “logic” exist without such manifestation–is simply a red herring, because they truly mean “exist” like my coffee mug exists–not like my thoughts exist. They in no way will claim god is a thought–something they create in their heads–and yet, he does seem to “exist” more like a thought than like an objective item, doesn’t he?
Exactly, who knows? Nobody, really. You have no rational basis for giving salvationist religions any more attention or concern than my hypothetical chicken-dance religion.
If you’d like a serious, in-depth study into why this is, you should truly consult the God Delusion. Dawkins discusses this issue at great length, and I’m simply not worthy of trying to even summarize it here. Needless to say, it’s an anthropological study into the memes of humanity.
“Personally, I ascribe it to a combination of keeping the masses in line when there’s no obvious immediate repercussions (you come across your neighbor’s wallet on the street at night) and the human tendency to organize the unknown into terms of the known. But it’s not a terrible conclusion to say that maybe this is because there is some sort of persistent truth that they’re all getting at.”
Again, in what context is that anything but a horrible conclusion? The only method you could use to come to that conclusion is…again…a LOGICAL FALLACY. That fallacy would be: appeal to authority. The authority, in this case, is the majority. If the majority of humanity said that black people were inferior, would that make it any more true? Of course not. You simply cannot judge the validity of a belief or hypothesis on how persistent or widespread it is. That’s intellectually lazy and dishonest. And if the only thing that you can point to in support of a hypothesis is “well, everyone else is doing it”, then, again, you’ve failed the test of rational thought.
No, there is no persistent truth that they’re getting at. The persistence of salvationist religion is an anthropological phenomenon…and it will be nothing more, until you can show me something other than “lots of people believe it!”
I offer up a valid argument, and you respond with “well, SO many people believe in god, they must be on to something!” Meanwhile, Adams is relying on logical and factual falsehoods, all of which Austin has pointed out and thoroughly debunked. So please, let’s not get into a pissing match about whose got a more serious discourse.
What does the possible self-righteousness of a hypothetical god have to do with any of this? And to expand on what Austin said, perhaps the reason it seems “played out” is because you’ve exhausted your repertoire of logical fallacies.
One last thing regarding your thoughts on the persistence of salvationist religion: do yourself a huge favor and read “The Story of B” and “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn. Unlike God Delusion, they’re fiction, but they will really help you understand the phenomenon much better.
You keep implying that there is a lot to be understood about atheism, that Scott is just ignorant. Um, excuse me? Atheism seems extremely simple: “Nothing I have ever noticed indicates that God exists, and I don’t believe anything ever will.” Doesn’t that sum it up? What else can there be? Logical proofs?
>No, there is no persistent truth that they’re getting at.
I actually don’t mind saying that religions are getting at persistent truths (any more than I think Jung was onto _something_ with his archetypes concept). I do think that the human experience has a lot of commonality despite the many, MANY differences. And I think religion reflects that in a metaphorical/poetic/artistic way. Humans are artistic, they will create symbols and spin fantastic yarns. Storytelling is ancient (and generally accompanied by drugs or alcohol in many cultures–there’s a reason for this).
I think with regard to salvation, it’s about the idea that people can transcend themselves. We can “die” and be “reborn” into something different or better. We can do it ourselves–but when we tell the story, it takes on symbolic properties and becomes a “story.”
Likewise, death and resurrection persist because we see it all the time in our agriculture and herd migrations. It makes sense we have stories that represent the seasons–winter/spring–which are consistently associated with death and rebirth in literature and film (modern modes of storytelling).
I am in complete agreement with Campbell’s statement that “all religions are true, but none are literal.”
In my opinion, ignorance is also when one takes everything at face value! Such a strategy ends just like you in attacking someone who says in about every fifth post of his blog that he might be wrong and would be happy to be corrected. Moreover, he can only give statements in the way he understands the world. In what way is that a bad thing? What is truth anyway?
Btw. your comment section sucks. Make a mistake before sending and the text is gone…
Did someone forget their happy pills on Sunday? If you think anyone reads I do not imagine a lot of Scott’s readers to be reading him for his philosophical views. If you think so, you are more misguided than your article already shows you to be.
He’s a cartoonist…He’s funny. You are simply bitter. Sit back, relax and stop taking yourself so seriously.
Adams questioned whether there was a difference between “weak atheism” and agnosticism. Austin pointed to his own rather succinct rebuttal.
Your rather simplistic definition of atheism does not preclude all further discussion on atheism and agnosticism, nor does it even begin to address the complex issues discussed in Austin’s article linked to above.
Tracieh: that’s all well and good that the evolution of the religious memes in human civilization can inform us about the human psyche. But this is another discussion completely. “Rebirth” in the sense you talk about is, as I understand it, the fact that when I die, I turn into worm food, and am “reborn” as part of that worm, who is in turn eaten but larger animals, etc. But the vast, vast majority of salvationist adherents don’t view their religious “truths” in the light which you seem to. They view it as “I’m going to live in a paradise in the sky”, quite literally. You and I may see figurative truths in the memes of religion, but that still does not lend any validity to those religions in terms of literal truths about god, the afterlife, etc. It doesn’t change the fact that the existence of a salvationist “god” is vanishingly improbable.
Some opinions, like racism and anti-Semitism, cause a great deal of harm when acted upon.
Fixed that for you. HTH, HAND.
Oh, hey, look! The “you guys are taking him too seriously, he’s a humorist, he’s immune to all criticism!” crowd is back in town.
Give it up, folks. Adams presented an argument, and regardless of his profession as a “humorist”, this was not meant as a joke (if it was, then I have vastly underestimated his ability to craft humor.) No, Adams does not get a free pass on any and all matters of the philosophical just because he’s a humorist by profession—and “you guys need to lighten up and take your happy pills” is not even worthy of addressing.
If Adams wants to be immune from rebuttals of his arguments, then he shouldn’t be putting them out on the intertubes for everyone to see. If he wants to maintain his “immunity via humorist” sheild, then he should stick to humorous comic strips rather than philosophizing on his blog.
“God” is the absence of hell, and the mental state required to participate in this kind of argument is hell.
So you’re all already lost, but only for as long as it takes to breathe calmly, smile, and enjoy the world around you.
I had to laugh at this article. I’ve always enjoyed watching Adams wind up people with tender religious sentitivities, but I would never have thought atheists or agnostics could be as easily riled. Go easy, it’s not like he’s writing a bible.
Mr. Cline: Your fundamentalism and clear bitterness are quite scary.
I don’t really have a significant view about the topic at hand, but I’ve got a very strong view about this sentence:
“Adams finishes his post with a demonstration that he has no idea what atheism or agnosticism are — and thus shouldn’t have been writing about them to begin with.”
It’s not like Adams was writing a textbook. He was writing a blog entry — sharing his thoughts. You can disagree with his thoughts, or with the information he uses to support his thoughts.
America was founded on the belief of certain unalienable rights, including freedom of speech. You might disagree with Adams, but why does that mean he “shouldn’t have been writing about” such topics? Even if the information is wrong, if it makes a reader think, I feel such an exercise is worthwhile.
I don’t take anyone’s opinions at face value, especially a cartoonists. But, if the opinions inspire me to think of something I didn’t consider before, they’re worthwhile. Upon further study, I might find the information was bogus, or that I don’t agree with the conclusions, but I might not have even looked into the subject at all if it weren’t for some item that started me thinking about it.
From that standpoint, both Adams’ blog entry and your article were useful. As a result, I would like to ask you to avoid discouraging people from posting their opinions. In my experience, some of the greatest breakthroughs have come from hearing the idle thoughts of someone who didn’t have a firm grasp of a subject as it resulted in seeing the subject in a totally different light. Please do not discourage that light from shining through.
Thank you\.
You are correct on the second part but wrong on the first. That’s why Scott’s ignorance is so atrocious – there is really little that needed to be learned.
Saying it doesn’t make it true. Adams was corrected in the first post, then he used a second post to make even more errors as well as deepen the original ones.
Scott was “wrong” but funny.
You are “right” but unfunny.
Guess which blog I’ll be reading more of?
Regards
http://enoughwealth.com
ps. Neither of you touches of the fact that people are by nature of changeable mind, depending on circumstance and emotional state. For example, I generally have no belief in the supernatural, including god(s). But, in times of stress (such as when my loved ones or I are in mortal danger and I can’t do anything effective about it) I fall into the “chicken soup” camp regarding the value of prayer. So, does this make me a theist, and agnostic, or an atheist? And, who cares?
They don’t need to in order to come away sorely misinformed by thinking he has written material that is factually accurate and logically coherent.
Being a cartoonist isn’t an excuse for stating falsehoods and defending logically incoherent arguments. It’s not “bitter” to point out all those problems.
Emmmm…what?
A good chunk of what Adams writes is utter rubbish. I think what you missed here is that Adams frequently makes use of a comedic technique of reducing a complex topic to a non-plausible, ridiculous state. It’s a way of poking fun at the seriousness of intellectual discussion.
You could have boiled this whole thing down to “Scott Adams is an idiot.” Your article reads like a 9th grade position paper where you’ve come up with your 5 supporting arguments and done your very best to meet the 500 word minimum.
I was also left believing that you were countering some other article, written by somebody else far away. Most of the arguments were either made simply for the sake of arguing, missed the sarcasm and took the comments literally, or were altogether unrelated to the quoted text and used solely as an opportunity to yell to the world about how fed up you are that everyone misunderstands your beliefs.
Ch
Sorry, but that wasn’t a “fix.” Acting on some opinions can cause even more harm, but this doesn’t mean that the original opinions themselves were entirely harmless.
Indeed, it is precisely the fact that opinions do lead to actions, consciously or unconsciously, which is part of why it’s important to care about whether they are accurate and reasonable.
Sorry, but “fundamentalism” is a type of religious movement and I’m not religious. Please try to find a more accurate and relevant label… and maybe support the accusation, if you think you are up to it.
Steffen:
If his arguments should not be taken at face value, then how should they be taken? I’m sorry, but all this alluding to some kind of magical subtlety and nuance that’s hiding behiind the curtain, it doesn’t impress me.
His periodic admissions that he could be wrong does not mean that those who attempt to prove him wrong are somehow unjustified in doing so. According to what you just posted, all Austin has done is respond to Adams’ invitation. Austin rebutted his arguments; these were not “attacks”, they were counter-arguments. I find it quite ridiculous that one could characterize Austin’s response as an “attack” on Adams. If you put forth an argument on a blog, and someone responds to it with a counterargument of their own, this is not an “attack”.
Yeah, I mean, DUDE, why even wake up in the morning!? Why get out of bed? Why!? WHY!?
Are you serious? You sound like some high school kid on his first hit of shrooms.
Let’s explain this again: nobody is criticizing Adams for the fact that he has a viewpoint. The fact that Adams is stating his viewpoint or “understanding of the world” is not bad, and nobody ever said it was. As such, Austin never criticized Adams for having a viewpoint. He criticized the viewpoint itself. Do you understand the difference?
But, please, feel free to prove me wrong. Show me where Austin criticized Adams for simply having a viewpoint.
True, but if you are going to ask a question, doesn’t it make just a teeny weeny bit of sense to invest a minute or two into trying to answer it?
Irrelevant, as I said nothing about his rights. It’s a simple matter of not pretending to have anything substantive to say on a matter which you are not only completely ignorant of, but don’t even care enough about to spend a few minutes on basic research for.
Well, here you are discouraging me from posting my opinion… so it seems clear that you don’t really have a problem with people discouraging others from posting their opinions. It’s OK for you to do it. Why isn’t it OK for me to do it?
Depends: do you care more about being entertained, or about learning facts? Which is the case will say quite a bit about you.
Those are easy accusations to make, but it’s tough to take them serious given that you don’t support them.
>
One could write a doctoral thesis doing just that.
What would the point of that be? I could take the time to cut and paste text. I could make long-winded arguments to support my opinions. I could cite prior research. I could quote well-respected contemporaries on these arguments.
Your reactions to what I say would be no different if I went to that trouble. You are entrenched in your beliefs, and you are becoming more entrenched in your beliefs as you receive more comments and criticism. Me writing more simply provides you with more opportunities to further entrench yourself in your beliefs.
I’m not here to convince you that you’re wrong or right or anywhere in between. I was giving my honest reactions to what you wrote. How you make use of it is your business. You can take the criticism and grow, or you can use it as an opportunity to further feed your ego and harden your beliefs.
I suggest you all read “Breaking the Spell” by Daniel Dennett, who goes through the evolution of religion throughout human history. He is very clear in pointing out when religion came on the scene, and why.
This is important, because before that, there was no concept of “god”, “hell”, “afterlife”, “satan”, “sin”, or any of those clearly religious memes.
Since we are able to show when the concepts were created/invented by humans, why is there still any belief that they were actually revelations from god? This interchange is happening only because so many are ignorant (usually purposely so) of the fact that all religion is man-made myth. That all so-called religious experiences are clearly happening only in the minds of the individuals, as a form of self-delusion (most of which is actually known by the individual).
That all being said and demonstrated, why doesn’t anyone seriously believe that other myths are real? Like the Wizard of Oz? Or other works from fiction? Because they are not emotionally satisfying, nor are they likely to have enough followers to carry on traditions or generate cash/power to entice leaders.
So, since god, heaven, hell, afterlife, soul, angels, devils, etc. are demonstrable as man-created myths, we know there is no reason to waste any time wondering if they actually exist in reality — any more than we waste any time on scientific experiments to see if the tooth fairy, easter bunny, or unicorns actually exist. They are also man-made myths.
Therefore, there is not a “non-zero chance” they exist. There IS zero reason to believe they exist or to waste any time searching for them.
One thing I generally admire about the non-religious is their increased capacity for a sense of humor.
You just lowered the average, though.
If you’ve read any of Scott’s blog, you should have notice a propensity for posting ideas just for the reaction.
And you played right into his hands.
No, I doubt you spend so much time and attention on the post to amount to a doctoral thesis. It shouldn’t take much time or space to write down whatever reasons you had in mind when you arrived at that conclusion. This hyperbole is a cop-out.
What is the point of intellectual honesty? If you are going to make accusations, you assume a moral and intellectual responsibility to be able to support them.
If you start out by assuming that I am closed minded, then you undermine any reason you have to posting in the first place… unless it’s just to please yourself.
In the absence of any support for your accusations, it isn’t even possible to take the accusations seriously, much less regard them as substantive enough to require changes.
Unsupported, superficial complaints lacking any substance are not a basis for “growth,” even if they are ultimately valid. Such criticism thus can’t possibility be intended with the benefit of others in mind.
Which is why, when challenged, he proceeds to try to defend his position as if it had been intended as reasonable and justified all along. Sorry, but he can’t have it both ways. Either he says “you’re right, it was all just junk posted as a joke to see what people would say” or it can’t be excused as you and others keep doing. As it is, it all becomes special pleading – and transparently so, to boot.
I love this it is entirely a stupid argument on both sides. It has made me laugh.
The idea that you might as well believe in God because otherwise you go to hell could be put like this:
Pick a number 1 – 100
If I draw out a number between 51- 100 I will poke you in the eye. Unless you pick the number I draw.
therefore there is no point in picking number 1 – 50 as there is no benefit to picking the right number.
Sure you only have a 1 in 49 chance of been right. However it is better picking between 51 – 100 because you’re reducing the chances of been poked in the eye from 1 in 49 to 1 in 48.
With in that construct the theory is fine. If you start asking questions like “why don’t I just run away” or in this case “what is the nature of god” then it falls apart.
Never argue with a fool. People might not be able to tell the difference.
While Scott may or may not be a fool, that is the part he is playing.
Perhaps, for more intellectual honesty (and clarity), Scott Adams should post the words: “Thought Experiment” or “Philosotainment” on any topic that doesn’t completely and accurately reflect his personal beliefs. That way, a reader would know he was just being funny, not serious, and that it is just to get reactions.
Of course, he isn’t likely to do that, as it has been suggested to him in the past (by me and other), and in the mistaken belief that it would somehow render the process of getting reactions less valid.
I, for one, do not believe that he is EVER being completely open and honest about his personal feelings/beliefs.
Mr. Cline is right about Scott’s lack of research. I suggested he read “Freedom Evolves” to understand a world expert’s research into free will, and he posted that he read a negative review of the book, so he felt he didn’t need to read the book. That kind of intellectual dishonesty and laziness was shocking. Since that time, I’ve come to understand that he writes in the attempt to generate hits on the website, which generates cash for him. He shamelessly plugs his stuff, and is clear that he holds us in contempt.
I read it, because he’s funny, and infrequently thought-provoking (as only an outsider and complete novice can be on a topic). But I hold him as an expert only in his particular cartoon and the books he’s published. He has no other area where he’s particularly knowledgeable, and all his other experience is based on those first two things.
His misunderstanding of science, technology, psychology, history, etc. is blatant and comical (at least whenever his tries to display it). Only those less versed in those subjects think him of any depth.
He does not read the links most people supply — and he clearly doesn’t understand those he does read. He’s shown time and time again that he misunderstands the links he himself provides! (It is pointed out just about every time he supplies a link.)
However, I love “Dilbert” and his books, so I read and post to the blog. He is, of course, frequently wrong. Sometimes I point that out, or make a pithy comment. I refrain from being snarky, but sometimes . . .
Mr. Cline, keep up the good work.
But if he goes ahead and says “you’re right, it was all just junk posted as a joke to see what people would say,” then the joke would be over and our entertainment would be at an end. Good trolling doesn’t have to end with “Ha! Gotcha!.” In fact, good trolling doesn’t ever have to end.
Grow a sense of humor.
Let me give you an admonition I give to many people — attack the argument, not the arguer. Insult is the weakest form of intellectual debate. Your whole article was devoted to simply bad-mouthing Scott Adams. The stronger and more mature position would have been to attack his arguments and then let the reader conclude that Mr. Adams is an idiot.
Your whole article was inartful and misguided. Learn how to properly debate.
So, you do think he is trolling? Trolling is lying, intellectual dishonesty, and childishness on the part of a person who lacks both self-respect and respect for others — not to mention anything worthwhile to do with their abundant time. Trolls are people to be pitied, at best, not lauded.
It is not the critics of trolls who need to grow a sense of humor, but those who can find nothing better to entertain themselves with than trolling — whether as observers or participants.
I didn’t attack the person of Scott Adams. I criticized his falsehoods, his lack of research, and his poor logic.
Thanks, gr8hands. I’m glad to see that a few people like you, Patrick, and Evan “get it.”
Oh, come on, do you even read what you write?
“Why does Scott Adams assume, without any apparent basis in evidence or logic, that picking a religion which claims to deliver salvation has any chance of actually delivering? Sure, it might be possible, but he’s making a mathematical argument without any numbers to go by.”
You attack him for assuming there’s a chance of a religion delivering salvation, and in the next sentence say “Sure, it might be possible.” Guess what, genius, “Might be possible” “There’s a chance”. And any chance at all, by definition, has a probability > 0. That’s the math part. So now we have a non-zero probability of an INFINITE punishment. Get the picture?
Of course there’s always the non-zero probability that an eternity in Hell is better than an eternity in Heaven. You know that whole bird chipping away at a mountain and watching The Sound of Music and all that.
You said it in your second to last paragraph: if you take him seriously, you’re at fault. Ranting about the ways in which he’s wrong is like criticizing a symphony because you don’t like the lyrics. The things you’re complaining about (Adams’ views on atheism and agnosticism) aren’t actually present in the post.
I find it surprising that you can attempt to be so rational and skeptical in your spiritual life, but fail to apply these same tools when reading the Dilbert blog.
Again, you’re missing the point. Scott repeats over and over that he is unqualified to be an expert on most topics, but, like every other human on earth, proceeds to talk about them anyway. Perhaps calling what he’s eliciting a “reaction” is limiting its value – what he’s really doing is starting the conversation.
You’ll notice he’s sent a lot of traffic to YOUR blog. So you should at least be appreciative that he’s sent the conversation your way. A more gracious response would have been “Thanks, Scott, for bringing it up. Since I DO consider myself an expert, I’ll take it from here.”
Instead, your pedantic tone is a turn off to people you seem to want to convince.
Yes, I say that it might be possible, but without any arguments to demonstrate that it is possible there is no good reason to base an argument on the assumption that it is possible.
Saying that something “might be possible” is not an indication that there is a non-zero chance of it happening.
I don’t mean to stir things up here but was there a purpose to this rebuttal of Scott Adam’s blog post? I didn’t take the time to read through all 100+ comments so this may have already been asked but isn’t the point of a blog to provide the public with a view of your thoughts, ideas, opinions, etc.? A number of times you speak of misrepresenting facts and a lack of research but you’ve clearly missed the fact that your entire argument is based on a blog post and not a thesis paper.
That aside, however, I do hope you feel better about yourself. If you’d like to check blogger.com I’m sure you can find some other people who have written posts that are lacking research and evidence to support their choices for, say, what to eat for dinner or what to wear to work and maybe you can even proceed to misinterpret them as scientific documents and rebut them as well. Best of luck.
You forgot the rest: he insists on writing as if he should be taken seriously by continually trying to offer reasoned justifications for what he says.
That would be fine if he demonstrated an interest in learning.
A conversation has to go in multiple directions. So long as he refuses to learn anything, or do any research, it’s not “conversation” he’s provoking.
That remains to be seen.
That would be an appropriate response to someone who demonstrates an interest in learning.
Based on what I’ve seen here and elsewhere, mere disagreement with the Great Scott is enough to turn off his fans.
Wow. This blog is full of hatred and the author has a holier-than-thou attitude, which is kinda ironic for an atheist. No wonder this is the only post that had comments.
Truth and accuracy.
Yes, but the fact that one writes a blog post does not relieve one of the responsibility to endeavor to write things that are factually accurate and logically coherent. No one is perfect, of course, but we quickly learn whether a person is simply making mistakes, or just doesn’t care, by their reaction to be corrected. Do they say “oops, good point” or simply find new ways to repeat the same old junk without revealing any comprehension of what they were told?
I don’t write in order to raise my level of self-esteem.
So, it’s “hatred” to correct factual errors and logical inconsistencies? You are quick with the accusations, but not with support. If you don’t take your own statements seriously enough to think they are worth supporting, why even bother posting them?
No, it’s just that no other posts here dared to criticize or question the Great Scott.
I’m certainly giving up having a conversation with you.
Maybe Christopher Hitchens has a nice blog.
He seems to have a sense of humor.
My my.
Based on what I’ve seen here and elsewhere, mere disagreement with the Great Scott is enough to turn off his sycophantic fans.
You do have a bitter streak don’t you? It’s unfortunate that you’ve taken it upon yourself to correct the egregious errors of so many by launching into an attack.
Was there a purpose to immediately going on the offensive? I mean, surely have you much better things to be doing with your life as the Regional Director for the Council for blah blah blah. Settle down. Drink some hot cocoa. Maybe get a blanket and curl up with a good Dilbert book.
So, your idea of conversation is to make accusations or claims and then not support them when challenged?
Yes, the whole “let’s invade Iraq” thing was a just a joke that got out of hand, you know.
It’s not “bitter” to notice a regular pattern of fans making lame, contradictory excuses whenever Scott Adams’ nonsense is questioned, challenged, or criticized. Don’t get me wrong, you are of course free to continue.
Was there a purpose to explaining the logical and factual errors he made? Yes, truth and sound logic matter.
Was there a purpose to explaining the logical and factual errors he made? Yes, truth and sound logic matter.
And if it had simply been a matter of pointing out the errors that were made that would be fine. However the way you went about it was clearly nothing more than an attempt to get a rise out of his fans. Granted, it worked, but frankly I think most of the responses that you got were nothing more than wanting to knock you down a few pegs. Launching into an argument with thinly veiled insults is bound to get a rise out of many. The sad part comes when you realize that’s the only way you know how to interact with others. Why don’t you go on the offensive elsewhere? Perhaps you should try the bible. I’ve heard there’s a bunch of passages in there that claim to refute many of your arguments.
You calling Scott Adams arrogant is very humorous, though I am sure you are not meaning to be. You are at the zenith of arrogance to call yourself an authority on a subject that is all about interpretation and belief, for even atheism is a belief. Mr Adams is (on his personal blog) only presenting food for thought. He never claims to be an expert,as you do. If you are the type information provider on about.com I believe I will follow the advice of “Bobby” and use the Google tool bar for all my querying needs.
Get that stick out of your ass and believe whatever you want, but do not present any of your beliefs seriously as facts.
oh and get a life (since this might be your only one!)
And that’s precisely what I did. If anyone experienced a “rise,” the responsibility is theirs.
Curious, though, that people will defend Scott Adams as just trying to get a rise out of people, criticizing me for “falling” for it, but it’s OK for you to criticize me for trying to get a “rise” out of Scott Adams fans. Either you don’t notice the contradiction, or you don’t care.
