The God Hypothesis

[Stevil]

xSilverPhinx  introduced me to the term Ignosticism

[Tank]

xSilverPhinx  introduced me to the term Ignosticism

Would this mean that if one takes ISoK's statement "as I said earlier you can't define God", that would make ISoK an ignostic?

[Tank]

ISoK I doubt we will ever see eye-to-eye about theism, but that does not mean I don't appretate your participation on this forum.

[Too Few Lions]

If you can't define what god is, then I can safely ignore what you have to say about god and your opinion of what god is (or is not), says (or not says) or does (or does not do). Thank you for so succinctly demonstrating that god is a meaningless concept.

Spot on Tank, if one can't describe one's god, then that god seems totally meaningless and pointless to me. iSok, it seems to me that all you're doing is quoting some Taoist and Sufi philosophy that is very similar to things written in Hindu philosophy/mysticism and Hellenistic philosophy/mysticism, both of which influenced Sufism. Celsus was a second century pagan philosopher and his description of god is uncannily similar to yours;

'This God of the philosophers is himself the underivable, the unnameable; he cannot be reached by reason. Such attributes as we may postulate of him are not the attributes of human nature. He cannot be comprehended in terms of attributes or human experience.'

I like Celsus a lot (his writings tore Christianity apart), but just because some mystics or philosophers say their god is beyond comprehension and description and anything we mere humans can sense or describe doesn't make it remotely true. It's just words written by people in a prescientific age who had only a small fraction of the knowledge and understanding of the universe that we now possess.

[Gawen]

The God Hypothesis. What is it?

Most people who self identify as atheists state that they do so because they have never been shown sufficient and/or convincing evidence to support the proposition that a god or gods exist.

So, from the ground up as it were, what is the god hypothesis and what evidence is there to support the hypothesis?

If the hypotheses is made for sake of argument, personal experience/testimony...which is insufficient evidence.
If it is conditional (or established by conditioning) and made in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical consequences, there is no sufficient evidence to support the hypotheses.

[Tank]

The God Hypothesis. What is it?

Most people who self identify as atheists state that they do so because they have never been shown sufficient and/or convincing evidence to support the proposition that a god or gods exist.

So, from the ground up as it were, what is the god hypothesis and what evidence is there to support the hypothesis?

If the hypotheses is made for sake of argument, personal experience/testimony...which is insufficient evidence.
If it is conditional (or established by conditioning) and made in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical consequences, there is no sufficient evidence to support the hypotheses.

One can't state there is insufficient evidence to support a hypothesis until one has stated the hypothesis. We don't yet have a hypothesis as far as I can see.

[Stevil]

xSilverPhinx  introduced me to the term Ignosticism

Would this mean that if one takes ISoK's statement "as I said earlier you can't define God", that would make ISoK an ignostic?

No.
ISok believes that there is a god, although he admits to not knowing much about this god. He becomes close to being an agnostic theist.

An Ignostic would be a subset of Weak Atheist, but I feel that the majority of Weak Atheists would be Ignostic.
I am Ignostic, with regards to the question "do you believe in god?", I am unclear what is meant by the term god, I have never seen a clear description of this term in-so-far-as being able to make a decision on whether god creatures can or do exist.

A lot of theists refer to the personality described in their scripture, and simply say "He is God", most of them ascribe to the one god rule and hence don't need to delve further into the definition of a god.

I am not qualified to speak for iSok, but my personal assessment of him is thus:
iSok is a Muslim believing that the qu'ran accurately describes the one god's personality. Although he has asserted

The only thing I can say for sure about God is that God is the Source of All and the Destination of All.

This implies that he does not necessarily trust much of the knowledge which is derived from the qu'ran. Possibly because it requires interpretation, or maybe that it has been translated, or because the words used can have many meanings and hence it is hard to determine with clarity what is being said.
The asserted statement that God is the Source of All, might possibly come from the god of the gaps used in the Cosmological argument. Don't know where everything came from, therefore it was god.
His stance that god is unknowable and hence he does not ascribe to a literal understanding of the qu'ran nor a defined position of a Church or Muslim organization, probably means that he has arrived at a god that fits his own personal morality, a mirror god of himself as is being discussed in another thread on this forum.