Funny, but that describes just about all of the comments from fans of the Great Scott.
If you took the time to read around — you know, research — you’d find that my criticisms of Scott Adams’ arguments are not unlike my criticisms of others’ arguments. I even have an extended commentary on the Gospel of Mark, if biblical criticism is what interests you.
Berimbau_one: This blog is full of hatred and the author has a holier-than-thou attitude…
Austin Cline: So, it’s “hatred” to correct factual errors and logical inconsistencies? You are quick with the accusations, but not with support. If you don’t take your own statements seriously enough to think they are worth supporting, why even bother posting them?
The support for my “hatred” affirmation is in the 120+ posts above an your quick and severe rebuttals, the tone of those comments is not amicable at all. Its not an accusation, its an observation. Don’t get confused, we’re not all trying to posit on profound philosophy, but my commenst are just as valid.
But give it a rest man. You have made an excellent point that you have extensively researched the nonexistence of god and its philosophy and have emerged as an expert and know more about this topic than all of us combined, and that you were just pointing out deficiencies in a blog whose humor is no excuse to faulty reasoning.
We get it already! Again my point was to make an observation that you have an almost religious fanatism about defending your philosophic points. I also observed that was ironic.
Berimbau_one: No wonder this is the only post that had comments.
Austin Cline: No, it’s just that no other posts here dared to criticize or question the Great Scott.
Now you are holding on to an argument to bat all comments. i.e., you are a fanatic of Adams and will not listen to reason.” Not true, but I respect your views and laught at his.
No, atheism is not a belief. Yes, I am an authority on the subject — as demonstrated, in part, by my ability to support my positions with detailed explanations, arguments, and evidence.
So, it’s OK to ignore facts and logic if your purpose is to present “food for thought”? How does that work, exactly? I don’t see the connection.
True, but I don’t criticize him for not being an expert. I criticize his failure to be accurate and logical, even after having his errors pointed out.
So, you acknowledge that there is a substantive and meaningful difference between the two? Then why is it wrong to criticize the Great Scott for presenting falsehoods as if they were facts?
Oh, I have a life, thank you.
Odd that you keep using “logic” to defend your viewpoint. There is absolutely no way you can base a belief system (which includes atheism) on logic. None. How can you arrive at a logical conclusion about something that has no proof to back up either side? Like a previous poster commented, both sides of this argument (the religious and the anti-religious) are both “scum”. I think the world would be better off if people on either extremes of this argument disappeared off the face of the Earth.
Given the level of vitriol and insults being posted here by Scott Adams fans, my failure to be “amicable” is quite generous. Moreover, “hatred” is not defined as merely not being amicable. If that’s how you use the term, then I suggest that your standards are out of whack.
Hmmmm… I suspect that if enough visitors from Scott Adams blog were to come here to comment, every single statement made would inevitably be contradicted by others in at least three different ways. Some people say he’s just trying to be funny, others defend him as if he were serious. Some say that he’s doing a valuable service starting a conversation, you get annoyed that I participate in that conversation by explaining and supporting my position.
I apologize to everyone who wanted to post their assertions and accusations without being faced with rebuttal or challenge. Perhaps that’s the norm at Scott Adams’ blog or wherever else you spend time, but it’s not the case here. Here, if you are going to make claims or accusations, expect questions and challenges.
You’re a lot less interested than Scott.
1. Atheism is not a belief system.
2. It is incorrect that a belief system cannot be defended by logic. The definition of “belief system” is not “something that has no proof to back it up.”
The only people whom I have ever seen make that claim are those who conveniently manage to exempt themselves from either side. Funny how that works out.
Ha Ha Ha – “Dance, Monkey, Dance!” (see update on Scott’s blog) – if nothing else, the great scott is psychic!
Flame On!
If that is the case, then why do so many people defend the basic position as credible, reasonable, and logical?
Because they are idiots Austin. But your article isn’t against those people, it is against someone who has had a disclaimer in the article itself and several in the past about his position stating it is not credible logic.
You rip into an argument that is pre-stated as wrong. You either ignored the research you did on it, or you did not do enough to understand this. Either way it does not make you any less right against the argument itself, it just decreases your credibility as a journalist as it is out of context (meaning, from a source that stands by its intellectual implications).
Admitting it was a lack or a misunderstanding of research (not publicly, you don’t have to even post it, but to yourself) and attempting to fix that mistake in the future is the only possible way to redeem the lost credibility unfortunately.
Sorry, no, there is no such statement in the article. Even if there were, however, the fact that people do take his position seriously is sufficient reason to critique the arguments.
>>>>>Austin Cline: I apologize to everyone who wanted to post their assertions and accusations without being faced with rebuttal or challenge. Perhaps that’s the norm at Scott Adams’ blog or wherever else you spend time, but it’s not the case here. Here, if you are going to make claims or accusations, expect questions and challenges.
No actually, we post precisely to see your reactions. We welcome that you are quick in your responses. This is one of the best blogs for its interactivity with the author, you beat Scott on that.
I have been reading the Dilbert blog for quite some time now, it helps me through my boring days at work. Mr Adams often makes lots of crazy claims and wild assumptions, sometimes I find them insightful other times plain ludicrouse and wrong, however almost always amusing as I realize this is primarily just for entertainment. However I agree with what you say that the fact this is for entertainment is not excuse for him to be allowed to make fallacious and get away Scott free. In fact i’ve often seen Scott engage people in his blog about the things he has said, and whilst he rarely backs down from his own original point of view (maybe its that cognitive dissonance thing he mentioned) his responses are, unlike yours, not full of personal attacks. He may criticise the general human condition that causes the disagreement, however, unlike your blog, in reading the response you wouldnt get the feeling that Scott just plain doesnt like people who disagree with him. Howver its clear you do, or at least you just dont like Scott
I cant believe the stupidity of human kind.
who are you to say that Scott is wrong? to do so, you have to demonstrate that you are 100% correct, and thats not posible.
the concepts you use, are all human created, as an attemp to separate things, just to please those who whant to say that “are different”.
thats remember me something: in the traditional karate there are only 2 colors of belts, white, and black.
but in modern times, people starts complaining, “hey, why am i equal to him? i have more experience!! i should not be equal” so others intermediate colors were created (first green then others).
thats how human mind works, and is just a stupid way of wasting time.
instead of wasting time looking for literal definitions (that were created for humans and therefore tomorrow can change or proven wrong). you should use your time to probe that your believing is right.
i am not saying that any of you are wrong, i dont know if im being clear (cause english is not my first language), i just say, that there is no point in discusing if a brick is orange, brick red, magenta 200, pantone 4000, or a mix of red with yellow… is just a F***ing color…. wich every one can see in a different way (ask a daltonic).
the same for strong atheist, weak atheist, pink atheist, yellow atheist, vanilla atheist, chocolate agnostic (this ones may believe that chocolate may be god), etc…
i can already read the answers to this… “he is wrong, cause he cant callme just an atheist cause i believe in xxxx so im a xxx atheist”… which again remembers me the karate example…
No, atheism is not a belief. Yes, I am an authority on the subject — as demonstrated, in part, by my ability to support my positions with detailed explanations, arguments, and evidence
You believe that there is nothing – right? That is a belief – it cannot be scientifically proven (in either direction). You cannot prove there is not a God and I will not try to prove there is. It would be pointless anyways, no one is going to convert because of your column. And you are an expert in the explanations of atheism – but since (and I will say it again) atheism is a belief, there are no experts – just people with ideas (or a collection of other people’s ideas).
And the idea of “food for thought” is a brain exercise – science has proven that you can improve you mental capacity by using it (try it sometimes). By bending your mind around anything that you would normally not think about (such as the theory of a God) all those little neurons are firing away and creating pathways of energy for future thoughts to follow. Facts are not necessary for food for thought – ideas and the potential for more ideas are.
True, but I don’t criticize him for not being an expert. I criticize his failure to be accurate and logical, even after having his errors pointed out.
that is criticising him for a lack of knowledge that he does not claim to possess. And the manner in which you pointed out your “evidence” was not conducive to a learning experience. You have to give him credit for posting a link to your site so that his readers could see the “expert’s” ideas. That is responsible blogging!
as for the last two comments (posted to get a rise out of you…worked) “the great Scott” (can I say how much I love that!) never present the ideas as facts (read again) and I am very glad you have a life (or believe you have a life- whatever) and I admit to being arrogant – I think many people are lacking a life (I am not utilizing mine fully, but I try)
I regularly read Scott Adam’s blog because he’s amusing: he takes unconventional stances and mocks people for being so set in their beliefs. He asks wierd and awkward questions. I don’t always agree with his posts, but I never mind, because he never claims to know anything – they’re thought exercises, and I’ve never seen that there’s anything wrong with making people think.
Unfortunatly, I can’t say the same for your post. In fact, I had a hard time understanding just what your point was, aside from “Scott Adams is dumb and his arguments are too”. It shouldn’t be hard to clearly state your opinion versus his opinion without resorting to ad hominem attacks.
For the record, I’m an agnostic. Your claim that you can either believe or not believe sounds pretty Yoda-ish – do or do not. But this isn’t Star Wars, and in the real world, there are more sides than “yes” and “no”. I’m an agnostic, not an aethiest, not because I am trying to appease anyone, but because I haven’t made up my mind yet. I’m still thinking – and I’m sure Scott, at least, would approve of that.
I haven’t made any personal attack against Scott Adams. However, when people take a position personally, they will interpret any criticism of that position as a personal attack. Funny how those complaining about “personal attacks” also tend to insist that the Adams’ original position was never intended seriously.
Yes, I say that it might be possible, but without any arguments to demonstrate that it is possible there is no good reason to base an argument on the assumption that it is possible.
Saying that something “might be possible” is not an indication that there is a non-zero chance of it happening.
Don’t you have it backwards? Everything is at least possible until proven otherwise. In any case “Might be possible” means there’s a non-zero chance of it being possible. So then you have a non-zero chance of a chance being non-zero. Multiply it out and you’re still left with a non-zero value.
Well, of course in a deterministic point of view, everything is either 100% certain or 0% possible, and probability is used merely because we don’t know which is which. With QM there are all those waveforms to consider, but I challenge you to come up with a proven waveform equation showing that every religion is wrong as far as salvation is concerned.
Of course he’s trolling and you continue to allow yourself to be baited.
Don’t waste your energy feeling ‘pity’ for the trolls though. You’re annoyed; we’re entertained.
Cheers.
In the cases where I have said he is wrong, I am the one who explained what is correct. If you disagree with any particular point, feel free to make your case. If you cannot make a case, then your question here doesn’t seem to make much sense.
I’d be happy to explain anything you found confusing.
I didn’t call Scott Adams dumb or engage in other ad hominem attacks.
Your confusion may be due to thinking that believing is an act of will, something you have to set out and do consciously. Beliefs are not acts of will, though. Either a belief in some sort of “god” is present in your mind or it is not. If it is, you are a theist. If it is not, you are an a-theist.
Wow…get a life. Go outside. Spend time with your family. I wish I had all day to constantly argue with others on the internet with “facts” about my belief. Scott’s article was not supposed to be credible.
Wrong.
Depends on how “God” is defined, but it’s unnecessary to do so to be an atheist.
I already pointed you to the explanation that atheism is not a belief.
Yes it is, but it doesn’t justify factual and logical errors that you refuse to correct.
A few minutes research wold have provided the information; afterwards, many handed it to him – but he continues to post falsehoods.
I should add, I suppose, that you are annoyed with and vehemently arguing against the content of a series of posts the author himself states don’t make any sense. Not to mention that said content appears on the personal blog of a cartoonist.
Since when?
There is objective and there is epistemic probabilities. Objective probability is how likely something is given the facts at hand (like the laws of nature). Epistemic probability is how likely something is given the evidence we have. Which did Scott Adams mean? We don’t know, but we need to know in order to evaluate his claim because these are two very different types of probability.
No, here in this situation it means that I have no idea if it is possible or not but that information is necessary in order to proceed.
I would be interested in someone logically proving that believing there is no God is any more rational than believing that there is a God, or vice versa (depending on where you stand).
If there is a God, is there any way that we humans can perceive it (God) with our limited senses?
And if we cannot does that mean that God exists? or does not exist?
Your post is more BS than Scott Adams. First and foremost you seem to have no idea of the purpose behind his writings. Have you ever read his books? He’s hardly a bible thumper looking for new converts.
You ignore that there are valid arguments to his points. You don’t put forth a very compelling argument on your own site. It’s just a rant. However, neither he nor you needs to defend a statement made in this format. Both of you have what equates to opinion columns. So, why are you mad at him for doing the same thing you do?
Funny how many people arrived here from his blog insisting that his position is credible. If we grant for the sake of argument that what you say is correct, then it’s clear that Adams isn’t doing a very good job at making this clear if so many regular readers don’t know it… and since he is unwilling or unable to post accurate information to correct their misunderstandings then someone has to.
I’m not a regular reader of his blog and made a single post about three of his. If there is a problem with people wasting their time reading his material as if it contained anything substantive and true, it lies with the man who come here to defend his posts and not with the one who recognized his posts as wrong. Therefore, perhaps you should direct your advice back to his readers.
I see the monkey, and i like it.
pwned by scott
Dance monkey dance.. shroedingers cat ever heard of it..Quantum theory..point proven?
Sad dude really sad… unless this is a sneaky tactic to get web traffic to your site? Maybe your not as dumb as you come across
“And the idea of “food for thought” is a brain exercise
Yes it is, but it doesn’t justify factual and logical errors that you refuse to correct.”
finish reading my comment – neurons firing blah blah blah (#138)
I am not reading your atheism 101 (I love how you present your own writings, not peer reviewed, as facts to support yourself. But the gist of atheism is that there is no “higher power” – something that cannot be scientifically proven (and as a scientist that is MY religion) and so requires a modicum of belief to totter in one direction or another.
and you are not handing anyone information – you are throwing it. Plus, you are too fun to provoke.
Really? What are they? Why do so many keep insisting that his article was not meant to be credible?
Really? Well, feel free to point out any flaws you find.
Well, if someone doesn’t value intellectual honesty then I could see them feeling this way. I do, so I don’t agree.
I criticize him for posting falsehoods and logically incoherent arguments. If it is your claim that I have done the same, then please point out where.
Well, if you are uninterested in learning then that is your choice.
Since you won’t bother to read the material, you have no idea what I present in it.
No, the gist of atheism is the absence of belief in gods. If you followed the link, you’d find ample evidence for this and discover that everything you’ve written about atheism is mistaken.
I should delete your comment for trying to scare the monkeys away.
Oh, your last line sums it up perfectly. He HAS created a loyal readership of people who simply want to ask questions that seem silly or rediculous in hopes that something interesting or even profound might come from it.
At least you finally get what he’s doing, even if you don’t believe it’s happening.
Are you as smug as your picture makes me think you are?
On a side note, in your article you added links to some quoted text. That’s highly unethical.
Are you in the habit of judging people’s character from tiny photographs found online?
No, it’s not, unless I imply that the links were in the original. In reality, I state clearly that I’m the one linking to the refutations of the text in question. It’s the most efficient means of making it clear what statements are wrong and why.
Sorry I just thought this was funny:
“Why does Scott Adams assume, without any apparent basis in evidence or logic, that picking a religion which claims to deliver salvation has any chance of actually delivering? Sure, it might be possible…”
So, it’s stupid to assume that it might be possible… but sure it might be possible? Is there any evidence you can state saying it’s impossible? In the absence of any evidence, any explanation becomes possible. At least (even?) mathematically. Whether or not it’s LIKELY is a different story…
OK, so now we have Scott Adams fans contradicting each other in three different directions. Some take his points as completely serious and worthy of serious debate, defense, and consideration. Some say that none of it is meant to be credible. Finally, some say that it’s really credible and serious at its heart, but wrapped up in non-serious clothes to make it more interesting to discuss.
Really, you people should be discussing this with each other rather than with me.
On a side note, in your article you added links to some quoted text. That’s highly unethical.
Otherwise known as trivial objections, a special form of the red herring fallacy, where frivolous and irrelevant objections are made to distract from the topic at hand.
I’m not going to start out by insisting that it is impossible, but it’s just as much of a mistake to start out by insisting that it is possible. It might be possible. It might not be possible. Without some evaluation of the matter, we have nothing to go on… but Adams proceeds to assume it’s possible without evidence, argument, or explanation.
Feel free to support this claim. For starters, are you talking about an objective or an epistemic probability here?
Austin,
Someone pointed out that you lost credibility when you performed an ad hominim attack on Adams.
You responded, “I didn’t call Scott Adams dumb or engage in other ad hominem attacks.”
Shall we list them for you?
1) Title of article: “Pointy-haired Cartoonist?” That part of the title is a clear attack on him as a person and has nothing to do with his reasoning.
Please explain how calling him a “pointy haired cartoonist” is not attacking him personally.
The Pointy Haired boss in Dilbert is a very specific reference and it is meant to be insulting.
You’re calling him names for crying out loud!
Own up to the mistake and apologize… or lose even more credibility by attacking me for pointing it out.
2) Perhaps they appeared intuitively plausible to him and he deemed that sufficient. That, however, would be a mark of great arrogance.
Adam’s arrogance, or lack of arrogance has nothing to do with the validity of his argument.
You are attacking him as a person.
3) Larry Hamelin, the Barefoot Bum, describes Scott Adams as an “idiot” for falling for what he calls the “worst apologetic ever.” I find myself unable to come up with any reasons for disputing that conclusion.
By posting this and agreeing with it, you are calling him an “idiot.”
While true that you didn’t call him specifically “dumb”, you did specifically call him an “idiot” and “dumb” is certainly implied all the way through your response.
You have a great opportunity here, he posted an argument in simple and logical terms for you to refute – please do so and stop calling him names.
Here it is – please point out what is wrong with this sequence:
1. It is common for humans to be 100% certain of a particular fact, and later find out it is wrong.
2. Therefore, it is irrational for you, a human, to be 100% certain on any particular topic.
3. Agnostics believe humans are not equipped to be certain about truth. That is rational, and backed by all the peer reviewed science.
4. Atheists come in two flavors.
5. One type of atheist is 100% sure there is no God. That is not rational because humans can sometimes be mistaken, and things can exist for which no evidence has yet been found.
6. The other type of atheist, the so-called weak form, believes that the lack of good evidence for God provides no reason for belief. That is rational. Agnostics who understand science believe the same thing.
7. Therefore, there is no meaningful difference between an agnostic who understands science and a weak atheist who understands science. Neither believes the case for God has been made, and both accept the peer reviewed science showing the fragility of the human mind for knowing “truth.”
You did engage in a ad hominim attack against someone who makes their living and is WEALTHY for mocking people who think they are smarter than they actually are.
What are you thinking? You’ve lost that battle before it began.
You did it to yourself – get ready for some high order insults – and please note that while I haven’t insulted you at all, I think you’ve pretty much earned the mocking you’ll receive.
I do believe that the funniest thing I’ve seen all day is a bunch of people who have nothing better to do than ride on Scott Adams coattails as he “trolls” a blog, then turn around and have the nerve to tell the target of the supposed trolling to “get a life”.
If sitting around chuckling while someone coherently and logically rebuts someone else’s weak assertions is “a life”, then quite frankly, I don’t want one.
Austin, man, this is classic. You can see the progression—the herd mentality in full glory. I do believe it goes like this (though the steps do get mixed up here and there):
1. Attempt to defend Adams’ position.
2. Make claims of hatred or “personal attacks” in an attempt to discredit your argument.
3. Make claims of Adams’ supposed immunity from criticism due to his status as a humorist.
4. Make claims of immunity based on the fact that he’s not an expert and never claimed to be.
4a. Take the “high road” and call both sides stupid for even having the debate.
5. Make claims that the debate is not even worth having because everything is relative and nobody can know anything and this is all just about beliefs, maaaan!
6. Once you’ve exhausted all of the logical fallacies and obfuscatory attacks that have served to help you avoid having to address the actual substance of the argument, just sit back, chuckle nervously and claim that this was all just a big joke on you that was orchestrated in order to get a “rise”…and everyone was in on the joke the whole time except you. Hopefully this last step will help you save face, but it’s not likely that it will work with anyone but the Adams Devotees.
Austin…I know you probably don’t need to hear this, but…with all of the ignorant riff-raff amateurs on the intertubes, 99.9% of which have never bothered to take even an introductory language & logic course, it’s refreshing to see someone who has a firm grasp of logic and rationality, instead of basing their arguments on pleas to emotion or logical fallacies. On the other hand, it’s saddening to see that there’s only one of you, and hundreds of them.
You state someone else calls him an idiot and you don’t disagree. That’s an ad hominem attack – otherwise why mention it at all?
As for your posting, my point was that I don’t find your argument compelling enough to spend time over it. I read Scott’s work, as a blog post, because he addresses issues in an interesting and unusual way – I don’t really care what he thinks. Nor do I really care what you think – after all, we’re all just random people posting on the internet.
My lunch break is over, so as amusing as these debates are, i’ll have to close here. My last statement was a fancy way of saying “I don’t know”. You might want to consider where uncertainty fits on your scale of present/not present.
By posting this and agreeing with it, you are calling him an “idiot.”
It’s only an ad hominem when the conclusion of an argument depends upon the alleged shortcomings of the person.
Ad hominem:
Person x holds position A.
There is something objectionable about x.
Therefore A is false.
Not an ad hominem:
Person x holds position A.
Evidence/argument y proves A wrong.
A is wrong, and by the way x is an idiot.
I asked a question: is he “pointy haired” for what he says?
True, but what I described was a hypothetical.
No, I’m not. BB is. I chose not to inject my own feelings about Scott Adams into my post, but it’s reasonable to point out what others are saying and to be honest about not disagreeing.
Sorry, I don’t see the logical connection. There does not appear to be any reason to necessarily conclude #2 on the basis of #1. One could just as readily say that the most rational course of action is to be very careful about claims to certainty, to not make them too often, and to be prepared for correction. Indeed, unless it is impossible for a person to claim certainty and be right, this is arguably the better conclusion because the conclusion you cite would preclude ever being certain about a correct statement.
Are you 100% certain that it is right that you shouldn’t be 100% certain on any particular topic? If so, you contradict yourself. If not, then shouldn’t you allow that it might be rational at times to be 100% certain about some topics in some cases?
Whether it’s rational or not depends upon the arguments they provide. It is thus their arguments you must address.
This is a falsehood derived from a misunderstanding about the nature of agnosticism. It is correct that agnostics do not claim to know for sure if any gods exist, but it is not true that agnostics do not necessarily believe anyway. Many agnostics are also atheists, but some are also theists. Agnosticism is about knowledge rather than belief.
To let readers know what others are saying about the same issue. BB engaged in a personal attack. I wouldn’t have done it, and I didn’t do it, but at the same time I can’t honestly disagree with the sentiment.
Mentally competent adults should have no problem knowing whether a belief is present in their minds or not. They may be uncertain about whether they should believe or not. They may also lack the knowledge to take a strong stand either way. The presence or absence of a belief at any given time, however, really shouldn’t be an issue.
If I ask if you know if any gods exist, then “I don’t know” is a legitimate answer. If you don’t know for sure, then you don’t know. That’s agnosticism. This answer, though, does not say anything about whether you believe or not. Some don’t know and believe in gods anyway (faith). Some don’t know and don’t bother believing (atheists). Either knowledge is present or not. Either belief is present or not. Two different options on two different issues, creating four different general positions that people might have.
Are you serious? You’re a moron.
And who taught you how to write? Have you ever heard of a run-on sentance?
This “Angry Monkey Dance” is really very entertaining. Especially considering that the monkey seems unable to hear the tune, but moves remarkably in sync with the beat.
Scott didn’t even have to bait a hook to reel you in
I think that he first used, and defined the word ‘philosotainment’, and has never claimed to be anything else.
You’ve swallowed hook, singer and a couple feet of line – it’s so far down your gullet that extracting the hook would probably come with a ball or two — ouch!
Dude, if you’re gunna complain so much about Adams not backing up what he says, then you better start backing up what YOU say. You repeatedly said the equivalent of “he’s wrong” with no reason for saying so. Also, it’s a freakin’ blog, not a scientific paper. Get a grip.
If Mr. Adams knows so little about science, evolution, agnosticism, etc. according to you, then why should we suppose that you understand religion and spirituality?
And finally, a (1 / infinity) chance of going to heaven is still a better bet than no chance at all. That’s the point.
I think that he first used, and defined the word ‘philosotainment’, and has never claimed to be anything else.
You might want to explain that to all his fans who come here to defend Adams’ posts as if they were serious. The fact that so many exist are, as I note above, more than enough justification for a critique. Whether your point is right or wrong, it doesn’t matter as to whether the critique should have been made or not. It’s curious that you don’t seem to have noticed this.
Can you cite any examples?
You should formulate such a judgment based on what you read.
Once again, that statement makes a host of unsupported assumptions, all of which are documented above. Ultimately, you are making a circular argument because your claim requires taking seriously one religion but not an infinite number of other possibilities – and for no apparent reason, either. What you have then is a rationalization for what you already believe or want to believe, not a reason for believing something is reasonable.
Austin, its okay; I agree with you. To give you some background of my opinion: I am an avid reader of Scott’s blog and have never heard of you. However, I can see that you are more than likely the one who knows what they are talking about here. It’s okay that non-experts like Scott (and myself and many, many others) usually do not have the perspective to understand what is going on here: That entertainers are funny but not usually right, and that experts are right but not usually funny.
Yes, it appears that Scott Adams has officially turned the dial to “hehe, yeah, it was all just philosotainment designed to get a rise of out of atheists”. Says Adams:
Ah, yes, the “angry” label again. How convenient. Oh, he disagrees with me fervently…he must be angry! Psssht. I saw nothing angry about Austin’s blog entry.
But, yes, it is, quite honestly, PATHETIC that not only his devout followers, but Adams himself, deems it justified to waste time trying to “whip people like him into a frenzy”. Is this all you fools have to do? Or could it be that, now that you’re out of logical fallacies and obfuscations, the only tool left in your toolbox is to laugh nervously and make post-facto claims that this was all just a ruse.
Adams again:
Apparently, Scott has plenty of time to (supposedly) plan these elaborate ruses to just to “whip Cline into a frenzy”, but he doesn’t have enough time to actually read Cline’s rebuttal of this claim. And about Cline’s assertion that agnosticism is about knowledge? Oh, hey, why even address that fact, when you can just spout out the same nonsense again?
Now, all Adams has done is regurgitate the EXACT SAME argument again, but merely constructed the sentence in a different way.
Holy shit. I can’t believe I ever took this guy seriously. Hey, why actually RESPOND to Cline’s arguments when you can just:
1) Dismiss him as Angry
2) Brush it all off as “philosotainment”, as if only serious philosophers have to adhere to logic and rationality
3) Show just how pathetic you are by actually admitting to being entertained by TROLLING. Because, if he’s telling the truth, then that’s all this is…trolling.
However, I suspect that it’s not the truth, and that now that his argument has been thoroughly debunked, instead of saying “hey, yeah, you’re right, I was wrong” or, at the very least, offering up a counter-counter-argument, the only thing he can do is try to save face by alluding to the supposed fact that the original argument wasn’t serious, and that this has all been a joke to try to get a rise out of some blogger. All of which is equally pathetic.
And who taught you how to write? Have you ever heard of a run-on sentance?
Have you ever heard of spellcheck?
Hah.. so you admit it then!!
So you’ve never heard of the uncertainty principle,shroedingers cat,quantum theory, the dual wave\particle nature of light before? Or have you? I’m assuming you left out that bit in your quotation from my original post. Did you also leave out the logical rebuttal to prove the possiblilty of the following. You don’t understand that the very act of observing something will change the nature of what is being observed. Seeing as the foundation of your being an atheist is supposedly based on lack of scientific evidence of “God”. Such lack of evidence is based on the scientific principle of “observation”, which by the way happens break to down at the sub-atomic level. Observing something changes the nature of the what being observed..so in short –>so you can get it this time.. Scientists have supposedly proven that it is impossible to know anything fundamentally 100%.. which is rather obvious and seems like common sense except they took the hard way round by building huge particle accelerators underground at CERN. So techinically all you can do is have blind belief in the world around you. Proved by the Scientific method.. which is ironic and will no doubt piss you off because this is what religions have been blabbing about all these centuries is exactly the same thing. This is what the Dilbert Blog was about namely..uncertainty is the only thing you can be certain about.
Again all of this is blinding obvious so I maintain my first assertion that you are doing this to get more web traffic. But I can never be a 100% certain.. maybe I’ll just have to have belief, hah hah!
1. Atheism is not a belief system.
Bwhaha…you supported your own argument by linking to another article you wrote!? I still contend that believing that God doesn’t exist is still a “belief system”…as defended as hysterically as any religion.
2. It is incorrect that a belief system cannot be defended by logic. The definition of “belief system” is not “something that has no proof to back it up.”
What I meant was that these particular belief systems (existence and non-existence of God) cannot be proven.
The only people whom I have ever seen make that claim are those who conveniently manage to exempt themselves from either side. Funny how that works out.
Yes…I exempt myself from the odious ilk of humanity who are so sure of their own “beliefs” that they will argue, fight, and scream at anyone who disagrees with them. Funny how that works out.
The fans of Scott Adams need to get a grasp on the meaning of cognitive dissonance. Adams’ fans seem to be devoting much effort to posting here, so I imagine that they have enough free time to listen to the latest Point of Inquiry show, Carol Tavris – Mistakes Were Made. If only they put the same effort into learning about atheism as they do with posting here… Fans of Adams: listen to this podcast, have a think about why and how you defended Adams, worry less about conclusions than the actual process of critical thinking, and come back here with a different perspective on your own mistakes.
No, I’m linking to where the full explanation is so that I don’t have to repeat it all here. If you have any questions or problems with the explanation, feel free to raise them.
1. What you are referencing are individual beliefs, not belief systems. A single belief cannot be an entire system.
2. Whether the truth of either can be proven depends upon how “God” is defined.
So, what you are doing here is not arguing with someone who disagrees with you. Right?
Forgive my naivety, for I have a limited philosophical background. I am going to present my take on things, and if anyone thinks I am completely off-base, please enlighten me.
First, I think the issue of “gods or no gods” isn’t really at the heart of the matter. I think the real question is what happens after we die.
Given our limited (i.e. non-existent) knowledge of what happens to an individual’s consciousness (or soul, or whatever you wish to call it) after death, we can make no logical correlation between our actions in life and their “after-death” consequences.
In other words, it seems to me that any given set of actions is equally likely to result in eternal bliss as any other set. Likewise, any set is just as likely to result in eternal nothingness as any other.
This is not to say that we should not be concerned about our actions, but that our concerns cannot be allayed by any sort of consideration as to “after-death” outcomes.
For this reason, I feel that subscription to any set of beliefs or code of behavior for the sole purpose of attaining something after death is misguided.
Does this sound reasonable, or am I crazy?
I left out what I found to be irrelevant.
Maybe you should ask me why I am an atheist instead of making assumptions? Just an idea. Food for thought.
Scientists have supposedly done something, therefore…? That makes no sense whatsoever.
You sound very certain about that.
You sound very certain about that, too.
Sorry, this doesn’t actually seem to argue against his points at all – just comes across as a splenetic rant.
Steve:
The difference between your contention and Cline’s is quite large: he backs his contention up with logic, rationality and explanation. You, on the other hand, just merely “contend”. Oh, hey, I “contend” that 5+5=46. My statement has no more or less validity than yours, since you don’t feel you’re obligated to do anything other than state your contention. Here’s a suggestion: contentions are useless unless you back them up with substance. So contend away! I contend that you breathe through your belly button. Yay, this is FUN!
Then why is it even worth discussing in the realm of mathematics, as Adams attempted to do? It’s not.
I haven’t seen Cline scream or fight. But if you’re not willing to even argue with those who disagree with you, then I’d venture to say you’re an intellectual and moral weakling. Furthermore, not every position or argument or assertion is a belief. Atheism is not a belief system. And calling anyone who would argue on its behalf (or anyone who would argue on behalf of theism) “odious” simply because they choose to do so, is dishonest, and quite frankly, idiotic. Chumps who sit on the sideline laughing and pointing at the people in the ring, rather than taking some kind of position, are pathetic spectators who lack the fortitude to stand up for anything. So I’d be careful about how high you ride that horse.
You seem to have too much time on your hands, therefore I recommend you cut them off.
I claim that if you cut of your hands it might give you a better life. I have no evidence that supports my theory, but it’s entirely logical.
But as soon as I mentioned I have no evidence the typical Atheist would call me a lyar, no questions asked.
So being an Atheist not only makes you seem sceptical about everything, it limit ones life, since you just can’t “take my word for it”. Atleast not intentionally.
My point being, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
Based on what we know, this does seem to be the case. Scott Adams effectively denies this, for some reason.
I’m not sure if your second sentence is meant to express this, but just in case: given that there is no good reason to even think that there is such a thing as an afterlife in the first place, it would seem that its not even a subject worth worrying much about. We certainly don’t have enough information to justify basing our entire life around some religion for it.
On the other hand, we do have this life and the existence of this life looks pretty reliable — so why aren’t we talking about how to make this life better for ourselves and others? Bringing up unsupported claims about how to make an alleged “afterlife” better is a bit like asking what sort of cookies we should buy for the elves under our steps.
No, that’s reasonable.
Please support his allegation.
In what way is my life limited by not taking your word for something? Is your word special?
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. Depends upon the topic.
This article is stupid. That’s my scientific reaction. Scott Adams is mostly a comedian.
Cyrus
Really? I”m sorry about that. Please explain which points of his stand unchallenged. You might also want to explain to so many of the others that he is trying to make legitimate points – there seems to be a common impression that he’s just posting for jokes and fun, not to express any substantive, serious ideas.
Do you really waste your time with stuff like this? You’re arguing with an entertainer. Or are you operating under the belief that no one should be allowed to post their thoughts in an open forum unless it’s been vetted by a so-called expert?
Your reaction strikes me very much like one a religious institution might make – denigrating to all those who do not subscribe to your dogma.
Austin,
Saying that you were NOT attacking him personally you said,
I asked a question: is he “pointy haired” for what he says?
You’re still attacking the person. If you weren’t you could easily say something like, “Pointy Haired Argument” or “Pointy Haired Reasoning.” Instead you went for characterizing the individual in a disparaging way. Words have meaning.
Re: Adam’s implied arrogance you wrote.
True, but what I described was a hypothetical.
The implication is that he did exactly what you supposed he did and that he is arrogant. It is doublespeak.
If someone wrote, hypothetically, that people resorting to personal attacks instead of sticking to the point (not saying you, or any other imaginary people did) are asshats they may or may not be correct in that assertion.
You see what I mean? It’s stupid and juvenile and it is taken as an insult, hypothetical or not.
Related to the idiot comment, that you reposted and “refrained from disagreeing with” you said,
No, I’m not. BB is. I chose not to inject my own feelings about Scott Adams into my post, but it’s reasonable to point out what others are saying and to be honest about not disagreeing.
Is this a press release from the State department? Cut it out.
First, you specifically and actively reposted someone else’s personal attack against Adams. This is not in dispute.
How does someone else calling Adams a name related to the logical correctness of your point?
Second, it is not reasonable to post other’s tactics in name calling when your stated goal is to point out the logical inconsistencies of an argument.
There is nothing reasonable about that at all.
Third, not disagreeing is agreeing. Especially in the context you reposted it.
If you truly were only not disagreeing, you could have said nothing at all.
I have no problem with you or anyone else calling Adams an idiot. You can call him whatever you want.
Based on the available evidence, is he in fact an idiot?
Given his MBA and success as a cartoonist and businessman, it seems unlikely.
Even so, you’re entitled to your opinion.
What you’re not entitled to is supplementing your problems with his reasoning with pithy insults and then repeatedly claiming that you’re only discussing his bad logic.
Adams calls that sort of thing “weasel” behavior.
It is an excellent metaphor for what you are unethically and dishonestly doing.
You lose most of your credibility on your update on the sheer basis that you incorrectly copy/paste a quote from Scott Adam’s blogsite (it’s “philosotainment”, not “infotainment”), and for using “restatement” instead of “restate”. You required a verb, not a noun.
How exactly does not taking assertions as true without any evidence “limit one’s life”? Here’s the rub: I can take your word for it on assertions that are at least in the realm of possibility. If you said “I have curly hair”, I can take your word for it, because the probability of you having curly hair is relatively high. But you said “I have 56 fingers”, I would probably not take your word for it without proof, as the probability of you having 56 fingers is relatively low. There is a sliding scale of probability, and the higher the probability gets, the lower the standard of proof gets—to the point where requiring proof would be absurd in most situations. Conversations in every day life would be burdensome; I would require proof that you did everything you say you did.
Personally, I have yet to meet an atheist who, when I tell them I went to Cape Cod for 4 days last month, immediately asks for reciepts and copies of the boarding passes.
But the lower the probability of an assertion gets, the less likely a skeptic is to “take your word for it”. The probability of the existence of god is vanishingly small, as we have absolutely zero evidence to support it. So taking your word for it that god exists would be foolish—whereas taking your word for it that you have brown eyes would be reasonable.
It’s not an either/or game. One can take your word on certain things, yet require proof on others. Me being skeptical and requiring proof about a HIGHLY improbable event, such as the moon turning pink, does not mean I won’t take your word about you having brown hair.
Scott Adams originally used the term “infotainment,” not “philosotainment.” Notice the comment to that post which asks if I am engaging in “infotainment.” Does Scott Adams lose credibility now?
Thanks for pointing out the grammatical error, though.
Um…He’s a cartoonist. He makes comics for a living. He has his own insights.
You might as well go pick on a child for believing in Santa Claus.
Sure that doesn’t mean that he should never be scrutinized, but, honestly, for his post to aggravate you this much, you might as well be a Fundamentalist Christian or Muslim – in that you are as intolerant of others with different beliefs as they are. This is my problem with most organized religions (and I suppose I can lump hardcore atheists such as yourself into that group too) – you care too much about what other people say or do. Why not believe what you want and let others be?
That is not to say that we shouldn’t discuss or debate issues like these. But for you to call him an “idiot” is a personal attack and reveals bitterness and anger:
Larry Hamelin, the Barefoot Bum, describes Scott Adams as an “idiot” for falling for what he calls the “worst apologetic ever.” I find myself unable to come up with any reasons for disputing that conclusion.
Now you may respond that it wasn’t a personal attack and that you are only criticizing his viewpoint. This is utter BS. You mention many times how he did not do any research and how he is ignorant and arrogant for not doing so. These are all unnecessary points (that are personal- you are after all talking about the person of Scott Adams who you assume did not do research) for your argument and are merely cheap jabs at Adams.
With that said, I believe you had some valid points and rebuttals to his post, but you responded with such an arrogance and disdain remindful of organized religion’s pure intolerance for anything other than their own beliefs, that it sickened me.
An attack must be a claim, not a question that might be answered in the negative. Asking if you are foolish is not an attack; saying you are foolish is.
I suspect it, but I won’t exclude the possibility of other explanations that don’t require arrogance. Thus, the hypothetical.
No, it’s not a press release; no, I won’t cease to note what others are saying.
You seem to be under the impression that everything I write or note must be related to the correctness of my criticism.
You seem to be under the impression that the goal of pointing out Adams’ errors cannot be combined with pointing out others’ reactions to Adams’ errors.
Someone, I doubt Scott Adams would agree that an MBA or success in business means someone is not an idiot. Wouldn’t those two describe the pointy-haired boss? Being a cartoonist, finally, even a successful, doesn’t seem to have anything to do with not being an idiot in anything but creating funny cartoons. I don’t see the connections you are trying to draw.
Would this be like trying to make a serious argument then, when challenged, claim that it was only posted in fun?
I would recommend not presuming that you can look into a person’s mind to see whether they are “aggravated” or not. It’s not a skill you have.
So, your recommendation is that people shouldn’t correct the factual and logical errors made by others? Why?
I mention many times that he did not do any research and is ignorant for this. That isn’t a personal attack and it is relevant because his ignorance bears directly on the quality of his argument and conclusions.
So, is it your position that I should have not expressed disdain for someone writing falsehoods and logical errors then, when challenged, keeps repeating them? I’m curious: what sort of attitude do you have towards such attitudes and behavior and why should others react the same?
Maybe we’re just supposed to take his word for it?
In the update you have one quote inside the grey quote box you’ve used consistently in the rest of the article and one in italics. I can’t quite tell whether it’s intentional or not.
(Unfortunately I don’t have much to add to your discussion positive or negative. I’m not sure I believe with either perspective.)
Perhaps.
It’s funny, though…until today, I wasn’t aware that gullibility was a virtue. Now I know! Next time that guy comes to my door selling cloud insurance, I won’t ask for any proof that I need to be protected from clouds; I’ll just take his word for it. And by doing so, I’ll have broadened my life, rather than limiting it.
Austin, besides posting the original blog entry, you’ve posted 68 replies in this thread, more than 1/3rd of the total (as of #200). A reply every half-hour for the last day and a half, on average.
Adams hooked you good and proper. You even seem to know he was doing it, but fell for it anyway. For the last time: he is not making an argument which is intended to stand up to logical scrutiny. He is, plain and simple, yanking your chain.
Consider yourself yanked, Larry G.
Marci: Thanks for pointing that out. Sorry!
For the last time: he doesn’t get to claim “it was all a joke” after being challenged and trying to defend his original points.
Furthermore, it doesn’t matter what his intentions are because I’m not posting here to him. Did you notice that? You counted my posts, but didn’t notice the absence of his name? I’m posting here to others – including a significant number of people who take his argument as logically valid. I’m responding to them.
If you’re right about his intentions, then he should welcome someone informing his readers about the truth and what I’m doing is appropriate. If you’re wrong about his intentions, then what I’m doing is appropriate. So you see, his intentions are irrelevant.
I shouldn’t have to point this out, but I guess I do: he can only “yank someone’s chain” if, first, he’s active and, second, that person is reacting to him. Neither is the case here. He’s not doing anything; furthermore, his wishes, intentions, and desires are ultimately irrelevant to how I choose to proceed. If anyone is having their chains yanked, it’s those posting on his blog and coming here in reaction to his posts.
There have been many interesting arguments on both sides of this particular fence, however being a man of science, I prefer numbers over vague philosophical statements. What is the probability of a god’s existence? Or to ask (what should be) the same question, what is the probability of god not existing? I don’t know, I’m only human.
As the scientific community understands it, there are staggering low odds (on the order of 1 in 10^282 from one source http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/design_evidences/200404_probabilities_for_life_on_earth.shtml) that life would exist in this universe. And yet we are here! This does not mean that god exists or even that anything more then random chance gave rise to the human race. But it is a number backed up by scientific reasoning (very different then philosophical reasoning). Can anyone give me numbers, using scientific knowledge, of the existence or better yet the non-existence of god?
You need to define this “god” thingy first. Second, the original burden lies with those who make the original claim. It’s not up to rest of us to provide the odds of the non-existence of every random thing or entity that every random person invents. First they have to provide at least enough reason to even bother listening to their claim and giving it any consideration.
So you are starting quite a ways along the chain of events — a lot has to happen before it’s reasonable to ask atheists to give odds on the non-existence of this “god” idea that is undefined and unknown.
I love when Scott Adams makes someone go nuts because he challenges something he or she is 100% sure of.
“Furthermore, it doesn’t matter what his intentions are because I’m not posting here to him. Did you notice that?”
Except for the BIG POST ON YOUR WEBPAGE here that you wrote in response to his? He’s really worked you into quite the frenzy, and I love it. (He does this to religious nuts, too. It must be fun.)
I like reading Scott Adams’ blog. I also like reading Talk.origins, and various skeptic sites, including athiesm.about.com. I think that as a fan of both concepts (skepticism, and Scott Adams’ humor), I can say that I really think that (1) Scott doesn’t really believe most of that bunk in his post(s). I believe he knows full well that (2) he knows very little about a lot of the stuff he posts. I believe this because I have read posts of his that state essentially that (1 and 2).
And, I dont have a problem with that. I really get the sense that his blog is an outlet for his creativity that is not available in his cartoons and books, and it has developed (evolved, if you will) according to his posts and the responses he gets. If his posts were more – “Here’s some theories and the scientific data and references to back them up..” then, well, he would have a different audience, with different outcomes… but, that is apparently not what he wants. Sure, maybe some of his posts have all the redeeming qualities of a Jerry Springer episode..
I guess my feeling is, he has no OLBIGATION to be logical, or consistent, or watever else you think he is not being… If everyone presented themselves as a full blown skeptic, there would be nothing for you to do.
You believe he is actually trying (and failing) to posit a logical, consistent argument, and you believe this because of evidence you have found in his posts (I think this is what you believe.. apologies if I am wrong). I believe that logic and consistency are at times secondary to him. I believe this because of evidence I have found in his posts..
I believe he likes to get reactions to his blog posts. I believe he knows VERY well how to do it.
You’re doing exactly what any apologetics website does…. you’re putting a whole lot of words in someone else’s mouth without being precise, concise, and rational.
Look, there is no objective evidence that the universe is run by supernatural law; however, there is all the evidence in the world that the universe is run by natural law. Henceforth, there enlies the certainty on the side of atheism. Of course that certainty is
Your math is impeccable. And meaningless. It does not matter how many replies he has posted. 1 or 1000…what matters is their content. If you’re subscribing to the whole “post a serious post, get rebuked, claim it was a joke” camp, fine…but I do believe that all of you are on the receiving end of a face-saving lie. It’s very easy to post whatever you want, and if it gets rebuked, just claim it was all a big ruse. But there is no proof of this assertion, and given that it behooves Adams to make this claim after the fact, I’d say that he is suspect on the matter. It’s like when you talk a bunch of shit to someone, and they pin you down and threaten to whoop your ass…it’s always easy to chuckle nervously and swear on your mom’s grave that you were just kidding around. But who’s to know whether it’s genuine? Honestly, looking at the original post by Adams, there’s no evidence to back up his claims of a big ruse. All we have to go on are Adams’ biased claims…and we have no reason to accept his word on it. But believe what you like. Either way, Adams looks the fool—because even if it was just a big ruse to get a rise out of atheists, then, well, how friggin pathetic is that? Look around at the various comment boards. Trolls are looked upon with disdain and disrespect by most other commenters…yet when the almighty Scott Adams is a troll, oh, how hilarious it all is! Ha ha ha! Wow, He sure is a comical genius, isn’t he?
Like I said, either he’s lying to save face, or he’s a pathetic troll with nothing better to do than “bait” atheists into arguing with him. To me, neither of those are terribly impressive, especially for a quasi-celebrity like him.
I would recommend not presuming that you can look into a person’s mind to see whether they are “aggravated” or not. It’s not a skill you have.
This is very funny and ironic. I hope you will eventually realize the irony of this statement. “You can’t assume you know anything about me. You don’t have that skill!”
So, your recommendation is that people shouldn’t correct the factual and logical errors made by others? Why?
Right, since we’re talking about god and faith here – everything is factual. In any case, pointing out logical and factual errors are fine by me. You also chose to ignore the very next sentence of my post “That is not to say that we shouldn’t discuss or debate issues like these.” Good one Austin!
I mention many times that he did not do any research and is ignorant for this. That isn’t a personal attack and it is relevant because his ignorance bears directly on the quality of his argument and conclusions.
If calling someone ignorant is not a personal attack I don’t know what is.
So, is it your position that I should have not expressed disdain for someone writing falsehoods and logical errors then, when challenged, keeps repeating them? I’m curious: what sort of attitude do you have towards such attitudes and behavior and why should others react the same?
You could’ve responded less provocatively and you would’ve still made your point and you’d have my respect.
My position is this – why should you care, what other people think so much (as long as it doesn’t harm you)? It is a very simple idea – people should have the freedom to believe whatever they please (regardless of facts or logical arguments for doing so). Yes you can turn that around and argue that it is your right to believe that my belief is wrong. But this is what sickens me and to me, it is the root of many horrible things that are wrong with this world.
I can’t help but notice that you have a way of playing with semantics. You can wiggle and squirm your way around arguments with subtle definitions and pointless observations. I have a feeling that you will insist that you are definitely not making any personal attacks whatsoever. Our argument then is purely an argument of semantics and will most likely never be resolved. For this reason I will not respond to this comment section any more.
One post, written several days ago. Your claim that I am “hooked” was based on ongoing posting behavior today, not a single post days ago.
Wow, you’re dumb. Please stop polluting the world with noise.
That’s a serious charge. Can you support it?
Yes, I chose to bypass that contradiction.
OK, you don’t know what a personal attack is. Ignorance is something we all posses on most subjects. I’m ignorant about Chinese literature, for example. Go ahead: tell me I’m ignorant about Chinese literature! It’s not a personal attack. So long as I don’t presume to write about Chinese literature, that ignorance isn’t an issue, is it?
So it’s OK for Scott Adams to be provocative, but not his critics?
Let’s see, people read his blog and came away thinking that he made good points, but there is something wrong with me pointing out the logical and factual errors? Sorry, I don’t get it. Why should no correction be made to something that is wrong, but which people think is correct?
I never said he and others don’t have the freedom to believe the claims in question.
You missed the point Mr. Cline. Mr. Adams speaks of Philosotainment. That is to say you are the philosopher and thus are the entertainment.
Mr. Adams equates you to a believer of extreme ideals, much like a radical Muslim or Christian, and deliberately strokes your fur backwards to get a rise out of you. And you prove you are exactly that: an extremist radical atheist by reacting to his posts.