[xSilverPhinx]

Tank, I think that ignosticism has more to do the meaningfulness of sentences and words. Since the word 'god' by itself is meaningless to me, if someone were to ask me if I believed in god the first thing that I would do is ask that person to define their god. I think that out of their descriptions of gods, what looks like shifting the goalpost is actually an elaborate net of what god means to them with existential, psychological, explanatory (god of the gaps) connotations. It's the path of least psychological resistance I think, though they're quite capable of holding incompatible notions when those three areas merge.  

I've noticed that in some cases people's conceptions of  their gods comes close to how I see the world (in the more deistic sense or the parts that theism have in common with deism). If people describe their god as the order in the universe then I would say that I believe in that though I wouldn't call it god. Their definitions or descriptions always differ from mine in significant ways: they say that their god is responsible for the order in the universe whereas I say that something that isn't conscious in the first place couldn't be actively responsible for creating a universe. My god lacks that 'mind quality' that theists and deists project onto the universe.  

Yeah...so basically to sum it all up since god can never be proven and the god concept put forth by people is purely subjective with no verifiable and demonstrable evidence in the world, I'll (ignostic) believe in whatever is meaningful to me.

I don't know how an ignostic theist (if those two are compatible) would think though, since the god concept is in some sense meaningful to them, otherwise they wouldn't be theists...

[Tank]

Thanks Stevil & xsilverpheonix, input appretiated.

[Gawen]

One can't state there is insufficient evidence to support a hypothesis until one has stated the hypothesis. We don't yet have a hypothesis as far as I can see.

A hypothesis is an assumption...as I understand it. If I say Kansas City was the birth place for the ancient indigenous Americans, I've made an hypothesis. Now I have to show evidence to support it.

On the lack of evidence side - the assumption side -  BEFORE hypothesis is speculation, surmise, guess, supposition and things like that.
I wonder if there is a god.
I surmise there might be a god.
I guess there might be/could be a god.

Change those to: There is a God...and one has made an hypothesis....an assumption. From speculation to assertion. But what is the evidence to back that up? The only evidence, which is not good evidence at all is personal religious experience.

Add in that evidence to support the hypotheses "There is a god" and it knocks out the speculation, guess, wonder and might be's to something regarded as true and turns it into credence, doctrine, dogma, opinion, precept, principle, theorem and "because I say so" etc, etc.

This is how I understand the word "hypothesis". If I have it all wrong, I sure would appreciate a lesson.

[Tank]

't

One can't state there is insufficient evidence to support a hypothesis until one has stated the hypothesis. We don't yet have a hypothesis as far as I can see.

A hypothesis is an assumption...as I understand it. If I say Kansas City was the birth place for the ancient indigenous Americans, I've made an hypothesis. Now I have to show evidence to support it.

On the lack of evidence side - the assumption side -  BEFORE hypothesis is speculation, surmise, guess, supposition and things like that.
I wonder if there is a god.
I surmise there might be a god.
I guess there might be/could be a god.

Change those to: There is a God...and one has made an hypothesis....an assumption. From speculation to assertion. But what is the evidence to back that up? The only evidence, which is not good evidence at all is personal religious experience.

Add in that evidence to support the hypotheses "There is a god" and it knocks out the speculation, guess, wonder and might be's to something regarded as true and turns it into credence, doctrine, dogma, opinion, precept, principle, theorem and "because I say so" etc, etc.

This is how I understand the word "hypothesis". If I have it all wrong, I sure would appreciate a lesson.

I agree with all that, but I was looking for something more than speculation about an ill formed idea, e.g. god. Is far as I know (and I could well be wong) a hypothesis formally states an idea in a fashion that makes the idea a testable concept? So far I have not seen a formal statement of what god is, what god should look like, how god should behave, how one would objectivly identify a god's interaction with reality etc, etc. As far as I can tell we have not reached the point in the discussion where there is a valid and rigerous hypothetical description of god. Until we reach that point 'god' is nothing more that a fuzzy example of personal wishful thinking.

Does that make more sense?

[Gawen]

Does that make more sense?

Yes.

I agree with all that, but I was looking for something more than speculation about an ill formed idea, e.g. god.

But there IS more than speculation. They call it "creed".

Is far as I know (and I could well be wrong) a hypothesis formally states an idea in a fashion that makes the idea a testable concept?

True, but whether or not the hypothesis is backed up by testable evidence or not, it's still an hypothesis, I would think.

So far I have not seen a formal statement of what god is, what god should look like, how god should behave, how one would objectivly identify a god's interaction with reality etc, etc. As far as I can tell we have not reached the point in the discussion where there is a valid and rigerous hypothetical description of god. Until we reach that point 'god' is nothing more that a fuzzy example of personal wishful thinking.