If you truly gave a **** about the world you’d recognize that it is narrow minded thinking and lack of sense of humor that is causing much of the grief we have in the world right now. And then you’d change yourself.
“If calling someone ignorant is not a personal attack I don’t know what is.”
That’s not just ignorance; that’s recursive ignorance.
You seem very upset, and doing a lot of just calling things invalid logic because you don’t like them or him. I’ll agree that Scott Adams is hiding behind his “philosotainment” term. But I take it to mean “Please cut me some slack; I’m just a cartoonist who likes to dabble in this”. I don’t know how long you’ve been following his blog; maybe for quite awhile. I don’t think he’s leading people astray or awry, like some kind of mesmerizing pied piper. I’ve enjoyed watching Scott’s originally rabidly held beliefs about philosophy, religion, and social issues morph over time into something less harsh and more practical in the extended conversation with his blog friends; I’ve also enjoyed seeing the depth of thought by his blog readers generally increase over time. Iron sharpens iron, as so forth.
I hope you’ll support this claim with examples.
Perhaps you should explain this to all the people defending him as just joking. Anyway, this “excuse” only works insofar as the person corrects errors when they are pointed out. Once a persons persists in presenting the same errors as if no corrections had been made, it stops being a good excuse.
Sir, I have to disagree with your response almost completely. You are however right in the fact that I should define as you call it ‘this god thingy first.’ However the reason I don’t define it is because I don’t have a definition in mind. I have left it open to allow a wide range of possible answers from everyone.
As for the burden of proof lying with the original claim, that is bull. I can come up with a theory, it is then proven wrong. (As a side point, you can never prove something only disprove it.) Besides, if you look carefully I’m also asking proof from theists. But since you assume I’m a theist, let me play that part. If the odds of life arising randomly are 1 in 10^282, and life is present that would suggest that there is also a 1 in 10^282 chance of there not being a god-like driving force to the universe.
Personally, if you can’t put numbers to something, it really isn’t worth my time.
Here’s the bottom line: Adams come out of this whole thing looking like a fool either way—at least, he looks this way to those who haven’t been conditioned to coddle his balls like obedient eunuchs.
Goes a little like this: either he’s lying about it all being a ruse, or he’s telling the truth—in which case he’s a pathetic troll. It’s very easy to say, after the fact, that it was all a joke from the beginning, and that you were never serious. Like when you talk smack to a bully…and as he’s pinning you to the ground threatening to pound your face, you nervously exclaim, “aww, I was just kidding around!” Given that Adams stands to benefit, in terms of saving face, from this claim of a bug ruse, his credibility is suspect.
On the other hand, if he were telling the truth, then he’d be admitting that he orchestrated this big plot just to get a rise out of atheists. That’s pathetic for everyday joes—even worse for quasi-celebs like him. All around the net on comment boards, trolls are regarded as the lowest life form. The are treated with disdain and disrespect, rightfully so. Yet if The Almighty Scott Adams were to engage in precisely the same activity, well, hey, damn, he’s a comic genius. I mean, how can you argue with “dance, monkey, dance”? HA HA HA! Wow, that’s just…I mean…I’ve never seen something so funny and brilliant! God, that Scott Adams is amazing. I mean, I’ve seen trolls before, but never such a great troll.
Ugh.
So, either he’s a liar, or he’s a pathetic comment troll. Either way, he comes out of this looking pretty sad.
Sounds like someone has some sand in his vagina.
That said, I think you should continue your dialogues on the topics. It would be a better world if we all just fought with ideas rather than guns. I don’t agree with your particular positions, but its productive for people with different viewpoints to duke it out. I know I’ve benefitted greatly from lots of good arguments. In the technical field in which I work, an engineering “cage match” isn’t pretty, but we usually end up with something much better than any of us walked in with.
“He doesn’t support any of his assertions”… neither do you
If you have no definition in mind, then you have nothing in particular in mind and thus there is nothing for others to give the odds for not existing.
The fact that someone else takes the time to disprove your theory doesn’t make it “bull.” It’s a standard principle: the burden of proof lies with those making the claim. Otherwise, there is nothing really to disprove. Moreover, if you don’t care enough about it to support it, it would be in appropriate for you to expect others to care enough to even think about it, much less try to disprove it.
This assumes that the origin of life is best explained by this “god-like driving force.” That’s Begging the Question. You need to support that assumption and start by defining “god-like driving force.”
You haven’t really responded to the crux of his argument:
“6. The other type of atheist, the so-called weak form, believes that the lack of good evidence for God provides no reason for belief. That is rational. Agnostics who understand science believe the same thing.”
As far as I can see, he’s saying the same thing that you say in your Agnosticism/Atheism article, only that he says “weak atheist” where you say “agnostic atheist”. Unfortunately both these terms are in use, and Scott Adams is by no means original in observing that they are similar to the point of being virtually identical. Many philosophers say the same thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_and_strong_atheism
He’s proven the only thing he ever set out to prove… that you take yourself way too seriously. And it worked.
How is this the “crux” of Pascal’s Wager?
Anyway, I did address it when I responded to point 7: Adams is misrepresenting agnosticism. Weak atheism and agnosticism are not the same thing because they are about entirely different subjects: one deals with belief (or what you don’t believe, specifically) and the other deals with knowledge (or what you don’t know, specifically). Some agnostics are theists, so clearly weak atheists and agnostics don’t all believe the same thing.
So the only purpose of all three posts was this? He spent all that time on little old me?
So, if you’re right: who is dancing to whose tune, then?
You’re the troll. Enjoying it?
So the only purpose of all three posts was this? He spent all that time on little old me?
Are you implying that Adams’ original post was some kind of bait aimed at you ? You really take yourself way too seriously then…
No, that seemed to be an implication of the comment I was responding to.
Mr. Cline: Please lighten up. Adams is really smart, and you’re reacting EXACTLY as he wanted you to react. Congratulations.
You bore me.
Thanks to Scott Adams post you probably gotten more responses than ever before. You must be really gratefull for him linking your page.
Enjoy all the revenue from your ads and Sponsored Links.
I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was meant to entertain you.
And Mr. Cline, it’s not that you lack a sense of humor because you don’t agree with his position. You lack a sense of humor because you went bat$#!@ over a cartoonist saying something you think is silly. Good Lord… as I said before, lighten the hell up before you embarrass yourself any further.
What you call “bat$#!@,” I simply call a detailed critique. Perhaps you just need to “lighten up” and accept that disagreement with the Great Scott isn’t as extreme as you imagine. You’re ultimately investing far more attention to what you imagine my emotional state to be than I invested in any emotions related to the matter. Neither Scott Adams nor any of his words arose the least emotional reaction in me, but apparently my critiques of him arouse a great deal of ire and concern among his readers. I find that curious.
Frankly, if you have to complain about the alleged “emotions” of someone you disagree with, you’ve already lost.
Austin, in the 239 posts so far on this topic you have yet to truly define your position. You just shut down everyone else’s (especially Scott’s).
You’ve posted over and over and over and over, to the point of exhaustion, without making one single point/argument that you can call your own. If you can’t define, in your own words, what you believe in, then don’t open your mouth!
It’s amazing to me that with all that’s wrong in the world today, you choose this to bicker over?!?
Ridiculous if you ask me… Live and let live. No one’s going to agree with you all of the time. That I’m 100% certain of!
I don’t believe that I have failed to answer any questions about my position. If I have, though, then I apologize. Just point me to the questions and I’ll rectify my error immediately.
I’m not sure what points or arguments I have needed, except those to explain where Adams has made logical and factual errors.
If someone asks me what I believe, I’d be happy to answer — provided the context is appropriate and narrow enough. A plain “what do you believe in” is too broad to address here.
It’s also quite irrelevant to the subject here, I think.
Or are you recommending that I just insert random statements of conviction and belief into every conversation? If some position of mine is relevant to a topic, then I’ll discuss it. If not, then why bother?
I write about many things. I wasn’t aware that the state of the world precluded pointing out the factual and logical errors committed by Scott Adams. I’m curious: did you raise the same complaint with Adams’ posts? If it is ridiculous to critique Adams, why wasn’t it ridiculous of him to post in the first place? Surely you aren’t applying one standard here that you don’t expect of him as well.
Austin,
Last post, I think you’ve successfully worn me down.
The inability to concede any point through evasive and circular rhetoric means nothing, except it isn’t possible to have a real conversation.
It is consistently amazing to me how someone can do the mental gymnastics and still not be able to hit the floor.
You wrote:
[An attack must be a claim, not a question that might be answered in the negative. Asking if you are foolish is not an attack; saying you are foolish is.]
That isn’t true.
You can attack someone through any number of means and particularly disparaging questions are one of those.
Look – the point is that if Adams were a masters candidate defending his thesis… would it be appropriate to say, “are you an idiot?” even if the answer might be “no”?
Why is that level of discourse ok here? It just doesn’t do any good.
I wrote: [Is this a press release from the State department? Cut it out.]
You responded: [No, it’s not a press release; no, I won’t cease to note what others are saying.]
Ah, literal man, so good of you to join us. You know what I meant. Choosing to ignore that fact and consciously and knowingly confuse the literal with the figurative is
a blithe refusal of the larger point.
No one cares that you’re quoting someone else, especially me.
Everyone who has read a State department press release has experienced the rhetorical spin you’re doling out without really saying anything.
My problem is that you’re attacking someone on a personal level and calling it “pointing out factual mistakes and correcting logical incoherency.” when in fact you’re doing much more than that.
You may not like it, you may not admit to it… but the things you’ve said are clear – and they are wrong.
What you originally said was (in responce to someone else calling Scott Adams an “idiot” is, [No, I’m not. BB is. I chose not to inject my own feelings about Scott Adams into my post, but it’s reasonable to point out what others are saying and to be honest about not disagreeing.]
From your own words:
- BB says, “Scott is an idiot”
- I agree
- I’m not attacking Scott on a personal level
So calling Scott an idiot is not a personal attack?
I don’t know anyone that would agree with that statement.
Or are you saying that Scott Adams is not an idiot?
Are you really making the claim that repeating the insult and “not disagreeing” out loud is somehow different than just making the insult yourself?
It is so easy to say that his line of reasoning is idiotic – here’s why – without judging and attacking the person.
Why is this hard?
Do you even get why this is a big deal to me?
I actually want to have the ability to have a conversation that means something with someone I disagree with. If we just resort to flaming each other – that can never happen.
It is important. It might be the most important thing in life.
Either attack him and own up to it, or stop attacking him. Anything else is petty and again, not helpful. Doing it and acting like you’re not is just ridiculous.
I asked: [How does someone else calling Adams a name related to the logical correctness of your point?]
You responded: [You seem to be under the impression that everything I write or note must be related to the correctness of my criticism.]
That seeming would be incorrect. I’m not under that impression at all. You can write internally rhymed stream of consciousness beat poetry or whatever you want to your heart’s content.
However, I’m still waiting for an answer to a very direct question.
If you have an answer other than the obvious, “It doesn’t have anything to do with my larger point and it was a cheap shot…” — I’m all ears.
I dare you to answer the question.
I wrote: [Second, it is not reasonable to post other’s tactics in name calling when your stated goal is to point out the logical inconsistencies of an argument.]
You responded: [You seem to be under the impression that the goal of pointing out Adams’ errors cannot be combined with pointing out others’ reactions to Adams’ errors.]
Nope. Combine to your heart’s content. You, again, did not address the point at all.
You are free to do or not do whatever you wish… but if you’re going to point out other people’s inconsistencies, be prepared to answer similar questions.
I maintain that it is not reasonable to attack someone on a personal level (or support an attack on a personal level) and call that “good scholarship” or whatever it is you would call this kind of criticism.
If you think it is good or helpful to attack someone on a personal level – or that it is good and helpful to combine someone else’s attack on a personal level to your pointing out errors – please explain why.
I wrote: [Based on the available evidence, is he in fact an idiot?
Given his MBA and success as a cartoonist and businessman, it seems unlikely.]
You responded: [Someone, I doubt Scott Adams would agree that an MBA or success in business means someone is not an idiot. Wouldn’t those two describe the pointy-haired boss? Being a cartoonist, finally, even a successful, doesn’t seem to have anything to do with not being an idiot in anything but creating funny cartoons. I don’t see the connections you are trying to draw.]
The connection I’m trying to draw is twofold.
First, idiocy is a very specific term referring to a person who is mentally challenged. It hasn’t been used clinically in some time but used to refer to someone who tested significantly below the standardized norm in measured intelligence.
Based on his writing and life, it seems unlikely to me that Scott Adams is several standard deviations below the norm in IQ.
If you disagree, please be prepared to back up your assertion.
Second, the more common use is a disparagment and insulting use meant to denegrate an individual in terms of their perceived intelligence. This applies in a variety of ways, but is pretty much insulting across the board.
Adams was successful in the corporate world, he successfully completed an MBA (which just isn’t easy), has published several best selling books and is published daily in almost 1600 newspapers all over the world.
There are a lot of things in his life that measurable, real, good and considered by most to be successful.
He isn’t an idiot by any objective measure you care to name.
You may not like him – no one says you need to. You don’t agree with him – me either, for the most part.
Is he the best philosophy I’ve read? Have to say “no” to that one.
However, he is quirky, funny, creative and often thought provoking and that has some value.
If he is wrong, please feel free to say so… tell us why and make it interesting please. People do that everyday on his blog – surprisingly thoughtful and clever responses for the most part.
I wrote, related to your calling insults “clear thinking”: [Adams calls that sort of thing “weasel” behavior.]
You responded: [Would this be like trying to make a serious argument then, when challenged, claim that it was only posted in fun?]
Sure, if he is actually doing that, sounds like a fair gripe to me.
Someone might say something like, “don’t get your free thinking guide from a cartoonist.” And that might be a fair point.
That doesn’t let YOU off the hook though.
You are still responsible for the things you say and how you say them.
Even if you won’t admit it.
I love how Mr Cline hides behind “Scott Adams is a troll”, when this is either untrue or irrelevent. If you go by wiki’s definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll then Scott is not a troll by virute of not being part of the same discussion group. On the other hand, if one is willing to say that anyone who ever baits another person on the internet is a troll, then what is Mr. Cline?
(specifically if you look at Mr. Cline’s original post, it is littered with insults directed at Scott that are irrellevant to the arguement; baiting at its finest)
Dear Mr Cline,
I am terribly sorry that people have chosen to step all over your religion. That must really sting.
I wish I had your faith, because I would be much better at practicing my own religion. I really have a lot of appreciation for people like you who have such deep insights into the workings of the universe that they can declare with confidence the foolishness of a belief in god(s).
Since you know it all, I was thinking about worshiping you, but then I figured out that you probably wouldn’t appreciate the irony of that, so I’ll just worship you quietly, from afar. Though if you come up with any non-sacred writings, or even just a T-Shirt, I would love to contribute.
All praises be to Cline,
~Bane
LMAO
I only got to this blog through a link in Scott Adams’ blog. I think Scott is hilarious and Mr Cline’s 600 posts against him nearly made me wet my pants. Mate, if Scott Adams’ didn’t write his blog it looks like you might actually have to go get a life.
If you feel like replying (I assume you will, there seems to be 2 replies from you for every blog posted so far) then do it on Scott’s blog because unless he links this site again I won’t be back.
LOL
You bore me.
What bores me is having to refute or watch others refute the same recycled platitudinous bosh written “about” atheists by sophists, “humorists”, apologetics, etc, and then watch as few if any of these characters admit that they were wrong. This happens too often for it to be a coincidence, or honest error, so it must come from deep-seated intolerance towards atheists rather than what atheists say and do. Yet at least there are those who are willing to go out on a limb, and deal with such misrepresentations, even if it means becoming unpopular in some circles (those who equate disagreement with “intolerance”, lack of humour, personal attacks or any of the other nonsense written by Adams’ claquers).
You lack a sense of humor because you went bat$#!@ over a cartoonist saying something you think is silly.
There is nothing funny regarding how misunderstandings about atheism impact on atheists in their daily lives.
>For the last time: he doesn’t get to claim “it was all a joke” after being challenged and trying to defend his original points.
What you seem to be missing is that he doesn’t claim it AFTER being challenged. He’s claimed it repeatedly in earlier posts.
He points out that he often thinks of the ‘obvious’ statement, and comes up with reasons that it is wrong. (Which is why he had a post on why George Bush may be a genius)
That’s why he has posts on subjects like “I have a theory that everyone is born with a similar quantity of luck, but it’s distributed unevenly over a lifetime”
and
“Recently I became immortal. It started a few months ago when I was doing some research on the Internet. And by research, I mean I clicked on a link that led me to another, then another, until I was reading something written by a stranger with no credibility. That’s how I learn.”
and
“My Footwear theory of motivation”
and
“Every now and then I come up with a hypothesis that sounds correct and has the added benefit of being totally impossible to verify. That’s almost as good as knowledge.”
and
“After an hour or so of happily working, I noticed the sun hadn’t come up on time. I could think of two possible explanations:
1. The Earth had stopped rotating and I didn’t live on the lucky side of the planet.
2. I had forgotten to reset the time on my BlackBerry after my trip from the East Coast.
Naturally I decided to first check on the rotation of the Earth. So I flushed a toilet to see if there was any change in the Coriolis effect. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a control toilet on a planet I knew was rotating, so the test was inconclusive. ”
C’mon – you are critiquing a humour blog that argues bizarre points of view just for fun !! It isn’t MEANT to be taken seriously.
It’s just meant to make you think about what the flaws in the logic are. You don’t get a Nobel Prize for pointing out that there are flaws … the whole fun of it is the fun of thinking about it.
And as for the people on this blog who are supporting the view .. have you ever wondered how many of them are yanking your chain too ???
Mac
As a fellow atheist and long time reader of charter member of Dilbert blog readership, I just have to add that you do the monkey dance as well as Steve Ballmer!
Depends on the context; this is not one of them.
Yes, it is. Agreeing with such an attack is not yet a second attack.
Once again, you seem to be under the impression that everything I write or note must be related to the correctness of my criticism. If as you say you are not under that impression, then the question is irrelevant.
Fine. Let BB know.
Sorry, that’s not what my dictionary says.
I wasn’t aware that there were objective measures for the term.
I did. You’re welcome.
You seem to be assuming that I’m using this in some manner. I merely offer it as a possibility.
“I wish I had your faith, because I would be much better at practicing my own religion.”
What religion would that be exactly?
And what do atheists worship?
Inner workings of the universe?!? According to previous posts by the all-knowing Mr. Cline, he looks past all that to focus on the more important aspects of life like logic and rationality…
What religion is that?
Here’s some food for thought: before presuming to know what a person thinks or says, ask.
600? After changing your pants, you might want to take another look at what you are reading.
If Scott Adams didn’t write his blog, fewer people in the world would be sadly misinformed about various matters relating to religion, science, and philosophy. A pipe dream, I know…
Mr Cline’s 600 posts against him nearly made me wet my pants.
They’re not wet, but on fire.
What he doesn’t do it say this in the posts in question. Convenient.
The existence of other ridiculous statements, not meant seriously, does not mean that the statements in question were not meant seriously. You certainly accept this principle because otherwise you would not take seriously any statement of his that he is not being serious. It is thus undeniable that you take some statements of his seriously. So do his readers – look how many regard his posts on this subject as serious and worthy of serious consideration. I notice that you don’t criticize them.
Once again: you don’t get a free pass on saying factually incorrect and logically invalid things by insisting that it was all meant as a joke.
Yes, it is. Agreeing with such an attack is not yet a second attack.
Hold on now! I’ve pretty much been agreeing with you all the way so far, but isn’t this like saying that quoting the Bible passage that says, “The fool hath said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” isn’t calling athiests foolish because someone else said it and you’re just quoting?
Quoting someone and saying, “I agree,” seems to me that it ought to be considered the same as saying the same thing first.
Here’s the thing – if you’re an atheist, why do you care so much what other people believe or don’t believe, whether they mean it as a joke or not? If atheism states there is no god, no heaven or hell, no nothin’ – then what does it matter to you if people misrepresent it (in a comical or any other manner)? It’s all going to end the same for everyone, according to atheists.
Oh, by the way, yeah, you do get a free pass for saying something as a joke, when the whole reason for your celebrity exists because of your humor. What else would you expect from a cartoonist’s blog? If you expected more, you’re a fool who’s simply looking too hard for a fight.
Will you believe when millions of people vanish from the face of the earth? Will see this prophesied miracle happen and cry out “The hand of God! The hand of God!” or will you theorize about space aliens? You will tremble in your hand and feet and your knees will buckle like old sticks.
Not quite, but the distinction is a fine one. If you quote this Bible passage to show what the Bible says, even to include an agreement, you are responsible for expressing agreement and thus also for believing the sentiment, which means you are responsible for answering any challenges or questions. You do think that atheists are fools, even if the words aren’t yours, so I can question and challenge you on this — you can’t say “the Bible said it” as an excuse not to answer. However, you aren’t engaging in an additional, second insult. That wasn’t your intent.
If you are quoting it just to deliver an insult, then you are engaging in an insult regardless of who the original author is. Insults are about intent and reception. To be guilty of an insult, you must intend it; to succeed, I must be willing to be insulted. If you aren’t trying to insult me, it would be wrong to hold you morally culpable of that (though you might be culpable of other things, like thoughtlessness).
Now, I can be held personally responsible for what I think about Scott Adams. My opinion of him can be questioned, challenged, and even criticized strongly. If I use others’ words to express my opinion, I don’t get a free pass to escape all that. However, if I am quoting people for the purpose of revealing what others are saying (and at the time I wrote the post, BB was the only other commentary I saw), that’s not a personal attack on my part – even if I agree with the sentiments in question.
Quoting an insult, even an insult you agree with, is not necessarily the same as being insulting yourself.
I can understand, though, if some people don’t see this distinction. Perhaps there is less of a difference here than I perceive – I can understand if not everyone places quite the same emphasis on intent as I do. To them, I apologize for appearing to engage in a personal attack. Since it was not my intention, it was obviously not what I saw.
How is atheism incompatible with caring what others believe?
The post here is about logical and factual errors, not simply beliefs.
Why?
Austin,
I have a few questions if you can spare the time.
Do you believe in god?
Do you agree with the rights of others to choose to believe?
Do you conclude that anyone who doesn’t agree with your view and concur with your arguments is somehow inferior to you or simply misguided?
Do you think Scott Adams believes in God? What evidence do you have to support this view?
Thanks in advance,
Roger
To y’all
Get-A-Life
That is all
I don’t believe in any gods.
Belief is not a choice; however, people do have the right to believe whatever they regard is correct.
No. The critical issue is the quality of one’s reasoning and logic rather than the conclusions they arrive at.
I don’t know if he believes in “God,” but he says he believes in “Spinoza’s version of god.” I don’t know what that means to him and I doubt he correctly understands what it means because he seems to regard it as equivalent in some way to “agnosticism.”
“Belief is not a choice; however, people do have the right to believe whatever they regard is correct.” – what the hell is that suppose to mean? Belief isn’t a choice but go a head and believe what ever you think is correct? Sounds to me like someone doesn’t understand what belief means, but hey I’m not all knowing.
Personally, I’m still waiting for a probability calculation on either the existence or non-existence of anyone’s favorate definition of god. Or am I going to be told once again that it isn’t a valid question because god doesn’t exist? Either way I think Mr. Cline has definitely shown why science got us to the moon and philosophy got us religion.
I hate when people with a “liberal Arts Education” Try to act smart. Which reminds me of a dilbert cartoon.
It involves his manager writing a quote from moby dick on a timing design of dilberts. You remind me of this guy. Go back to shool get a real degree.
Dance monkey Dance.
Thank you! I appreciate that you have brought the argument above the ridiculously low levels Scott Adam has taken it to. You are absolutely correct that his posts on the subject amount to nothing more than trolling for atheists, and mocking those whose viewpoint he doesn’t understand.
Here’s some food for thought: before presuming to know what a person thinks or says, ask.
Here’s some food for thought: You’re a pompous boob and a jackanape, Mr Cline. You have demonstrated over and over (and over and over…) again what you think, both here in the comments, and in your treacly, weak-tea posts.
You argue like my little sister (and that’s not a compliment) and have proven time and time again to be a poor thinker of the first order.
You puff up and stalk about like a neutered Persian cat, and I am sure that Mr Adams is getting as huge a kick from all of your prep school debating ’skills’ as I have enjoyed here.
I’d ask God to bless you, but as I am a Bad Christian, I hope he infests your colon with boils.
Good grief, Cline, is no one but yourself ever right?
I stopped reading responses because they seemed identical – you’re right and anyone who thinks differently is an idiot.
Atheists boast of their rational analyses, and the best reasoning is founded upon self-criticism. Oh brother, where art thou’s?
if atheism is a lack of belief in god and agnosticism is a lack of knowledge about god (as defined in http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutagnosticism/a/atheism.htm), what do you call someone who knows there is a god but doesn’t believe in it?
As I understand it, the whole god problem was strictly a belief issue, because there is no way, under current circumstances to conclusively prove the existence or otherwise of it. Are you then guilty of drawing a false distinction between knowing and believing mr cline?
PS. i’d love to check back to this box to see your reply but when at work i can only access email. pls mail me if possible, otherwise u may just want to reply here for the benefit of other readers.
if atheism is a lack of belief in god and agnosticism is a lack of knowledge about god……….
This may be off topic, but I lack belief in God, because I lack knowledge of God. So, what am I?
As a huge fan of the Dilbert Blog site I have to say that your stance on this issue makes a lot more sense that his.
Without Scott’s post you wouldn’t be having this helpful discourse.. that is the wonderful thing about his blog, sometimes he says things just to get our grey matter working. Converseley we have someone like yourself who doesn’t like to step outside of self-imposed boundaries.
You do realize that Scott’s infotainment is not his audience being entertained by his words, but rather his audience being entertained by reactions to his words. He’s just getting a rise out of you so that he and his audience can be entertained by your response!
Thanks for playing along!
“Adams is misrepresenting agnosticism. Weak atheism and agnosticism are not the same thing because they are about entirely different subjects: one deals with belief (or what you don’t believe, specifically) and the other deals with knowledge (or what you don’t know, specifically).”
Says you. But many philosophers and many atheists would disagree with you, and agree with Adams. So who’s right? They would say that YOU’RE the one misrepresenting agnosticism. Richard Dawkins describes agnostics as people for whom the likelihood of the non-existence of God is anywhere from very high to very low. Nothing about your little belief/knowledge differentiation.
The worst part of being an atheist? When I really want to be taken seriously about something, I can’t say “I swear to god”.
Well, I could, but then my friends just walk away.
http://boskolives.wordpress.com/
You’re just another jealous crackpot trying to ride the coattails of Adams to get people to post at your insipid blog.
This entire article is BS based on the
fact that nearly every sentence sounds snobbish and calls Adams an idiot in some way. Whether or not he’s right or wrong, the whole thing was a merely a thought experiment, he wasn’t really trying to prove something once and for all. Haven’t you heard of BOCTAE? He’s more atheist than theist anyway. All the put-downs makes the article sound like some sort of hate mail.
I didn’t attack the person of Scott Adams. I criticized his falsehoods, his lack of research, and his poor logic.
When you start bringing up personal characteristics like “his falsehoods, his lack of research, and his poor logic” you are criticizing the person not the idea. When you debate – stick to arguing the idea… don’t start throwing dirt the other person. I read Dilbert blog and that is how I came to this link. Normally, I would have torn apart the argument given by Scoot in his blog but after reading your comments I am not sure.
Weather you agree to it or not you have weakened your argument by making it personal.
Austin, looking forward to one more blog post. Feel free to rant more about Scott Adams. This is good stuff! Must go on!
*brings out popcorn*
I don’t understand why you argue your beliefs so dogmatically, Mr. Cline. In fact, I hope you are right in your atheist beliefs and get your oblivion at the end of time… at least in that case Mr. Adams will have enjoyed his ephemeral existence as a philosotainer… All the while you will have wasted your miniscule existence while being torn by cognitive dissonance and the constant need to reaffirm your analysis of your hallucination.
Scott was “wrong” but funny.
You are “right” but unfunny.
Guess which blog I’ll be reading more of?
Depends: do you care more about being entertained, or about learning facts? Which is the case will say quite a bit about you.
I choose to be philoso-tained XD
Sophistry is to defend a philosophical point you don´t adhere to. Haven´t you tried it? I´ve preached satanism to some jehova´s witnesses just to get rid of them. Damn it was fun.
The point is: Fun isn´t all about facts.
Does Scott Adams crack me up? hell yes!
There´s no need to defend the truth like wolves. It stands by itself.
I´m willing to accept some logical fallacies in humor. Humorists aren´t meant to make people laugh by means of logic.
Get a sense of humor, or of context!
Dance, monkey. Dance!
You seriously need to chill Austin. I don’t understand why your so worked up about claims about atheism. Couldn’t others believe different things about Atheism than you can? I would prefer it if you didn’t impose you defination of Atheism upon others. I think Scott Adams has prooved himself to be a bit of douche a few times, so don’t be having a heart attack anytime soon.
Cheeze – get a life…
Drop it. He’s right. You atheists are so sad. You have no real joy in life. You feel the constant need to keep proving to people that their God doesn’t exist. Such a sad existence!
Someday you will find out…
“I fear that people who read his posts on atheism and religion will end up more ignorant than they were when they started.”
Oh dear.. how can you say that starting a bigger discussion over a topic you obviously feel strongly about be bad?
Of course Adams’s logic is lacking. That’s the whole point. It’s in sorting it all out for yourself that one finds the enjoyment.
What’s your whole point? Other than being all bitter and acting like you have a more important intellectual position aka opinion…
just to say something:
i think it has no sense to think that one could be doomed just for believe in god or not, or just to be added to some religion that is not the right one. in the case of being a believer, god couldn´t doom a person for believe in the wrong religion when, for example, he has grown in an environment that didn´t tought him what the right religion is. one´s religion is, in some way, just a coincidence. then, i don´t think that some believer could think that god will doom someone just because that person don´t believe in his existence (god´s existence), and that´s because if god is as great and omnipotent i don´t think he would be concerned about something that is so insignificant as someone that don´t believe in his existence. i think that, if god is wiser than us, he would be concerned about things that are more important than that.
for me, a religion is important only for giving order and happiness to a person´s life. if u are atheist and you have both things… or at least the things that are important to you and don´t mess with other people´s happiness, if there is a god, he wouldn´t doom you.
by the way,
i believe in god… in my own way (as i think it should be for everyone, but i respect other people´s ideas). and i´m from Peru, so… sorry about my english, it isn´t so good. I have my own philosophycal thoughts about my belief… but it would be a loooong comment.
Here’s a new rule: only those people who are members of Mensa are allowed to critic other members capacity for intelligence…what? that rules you all out? better luck next time.
The world’s greatest windup took place here. Hook, line and sinker.
Dance monkey, dance!
“The thing is, mathematically, .9999999999999999999999 (keep on repeating the 9), is equal to 1 ”
no it isn’t. Moron
I’m so glad I read this… [dance monkey dance] was right!
Scott is not making a serious argument, he’s just stirring the pot and laughing his head off watching you throw a conniption. Your hatred of Christianity is keeping you from having fun. All religions have fundamentalist fanatics, even Atheism.
It is also a well known fact not only are atheists confused about God but also confused about their own gender.
No suprise there.
So it seems (just by reading the descriptions, not the arguments) that Austin’s weak atheist and Scott’s agnostic are one and the same. And Austin doesn’t like it to be called agnostic. But other than that, I see nothing of substance in both blogs. But you have to give it to Scott: his logic is sound. Given his definitions, his conclusions are true. And basic math skills say that if a conclusion is wrong, but all logic steps are sound, the problem is in the axioms (the defintions). If you replace “agnostic” in Scott’s article by “weak atheist” you would get something that Austin should be able to live with. So I can see why Scott is so amused.
Since knowledge is a justified, true belief, this would be a contradiction
Agnostic atheist.
Would you care to support this accusation?
I’m using the standard definitions found in unabridged dictionaries and which has been used by atheists since at least the mid-18th century.
If you don’t say that the existence of God is definite, then you don’t know there is or is not a god. Dawkins is saying the same thing, just smaller words.
The existence of falsehoods, lack of research, and poor logic are all clear. Criticism of his position all depends, in part, on the fact that his makes false statements, did not do research, and utilized poor logic. It is thus not an attack on his person to note these things, but part of an explanation of where his position fails. What you are suggesting is that his position can or should be criticized without noting the falsehoods, without noting the lack of research, and without explaining the logical errors. I’m sorry, but that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
I’m not “imposing” “my” definition of atheism on anyone. I’m simply using the term correctly, as it is described in unabridged dictionaries and as it has been used by atheists since at least the mid-18th century.
I call myself an agnostic all the time. What I object to is the misuse of the term “agnostic” by someone who would have known better after a few minutes of research.
Really? Then I hope you can demonstrate where.
seriously tho, why when someone says something like
“For your amusement, I will now stir this fellow into an even frothier foam of cognitive dissonance. I’m certain someone will point him to this post and we can observe the results of the experiment.;
WHY THE #&$#@ WOULD YOU BITE?!
All you’re doing is discrediting your POV and making yourself a laughing stock.
I thought how to deal with trolls was like internet 101, but maybe you missed a day. Lemme give you a hint. A post like yours is no way to deal with a troll.
I think it is funny how Scott Adam’s followers can actually help further the infotainment.
“First, idiocy is a very specific term referring to a person who is mentally challenged.”
“Sorry, that’s not what my dictionary says.”
Well, in that case:
“… atheism is merely the absence of belief in any gods”
Sorry, that’s not what my dictionary says.
Just because someone doesn’t agree with your point of view doesn’t mean that they are wrong. There are plenty of scientists who believe in creation, (I know 5 personally), Just as there are plenty who believe in evolution (I know 2 Personally)
Also, Scott adams is not trolling, a troll is someone who speaks nonsense or garbage just to use up space and annoy people (plural) It seems that this is only annoying you (singular), you do need to sit back and relax, if he is wrong why don’t you cite your reasons as to why his reasons cannot be factual, instead of just saying he’s wrong. That ’s like saying “This stereo is broken because I don’t know how to use it.
As A Christian, (A believer in multiple gods, worshiper of one.) I accept that I might be wrong, if I’m wrong and god does exist, he will probably accept the effort that I made to get to know him. If he doesn’t exist, well as Monty Python said “you come from nothing, you’re going back to nothing. What’ve you lost, Nothing.”
I know you’ll say that god doesn’t exist because the evidence doesn’t convince you, could it be that you just don’t understand the evidence?
Just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t mean it’s untrue, remember quadratic equations? Hard at first, didn’t mean they were wrong (although your answers to them may have been wrong), just means that you were wrong.
There is no such thing as hellfire either
Biblical hell, the words “Hades” and “sheol” mean “land of the dead” “Gehenna” means “place of destruction” not “place of torment”.
If you need any further assistance in understanding scriptural stuff (or even getting someone elses understanding) please feel free to contact me on the email address provided
Yours Sincerely
Sean O’ Dubhuir
Atheism is not a religion, no more than theism is. Thank you, though, for helping demonstrate to everyone else why it is important to counter misrepresentations of atheism and philosophy like those that appear in Adams’ writings. If people don’t do it, then it is easier for people to believe those misrepresentations – as you unfortunately do.
Look again. Unabridged dictionaries list “disbelief in gods” as the first definition of atheism. They also list “not believe in” as the first definition of disbelieve. Not believing something is an absence of belief.
True. However, I never made that claim.
I did.
“Adams does not deserve even the prefix philoso-anything. And it’s unclear, at least concerning his blog, that he deserves the suffix.” – Barefoot Bum
I go there, and I am entertained regularly, therefore he is an entertainer.
People defend Scott Adams with the arguement that he intended it as humour. Seems to me he intended it as bullying, and is quite open about this.
He considers ‘watching the Dilbert cartoonist whip people like him into a frenzy’ as entertainment.
He says ‘For your amusement, I will now stir this fellow into an even frothier foam of cognitive dissonance.’ ‘Dance, monkey, dance!’
Saying things to annoy people that you know will annoy them just for the purpose of annoying them so you can take pleasure at their annoyance is bullying.
Scott seems to think that because he openly admits to teasing just to get a reaction that makes it okay because the other person should know just to ignore him. This is the logic of an immature school yard bully, Scott should know better and grow up.
All in the name of ‘philosotainment’ a made up word (or in his terms ‘weasel self-label’) that can mean whatever he wants to justify his bullying.
The difference between your contention and Cline’s is quite large: he backs his contention up with logic, rationality and explanation.
What logic? He makes up his own definition of atheism and how it isn’t a belief system to support his own hypothesis.
You, on the other hand, just merely “contend”. Oh, hey, I “contend” that 5+5=46. My statement has no more or less validity than yours, since you don’t feel you’re obligated to do anything other than state your contention. Here’s a suggestion: contentions are useless unless you back them up with substance. So contend away! I contend that you breathe through your belly button. Yay, this is FUN!
Sorry, but are you trying vainly to make a point. I simply said that since no one can prove the existence or non-existence of God, it is futile to argue about it.
Then why is it even worth discussing in the realm of mathematics, as Adams attempted to do? It’s not.
I have no idea. I never said Adams points had any validity.
I haven’t seen Cline scream or fight. But if you’re not willing to even argue with those who disagree with you, then I’d venture to say you’re an intellectual and moral weakling.
Excuse me? Personal insults. Typical knee-jerk response from that same odious ilk of humanity that are so sure of their opinion/beliefs/belief systems (or whatever made up definition that people like Cline come up with) that they attack anyone who finds their opinions irrelevant.
Furthermore, not every position or argument or assertion is a belief. Atheism is not a belief system.
Bull-crap. Semantics. You believe that God doesn’t exist. Period. That is a belief system…a personal one, but still part of an individual’s belief system.
And calling anyone who would argue on its behalf (or anyone who would argue on behalf of theism) “odious” simply because they choose to do so, is dishonest, and quite frankly, idiotic.
Arguing about something that cannot be proven is ridiculous. Being insulting and demeaning to those who do not share your viewpoint is “odious”.
Chumps who sit on the sideline laughing and pointing at the people in the ring, rather than taking some kind of position, are pathetic spectators who lack the fortitude to stand up for anything.
“Pathetic spectators” or people who are smart enough not to argue about something so ridiculous? And before you pull out some witty diatribe about how I am arguing about this, I am talking about the futility of this whole discussion, and am not arguing about the existence of God.
So I’d be careful about how high you ride that horse.
Perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black.
This has been quite entertaining. Of course, it’s always fun to watch fanatics whip themselves into a frenzy while others stand on the sidelines laughing at them. They never seem to realize that they’re a laughing stock; they just keep spouting and sputtering and frothing at the mouth. Their point of view no longer matters, because nobody pays attention anymore…the bystanders are too busy laughing at the funny man on the street corner.
You take yourself way too seriously, and you seem to have way too much time on your hands. Time to move out of your Mom’s basement and get a real life.
This has been quite entertaining….
You take yourself way too seriously, and you seem to have way too much time on your hands. Time to move out of your Mom’s basement and get a real life.
Too funny. Perfectly succinct post. Love it!
Please compare this:
Now, I can be held personally responsible for what I think about Scott Adams. My opinion of him can be questioned, challenged, and even criticized strongly. If I use others’ words to express my opinion, I don’t get a free pass to escape all that. However, if I am quoting people for the purpose of revealing what others are saying (and at the time I wrote the post, BB was the only other commentary I saw), that’s not a personal attack on my part – even if I agree with the sentiments in question.
Quoting an insult, even an insult you agree with, is not necessarily the same as being insulting yourself.
I can understand, though, if some people don’t see this distinction. Perhaps there is less of a difference here than I perceive – I can understand if not everyone places quite the same emphasis on intent as I do. To them, I apologize for appearing to engage in a personal attack. Since it was not my intention, it was obviously not what I saw.
With this:
Which is why, when challenged, he proceeds to try to defend his position as if it had been intended as reasonable and justified all along. Sorry, but he can’t have it both ways. Either he says “you’re right, it was all just junk posted as a joke to see what people would say” or it can’t be excused as you and others keep doing. As it is, it all becomes special pleading – and transparently so, to boot.
Is it just me or is there a Pot-Kettle-Black scenario brewing here? Hmm?
Thats’s a pretty serious accusation. Can you support it?
As has been noted more than once, this depends on how “God” is defined.
So, unless absolute certainty is possible about a subject, there is no good reason to debate it? I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make any sense to me. Which topics, exactly, would you limit debate to? Or do you think that nothing should ever be debated?
I think you’re being too hard on Scott Adams’ fans.
Do you imagine that you are demonstrating any intellectual or moral superiority by presuming to know anything about the lives of people you don’t know and have never met? Content-free, substanceless comments filled with nothing but personal attacks are never an indication of quality or seriouness.
It’s not “trolling” if you post on your own website. That’s what the web is. You, me, Scott Adams, anyone who has a comupter and web access can put up a website on any topic. There is no knowledge test, no need to be factual, honest, or accurate. If you don’t like or are disinterested in their information, you can click off somewhere else. Now if he was visiting your site, leaving provoking comments on your posts, that would be “trolling”.
you are a weenie.
A dog limps into a bar and says I am looking for the man who shot my paw. that is humor. clearly it is not factual. Dogs can’t talk. That doesn’t mean it isn’t funny. To be factual it would be “A dog limps into a bar and says Woof” that isn’t funny. Can you see the difference?
Sorry, but that doesn’t appear to be an exception to the concept.
John: Absolutely. There is a tremendous difference between telling a joke and saying something wrong which others later try to excuse as a joke. Thanks for your help in explaining what a joke really is for the other posters here.
Dance Monkey !
It’s kind of funny how you have no sense of humor whatsoever.
EVERY ONE READ THIS COMIC!!
http://en.tiraecol.net/modules/comic/comic.php?content_id=261&mode=flat&order=0
i think we should draw a 4th panel with the autor of this thread
Austin:”So, unless absolute certainty is possible about a subject, there is no good reason to debate it?”
debate? yes.
fighting? trolling? insulting? calling names?…
no… definitley no…
I think you’re being too hard on Scott Adams’ fans.
Ah, yes. The fanatic’s version of “I know you are, but what am I?” Too funny.
Do you imagine that you are demonstrating any intellectual or moral superiority by presuming to know anything about the lives of people you don’t know and have never met? Content-free, substanceless comments filled with nothing but personal attacks are never an indication of quality or seriouness.
Sorry, I don’t take myself that seriously. Actually, I feel sorry for people who do. They’re fun to watch, though – apoplectic fits of a fanatic are quite amusing to witness…
You both are funny, Scott article made me laugh. But not as hard as your jumping.
No, sorry, I’m not the one in a frenzy here. The new excuses and insults people come here to post can be interesting, though. Thank you.
Please point out where his definition of Atheism, as presented on his original post, is wrong, and why. As far is I’ve seen, Cline has presented the definition of Atheism from unabridged dictionaries. He’s also backed up his point with links to rather lengthy explanations of the difference between Atheism and Asgnosticism—all of which are logically sound. If you have disagreements with his logic, please point them out and offer up your suggested corrections, rather than just claiming that there is no logic at all—because to read his original post, along with the links he provided, and contend that there is no logical equations involved is simply lying. It is dishonesty. And I can say this unequivocally and absolutely. If you disagree, then I suspect you’re either a liar, or you don’t understand what logic is.
Of course, my point was blatantly clear: if you make a contention, you should have the wherewithal to back it up with an explanation at the very least. Instead you just made a statement of how you feel. That is of no value to me or anyone else. That was my point. In you original post, you didn’t say what you just said, so it’s quite easy to call a mulligan now and restate your position so it’s more coherent. However, unfortunately for you, your point is ultimately irrelevant, as nobody is sitting around here arguing about the existence of god. Cline’s problem with Adams’ post had nothing to do with that.
Oh, that’s right, they’re “philosotainment” meant to whip people into a frenzy so that Scott Almighty can get a few chuckles. Oh, yes, how convenient for him. What a pathetic existence—methinks that Scott should stick to snarky cartoon strips about office culture rather than lower himself to the realm of trolling, if he has a shred of self-respect.
If you take what I said as a personal insult, then perhaps that says more than it was meant to. Do you not agree that if you refrain from even arguing in support of something that you know is right, then you are a moral and intellectual weakling? I stand behind my assertion—it’s not meant as an insult, it’s meant as a statement of how I feel about such people, whether you are included in that ilk or not—and regardless of what you may think, I’m not required to hold my tongue about what I believe constitutes moral and intellectual weakness. If you feel like getting personally insulted by it, that’s on you—or perhaps, you feel that there’s some sort of rule where you get to go through life without getting insulted by people. Sorry—but if you deserve to be insulted, I’m not going to hold my tongue just to protect your fragile psyche. Contrary to what you may think, me insulting you is not necessarily out-of-bounds, and I’ll make no apologies if you happen to fall into the category of weaklings as I described above.
Ah, Bull-crap. Let me ask you a question: I don’t believe that pigs can fly. Is that a belief system? I don’t believe that the earth is cube-shaped. Is that a belief system? I don’t believe that I can lift 4000 pounds. Is that a belief system? Look, we could sit here and list the things I don’t believe until I die of old age—but we wouldn’t have described a belief system. We’d just have listed all the things that I lack belief in. Those are two very different things. And the notion of “god” is just one thing on that nearly infinite list of hypothetical things or situations in which I lack belief. It holds no more weight and deserves no more consideration that the fact that I don’t believe in flying pigs.
I’m not arguing about whether god exists. If you feel demeaned and insulted by my feelings, perhaps I hit a little too close to home—and perhaps you need thicker skin. Grow some balls and stop crying every time you feel insulted.
The fact that you think that this entire discussion is about whether or not god exists just shows how ignorant you are about the issue at hand (Oh, no! Another insult, call the cops!). The fact that you choose to boil it down to that is quite unbelievable to me.
I’m not on any high horse, but I’ll not hold my tongue when I see pathetic riders of coattails who have nothing better to do than chuckle at internet trolling. Compared to those useless layabouts, yes, I am on a higher horse, and I have no qualms about saying so.
Note to John point out that jokes need not be factual. Scott referred to his blog as ‘philosotainment’. I assume he means by this that as well as entertaining he is also philosophising. It is entertaining and has humour at times. But if the philosophising part is not to be taken seriously or considered to have any factual or logical basis to his argument and is just humour then it is not ‘philosotainment’ but just entertainment. Austin attacked his philosophical arguments not whether he is funny or not.
If Scott thinks Austin is so wrong to criticise his philosophical argument that he dedicated a blog post to mocking Austin because Austin took Scott’s misinformation seriously, maybe Scott should just stick to entertainment and stop pretending to be a philosopher as well.
E posted, “First, idiocy is a very specific term referring to a person who is mentally challenged.”
This is entirely correct.
You wrote, “Sorry, that’s not what my dictionary says.”
What dictionary does not say this? Please list the dictionary and the full definition if you would.
I checked several and they ALL say that. As an example, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/idiot has unabridged, legal and medical defintions that all support E’s statement.
E further says, “He isn’t an idiot by any objective measure you care to name.”
Again, this is factually correct.
You wrote, “I wasn’t aware that there were objective measures for the term.”
Really?
You said you just checked a dictionary.
You might consider understanding what a term like “idiot” means before using it. Especially in an article where you are disagreeing with someone’s correct use of a specifically defined label.
Did you not do the proper research before calling Adams an idiot? Or did you not understand what you were agreeing to when you reposted the insult?
That might be considered arrogant.
In an article about proper use of definitions and factual accuracy, you really ought to pay attention to this kind of thing.
If you don’t, people might make the comment that you are misrepresenting idiots everywhere.
In terms of the logical moves, you haven’t done a very good job of refuting Scott’s argument.
From his point one to point two, you argue that it isn’t logical necessity – but he never claims it is.
He only says it is rational, not necessary.
Further, you’re hanging a lot of weight on knowledge and belief being distinct (which they are) but I don’t see you being clear about how they are related.
Would you be willing to define “knowledge” and “belief” and say something about how they relate?
Evan wrote – Ah, Bull-crap. Let me ask you a question: I don’t believe that pigs can fly. Is that a belief system? I don’t believe that the earth is cube-shaped. Is that a belief system? I don’t believe that I can lift 4000 pounds. Is that a belief system?
- Pigs can fly, just not for very long. Their drag and lift aren’t set quite right for sustained flight. However, you can put one on an airplane and they can fly perfectly well.
- It is remarkably easy to get an earth shaped cube, depending on how you define the earth. Take a bit of dirt and put it into a cube…
- You can easily lift 4000 pounds with either a big enough lever or a pulley system.
The poster never said an individual statement was a belief system. He said it was part of a belief system… as were all of your questions, even taken as they were intended. You have reasons for believing pigs can’t fly – those reasons are part of your belief system. The point was a good one.
“Sorry, that’s not what my dictionary says.”
Look again. Unabridged dictionaries list “disbelief in gods” as the first definition of atheism. They also list “not believe in” as the first definition of disbelieve. Not believing something is an absence of belief.
Look again? Do you think the definition in my dictionary will somehow magically change because you said that?
Nope. It still says ‘the belief that God does not exist.’ You can go ahead and criticise the Compact Oxford English Dictionary for being (according to you) incorrect rather than just compact now.