Well, I agree with you. And the problem here is that (speaking Christianese only) Christians have quite a long, if varied hypothesis on their God and its description and attributes and none of it testable.

I have long maintained the word "god" is meaningless without the actual "god" in front of me to test it. The hypothesis that there is a god and it exists with certain descriptions and attributes is equally meaningless without some sort of verification...and that renders the "God Hypothesis" moot. It can still be an hypothesis, an assertion, or assumption, right or wrong or undecided...but it is meaningless at this point.

[Tank]

Is far as I know (and I could well be wrong) a hypothesis formally states an idea in a fashion that makes the idea a testable concept?

True, but whether or not the hypothesis is backed up by testable evidence or not, it's still an hypothesis, I would think.

If a hypothesis can be backed up with sufficient evidence it becomes a theory (in the scientific context). So Darwin hypothasised about the existance of evolution and then went out and found sufficient evidence to turn it into a workable theory.

So far I have not seen a formal statement of what god is, what god should look like, how god should behave, how one would objectivly identify a god's interaction with reality etc, etc. As far as I can tell we have not reached the point in the discussion where there is a valid and rigerous hypothetical description of god. Until we reach that point 'god' is nothing more that a fuzzy example of personal wishful thinking.

Well, I agree with you. And the problem here is that (speaking Christianese only) Christians have quite a long, if varied hypothesis on their God and its description and attributes and none of it testable.

I have long maintained the word "god" is meaningless without the actual "god" in front of me to test it. The hypothesis that there is a god and it exists with certain descriptions and attributes is equally meaningless without some sort of verification...and that renders the "God Hypothesis" moot. It can still be an hypothesis, an assertion, or assumption, right or wrong or undecided...but it is meaningless at this point.

Assertions don't need to be testable but a hypothosis has to be testable and rigorously stated to make it a hypothesis.

So to go from the 'god assertion', which is where we appear to be at the moment, to a 'god hypothesis', we need  rigorous statement(s) that define what god is and does. Until then I think we only have 'god assertions' in an almost infinite variety, i.e. one for every believer; as there is not a singular description of god to which all believers can adhere.

[Gawen]

Is far as I know (and I could well be wrong) a hypothesis formally states an idea in a fashion that makes the idea a testable concept?

True, but whether or not the hypothesis is backed up by testable evidence or not, it's still an hypothesis, I would think.

If a hypothesis can be backed up with sufficient evidence it becomes a theory (in the scientific context). So Darwin hypothasised about the existance of evolution and then went out and found sufficient evidence to turn it into a workable theory.

Yes, that is true. Sometimes Tank, I can't believe what a dumb shit I can be....*sigh*

So to go from the 'god assertion', which is where we appear to be at the moment, to a 'god hypothesis', we need  rigorous statement(s) that define what god is and does. Until then I think we only have 'god assertions' in an almost infinite variety, i.e. one for every believer; as there is not a singular description of god to which all believers can adhere.

And that's why when we debate Christians of various flavours, we have to stand by their untestable and extremely weak assertions and definitions.

[Tank]

Is far as I know (and I could well be wrong) a hypothesis formally states an idea in a fashion that makes the idea a testable concept?

True, but whether or not the hypothesis is backed up by testable evidence or not, it's still an hypothesis, I would think.

If a hypothesis can be backed up with sufficient evidence it becomes a theory (in the scientific context). So Darwin hypothesised about the existence of evolution and then went out and found sufficient evidence to turn it into a workable theory.

Yes, that is true. Sometimes Tank, I can't believe what a dumb shit I can be....*sigh*

If you're dumb that makes me an amoeba!

So to go from the 'god assertion', which is where we appear to be at the moment, to a 'god hypothesis', we need  rigorous statement(s) that define what god is and does. Until then I think we only have 'god assertions' in an almost infinite variety, i.e. one for every believer; as there is not a singular description of god to which all believers can adhere.

And that's why when we debate Christians of various flavours, we have to stand by their untestable and extremely weak assertions and definitions.

That would appear to be the case. Given the fractured nature of the sects in the Christian faith it really does appear that they don't actually know what god is. And then you get the wonderful bit of 'double think' "God can't be defined, if you can define God that isn't God." or words to that effect. It's a wonderful example of word play to deflect a difficult question.