Although out of interest, you mentioned specifically a first definition in your unabridged dictionaries. What are the other definitions?
Sorry for the confusion – I meant that my dictionary does not limit the definition to just that. However, my dictionary doesn’t provide any objective measures for the concept.
Once again, what I said was that I was unable to come up with reasons to dispute that conclusion.
No, I question the logical connection between points one and two. The use of “therefore” denotes a logical inference. The form of the argument is “X, therefore Y.” Unless there is a logical connection between X and Y, the inference — the “therefore” — is invalid. Perhaps it is possible to insert extra steps between 1 and 2 which establishes the connection, I don’t know, but the responsibility doing so lies with the author of the argument. In the meantime, if some other and stronger logical connection can be established with a difference inference, then the current argument as it stands must be rejected. It must go back to the author for retooling and refining.
When it comes to this context, I believe I explain the necessary issues in my description of the differences between atheism and agnosticism, available via links in the above blog post. If you think that the explanation is missing something relevant, please do let me know.
Belief is the mental assent to or acceptance of something as true. Knowledge is a justified, true belief. Everything you know you believe, but not everything you believe qualifies as knowledge. If you believe something that is true but the belief isn’t justified, that’s not knowledge (but it is lucky). You can also be justified in believing something that isn’t actually true – which again is not knowledge.
No, you might not have an unabridged dictionary – and as it turns out, you don’t. Abridged dictionaries drop definitions in order to save space.
I have detailed explanations on how dictionaries and other reference books define atheism. The general rule for dictionary definitions is to start with either the most common or the most broad definition then move on through narrower or less popular/applicable/relevant definitions. The same holds true with atheism: the broader and more common definition of “disbelief in God or gods” comes first, then “denial of the existence of God or gods,” then godlessness, wickedness, etc.
Wow… way to prove his cognitive dissonance theories. Look, Scott has repeatedly posted philosotainment stories, and he’s been doing it for a long time. He has taken almost every “position” known to man: Thought experiments that seemingly contradict religion, that seemingly contradict atheism, that seemingly contradict evolution, and creationism, and conservatism, and liberalism. *Both* sides of pretty much every issue. So you can say, “I don’t buy it” until you’re blue in the face, but the evidence is there. That’s what he does. He poses thought experiments. He always has. He likes to see how people react to them and how they “debunk” them. He’s even said explicitly that the fun is in finding out WHY the thought experiment won’t work. i.e… he’s admitting up-front that he doesn’t necessarily agree with what he’s proposing in the thought experiment.
So when you get all anal-retentive and start insulting him and agreeing that he’s an “idiot” and insulting his readers (all while not even proving his theories to be invalid) you just make yourself look like the “Angry Atheist” that he’s labeled you as. Now, I know your cognitive dissonance told you that you proved him wrong, but sorry… your refutations don’t hold up. Comparing “There are no round squares” to “There is no God” doesn’t really prove anything other than the fact that you like to draw very weak analogies and present them as if they’re air-tight proof of your views. “There are no round square” is an absolute, because we can see squares and we defined the word “square”, therefore we can say what it can and can’t be. “God” is not only something that we can’t see, but it’s something that we can’t “define” with any certainty, therefore no absolute negatives can exist about it. And your argument that you have to pick a specific theology (not just “theism” in general) still doesn’t contradict Adam’s statement that your odds are better. His argument is: Picking no theism at all = 0% chance. Picking ANY theism = >0% chance. Yeah, you don’t know WHAT the improvement of your odds is, but your odds are improved. And like he said, when you’re talking about eternity in hell, any improvement in your odds is better than no improvement.
At some point, hopefully you can come to the conclusion that you’ve overreacted to this and you can start to view the thought experiment in a more objective, less name-calling manner. Adam’s isn’t trying to prove the existence of god, or the idiocy of atheism. It’s just something to chew on. Unfortunately, people who’ve taken a militant stance on their beliefs tend to not be able to chew on anything other than their standard issue dogma.
WATYF
“No, you might not have an unabridged dictionary – and as it turns out, you don’t. Abridged dictionaries drop definitions in order to save space.”
Indeed. But there’s a big difference between dropping other definitions and having an incorrect definition.
Is ‘the belief that God does not exist’ a correct definition or not?
I didn’t say that undefined god-concepts cannot be disproven. However, many believers do define their god-concepts in a manner which is amenable to proof or disproof. Those who don’t are proposing a concept that isn’t worth considering in the first place.
I explained why this is fallacious. It’s built upon a Begging the Question fallacy because it presumes the validity of a religion while assuming the invalidity of ideas like “maybe God prefers skeptics.” Yes, there is no reason to believe the latter — but he provides no reason to believe the former, either. Both concepts stand on equal ground; therefore, the assertion that picking is better odds than not picking is invalid.
Furthermore, it is precisely because readers like you believe the factual and logical errors which validates posting a refutation of his arguments.
Patiently demonstrating, in detail, all the factual and logical errors isn’t an “overreaction.” If anything, it’s the bare minimum.
It’s the correct definition of strong atheism. It is correct as a description of what some people think atheism it. Similarly, “wickedness” is a correct definition in that it correctly described what some people have thought atheism is.
Not if what’s been left out is necessary to give an accurate picture of what the concept is. If “wickedness” were the only definition for atheism in your dictionary, that would be “correct” in the manner stated above but it would at the same time give an inaccurate depiction of atheism.
It was not entirely clear why his arguments are wrong in your blog. I may be a lowly IT Worker in a Big Evil Corporation, but even I know how to read, and yes I can interpret sentences correctly and put everything in context.
Scott is Fishing, He is the fisherman, the blog is the bait and you are the fish.
If you feel intimidated by his comments I suggest that you just ignore his comments.
You could say that he is winding you up and he knows where to go. you have to relax and not reply
May God Help you in your efforts
I apologize for any confusion I might have caused. If you have questions then feel free to ask and I’ll do my best to explain.
In which case all the people who read his factual and logical errors will think that he’s writing something valid. Only by responding is there an opportunity to explain those errors, even if they have to be rephrased a couple of times because the original explanations were unclear.
Thanks, but factual and logical errors are not the least bit intimidating.
Thanks, but there is no need — you’ll notice that I’m not responding to him on his blog. That would be “taking the bait.” Instead, I am explaining the problems here to other people.
Austin writes, “Sorry for the confusion – I meant that my dictionary does not limit the definition to just that. However, my dictionary doesn’t provide any objective measures for the concept.”
Which dictionary please? Which definition? Second time asking – still waiting…
I gave you a link that provided several standard and accepted unabridged definitions. Are you still saying that the term “idiot” does not have an objective measurement?
I’m suspicious, because that isn’t what you said – you directly contradicted the point because it didn’t adhere to the dictionary definition.
Thanks for sharing your definition of knowledge and belief. Shades of Socrates and correct opinion, fair enough.
It seems to me that is where a lot of the problem is… right or wrong, Adams isn’t defining knowledge, belief or “true” the same way you do.
I agree that Adams is missing a step from 1 to 2… but I wouldn’t want to argue that it is rational to be 100% certain of anything.
Given that, I’m not sold on your rejection on that basis.
Would it be fair to say that the difference between your definition of weak atheist vs. agnostic rests on what counts as “justified” related to moving something from belief to knowledge?
You’re arguing about things that don’t matter anyways and you can’t prove. All Scott Adams did is bring up a different way of thinking of something.
Thanks, but there is no need — you’ll notice that I’m not responding to him on his blog. That would be “taking the bait.” Instead, I am explaining the problems here to other people.
So doing exactly what he said you would do isn’t taking the bait? Your logic intrigues me.
I don’t have with me the one I consulted, but I seem to remember the definition including “foolish or senseless.”
I know of no objective measurements for foolishness or senselessness. If you do, I’d like to hear them.
Well, any such argument would have to be very cautious and limited in scope, I think. I assume that you would say that you aren’t 100% sure that it isn’t rational to be 100% sure certain of anything, right? If that’s the case, then you are necessarily allowing that there may be cases where it’s rational and legitimate to be 100% certain of something. You may not go there, and you may not be comfortable with articulating any principles upon which such a position can be reliably founded, but you are accepting that such a position can be legitimate.
If that’s the case, though, then you are necessarily rejecting his position. You cannot simultaneously say “it is irrational to ever be 100% certain of anything” and “it may be possible to rationally claim 100% certainty about something.”
No, but I think you are conflating two different issues here. Or there is something in your wording that I’m not understanding. So let me explain: weak atheism and agnosticism are about separate (though related) issues. They are not different positions along the same continuum. They are answers to different (though related) questions, not different answers to the same question.
So, in this context I don’t think it matters what standard we use to say whether some belief is “justified” and “true” (thus making it knowledge rather than belief). Given three hypothetical standards – A, B, C – no choice would impact the difference between weak atheism and agnosticism. Picking one standard over another might affect whether a person calls themselves agnostic or not, but it doesn’t affect the difference between the basic concepts themselves.
Now, if I’ve completely misunderstood what you meant and that was all irrelevant, I apologize.
Casey:
That’s actually part of the question, and I think I explained where that’s not so.
Given all the factual and logical errors, I’d say that he only offered an incorrect and faulty way of looking at things. If that’s “different” for anyone, it’s a change for the worse. Regardless, it’s more than enough justification for the original post.
Emily:
Conforming my actions to his expectations or desires is “taking the bait.” Not saying anything simply because he said I would also is “taking the bait.” Ignoring his wishes and concentrating on people here is quite different.
Conforming my actions to his expectations or desires is “taking the bait.” Not saying anything simply because he said I would also is “taking the bait.
No, actually not saying anything when he predicted that you would would be the opposite of taking the bait. And you must be aware that your actions are one and the same as what he expected you to do. So by your own definition, you are indeed “taking the bait.”
Merriam-Webster defines an idiot as: 1 usually offensive : a person affected with extreme mental retardation
2: a foolish or stupid person
Please note there is not an “objective measure” indicated.
Even using a particular IQ basis for the antiquated word “idiot” is being subjective — you won’t find a dozen doctors coming up with the exact same IQ. So Cline is correct in stating this is not “objective” in the truest sense of the word.
And if the “objective measure” for being an idiot is making illogical inaccurate statements in a blog seen all over the world (I’m not saying it is, but IF it were), then Scott is clearly an idiot.
You see, it all comes down to your “objective measurement.” Some would say that president bush can’t be an idiot, since he’s been to Yale and Harvard — but I’d say that millions of people feel otherwise.
However, I do feel that Cline split the hair a little too finely in not admitting that almost everyone believes repeating an insult and saying you agree with it is not an insult itself. While perhaps that is technically correct, it was probably a mistake to do so and try to defend. (I would not have done it.)
That would be choosing an action solely to conform to particular expectations of others, which is another way of taking bait here.
Unless such “predictions” are just a passive-aggressive means for getting people to stop criticizing you. There’s no way to know, of course, just as it’s always possible to go round-and-round wondering if people are being honest. Once you start second-guessing yourself on such a basis, there’s no end.
The only way to avoid that trap – to avoid the bait – is to stop conforming your life and actions to what others keep telling you that you should do and instead take action based on what you think is best. As soon as you start worrying about whether others are taking pleasure in whether you are or are not doing what they want, you’ve lost.
Live your own life and do what you think is best. Remember, it’s not just those who worry about “taking bait” who are losing out on living their own lives, but those waste time laying out bait as well. Both are examples of people living not for themselves, but for the reactions of others.
Austin, I don’t agree with most of what you have said in your posts, but I thought that your last response was a good one. It really impressed me. I still think that most of your other posts are, well, wrong, but I agreed with the last one. Kudos.
Thank you, I’m glad you found it interesting.
“I didn’t say that undefined god-concepts cannot be disproven. However, many believers do define their god-concepts in a manner which is amenable to proof or disproof. Those who don’t are proposing a concept that isn’t worth considering in the first place.”
Which beliefs are amenable to proof or disproof? Isn’t that the whole point of this argument; that you can’t actually prove/disprove ANY belief in God? And therefore the only belief anyone could possibly have in god is one that isn’t amenable to being proven or disproven?
And who are you to say what is or isn’t worth considering? You’re just making sweeping conclusions based on “because I said so”.
I explained why this is fallacious. It’s built upon a Begging the Question fallacy because it presumes the validity of a religion while assuming the invalidity of ideas like “maybe God prefers skeptics.” Yes, there is no reason to believe the latter — but he provides no reason to believe the former, either. Both concepts stand on equal ground; therefore, the assertion that picking is better odds than not picking is invalid.
If one wants to entertain the possibility that there is a god (which is simply a personal choice), then one would do well to weigh the odds of their beliefs in said god. You would probably want to look at all of the established religions… see whose texts have the most archaeological backing and scientific correlation (minus the whole “God” part, of course)… figure out which viewpoint adds up the best “logically” and then play the odds. Now, since *every* aspect of this topic (from both sides) cannot be proven or disproven, at some point you have to start making logical conclusions based on what you have available to you. Otherwise, this whole argument can be reduced to “no belief of any kind regarding the status of the existence of god should be held”. Atheism and theism *both* depend on using logic as it pertains to things that you can’t prove. At some point, you have to say, “This seems more logical”. If you don’t, then no belief related to this topic is worth entertaining either way. The whole “there is no mathematically greater chance of any belief” cuts both ways. If that’s the case, then no belief (for or against any god) is rational in any way, because there would be just as much chance that there isn’t a god as there is a Christian god or there is a Muslim god or there is a Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc, etc. That would make atheism just as irrational as any religion.
Furthermore, it is precisely because readers like you believe the factual and logical errors which validates posting a refutation of his arguments.
Patiently demonstrating, in detail, all the factual and logical errors isn’t an “overreaction.” If anything, it’s the bare minimum.
I’d like to believe this, man… but your statements just don’t come across that way in any context that I can find.
reveals persistent and deep-seated ignorance
demonstrate[s] no real understanding of science or evolution
worst… arguments against atheism ever created (I don’t find your refutation of those arguments to be convincing, so I think it’s a huge overstatement that they are the “worst” arguments ever)
I have to wonder why Scott Adams displays such ignorance
shouldn’t have been writing about them to begin with (as if you are the one to decide who should and shouldn’t discuss this topic)
everything he wrote in his post was either factually incorrect or logically incoherent (even though that’s not true. Factually, plenty of it was correct, and logically, much of it can be argued, as you’re seeing done here)
presented in such a overweening, inept form
…declares Scott Adams [is] an “idiot”… I find myself unable to come up with any reasons for disputing that conclusion.
If you had just said, “Scott Adam’s posted a new thought experiment… here are my views on it” then you wouldn’t even have been mentioned in the first place. The point isn’t that you’re “refuting” his logic… it’s that you couldn’t do it without repeatedly showing your disdain for him and what you believe to be his complete ignorance on all of these topics (even though, as we’ve established, he merely posts these things as experiments, so his knowledge of the topic may not even be coming into play on this particular post).
WATYF
ive got to say as a fan of this site and dilbert and possibly one of the few who regularly read BOTH sites – Mr.Adams response to Austins original critique is slightly childish… its what this site is here for…. but the posts from Scott fans on here are, in the main, far worse.
This site often gives a response to anyone misrepresenting atheism and agnosticism. The fact that Scots original post was humorous is not an issue – Austin pointed out the errors in it from a non-humorous point of view. There really isn’t any more to it than that. Get a grip people.
What I find amusing are the posts who use a lottery analogy when trying to be serious about god.
In a lottery, there IS a drawing. There IS a definitive winning number, whether or not there was a winning ticket sold. However, with god, there may not BE a drawing or winning number or winning ticket sold.
So, a better analogy would be: there may or may not be a drawing(s), there may or may not be a prize(s), there may or may not be a winning number(s), and there may or may not be a winner(s). There may be from zero to infinity drawings, prizes, value of the prizes, winning numbers, and winners.
That kind of puts it into proper perspective. Not much of a wager, is it? Yet people appear to sell all their (and their children’s) possessions and buy as many tickets as possible as frequently as possible.
Those with an adequate, testable, meaningful definition.
It’s that position which is incorrect. It would be more correct to say that you “can’t prove/disprove EVERY possible god concept,” but then we are back to the meaninglessness of the rest. It is possible to construct a god-concept in a manner that is immune from both proof and disproof, but such a god-concept would be meaningless and irrelevant. I don’t see where there would be any point in even discussing it, much less believing it.
The only way for an alleged god to have no evidence for or against its existence is for it to have no impact on our universe. Such a god is irrelevant and not worth believing in. If it does have an impact then it can, in theory at least, be proven or disproven.
It’s probably no coincidence that the gods claimed to exist by various religions do have an impact on our world and there are, in theory, provable or disprovable. Gods without impact or relevance just won’t inspire religious faith and passion.
Privileging them, as if they are more likely to point to truth than any other random concept you make up, is where the Begging the Question fallacy occurs.
However, if you are going to focus just on traditional religions, then you are focusing on beliefs in gods which have an impact on our world – gods for which we should be able to acquire evidence for or against. This, in turn, makes proof or disproof a possibility.
And would you recommend feelings of respect and deference towards someone who is ignorant of a topic, refuses to do any research on a topic, proceeds to post falsehoods about the topic, and then when corrected proceeds to defend and repeat those falsehoods? Sorry, but “disdain” is the most generous reaction I can manage.
Not to mention attack those who look around and ask where this alleged lottery is in the first place. Of course, that’s not a surprise. Psychological studies show that once people get heavily invested in something, they develop strong defense mechanisms against recognizing that perhaps it was all for nothing. If that message is a threat, then so is the messenger…
Ever seen The Colbert Report? How about Sacha Baron Cohen?
In my opinion, Scott Adams is funny when he’s being clever, and not funny as a “faux-mean yuk-yuk rile-up-an-unwitting-straight-man” comic.
But this brand of humor is not without precedent, and it’s absurd to participate in this discussion with him and NOT acknowledge his intentions.
Wow, the entertainment Dilbert provides me never dies.
Essentially, you seem to be arguing that knowledge and belief exist separately. That’s your affair, but you must know that there are many different theories on the nature of belief and its relation to knowledge. Many struggle with the problem of belief without knowledge. Everyday experience shows us that people hold beliefs without knowledge – indeed, perfect knowledge of anything is impossible for our limited brains.
So if there is belief without knowledge, why can’t there be (non-perfect) knowledge without belief?
Here’s an example: I know that there are a few main theories on the ultimate fate of the universe according to Big Bang Theory. The big crunch, heat death through entropy, and the big rip theory, to name the most common, all seem equally plausible to me. I don’t believe that one particular one will occur – I also don’t disbelieve. After all, something has to happen, and I’m fairly comfortable with my uncertainty.
Uncertainty as a principle is deeply entertwined with everything that we do, but people are inherently more comfortable with stability. It’s no wonder so many people fall into the trap of absolute certainty – it’s a big security blanket for the brain.
There can be knowledge without belief, but not with respect to the exact same thing. This is because knowledge is defined by belief. You can’t know that some proposition is true without believing that it is true (excepting perhaps in cases of genuine, serious denial)
You are describing knowledge of one thing and belief of something else. You know that it is true that certain theories exist — knowledge of X. You do not accept the truth of any of them, though – belief of A, B, and C.
A genuine example of what you are discussing would be knowing that it is true that there are three theories of the fate of the universe, but not believing that it is true that there are three theories of the fate of the universe.
It is possible to know that some idea or ideas exist, but not believe they are true. It is not possible to know that it is true that some idea exists and not believe that it exists, or know that some idea is true and not believe that it is true.
I’d like to expand on this a little bit and rehash a point discussed by Dawkins and Harris: many of the religious adherents would like it both ways when it comes to proof. If there is a lack of proof, then they will often simply say that their concept of god cannot be proven by any earthly “evidence”. But if something happens, such as a supposed “miracle”, they’re all over it like (to use Scott Adams’ cute term) a hobo on a ham sandwich. The Vatican just might launch an investigation into said miracle. People flock to the site of said “miracle” by the thousands. This, they use as proof that god is “real”.
So, in the absence of proof, they declare proof as unnecessary or irrelevant; in the presence of what could be construed by some as proof, they turn 180 degrees.
Does Atheism cause muddled thinking or is it the other way around?
It does appear that when the subject of atheism comes up, the thinking of some theists becomes muddled. I don’t know why, but it happens far too often that a theist has trouble comprehending the simple idea of “disbelief in gods.”
Sal,
If you dared to call the writings of Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett “muddled”, I’d have to question your mental soundness. But, you would never do such a thing, so…
More often than not, the clearest, most consistent viewpoints (consistent from one person to another) are from atheists. The mental gymnastics involved in trying to explain why your benevolent “god” would supposedly kill thousands of innocent people in a tsunami, or why we should even get out of bed if every thing we ever do or think or see has been decided ahead of time by god…that is the definition of muddled. The stance of atheists is, more often than not, crystal clear, without all the inconvenient contradictions and logical dead ends involved in many forms of theism.
Austin is of course correct. A total bore, but he’s correct.
I will never think of you again. But I will continue to laugh with Scott.
I honestly wasn’t aware of this standard wherein everyone has to be a freakin’ entertainer. “Sure, Lance Armstrong won the TdF 5 times, but god, he doesn’t tell many good jokes!” Considering that Austin never presented himself as a humorist and doesn’t make a living entertaining people, why is he being held to that standard?
I suppose it’s more important to be entertaining than correct? Go, laugh with Scott. I find his blog to be droll and boring, myself. His comic strips are funny sometimes, but I don’t find his blog entertaining at all, especially when he spends his time supposedly trying to troll for reactions to his posts. But whatever floats your boat…I simply wasn’t aware that one had to make a choice between being entertained and learning facts.
The stance of atheists is crystal clear? Would you point me to some place where this clarity takes place? It seems the very term “atheist” is not clear.
Attacking the other’s viewpoint with simplistic one liners devoid of context is a technique used by both camps in this thread of comments. When I read that, the author’s credibility decreases.
I admit to not have done much systematic research on the stance of atheists. After reading some good comments here and a lot of drivel (from both sides), I am intrigued to learn a bit more.
Austin – I’ve been reading the comments here with great interest. While I don’t agree with everything you’ve said you usually answer in a logical, straightforward, and easy to understand manner, which is why your reasoning about how not believing in something is not a belief system doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. If you take your comments from an earlier post:
I don’t believe that pigs can fly
I don’t believe that the earth is cube-shaped
I don’t believe that I can lift 4000 pounds
And turn them around, it’s obvious (at least to me) that saying you don’t believe is something is essentially the same as saying you believe in the negative:
I don’t believe that pigs can fly = I believe that pigs can’t fly
I don’t believe that the earth is cube-shaped = I believe that the earth is not cube-shaped
I don’t believe that I can lift 4000 pounds = I believe that I cannot lift 4000 pounds
To me, that means you have a belief system. (but if you prefer, I suppose you could call it a disbelief system
)
And then….he voted.
No, that’s not true. The phrase “not (believe x)” is not equivalent to the phrase “believe (not x).” Am I wearing a blue shirt? You surely can’t say that you do believe I am, but by the same token you can’t say that you actively believe that I am not. You don’t know and have no way of telling.
Even if your first part were true, this wouldn’t follow. A single belief cannot possibly be a belief system. A belief might be part of a belief system, but it cannot be a belief system all by itself.
re: post 263
Atheism is not incompatible with caring. Think about what I said, and then think about your own beliefs. If you don’t believe in god (ie, creator, afterlife, heaven/hell), then you must believe that everyone, no matter what they believe, is going to meet the same end when they die. Why then, does it matter what they believe or how they perceive your beliefs? I too am an atheist. The beauty of not believing in god is that you don’t have to waste time debating about it. If you’re truly convinced of your beliefs, then you must believe that it doesn’t actually matter what you or anyone else believes. I may be wrong, of course, but I don’t really care.
Why does a humorist get a free pass to joke about serious subjects? Well… uh… hmm… tough question. Maybe, just maybe… it’s because they’re HUMORISTS. That’s what people expect from them, and that’s why people listen to what they have to say in the first place – to be entertained by their slightly skewed way of looking at a subject. Humorists aren’t trying to convince anyone to believe a certain philosophy, but rather they present a well-known thought or idea in a way that most people don’t associate it. That’s how humor works – you know; “a horse walks into a bar…” Several of your other readers have pointed this out to you in different ways. It’s obvious you don’t get it. That’s OK, because we’re all having a good time at your expense, and the sooner you get it, the sooner the fun train comes to a halt.
By the way, I love the spell-check feature. Wish more blog sites had that.
What happens after we die is irrelevant; beliefs impact how we live now. So, it matters.
Yet here you are, doing just that.
That wasn’t the question. The question is why they get a free pass to make factual and logical errors – in particular, in something that isn’t presented solely as humor.
I still don’t understand how my first point is incorrect. I took your example of wearing a blue shirt and substituted it for x. This is what I came up with:
not believe (x)
believe (not x)
“not believe (wearing a blue shirt)” (Complete sentence: I do not believe that you are wearing a blue shirt)
“believe (not wearing a blue shirt)” (Complete sentence: I believe that you are not wearing a blue shirt)
Neither statement translates into “I believe you are wearing a blue shirt”, and they both convey the same meaning.
I agree that I don’t know if you’re wearing a blue shirt or not, but I wasn’t talking about knowledge, I was talking about belief. According to you, they are not the same thing.
Regarding my second point, I stand corrected. You are quite right, a single belief does not a system make.
As an atheist who likes Adams’ sense of humor, I have to say I am pretty apalled by one of my favorite humorists straying so far logically. I just have to go back to my usual position with theists, which is that there’s no factual way to convince faithful believers. It’s kind of a waste of time. Theists are pretty unaware of how hard they can be on atheists though. Imagine me putting “THERE IS NO GOD” on ALL your money or in your pledge of allegiance, and you sort of see how it feels.
You seem to be assuming that you must either actively believe the truth of the proposition “he is wearing a blue shirt” or you must actively believe the truth of the proposition “he is not wearing a blue shirt” (this is the same as denying the truth of the proposition “he is wearing a blue shirt.”)
This is not the case. You do not have to assert the truth of either proposition. You do not have to believe anything about what I am wearing. This is the broad definition of disbelief: not believe, lack belief.
The absence of belief in the truth of X (where X is some proposition) is not the same as the denial of X, or the belief in not-X.
To be fair, there is a common correlation between the two. It’s common that when you don’t believe a proposition you also deny it is true – you don’t leave the question of its truth open for further discussion. Such a move is not required, however. You may not believe the truth of the proposition “America needs universal health care,” but this doesn’t mean you assert the truth of the opposite, “America needs not to have universal health care.” Some do (believe (not-X)), but others leave the question open. They are disbelievers in the truth of X (god, needing universal health care, Donald Trump wears a wig), but not believers in not-X.
Correct, but they are related. If you have no idea whether I am wearing a blue shirt or not, it would be unreasonable to assert “it is true that he is wearing a blue shirt,” but it would be equally unreasonable to assert “it is true that he is wearing a non-blue shirt” (though given the options, the latter is technically more likely – it might be easier to assume only two color options). This is where disbelief comes in. You don’t have to believe I am wearing a blue shirt. You don’t have to believe I am wearing a red shirt. You don’t have to believe anything at all about the truth of the proposition “he is wearing a blue shirt.”
And why is this disbelief reasonable? That’s where knowledge comes in – or the lack of knowledge. You don’t know enough about this new god-concept you’re hearing about, so you don’t have enough knowledge to assert the truth of X or the truth of not-X. You don’t know enough about health insurance to assert the truth of X or the truth of not-X. You don’t know enough about wigs to assert the truth of X or the truth of not-X.
I try to explain all this in the article I lined to:
I’m not debating my beliefs. I’m trying to figure out why others’ beliefs matter so much to you, and you made a valid point in stating that beliefs affect the way we live. That is very apparent every day, so I hear you on that and couldn’t agree more. I simply thought there was a different point to this thread, which is what I was trying to drive at.
That, and I’m having fun with you. Most people don’t make it so easy. Try not to take yourself so seriously.
I’m an atheist. And you’re a biased idiot. I know you SAY that it’s not necessary to know everything in order to deny God, but you ACT as if you DO know everything. Your arrogance gives atheists a bad name. No wonder theists hate us. Reasonable people pepper their philosophies with wit and interactive social skills. Antagonizing antagonists will get you nowhere. Scott Adams is a humorist, a profession you could learn a bit from. You take yourself TOO seriously.
I’m confused; you believe you are an expert in believing in not believing that something doesn’t exist? Is that what you believe?
matt: you’re correct – you ARE confused
Can you support this accusation?
Debating people on things they have chosen to believe – and as always, reason will be the subordinate to that desire and only serve the end they want – is a giant waste of time, though it can be fun. Sort of like video games. You get some fun skills with it I guess. It bears mention that if one mentions being an atheist, you can absolutely count on being subject to attack/harassment/conversion attempts by people “for your own good” and really more to prop up their belief system. So I don’t mind Asutin taking on all comers. And there’s NOTHING more smug than some faithful individual blind to all reason and totally determined to overwhelm an atheist with their beliefs, so go for it dude! Atheism is the absence of belief, I just don’t see the proof and the deities I have been shown are always just idiotic, to me. I like some of what Jesus said, but the part about praying in your home and not the streets as they hypocrites do is sort of ignored. Many religions have valid points. A broken clock is right 2 times a day – but still what’s the first commandment? Not “be nice to people” or “Do not kill” – neither of those is way up the list commandment wise. So I don’t count Christianity as a great moral guide overall. Nor do I appreciate those who try to logic my rational disagreement with a plainly silly proposition right out of existence as a way to prop up their own craziness. The atheist offends by his disbelief alone, mostly because others who profess such certainty cannot stand us as a threat to their smug certainty, so they use the logic they don’t normally care about and didn’t base their system of belief on to attack our position. I could just as easily say “I know in my HEART there is no god/gods/santa claus etc.” because that’s the reality of what the deist position comes down to. Simnply put – there is no rational basis for religious belief. If there were, it wouldn’t be “faith”. Reason and faith don’t go together. I know reason to be true because it is a self correcting system of non-dogmatic principles that allow for change based on new information. Religion is not based on living in this world but suborns it to another status, and so bad things always seem to happen when people use faith to try to do things in this real world we have around us. So Mr. Adams annoys me with that sophmoric attempt to undercut atheism, but hey, I can’t cure the crazy because I can’t perform miracles and that’s what the religionists require. Not that I mind seeing the crazies get all riled…Go Austin!
Your article is posted on a site that opens popups therefore you are evil, if you believe in evil. BTW, I’m agnostic leaning towards atheist and think you take this stuff way too seriously.
Sorry, I don’t have any control over that sort of thing. I use pop-up blockers, by the way.
Curious that so many are critical of me taking this “way too seriously,” but you take it seriously enough to post about it — and take their own view seriously enough to want to share it with me and everyone else.
The only people who truly aren’t taking it seriously are those who never bothered reading this because they saw the title and said “eh,” before moving on to something that mattered more to them (and maybe those who popped in briefly before moving on). There are lots of things I don’t care much about and don’t take seriously… guess what? I don’t take the time to read blogs about those topics and post there to let everyone know how much I really don’t care about it all! Bizarre, isn’t it?
Everyone posting here about how silly it is to take this seriously are just engaging in holier-than-thou public posturing: “I don’t take this seriously, and that’s so important that I’m going to make sure everyone knows just how much I don’t take this seriously!” None of you are fooling anyone.
Austin wrote: “Everyone posting here about how silly it is to take this seriously are just engaging in holier-than-thou public posturing: “I don’t take this seriously, and that’s so important that I’m going to make sure everyone knows just how much I don’t take this seriously!” None of you are fooling anyone.”
This is equally true of people who suggest you “get a life!” Or are somehow “taking the bait.” Or responding to “I dare you to answer this post.” Or “ignore this post only if you can’t come up with a reasonable response.”
Silly, silly, silly. And of course, you’re SO ANGRY!!! Which is also silly, because you’re obviously not angry in the least. I empathize with you for having to endure the silliness. That’s one reason I don’t start my own blog.
Best wishes for continued success. Those who come here to leave a smelly post don’t appreciate that they are all part of the game.
If I may further expand on Austin’s and gr8hands’s sentiments, you have to wonder when so many of scott adams’s followers are coming by single-file to post inflammatory comments about Austin’s critique, who are the real suckers that scott is manipulating–if he’s chalking all this up to just a ruse, and even his followers can’t agree on what scott’s intentions were (before or after divulging them).
It also sorely misses the mark when people fail to realize the decency that someone displays in taking the time to respond to just about all the comments and questions made for days, and for their benefit–that they may walk away slightly smarter than when they entered. Austin’s MO is to convey concepts clearly and straightforward. If you’re looking for humor, then learning important concepts about logic or skepticism is not your focus, and you should go elsewhere.
Few are willing to display such patience and dedication, and that scott’s smirking and patting himself on the back for “goading” Austin into doing what he otherwise would’ve done anyway isn’t saying much at all. He might as well smirk and chuckle that when he put a quarter into a gumball machine, a gumball came out. If anyone can be said to have been goaded, it’s anyone who came in here in scott’s defense.
You’re getting all fired up over nothing, dude… Scott Adams is picking your brain, because he knows exactly how religious you atheists tend to be about your beliefs. I say he got you good…
To the Scott Adams Defenders: Tossing off insults and misremembered parroting doesn’t establish your position beyond having your head in your nether regions.
The suggestion in the Dilbert Blog comments that Scott found himself in an indefensible position and took the easy (and sad) way out makes the most sense.
Why do you people (both sides of this silly argument) care so much what the other thinks? Why are you so offended by someone else’s values?
You can decide for your own what you want to believe and who you want to listen to. No one here is forcing anyone else to think in a certain way.
This argument have shown sides of everyone that I hope you’re not proud of.
Live and let live, people.
Intern:
Even humor can be applied unethically. That it may entertain someone into a coma would not change that. People may spew whatever they want about anything, anywhere, but wherever they are being heard, they have to accept opening themselves up to criticism if it is merited.
But, moreover, when misinformation is spread not so much about a concept, but about who a class of people are, those people have every right to call them out on that misinformation, lest the bigotry against those people be continued or even exacerbated by such misinformation. There may be an extra layer of responsibility when one chooses to “inform” the public about a group of people whose lives could be affected by what is said.
Even if it may have a miniscule impact what scott said, or even if his misrepresentation is slight (which could be debatable), he should own up to the error, and lack of consideration for the group in question. And in no way should a person be disuaded from calling a spade a spade, especially where it may affect them.
There are many reasons to “care what other people think”. There are a great many ideas and thoughts out there that are harmful, dangerous and detrimental to what I view as a positive and forward-thinking future. To allow those ideas to flourish without challenge would be irresponsible of me. It’s not that I’m so vain that I actually care what these anonymous Scott Adams adorers think about me personally; it’s that ideas are out there being disseminated that are wrong, and possibly harmful.
This has nothing to do with being offended by anything. Correcting other peoples’ errors and wrongdoings does not necessarily mean that I am offended by them.
It’s called civil discourse; certainly, everyone’s free to believe what they want, but providing them with the correct information does not preclude that. I know that Adams and his loyal followers aren’t “forcing” anyone to do anything, but that still doesn’t necessarily mean that their errors, omissions, and dissemination of bad facts and logic should just continue without question or protest. Too often, this culture gets caught up in the whole “live and let live” thing a bit too much, to the point where they think that nobody should express their point of view in public, and we should all just keep it at home, and only talk about football and the weather when we meet other people. I’m sorry, but I don’t operate that way. Live and let live is a fine concept, but it does not preclude rational discussion of important topics and issues. If you have problems with the rise of the blog comment board, then perhaps you should “live and let live”, and ignore them.
I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve said, and Austin shouldn’t be either. No, it’s not the nicest discourse in the world at times, but da****, I think that this ***** culture of ours is way to hung up on politeness sometimes. Austin has engaged in nothing but steadfast adherence to rationality. Take a look at a few of his many posts; if I were him, I’d not be ashamed one bit. If you find it shameful, that’s your right, but I see nothing shameful about his comments. I do find a quasi-celebrity comic strip writer playing a big joke on someone like this (supposedly) to be pretty shameful, though…especially since I sincerely believe that it wasn’t a joke to begin with, but now he’s just trying to save face. That, I find shameful. But standing up for a position with rational, logical arguments…not shameful at all, even if it wasn’t the most polite conversation at times.
Yes, live and let live—if people want to have heated debates on blog comment boards, then let them live. I find it curious that someone who believes in the “live and let live” mantra would be telling other people to stop living.
Intern: for someone who preaches “live and let live”, you sure do seem to be pretty concerned about the actions of others.
Austin,
Just read your article… I am an athiest as well. I took a look at Scott Adams blog on this subject. Then I started reading some of his other blogs. I started realizing that purpose of his blog is to express his point of view in a humorous way, and that’s exactly what the atheism article is all about: purposely using oversimplified logic to humorously prove a point in what is ultimately an elaborate semantics argument.
After reading your critique, and then Scott Adam’s blog, I have to say that you’re the one that needs to loosen up, my friend.
Humorous is fine, but persistently defending factual and logical errors as if there were nothing wrong with them is something else entirely. Even “oversimplified logic” still has to be free of basic fallacies, never mind factual errors.
Lots of people say this, but no one bothers to explain what they mean. It seems to mean that I shouldn’t criticize the logical and factual errors of popular humorists, regardless of how many people read their nonsense and take it seriously enough to believe that those errors are not errors at all.
Sorry, no. Scott Adams doesn’t get a free pass to make and then defend mistakes simply because he draws a cartoon as his day job.
I find it interesting that when people think they can defend his argument as valid and sound, that’s what they do. When people recognize that the argument is garbage, they insist that it’s OK to post garbage is you’re a humorist. What’s most interesting though is that both groups feel the need to attack my critique when, if they were sincere in their positions, they should be arguing with each other.
I am a theist for one simple reason. Newton’s second law of thermodynamics.
The natural tendency of things is to run down and become LESS organized, the opposite cannot be proven. The argument of “if you give it enough billions of years things will get more organized” just simply does not follow. Natural selection, yes. Random mutations resulting in progress… no. Duh.
So, by that token:
1. The universe is complex and well organized
2. Complexity cannot come from randomness any more than my room can clean itself
3. There must be a higher power who for whatever reasons, whether cynical, evil, good, or just as a high school science project, designed the universe.
I guess you athiests don’t believe in creationism either? (Note to un-funny athiest people… That last sentence was tongue-in-cheek)
Hah! You got trolled, buddy. Thanks for submitting yourself for mass humiliation.
Yours sincerely,
The Internet
Actually, it can. The second law of thermodynamics only applies to closed systems and does not exclude temporary, localized decrease in entropy. If you understand the 2LoT, you already know this.
Feel free to support your claim.
There must be a higher power who for whatever reasons, whether cynical, evil, good, or just as a high school science project, designed the universe.
In order to demonstrate that there is a “higher power”, your argument assumes it in the premises –– it therefore begs the question, and so is logically unsound.
Being a theist is one thing, and you are welcome to be one. Not knowing an answer to a problem is another. However, I find it curious that certain religious theists should “not know” and pretend that they have “answers”. This is worse than being ignorant –– it is not an answer at all, but a cop-out. You might think that this a good way to form beliefs on the origin of the universe, but don’t expect any of us to take it seriously.
I guess you athiests don’t believe in creationism either?
I am an atheist, and don’t believe in creationism for one reason: it is a vacuous theory. It explains nothing, says nothing, it is a theory of nothing, because it cannot explain itself.
The so-called “Fine-tuning” God argument used by creationists has probabilistic issues: if we for a moment grant that God is an uncaused cause that has always existed, then it is exempt from probability; the improbability of the universe emerging in the way it did cannot be used to raise the probability of an uncaused cause. In other words, the “fine-tuning” argument is an abuse of probability, since it attempts to apply conditions to unconditioned phenomenon –– it takes probability applicable to our conditioned known universe, and then fallaciously applies the same conditions out of the context of which it has any meaning (which incidentally makes such a God unworthy of belief). Another problem with “fine-tuning” is not so much that the universe is “fine-tuned” for life on Earth, but Earth-bound life is fine-tuned and adapted to exist in a very narrow physical range i.e. seeing organisms are almost blind to the electromagnetic spectrum, except for visible light; most organisms can only exist in a narrow temperature range; most organisms can only live in a gaseous environment, specifically an oxygen-rich rich one.
Why not say that the universe is “fine-tuned” for black holes? The universe is a perfect environment for these hostile phenomenon, yet few, if any creationists mention this obvious fact. Why not say that complex molecules necessary for life as we know it can only form under very narrow and stable temperature ranges: Saturn’s moon Titan probably has fairly complex organic molecules, which are stuck at a certain stage owing to a lack of energy from the sun. At one time, there would have been similar molecules on Earth, yet they likely produced more complex molecules like RNA (similar to DNA, but more error prone at the self-replicating stage) because life as we know it tends to fine tune itself under temperate conditions. Is it merely a coincidence that the creation/ID crowd avoid these problems because they cast doubt on the so-called “God problem”? I have my doubts.
Austin Cline is just a sad **** and is the kind of nerdy humorless geek that everyone picked on at school, including the teachers. He doesn’t understand that its not religion that’s the problem – it is people – and unfortunately for him, he is one. Do you think you’re the solution ********?
That’s a bit like saying “fascism isn’t the problem, it’s people” or even “freedom isn’t good, people are.” You are effectively denying relevancy to ideology and belief systems, but that’s nonsense. Unfortunately, it’s popular nonsense with those who don’t want to tackle the hard job of discovering the problems in their favorite belief system and weeding them out.
Certainly it does ultimately come back to people because there is nothing good or bad in any ideology or belief system which doesn’t lead back to something good or bad in people — after all, they are our creations. That includes religions (a difficult insight for religious theists to achieve, unfortunately). This truth does not, however, imply that they can or should be ignored when attempting to find solutions to our problems.
People and their ideologies exist in a sort of symbiotic relationship: you can’t truly address any problems if you only focus on one. It’s vital to directly tackle the problems and flaws in ideologies because they are the lenses through which people see their world, conceive of their options, understand their choices, etc. If you ignore ideology and pretend that they aren’t the problem you’re basically saying that you just don’t care about the problem.
Nothing I’ve written suggests or implies that I think I am the solution — that’s a transparent red herring designed to try to bring attention to me personally and away from my arguments. I can say, though, that people without substantive ideas but who are full of vulgar insults are definitely not going to be part of any solutions.
Hi,
i would like to ask your opinion on this article
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2194682.ece
What do you think, Mr. Cline?
Who is right, who is wrong? Chinese or Tibetan?
Thank you in advance
I wrote, “Which dictionary please? Which definition?” (referring to the term ‘idiot’)
Austin replied, “I don’t have with me the one I consulted, but I seem to remember the definition including “foolish or senseless.” ”
Random House Unabridged Dictionary:
1. an utterly foolish or senseless person.
2. Psychology. a person of the lowest order in a former classification of mental retardation, having a mental age of less than three years old and an intelligence quotient under 25.
If that definition is not sufficient, please state the dictionary and definition whose standard you will accept.
I asked, “Are you still saying that the term “idiot” does not have an objective measurement?”
Austin replied, “I know of no objective measurements for foolishness or senselessness. If you do, I’d like to hear them.”
It is intellectually dishonest to misquote someone for the benefit of rhetoric and answer a question they never asked, when you’ve been demonstrated to be wrong. Neither I, nor the previous poster ever made the claim that foolishness or senselessness had an objective measure. Although presumabably at some point we can tell “foolishness” from “not foolishness” or “sensible” from “senseless.”
The specific claim was that the term “idiot” had an objective measure, and it does. 1) An IQ of less than 25 through measured testing of 1 of the 2 most commonly accepted IQ tests. 2) A mental age of less than 3 years old – measured through standardized and accepted testing.
Are you making the claim that IQ testing has no objective validity? Are you stating that it is impossible to diagnose someone as seriously mentally challenged through such tests?
The history of the use of “idiot” has assocations with mental retardation and is no longer used in medical or legal realms – because it is considered to be patronizing and offensive.
Scott Adams scored high enough on a standardized test to qualify for Mensa. Therefore, he is not an idiot.
You said that you could find no reason to disagree with the statement of his idiocy.
There are at least three possibilities. 1) You didn’t look at the term idiot to see what it really meant, or if it would be correct and factually accurate to apply this label to Mr. Adams. 2) You believe that Mr. Adams actually has the mental capacity, through standardized testing, of a 3 year old. 3) You intended to agree with an insulting disparagement of Mr. Adams that had nothing to do with your criticism of his argument.
You say that it is perfectly fair to post what other people are saying about him and that you bear no responsibility there. What if a KKK poster called him a nigger lover? Would you repost that?
If not, why not? Because it would be offensive and insulting and wouldn’t add anything to the discourse perhaps?
In previous posts, you’ve specifically denied that your dictionary says anything about idiocy being used to describe someone is mentally challenged. But we and apparently you still don’t know which dictionary that is.
You’ve taken Scott Adams and several posters to task because of incorrect definitions and holding them to those related to “incorrect” usage of atheism and agnosticism – but you’re not willing to accept the same scrutiny of your own words.
That is inconsistent and intellectually dishonest.
When you misquote, partially quote, and don’t admit an error when it is clear… people conclude that you’re only interested in your agenda, and not with truth (or as close as we can get to truth) or clear thinking or actual standards of scholarship and fair play in this kind of discourse.
And you lose credibility.
Austin wrote, [Well, any such argument would have to be very cautious and limited in scope, I think. I assume that you would say that you aren’t 100% sure that it isn’t rational to be 100% sure certain of anything, right? If that’s the case, then you are necessarily allowing that there may be cases where it’s rational and legitimate to be 100% certain of something. You may not go there, and you may not be comfortable with articulating any principles upon which such a position can be reliably founded, but you are accepting that such a position can be legitimate.
If that’s the case, though, then you are necessarily rejecting his position. You cannot simultaneously say “it is irrational to ever be 100% certain of anything” and “it may be possible to rationally claim 100% certainty about something.”]
I’m following your logic, but this is an argument used by Christians about objective truth and I’m not convinced. In fact, it is damned close to Pascal’s argument, which you have to admit is extremely ironic. I agree that we can not be 100% certain that there might not ever be, somehow, a rational and legitimate 100% certainty. However, based on what we know and see in an empirical and provable sense, this is extremely unlikely. Theoretical possibility does not make accepting the unproven and extremely unlikely event of “rational 100% certainty” rational. Given the amount of things we’ve accepted as justified knowledge which are later proven to be incorrect or incomplete, this is possible but not currently rational.
Adams argument is extremely limited in scope. If I’m following, he is talking about scientific knowledge of a certain sort, not abstractions or hypothetical possibilities.
I can absolutely say that it is irrational to be 100% certain of anything, based on what we accept as proven and justified knowledge at this point. If we apply skepticism to that as an axiom, so be it… but I’ll believe it when I see it, so to speak. As far as such things go, for now, it is a rational and useful truism.
The more interesting thing here, I’m not seeing anyone talk about. That is, the discussion around belief and knowledge as it related to weak atheism. My understanding is that, at it’s heart, technically weak atheism makes no claims other than, “not believing in any gods.” But if knowledge exists about what “gods” means, to some extent, then there is some reason for non-belief… in the sense that I don’t have even a passive non-belief about hypothetical possibilities or eventualities I’ve never experienced or considered.
I may be oversimplifying this, but is it possible for weak atheism to exist without an agnostic component? I only point this out because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a coherent argument that doesn’t involve an aspect of lack of evidence, which ties me pretty carefully to knowledge and what we don’t (maybe can’t) know. Thoughts here?
dance, atheist monkey, dance!!!
That is, however, the primary definition of being an “idiot.”
In truth, only a particular sense of the term “idiot” has an objective measure — a sense which isn’t the primary one which you admit is no longer used. Do you have some reason to think that this is the sense which was meant by the original author? Almost certainly not — it’s virtually certain you realize that he meant it in the casual, primary sense which you know has no objective measure. Yet you are insisting that an objective measure be provided anyone.
That’s false. What I have denied is that my dictionary defines the word as “a very specific term referring to someone who is mentally challenged.” My dictionary defined the word more broadly, as does yours.
Pot, meet Kettle. Is it intellectually honest of you to admit that the primary definition of a term cannot be objectively quantified, then insist on an objective measure for its application?
rd: what does this have to do with the article?
Since there is no betting involved, which is the heart of PW, I fail to see the connection.
Are you describing an objective probability or an epistemic probability?
I’m not sure, but it’s definitely possible for agnosticism to not be the only, or even not the most important, component. I can be a weak atheist with respect to gods-concepts I’ve not heard of, that I can’t understand, that I’m still waiting for an explanation for, and that I just don’t care about. It’s arguably that there is some level of agnosticism involved in all of these, but it’s not necessarily important in them all.
Good grief – I never thought I’d see the day where I could say I SAW AN ATHIEST ZEALOT. Had to laugh my ass off at that one.
Had to laugh even harder at Cline, as I sit here watching him feverishly post (roughly, I’m no statistician, and I don’t have time to count them all) more comments than anyone else. The insecure need to reply with abject malice and venom to almost every post against his view is utterly embarrassing and ridiculous. Wonder what it must feel like to be a global laughingstock?
I used to think I was athiest… now I’d sooner associate myself with a sewer rat. You’re honestly like a child throwing a tantrum… I can’t believe an adult would conduct himself in such a manner. And I can’t imagine that you would so easily be goaded.
Get over yourself.
I agree with anoop – DANCE!! It was worth the laugh, if nothing else!
I’ve got to hand it to you, you played right into Scott’s hands, just like he said you would! Congratulations!
oh, i am disappointed that you did not answer to my question
it was very clear question with a very clear answer too – just to take sides
if you can’t take sides then explain why
and i thought very in line with your principles and easy – to take sides and everything could be clear, at least for me
now you are acting like a classic weasel
what does your ‘this’ mean – the article link i provided or the debate?
the article is which article – Mr. Scott Adams’, yours or The TimesOnline’s?
The question was not a trap if you thought so
i was thinking you are brave to defend your viewpont alone against all
the problem was f. e. if i am a pantheist agnostic, you are an atheist; what would happen if we meet in real life, will you shake my hand or shoot me
what if your principles practiced in real life would lead to the example in the Times article
people rile up not against your disbelief, you are entitled to your dis/belief and thoughts like everyone else and may be your knowledge and science is correct 100%
they and me can not accept that you impose your views on others very much like Chinese atheists did in that article and are doing in real life
online debates on faith and metaphysics are stimulating, sure
it turns ugly in real life
So what is your answer?
I’ll answer questions relevant to the article which you are commenting here on – the piece about Adams’ posts. It’s not “acting like a classic weasel” to stay on topic rather than going on into random off-topic directions.
I have one thing to say: You think Scott Adams is taking himself seriously? You poor, poor man.
off topic directions? real life atheists vs theists conflict is off-topic?
what’s the point of the whole debate then?
atheists are correct 100% vs agnostics which are nonsense and there is no such a thing like a weak atheist
that’s all?
congratulations, you convinced at least me that staying on ‘this’ topic is fruitless
It’s on-topic for the site, but it’s not the topic of this particular article and comment thread. Questions about evolution vs. creationism, church/state separation, and atheist morality would be similarly on-topic for the site and just as off-topic for this article and comment thread.
I can’t even understand that, much less say whether it is “all” or not.
oh, you did not understand my english
very convenient counter-argument, people use it all the time
you haven’t even tried to understand
‘atheists are correct 100% vs agnostics which are nonsense and there is no such a thing like a weak atheist’
is what you essentially said in your article as i understood it
and this is exactly how the whole debate sounds, messy and pointless
And I still don’t.
Why? Because it’s just not possible that you could be writing or explaining poorly?
Well, I never said that there is no such thing like a weak atheist, nor did I ever imply it. I can’t make much sense out of the rest, so I can’t say whether it accurately represents anything I have said or not — but I am inclined to doubt it.
SmallGuy: I’m following your logic, but this is an argument used by Christians about objective truth and I’m not convinced. In fact, it is damned close to Pascal’s argument, which you have to admit is extremely ironic.
Austin: Since there is no betting involved, which is the heart of PW, I fail to see the connection.
The connection is that you’re arguing that an extremely unlikely possibility is grounds for rejecting overwhelming evidence. That is exactly the heart of Pascal’s wager. That ignoring even an unlikely possibility (God, hell, etc…) isn’t worth the risk you incur by ignoring that possibility. It seems clear that the “wager” is a metaphor and that Pascal wasn’t actually taking literal bets, with money being paid based on the outcome.
SmallGuy: I agree that we can not be 100% certain that there might not ever be, somehow, a rational and legitimate 100% certainty. However, based on what we know and see in an empirical and provable sense, this is extremely unlikely.
Austin: Are you describing an objective probability or an epistemic probability?
It doesn’t matter. We’re not talking about God. In the question at hand, it is extremely unlikely in both cases of probability. The point stands either way.
Austin: I’m not sure, but it’s definitely possible for agnosticism to not be the only, or even not the most important, component. I can be a weak atheist with respect to gods-concepts I’ve not heard of, that I can’t understand, that I’m still waiting for an explanation for, and that I just don’t care about. It’s arguably that there is some level of agnosticism involved in all of these, but it’s not necessarily important in them all.
Ok, let me try one more time. Understanding that “weak atheism” simply does not “believe in gods” but that this takes place in a world with Christianity and Islam. Let’s assume that Christian God and Islamic Allah are concepts you’ve heard of, that you can understand, that there are volumes of explanations for and that this component of non-belief is something you care about. I’m not trying to be difficult, but that seems like a more realistic description of my own stance and of every atheist I personally know.
At that point, is the agnostic component critical to weak atheism or not? I have to admit in the context of my own thinking about this, I think it is and that Adams has a point that is worthy of considering, even if you reject it.
Sorry, I don’t see where I am arguing for rejecting any sort of evidence. All I have pointed out is that you can’t claim with 100% certainty that you will never be able to claim 100% certainty for anything. To disagree is to reject your own starting position and contradict yourself. The only way to remain logically consistent is to allow that 100% certainty about something may be possible, even if you don’t think it likely. Of course, whether it is more or less likely may change depending on the context at hand. This brings us to…
I think it does. You have articulated a case for this being unlikely on epistemic grounds, but I don’t think you’ve done so on objective grounds. So long as we remain on epistemic grounds, though, the argument can change when the context changes. If a more absolute, objective foundation is created, then a change in context won’t matter much (if at all).
Not necessarily. A person’s “atheism” can be used to describe their position vis-a-vis some particular god concept, or their position generally. A person may be a “weak atheist” with respect to the Christian god, a “strong atheist” with respect to the Muslim god, and a “weak atheist” as a general matter of principle. In the first, agnosticism is critical. In the second, it’s irrelevant. In third, it may play a minor overall role.
I have one thing to say: You think Scott Adams is taking himself seriously? You poor, poor man.
Is it more relevant whether scott is being serious, or whether people are taking him seriously? If people out there walk away thinking he’s made some valid points and he wasn’t serious, they’ve not only been suckered, but in large numbers, they can be harmful. Such seems the case with the religious horde in america we call christianity.
ok, you won linguistically logically and otherwise
you know what
say bah in any chosen language and that would make more sense than your whole article
seems this is the level of understanding you can understand
enjoy your victory
If you have questions or criticisms of the piece I’d be happy to entertain them.
Sorry, I don’t see where I am arguing for rejecting any sort of evidence. All I have pointed out is that you can’t claim with 100% certainty that you will never be able to claim 100% certainty for anything. To disagree is to reject your own starting position and contradict yourself. The only way to remain logically consistent is to allow that 100% certainty about something may be possible, even if you don’t think it likely. Of course, whether it is more or less likely may change depending on the context at hand. This brings us to…
Are you describing an objective probability or an epistemic probability?
I think it does. You have articulated a case for this being unlikely on epistemic grounds, but I don’t think you’ve done so on objective grounds. So long as we remain on epistemic grounds, though, the argument can change when the context changes. If a more absolute, objective foundation is created, then a change in context won’t matter much (if at all).
I’m not making the claim that I’m 100% certain of uncertainty. Never did. Adams isn’t either. He is making the claim that the likelihood of that is so small based on the documented history of scientific knowledge and process that it isn’t rational anymore. We’re not 100% certain that the earth isn’t going to crash into the sun tomorrow at 11 am EST. But based on the evidence at hand, it is unlikely enough to be irrational. Things don’t have to be 100% certain in their probability to be irrational.
My understanding of objective probability holds true for this as well. Given X, then the likelihood of Y can be calculated to be probable or not. Science has shown again and again and again that even basic principles that we are “certain” of… have been wrong, or incomplete (say gravity of Newton, versus gravity of Einstein for example). Given the thousands of documented examples, we can say that as things stand, the likelihood of something being irrevocably proved as 100% certain is unlikely to the point of being irrational. I’m not interested in calculating objective probability for each individual case – but it seems clear that this could be done if someone wanted to.
Not necessarily. A person’s “atheism” can be used to describe their position vis-a-vis some particular god concept, or their position generally. A person may be a “weak atheist” with respect to the Christian god, a “strong atheist” with respect to the Muslim god, and a “weak atheist” as a general matter of principle. In the first, agnosticism is critical. In the second, it’s irrelevant. In third, it may play a minor overall role.
If I’m following you correctly, the only way someone could be a weak atheist and not have agnosticism as a critical role would be to ignore Islam, Christianity and subscribe to weak atheism as a general matter of principle without this being applied to anything specific as a matter of course. I mean, if it involves, “well you CAN do it, you just have to ignore half of the earth’s population and live in a shed” then I’m dubious.
That being the case, Adams is correct and just isn’t the boob and hack you’re making him out to be. You might be technically correct that he isn’t representing atheism and agnosticism completely accurately. But the distinction you’re driving is extremely subtle and more hypothetical than real.
The question is whether you are 100% certain that it is irrational to claim 100% certainty on any particular topic. You can’t be, logically.
But are you certain of that? I am. I am 100% certain that you can’t logically claim that it is irrational to claim 100% certainty on any particular topic. I am 100% certain that if you do try to claim it, you create a logical contradiction in which one part or the other must be incorrect.
That would be epistemic probability: given the evidence in this particular context, the chances of X are high or low. The problem with relying on epistemic probability is that when more evidence is acquired, or the context changes enough, the probability doesn’t necessarily hold. The overall pattern in the history of science may be that we have to keep changing our conclusions, but this doesn’t mean that the addition of multiple new factors won’t cause us to find a conclusion that is far more secure than average.
The desired conclusion is “it’s irrational to assert something with 100% certainty,” but whether something is rational or not depends upon the context. The “science keeps changing its conclusions” is one context or one part of the context, but it’s not the whole context. It is invalid to look at this and nothing else. Indeed, I would go further and say it’s illegitimate to make such a broad, generalized assertion about an unbounded range of possible assertions. The rationality would have to be determined at the very least on a subject-by-subject basis, and possibility on a case-by-case basis.
The only conclusion that I think is supported by the premises would be something along the lines of “given how easy it is to be wrong, and how often it happens, claims to 100% certainly should be made cautiously at best and avoided if possible.”
Actually, I think that would be epistemic probability again: given the evidence of the situation at hand, what’s the probability of X? For example: given the evidence that we have, what’s the probability that you committed the murder or that I committed the murder? Objective probability is the probability absent any specific evidential context – you just have the basic laws of nature and overall starting conditions.
Another way of looking at it is: epistemic probability is normally calculated after some (alleged) event looking back with the evidence you have; objective probability is normally calculated looking forward to determine how likely it is that a proposed event will occur. The problem, then, is that you appear to be trying to calculate an objective probability (looking forward, how likely is it that a claim to certainty will be right), but you’re relying on epistemic foundations (specific evidence of specific events).
Here you are focusing on a particular context: science. That isn’t the only possible context — remember, the original inference was for any particular topic, not just scientific topics.. What about math? What about logic? Are you suggesting that the rationality of making claims of 100% certainty are just as irrational in logic and math as they are in science?
That would be the easiest way for it to play no critical role. I won’t say that there is no other context, but I don’t think I am familiar with any. The reasons why one would ignore them will vary, but some form of “I don’t really care what you have to say” would be common.
Quite the opposite is the case. He wanted to treat weak atheism and agnosticism as the same thing; here you make it clear that agnosticism may be a reason for weak atheism, but they aren’t the same thing. This isn’t a “subtle” distinction, but simply the distinction between belief and knowledge: not knowing if any gods exist isn’t the same as not believing in the existence of any gods, but for some who fall in the former category this becomes a reason to fall in the latter category as well.
Austin wrote: “The question is whether you are 100% certain that it is irrational to claim 100% certainty on any particular topic. You can’t be, logically.
But are you certain of that? I am. I am 100% certain that you can’t logically claim that it is irrational to claim 100% certainty on any particular topic. I am 100% certain that if you do try to claim it, you create a logical contradiction in which one part or the other must be incorrect.”
I’m not making the claim you keep refuting over and over. That isn’t the question at all. While you’re 100% certain of your logical argument, I would suggest that applying a numerical and statistical percentage to conscious certainty isn’t valid, except as a metaphor. At the point your system of measurement becomes some sort of category mistake is the point that your argument becomes less than 100% valid. Consciousness and thought are not math problems to be distinctly measured in such a way. It is a forced comparison that while useful, is not completely accurate. Also, rational is not limited to logical necessity. There might be any number of logically consistent views that are all rational. Likewise, there can be logically consistent arguments that are irrational. Someone can be insane and claim to be Houdini or Napoleon and as long as you accept the premise, they can remain logically consistent. That doesn’t make them Houdini or Napoleon in actuality. I’m not certain that it is irrational to claim 100% certainty on any particular topic. I might be incorrect and there might be lots of things that are 100% certain and rational. When I encounter one, I’ll change my mind. Until then, I think certainty of this sort is a mistake and irrational.
Related to the discussion of epistemic vs. objective probability, you’re defining that differently than I was, but I’m willing to own that one. Even so, I don’t think we’re disagreeing there, if anything, in degree, but not in kind.
Autin: Here you are focusing on a particular context: science. That isn’t the only possible context — remember, the original inference was for any particular topic, not just scientific topics. What about math? What about logic? Are you suggesting that the rationality of making claims of 100% certainty are just as irrational in logic and math as they are in science?
Sure, I’ll suggest that. Science was just an example, but it seems to me that similar problems exist in other disciplines. Logic and mathematics are man-made constructions, with conventions and rules and they are magnificently useful. But does 9+6 always equal 15? Are you 100% certain of that? Take it out of base 10 and 9+6 can equal something else. 2 doesn’t go into 3. It tries, but it doesn’t ever get there. It is 0.666666… forever. We call those “irrational” numbers. It doesn’t always work, even using it’s own internal rules. You can’t divide by zero, or do a square root with a negative number. What about infinity in terms of large numbers? What about the infinitely divisible nature of smaller numbers? What about the 3 body problem? This could go on… but if you think math can actually make claims that are 100% certain, you would be mistaken about that. Math is a hammer. A really cool hammer, but still quite limited in some ways.
In the same way, you can make a logically consistent argument that isn’t true. Start with a faulty premise… or make an argument that keeps the scope of inquiry small enough and you can happily go from point to point while not addressing a larger contradictory evidential issue.
The claim in question is Adams’ point #2. I thought you were defending it. If you aren’t, what point are you trying to make?
I’m using it in the same way as it appears in point #2. If point #2 is legitimate, then so is my statement. If my statement isn’t legitimate, then neither is point #2.
Depending on how the terms are defined, yes. Define them differently, and the claim changes. If you define “9″ as a cupcake, “6″ as old sponge, and “15″ as mauve, then no I wouldn’t claim that the above is true.
I don’t think that’s a legitimate reason to say that it’s irrational to be “100% certain” about anything in the subject of logic. This looks too much like saying “it’s possible to be wrong, therefore it’s irrational to every claim you’re right.”
Anyway, we seem to have moved so far from Adams’ argument that I no longer have any idea what you are trying to say, argue, or propose. Whatever train of argument you were driving, I must have fallen off several stops ago. If you want to continue, please return to beginning and lay it out clearly, with particular attention to how it is relates to the topic: Adams’ argument.
And again – above it looks like Theists think Atheists are “touchy” – well, being the single most picked on and put down group in the “belief” crowd is sorta hard and makes one a mite cranky on occasion. As far as taking oneself “too seriously” – What, the Pope seems to take himself pretty seriously…go bag on His Holiness why don’tcha? Like I said – nobody shoves Atheism down your throat the way we Atheists get religion jammed at us all the time. Yeh, it can make a fellow pretty annoyed, and so I don’t have any problem with Austin taking on all comers as long as it amuses him. The guy is right, y’know. And while we Atheists can’t claim to know “everything”, neither do we indulge in “An unknowable being of unlimited power must have done it in an inexplicable way” like it is actually an answer to anything. Have a happy day. Now go evolve, please.
WOW, a new breed of sheople, pretty soon they will be building alters making ritual sacrifices.
It’s amazing what he will do for publicity, and sicking his sheople on others just to see them in action is pathetic.
The difference between Austin Cline and Scott Adams is that Adams is aware of his own ignorance.
“A wise man knows that he knows nothing.” -Socrates, the world’s first philosotainer
Scott Adams hasn’t been funny in ten years, but it’s hard to kill a comic strip once it attains a popular following.
At this point, Adams could draw the strip with his nose and pay his cleaning lady to write it, and his legions of fans would still fall off of their chairs snickering at that pixie Dogbert.
And don’t get me started on “Opus.”
I understand Adams’ position on the 0.00001% is better than 0%.
However, this ignores one VERY IMPORTANT fact. What are the trade-offs to picking the 0.000001% possible position. As we note when planes are flown into buildings, or abortion centers are bombed, the negatives are relatively high. Obviously there are some positives also. Both these positives and negatives have a MUCH higher possibility than 0.0000001% at which point, mathematically, the 0.0000001% factor becomes small enough to completely ignore. The only question that is left for an individual is whether the positives outweigh the negatives. Unfortunately, in today’s world, the benefits of deluding yourself are far outweighed by the problems caused by it, as the aforementioned examples attest.
Put in another way, I drove to a cliff with a very beautiful view recently. The drop was really high. There was about a 0.00001% chance of me surviving (using Scott Adamsian mathematics for a second). Well, if I did not jump off the cliff, there was a 0% chance I would survive the fall from the cliff. Obviously, the only reason I am considering these ideas is because I read a 1500 year old book that claimed that the only way to survive an eternity spent in hell was to survive a jump from the top of that cliff. So using Scott Adams logic again, I should jump off the cliff, because that gives me a 0.00001% chance of avoiding hell!
Fortunately I am not Scott Adams, and I decided that the 0.0000001% chance of me avoiding hell was not worth the 99.9999999% chance of me not living anymore.
Austin,
After reading your critique, and then Scott Adam’s blog, I have to say that you’re the one that needs to loosen up, my friend.
Lots of people say this, but no one bothers to explain what they mean. It seems to mean that I shouldn’t criticize the logical and factual errors of popular humorists, regardless of how many people read their nonsense and take it seriously enough to believe that those errors are not errors at all
I agree that his logic is flawed… in reality, I agree with you more than him. What I mean in the above quote is that Scott is merely stating his opinion in a light-hearted, humorous (to some) way. I’ve found most of his blog is this way. I’ve found that sometimes I agree, sometimes I disagree, but never am I actually offended. In reading some of the comments on his sight, many people also disagree with him. They point out the flaws in his logic, and tell him he’s wrong. And he seems quite OK with that.
Your article, however, is very critical, and arguably insulting. When I read it, it feels more like an angry attack and comes off very condescending. And I’m pretty sure that’s why you are getting so many angry defensive Dilbert fans fighting back.
So if your objective was to get more traffic to this site, than I applaud you, you have obviously done very well! If your objective was to “save” people from Scott’s logic, then I think you made more enemies than friends with this one.
Of course it was critical – there was nothing valid in what Adams said. In my experience, though, people pointing that sort of thing out get attacked mercilessly by Adams fans no matter what they say. All the fans are insulted. Some insist that Adams was making reasonable points; some insist that it’s wrong to treat Adams like he’s making reasonable points. It’s not a consistent or coherent response, but it’s the same response every time.
“It’s not a consistent or coherent response, but it’s the same response every time”
Please, define consistent for me?
The belief (or non) in some sort of higher entity\creator is fine by me, whatever gets you through the day.
What is not fine by me is the zealot (i could have used fanatic but wanted to watch you dance again), which you have proven yourself to be. Your column is only one step away from holy proclomations.
I’m using the standard definition of the term. Reponses from Adams fans were inconsistent in that they made claims which were factually and logically contradictory – they couldn’t all be true, but none thought it necessary to argue with each other, just me.
You don’t consider it “fine” to be enthusiastic and devoted to reality, facts, logic, consistent, and coherence? Well, I’m sorry to hear that.
Anyone who thinks that pointing out the logical and factual flaws in someone’s claims isn’t much different from “holy proclamations” does not, in my estimation, understand logic or religion.
I have yet to see a credible example presented by the proponents of the Theory of Evolution to demonstrate positive change via random mutations. So while I cannot prove a negative, evolutionists should have about eleventy jillion examples of it happenening. There should be gobs of fossil records of missing links. I always thought that science is about the observable. The evidence isn’t there.
I’d be willing to entertain a more credible theory of the origin of the universe, even one that didn’t include a creator.
Saying that over billions of years, if for some reason humans had a necessity to fly in order to find food, that we would grow wings, is frankly as stupid as it is far fetched.
And why wouldn’t all of the humans die from starvation before they ever managed to get to the food?
That seems like quite a leap of faith to me.
Feel free to email me an answer, since this is a bit off topic. I’m not trying to be a smartass, I would like to think I’m an abnormally open-minded theist, trying hard to understand an opposing point of view.
Have you picked up a college-level biology text? That would be the place to start, if you really are interested.
Well, evolution isn’t about the origin of the universe. If you think it is, then you really don’t understand what evolutionary theory is about – and in that case, it’s hardly surprising that you would have trouble seeing evidence supporting it.
As you say, it is off-topic so if you want to discuss what evolution really is and the evidence for it I encourage you to post in the forum. I recommend cracking open some basic texts first, though, so you have some understanding of the topic.
Sal,
I wouldn’t recommend internet forums as a place to look for clarity on evolution.
Read Daniel Dennett’s fabulous book, “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”. All your questions and more are answered in great detail.
Thanks Evan. I will check out that book. Believe it or not, I took 12 hours of biology in a state university. Granted it was an 8 AM class and I was largely hung over… maybe that explains it.
Evolution doesn’t predict changes in a specific direction. If the sole food source became, er, airborne, the humans who could jump the highest would get the food, the ones who couldn’t would die off. So you’d see, over time, the production of taller and more able jumpers if the food source remained that way. Humans have tricky brains, mind you, so you may instead see no physical changes but instead some of the clever ones would design an intermediary to reach the food. Then we’d see no eradication of weaker traits and large variety in the species.
What you wouldn’t expect to see is humans developing the ability to jump HIGHER than the food. Only as high as is required.
So, yeah, your question “is frankly as stupid as it is far fetched.”
Dance, monkeys, dance…
In my experience, though, people pointing that sort of thing out get attacked mercilessly by Adams fans no matter what they say.
From what I’ve read on the blog, I disagree. There are many people that disagree with his POV, and many times he later admits his errors. His most recent blog (”Basic Instruction Part 4)shows the he is more than willing to accept he is wrong.
It’s not a consistent or coherent response, but it’s the same response every time.
Well, the fans are insulted, so it’s more of an emotional argument than a logical one.
All the fans are insulted.
Again, they are not insulted because you claim he’s wrong. They are insulted because your article is insulting and condescending (though perhaps unintentionally). Thus the emotional reactions (which, of course, tends not to favor logic).
If you really intend for a well thought out, logical discussion, then I would be cautious around getting the opponent emotionally defensive.
However, like I mentioned before, if you want more exposure and traffic (Rush Limbaugh style), than be all means, ruffle the feathers!
I’m disappointed. I thought Adams was smarter than that.
I don’t really understand why you would attack someone for his views that he is posting on his own website. I could understand if it was on other website. If what he was saying was bothering you so much, then all you had to do was close the window or go to another website and think to yourself, “Man what an idiot.” But I don’t see the point in attacking him, from the safety of your own website.
Maybe you were more angry that he has such a huge audience and is spreading miss information, which I can understand, but I will agree with BDearmore that your post was very condescending. I think that’s why you are getting such strong reactions. If you claim to be so great and all knowing, people will get angry. It’s not even that you might have said you know anything, but not even giving Scott an ounce of respect and ripping everything he has to say to pieces just makes you seem that way to me. He is a person just like you and I and I think your blatant disrespect is unfounded.
So, people shouldn’t be criticized for what they publicly post on their own sites?
I expressed disrespect for his opinions, and opinions don’t merit automatic respect. Opinions have to earn respect, and in this case his opinions only earned ridicule.
Much as I hate to post on a site such as this, especially a long time after the event, I feel the need to say something. Two things, actually.
First – in your post, you continuously refer to Mr. Adams as ‘arrogant’. And yet, the rest of your post is nothing more than a long, elaborate display of your miscomprehensions and fabrications slandering him. The fact that you would go to such lengths to insult him – yes, insult, as the vast majority of your ‘rebuttals’ are so harshly worded as to be designed to cause offense, and thus insults – whilst at the same time not making even the basest attempt to view any of Adams’ past works or messages bar those you personally disagree with, is far more arrogant than any of the so-called arrogance you claim he exhibits.
And two – your post to reply to Adams’ second blog post was of a format I instinctively spot after years of in-fighting on various forums. It was a post in which you pick out small chunks of another’s message, take them out of context, prove them to be wrong out of context (when in context you could do no such thing) and ignore those parts of the post you can’t deal with. Not only is this pathetically small-minded and transparent, but it is also poor debating technique.
In summary – I feel sorry for you. For all your education on your chosen subject, you are quite clearly bested by a man who admits to be an amateur, and one who makes his points to be amusing at that.